Chapter VII

The Moment / The Confrontation

Disclaimer: It's J. K. Rowling's world, I'm just playing in it, no copyright infringement intended.

Author's Note: Kudos to everyone who guessed that the artifact Harry had been repairing had been the Mirror of Erised. Special shout-out to etfrompo, who called it all the way back in Chapter II, despite my best efforts to keep things vague and unpredictable.

This is it, guys. The moment we've all been waiting for. We're about halfway through it all now. If it hasn't been apparent until now, this is an M-Rated story, and that'll become obvious over this and future chapters. And for those of you who are interested in such things, the story's title comes from this chapter's epigraph. Enjoy!

Soundtrack Note: Harry and Hermione, from the Half Blood Prince soundtrack. If you listen to just one of the songs I post in these soundtrack notes, make it this one. I defy anyone to listen to it with a good pair of headphones on and not be utterly convinced that Harry and Hermione are meant for each other by the end of it. When Ginny Kissed Harry doesn't even come close.


"Time is the school in which we learn,

Time is the fire in which we burn."

-Delmore Schwartz

She was crying again, and it infuriated him.

Harry knew it wasn't fair of him, knew he was being a prat, knew that the locket's influence wasn't helping matters, but Merlin help him…

He wanted to slap her.

He wanted to grab her by her shoulders and shake her furiously until she just stopped crying.

He hated the sound of it. It tore him up inside, knowing that there was nothing he could do to ease her heartache. She'd been this way for days, ever since Ron had left.

Ron.

Ever since he'd stormed out on them, his name had been more unmentionable than Voldemort's.

We thought you knew what you were doing… We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do… We thought you had a real plan!

That's what stung him the deepest. Not that his best fr—former best friend had abandoned him, abandoned Hermione, when he had known how she'd felt about him…

It was that the bastard had been right.

Dumbledore had left him with virtually nothing. They had discovered one Horcrux, but they had no means of destroying it: The others were as unattainable as they had ever been. Hopelessness threatened to engulf him. He was staggered now to think of his own presumption in accepting his friends' offers to accompany him on this meandering, pointless journey. He knew nothing, he had no ideas, and he was constantly, painfully on the alert for any indication that Hermione too was about to tell him that she had had enough, that she was leaving.

He couldn't stand to think of it. He was terrified of it, really. The idea of losing her. Well, further losing her. He'd already lost her, long before they'd set out to track down the remaining Horcruxes, hadn't he?

And the man she'd ended up loving instead had walked out on her. It made the blood in his veins throb, to think of how alone she must feel. Ron gone, her only other companion a burden, the Chosen One, the deluded messiah, dragging her further and further from her loved ones, in a futile gesture that was sure to get them both killed eventually.

He despised himself for it.

She was crying again, and it maddened him, not because it was the most painful thing in the world for him to bear, seeing her hurting and in pain, but because there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. He couldn't go to her, and put his arm around her, give her a shoulder to cry on, squeeze her hand tightly in his and tell her everything was going to be ok. He wanted to, Merlin, how he wanted to, but it wasn't his role to play, and he knew it would only make her cry harder.

He wasn't her—what? Boyfriend? Sweetheart? Declared? No, that person had gone, left her behind, and Harry was no knight in shining armor ready to swoop in and save the day. It was all he could do to not snap at her when she cried, he hated it so.

It was his deepest fear, he knew, seeing her suffer. If he were to go for a stroll in the woods tonight and stumble upon a boggart, it would not take the shape of a dementor. It would take the form of Hermione Granger, crying her eyes out, asking him why he'd ruined her life.

He'd always been terrified of seeing her in pain, been willing to throw himself at a mountain troll just to keep her from it, but never, ever had he been so helplessly afraid of her. He'd been touched by it before, when she'd been Petrified, and when she'd been cursed by Dolohov at the Department of Mysteries, but there had always been hope before, hope that things would get better.

And hope was getting scarcer and scarcer by the day out here.

He'd taken to gazing at the Marauder's Map when she wasn't watching, taking it out simply to gaze at Ginny's name in the girl's dormitory, hoping she was alright.

