CCXXXVI

The Fae King stood at the water's edge and gestured Hermione closer, saying, "...what do you see?"

The surface of the pool reflected the interplay of light and shadow filtering between the branches of the World Tree. Curious, Hermione crept closer.

Hermione suppressed a gasp when her reflection moved of its own accord.

The Hermione in the water held up a finger to her lips, counseling silence. Hermione's stunned wonder burned away, for her mirror image's eyes were wide with fear and her motions frantic. The figure pursed her lips and gestured with her hands pressed together.

Hermione whispered, "A fish?"

CCXXXVII

Hermione's reflection nodded sharply and then looked pointedly towards the King, who was scowling. He said, "Knowledge, how very banal. Look deeper."

Uneasily, Hermione peered into the pool. Behind her reflection she could see shapes taking form. Were those runes? She'd never seen them in such a configuration.

Fascinated, she leaned closer, trying to see around the waving arms of her killjoy doppelgänger. It was flapping its arms, then paused to hold up two fingers.

"Two… birds." Hermione blushed, distracted by the runes beyond her stern-faced reflection. They outlined the framework of an explicit purification ritual. "Hearts intertwined, in love."

CCXXXVIII

The King's scowl deepened, marring his perfect features. "Love. Such a selfish emotion. Mortals put entirely too much faith in it."

He plucked a leaf out of Hermione's hair, and breathed on it. Before her eyes, the delicate veins transformed into a lacework of crystal, catching the light and throwing splashes of color over his face and hands where it now lay cradled, protected. "Beauty does not have to be ephemeral."

"Often, appearances are deceitful, sir. I have learned to distrust my eyes. There is always more beyond the surface—" Hermione hesitated, thinking of her husband. "However it is presented."

CCXXXIX

The fae King clenched his fist, and the leaf was crushed to a shimmering dust that he tossed at Hermione with a razor-toothed smirk.

Hermione froze in horror as the dust cloud hit her face.

Immediately Hermione's eyes began to sting, vision blurred. A single tear slid down her nose and plonked into the pool below.

Water!

Hermione fell to her knees and dipped her cupped hands into the cool water.

The wind sprite hissed in her ear, 'Do not drink!'

Forcing the air out of her nose, Hermione lifted the cool water from the pool and bathed her eyes.

CCXL

Lifting her sodden skirt to wipe away the well water, Hermione cautiously opened her eyes.

The tree itself grabbed her attention, its bark writhing with activity. The closer she looked, the more she saw, as the tree itself was fashioned out of an interweaving network of thread. Each individual strand differed to the one next to it, in length and colour and quality.

With a start, she realised that the strands were alive.

A voice spoke above her. "Pitiful, mortal child."

Reflexively she looked up, and was pulled into a vast expanse, the void that was the Fae King's eyes.

CCXLI

Hermione could see everything now. The Fae King was not as old as the Universe, but his strand within the tree itself was buried deep. He was cold, devoid of the warmer emotions and she now understood that he'd never felt affection for a single creature, not even for himself.

Although he'd bathed in the well of wisdom, he'd never been able to learn this lesson. He was equally incapable of true kindness as he was of cruelty. His power came from the bedrock of reality, Order in its most elemental form.

He was fascinated by her capacity to love.

CCXLII

"You put yourself through so much in the name of love, and only generate pain and death and name them blessings. I am astounded!" The king was speaking directly into Hermione's mind. "It would be better by far to stay here with me. Drink from the wisdom of the ages and you will know how to fix that deep corruption in the minds of your people."

The King was offering to tutor Hermione, to teach her how magic worked. He was impossibly old, and had forgotten more than even Merlin had ever known. It was a very generous offer. He was so nice. She should trust him.

Wait… that isn't right.

"If after a fortnight you are still infected by this affliction you call love, I shall let you go with my good will."

The untruths that coloured his offer were flimsy, falling away as she resisted his compulsion. Decades passed as swiftly as days in the Otherlands. The fleeting passage of mortal time was comedic gold to the fae. Her own wishes were worthless, her attachments a point of intrigue but ultimately inconsequential as she would pass to dust in a few moments.

The King wanted her as entertainment.

CCXLIII

Tendrils of song brushed Hermione's mind, loosening the Fae King's thrall.

"You'll pine, I know, for the long, long ago

And the heart that is never olden…"

Images of what could pass if she stayed flooded her inner eye. Beltane's fires only reached so far without her, although Severus would try, he would fail to stop the Ministry from passing the marriage law. It would take decades for Magic to heal her people. Severus retreated, refusing to give up hope, his heart ultimately breaking when she was not waiting for him on the shore of Tech Duin.

She was needed.

AN:

All hail, Qdrew, queen of betas!