CHAPTER 2: Field Trip from Heaven (Hell)
"We could take our brooms right?" Ron suggested after Delphi permitted the students to all collected their wands from the floor. None of them were exactly eager to test their warden.
"We aren't going anywhere, this doesn't concern the lot of you," Harry said stubbornly. There were various negative responses to this statement but none more livid than Neville's.
"What was the point of the D.A. if not for times exactly like this?" the Longbottom heir growled. "We're coming with you Harry, even if she wasn't here. Besides, not all of us own our own brooms, and the school brooms are an atrocity," he finished with a shiver. Delphi didn't understand why, but she knew he probably had some kind of history with the school brooms.
Delphi smirked at the kids as they walked through the bridge that spanned the ravine between Hagrid's hut, the Forbidden Forest, the Quidditch pitch, and the rest of the castle. "The angry one's got a point there Potter," Delphi drawled as she casually fixed her tie and dusted down her slacks. The kids would have no way to know, but she had woven a number of spells into her clothes allowing for undetectable extension charms in all her pockets, various protective wards, and manually triggered self-cleaning functions.
She reached into one of these pockets. Though not the one that held a sizable portion of her total wealth, putting a literal twist on the phrase 'deep pockets'. But she didn't withdraw money; instead she took out a ring. A golden ring with an unbroken black stone, the sign of the Deathly Hallows carved artfully on the surface. She placed the ring on right hand, third finger.
"What's that?" Malfoy asked, practically drawn to the item, which screamed 'wealth and heirloom'.
"Proof of legacy among other things. In short, it's an heirloom," Delphi responded as they had finished crossing the bridge.
"There's a herd of Thestrals in the forest," Luna spoke up, her Irish accent lilting over them like a calming draught. Delphi focused on the grey-eyed blonde girl and decided not to underestimate her. She had proven she had a big heart by sparing Pansy, and that she was a stable thinker in moments of crisis.
"Have ridden a Thestral before?" Pansy almost couldn't help but ask. Luna turned to her and slowly smiled, nodding her head.
"Well, that solves that problem," Delphi muttered. And so they spent the next ten minutes or so in silence, trudging past Hagrid's vacant cabin, past the Whomping Willow, and into the dense canopy of trees that had stood there for centuries.
"May I see that ring?" Luna asked suddenly, the dreamy quality in her voice gone.
Delphi looked down at her fellow blonde and replied, "Upon our return. It wouldn't do to distract you." The others exchanged confused looks, completely in the lurch about what was being discussed.
"It's real?" Luna's voice broke with a desperation no one had ever heard from her before save her father. But that was the day her mother died.
Delphi stopped and turned fully to the younger girl. "Yes. And I will let you use it. But you would do well to remember the story from whence this little beauty came from. It does not do to dwell on dreams of what can never be, and by doing so, forget to live, yes?" Delphi's speech pattern and solemnity broke through Luna's bout of desperation. Delphi put her hand on the blonde's shoulder and gave a small squeeze. "It wants you to die. Never forget that my dear."
Their moment of importance was broken when there was a thunderous noise that sounded oddly like footsteps. "Grawp," Hermione breathed with fear.
"Wot?" Delphi asked.
"Hagrid's half-brother," Harry elaborated. Delphi just looked at him and he got her message to extrapolate. "Hagrid's half giant. His half brother is full giant."
"What the fuck?" Draco asked in horror. They didn't have to wait long before a thirty-something foot giant with the proportions of a little kid wandered into their sight line. He was walking toward them.
"You're familiar with him right?" Delphi asked as she drew her wand. She wasn't taking chances with this one.
"We met him once," Hermione hedged. "But it was only for a little while."
"I'm going to make this as simple as possible. You will tell him to fuck off, and go swallow somebody else whole; I'm not particularly into that kind of death. You will do this, or I will kill him." Delphi's voice wasn't exactly cold, but it was too calm all the same.
"You can't just–," Harry tried to interject, but Delphi silenced him with a look that took his breath away. Her eyes. Her eyes had flared dark crimson, and then they were normal again.
"He's a bleedin' giant! How are you going to do that?" Ginny spoke up. "You might be strong, but giants are resistant to spell-fire."
"Ten points to Gryffindor," Delphi drawled. She took out her trench knife; the tool of choice she used to dispatch Umbridge not fifteen minutes ago. "How would you suppose I kill him then?" she asked as if she were a teacher asking a question in the classroom.
"You won't have to," Hermione said. "I can ask him to leave."
"I want you to ask him to leave. My stance isn't murder for fun, Miss Granger. It's self-defense." Delphi replied with an eye-roll.
"Banish the knife through his eye, out the back of his head," Pansy said quietly. Delphi turned to the teenage girl she had traumatized by threat of torture, and smiled.
"Right you are Miss Parkinson."
