October 16th, 1996

"What kind of fucking question is that? Do I have a choice? Salazar, Theodore, I-," Thor began, snapping angrily, but Hermione knew his vigor to be his fear. But men like Thorfinn rarely showed fear, so it came out in bursts of violence. Theo just quirked a smile, as though it was amusing.

"It was rhetorical, no, you do not have a choice," Theo said evenly, clearly used to these sorts of reactions. Thor's face turned red, though he did not say anything.

"Emilia," Theo turned to Hermione, "While I'm doing this, watch his vitals. I won't be able to do both at once. Let me know if anything changes...good or bad."

Hermione was tempted to ask what changes to let him know about, but she'd done enough bandaging and basic medicinal skills to have a sort of understanding. This was far more complicated, but Hermione reeled herself in. She was often very confident in her skills, today was no different. She would know.

Theo turned around to grab his wand, but at that moment, Hermione saw him collect himself. His fingers rubbed over the handle of his wand, his nails catching on the grain. He looked unsure, scared, small, and childlike for a second, to Thor's back. He bit his lip and didn't seem to realize Hermione saw at all. Then, just like that, he shook his shoulders out and his look of unease was replaced by a calculating Slytherin arrogance.

He inhaled, about to set his wand down, but Deneba interrupted.

"What can I do?"

Theo glared, snapping up at her.

"You can stay," He said, "If you remain out of my way."

Deneba nodded. Theo tried to begin again, but before he could, Deneba was murmuring quiet reassurances in Thor's ear. Theo made a sound of frustration.

"I meant...erm...silent. Churchmouse." He said in an aggravated tone. Understanding dawned.

"Oh, yes, sorry!" Deneba said, but reached for her husband's meaty hand and squeezed twice.

Theo held up his hands, as though waiting for something to break his concentration. Hermione realized the sounds from the kitchen had been muted. Smartly, Twitzel must have put up a silencing charm around her and the baby. One loud wail could have terrible consequences if Theo was absolutely focused on his work.

There was a hush to the room, so silent Hermione could hear the bird chirping far away outside. There was also a heaviness, a feeling of something full and fearful, that clung to the walls. The taste of it was cloying, the magic that everyone was pushing out was tinged with worry.

"If you need me to stop, and only for emergencies, as in, you feel like you're a second from death," Theo said quietly, "Say lamp."

"I survived getting it, I can survive gettin' it off," Thor grumped.

"Remember that," Theo said cryptically. It was clear he thought that removing it would be far worse...which was hard for Hermione to even imagine.

Before Hermione could ruminate on this, Theo began.

Hermione prided herself on being an intelligent witch, but what Theo was doing was far beyond her initial understanding. She also couldn't focus completely, as she was tasked to watch his vitals like a hawk and would do it damn well, but she had imagined that she might be able to glean what Theo was doing.

It was not the case.

Theo wasn't taking any chances. While Hermione had seen him do non-verbal magic, he was uttering the spells under his breath, not letting the chance of something going astray. Still, Hermione could only guess their usage and hadn't recognized a single one. She realized this was only the tip of the iceberg, and Theo's mind must be overfilled with theory and research he and Draco had done so very long ago.

Whatever he was doing, it hurt Thor...a lot. He had begun fine, but as the minutes slipped away, Hermione could see his face pale. His fingers twitched and he sucked in, grasping Deneba's hand.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," He hissed when Theo looked up, a pause, concerned.

"Thorfinn...we're not even halfway through," Theo said, and Hermione wondered if any of the Death Eaters would even survive this? Would they be taken from the playing field only due to, ironically, not being strong enough to withstand the process to remove their Dark Marks?

Theo was doing something though. It was hard to tell, and it wasn't until about an hour into the process, but Hermione realized that the mark seemed paler and less vibrant than before. The wriggling about on his arm had also stopped, at least in parts, and looked like an old muggle tattoo that someone had gotten years ago.

She hoped this was a good sign.

