Hi. I'm tired. So. :D Here ya go. Stuff will be elaborated on later if you still don't understand so don't worry :3 I think.
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Chapter 52
Ms Granger hesitantly sits, cautious yet elegant, crossing her ankles under the chair.
I look at her with a newfound interest, brushing my red hair away from my face. Did Professor Dumbledore mention she was a time traveller? She was wearing simple black robes, her head of bushy chocolate hair neatly combed tame into a low ponytail, classic red staining her peony pink mouth, her intelligent eyes glistening honey. She radiated genteel, knowledge, trustworthiness, but with a hidden, tough wariness under the friendly warmth of her aura.
"So… I'll tell them?" she asks, glancing at the Professor, and he nods. She heaves a breath and turns to look at us. "Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Hermione Granger. I am a time traveller from the year 2017. Your son Harry Potter is 37."
A cry of relief unknowingly passes my lips. "Then he lives?"
"Well, yeah," Ms Granger says, in a kind of sassy tone I'd never heard before, before she retracts quickly with a slightly embarrassed smile. "I mean, of course we is. He is married to Ginevra Potter nee Weasley, and has three children – a fourteen year old son, James Potter Jr, Albus Potter, who is currently 12, and a Lily Potter Jr, age 10. James Jr and Albus are attending Hogwarts. At the expense of many lives and losses, Voldemort has been defeated, the Dark Forces taken down."
"Wait… why are you telling us this?" James asks, ruining my perfect moment of relieved bliss. For hours, days, weeks I had panicked and worried majorly over my poor son. It was my fault after all – that he'd be stuck forever in a life of sacrifice and pain and loss. I didn't even know if I'd be there for him while he struggled – or if James would be either. I'm practically a murderer. What have I done.
While I go all emo, Ms Granger brushes back a stray tendril and says, "Well, apparently your journey… it doesn't stop on October 31st."
"Is that when we die?" I ask, feeling myself paling a notch, internally berating myself for such cowardice. Fearful of death! I try to convince myself it is fear for my son. I'm pathetic.
"Yes… No. Kind of. I don't know. I mean. Yes, you were supposed to die on October 31st, a year or so after Harry is born," she explains, clearly having jumbled up her script. "And… as it turns out, your journey doesn't stop there… I need to take you to the future."
"WAIT WAIT before you start telling us why and confusing us and stuff, isn't it… ridiculously dangerous to meddle with time? And if you take us away… Won't the entire future, as in from this point onwards… Be changed?" I ask, frowning.
Ms Granger sits back, obviously trying to hide a very patronizing patient look as she glances at me. "Well I know that I was meant to come back, and we were meant to do everything because in the future that's exactly what happens. If the future is as it was when I was there, then what we're doing is right, which is what has to be, if you think logically. Of course though I will wipe all your memories and return only at the assigned time."
"Okay, next question, you're going to take us to the future, but we're dead. So. You want our corpses? I'm not very comfy with that," James says, blowing out a mouthful of air.
Ms Granger gives him a look. "I assure you, Mr Potter, that I do not want to collect your dead bodies." She hides a smile, suppressing a roll of the eyes. "I will be taking you to the future. Alive."
"How?"
…
"To think I wronged you… To think so badly of you, to think that you were such a traitor, such a two-headed, lying whore…" I say internally, a silent prayer, my eyes roving over the gilt of the ceiling, a wrenching tendril of guilt spreading an icy frost over my chest. "God, I'm so sorry, Mabel. If only I had known… I can't believe… God. To think that I thought such horrible things about you when you were only making a sacrifice I'd never dream you'd make. I'm so sorry, I'm so grateful… I'm so in your debt. Yours and Colette's. You don't even know how much this means to me… No, actually I'm sure you do."
Liquid warmth slips down the crease of my eye socket, shimmering and glittering, a light sting.
"You loved him, probably as much as I did, and that's why you sacrificed yourself. Because you knew what a murderer I was, intentional or not. You let me have him and gave yourself to him, with no taking but only giving. The greatest sacrifice, a life for love… Something you knew I could never do."
My tears are disbelieving.
"You saw the hidden meaning of what Colette had unintentionally done. You saw the opportunity. You knew the cost – a great cost, a heavy price. But you were selfless. You were willing to pay it."
My tears are incredulous.
"You knew. You did… you did what you needed to. No, not what you needed to. What you could do. You let me, and everybody hate you for the best that you are… I could never thank you enough… I… Thank you for giving your life to James… Thank you."
My tears are grateful.
…
"So… it was all just to check that you were okay with it, so now… I'm going to wipe your memory temporarily, as law-required," Hermione says. "So, you ready?"
"You were just going to bring us to the future anyway, weren't you?" James rolls his eyes. Hermione shrugs and I laugh.
"I'll see you in a few decades," she teases with a light smile. "Harry will never live this down," she smirks, glancing at my heavily pregnant belly. "Take care, okay?" She smiles again and gives me a quick hug. We've grown pretty close over the few days she's been here, prepping us.
"Ready?" she asks.
I nod, and so does James.
For a moment, my head is swimming with questions and information, numbers and words.
Then a silver flash.
I think I see something disappear, a slender figure with explosive riotous hair and a tiny, glimmering gold hourglass – was it an hourglass? But then it fades, and it's probably a figment of my imagination – the fire was blazing brightly, springing out in curious forms and unexpected flares.
I glance at James, who's also staring at the fire.
There's a burning smell of fish and toast.
"Is that a tuna sandwich I smell burning?!" I shriek. "I don't even remember putting that on!" I sprint for the kitchen.