But it wasn't Ginny's suffering that made him go weak at the knees at the very thought of it. He tried to convince himself that it was just a matter of proximity, that he was worried more about Hermione's state of mind because she was here with him. He wanted to believe that he would feel differently if Hermione were away at Hogwarts and it was Ginny here at his side instead. He most definitely wanted to believe that his feelings for Hermione were entirely platonic, had always been platonic, that whatever feelings he'd felt for her last year had been pushed aside, were entirely gone and would not be returning.

But he thought of the way she'd cried over the summer when he'd said something thoughtless about Moody's death, and how it had been Ron to reach her side first, who'd put his arm around her and comforted her… And he hadn't been able to understand at the time the way he'd turned red, his face burning, as if he'd been angry at his friend for making her feel better… why would he be mad about a thing like that?

And later, at Bill's wedding, he had seen her dancing…

For a moment, he'd flashed back to the way she'd looked at the Yule Ball. The way she'd looked in his arms, as they'd danced… she had looked so beautiful that night…

No. Always. She had always been that beautiful, and he had meant it when he had told her so. It was hard to think around her, had been for years, and while things had gotten much, much worse since Yule Ball, he'd realized that he had always felt that way for her, he just hadn't realized…

It had stung him deeply, the realization, because it was not him she was laughing with, twirling around with on the dance floor, but Ron, and his face had turned fiery crimson again and he'd suddenly felt very uncomfortable about the way he'd kissed Ginny, earlier that day…

It had been Ginny he'd pushed her away for. He'd seen the way his two best friends behaved around each other, saw through the bickering and caught the glances they gave one another when they thought the other wasn't looking… And as much as he'd wanted to let Hermione know the way he had felt about her, the thought over her lying in the hospital bed, insides all torn up because of him, was too recent, too fresh in his mind's eye. He'd noticed how gorgeous Ginny had become, and focused his energies upon her, someone who didn't fill him with so much confusion, so much regret…

Hermione's sobs were dying out now, with the light of the evening sun as it sank beneath the horizon. She was exhausted, and would soon collapse into ill dreams.

He'd be lucky if he fared even half as well.

He was tired, and the muscles under his eye spasmed uncontrollably whenever he felt particularly weary, but he needed to stay up to perform the watch, and sleep had not come easy to him for quite some time now anyway.

He just had too much to think about. It hadn't been so bad, when Ron had still been there—well, it had been bad, what with the lack of food and progress and Ron's miserable temper driving them both mad—but it had been easier. There was Ron and Hermione, and then there was Harry. Hermione was Ron's, even if they hadn't bothered to work out the details of it. With Ron at their side, Harry was able to look at their poorly concealed glances at one another or at the way he pulled her into his arms when she was upset, and while it bothered him, it defined the boundaries, and he'd needed that. Hermione was his best friend's girl, and that was the end of it. He'd never cross such a line, never in a million years.

And then Ron had left, and it was only then how much he realized how desperately he wanted to cross that line. It would never happen; he continued to hold himself back, partly out of a lingering sense of loyalty to Ron that was fading fast, but mostly because of Hermione's devastation. She was all torn up, and complicating her life with unwanted advances would be… cruel.

No, her heart belonged to Ron. It was written all over her face.

There had been a time, he mused, when he might have been able to win her for himself, but that time had long since passed, if indeed it had ever really existed. That insight made him feel like he'd been slugged in the gut. He'd missed out, and now she was on the verge of abandoning him as well—he'd seen the way she'd whisper with Ron when they'd thought he wasn't there, the way they'd fall silent when they realized he was approaching. He'd heard Ron's rant, heard her all but confess that she was disappointed in him too.

He tried to convince himself that he'd be better off without her, that she'd be safer away from him, and he would finally be able to move freely without being overly concerned for her protection. But that was crap, and he knew it. He didn't have the slightest idea where to begin, with or without her there, and he knew ultimately that it would be her brilliant mind that put the pieces of the puzzle together and came up with a solution, provided them with their next move.

He needed her here, and not just for her brilliance.

He loved her.