Thorfinn's heart rate was high and his internal temperature was rising. It was far from what it should have been, but the few times Hermione had eked out a fearful sound, Theo had glanced up and said 'he's still fine' before returning to work. Apparently, he wanted Hermione to tell him if his patient was on the brink of death and no sooner. So, even though Hermione's heart was pounding as fast as Thorfinn's, she kept watching for when things became unsustainable.

"What does it feel like, Thor?" Theo asked quietly as he worked.

"C...coo...ld…" Thor stuttered out, "Iced over…" His shivering wasn't from fear, but from whatever Theo was doing.

"Em, the blanket over there," Theo said, motioning to their couch. Hermione grabbed it and with the help from Deneba, threw it around him. As Hermione's fingers brushed his upper arm, the one with the mark, she was startled by how icy it felt. Whatever Theo was doing, he was systematically freezing parts of his mark, or so it seemed.

Well, this could be logical to Hermione. You got the mark 'burned' on your skin, so perhaps the solution was to go the other way. Playing with extreme temperatures, and Hermione doubted that anything less than 'extreme' would do, could be deadly. Strangely, for as cold as Thor was, his body temperature was just going up, like Theo was an invader and there was a fever Thor was trying to stave off.

It took nearly five hours. Five hours before Thor's mark was completely grayed over, sunken into his skin, so unmagical it was almost funny to look like. When Theo sat back on his heels, there was a relief. They both knew the longer they were toying with the mark, the longer the chance of Voldemort trying to summon Thorfinn or realizing what was happening.

"That's it?" Deneba asked when there had been a long silence.

"I...yes," Theo's uncertainty was covered by a smile, "How do you feel?"

"Weird. Fuck." Thor was hunched over, and looked a bit ill, "You weren't lying, Nott. That was hell."

"We're safe now? How?" Deneba asked, tracing a hand over her husband's mark, "How is that?" She turned to Thor.

"I can feel your fingers but nothing where the mark is. It's just dead skin," Thor blinked, "Which is different from before. Theo did something, though I'm not sure the heck what. Before, if anyone but me touched it, it would shock me."

"I killed the veins one by one by freezing them out, and once they couldn't send a signal and were 'captured', I followed the lines of magic and detached them from whatever organ or sensory item it was dug into. It can't live without you, so if I take a root out of your main organs, for example, that leg of it died. Until yeah, now, it's all just…" Theo yawned.

"Wow," Hermione echoed quietly, never prouder of Theodore than in this moment. She knew he was tired, but part of her wanted to pick his brain for hours, learn everything about what he'd just done. She wanted to know how they got there, the studies, the practice...she was knowledge-drunk on all of this, almost giddy in fact.

"But to be safe," Theo rubbed his eyes, "I don't want it finding its way back. One last step...remove it, just like a muggle tattoo. This will hurt, but it'll be quicker than anything else."

"I'm ready," Thor jutted his arm out, inhaling, "Do it now."

Theo summoned a laser tip on his wand and began to erase it from the skin. It didn't vanish immediately, but rather became a sallow color, like the look of Thor's skin, but less healthy. Theo didn't seem bothered by this, so Hermione didn't ask.

Now, she knew this procedure to be not fun or at all pleasant for the people involved, but to Thor's credit, he stayed upright and hardly winced. It made Hermione wonder what his pain tolerance was...and in that case, how awful must have it been to remove the mark?

Once Theo was done, the mark sort of glimmered, puffing and edging in and out before it sank and disappeared completely in the skin.

Thor pressed his hand to his arm, "I can feel it. It's like it was just never even fucking there. Bloody hell, mate…" He said in wonder. He was looking at Theo like he himself was a time-turner and he'd just turned back the clock of a hundred terrible decisions that Thor had made at much too young of an age.

"We're free. Trajan's safe," Deneba said, sobbing openly. She leaped up, kissing all over Thor's face, her legs buckling.

"We'd better get you three out of here," Theo said, "I'm sure you're all tired."

Read; Theo was exhausted and wanted to go to bed. They'd figure it out and wipe everyone's memories after a nap maybe.

"I'll grab Trajan," Thor said gleefully, "I can't...I can never...Theo…" He stumbled.

"No repayment, except stay out of trouble and never contact Voldy again."

