Hermione bit her lip anxiously as she studied the blank expressions of the two people in front of her. They looked back, but they might as well have been looking through her for all the focus that their combined gazes had. Hermione sighed sadly, dabbed at her strained eyes and heaved in a weighty breath. This was nothing new ... for she noticed that many of her breaths seemed heavy in this world, as though she were stealing the very oxygen from the air around her.
She had been back in her original world for a fortnight now and this feeling, which had struck her the moment she crossed through the portal again, had grown steadily more pronounced as the days wore on. It felt as if she were being scrutinised, maybe even scorned, by the very forces of nature here ... spat on by the frozen Arctic snow, hissed at by the icy-sprayed winds of the German Ocean, then burned by the sun of Summertime Oxford ... all as punishment for bringing the evil magic of Thomas Riddle to active prominence in his new domain. It was as if her former world was hurting and blaming her for the wounds ... and telling her she wasn't welcome to exist here any longer.
The realisation sat achingly on Hermione's chest as she begrudgingly accepted this heart-breaking truth ... this wasn't her home anymore, she didn't belong here ... and she barely even felt allowed to walk in the world of her birth now.
And in no way did her crimes leave a more jarring impression on her than in the two people she was sat in silence with now ... the damaged, docile forms of her own parents. The attack on their dæmons had caused a terrifying change in them, one that nobody was yet able to fully understand ... but the effect was clear for all to see. For the Grangers would flip between two, starkly different states; sometimes they would be normal, chatty and active, if a little morose ... and at others, like this ... shell-shocked and utterly unresponsive. And the changes would strike at random and without warning, rendering these usually happy and lively people as mute and inert.
And today, they had woken up in their torpid form ... not even aware enough to realise that they had soiled themselves during the night. Hermione had helped Lyra and Lily to clean them up, before asking for their help in bringing her parents to a favourite beauty spot of theirs, where Hermione childishly hoped they might find rejuvenation and invigoration again.
But, so far, it wasn't working ... and they seemed to have no idea where they were, not that they were cogent enough to care.
"Hey ... feel up to some company?"
Hermione raised her drooped head to the garden gate. Harry was there wielding two cups of steaming tea and a hopeful, if weak, smile.
Hermione shrugged at the question, Harry took it as encouragement enough and ambled down the path towards her. The Granger residence was in a pretty spot in Abingdon, part of a row of red brick houses that ran parallel to the canal, which led towards Oxford a short distance away. The back gardens of all the properties bordered the waterway and a sort of communal garden had sprung up all along the bank, lovingly maintained by each of the residents as a matter of local pride.
It was here that Hermione was sat now with her parents. They had built a pretty little rockery in the area adjacent to their own garden, ringed it all with brilliant white pebbles, and installed a trio of pine benches and a bird bath, to create a lovely spot where they could sit and laze away the hours. It was their favourite place to relax.
"I used to love coming down here when I was younger," Hermione told Harry as he joined her and sat on the bench opposite, passing over one of the cups of tea and taking in the surroundings. Hermione sounded feeble, her voice flat and worn out from all her grief. Harry grimaced at her in pity as she began speaking again, totally desolate that he was unable to console her effectively. "I would spend hours just watching the narrowboats float by, wondering what adventures they'd been on, or listening to my Mum tell me stories as I rested my head in her lap on warm Summer evenings, or having my Dad tell me all about the different bird species as they drank from the bath or nibbled at the fat balls in the feed cage. He used to love all the birds."
Hermione sniffed shakily, fresh tears gathering at the corners of her eyes again. She looked up at the sky and spoke slowly, her voice cracked, distant, and on the verge of breaking.
"We all used to love it down here, but now they don't recognise any of it," Hermione murmured, sadly. "Not the birds, not the garden, not the canal ... not even me. I feel saturated by the misery of it, Harry ... and the longer I'm down here, the more I cant stand to be. This hurts, Harry ... I hurt so, so much."
