Four Corners
What you Should Know Before Reading
I know how difficult it is to find 'that story' you want to read. For full Author's notes, and pairing updates, look at my profile.
This is 3 acts, 10-ish chapters, slow burning, non-linear, unreliable narrators, complex romance, humorous moments serious subjects. (It's not as dark as the prologue makes it out to be!)
Full Summary
Voldemort is ambitious, intelligent, and power hungry. His cruelty inspires Draco to betrayal, and while the path to defeating him is (more) difficult for Harry, it is impossible for Hermione to tolerate the death of Ron. When hope is dimmest, she decides to remake the world with her two remaining friends. Draco, Harry, and Hermione seek to forfeit fate, deal with death and tamper with time.
The entities of Death, Fate, and Time are called to forge a bond that the three are unable to remember clearly. But they wake, separated, having torn fabric of reality.
Hermione is sent to the First Rise of Voldemort. Wrestling with what it means to re-make the world, working through trauma in a happier, childlike state, and facing difficulties with the shape of her magic, she must journey to other schools and become something greater than what she was.
Harry is left on the Isle of Mists, forever the Chosen One. He is taken through the Hero's Journey with The Founders Four and Merlin himself. They will encounter immortals, monsters. And Harry must carry the weight of history and his ultimate fate, which will be shared in unexpected bonds.
Draco is forced to deal with the consequences of his actions if they had been a sliver different in the future.
Meanwhile, they explore friendship, create love, joy and determine what it means to change the world while finding their way back to each other.
Tags: EWE- Epilogue, you mean, THIS epilogue? Fluff, Pranks, Explanations, Magical philosophy, Supernatural mythos. No OTP Multi!relationships (mostly platonic and exploratory like life) but don't worry, it'll be [Lily x James], queer!characters, Multi!TimeTravel, Multi-verse! TimeTravel, Marauders!Era, Dark!Future, Pre-Hogwarts, Hogwarts!Era, International!Schools
Warnings: child abuse, torture, attempted sexual assault, death, social injustices.
Obligatory Disclaimer
I take many liberties, with tropes and fanon, but aim for a meaning and different sort of realism. I make no money off this.
Overture: The Loss
"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." J. Robert Oppenheimer
In which the story begins and ends.
Prologue: Destroyer of Worlds
A ripple against the tide is seen first, then heard.
The crack of an Apparition, emblazoned by the fire of a Phoenix's dying wish, thundered out from a bluff in an empty plain.
The wind was a living thing in the clear, cold sky, howling upon the rocks of the plateau, clawing along the bones of the earth and the grasses of the steppe. It was an unearthly creature, circling vulnerable prey. The low keening moan of grief had bled into the environment itself, and the wind wailed until the chill of the light died.
Hermione Granger had no more tears in her body. Shuddering, wracking sobs spasmed periodically. She did not see the plain before her, she did not feel the wind. With numb, chapped, and bloodied hands, she ripped stone out from the earth and packed them tightly upon the grave of her friend. Her good, and loyal, and true friend.
Pieces of her vision recoiled, playing his last stand on repeat.
Harry re-emerging from somewhere beyond his cover, too far from her. Malfoy's face of fear and determination, undoing the curse upon her body. She watched helplessly. Ron's body spun, dark magic striking through him radiating his blood. Harry roared as Ron died for him.
The grave was finished.
A small cry of pain, and a sharp low, "Granger!" were whisked away by the teeth of the wind as quick as she heard them.
She turned too quickly, fear rising bile in her throat. Burning and raw, she toppled. Her leg and arm seized in protest, so she crawled and stumbled over Draco Malfoy to Harry.
Harry gurgled a sickly green pitch, his veins black beneath sheer skin.
"Ma-" Hermione's voice broke, as raw as it was. "Malfoy, get my bag, get it! Call for the White Water, Dittany, wand - wand." She needed the precise control of power to stop Harry from deteriorating.
Unfortunately, thankfully, she hadn't been out of practice in treating curses. Malfoy would help.