Merlin, when had it all gotten so complicated?

It was dark out, now, and he sat in the tent entrance, wishing he did not have to stay up to keep watch. Nightmares would be better than this, another night wide awake, thinking of nothing but her…

He knew they could never be together, he'd accepted that almost as soon as he'd realized that that was what he really wanted. She loved Ron. He knew that her heartache was just as bad as his, but despite the fact that she was more vocal with her tears, he refused to believe that she was any worse off than he felt. One, he didn't want to even imagine her experiencing pain so unimaginably deep it exceeded that which he felt right now. And two, at least Ron was out of sight. She wasn't confined in the tent with the object of her affections, forbidden fruit just out of her grasp.

God, did I really just compare her to forbidden fruit?

He felt like hitting his head heavily against something, like a thick book. Hogwarts, A History would do nicely, he thought.

He didn't do it of course. The thumping would wake her, and she needed her sleep.

Unexpectedly, he felt an overpowering wave of drowsiness pass through him. He was not looking forward to tomorrow, for tomorrow would be the exact same as today, and yesterday before that… futile attempts to figure out a way to find where Dumbledore might have hidden the sword, even futiler attempts to persuade himself he would ever be alright with being just friends with Hermione.

Unable to remain sitting upright any longer, he dragged himself over to one of the lower bunks. He would just rest his eyes for a minute…

He was growing weaker with each and every day they spent together, and he was afraid that soon he would lose control and do something desperately stupid, like kiss her or blurt out that he loved her or something equally moronic. He knew that the next time she cried, or the time after that, when he finally was pushed past the breaking point… he knew that his resistance would crumble, and he would have no choice but to put his arm around her, to hold her tightly to him, to tell her how much he loved her.

He wished that he were stronger. That he had the strength to resist his feelings for her, that something would change and he'd be able to look at her again without having to catch his breath. He wanted to be able to go over to her again and comfort her, without feeling guilty for wanting her so intensely. He wanted his feelings to go away, to go back to feeling nothing but a brotherly fondness for her.

He wanted to be able to forget it all.

And with that last thought, he closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

It was a deep, restful thing, a blissful, dreamless slumber that for the moment would not be marred by nightmares or an aching heart, and in its gentle embrace he was entirely oblivious to the man standing over him.

The Master of Death stared down at the boy's sleeping form, the Elder Wand held out before him contemplatively.

"Hello, Harry," he whispered softly.

For this was the moment it would all change forever.


She stood in the entrance flap of the tent, the cloak hanging from her hand at her side. All was still; all was quiet. The boy and the girl slept peacefully in their bunks, and it was no accident that the two were as physically far apart as possible, having chosen beds on opposite sides of the tent's magically enlarged interior.

He stood over the boy, wand in hand, just watching him.

He did not look up at her, did not cock his head as she appeared within the tent and removed the cloak, gave no sign he was aware of her presence.

Nevertheless, he began to laugh, softly, bitterly.

"I had thought someone might come back to stop me," he said softly. "But never in a million years did I think it would be you," he told her, looking up and staring her in the eyes.

He was younger than she had expected, and unnaturally thin. Somehow she had imagined him as an older man, closer to the Harry of her time than the boy lying there asleep in the bunk bed. But his hair was only slightly longer and messier than the boy's, the skin of his face only a little tighter on his cheekbones. He was not even a year older than him, she guessed.

It made it harder. Harder for him to hate him. It had been so easy to work herself up into a frenzy, when she envisioned a man standing over the boy, ruining his life. Despite the fact that the culprit was still the same, the closeness of their ages tore her heart in two, to see the boy doing this to himself. But then, it could never have been anyone else. After all, he was the only one man who would go to such extreme lengths to protect her, the only one willing to damn himself in order to save her.

"You can speak freely," he told her. "They're in an enchanted sleep; they will not wake until dawn."

"Easier to keep them from resisting while you do the deed?" she snapped at him, trying to retain her anger. She needed it; it would make her strong, give her the resolve she needed to oppose him.

