Fate watched Hogwarts closely through her mirror surfaced pond in the center of her realm. The waterfall fed pond supported a vibrant ecosystem. In fact, as Her world had no sun, the magic of the iridescent pond sustained the life of every inhabitant of the world, including Fate herself, to an extent.

If the pond failed, she would survive, but her ability to guide the lives of mortals would fade. Free will would take over entirely for a time, but human nature would nurture Chaos and Chance until life crumbled into disarray and misery.

Through the mirror smooth surface, she watched as her champion raged and despaired that his soulmate had fallen from his sight.

"I am sorry, my love, but if she did not slip between the weave of the Veil, the world would be lost." There had been a brief moment when Harry fought her. When he resisted her prompting to leave Hermione with Snape. Only brushing Hermione with confidence had persuaded him to leave.

She was certain she'd made the right choice granting the girl a magical core at birth, which set her on the path to Hogwarts. She had already helped him rid the school and world of horrific dangers. Now, her absence would ensure Harry's involvement in the events to come and the world had a glimmer of hope to continue.

This would undoubtedly be their hardest challenge yet, but they knew each other. Their devotion would be enough to push them through. It had been nerve wracking watching their too slow courtship, knowing they must feel strongly enough before this ploy could work.

Fate was not omnipotent. Chaos, Chance, and other insidious forces had their own claim on reality. She'd breathed a great sigh of relief when Harry had shown Hermione the page and had prompted him to hide it before either of them could get distracted by the existence of their third.

Fate smiled and sent her love the assurity and confidence he needed to know he would bring Hermione home.

Leather cracked against his face to send him sprawling to the ground in the entrance way. Petunia half carried a sopping, bone white, and -for once in his incessantly self-indulgent life- silent Dudley past where Harry lay dazed on the ground, derision and contempt writ large in her pursed lips and cold eyes.

Vernon hadn't even waited to get into the house before removing his belt. With how concerned this family was with the opinions of their neighbors, that was a first. His face shone lobster red and he was armed with sledgehammer fists and a tongue of fire for a belt. Harry would much prefer the lobster. The only bones they could break were fingers.

He willed whatever "freak magic "that he kept "terrorizing" the Dursleys with to turn Vernon into a lobster.

Nothing happened.

He could send Dudley careening into the pool of a more or less harmless snake's enclosure when the fat slob pushed him, but couldn't save himself from the homicidal gleam in his uncles' eyes.

Without any freak accident coming to his aid, he was left to scurry back on hands and knees towards his jail cell, the cupboard under the stairs. As Vernon thundered after him, his cell started to look more like a sanctuary.

"You dare endanger my son's life with your goddamned sorcery?" Vernon lashed out with his belt again, but Harry stumbled and the blow only grazed his thigh.

"I didn't do anything!"

"And I suppose the glass vanished by itself?"

Harry lunged for the closet. He got his chest in. Vernon tripped. Harry pulled his legs in.

As he whipped around to shut the closet door, Vernon's fist smashed his nose with a sickening crunch and spurt of blood. Dazed, Harry barely struggled as his uncle dragged him from the illusion of safety.

He managed to hook his arm between the cot and door frame to pull himself away. Back to his hole. He kicked his legs free. Floundered Tried to beat the stars from his vision.

Vernon caught his ankle and gave a vicious yank. His ankle popped. His elbow snapped backwards.

Harry screamed as Vernon dragged him back into the entryway. Frantic pleas cut off in a gurgle as Harry choked on the blood pouring from his nose.

"Don't you run from me you rat. I'll teach you. I'll beat the witchcraft out of you. "

While Harry hacked, coughed, and fought the pain to stay conscious, Vernon flipped him onto his stomach, yanked down his pants, and began to violently beat his exposed ass with his belt.

"You'll. Never. Endanger. My. Family. Again!" He punctuated each word with the crack of leather against raw flesh.

With the last of his strength, Harry dragged himself away with one arm, the other cradled at an odd angle to his chest.

This time, seeking escape proved a near deadly mistake. Vernon swung down as Harry lurched six inches up. The tip of the belt flicked his exposed balls.

Harry threw up and passed out.

He woke with a jolt. Almost everything hurt, but the pain thrummed as a dull ache next to the burning in his lungs. Oxygen. He needed oxygen.