Night fell, but the moon never rose. The only light to be seen for miles by red eagles and grey wolves was a shimmer and glow of white and gold, thrumming in and out as they worked.
There was nothing now, except the stillness. The quiet was painful to listen to. At least, Draco thought so. He realized the muttering witch heard no silence.
Draco, sitting next to Potter, began to watch her as the morning broke over the horizon. She was staring at the scattered books she had brought.
"Not enough, can't happen, cut through- simplest solution." She was muttering like she was reminding herself.
He looked to Harry Potter. Seeing the face of his enemy-turned-ally so near death, the familiar wrought iron emotion gripped him: hate, hope, trepidation, admiration, fear, all sat heavily in his gut.
Harry was curled into himself, his heavy head in his hands. His folded glasses next to his head were bloodspattered. One lense cracked.
How was this nightmare supposed to end if Harry bloody Potter couldn't end it? Wasn't Granger yelling about it? They had been on the run for quite some time after their exit from his family's Manor.
Draco, his voice thick, "Granger- he can't die."
"Shut it- e's not. That's why you're watching him. Now, pay attention- I'm thinking." Her hair ripped at her face; swollen, pale, drawn. But her eyes were alert, fervent.
It was luck that they had gotten this far, Draco knew. His face contorted watching Hermione Granger. Harry Potter was the only way to kill the monster that warped the world to this abyssal state.
Hogwarts nearly ashes, bodies piled high, scattered low. The Death Eaters plucking their web in the government, licking their chops. One by one, the ripe fruit of those who stood for the light fell like drops of blood into the maw of darkness.
Draco shuddered.
He could not allow this pain to continue if he was ever going to have a moment of peace with himself again.
Hermione suddenly looked into the sky, Draco startled, alert. She stood. She turned to Draco. The ripped clothing and blood was so unbefitting of her present expression. Her hair moved around her in aberrant curled tendrils.
"I need a book. I need an original book. The first Magical Library."
Draco sputtered, "Apparition, now? At the risk of sounding asinine, we've been apparated to somewhere in Mongolia by a dead phoenix, and you want to visit a mythical library? In Egypt?"
Hermione stood unsteadily and pointed to Harry, though her voice was clear. "Help me disband- we're going to find it, and then we're going to meet Death- see if he can't introduce us to someone."
Hermione would have been overwhelmed with joy at the sight of so many books, if she were in any different state.
They had made it to the Library of Alexandria. Found through trails in the sands of the Ancients- it was a ill kept mythologized secret. Knowledge, the gateway to hope, was guarded by challenges and the ruins of history. And they had learned that Alexandria had been burnt to the ground, and hidden, for good reason.
The entranceway to the library was smooth, golden brown limestone. The polished marble floors gleamed and arched into bookshelves taller than Hermione had ever dreamed of seeing. In the center, just before the bookshelves began, a statue of a woman stood sentinel.
At least, Hermione thought it was a statue. Its proud face had delicate angles. The curved body held itself royally, and was draped in leopard skin. In its formidable hands, poised gracefully, an object like a pen.
Harry would have gone first, having Hermione watch his back as he trusted no other person in the world to do. No other person in the world now. His heart clenched unbearably. Shaking, he held his wand at his side, grateful at least that Draco proved to be clever, quick and an ally. He was exhausted, but his heart flared with a burning hope.
It would be worthwhile, he swore to himself, for he had absolute faith in Hermione. Her footsteps, though soft, clicked against the floor. The click resounded through Egyptian pillars patterned with thousands of years of history in hieroglyphics. He, Draco and Hermione looked singed, and dusty, but Hermione's clothes were especially charred. Bits of her clothing flaked and fell upon the floor where it fluttered briefly and disappeared. Harry swallowed and tried not to think too hard.
Draco would have felt embarrassed by being so grubby if he were in any state to care. The high wide walls of limestone were permeated with the scent of leather, paper, papyrus vellum, the oil of candlelight and ink. He breathed in deeply, and saw that Hermione was doing the same.
He shifted and held his wand a little higher. It would do no good if he let down his guard with Potter hanging off of him, walking like a inferi.
