Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction based on the characters created by J. K. Rowling. Rights to said characters remain with Miss Rowling and her publishers.
The Janus Order
Chapter 6
Harry stretched out his arm and Hermione landed on it. Her talons wrapped around his forearm but it not look as if it caused Harry any pain.
"Harry, I am so glad to have found you," Hermione exclaimed her voice dripping with relief. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Harry answered with a smile. "But I wasn't aware that you had lost me."
"Harry, your body is lying in the hospital wing dying," Hermione cried.
Harry tenderly stroked her feathers. "It's nothing to be concerned about Hermione," He said.
"Nothing to be concerned about!" Hermione screeched. "Harry, I love you. I don't want you to die."
"Do I look as if I'm dying," Harry asked with a small grin on his lips.
Hermione looked away from Harry. For the first time she noticed her surroundings. They were on the edge of a glen. A temperate forest grew behind them with mountains rising up on three sides. A river charged noisy out of the mountains and slashed its way through the copious grasses of the glen only to disappear into a vast lake in the distance. The wind carried subtle fragrances that were unfamiliar to the city bred Hermione but spoke to her deepest atavistic memories.
She turned her huge eyes back to Harry.
"Harry, why are you a human while I'm an owl?" Hermione asked.
"Because that's the metaphor you chose to get here," Harry replied.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Do you want to be a girl again?"
"Yes."
"Then be so."
In the blink of an eye, Hermione's perspective changed. She was no longer on Harry's forearm but standing beside him. She moved her wings before her and found that she had hands again. Impulsively, she pulled Harry into an ardent hug.
"I was so afraid that I would never see you again," She sobbed.
Harry held her as her tears ran their course. With one hand he softly stocked her air as he had done her feathers moments earlier. He cooed soothing noises in her ear. Eventually, she stopped crying.
With a loud sniff Hermione broke out of Harry's embrace. "I probably look a fright. Do you have a handkerchief?" Hermione asked before her brain received the image that her eyes sent it. "Oh damn, Harry, you'll naked! I'm naked!"
Harry extended his arm and opened his hand. There was a large blue handkerchief in it. Hermione frowned at the offered cloth but took it anyway. Hermione wiped her eyes then blew her nose loudly. When she looked up Harry was clad in blue jeans, a dark green tee shirt and black boots.
"You could have put clothes on me too," Hermione said.
"No, but you can," Harry answered serenely.
With a thought, Hermione covered herself with a white summer dress. Soft slippers materialized on her feet. The abused handkerchief disappeared but the moonstone pendant rested against her chest.
"Where are we?" Hermione asked.
"Alberta."
"We're in Canada?" Hermione asked in confusion
"No, not Canada," Harry said. "But Alberta none the less. Where we are I have chosen it to be what I would consider a perfect representation of Alberta."
"Where ever we are," Hermione said unable to grasp what Harry was trying to tell her. "We have to get back to Hogwarts. You're dying."
Harry affectionately took Hermione's hand.
"Come with me," He said. "And don't worry."
The trail they followed skirted the edge of the forest. The leaves of oak, ash, and laurel trees rustled in the breeze as deer emerged to graze upon the lush grasses of the glen. Hundreds of birds sang from the branches. A brown bear took time away from her raid of a bees nest to watch the two children walk by. Further along, Harry rubbed the head of a gray wolf that was lying on a boulder soaking up the sun.
The path turned downhill suddenly and Hermione saw a small cabin made of field stone with a thatch roof below them. On a swing in the shade of a willow, a young couple held hands as they leisurely rocked back and forth.
They stood as Harry and Hermione approached the cabin. The woman was pale and slender. She wore a brown skirt and a peasant blouse. Knee high brown leather boots were laced tightly to her legs. She had long thick auburn hair and melancholy green eyes. The man was as tall as the woman but the broadness of his shoulders give the impression that he was somewhat shorter. He was clad all in black, shirt, trousers, and boots. Unruly black hair framed a face that Hermione had grown to know so well.
"Hermione, these are my parents, James and Lily," Harry introduced. "Mom, Dad, let me make you known to Hermione Granger, my friend."
"Welcome, Hermione," Lily said in the soft accent of Hermione's own southern England.
"I thought you were dead," she blurted.
"In some places we are," James joked. His baritone voice was smooth and cultured.
"Is this Heaven?" Hermione asked.
"In a way," Lily answered.
"I don't understand," Hermione said in confusion. "I haven't understood anything since I arrived here."
