Chapter Three:
Acrimony
Hattie Potter's P.O.V
"Hurry up, 'Mione. The patrol will be swinging back around soon, and I don't know how many Unspeakables I'd be able to fight off single handedly."
The chamber was dim and dull, lit by the sparse semi-melted candle hovering above the isles, stuffed with shelves upon stacks upon bundles of books and tomes and parchment scrolls.
This would of have been a viable wonderland for Hermione if the circumstances had been different. The Unspeakables' record rooms was not a place typically visited, particularly by outsiders, but it was, for obvious reasons, one of the greatest guarded places in continental Europe.
"Nearly there… 1988… M… N… O… P… Petrov… Pullock… Peters…"
Hattie's head turned, peeping down the narrow hall between the rows of shelves. A pair of footsteps was just beginning to fringe on the edge of her senses. Not a pair… Two pairs. Shite.
"Bingo! Potter."
Hattie ducked into the gloomy stretch between two shelves.
"What's it say?"
Hermione swivelled around, impressively big hardback clasped between her hands, her finger trailing a line in the cursive script on yellow-aged parchment.
"Potter; Lily and James. Case Number 654. Spanish Influenza-…"
The footsteps grew louder. Hattie hissed.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
Hermione's gaze flickered up to meet her own, wincing.
"1918. Chicago, Illinois. Target: Hattie Masen. Time turner use approved."
Time… Turner… Use…
But that would mean…
But she was… A target?...
1918?... But what about…
"Margaret is throwing a baby shower this weekend, she wants you and the misses to pop over."
A chuckle ghosted along from the corner entering the chamber.
"Shelly would love that. Get her out the house for a bit. Dylan is driving her up the wall. Magical twos and all that. You know how it is."
No time.
Hattie snatched the book from Hermione's grasp, shoved it back deep upon its shelf, seized Hermione's arm, and when the candlelight above their head flickered in a bout of three, signalling Arthur had momentarily disabled the bottommost wards in the Ministry, she apparated them out of there.
"Hey, Gregory... Have you been looking through this isle? Someone's left a candle lit."
Edward Cullen's P.O.V
"You're convinced of what you saw?"
Edward Cullen sat at his piano, hands perched upon keys but fingers silent. Alice paced to the side, back and fourth, fourth and back, around and around like a poor spider caught in a water drain. Carlisle stood before a window, staring out into the mottled greens of the forest that encapsulated their home.
Home.
Home had once been a modest Chicago townhouse, as beautiful as the family inside had been distant. A loving mother who did the best she could given her young age, and absent husband. A father, more often than not, at his office, being the lawyer he was born to be, that his father had been, that he had wished for his son, his namesake, to become. A boy who came home in the summer from private school, each year a little more disconnected from his roots, a little more faraway, a little more angry at the father.
And a new-born, once. A babe with a bright laugh, and a gummy smile, who used to fall asleep on the boy's chest, who giggled at the jaunty tunes he could snap from piano keys, who used to gnaw on silver spoons and any tassels that were within her reach.
But that was gone now.
Long gone.
"I told you it changes. sometimes it's at the school, sometimes it's at a diner, sometimes it's at the road leading out of Forks, but the girl does come here looking for you."
His fingers tensed on the keys; a warbling note that sounded especially lost.
"But it is impossible. Hattie… My sister died in 1918, two months after I…"
After Edward was turned.
After Edward Masen became Edward Cullen.
His mother and father died not but one week later, five days after his sisters' death.
They were dead.
They were gone.
Carlisle veered from the window.
Edward could not look at him.
"The doctor who took over the Masen case, a James Potter if I am not mistaken, left the hospital soon after. Along with Nurse Evans. I did not think much of it at the time. I was… Engaged with other matters."
Busy watching over Edward as his life burned away from the venom in his veins.
Another note, another lost song.
"Why would you? It was the Spanish Influenza. Nurses and Doctors came and went all the time. It was a pandemic. There has been a mistake."
Alice huffed and stalled in her short, sharp strides.
"You saw what I saw Edward. She has the necklace, she has the name-"
"It's impossible. If we-"
Alice crossed her delicate arms.
"How do you explain the face?"
Edwards mouth snapped shut. He could not dispute that she looked much like him, this stranger with Hattie's name, even more like his mother, Elizabeth, unnervingly so, but… To think…
"Then what is it you are supposing? That she was what? Abducted by a Doctor and a Nurse and, somehow, a century later, looking no older than seventeen, but decidedly not turned, she is tracing her heritage? No… No."
Alice sighed long and low, edging towards the piano, resting a hand across glossed wood.
"I don't know how, I don't know why, but we both know that was your sister."