The giant was upon them. He wasn't making any gestures that were overly aggressive movements, but he said, "HERMY? WHERE HAGGER?"
"He remembers me," Hermione muttered to herself. But before she could properly respond, there was more thunderous noise. This time, it was the centaur herd. "Mister Potter, you've returned. What is your business here?"
"HERMY! WHERE HAGGER!"
"I DON'T KNOW. HE'S NOT HERE." Hermione shouted back, ignoring the centaur army. They were an army; every single one of them was armed with bows and arrows. "I'LL COME BACK LATER, PLEASE GO." The giant looked very confused at Hermione's words. Honestly, the group that came from the Headmistress' office was surprised he seemed to recognize human speech at all.
"What the fuck?" Delphi asked the heavens as the situation proceeded to get stranger and more dangerous.
"We were looking for the Thestrals. We don't want any trouble. I remember you, you're Bane." Harry raised his voice in what he hoped was a strong and confident tone. He didn't totally succeed. But it was alright…
"Yes. I was there the night Firenze vouched for your innocence in the slaying of our neighbors, the unicorns. He's a traitor now though, and he is not welcome back among us. He's chosen his side. And you have no right to trespass on our territory," Bane began as the army began to get a little bit anxious at the giant visibly losing his temper.
The giant punched a tree in his frustration that he was being ignored. Delphi shrugged as she brandished her knife, ready to follow through on her threat, using Pansy's strategy. But Bane got there first. "Silence yourself you brute!" He gestured for all his comrades to open fire at once.
Grawp screamed as he was riddled with arrows. Though for the sheer number of arrows, to the giant, Delphi thought it must feel like an acupuncture session gone badly. He had the sense to protect his eyes, causing his arms to take much of the damage. "Well this is fun, but we should really go now, yes?" Delphi spoke up after they (the students that is) were doused in Grawp's blood as he flailed about. Delphi's made herself impervious to gore. Because she had grooming standards.
The centaurs decided to turn tail and run after Grawp managed to grab one and make a mess of him. Entrails and limb fragments sprayed over everyone again, and even Bane wasn't keen on continuing after that. Grawp spit out the centaur's decapitated head right at Bane, so maybe the giant had a sense of humour.
Grawp left the humans to chase the centaurs since he obviously had a taste for them now. Delphi put her trench knife back in its sheath and glanced around. "Well, that was a thing," Delphi muttered to herself. The traumatized children were still staring at the pile of entrails that hadn't either been splattered on the centaurs or found their way down Grawp's gullet. . She decided to have mercy. "Who wants me to obliviate the last couple minutes from your memory?"
There weren't any takers, though Delphi figured they wanted to forget, but didn't trust her not to completely erase their personhood by turning their memories to ash. Which was a valid concern, but even Delphi had moral boundaries she wouldn't cross…unless she deemed the situation to necessitate such a horrific choice. "Suit yourselves," Delphi shrugged. She turned to Luna again and smiled, "So, we've lost some time already, if you could continue to be our guide, we'll be over to the ministry before we know it,"
Luckily, the Thestrals were drawn to them (along with some giant spiders Ron viciously destroyed) because of all the gore and blood painting their immediate surroundings a decidedly not forest-like colour. "There's enough here for everyone. Mount up!" Delphi cried out as she eagerly clambered somewhat gracelessly onto the biggest of the lot, the matriarch. "What are you all doing standing there?"
"Only Harry, Luna, and I were able to see them before," Neville spoke up. Delphi nodded in understanding. At least Umbridge was useful for something.
"Well don't gawk forever, we've got a man to save from a horrible fate right?" Delphi continued in that eerily cheery tone the students were beginning to associate with her specifically.
After a couple of minutes that included Draco falling off of his Thestral like a pro, they were ready. Delphi gently encouraged her beast forward with some soft crooning and then they were airborne one by one.
The trip down to England was somewhat lackluster from Delphi's perspective. But she did appreciate the vibrations from the beating wings of the magnificent creature traveling up her legs and into her abdomen. She figured she could've flown faster herself, but she could've also just created a portkey, and that would've been boring.
They crammed into the red telephone box that Harry guided them to and Hermione couldn't help but feel that Doctor Who had given her some seriously false expectations about phone booths. It sucked.
The magical artificial intelligence asked "What is the purpose of your visit today?"
"Rescue Mission," Harry spoke up having anticipated the question. His previous visit to the ministry going through his head all the more vividly now he was retracing his steps from the day of his 'hearing'. It was a trial and everyone knew it.
The badges were passed about, and pinned to the front of everyone's uniform. Well, Luna decided to use the badge as a makeshift barrette in her hair, keeping it out of her eyes. Pansy seemed to briefly consider doing the same, but backed down and decided to pin it to her uniform like everyone else. Delphi just put the badge in one of her pockets, "It's not like anybody's going to be inspecting us for them," she said at Hermione's raised eyebrow.