Harry gripped the edge of the bench, desperate to do something, anything to try and help. But he felt frozen and unsure. Hermione looked up at his half-snatched movements, then spoke quietly again.
"Harry ... can I ask you to do something for me?"
At last! Harry thought, primed for whatever Hermione was about to ask. "Of course! What can I do? Anything ... I'll do anything, so long as I can manage it."
"Can you ... can you hold me?" Hermione whispered, her voice tiny and nervous. "I ... I really need you to."
Harry gulped hard, but he was up and next to Hermione before he'd even finished the swallow. Uncertainly, and after a few false starts, he managed to gently turn her delicate shoulders to him, before slowly coaxing her head to his shoulder. It had barely made contact before Hermione abruptly snatched her arms around Harry's middle and tugged him close, letting her tears burst free into his chest. He went without even a moments hesitation, shuffling over until his body was flush against hers, which was wracked with her soft, incessant weeping. His one hand rubbed little circles on her back, while the other smoothed her hair like he was stroking Marici's mane.
There was no awkwardness, no indelicacy ... Hermione needed comfort and Harry didn't know how else to give it, other than to offer his entire self over to trying to make her feel better.
"Are your Mum and Dad showing any improvement?" Harry asked, softly.
"No, not at all," Hermione replied in a muffled sniff. She moved her head away from Harry's shoulder, choosing instead to simply hold his hands in her lap while keeping her head ducked with her anxiety. "I really don't know what's wrong with them. I don't know what to think."
"I asked my Dad a bit more about the Dark Mark, like you wanted," Harry went on. "Turns out that Voldemort used to put it on his followers, the ones who called themselves Death Eaters. It allowed him to summon them whenever he wanted, but it also kept them in line, stopped them being disobedient or trying to back out of doing his evil bidding."
"How?"
"My Dad wasn't explicit about that," Harry replied, careful to be delicate here. "He only said that Voldemort was somehow able to use the Mark to control them, but it doesn't take much of an imagination to work out how. I bet he could use the Mark to hurt his followers somehow. My guess is that he must have been able to force them to do stuff for him, by giving them pain if they didn't do it willingly. Or, maybe, he was able to take over their minds or bodies ... perhaps that's what's happening here."
Harry inclined his head at the stoic Grangers, who were bobbing their heads in time to the wind and knew nothing about anything.
"I've read about a curse like that ... the Imperius Curse," Hermione mused, anxiously. "It's one of the very worst there is, apparently. I hope they aren't under something like that."
"That's not likely, is it?" Harry queried. "Not after a bite on their dæmons. There would have had to have been a witch or wizard around to cast a spell like that, and I didn't see anyone else there ..."
Just then the patio doors to the house slid open and Lily walked out to the end of the garden. She looked down at Harry and Hermione, a sad smile crossed her eyes, and she cleared her throat loudly, causing Hermione to snap away from Harry in her shock.
"Sorry, Hermione," Lily offered, apologetically. "I just need to borrow Harry a moment."
"Borrow me? For what?" Harry queried, standing and looking questioningly at his mother.
"I just need to talk to you," Lily replied, cryptically. "Come inside for a moment ... not you, Hermione. Just Harry."
"What's this about, Mum?" Hermione heard Harry ask as he disappeared into the house, but she heard no more as Lily closed the door behind them. Hermione was just trying to decide if she ought to be suspicious or not, when a quiet voice suddenly piped up from behind her.
"We need to talk."
Hermione jumped a little in her shock. "Pap! What are you doing?! How long have you been hiding there ... and why didn't I know? You're getting so sly lately. You nearly gave me a heart attack, you know!"
Papageno didn't apologise. He didn't smile either, as he often did when playfully scaring her. Hermione shivered a little at the lack of both, but also at Pap's solemn expression, as he padded around in front of her a moment before jumping up onto the bench. Whatever he was about to say, this was no game. It was serious.
"We need to talk," Pap repeated.
"You just said that," Hermione frowned, crossing her arms defensively. "What about?"