With mad thrashes that drown the bathroom, Harry breached the surface of the tub to suck greedy lungfuls of air.

"Pathetic," Petunia sneered above him. "It's not enough to endanger my son, embarrass my husband, and make me bathe your disgusting body, but you have to disrespect all my hard work keeping this house clean?"

"I was drowning." Harry gasped before making his second fatal mistake, "you psychotic bitch." He tried to snatch the words back, but they were already ringing in his ears and killing any shred of familial warmth in Petunia's eyes.

"No one has to know," she said.

"What?"

"If I drowned you right now with your pathetic figure you'd be easy to hide. The neighbors know we're shipping you off to that correctional school next week. Everyone would think you went early. And when we sue the school or the train for losing our precious nephew, we'll inspire pity, not suspicion. Not even my Duddykins has to know."

"You can't."

"Why not? You think anyone would miss you?" She paused, looking at him. "You know, your father was quite the looker."

Though still scared for his life, Harry went still and silent. The Durselys never said anything about his parents. Bringing them up was asking for a beating. Fight or flight screamed at him to wriggle out the window while she was distracted. Everything else screamed for him to beg for her to continue.

He sat stock still in the icy water.

"Your mother always got everything. My parents fawned over the freak, she went off to a fancy secret school, and when she came back one summer, she had a soulmate. Ridiculous notion. Complete nonsense.

Gorgeous though. And completely devoted. You know, I was quite a looker in my youth. Another thing you stole from me with the stress of raising my sister's spawn."

Her sharp glare set his heart racing, but a moment later her look softened and she was fifteen years away again.

"My sister and I looked similar enough that when I snuck down to the living room while he was staying with us one night, he mistook me for her and we cuddled. When I tried to start just a little bit more, he woke enough to remember that his perfect Lily wanted to wait till she was a Potter before being popped," she growled.

"Like I said, I was rather sought after then. I thought this might be one thing of hers that I could take, or at least borrow. None of my charms worked and that bastard caused such a scene that he woke the whole house."

Harry's rapt attention turned to growing unease as Petunia's gaze resettled on him with a considered look. A predatory look.

"You do look an awful lot like him. Five years younger, but there are a lot of similarities. And I was younger than him, only twelve. If I were twelve..." She slipped her hand into the water. Shivered at the cold and, blessedly, turned on the hot water.

"Sorry darling," she crooned. "You must be freezing."

His unease threatened to send him spilling anything left in his stomach.

When she grabbed the soap and began to wash him in the warming water, he tried to convince himself that talking about his parents had finally reminded her that he was her nephew. That now she wanted to nurture him, to care for him as he had prayed she would for years in secret moments of weakness.

She tsked at his broken nose and shattered elbow. With careful, almost tender strokes, she wiped away the blood and vomit.

"Did that mean old man hurt you, James?"

"What? Are you alright Aunt Petunia?"

"Why don't you call me Pet like you used to? I know it drove me mad then, but now I think I might like it, James."

"I think you're confused."

"Now now. Just hush. I'll take care of you."

She continued to wash him. The unease grew into nausea once more, but he kept himself still. Compliant.

"I was somewhat relieved, you know, when you came. Oh sure I might not show it, but that's to keep him happy. To keep us safe.

"He used to beat me, you know."

Harry's mouth flopped open. Vernon beat Petunia ? His perfect 50's housewife that catered to his every whim and flashed him simpering smiles whenever their eyes met? Petunia who verbally abused and degraded him whenever Vernon was around? Who starved him. Except on professional development days when there was no school but Vernon still had to work. Those days Petunia left the fridge and pantry unlocked and had alone time in her room because she was 'sick of looking at him'.

Could it all have been a ruse for Vernon as she said? Was she scared of her husband?

"When Dudders was born and I lost my figure, I got so scared. Scared the beatings would get worse. Scared he'd turn to Dudley. But then you came. You saved us. I couldn't kill you James. Not ever." She held his face in her hands.

"Aunt Pet-"

"Oh come now. No pity. He didn't beat me this bad. Just a little slap. here or there to 'keep me in line', or when he had problems in the bedroom. Those times were worse." Her eyes went vacant, hollow as she recalled past horrors.