"I just remembered how hard it was, nights like this one," he said sadly. His shoulders and arms, covered by the cape as they were, appeared to have vanished, though his hands emerged from it lower down. It made him look odd; that was why he appeared so thin, she realized. "They could use the rest, just one night's good sleep, without the dreams."

"I can't let you do it," she told him.

"I have to, Hermione. I don't have any choice."

"You don't have any choice? You don't have any choice, but to manipulate a boy's mind? To erase a part of him, steal it away and leave him to live a lie? No other options, just Oblivate him and have it over with?"

Her fury overwhelmed him. "Is that what you think of me? Who do you think I am, a Death Eater? You know me," he told her, his voice pained. "What did you think you would happen tonight, Hermione?"

She reeled. "You performed a Memory Charm on him, made him forget how he felt…"

"No Memory Charm can erase a man's feelings for the woman he loves, Hermione," he told her sadly, as if he wished otherwise. "Even if you cast it with the Elder Wand."

For the first time, she noticed that it was the Hallow he held in his hand, not his old, familiar phoenix feather wand.

"The night of the battle…" she breathed in realization. "But… but you did perform a Memory Charm. I've seen it, seen what it's done to him... to you…"

He shook his head at her sadly, as if wounded by her low opinion of him. "Do you really think me capable of such a thing? No. I came here to wake him, to tell him what will happen if he allows things to turn out the way they happened the first time."

"Hermione… I came here to give him a choice. To ask him to give you up, to warn him of the consequences if he doesn't but to allow him to decide for himself."

"No…" she said, refusing to believe him. "It can't be…"

"I have no plans to perform any Memory Charms this night, Hermione." He paused for a moment, then, before continuing on with an air of sudden understanding. "But if it were me—" and here he chuckled softly "—if I agreed to let you go, I would ask to forget. I would need to remember that I couldn't be with you until the war was over, of course, but I would not want to know the why. I would not want to bear the knowledge of what had happened to you. Of how it was all my fault. That way, the guilt would not outweigh my love for you, when it was all finished… and then I could tell you how I really felt…"

She stared at him in horror.

His misunderstood the look, continued trying to explain himself. "You died, Hermione. I have to do this. It's the only way to save you. The only way for us to be together—"

"I'm married to Ron. We have two children, Rose and Hugo. I'm godmother to your and Ginny's eldest son." Her voice cut him off, harsh and agonized, and the silence that followed was deafening.

He did not gape at her, his eyes did not widen, he gave no sign that he had heard her. But he did not speak for a long time, and he would look at the floor or the walls of the tent and not at her.

After the silence had stretched out long enough for her to feel compelled to say something, she saw that the Elder Wand was shaking in his grip.

"Good," he rasped at last. "Good. Ron is a good man, a better man. I'd rather you be happy, alive and happy with him, than dead and cold with me. Are you happy with him?"

"Yes." It came out a whisper, and then she could hardly see him, her eyes suddenly full of tears.

"It would have been me," he said briskly. "I would have married you, been the father of your children, had you lived."

"Harry—"

"But this way you end up with Ron, and that's good, it is, truly… I'm happy for you. You deserve better than me, anyway."

"Harry—"

"He's always loved you, you know. And I know you felt that way about him. It's for the best, really… the right man won you—"

"HARRY!"

His face snapped up at her outburst, looking at her for the first time since she'd spoken her husband's name.

"It was supposed to be you," she told him, and she meant it.

He looked at her as though she'd hexed him. "No, no, no—don't say that, I can't—"

"It was always supposed to be you," she told him. "This entire time, I wanted to believe that I could stop you, make things right again, and still end up with things the way they'd been in my future…"

"Things have to end up the way they ended up in your future," he said stonily. "Or else you'll be dead. I won't allow that to happen."

"…but it was you, Harry. It was always you, ever since the night I fell in love with you, the night you saved the Stone."

He stared at her, his face ashen.

"You can't wake him," she demanded. "You can't tell him. It will destroy him. It will destroy you. You'll live a lie, and then it will all come crashing down, and it will destroy you."

"Better me than you!" he snapped at her. "I'd rather be destroyed than watch you die ag—"

"And I would rather die than see you like that again!" she screamed back at him.

