Disclaimer: Somebody get me out of here! Get me the fuck right out of here!

A/N: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. A bit of a gap between updates, I know, but chalk that up to writing my thesis and making sure the last 4 years at university weren't a waste of time. Still, you guys reading shouldn't have to wait any longer. Here's a smooth 5,000 words or so, hammered out to perfection over the last few days. Read and review,

-Joe

Harry Potter and the Heartlands of Time

Chapter Nine – Of Lemon Trees On Mercury

I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes.

~Hob Gadling

I shifted my shiny new battleship into cruise mode at an altitude of four thousand feet. A steady climb to seven thousand was the plan, but I was feeling dizzy—hunger, fatigue and blood loss—mainly bloody loss—probably had something to do with that.

It took me a few minutes to find the captain's quarters below deck, but find them I did and took a moment to have a seat on the edge of a plush bed. The room was bigger on the inside. Laws of space and physics having taken a flying fuck out the window, as was their way when it came to quality magic.

I coughed, keeping a hand pressed hard against my side where that Phantom curse had slashed me good and proper.

"Son of a bitch," I whispered, peeling my hand away to assess the damage. Some of the blood had dried under my palm, sticking my fingers to my side. Pulling it off felt like tearing out nose hair. With a chainsaw. "Damn…"

It looked worse than it felt. Or felt worse than it looked. I couldn't decide. Just another scar for the pile, when all was said and done. Somehow I found myself lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Just a quick rest. Five minutes and then I'd go hit up Madam Pomfrey for some of that pro-healin'.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There was a balance to all of this, I supposed. Atlantis and Voldemort. One battleship for another. Scar for scar. Life for life for death for life. Oh, Tess…

Yes, the universe was balance. Unfair fucking balance. But then… for all the wounds and deaths I'd died, shouldn't there be an equivalent amount of good events coming my way?

Probably not. Balance, it may be, but the scales tended to tilt against fair. Never in my favour. Somewhere some lucky son of a bitch was getting a blowjob and enjoying a steak and scotch while I bled to death.

The thought made me laugh.

Why was the room spinning? Why were the sheets beneath me soaked red?

And who was turning out the lights…

I've seen so many things. Old mistakes, brand new ways.

One last time.

I woke up with a cool, damp cloth pressed against my forehead—which felt great against my ever-burning scar—and was fairly certain I had died.

But death was never quite so painful.

I took a deep breath, remembering to do so came as a surprise, and tried to focus in the half-light. Burnt azure radiance through the porthole, the sun at day's end, cast the cabin in a healthy orange glow.

There was an old woman—really old—washing the dried blood from my stomach.

"Hello, Harry," she said.

The wound in my side had been cleaned and wrapped. Not magically healed, just wrapped. "Hi there…" I recognised her, but from where? Memory, for me, was an uncertain thing.

"You came close to losing everything, you silly boy," the old woman chided.

Her English was accented, like Astaroth's had been. She was Atlantean. I placed her from that. She had been the old woman who had presented me my captain's hat in the Lords' Chamber.

"How did you find me?" I asked. There was a glass of clear ice water on the bedside table. I took a long, desperate gulp, trying to soothe the raw, ragged flesh in the back of my throat.

"I was already aboard when you stole this fine ship." She laughed; her thinning grey hair fell in careful strands about her face. Her eyes were sharp, clear. I had a terrible thought. "You're more predictable than you like to think, Harry Potter."

"I know you, don't I?"

She nodded and put aside her bloody cloth to sit on the bed. Her weight barely made the covers crease. She must have been skin and bone, next to nothing, beneath her fine yellow robes. "Yes you do, hero."

"…I want to say it, but I don't know if I quite believe it." There was a younger face behind the old age lines and wrinkles. A lovely face, lost to time not that long ago.

"Say it anyway, Harry. We're both old enough to believe anything, are we not?"

I was the oldest man alive, all things considered. "Tessa, is that you?"

Tessa grinned. She was missing a few teeth, and her skin was spotted and wrinkled. But in that smile I saw the girl she had been. Just yesterday, a few centuries ago, and ten thousand years past. Seeing that smile, I forgave myself just a bit. Not for everything, but a bit just the same.

It was her. I didn't quite know how, but there was always something I didn't know.

"You old soldier, I thought you would have forgotten about me."

"Easier to forget the stars, or my own reflection, than to forget you."