"But I bet you don't have those problems." Her eyes refocused and shone with a sudden frantic gleam that had him scooching as far from her as the tub would allow. "I bet in a year or two I will start to find crusty balled up socks won't I you disgusting little piggy?"

She held him still by his thighs. His heart hammered and eyes darted for exits. A new fear was bubbling up. A fear of something unknown and far more frightening than Vernon's belt.

"I'll help you James. I'll teach you. This can be our second shot." Her hands slid up his thighs. "You will not reject me again, James."

"My name is Harry."

"Now James," her nails dug into his thighs. "Do not ruin our game. I want this to be fun for both of us."

"MY. NAME. IS. HARRY." He screamed his pain and fear. Light and life filled him. Something broke. Something internal. Not anything physical.

He could feel the roots of the world.

They filled him.

He burst.

Petunia screamed.

He screamed.

He sat bolt upright in his bed. His bed in his room. A full sized room. Not a cupboard. In Hogwarts. And he was seventeen. Not nine. In his room at Hogwarts that looked like a hurricane had passed through.

His bedding was shredded and scattered about the room. Chunks of his headboard were missing. His bedside table lay on its side blocking the door with the melted remains of his lantern stuck to the top. Books were shredded. Glass from the window twinkled in the moonlight from every corner of the room, both on the floor and embedded in the stone of the wall.

With a wave, the room began setting itself to rights. With magic.

Magic.

His birthright. The reason he'd been abused to the point where his core soaked up magic from the ley lines without a focus, something countless magic scholars had told him since was impossible, and nearly decimated every resident along Private Drive.

Only Sirius Black's arrival and his expert control over the Black family secret, black-fyre, to consume the rampant magical energy and nothing else, had saved the Dursleys, the neighbo rhood, and Harry himself.

Now magic cleaned up the mess he'd made. Alone. Like he'd been most of his life. Like he thought he'd never have to be again. Not once he found her.

But she'd been ripped away.

He scrambled for the bond. Panicked when he couldn't find it. Forced himself into a meditative state.

It took two hours.

He succeeded and a flood of concern, love, and reassurance rushed to meet him. She was alive. She was safe. He missed her. He was lonely. But he wasn't alone. Not anymore.

Not ever, her voice called through whatever unknown expanse separated them.

"You need to get some sleep, my lord," Draco said as Harry's jaw cracked on his fourth yawn in as many minutes.

"You won't do Hermione any good if you kill yourself just trying to find her, much less bring her back from whichever multidimensional portal sucked her into an alternate reality," Neville added. The three of them were buried in books in Harry's sitting room Saturday evening. Frostbite, Draco's newly hatched ice elemental viper, met Harry's snakes in the Bermuda biome in the corner.

"Alternate reality?" Harry asked as his yawn ended.

"As likely as anything else we've come up with."

"Which book did you see that in?"

"Book?" Neville asked. "I dunno. Have you ever watched a movie?"

"Not really."

"What? Which world have you been living in? "Draco asked.

Harry winced and Draco's eyes widened as the answer came to mind before Harry said it.

"Well until I was nine, Dumbledore left me with some muggles who treated me as a slave. Once Sirius clawed his way out of the unjust prison sentence that bumbling idiot and your father stuck him with, I spent the next six years training to kill Voldemort."

Draco dipped his head in a silent, cowed apology.

Harry sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry I'm just-" He was interrupted by a yawn.

"Go to sleep Harry," Neville said.

"I can't," he mumbled.

"I can cast a decent sleep charm," Draco offered, eager to help make amends.

"Last night I brewed a dreamless sleep potion," Harry said. "I, uh, dreamt of those muggles. When I wake up alone I just..."

He couldn't meet his friends' eyes. If he wasn't so knackered, he would've postured rather than mention the dream. He held these men's bonds. He was their lord. He needed to be strong and calm in the face of adversity, not break down about a few bad dreams.

A hand on his shoulder made him meet Neville's eyes. He found no contempt there, only a Steely resolve.

"You're not any lesser for it. And your not alone in this. I still wake up screaming for my parents," he admitted with a locked jaw.

Both glanced at Draco.

"Fuck it then. I dream of my mother in place of Professor Burbage the day she- he cleared his throat. "Though I haven't had that dream since the train, my Lord."

Neville looked confused. While Harry trusted him implicitly, his mother being alive and safely stowed somewhere by Sirius was Draco's secret, and a dangerous one to speak aloud regardless of the trustworthiness of the ears one knew to be present.