Thor just laughed and walked to the kitchen like a man freed from a life sentence.

"Easy!" Deneba agreed, "I've been trying to research muggles while Thor packed today, but admit the literature isn't good. Perhaps-,"

There was a crash from the hall to the kitchen. Hermione ran as fast as she could and saw Thorfinn collapsed on the ground, convulsing. There was foam bubbling at his lips and his whole body looked gray.

"Theo!" Hermione screamed, rolling Thor on his side. She stumbled back, catching her breath as she caught his arm. It was entirely necrosed, black, and shriveled.

Suddenly, she was back in the words. She had come across Dean's body. He'd been dead for some time, but it must have been some nasty bacterial spell or natural cause that did him in. His entire body was like a raisin if a raisin was filled with noxious puss and gnarled in a most unnatural way. The thing that Hermione could never forget was the scream on his gaunt face, a face where his eyes had been turned to soup and teeth had fallen out, but however he had died had been in sheer agony.

"What's going on?" Deneba's frantic call took her from that memory. She backed up on the floor, allowing for Theo to shove his way in.

The death was spreading up his mark arm. It had begun at his fingertips and was creeping toward his shoulders, and Hermione guessed, to the rest of his body.

"The mark must be fighting back. Taking the body down with the ship," Theo was flustered, completely unprepared for this, "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He cussed, running his fingers in his hair as he stared in panic at the scene in front of him, "If it reaches his heart, this poison, he's dead."

Deneba wailed, falling onto the ground.

"Theo!" Hermione hissed, but bedside matter was hardly a true concern right now.

Theo was unraveling, Hermione could tell. He was only as confident as his plans. He hadn't expected this. It was throwing him for a loop. Hermione could feel through their bond that he was at a standstill, unable to choose what to do next.

Hermione watched the way the disease moved, slithering up Thor's body like a snake.

She reached above her, fingers grasping at a decorative wall piece before she realized what she was doing. Her hands clenched around the handle of the object, tugging it free.

She stood, legs shaking, and shoved Theo over. Before he could stop her, she tagged the diseased flesh spreading right above his elbow, measured, and brought the decorative and admittedly very dull ax down hard.

It took three hard chops but Hermione didn't even realize it until it was over, nor did the other two in the room with her. She also underestimated how much blood there would be; the blood that seeped rapidly from the jagged place she'd severed the arm, the blood that hit the walls and furniture, and the blood that sprayed everyone in a light mist.

Deneba touched her cheek gently, and upon seeing the sanguine copper present, she let out a small cry akin to a bird and fainted on the floor.

"Hermione!" Her actions seemed to have jolted Theo from his statue-esque stay. She might scold him for his slip up, but neither Rowles were conscious to hear it.

Hermione dropped the ax, grabbing Theo's wand from his hand (her's was on the table in the living room), and immediately cauterized the bloody stump, forcing the magic out even though it tried to resist her. The smell was acrid and clogged her nostrils, but it was hardly the worst she'd ever inhaled.

Once Thor was no longer bleeding out before them, she fell back on her haunches, eyes zeroing in on his arm, cut off right above his elbow. It was still completely black and was twitching feebly, eating up the still-healthy flesh, until it had nowhere else to go and remained dormant and dead.

"By Merlin, it worked," Theo said, realizing that the disease was amputated and color was now returning to Thor's body, "All vitals are returning...everything's stabilizing...we did it…"

"We did it." Hermione echoed, though the sentiment seemed hardly earned.

"We should sharpen that ax, or remind Twitzel to," Hermione said, setting the ax on the mantle, tilting her head.

"Oh yes, in case we need to chop off any more limbs of guests," Theo snarled, but Hermione just shrugged.

"Could come in handy otherwise," She replied with a tilted head.

As Theo went to prop Thor in a chair and Hermione worked on wakening Deneba, Theo coughed.

"How did you know to do that? It felt like seconds…"

It probably hadn't been more than two or three counts but had felt like too long in Hermione's mind. She frowned.