The first thing you learn as a Vampire is that you don't get to keep anything from before. Not your home, not your friends, not your family or house or name or… Or younger sisters you had adored.
That is all taken with the venom and the sunlight.
"But what if it is not and I…I…"
And I have to lose it all again.
Alice's face grew soft, sorrowful, pained.
The hand left the piano to rest upon his shoulder gently.
"Oh, Edward. It's okay to hope, you know? It's okay to-"
The hand upon his shoulder stiffened, clenched, eyes glazed over and-
The girl was running through the woods, over inclines of rock and moss and loam.
Edward knew those woods, had hunted in them for the last two years.
Forks.
The girl swerved around a tree, a funny little stick in her hand.
She wasn't alone.
A man in strange black clothing was hot on her heels, his own stick within his own hand, lifted, flung-
A shot of bright red light.
The girl ducked, missing the light that sent a tree exploding, but her ankle twisted, and she rolled, spun, dropping her stick.
The man rushed forward as the girl struggled to a stand, stick-tip aimed straight at heart.
The girl was out of breath, unstable. She had been running for a long while.
She coughed vigorously, shoulders hunching.
Blood splattered the ground.
"Stop fighting and I will make it quick."
The girl laughed at him with blood-stained lips, this dark, dark man.
It was such a bright laugh, exactly how Edward remembered it to be several lifetimes ago.
"Like you tried to in the past? It didn't work then, and it won't work now."
The man took a lone step closer, weary, despite having the obvious advantage.
"The Potter's should have finished the job back in 1918. You've been living on borrowed time. Why do you think your lungs are shrivelling like walnuts?"
The girl backed up, back against bark, but her chin tilted proudly.
"But they didn't, here we both are, and I'm not quite dead yet."
The man smiled at her.
"Yet."
Another girl came running into the clearing, hair a tangled mess upon her head, a streak of blood across her cheek, eyes wide, voice frantic.
She was too late.
"Hattie!"
A shot of bright green light.
A body dropped to the moss.
Hattie Potter's P.O.V
Hattie sat opposite Hermione Granger, cup of coffee clasped in her hands, on the little terrace of a Parisian bakery. The treacle tart before her was left untouched. An ode to her dimming mood.
"We don't know what target, in this context, could mean Hattie. There's no reason to think-"
"They're Unspeakables. They only deal in death or dying. I should know. They wanted me to join them after the war."
Hermione took a long, suffering sigh, before she inevitably reorganized her approach.
"Then let's start at the basics, shall we? And work our way up. Why would the Unspeakables target a baby nearly a century in the past?"
Hattie tore open a sugar packet, dumped the lot in, and stirred her coffee cup with the little teaspoon, watching the black liquid swirl, reflecting her ambience.
Nothing like learning that your adoptive parents were sent out to kill you before you could speak to really add a bitter tang to a morning.
"People only ever dabble in time-travel for one thing, 'Mione. They wanted to change something in the past. Seen as that thing included my murder… Either they believed, left alone, I would grow up to become something… Undesirable, or similarly, I would have done something they didn't want to pass."
Hermione snapped her fingers.
"Precisely. Now we just need to figure out exactly what that is."
Hattie stole a sip of her coffee and winced, reaching across the table to nab another three packets of sugar, the paper tearing and the stirring of a spoon melting into the chatter of the small bakery at their back.
"Seen as I'm dying, we don't have much time-"
"That's it!"
The old lady in paisley across the way turned and glared at the suddenly loud Hermione, earning a bashful hand wave from the woman before she lowered her voice, tilting over the table, hushed and secretive.
"You're dying."
Hattie huffed and took another sip of her coffee.
The burn felt nice.
"Yeah, I think I know that. That's what kicked this all off to begin with-"
"No, you're not listening. You're dying Hattie. Remember? Terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time… Time always tries to right itself in the end, fix what the wizard or witch tried to unstitch. Normally with the witch or wizard in the crossfire."
Hattie lowered her mug from her lips.
"So I was going to die in the past… Hence James and Lily going back to kill me? The numbers aren't adding up there, love."
Hermione sagged back into her garden chair.
"Right, well, yes…"
A spark in the eye.
"Unless you weren't going to stay dead."
Hattie frowned.
"Excuse me?"
Hermione jolted forward, fingers braced on the table, that marvellous brain of hers whirring faster than Hattie could keep track of.
"Hattie Potter, did you never pay attention in class? Apart from Tom Riddle's war, both the first and the second, what was the longest standing conflict in Wizarding history?"
As Hermione leaned in, engrossed, Hattie sagged back, apathetic.
"I'm in no mood for a Hogwarts's a History lecture today."
Hermione shook her head violently.
"Please, just humour me."
Hattie shrugged.