"Right, well thanks for-" What? Sharing our feelings like a group of girls? Telling me you're just as unhinged as me? Well not quite. "Just thanks.

"So. Alternate reality. I don't think they phrase it that way in any books. No magical theory books I've read anyway."

"Is that important?"

"It could be. The books focus on dimensions and realms.

"We create what we incorrectly refer to as pocket dimensions, by bending the physics of a specific area, like a bag or a tent, to manifest the fourth dimension. Our brains are wired for three dimensions, so we interpret the anomaly as more space and say we've created a pocket, when in reality we've just marked an area where we are able to fold objects or even organic matter into the fourth dimension, which is always there but inaccessible to us. Following me?"

"No," Neville said.

"So if it's always present you figured, what? That Hermione folded herself into the fourth dimension either without the 'markers' or somehow erased the spell with her stuck in it?"

"I considered it, but disproved it."

"Disproved it? How? I thought the fourth dimension was largely just a theory," Draco said.

"It is. Or rather, it was. I made a runic array that let me see the fourth dimension and then played around with space expansion charms. They are doorways. The fourth dimension does exist. She's not there."

"How did you check the entire dimension?" Neville asked, confusion still written between his eyebrows.

"Didn't have to. I can feel her through our bond. She's in the castle, just not our castle. In fact," Harry closed his eyes to concentrate, "right now she's in bed." He opened his eyes and jerked his head toward the bedroom. "Believe it or not, feeling her almost there every night makes me feel even more alone."

There was a long moment of silence before Harry physically shook it off and continued.

"So yea. Simple enough to just look at my room through the array and realize the fourth dimension isn't the answer. Working on an array for the fifth, but I don't think that'll be the answer either."

"Can we just take a minute to appreciate that you proved a theory philosophers have been studying for centuries without cracking?" Draco asked.

Harry shrugged. "Magical and muggles have a lot in common. Both narrow minded and lazy. A muggle would never think to use their knitting needles when they lose their pair of chopsticks. The needles are for knitting. The craft is too far from the concept of food to make the connection.

"Space expansion charms are for storage. Why would a scholar try to find the fourth dimension by looking at the mechanics of his pantry?

"Humanity is obsessed with putting everything in a neat little category, but the only thing they end up putting in a box is their mind.

"Secondly, we're lazy. A Patronus spell works just fine, so why try to give it corporeal form? The muggles have a universal motto that magicals, follow like chattel: if it ain't broke don't fix it."

"So what? You're just superior? Er- my lord," Draco added, trying to contain the old pretentious snob that had broken free for a moment. He would not be his father.

Harry smirked. "No. I was raised by the worst that the muggles had to offer.

There's a reason almost all muggle borns that make it through their magical training without killing themselves or being beaten into following the herd are brilliant. They step from one world into another.

"All knitting needles and chopsticks are are pointy sticks. We use them in whatever way makes sense to us because we haven't been brainwashed into seeing one right way to use them.

"Plus it helps that, while you take magic for granted and avoid your homework like a muggle ditching out of calculus, we see a shiny new toy. Mastering it changes our world completely."

Both his friends looked thoughtful and a little awed. Draco felt a pang knowing that if Hermione hadn't found Neville and Luna, he may very well have contributed to her committing suicide. Worse, if Harry had never come to Hogwarts, he probably would have been proud of that.

"Anyway, realms."

"No way Professor Potter," Neville said with a chuckle. "My brain needs a break."

"Well suffice it to say realms need to be created and maintained by something with a lot of juice, like a demon or demigod. If she'd found her way to one of them, she certainly wouldn't be safe and the bond would tell me.

"So. There go the last two days of research. I'll keep looking, but I haven't

learned anything new in the last twelve hours.

"Now. Tell me about alternate realities."

"All the time you've spent together and Hermione hasn't made you watch a single sci-fi movie?" Neville scoffed. "I find that hard to believe."

"Oh she's put on one or two... Let's just say my attention wanders when she's around." He grinned.

The others looked at each other before breaking into grins of their own.