They stood there in silence again for several moments, until finally he began to laugh, darkly, and the sound of it frightened her.

"They'd warned me…" he said, and he laughed again.

"Harry, you have to promise me…"

"MY WORD MEANS NOTHING!" he roared. "I swore that I would keep you safe. I failed! I told myself that I would never be with you, never put you in harm's way like that. I failed! I promised that I would fix things, that I would bring you back, and now…"

He looked at her, and she had never seen him more desperate, more fraught with hopelessness and despair, not that night in the Department of Mysteries when Sirius had died, not ever.

"I can't fail you again," he whispered.

"And I can't fail him," she told him simply, gesturing to the boy.

"If I don't do this, you'll vanish," he told her, his voice pleading. "The future you come from will cease to exist, and you'll just… disappear. Your life with Ron… your children… Rose, and Hugo… they will all never have been…"

The tears were sliding down her face now, hot against her skin for a split second, then followed by a sudden stinging cold in the winter air.

"I have to protect him," she whispered.

"If I don't do this, he won't be any better off! You'll die, and he'll travel back here, to bring you back. It will all happen all over again…"

"And he will hurt, and that kills me… but he will survive. And he will heal. You will survive. You will heal."

His own tears began to fall as he contemplated a life without her. "I can't…"

"You will see her again," she told him, and she stepped over to him, wrapping her arms around him, holding him to her like a sobbing child. He was still taller than her, even with two decades on him, but he crumpled against her and she stroked his face, whispering soothing nothings into his hair, doing her best to avoid having her tears fall onto him.

"You have to promise me, Harry…" she murmured, but his breath was coming in deep, raggedy pants, and she didn't know if he could hear her.

She was aware that saying the words meant signing her own death sentence, meant erasing everything she'd ever known, the end of the life she'd lived happily for the past twenty years. But she had to say them. Had to stop him. Had to save him. Had to save him, because he was the man she loved.

Ron, forgive me

"You have to promise," she told him again, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"You have no idea, how hard it is, to see you like this, see what you would have looked like, if you'd lived…" he said softly, staring at her with the most haunted expression on his face. He stared at her, as if he was studying her, memorizing her features, and she realized with a shiver that it was the same intense, unreadable stare that she'd seen so much upon his face since this had all begun…

"Promise me," she whispered, her arms still around his shoulders, her face mere inches from his.

"I can't…"

She silenced him, her lips pressed tightly against his, cutting him with a kiss off mid-speech. He gave her no reaction, frozen stiff, not kissing her back, and she began to feel self-conscious… she was nearly two decades older than him, two decades older than the girl he had fallen in love with, no longer possessing what looks she might have had in her youth, no longer beautiful to him…

Then he slid his arms around her waist and pulled him even tighter to him, so that she was reminded of how closely pressed up against each other the boy and the girl had been the night they'd danced together at the Yule Ball.

And then he returned her rather gentle kiss with such passion and force that all conscious thought fled and there was only him

He sucked gently at her bottom lip, and when she moaned he was ready for it, nipping his tongue out to tease her own. She eagerly accepted him into her mouth, and their mouths dueled, the connection between them as intense as any link between twin phoenix-feather wands.

Merlin, the boy could kiss.

He broke from her for a moment then, running his mouth down her jaw, then down the side of her neck, sucking lightly at her flesh, switching to gentle kisses when he reached her collarbone, and it drove her mad. Her body responded to him so readily, left her tingling and lightheaded and raw, and she pulled him up by the back of his head, pulled his mouth up to hers to recapture him in a hard, fervent kiss, one he responded to hungrily.

With shaking hands, she reached for his neck, sliding off the Time-Turner there and tossing it carelessly to the side before groping at the knot of the invisibility cloak he had tied into a cape. Her fingers fumbled, unable to see what she was doing, refusing as she did to break the kiss. Finally it was off, and she yanked it from him, tossing it in a heap on the floor of the tent.