"I never thought I'd see you again. And yet there you were, all of Astaroth's planning come to fruition. Alive and defiant before the Crystal Throne of Atlantis itself. Harry Potter, undefeated. So much time and war and the eyes of an old man in the face of a child."

"I was at war before I was born. I was forced to fight a war I didn't start." So very long ago now. "I was an old man before I was fifteen, Tess. Never mind the thousand years that followed. It just… just never seemed fair."

"That's because it wasn't." She patted my leg.

I sighed. "I'm tired, Tess. More tired than I've ever been before."

"That's because you are coming to an end, sweetheart. After everything, you're nearly done."

"Yeah? I'm not getting my hopes up just yet…"

"For good or ill, Harry, you saw it through. No one can ever take that from you."

There was a comfortable silence after that. The only noise was the quite hum of the mighty warship's engines. A small vibration running through the wood, steel and mythril of the hull. I could smell lavender, like in the fields of Provence.

"I'm sorry for what happened to you," I said. It was her, it was my Tessa. From all those lives ago. Ripped from time, across worlds, because this was the last time. The last throw of the dice. The past catching up to haunt me. "That I couldn't stop it. That I was to blame. You deserved better."

"That wasn't for you to decide, Mr Potter."

"Were you happy in Atlantis? Did you have a life there ten-thousand years ago?"

"I met a man named Janus," Tessa said, smiling an old familiar smile. "A brilliant man. So clever. We had a life together, Harry. Because of you. Janus and I spent a long century together. We were happy."

Janus… the man who had built the way to Atlantis. He had killed me, more than once, with his tricks and traps. And he had won Tessa. Good for him. "Well. I'm happy if you're happy."

Tessa smiled. "Liar. You're jealous."

"Love can be ugly like that, sweetheart."

"You love me?"

"For centuries."

"I'm sorry for Saturnia," Tessa said, her smile disappearing. "She is… she was… She is me, you know that."

"I do." It wasn't the biggest revelation of the last few days, but it was pretty high on the fucking list. "What happened?"

Tessa shrugged. "That petal. The crystal rose petal, given to me by a man named Chronos. It kept me alive through the time travel back to Atlantis. But it hurt. Dear God, did it hurt." Her eyes grew distant and haunted, cast back across the greatest of distances. "And then it changed. It buried itself in my heart, right here."

Tessa opened her robes and revealed her wrinkled chest. Between her breasts was a thin line of ropy scar tissue. An old scar, much like the one on my own chest. Scars that followed me through worlds and time. What did it mean? What did it matter?

"At first only I could see her," Tessa said. "It was like looking in the mirror and seeing your reflection wink at you, or raise a hand. She was there, and she could use magic. I never could. Not a drop, my whole life. Saturnia was a part of me, Harry, that grew out of… hate."

"Of me?"

"Yes, of you. Love and hate. She became real, because of that petal. The Infernal Clock granted her life, and she became real. A part of me. She is me. And she wants to hurt you."

"Yes, I know."

"I'm sorry." Tessa sobbed, and tears cut tracks through the lines on her face. "I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you, not really."

Could I give forgiveness? Did I have the right? Of course not. My crimes were worse, and Tessa had only become Saturnia because of me. Atlantis was to blame, in part. Astaroth and his merry band of fuckery. No one had forced me to make a deal with the demons of the Fae and Forget. Ah hell…

"Come here," I whispered. "I love you, Tess."

The old woman who had, many lives ago and several hundreds years, loved me and died for me, swung her legs around and got into bed with me once more. Tessa lay in my dried blood and I found myself with an arm around her, drifting across the silent sky.

Déjà vu had nothing on this feeling.

"If I'm responsible for your happiness, then I am responsible for the misery, as well."

"Yes, yes you are. You change every life you touch, Harry. Sometimes not for the better." Tessa sighed. She was so old and so frail. "But you mean well. Let's just lie here for a few minutes… I think my Janus, may he rest in peace, will forgive me five minutes."

So time fell away… minutes, perhaps. Hours, more likely. Enough that the burnt orange sunset purpled to black.

Somewhere between one moment and the next, Tessa's breathing evened and then slowed. She whispered something below hearing, clutching at my ruined shirt, and then sighed against my chest. Her old body was shaking, as if she were cold.

Full circle, I thought, pulling her close. We took the long road, didn't we just? She was no longer shaking.

I whispered sweet nothings and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead. The frown in her brow relaxed and she sighed once more.