"I don't know...I just...my brain...it's like a catalog and it just zipped through and made the most informed decision. He was going to die if I did nothing. I was lucky it worked, though confident." She admitted. At the moment, she could not have told Theo how her brain zapped through the right pathways to see the disease scrambling and the idea to cut it off before it got too far. Now, it made perfect sense, but her brain sometimes did that...jumping leaps and bounds before her without allowing a moment to catch up.

"I'm glad one of us has better fight or flight or freeze instincts," Theo groaned, clearly feeling awful about how he'd just stood there.

"Thor!" Deneba woke up howling. Thorfinn was coming to groggily.

"I think...we should place you in the apartment tomorrow." Hermione said with a hint of uncertainty, "I believe he's fixed, but it's been a tiring night."

Thorfinn blinked, looking confused for a second until he looked down. Then, he panicked.

"My arm! My bloody, bleeding arm! Theo, what did you do? Why is my arm gone?" He began to thrash, hyperventilating, looking on the brink of passing out.

"Thor! Hey! We had to. It saved your life. What do you remember?"

"I was...getting Trajan…" Thor's face scrunched in deep thought, "And then my arm started to tingle, like when it falls asleep. But then it went to pain...so much...and I couldn't move my fingers. That's the last thing I remember."

"Mhhm," Theo stood, "Let me show you two to a guest room where you can wash off," He offered, far too exhausted for much more.

"I'll try to clean up. I did make the mess." Hermione said with a snort. She returned to the hallway. A strong scourgify was able to get some of the blood off, but it was stubborn and had wormed its way into the grout and carpets, refusing to budge.

"Twitzel?" Hermione called with a long sigh.

"Yes, Mistress?"

"Do you have any tips for getting blood out?" Hermione asked, motioning to their splattered hallway.

"Twitzel has a few tricks, Mistress. Not the first time Twitzel has had to clean blood, Mistress." Twitzel said obediently, and Hermione shuddered to think of the other times. Still, she shoved that aside so she too could learn and gave the house-elf her full attention.

By the time she had finished, Thor and Deneba's door was closed and she could hear a bath being run. She went to find Theo and saw his figure hunched out on the patio.

She came up behind him and he jumped as she spoke his name.

"What's that?" She asked, spotting something between his fingers, "Weed? Didn't know you...partake." No judgment, just surprise.

Theo took a long drag and exhaled out into the night. His face, along with Hermione's, was still freckled with blood. Their hands were covered in it. It looked like they just murdered someone, not saved them from certain death.

"As a Slytherin, it's not uncommon we escape reality with vices," Theo said, his voice monotone, as he rolled it in his fingers, "Rosy Reefer. The magical strain of it." He said as an explanation, "Not any more dangerous or whatnot. Just hits different and is less…" he made a motion to his throat, "You know."

She did not at all but nodded, and Theo didn't seem to realize her innocence in such matters. He held it out to her, surprising her, and after a moment's consideration, accepted it. This was her first time partaking in any version, but if there was ever a time, this was it.

She coughed hard on the intake, causing Theo to smile for just a brief second, amused. However, as her coughing dissolved, she felt a tingling, the good sort, light her body...like she was made of bubbles. Her smile faded as she turned to see Theo's face. He looked two seconds away from either crying or smashing something.

"I shoulda known," Theo hissed, berating himself, "I should have realized that Voldy was toxic enough to have the 'if I can't have you, no one can' mentality. I should have foreseen...I-,"

"It was impossible to guess," Hermione assured, "And we were lucky. Very lucky."

"It shows how little I actually know. And hell, can we do this?" Theo asked, face breaking.

"Do what?"

"Change shit? I mean, we don't know what we're doing at all, do we? We're just kids...Hermione, we're just kids…" He repeated, leaning into her, "And we're tasked with saving the world because no one else has. What if we got Thor killed anyway and made everything a thousand times worse? What if we never figure it out and everyone has to lose an arm if they want out? What if-,"

"Theo, hush!" Hermione rubbed her fingers along his knuckles, "We are kids, but Harry is younger. It's a shitty hand but we don't have a choice, and you know it. We'll figure it out after it's all over, how to be young, but for today...we have to keep on. As for the Marks...we'll figure it out. Someone has to know something."