"You know what," Pap hissed. "We haven't discussed what we heard the night before we left the North ... and we really need to. It's so important that we do, Hermione."
"I know, I know," she sighed. "I just don't know if I'm up to it. I can only think about Mum and Dad right now, I don't have room in my head for much else."
"Well, maybe this will change your mind," Pap began, pointedly. "Lily has called Harry inside, and do you know why? She and James are going to take Harry home ... today."
"W-what?" Hermione choked out, her pulse thrumming rapidly. She hadn't expected that. "Why are they doing that?"
"It isn't safe for Harry here, and they feel vulnerable," Papageno explained. "They want to take Harry back to their world, to a position of strength. Lord Voldemort is alive and real here ... and such a greater threat to Harry as a result. The attack on Mum and Dad is a blatant demonstration of that. And if Voldemort somehow finds out that Harry is in this world, too ..."
Hermione shuddered at the thought. "Oh, yes ... I see what you mean. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I ... I suppose that's sensible."
"There's more," Pap went on. "After what happened to Mum and Dad, they ... and we ... are obviously vulnerable, too. So Lyra wants to take Mum and Dad somewhere safe, somewhere where aspects of our world can be protected by the magic of our world. To that end, she's contacted Serafina Pekkala, to ask if she can bring Mum and Dad to the lands of her witch clan, where they can be looked after ...
"... and when she goes, we should too."
"What?" Hermione hushed. "What are you talking about, Pap?"
"We should go to Serafina," Papageno declared stoutly. "And not just because it is right that we should stay with Mum and Dad, but also because of what we heard in Trollesund ... that thing about us and Harry."
Hermione felt an icy chill sweep over her at Papageno's tone. She didn't like it at all, or what she felt certain he was about to suggest.
"Please explain what you mean, Pap," Hermione asked in a quiet voice. "Are you saying we should be separated from Harry? Because of what Lyra and the others were talking about?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"But ... but ... why?" Hermione moaned in her confusion. "Why would you advocate something like that? You heard what the alethiometer said ..."
"That's the point, Hermione! The alethiometer didn't say anything!" Papageno cried, passionately. "The truth reader is an object, a thing ... it can't think, or know, or say anything! Only people can do that ... and people are prone to making mistakes. And in this case, that person is Lyra."
Hermione tensed suddenly, as though her dæmon had kicked her in the gut and she was bracing for another assault.
"You ... you think that Lyra is wrong?" Hermione whispered, her heart aching at the possibility. "You ... you think that Harry doesn't love me?"
"I don't know if he doesn't," Papageno countered, fairly. "I don't know if he might, or if he will, either. All that either of us know, is how we feel."
"But we do love Harry ... I know you feel that."
"Of course we do ... but that's my point," Papageno ploughed on. "We love Harry because that's how we have come to feel for him. It isn't because Dust told us, or the alethiometer directed us to the place we'd find him ... and it isn't because of anything Lyra told us, either."
"Where has all this come from, Pap? I really don't understand," Hermione frowned.
"Look, it's like this," Papageno began with a maddeningly patient air. "We overheard a conversation other people were having about us and Harry, discussing what they've observed between us. But they don't know anything about it, really. And that's the problem ... knowledge.
"Lyra read the alethiometer, but it gives neither guidance nor wisdom. It just tells the reader things and leaves it up to them on how to interpret what they've read. Lyra can only make judgements based on what she knows and has experienced and, while she is very worldly, she doesn't know everything.
"But she is seen as an expert on Dust and the alethiometer, and so people tend to believe what she tells them about it without question. And because of that she should be more careful about making absolutions, especially about our prophecy, because it will cause you to lose your mind to fantasies that are by no means certain."
"What are you talking about now!" Hermione cried. "The alethiometer said Harry will be my husband ... that's not a fantasy, Pap!"
"You see! That's what I mean! The alethiometer didn't say that, it used the term life partner ... it was Lyra who made the jump to future spouse."
Hermione halted in her certainty a moment. "Well ... what else could it mean, then, if you're so clever?"