Tessa died in my arms after a long and relatively happy life.

And I didn't let myself feel guilty about it.

The ship hovered near silent against the heavens, silhouetted across a full moon that hung heavy in the eastern sky as I edged the mighty vessel up alongside the parapets of Hogwarts. With a flick of my wand, I swung the gangplank onto the balcony of the Astronomy Tower.

Dumbledore was there to meet me as I stumbled off the ship, limping and trying not to breathe too deeply. Tessa had saved my life with her bandages, but I was still wounded—painfully so. It needed healing.

"Good evening, Harry," the headmaster said. "I see you've been to Atlantis."

"What gave it away?" I gritted my teeth against a few chortles of painful laughter. "I need… I need to see Madam Pomfrey, sir."

"Of course. I will have her summoned—"

"No, I can walk." Dumbledore knew every inch of this school. I wasn't surprised that he had been here to meet me, as if he had been expecting me. "I want to walk. And talk. Circumstances are much graver than the last thousand years had led me to believe."

Dumbledore offered me his arm—the one that ended in a withered, poisoned hand that would kill him before the school year was out. The pair of us, two tired old men, dying at a dark pace.

"What have you done, Harry?"

"I tried to take Atlantis. Seize the throne for my own nefarious ends… Voldemort showed up and we fought." I frowned. "Actually, no, we didn't. I walked away. I've never done that before."

I filled in the details as we descended through the castle. Dumbledore kept whatever thoughts he had to himself and I soon found myself lying down in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfrey's hands delicately peeled away the bandages that had dried to the wound in my side.

It hurt to all hell, and judging from the look on Dumbledore's face when the wrappings were removed, it must have looked like it, too.

"Merlin, Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said. "How are you still conscious?"

"My sparkling wit and a winning attitude."

"Here, drink this." She handed me a vial of amber liquid.

"Is this Firewhiskey?"

"Of course not. It's a sleeping draught and numbing potion—"

"Oh, then no. No thank you."

Madam Pomfrey stared at me hard—her meanest, most cruellest nursing face. She opened her mouth to say something and I met her gaze with a slow, careful smile. Madam Pomfrey faltered at that. Dumbledore cleared his throat and broke a long moment.

"Very well," the matron said, drawing her wand. "This is going to hurt, Mr. Potter."

"It always does."

An hour later and in considerably better condition than when I had arrived, Dumbledore escorted me back up the Astronomy Tower to my battleship. I'd left the cruiser idling in neutral against the castle and found her humming softly upon my return.

"The Ministry will send an envoy to Atlantis."

"Yes, and they'll find Voldemort sitting on a throne of skulls—or something equally dramatic."

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. I could smell summer rain on the air, and a warm breeze whipped his robes about him. "That… would be surprising," he said. "Tom never did like the power of responsibility. He prefers the shadows, and fear. I cannot picture him governing at the forefront of an entire kingdom."

"Aye, that's true." I shook my head. "Well, I didn't stick around to find out, but it'd be something if Astaroth and those other old bastards managed to drive him out. I don't think so." My scar was burning, and I was tempted to let the Dark Lord in through my mental defences, but given all I'd learnt… No, even I wasn't that mad.

Yeah I was—mad enough to know better, after all the years. If I'd been a dumb sixteen-year-old kid again I'd have let him in. Not now, not after so long.

Dumbledore sighed. "Where to now, Harry?"

To bury the woman I loved.

"It's twelve dollar steak and pint night at Paddy Malone's in Western Australia. Thought I'd fly on down there and try my luck with one of the wait staff. There's a cute one named Sophie, if memory serves."

Dumbledore chuckled. "And after that?"

"One step at a time. I'm lacking in motivation, at the moment. Need to find it again."

"I know this question does not often apply to you, Harry, and given all that you have seen and done, but… is everything alright?"

"Whoa, that was a very un-Dumbledore thing of you to say." I clapped him on the shoulder and headed back up onto my ship. "I'll be back in a few days, and then we get started on the plan."

"Fly safe, Harry."

Rampant degradation aside, ya done good, kid.

I flew Tessa home.

Not to Atlantis, but to Australia—to memory.

In the south of the state was a grove of cherry blossom trees that had been left to grow wild—in full bloom this time of year, this far down the face of the earth—and I dug her grave by hand using one of the mythril battleaxes from the ships armoury to clear away the turf, soil and roots.