The statue's eyes shone as if a light passed over them.
She awakened. Available for any questions and directions in the library, She was Seshat.
She directed them with patience and detachment, her voice gentle and powerful as it waterfalled over them. Draco briefly admired the complex transfiguration spell, but Hermione and Harry, it seemed, were awestruck for different reasons. Hermione seemed timid when she asked questions about the books she needed. Timid as she hadn't been since their first year when Draco insulted her.
Unnerved by the transformation, he prodded the mad, clever witch with his foot on her rump and hissed, "She's told us where the books are, so let's get to it." He thought of the sphinx outside and whether it would get hungry.
The Statue of Seshat watched them impassively with golden glowing eyes.
Hermione turned to glare at him quickly, covering her bottom, and turned in a half bow to the Statue. Hermione said quietly and with reverence, "Thank you for your assistance, it is deeply appreciated."
Harry made to copy Hermione with an odd dip, but lost his balance. Wonder was still on his face when Draco propped him back up.
The woman turned back to her paper and Her eyes ceased to glow. Harry wondered if it was really a goddess or if it was like some sort of computer.
Hermione ventured forth past the empty avatar of Seshat, gingerly favoring the leg that had been cursed.
The illumination of the library was warm. The knit of the draped canvas cloth over square cut outs placed strategically through the ceiling let in pinpricks of scattered light. It appeared to be sunlight. Yet, as they moved, a light like fire glazed over the shelves and columns.
They walked for some time, Hermione looking up at the columns, reciting the directions the Statue woman told them. She stopped suddenly. The bend of a column opened to the shelves lined with papers that Hermione whispered and pointed to naming them "Mezuzahs."
Harry halted. The pillar was decorated and deeply foreboding. Underneath a blanket of stars was a dog faced man, with men in robes carrying scrolls. Harry stared at the procession.
Draco stepped away from him, following Hermione around the bend.
There were still thousands more tomes and books, some bound in strange materials.
Hermione began to look through the shelves. She poured over books and with single minded determination and looked as if she would be there for hours.
Draco and Harry nervously patrolled the sprawling knowledge catacomb, attempting to not stray too far from a completely absorbed Hermione.
At some of the vast intersections of the library, they found statues, in different styles from different eras, and odd contraptions. Harry said, "Bookshelves haven't moved, have they?"
Draco responded, "The shelving hasn't exactly stayed put."
Draco had checked some books and ran his filthy pale finger along the edge. "Enchanted. The books are repeating. A protective ritual of some sort."
Harry grunted, "From what?"
Draco said, glancing at the ceiling, "I'd like to remain ignorant of that answer."
Harry had a brittle, razor eagerness for the answer and drew the wand he and Draco shared.
They became lost, despite their very best efforts, and encountered a bird with a long, thin beak in a hallway that opened to a river. In the breath that they stood watching, the bird became a man.
A voice crashed upon the walls from this man who was a bird. He opened his palm towards them and spoke:
DO YOU COME FORTH BY DAY
Harry looked at Draco, "Er-".
Draco's mouth gaped and shut.
Hours later, Hermione looked up. Harry and Draco were seemingly falling upon themselves in the middle of the room for no reason, shouting unintelligibly.
Harry was grasping onto an amulet in the vague shape of an eye. It was not only red, but burning red, wavering the air in front of it with ripples that warmed the air around it in glory.
Harry hopped onto one leg, as he was still favoring the left from a curse he received, and Draco rolled backwards and staggered up. Hermione looked as if she was gathering herself in preparation for a desperate kind of joy.
Harry, wincing at her, pushing up his glasses which were still cracked on the left side of the frame, said "I think…. we found something." He held it up to her.
Hermione's hair crackled as she climbed down from her perch of books and scrolls, holding something so very familiar to Harry: the Deathly Hallows. The symbol was engraved upon the black cover of a tome.
She hid another tome behind it. A shadow like a bird but far too large, made the light with no source darken momentarily.
"Me too," She breathed. "We're going to need your blood." She held up the book of Deathly Hallows and held the other tome close to her chest.