"How was it? "Neville asked, trying to hide just how curious he was. No reason to be mocked. On top of how dangerous it was to keep your virginity while strengthening your core as it made you a prime candidate for mast sacrificial rituals, boys who took longer than second year to 'do it' were often ridiculed. Girls, on the other hand, were often pressured by their families to wait until an engagement contract had been made. At least, pure bloods were and they in turn harassed any lower class friends who lost theirs before fourth year.

Damned if you do it. Sacrificed if you wait.

Hogwarts was safe, well safer. A student went missing from the school every ten years or so, but in the wider world, about five virgins above twelve went missing each year.

"Did she let you-"Draco asked before Harry could begin to answer Neville.

Harry raised his hands and shook his head. "That's all you're getting out of me without Hermione around."

"Oh come on. Your house always take its nobility so seriously or is it just you?" Draco teased.

"I don't know," Harry said. "For as long as I can remember, it's only been me."

Right. Of course. He was a class-A asshole.

"But no. It's not about nobility. I've been marked to deal death almost from birth. Fate uses me to balance whatever scales the worst of us tip.

"I guess I'm clinging to whatever sense of decency I can cobble together to cloth my damaged soul."

Another aching silence.

"So the multiverse theory," Neville blessedly began in an unsteady voice, "suggests that there are a bunch of similar universes kind of laying on top of each other. Each is created when some crucial choice is made. So, like I guess there's a universe out there were Vold-er-um HE won, somehow."

Harry shivered. He knew exactly how. There had been a moment when Voldemort had tempted him. Had fought for possession of his mind and soul once he'd burned the rest of him out of Lucius.

Only the thought that he'd be leaving whoever was waiting for him, to be bound to whatever monster was left kept him fighting.

Yes. A universe where that moment sent the world careening down another path was all too possible.

"So anyway, there are lots of movies where they can travel to these parallel universes in a magic box or by walking through a doorway or- "

"Passing through the veil," Draco said.

Harry sat bolt upright. Something about that rang a bell. Loss? Pain? Sirius? The deja vu passed too quickly for him to make sense of it.

"What's that?"

"You think it could be? "Neville asked.

"You ever seen it up close?"

"No but-"

"What is it? "Harry demanded.

"The ministry's headsman, my Lord. If a well connected pure blood is convicted of a crime severe enough to get life in Azkaban, they'll usually pull strings to walk through the veil instead."

"It kills them?" He knew the answer before the words finished leaving his mouth.

"They vanish. But there are these voices."

"Not like ghosts," Neville added.

"No. Not like ghosts.. Not like anything."

"And the ministry made it?"

"No. The ministry built itself around it. Not the only one either. There are thirteen. Over the centuries, magicals and muggles both built things around them to protect them. Or protect people from them." Draco said.

"There's the one here, under the Sphinx guarding the pyramids, Stonehenge, Great Wall of China, the colosseum, in the stomach of one of the Easter Island heads, in the Bermuda triangle, Notre Dame, Mecca, Machu Picchu, a Myan pyramid, Everest, and Atlantis," Neville listed.

"Atlantis?"

"Why do you think they sank it?"

"They sank it on purpose?"

"You know many magical floating cities that sunk themselves?" Draco asked.

" Well the voices started doing more than whispering at that one. People were driven mad and well yes. They sunk it. A few survived. Became mermaids. The ones in the lake told me," Neville said.

"Atlanteans in the lake." Harry shook his head. "So which is it?"

"Huh?"

"You've called them both parallel and alter nate realities or universes. Which is it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well the universe is a tangible place made of matter. Reality is a construct. If I were to work with either in any one runic language I'd get wildly different results."

"I don't- it's science fiction Harry."

"And dragons are myths. Alright. I guess we're trying them both."

"Not tonight," Luna said.

"No. Not toni- Luna?"

All three boys turned to face her where she'd been leaning against the door.

"How long have you been there?"

"You were busy. I didn't want to interrupt."

"How did you get here?"

"You called me."

"It's after curfew. I'm going to hear it from McGonagall for Draco as it is."

"Right you are Harry. Good night boys. Harry needs his rest."

"Night Luna," Neville said and gave her a hug. Draco followed. When she only looked at his outstretched hand he gave her an awkward pat on the head and ducked out of the room.

"So you're not going to give me an answer?"

"You called me Harry. And Ravenclaw is not the safest place for me to sleep anyway."