"The goblins?"
Hermione grinned widely.
"Nope. In total, we only fought them for thirty years. Try again."
Hattie rolled her eyes.
"I don't know, fuckin' hippogriffs?"
Hermione chuckled, folding her arms over her chest, tea and scone abandoned on a fine china plate.
"Vampires, Hattie. Wizards and Vampires hate each other. They have since records began. Vampires think Wizards are arrogant and conceited, and Wizards believe Vampires to be untamed and beastly. They've been warring on and off for the last thousand odd years at least. It wouldn't surprise me if-"
"If the Unspeakables were concerned with a sudden spike in Vampire numbers… They might just take it into the own hands to do some pest control. Best way to do so, if you have time-travel at your fingertips, is to go back and light the nest before the eggs are laid."
Hermione nodded at Hattie's assertion.
"Furthermore, do you remember that Vampire Slughorn brought to that Hogwarts Yule party?"
Hattie cocked a sharp brow.
"Sanguine? That creep that kept staring at me and trying to get me alone in the broom closet? Yeah, I don't think I'm going to forget him any time soon."
Hermione's fingers drummed against the table, pattering out her thoughts in a drumming beat.
"Well, I became interested in Vampires when we saw him, did some research in the library-"
"As Hermione does on the holidays."
At the good-natured barb, Hermione sent a half-hearted glare before, primly, carrying on.
"And it turns out that though low in number comparable to our own statistics, Vampires are, perhaps, the most lethal creature in the Magical world. Those who have magical ancestry, even just a touch, perhaps not even enough to show any magical aptitude in human life, when turned are given… Gifts. Sanguine had one. The ability to trace family lines on a glance If I'm not mistaken. Thus why Slughorn was so hot on him. He wanted him as sniff hound for the elite, so to speak."
Hattie kicked one leg over the other, idly toying with the spoon next to her neglected mug of coffee.
"And seen as, as we can see, I would have had more than magical aptitude as a human, a full blown witch, if I would have been turned-"
Hermione grinned.
"You would have had a gift. Merlin knows what, but I bet my finest bookcase that it was enough to put the heebie-jeebies on the Unspeakables. Hence why they-"
"Would go to such lengths, such as travelling a hundred years into the past to make sure I didn't turn. Only, Mum and Dad got put on the case, went back there, and they… They couldn't… They couldn't… Finish the job. They hid me instead. Brought me here, gave me a home… And now I'm dying because Time's trying to write over their tipp-ex."
The spoon clattered to the table as Hattie pulled her hand back to her lap.
Her fingers were cold, and weak, and trembling.
"None of this matters, of course, even if we are right, which is slim given the amount of assumption we've done. We went to the MoM to find out where my biological family is. Given that I was taken from a hundred years ago, they're likely all dead, and I'm going to die without their blood to finish the potion."
Hermione hummed.
"Quite right, but-"
"Here it comes-"
"If we can figure out exactly which Vampire was going to turn you, we can find out what Time's trying to fix, and if we find him or her and get them to-"
"No."
Hattie knew where this was going, and she left no room for argument in her voice.
"Hattie, you can't just-"
"I'm not being turned into a Vampire, and that's final. I either live as a human… As human as a witch can be, or I don't live at all. I've had a taste of immortal life as Tom Riddle's bloody Horcrux, Hermione, and one taste was enough. I just want to be… Me. For as short or for as long as that is possible. No Vampire turning."
Hermione groaned and glowered from across the way.
"Fine, but my point still stands. If we locate this Vampire, we might be able to find a work-around turning that Time itself will let slide. It's our best shot in the dark right now."
Hattie ran a tongue over her teeth behind her lips.
"Don't know any Vampires, do you?"
Hermione shook her head, but grinned.
"No. But we both know who does."
No One's P.O.V
Professor Slughorn jerked as the cracking sound of apparition rang out loud and clear in his small kitchen, nearly knocking over his pot of freshly brewed tea. Whirling around, wide-eyed and more than slightly panicked, he came face to face with two-thirds of the Golden trio.
"How in the name of Circe did you break through my wards, dear girl?"
Hattie Potter, who had appeared by the rusted biscuit tin, lent heavy on the countertop, propped up by her elbow.
"I'm the girl who lived to defeat Voldemort, your wards weren't that difficult to dismantle in transit."
Not that difficult?
In transit?!
Slughorn spluttered.
Those Wards had taken him months to set up and-
And Hattie Potter, girl who lived, and Hermione Granger, smartest witch of her age, were standing before him.
The possibilities were endless.
"You should have sent an owl ahead, I would have dressed appropriately and-"
And invited everyone to show off that he was friends with Hattie bloody Potter, the girl in question thought.