It was as good a place as any, and she deserved the effort it took—and the time. Time I could not afford. My new battleship hovered just a quarter mile away above the grove, casting a shadow toward the west.

I placed the old woman, swaddled in silk blankets into the grave and shovelled the dirt atop of her, whispering mumbled platitudes and promises to make a difference.

There was a lot riding on that promise this time.

"Time flies," I said aloud. The wind whipped a storm of loose petals around me as I patted the soil down on Tessa's grave and replaced the clods of green grass. "Out of my mind and over my head, Tess."

There was work to be done. A war to be fought and, if I was being honest with myself, most likely lost. Yet I didn't want to leave just yet. There was a smell of Spring on the air, and it was warm here, under the flickering shadows cast by the dusty pink trees above.

So I let the time slip away, because I'd earned a few minutes, if not hours, after clocking up a thousand years of service—service to something I no longer believed in.

Oh.

Oh wow.

"Now there's a realisation I didn't know I was coming too, Tess." I laughed into the wind. "Remember when we came down here all those centuries ago? Spent the weekend drinking red wine and making love? You were too good to me."

"I remember," Saturnia said, stepping out from behind the tree that marked her grave. "You took me to Margaret River and we ate apple pie."

I was kneeling in the earth, my hands covered in soil and blisters. It took more effort than I thought it would to raise my head and meet Saturnia's gaze. "Come to kill me?"

"Not quite your time yet, sweet thing."

I nodded. "Never quite my time, is it?" But was that changing? I hoped so, if I was allowed any hope at all, then I hoped so. "I know you have some right to be here, given your origins, but I would like this moment to wallow in my misery alone, if you don't mind."

Saturnia ran her flawless hand through my hair, scratching my scalp in a way that sent a pleasant tingle running down my spine. She was wearing killer black heels with straps wrapped around her shins, and that familiar red dress I'd first seen in Italy, where she'd stabbed me.

"All things being even, Harry, you haven't done that badly."

"What?"

"It's been a thousand years and you're still alive, still fighting. A thousand years and you still care enough to bury the woman you loved in a place of meaning. That matters, don't you see?"

Saturnia knelt down in front of me and undid the few buttons that remained on my ruined shirt. She placed her hand over my heart, across the thin line of ropy scar tissue that had followed me through time. The petal of the Infernal Clock wedged in my chest twitched, and I felt time slow...

The swaying branches of the cherry blossom trees moved as if through treacle, and the falling leaves spun in lazy circles.

"You've been forged across the years, Harry. Forged into something like a god. You never die, not for long, and you command Time itself to do your bidding. I sense that you are faltering—that you may trip at the finish line, as it were—so please remember one thing…"

Despite myself, I sighed as Saturnia kissed me. "What should I remember?"

"You need to remember that… no one likes a whiny bitch. Pick yourself up, Potter, and get to fucking work."

I laughed and time regained its normal flow, at least as far as my perception was concerned. "Saturnia, I think I just fell in love."

"You couldn't afford me, Harry." She stood up and stepped away from the gravesite, being careful not to walk over the actual earth on top of Tessa. "You've a stowaway aboard your battleship, by the way."

"Oh? That'd make two today."

"It is someone that means well, which is what you need right now." Saturnia's smile faded. "What I am is because of you, Harry. I exist because of your actions. I am the consequence of your choices, and because time isn't always a straight line, I am a lot older than you—so listen to me now. Are you listening?"

I gained my feet and licked the taste of mango from my lips—the taste of a demigoddess. "I'm listening."

"You can win. You can defeat me, and Chronos, and Voldemort. You can exact vengeance upon Astaroth and his council of old fools, but it won't make you happy. There won't be a happy ending, not for you, but there can be happiness. Do you understand?"

"There's never been any happiness in what I do." And if those words sounded a touch venomous, it was only because they were poisoned with truth. "The only happiness I've ever found is buried three feet away."

Saturnia smiled. "Just think on it, Harry. Listen to your elders."

"Or what? You'll kill me?"

"Silly boy, I don't need to kill you—you'll kill yourself before the end."

And of that, Saturnia sounded so certain.

If I had to choose, I'd choose regret over ignorance any day of the week.

I picked a particular pleasant looking blossom from the tree and strolled back toward my battleship, taking the lazy and somewhat scenic route. I had an idea who the mysterious stowaway was, so there was no hurry. The carpet of fallen pink petals on the ground made me think of blood crunched into fresh snow. It wasn't a bad thought.