The stack of books Harry had been putting away burst into fire. Luna extinguished the flames with an absent flick of her wand and glided further into the room to perch on the couch.

"But the Filch and the Fat Lady and-"

"Life without mystery is boring, don't you think? Leave the rest Harry. They will keep until tomorrow. In fact, they might keep better if you stop setting them aflame. Come sit."

Once he was beside her on the couch, she leaned into him with a sigh. "I miss her too," she said.

He held her close, breathed in the spring breeze laced with dandelion gone to seed. Her presence calmed him somehow.

"I can't feel her. I've never felt anyone vanish so completely." Tears welled in her eyes and she trembled.

They took comfort in each other's embrace for several moments before Harry broke the silence.

"Do you know what happened? Where she went?" He wiped the cooling tears from her cheeks.

"Not really. She didn't go anywhere. It didn't feel like apparition or anything. One moment she was here, a flash of pain, then gone. She's somewhere impossibly far, but she never left the castle."

"Th at fits with how the wards feel, but if she's in the castle, why doesn't the map show her?"

Luna shook her head.

Neither of them spoke much. They held each other, both gaining comfort from the other and neither willing to call it a night. Eventually they fell asleep cuddled together on the couch.

Harry and Luna spent Sunday together studying methods of universal travel both obscure and hypothetical as well as what the fabric of reality was. Neville had even found him some technically dense muggle science fiction books that centered on the multiverse theory. They read like textbooks with the thinnest plot woven through. No wonder Hermione tore through them. Draco joined them eventually, but turned to homework when he realized the complexity they'd reached.

"It just doesn't make sense," Draco said after his third attempt with one of their tomes.

"And it's not going to get easier each time you try a different one," Harry said, taking the offending book from his friend. "It's alright. Really. Do your work. If it makes you feel better, I'll copy from you later."

"I just don't want you to think I don't care."

"No one thinks that," Neville said as he joined their table. "You've done more than me. Harry made me keep my date."

"Awe you poor thing," Draco said and stroked the boy's cheek as a joke. Immediately a jolt shot through his hand and he tried to repress the urge to jerk away suddenly. No one seemed to notice and Neville swatted him off quickly, though with good humour.

"Didn't go well?" Harry asked, though his mind stayed on the universal transference textbook before him. Largely theoretical and there was no way Hermione could have accomplished it accidentally.

"No. It was fine. Felt weird. Like we would be better friends. Maybe the situation with Hermione is just getting to me in new and creative ways."

"Maybe," Luna said, "you just don't like witches." At the sudden silence, she looked up from her own dense textbook to meet wide eyes. "The castle may be stuck in the middle ages, but that doesn't mean we are. All the crazy things I say on a daily basis and that's what gets you? Seriously?"

Neville looked thoughtful, Draco queasy, and Harry amused. The last only remained a moment before he returned to reading with the crease of concentration regaining residence between his brows.

"Would it change anything if you preferred broomsticks to cauldrons?" she asked.

Neville and Draco snorted.

"I suppose not much. Not many people here think much of me at any rate. Not without my title."

"I like you for you," Luna assured him.

"Hanging out with you is already giving my dad ulcers," Draco teased Neville. "Won't hear any complaints from me."

"Harry?"

Harry looked his friend over and gave an exaggerated wink. "If I weren't taken, you'd be top of my list."

"I'm a little hurt, my lord," Draco said. Idiot. That sounded far too sincere.

Harry chuckled. "You're just too pretty. Can't have Hermione comparing me to you."

Draco's heart lurched.

Harry returned to his research, cursing himself for being distracted for even a moment.

After several somewhat awkward minutes of silence, the rest returned to their various research. Luna struggled to keep her thoughts internal.

For two years, Hermione and Luna had been secreting away to the Room of Requirement for somewhat intimate getaways. That had changed when Hermione's feelings for Harry had grown. They had only gone once. Hermione had shared some rather intimate memories of Harry and her together in a pensive. The girls had pleasured themselves for a time, but had not touched each other once. It was not that same and had felt almost shameful.

While still a trusted and cherished friend, Luna couldn't help but feel a pang of loss coupled with loneliness and a hint of jealousy at being put aside. The last she firmly squashed with the iron belief that her vision of herself with the other two would come to pass. Revealing that vision now would do more harm than good, so she bit her lip and dove back into decoding the complex theories before her.