No, she didn't need to be on display right now.
If the Unspeakables figured out she and Hermione were up to something-
Best to lay low.
Hattie smiled as charmingly as she could towards the aging professor who, by the state of his kitchen, had seen better days now that half of his 'favourite' students were in either Azkaban or a grave.
That was the problem with hitching your star onto someone else's; If theirs faded, yours did too. A bit like a parasite really, which died when the host did.
Yeah, Hattie thought.
Parasite was definitely better fitting for Slughorn.
"We're only popping in for a quick brain picking. I need your help."
Slughorn, in striped yellow and silver pyjamas at two in the afternoon, preened at this, tugging on the hem of his short and forgetting, entirely, the pot of cooling tea behind him.
"Naturally I am on hand for such a brilliant pair of witches. Tell me, what is it? Potion ingredients? I have some spare Acromantula left over if you need it?"
Hattie didn't miss a beat.
"We don't need spiders, we need Vampires."
Slughorn's face waxed pale and round and aghast.
"Excuse me? Did you say Vampires? Surely I misheard-"
Hattie didn't let him off the hook now that she had him there.
"Yes, Vampires. You invited one to the school, remember? I need to find him."
Slughorn blustered, dithering, seeming as if he was going to run from the kitchen before abruptly changing his mind under the harsh glare of Hattie Potter.
"That Sanguine fellow? Why ever would you have a need for such a terrible creature!"
No one in the kitchen mentioned the fact that Sanguine wasn't such a terrible creature barely two years past when Slughorn believed he could get something out the Vampire.
"I need to find a particular Vampire, and as one himself I thought Sanguine might help."
Slughorn hesitated, but in the end could not stop himself from revealing his knowledge and far flung connections.
"Well, if that is the case, it's not Sanguine you wish to see then but the Volturi."
Hermione spoke up for the first time, attentively probing.
Softer touches weren't in Hattie's wheelhouse.
"The Volturi?"
Slughorn nodded, fiddling with a button to his shirt.
"Yes, the de facto leaders of the Vampires. They keep stringent regulation on their kind, and, I have heard, maintain records of the covens that are operating, should one grow too large and challenge them for power. If there's a Vampire you need to find they will know who and, more importantly, where they are. I believe they live in Volterra. Do be careful, however. They are not particularly… Gracious to our kind. You'd be lucky to make it through their city alive before you even reach an audience with them."
Hermione smiled politely.
"Thank you Professor Slughorn. You've been a great help. We'll be off now."
"Are you sure you can't stay and chat-"
Hattie was already heading for the door.
"No time I'm afraid. Cheers, though. I'll send you a postcard."
Slughorn waddled after them, through the hall littered with photos of ages past, newspaper clippings of former glory days, and tatty thank you notes sent decades ago.
"Well be sure to pop by at a later point-"
The front door shut with a clack.
Hattie turned to Hermione as they made their way down the garden path.
"Looks like we're heading to Germany."
Hermione huffed as she tried to keep up with Hattie's faster gate.
"Italy. Volterra is in Italy, Hattie."
"Italy, Germany, same difference to European Vampires. No doubt they're hold up in some bloody castle lit to the heavens with gothic candles and squirrelled away artworks, plotting on thrones of world fuckin' domination."
Hermione sniffed stiffly.
"This isn't an Anne Rice novel, Hattie. I'm sure they're going to be perfectly respectable."
And, in return, Hattie snorted.
"Yeah, and my names not Potter."
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The most noticeable feature of the palatial home to the Volturi was the large turret that rose above the rest of the rather squat structure. From Hermione's preliminary location spells, the majority of the building was actually situated underground, logical, given the Volturi's… Nature and the burning sun blasting down from the sky above. Though there were several entrances littered about the plaza to the fortress, the front door was located at street level, under the arch of a passing lane.
Across the way, standing at the cusp of a nearby narrow alley, Hermione and Hattie eyed the door as the latter chuckled dryly.
"And you said this wasn't going to be anything like interview with the Vampire."
Hermione huffed.
"And I stand by it. Surely they can't be so stereotypical?"
"Says the witch who brews potions in a caldron while wearing a pointy hat."
Hattie didn't wait for Hermione's reply, as she made way for the door opposite the pair.
"Hattie!"
Hermione hissed.
"Hattie! Where the bloody hell are you going?"
"What's it look like?"
Hattie asked as she span on her heel, sauntering backwards towards the door.
"I'm going to knock on their fancy fuckin' door, and then I'm going to say surprise, and blast a stunner in their face."
A.N: THANK YOU all for the followers, favourites and the lovely reviews! I can't say how many times I've read every single one, and I just wanted to thank you all for all your kind words. I hope you all liked this chapter, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all soon!