Next came his shirt, then hers. They clutched wildly at one another, hands roaming up and down the other's body as they struggled to keep the breaks between kisses while clothing was removed as short as possible. She could feel her heart pounding, threatening to explode with exhilaration as she felt his hands reaching for the back of her bra, Elder Wand discarded and forgotten, and then it was off, and his hands were upon her. She hissed at the contact between his hands and her breasts, and then his mouth was moving down her neck again, trailing kisses down her sternum, until his hands suddenly withdrew to make way for the lips that suddenly pressed themselves around her nipple. He teased her with his tongue and she sighed appreciatively, enjoying his ministrations, moaning as he moved to worship her other breast.

His mouth came back up to ensnare hers, and both sets of hands moved at once to the other's pants, teasing open buttons and yanking down zippers. She'd just begun to enjoy the welcome sensation of her bare breasts being pressed up against his chest, and then they were both frantically kicking off their trousers, both knowing that the point of no return was rapidly approaching, and neither even remotely giving a damn.

She felt a sudden chill hit around her center, and realized with a furious blush that her knickers had suddenly vanished with the faint 'pop' of wandless magic; she hadn't even begun to decide whether it had been her or him who'd wished them away, when all of a sudden she was being lifted by strong muscular arms, and pinned to the ground, his weight pressing down on her gratifyingly, his brilliant green eyes boring into hers.

It was the most highly charged, most erotically perfect moment she had ever experienced.

She and Ron had always had a good sex life—had discovered themselves with each other, had been each other's firsts and onlys, had made absolutely superb love to each other, even later in their marriage—but never, never had she been this turned on, this impulsive, this feral, felt this much need for a man before...

Ron.

She felt a moment's surge of guilt at the thought of her husband, a brief instant of realization, of the knowledge that what she was about to do—what she was already doing—was a violation of the vows they had made to one another, a betrayal of her marriage and her values. Atop her, Harry's eyes seemed to dim and she realized he could see it in her face, the sudden awareness of what it was she was about to do, and he began to pull back, head turning away.

But she was too far gone, too deeply in love with the man above her, for her to stop now. Soon none of it would matter anyway, and this was her chance, her one chance to be with him like this. She seized Harry's head with both hands and pulled him to her again, kissing him hungrily, desperately. He responded in kind, and then he was pressing himself up against her core, and beginning to move…

Both groaned in completion as he hilted himself inside of her, and as one they rocked against one another, each thrust causing her eyes to roll back and eliciting a mewl of pleasure from her lips. The sensation was exquisite, and gripping his hips she urged him onward, unable to speak. Her body writhed beneath him, surging upward to match his movements, her legs wrapping tightly around him, desperate to have as much of him as possible.

She could lose herself in his eyes, she thought. Panting, moaning, their faces hung just inches apart, their breath freezing in the winter chill, their eyes wide open and gazing deeply through the window into the other's soul. Occasionally he would bring his mouth down on hers for another impassioned kiss, but such displays of affection hindered the angle of their union, and cost them the chance to state into one another's eyes, and so came only intermittently.

She ran her hands up and down his lean, muscular frame as he made love to her. She'd always—always, since she'd even been conscious of sex, and, as a compulsive bookworm of a girl, had been conscious of it for longer than most of her peers at Hogwarts—wanted to experience this with Harry. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that it could possibly be this good, that the two would be so perfectly made for one another.

Dazedly, she wondered briefly how far his future might have diverged from her own, and whether this Harry might have become an accomplished Legillimens… it seemed the only possible explanation for the things he made her body feel…

I love you, she mouthed to him, and he leaned in and kissed her deeply.

"I love you, too," he gasped aloud.

She reached for his hand, interlacing her fingers through his own and giving him a tight squeeze. It was all becoming too much for her, and she knew mere words couldn't convey all that she felt for him in that moment.

His movements were becoming fiercer now, more and more erratic, and it was alright, because she was almost there, almost there…

"Oh, Harry!" she cried, and then all she could see was his eyes, dilated until there was hardly anything there but spheres of black, and the heat and the light

She heard his own strangled cries, the pulsing of his own release, and then his weight settled on her reassuringly, his lips finding her forehead and gently caressing it with soft, whispered kisses.