Papageno sighed in weary frustration. "Do you remember Harry telling us that, before he went to Hogwarts, his Mum started him off on a sort of quest, to learn how to do alchemy properly?"
"Of course," Hermione nodded. "They did a ritual and that's how he got his scar."
"Yes, that's good," Papageno replied. "Well, Marici was telling me about something this morning, something that might make you think differently about all this, instead of running away into another one of your soppy, fairytale daydreams again."
"Go on then! Get a move on and tell me!" Hermione snapped, impatiently. She was hating this ... she and Pap never rowed, not ever. This really wasn't like them at all, but he wasn't going to back down, so neither would she. He would have to beat her into submission if he wanted to get his way.
"Chi was telling me something about what Lily said to Harry before they came to visit us," Papageno explained. "Now, Harry may not have heard what the others were talking about the other night, but she did ... she was wide awake, and now she's keeping what she heard from him."
"She ... she is? But why?"
"Because she's smart and clever and she's worried that Harry might do exactly the same thing as you and jump to possibly hasty conclusions," Papageno replied. "Lily told them that she is stepping up Harry's education in alchemy ... because she thinks he has found a perfect partner to help him in that Work. True alchemists always work in pairs, they need to find a complimentary partner who brings aspects to the Work that they lack ... and Lily thinks that, for Harry, that partner is you."
"Me ... but ..."
"I'm not finished!" Papageno snapped, so crossly that it hurt him, which Hermione knew as she felt a stabbing ache in her own sternum. "Lily didn't go into much detail, but she used the term partner, and not couple, Hermione. Though she did say one thing that gave Marici cause for thought the other night ... Lily said that the alchemical process can be a lifelong work ... lifelong, Hermione ..."
"So, Harry would need a ... life partner, for that ..." Hermione breathed lowly, as much to herself as Papageno. "And that's what Marici thinks the alethiometer might have meant? Not ... the other thing?"
Papageno nodded. "Lyra can only make an interpretation based on her own knowledge, but she knows almost nothing about magic or the arcane or anything like that. And she's become so certain of her own opinion about us and Harry that she can make everything we do fit the paradigm if she wants to. If a man is convinced he is going to die tomorrow, he'll probably find a way to make it happen. Lyra is convinced that Harry and us are in love ... and we may well be, I just don't know ... but that we are also going to get married. So she sees every interaction between us, all our adventures, all our conversations as pointing to that.
"But she's not always right. Look at the advice she gave us last year! She told us to be mean to Harry to get him to notice us again. That was terrible advice! It might have been the sort of thing she'd do, but it's not for us. We are very different to Lyra, Hermione, and we have to find our own way.
"But she knew of no other way to guide us. So it wasn't her fault, really, she just didn't know enough ... about us, or Harry, or our relationship with him ... to tell us the right thing to do. In the end, we had to make up for our mistake, for what we did, didn't we?"
"Yeah! And we almost lost Harry over it!" Hermione cried in horror as she remembered.
"Exactly ... and we might again with this, if we aren't really careful."
The deep level warning in Pap's voice almost took the floor from beneath Hermione's feet.
"How do you mean?" she mumbled.
"I know you, Hermione, I know how you think," Papageno told her, sternly. "What are you planning to do, exactly? Run right to Harry and tell him you're going to marry him before you've even kissed him? Or even had a date or anything? Do you know what he'll do if you do that? He'll run a mile ... and he would be right to do so! We are thirteen, Hermione! We're too young to commit to something like this ... and especially just because of how someone else interprets a message from something as complex and confusing as Dust!"
"But I have thought about what it would be like to get married to Harry, to spend my life with him," Hermione argued pitifully. "And it's a lovely idea."
"Yes, but that's all it is ... an idea," Papageno cried back. "We have so much life to go yet that we don't know what might happen in the future. We might meet someone else, someone we like even more than Harry, or just as much but in a different way. That's what happened to Lyra, look. She loves Will still, but she loves Sirius, too ... differently, but still love, and that's why she married him. That might happen to us."