"It's Voldemort's invention," Theo gave a disappointed shake of his head, "We checked."

"I doubt he's the first to consider something like this. We'll do things differently. Record it next time. See what we missed." Hermione was already battle-strategizing.

Theo gave a full-body shudder, "It felt sentient, Mione. Like as I was freezing it, it was fighting me. It was so tiring. It seemed to know what I was doing...that's why I should have seen, should have known." Theo spat out, "What if we're dealing with some advanced, incredibly difficult magic? Something like an artificial magical dark intelligence?"

"Then we'll figure it out. I'm Hermione Granger and there's a reason you chose me," Hermione said firmly, "Pass it?" She asked, holding out her hands. Theo raised an eyebrow but did so. She didn't cough nearly as much this time, though was still sure she looked awkward as hell sipping on it, "Things always look better in the light, and see...Dawn's almost here, Theo." She pointed over the tree line.

Theo gave a haggard sigh, dropping his head between his legs, "And another day comes. Unending. Over and over and over."

She knew that feeling well. Every day was a day she'd been alive, but also another day she'd have to fight for everything in her life. She wondered if those early mornings she'd been peeking through the trees of whatever forest she was sleeping in, somewhere, Theo was dreading the day just the same?

And she, out of everyone, should have felt terror at this new day coming. But she didn't...not here, not anymore, not with Theo. Whereas it seemed Theo was beginning to spiral, Hermione felt a joy blossoming, a relief. It was a day she was alive past that mark where she should not have. It was another day in this beautiful house with everything she could ever want, but more importantly, it was one more day to change the world.

"Another day to do good." Hermione corrected, "And we will."

October 17th, 1996

The next morning, they settled the new Mr. and Mrs. 'Crane' into their apartment. It was a small flat with only two bedrooms, but it was nice. Not some of the crummy places Hermione knew existed. It was something that was a bit newer and had some of the creature comforts they were used to, even though it was utterly muggle. Then, Hermione and Theo posed as workers or management to get all the other occupants to open their doors and modified their memories. It didn't have to be their best work, and they'd get better at this with practice, it just needed to be good enough so it seemed (at first glance) the Crane family had been living in apartment 3E for the last five years and were kind, nice people and that, due to everyone's memory, the baby was two months old instead of nearly one month.

"We don't know if that worked...we won't for a while," Theo said, frustrated, "I have a feeling Voldemort knows we were messing with Thor's mark. Hopefully, he assumes the mark killed him and doesn't go looking. I just wish I knew what was going on in his Inner Circle, though," Theo mused, "Is he ignoring it? Have we brought a much earlier war upon ourselves?"

"We could get a double agent," Hermione tilted her head, "Not Snape. He'd just tell Dumbledore. Blaise defected too, right?"

"Blaise is a kid right now," Theo choked out, "I won't. I draw the line there. He won't even be invited in until after Draco fails, but even then, he's so...young," Theo said with a warble, "We all were. That's not fair to do to him. It could be a death trap."

There was silence. Hermione wished they hadn't mucked up Thor's removal of his mark, otherwise, they could take some Polyjuice and masquerade as him to see what was happening. If they went now, Hermione and Theo both theorized that Voldemort would have sensed some sort of disturbance and would know they were imposters. Maybe with the next one.

"Wasn't there another?" Hermione asked, "Washington?"

"Warrington," Theo corrected, "And he's older, so I wouldn't feel as bad about tapping him, but until Draco fucks up, he won't start to question. It's too soon. Draco's failure and how Voldy responded changed a lot of things in the ranks," Theo explained, "Obviously, people were starting to realize Voldemort didn't care- look at Trajan- but lots said Thor messed up so it was right of the Dark Lord to do that. But Draco? It was an impossible task, even for a seasoned Death Eater. He was destined to fail and the Malfoys were the be-all-end-all of Death Eaters, right?"

"I suppose. I think we'd both like to get started on the next target, but we shouldn't. Not until things have been quiet for a bit. Just to be sure."

Theo sighed, agreeing, "Just to be sure. We'll see where things land in a few weeks."