Lily put her arm around the young girl and ushered her to the swing. James and Harry sat down in two wicker chairs that hadn't been there a moment before.
"Let's start with what you do understand," Lily said as they sat down. "Why are you here?"
"Harry's dying," Hermione said although it now sounded like a bizarre concept to her. "Dumbledore couldn't find him but I thought I could. I did but it's the last of this affair that I'm sure of."
"Interesting choice of words," James said roguishly.
"How did you find Harry?" Lily asked in her soft melodious voice.
"I just followed the cord," Hermione said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I became an owl and flew along the cord until I spied Harry on the mountainside."
"Mountainside?" Lily asked.
"She is seeing what I created," Harry explained. "A Platonic ideal of Alberta."
"If she followed you that would be logical," James acknowledged.
"Now I'm lost again," Hermione said. "Do you see something different from what I see?"
Lily placed her hand on Hermione's shoulder and smiled. In an instant, the temperate forests of Alberta vanished. They were on a Mediterranean island. The hot sun beat down upon the beach but the warm breeze kept the temperature bearable, especially in the shade where Hermione found herself with the others. The stone cabin was now a villa in an arabesque style.
"James and I have a deep love of the Mediterranean," Lily said fondly. "We honeymooned on his family schooner, the CrownedSea Lion. That's it moored yonder."
The single mast schooner swayed lethargically on the water. The harsh cries of seagulls could be heard as they flew about the ship and pier.
"Harry sought us out," Lily said. "Having never known us, he was curious and to our surprise and pride he had the skill to come to James and me. This has been a joy for the three of us. We have had such long, long conversations."
"But Harry's only been gone a few hours," Hermione said.
"Time does not exist here," James said.
Hermione fell silent for a few moments. The Potters kept quiet and allowed Hermione her thoughts. She wrestled with the concepts that this place and the Potters had unfolded for her. She finally shook her head. It would require a huge amount of reading for her to understand the mechanics that governed this place; mechanics that Harry appeared to have comprehended intuitively.
"I'm sorry," Hermione apologised. "You must think that I'm thicker then a plank but I'm having difficulty understanding eternity."
James smiled. "Eternity isn't to be analyzed. You simply accept it."
Harry stood. "Let's go for a swim then I'll head on back to Hogwarts with you."
Hermione took his offered hand. Together they walked out into the hot sunshine and down along the white sands of the beach. Tiny crabs scurried across their path while beach grasses bent before the wind. Harry escorted Hermione to the end of the pier. Without a word he dove in. When he crested the surface, Harry was in the form of a dolphin. Laughing, Hermione dove in after him.
From the shade of the trees, James and Lily watched the two dolphins skip across the waves. They dove and jumped as they worked their way further and further from the coast.
"She is able to see the cord," Lily said.
"That she can," James answered as he slipped his arm around his wife's waist.
"I don't think that she understands the significance of that," Lily said.
"I'm sure she doesn't."
Harry opened his eyes. A large crystal was spinning above his midsection. Professor Snape was on one side of him. Madame Pomfrey was on the other. He could feel Hermione's fingertips on his forehead.
"He's back, Albus!" Madame Pomfrey cried out.
Hermione's fingers left his head. Harry attempted to sit up but the nurse pushed him back down.
"Oh no, laddie boy," she said. "You aren't going anywhere until you are thoroughly examined."
"That was quick," Dumbledore said. His voice sounded weak to Harry's ears. The room was mostly blurs to Harry.
"Does someone have my glasses?" Harry asked.
"I think that they're still on that end table in the common room," Hermione answered from across the room.
"Let's have everyone leave, shall we," Madame Pomfrey said. "You can lecture him to death tomorrow. I want to assess the damage he managed to do to himself with this escapade."
"I'm fine, Harry insisted.
"Well then, what more do we need?" Madame Pomfrey asked archly. "Certainly not my decades of healing experience for the patient said that he is fine."
Harry knew a losing battle when he saw one. With a sigh he laid back on to the bed.
"I'm sorry if I caused any trouble," he called out. "But honestly there was never any danger."
"We'll talk later, Harry," Dumbledore said appearing briefly above his head. Harry felt a sharp prang of guilt when he saw the headmaster's haggard appearance.
Hermione walked over to his bed and lightly kissed him. Her hair draped about Harry's face.
"A new measure of eternity will be the number and length of the sermons you will be enduring for this stunt," she whispered to him.
Harry breathed in her fragrance. "You're probably right," he said. "But maybe I can convince them that it was alright."
She throatily laughed as she straightened up. "Optimist."