They exited the elevators and found themselves in the atrium. As they crossed the expansive space, Delphi took out her wand and cast three disillusionment charms, effectively hiding herself and the two representatives of Slytherin House from sight. Delphi pulled from one of her seemingly infinite pockets three masks with attached hoods. The masks were pretty standard face masks, sort of like a half-balaclava that just covered everything up the eyes. The hood rankled Pansy for a moment before she realized there was some sort of charm on it that didn't necessitate her to change her hairstyle. "It feels like my hair's still touching my shoulders," she said with a small bit of wonder.
"Yeah, that's a neat feature. My hair is still in a bun, but that's not what anyone else would see. But the masks aren't actually for concealment, since my disillusionment charm should take care of that aspect. These masks and hoods are for private communication between the three of us." Delphi explained.
"Whom are you talking to?" Ginny asked as she turned around to look at where she knew Delphi, Pansy, and Draco were walking behind them.
"You all can hear me because I want you to," Delphi addressed the others. "But only I can hear Miss Parkinson and Mister Malfoy. You won't be able to see us, and in case of a fight, neither will our enemies be they ministry employees or otherwise. In the case of conflict don't count on me to just intervene for you though. I might get involved, or I might sit back and watch, it'll really depend on the situation."
"That's not exactly encouraging," Hermione muttered.
"Hey, didn't that one," Delphi pointed to Neville, "Say that you've trained for this kind of thing for a while now? You'll probably be fine. Most of you will make it out of this for sure!" Unsurprisingly nobody else shared Delphi's chipper mood.
The rooms got stranger and stranger the further they delved into the Department of Mysteries. Case and point, the room with the creepy archway leading into the void. "Do you hear them?" Harry asked timidly.
"Yes," everyone replied.
Delphi's ring felt tingly, and she looked down at it. 'Something worth investigating later for sure,' she thought to herself as they left the room behind them for the moment.
They walked through a room that had to do with time, and Delphi was understandably fascinated by it. She walked over to the shelves that held the time turners, and after browsing them for a moment; she picked one up with a satisfied smug look on her face. It was bigger than the others, and instead of gold, it was ebony, with sapphire runes carved around it. The hourglass part of it didn't contain sand, but something that looked like the nearly gaseous form of a patronus. It was a shame nobody could see Delphi's low-key heist through the immaculate camouflage spell she had woven around herself and the Slytherins.
Before long, they were in the Hall of Prophecy. "It was right here!" Harry shouted with a bit of genuine panic in his voice for the first time that day, at least that Delphi had seen.
"Um, Harry? This one has your name on it." Neville was standing over by one of the thousands of orbs that did indeed have his name on it.
Delphi tapped the new time turner, whispering something and the thing glowed blue for a moment before returning to normal. Before Harry could make his way over to the shelf, Delphi got there first. She slipped off the glove on her hand, moving the ring to her left side, mirroring a wedding ring. The pale fingers of her closed around the milky orb and pulled it from its perch. Hermione gasped, but her fear was for naught. Nothing bad had happened. Delphi looked down at it and her face split into an ecstatic grin at her accomplishment. Her theory about herself was right. She knew once the others heard it, she'd have to explain to them line for line, and probably 'Bumblefuck' too.
She didn't really call Dumbledore 'Dumbledore' inside her head; and so long as she didn't call him bumblefuck to anybody else, no one would get upset with her for it. She was really looking forward to roasting him for ensuring Potter's abuse in one way or another for his entire life as a minor. She hated the arrogant Potter from her time who grew complacent with everyone kissing his feet, but after coming to this timeline and learning exactly how closely their childhoods were parallels of each other, she lost her shit with the old man who scared the shit out of her dad. No child deserved to grow up the way they had; Delphi wasn't a monster.
The prophecy that felled her father; the one she had learned from its publication in the Quibbler when she was thirteen, could refer to her as well. But it never really became something she obsessed about until she decided to use Albus and Scorpius' stupidity to time travel. Well, that didn't work out to well, so she had to break out of Azkaban prison. But really, what were they expecting? That the old ruin of a prison could hold her? C'mon. Delphi shook her head of all these thoughts as she swiftly turned and handed the orb, the prophecy, to Harry. "You might want to hear this," she bent down to whisper in his ear, startling him slightly.
She felt the change in their situation before the children did, and she silently immobilized Pansy and Draco before her Uncle Lucius and her mother Bellatrix revealed their arrival. "What do we have here?" Lucius' drawl carried over to them and they immediately closed ranks with Delphi, Draco, and Pansy standing off to the side; warded from most spell damage (thanks to Delphi's quick thinking) and able to observe this encounter.
When Delphi's eyes found her mother, wicked as she was, the daughter couldn't help but tear up, seeing her mother for the first time.