Saturnia's words had jarred, somewhat, but she was right about one thing. I did have to be on my way. Ever since the arrival of my twenty-two odd thousand corpses I'd been doing very little, given the speed at which the days were flying away from me.

I sorted through the memories in my head and tried to apply them to what I knew now, of this life and unanticipated events like Atlantis. I needed to find out what had happened in that city, whether Voldemort had seized the throne or Astaroth had driven him out. Once I knew that, I could work on the probabilities in my mind, gained over a thousand years… to try and anticipate the Dark Lord.

Everything will be alright, I thought. "Isn't it always?" With a heavy sigh, I apparated thirty feet up and onto my shiny white battleship. Leaning against one of the pristine magical cannons, I twirled the blossom in my good hand and thought deep thoughts.

After a few minutes, I shook my head. "You can come out now!" I called.

Silence, for a moment, and then from the stairs leading down to the galley Hermione, dressed in her Hogwarts uniform—it made her appear so young—emerged, looking both defiant and somewhat sheepish.

"Hi, Harry."

"Hello, Hermione Granger." I grinned. "You didn't have to hide from me, you know. I'm not so far gone as to try and hurt you."

Hermione shrugged, rubbing her hands together as she walked towards me. "It wasn't that, Harry… I snuck aboard at Hogwarts, while you were away with Dumbledore, and then I saw you with that old woman. I felt to intrude would be unkind."

I nodded. "Yes, thank you. It was a moment centuries overdue, and something I deserved to do alone."

"Can I ask who she was?"

"It's a long story, but if you remember that girl who appeared bruised and beaten in the fireplace atop of Mount Sulphur in Banff, where we were having dinner?"

"Yes… of course."

"It was her."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Time… sometimes sucks," I said, and that was more than enough.

I offered Hermione my open arms and we embraced. Separating, I placed the flower from the cherry blossoms below in her hair. "So what brings you aboard the… hmm, I need a name for the ship."

"Did you get this from Atlantis?"

"Sure did. As payment for the last thousand years." It was the least those bastards could do. I'd make them all pay before the end.

"What?"

The sky was so blue overhead that it was almost blinding. Midday under the hot Australian sun. "Nothing. Listen, Hermione—it's always lovely to see you, but there is work to be done—"

"I'm coming with you," she said, almost stamping her foot on the deck as if I'd already told her no.

"Are you? Do you even know where I'm going? You just hopped aboard an old man's battleship in the middle of the night, without Ron, or Neville, or anything… and given what you know of my enemies. Hermione, you're supposed to be the clever one."

"I saw your arrival from the common room. I was worried about you, you twit."

I laughed. "No need to worry. I'm soldiering on."

"You look like you haven't slept in days. When did you last eat, Harry Potter? Can you tell me?"

"Was thinking about getting a steak, actually. So there. You can come with me that far, I guess."

"I'm staying with you, until whatever you're doing is done."

Until I was dead, then. Not too far away, if history rhymed once again. Which, deep down, Hermione must have known. "Suit yourself then. To be honest, I welcome the company. You got your wand with you?"

Hermione patted her pocket. "Of course. So where are we going first?"

"I told you. Steak and chips and scotch. Perhaps some salad with Italian dressing. We're going to the pub, Hermione."

"And after that?"

I raised my mythril hand and let it shine in the sun. "Well, that's when it gets interesting. We're going to go artefact hunting, like I promised back in Banff. We're going to throw ourselves against the wit and wisdom of the greatest minds of the last ten thousands years. Defeat magical traps, break forgotten curses, and explore lost realms… You know what, you made a good choice coming along."

"We're going to do all that?"

"By Tuesday, yes. But I'm thinking maybe we'll recruit a few others for the journey. Voldemort has his army, after all."

Hermione took a deep breath. "This all sounds so exciting, but I still worry for you, Harry."

"Best to just worry about the next five minutes, Miss Granger. And whether you want garlic or peppercorn sauce with your steak.

A/N: Okay, so we're back on track. Poor Tessa and Harry. Never mind, aye. A nice segue into further story, and an eventual move for Harry to build his own command centre and fight his wars. Things should move quickly these next few chapters. Hermione will just be the first of many familiar faces we'll see from now on. I'm trying to spin this story back on the characters, while still maintaining the overall plot.

Thanks for reading, and please review.

-Joe