The cave had a few streams of light breaking through it's dank. It was damp, chilly, and far from the Library. Moss dangled in bright green phalanges from the walls, but otherwise, the corners were dark, run through with some kind of crystal formation.
Malfoy's hair was dirty and limp; he was breathing heavily, clearly frustrated. Harry knew he was getting more nervous as Hermione went on with her work. Her determination was frightening, but her idea- he breathed in.
The smell of blood in his hand from the dragon scale he held was heady, spicy, a scarlet more bright than human blood, and in movement, more crimson. It was a red too unreal to be anything but the essence of a magical creature. He watched the blood ooze and drip from the scale into the small phial he held to its corner.
Harry had the serenity he got after his brushes with death. Exhilarated despite himself, but grimly clear headed.
He listened to Draco's strained shouting, "Hermione you can't meet Death! He's not going to put on a hat and join you for tea over in this bloody forsaken -" he gasped raggedly, fear and desperation etched into his face. His hand up on his head as if he were trying to illustrate the absurdity of the situation. Harry remembered the man who had been a bird.
Hermione, her wand and hands gloved in magic, reached into the pure white sand pile heedless of Draco's tirade.
Draco seemed resigned as he put his hand down from his mock hat tipping. His tone quieted, but was no less pleading.
"You haven't even told me why you're going to smear my blood all over that archway. You smeared Potters blood all over that- that Hallow book, and now you want mine for- for what? So we can meet Fate 'like the Potters met Death?' I spent all this time with you thinking maybe blood wasn't that important and now- it's all you need."
Harry, dismal, said, "We can still do that, have me meet death. If you'd like. It can all be over if you'd just let me face Voldemort. Though it's nice to know you won't go on being a mudblood hater Malfoy."
Hermione stated flatly before Malfoy could retaliate, "Harry- you're not going to just go and be dead, we need to fix everything. You can meet Fate, Malfoy- you are a Black. Just as the Potters met Death. It has to do with connection and family, not clean or dirty blood. It's ties. Ties and planes. All we need is Time, remember?" She was working, her wand making small movements, tracings of runes, over and over again as sand swirled and met a little bit of dragon blood.
Harry, from his position on the outcrop, "Time isn't going to be enough, is it?"
He looked at the sword of Gryffindor, laying at his side, shimmering with red.
Draco whimpered.
"We three require a task, an object and a favor."
Harry's voice broke over the last syllable the women had chorused in unison. He said over the sound of the ocean and the chant, "Anything."
The women, a crone, a mature woman and a fair girl, looked at him with the infinity of stars in their eyes. Harry stood resolute, but Draco seemed to have something taken out from under him.
"The trade-" They said in unison, as the wave of water crashed upon black rocks of a sea within the Aegean sea, while Draco breathed in to protest, "-is to be accepted."
Draco ferociously grabbed Harry, seething, "That is not how you make deals! You don't know what they want!"
Harry yelled back over the sea spray, "We don't have anything else Draco- what could we possibly give them that hasn't already been taken away?"
Draco shoved Harry away and growled, "You bloody, stupid-" He twisted away and then yelled back, "I don't even know how you made it this far you- you don't know what they want and you don't know what you have until it's lost!" He gestured wildly, his eyes catching on Hermione, who had been statuesque.
Harry spat, glaring at Draco, "Don't you think I know that?"
The three women looked upon Hermione and the old crone smiled, "I will see you again before long, you will grant me a favor in the past. It is one in the same."
Hermione met the eyes and in her hand she found the handle of a loutrophoros. She felt fierce joy from it, they were halfway there.
The woman, aged and ageless, looked into Harry, "The object I desire is rightfully ours. It was stolen from us."
A wheel, an eye, a riddle artifact, naught but a secret. He knew, what made Voldemort so powerful- in seeing into the hearts of wizards, controlling them like pulling a single strand in the cloth that wove so tightly around everything.
The voice of the young girl looked at the once Noble and Ancient Malfoy and said, "Your task will be to get it back for us- it is a good trade. For in helping you, we help ourselves, and the wheel turns once more."