"Yes ... yes I suppose it might," Hermione agreed, reluctantly. "I don't think I want it to, and I certainly wont be looking for it, but I can accept that you have a point, and that it might."
"Well that's a tiny bit of sense, at last!" Papageno frowned. "Look, all I'm saying is that you have to keep your head on. There are far bigger and more important things going on here. Harry and us, we might end up together forever ... we should ... and I hope we do, because I love Marici as much as you love Harry. But that doesn't mean we will stay like that.
"And what I'm worried about, and Chi is the same with Harry, is that because of what you've heard you'll start doing things to contrive the outcome. Remember what Serafina said ... it has to be organic, and that's precisely why we haven't told Harry the real reason for us going all that way to find him in the first place. If it happens between us like that, then perfect. But if it doesn't happen naturally, then that's organic, too ... and it means we weren't meant to be with Harry like that."
Hermione felt her very heart shiver with the thought of that. She'd been certain about all of this, and blissfully happy for the thirty seconds or that her beautiful future with Harry was stretching out before her, before her parents attack distracted her from it, but now ... doubts were flooding in to her harried brain.
"You have got Lyra's idea about all this in your head now," Pap went on. "And all that's done is seem to confirm your theory, by happening to fit the facts as you hoped it would. The truth is you want to see Harry as being in love with you and wanting to share all your girlish dreams about the future.
"And he might ... I'm not saying for even a second that he definitely wont. What I am saying is that, if he does, it wont have anything to do with prophecies and predictions and other people's opinions about it. He'll just love us and want to share a life with us, because it will make him the happiest he can be to do that, without reference to anything else ... well, apart from us, obviously.
"So we need to give him time and space to come to that conclusion naturally, without smothering him with the pressure of what the alethiometer might have suggested to Lyra. Which is what I know you are on the verge of doing. You haven't told him why you really crossed worlds to meet him ... and you shouldn't tell him about this. It could backfire so badly if you do."
"So is that why you think we should spend some time apart?" Hermione asked, heartsick at the very idea, but starting to seeing that Papageno may have had a point.
"Yes, but also to get some perspective ... for all of us to," Pap explained. "We've practically lived in each other's pockets for the past two years, and we've been obsessing about Harry for three, ever since Lyra told us about him. We need to be able to look at something else, focus on other parts of this destiny we have. Don't forget, the alethiometer didn't reference anything about our relationship. It said we would fall in love with a boy, who turned out to be Harry... but it wasn't explicit about anything else.
"It is possible that we could love Harry and complete this destiny we have together ... but never be anything more than friends, at all."
"No, Pap! Don't say that!" Hermione whined, hot tears poking at her eyes. "Why are you saying these things? Why are you being so mean and cruel to me?"
"It's not cruelty, it's logic," Pap argued sadly. "You are letting your heart rule your mind ... and it's dangerous for you to do that. It's my responsibility to make you take stock ... the universe might be relying on me to slow you up."
"Well I wish the universe would just sod off and leave me alone!" Hermione moaned.
Papageno crept close, moving almost into Hermione's lap for the first time. He bumped his head against her terse knuckles in an act of cautious support.
"Look, I'm not saying this just for you ... this is for Harry, too," Pap mewled lowly. "He likes us so, so much ... we both know that ... but he has to make the leap to the next level on his own. And there's a chance that if we stand too close he'll look right through us ... or that if we try and tell him he wont understand as he should.
"Marici knows he is close, so very close, to having that first thought about you as something more just his best friend. He already thinks you are prettier than all other girls, do you know that? And not just pretty, either ... but sexy too, so much as he understands it, anyway."
"Se-sexy?" Hermione stuttered, her heart doing somersaults in spite of her building melancholia. "How do you know that?"
"Chi told me ... Harry likes your legs, and I mean really likes them," Papageno quirked. "He doesn't really know why just yet, but when he begins to understand with his heart all of these new things that his body is starting to tell him about, where you are concerned, it will open the floodgates to a whole new world of understanding for him.