Eventually, he rolled off of her, and lay next to her on his back. She clung to his side, too exhausted, too thoroughly satiated to move; her entire body was tingling. Languidly, she looked up at him, adoring him with her eyes, a loving smile upon her face.

He did not share her smile. If anything, his face was a grim and darkened as it had been before.

She knew then that he would never speak to the boy. She had succeeded. She had saved him. Saved him, and damned herself.

"I love you," she told him again, needing him to know.

"And I love you," he answered, his voice pained, leaning in to give her one last kiss, a soft, tender gesture. "Always, and forever. No matter what happens."

And then she was gone. He lay on his back, naked, alone except for the sleeping forms of the boy and the girl, deep in their enchanted rest.

Dumbledore had told him, she had told him, that he would be unable to alter the past, that time could not be so easily undone. He had scoffed at their words, arrogantly believed that he would be the exception to the rule, that fate or destiny did not apply to him.

Really, what had he been expecting? Fate, or destiny, or whatever you want to call it, had been laughing at him ever since he was an infant, the day Sybill Trelawney had made her prophecy during a job interview in the Hog's Head. And so right when he had been about to wake the boy, who should appear just in time to stop him but the one person on Earth who might talk him out of it?

The moment he'd realized that he couldn't go through with it, she'd vanished, just as the girl's shade had after he'd lowered the Resurrection Stone. She, and the future from which she had hailed, no longer existed. Would never exist, now that he had sworn, in his heart if not in words, that he wouldn't tell the boy what his future held.

And he had remained, for his future was the real one. His future was immovable, inalterable. She would die, and there was no changing that now.

He'd been a fool. Dumbledore, or Dumbledore's portrait, at least, had told him as much.

"Time moves ever forward, and its course cannot be Transfigured with a wave of your wand, even if that wand is the Elder Wand…"

He knew now that there was no force more powerful than time.

All of it would happen exactly as before.

It would begin tomorrow. Things would come to a head between the boy and the girl, all the stress, all the pressure Transfiguring them like coal into diamonds. They would find their hearts, summon their courage, make the leap and fall in love. They would endure, they would stand by each other's side, forge an unbreakable bond and forever commit themselves to their love.

And then she would die. And he would come… here. To be stopped by the very future he had been trying to create. Time was a force of nature, an inexorable power that could not be opposed. He knew that, now.

But… if he had indeed failed, then what now? Where could he possibly go? To whence he had come?

No. He could not yet endure a world in which she did not draw breath.

But he realized that he could not remain here, reliving it all over again. It would kill him, the knowledge that this would be all they would ever have.

He would roam the world, then. Visit the tallest mountains, wander the hottest deserts, cross the widest oceans… return to wander across Europe, perhaps. He thought that she might have enjoyed that.

And when she died? What then? He supposed, that once the boy went back to try what he had tried, he could then attempt to get over it all, to try to live a normal life. Grieve, and move on.

But it all sounded so hollow to him. So futile and pointless. In his heart of hearts, he knew that he would never be whole without her. Knew it so fundamentally that for a moment he gave in to his despair, laying there stark naked and covered in sweat on the floor of the tent, suddenly shivering in the cold winter air. He was lost without her.

It came to him so suddenly, so impossibly, that he almost dismissed it out of hand.

Surely it couldn't be so simple?

Abruptly he rose, pulling on his clothes and fetching the Hallows. Forgetting himself for a moment, he searched wildly on hand and knee for the Time-Turner, beginning to grow desperate before he realized what he was. A flick of the wand and a murmured Summoning Spell and it flew to his hand, whole and intact; it had fortuitously survived their sudden lovemaking, thought it wasn't as if he couldn't have mended it had it been smashed.

The cloak tied around his neck once more, forcing his racing mind to slow down. He needn't rush things. No, he would travel the world, as he had planned. Contemplate its majesties. Prepare himself mentally for what was to come.

There came a loud crack, and he was gone. The boy and the girl slumbered on, enjoying their first good night's rest in months.

Tomorrow, it would all begin anew.