A stone archway, a fraternal twin to the one that Department of Mysteries hid in its depths, stood before them. A great Oak was shadowed behind it. The mists of the moors dampened their sounds.
Hermione was digging her hands through cold grave dirt. She was digging, digging, and she kept digging. Harry knew the twisting pain that had been creeping up her back since the battle that made her bury Ron but she kept digging. She was rehearsing the stories, the history, every family line and clue to remind them of their purpose.
Harry held the stone and helped direct the water into a wavering ring. The water coiled from the odd looking vase, what Hermione had called a loutrophoros, that they had gotten from the weird sisters- or the Moira, whatever they were.
Draco renewed his efforts with the fire from the Eye of Ra that they had gotten from the trial in the Library. The Box and the stone sat untouched upon the third corner of the circle. The glass balls of sand that Hermione had made had been added. They were spinning slowly in odd orbits.
"I don't see how this wild snitch chase is going to solve anything. Something's gone wrong and the Death Eaters are gaining more power and there's little to nothing else left-" Draco said, loudly regretting the role he had played in getting the Box.
Harry clenched his jaw- wishing he had been awake when the plan changed- but they had come too far.
Draco was just searching for a more practical way to go about defeating Lord Voldemort, and for that, Harry grudgingly admired him. Hermione remained silent, but unearthed a smooth and crooked branch that could be none other than the Oak wand of Merlin.
Merlin had been sorted into Slytherin, but in the stories, Merlin had lived before the Founders- Hermione explained, holding out the tome she had hidden once she had the Box. He had multiple lives, or an unusually long one, calling himself by no other name than Merlin with unmistakable magic. There was something a little inhuman about him, she suspected, but this was the only stable way- the only way that she could find that had been done before, she insisted.
Harry remembered her lessons, fervently told to him in their third year when they succeeded in rescuing Sirius. The charm of the time turner was unstable, unless you had permission.
And only one person had ever gotten permission. The ancestor of Draco Malfoy.
Merlin's time in Slytherin at Hogwarts was plagued by conflict and rivalry between Salazar Slytherin and his two remaining founders, but in the sources she had found in Alexandria, there were two histories. A purveyor of Muggle rights, stopping the rise of a Dark Magic in the eleven hundreds, and Merlin from just before the kingdom of Arthur.
He carried a Wand of Oak from Avalon, and possessed a Box, and for his final triumvirate, a Book of his spells. Merlin's Mark contained power and was on all three, though she doubted that he created them entirely on his own.
She needed to bring the four corners together, but she didn't need every piece- just enough of the pieces. Enough weight to give her a chance- to give Harry a chance.
The charms of time, trapped in their spheres so that it could not pass.
Merlin's wand of knowing, and his Box that held the unknown, and blood of his descendant.
The Cloak of Death and the Stone and the book that recorded the Peverells fate.
The loutrophoros that held the water that pulls as it pushes, that stays the lines between life and forgotten-ness. The unblinking Eye of Ra- a borrowed power. Their own power.
Then, she prayed that something would happen where she could be given more time, time to go back. To save the people who were at the crux, the ones who were at the crux. Let her be the crux, she would give it all up- she had nothing left- nothing left to lose except for her very oldest friend and her newest.
It would be in their hands. In the Hallow of Death, Fate, and Time, she would call to them with the stone of Death and the wand of Merlin and the sacrifice of time.
It had to work.
She handed the wand and book to Draco.
Harry pulled the cloak out, and covered himself.
She must do this. She held the box, the amulet, and tipped the water and released the final piece of time.
The graveyard, that had been until this point untouched for two thousand years, was silent. Silver mist swirled. Death, Fate and Time had arrived.
Only Time would speak.
Notes on Chapter things: HP Canon Merlin was sorted into Slytherin, but Merlin would have been born before Hogwarts. I incorporated Greek mythos, as well as Egyptian mythology in this premise, which will be important later. Mythology is a recurring theme.
Ashurbanipal was the first library, by the way. Not Alexandria.