"If he comes to us then we'll know that all the seeds we've planted with him are growing nice and healthily ... and I'll take it all back and admit that Lyra and the alethiometer had it right in the first place!"
"You! Admit that you're wrong! Never!" Hermione cried, chancing a coy grin. "I want that in writing!"
"I'll sign it in blood if it means we end up with Harry for life!" Papageno swore with a laugh, finally padding all the way into Hermione's lap. "Because that's what I want, too ... and I really hope it works out that way."
Hermione stroked Pap behind the ears and looked down curiously. "Do you ... you and Marici, I mean ... do you know better than me and Harry do about things like this, because you are dæmons?"
"We cant predict the future, if that's what you mean," Papageno replied. "But we do know things in different ways, ones that might be a bit deeper than for you."
"How?"
"We feel the universe differently," Papageno explained, confusingly. "We have a sharper sense about it. It is sort of like feeling vibrations in the fabric of life. We use them to attach on to things, and to understand them better. Which I why I hope we stay with Harry."
"Why? Because Harry and Marici have the same vibrations as us?" Hermione asked, shyly.
"No, it's because they have the complete opposite ... or, perhaps it would be better to say, they have the missing parts of our vibration ... as if we had the peaks and they have the valleys of the same wavelength. Separately we don't wholly make sense ... but put us together and we synchronise ... we achieve perfect harmony."
Hermione goggled at her dæmon in a state of shock. That description ... it was ... perfect. Hermione felt a warm humming from deep inside herself, as though she could feel the very frequency of her half of this vibration that Pap was abstractly describing. But did she feel it in her body ... or was it coming from something, or somewhere, else? She hardly knew, could barely guess ... all she was certain of was that Papageno was totally right.
For when Hermione was with Harry, it was harmony ... pure and powerful and flawless resonance between one and the other ... it was perfect harmony. And it was how she would always describe it from now on.
But it made her playfully cross with her dæmon. "And you still think we aren't meant to be with him! After saying all that!"
"I didn't say that," Pap funned.
"You did!"
"I said I want you to be cautious."
"You said Harry doesn't love me! That he wont ever, if he doesn't yet!"
"No, I said he might not. But I don't think that, not really."
"Because Marici told you that?" Hermione asked, hopefully. "Well ... did she?"
"I cant tell you that."
"Oh, Pap! You're such a tease!"
"Maybe, but it's for your own good," Papageno returned, haughtily. "And now it's your turn. You have to go inside and announce that you are staying."
"That's going to hurt so much!" Hermione moaned. "And not just for me, but for Harry, too. He'll be so upset. But you're right, we ought to stay with Mum and Dad, at least until they get a bit better. But I'm going to miss Harry so much! You had better be right about this, Pap."
"I am, have faith," Papageno replied. "You have to lose every now and then, just so you know how to win. Losing us for a bit will be healthy for Harry, you'll see. And absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say. Who knows ... maybe he will know he loves us by the time we get back to Hogwarts!"
"I hope so!" Hermione replied, nodding vigorously. Then she flushed crimson as she thought of something. "But Pap ... you know how you said that Harry likes my legs?"
"Mmm?"
"Well ... am I allowed to show them off to him a little bit, then?" Hermione asked, hotly embarrassed. "Would that be okay? Nothing silly, just from the knees down or something. Or is that contriving too much, as you say?"
Papageno gave her his cheeky little cat-smile. "No, Hermione, I think reminding Harry just how much he is attracted to you would be a very good thing. Just be mindful when you do."
"Of what?"
"Of other boys," Papageno warned darkly. "The last thing you want is for Harry to think that any change of behaviour is all for someone else. If you think Harry at twelve years old was dark in his jealousy ... I shudder to think just how much worse he will be now, with all those teenage hormones suddenly flying around in his brain!"
Hermione and Papageno laughed deeply together, as they always did, then she left him to watch over her still docile parents, as she went to break the bad news, crossing all her fingers that her dæmon knew what they were doing.