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An Old and New World
by Lens of Sanity
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Chapter Twenty One: Karmic Bypass
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Hermione Granger was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. She'd taken note of the predominant Slytherin colours adorning the rest of the room, and now was staring without thought directly overhead. She was pointedly not in her own room. And that was bad. Very bad.
She should be in her own room. That was where she should be. Definitely. She should definitely be in her own room.
...
She was going to be in so much trouble.
The green tones were pleasing to the eye, relaxing and stylish, if a touch on the grandiose side. A lot like her friend really, now that the idea crossed her mind. Hermione had gotten closer with a new friend ever since Harry had survived his death, mainly due to the fact that Tamsyn was one of the few sensible people in her life. A girl who didn't appreciate all of the foolishness people like Luna and Harry threw around without even thinking about it.
The girl had always been around when she needed a helping hand, or wanted to talk through some new theory she'd been reading in a book. Although on the other side the woman had some very disturbing notions as to the application of magic, most of which was uncomfortably dark in nature. Still, she was intelligent, and could on regular occasions provide illuminating insight when the two were conversing.
A mass of voluminous crimson hair shifted on Hermione's chest. Oh no! She was waking up. And that was bad. Very bad.
She definitely shouldn't be here!
Hermione found herself pinned by that brown eyed look which made her feel like a mouse, a tiny mouse cornered by a gigantic viper. "T-Tam y-" she tried in a small voice. Then those lithe, supple fingers of hers began to move. When those large soft lips began trailing their way down her abdomen, she spoke again, "S-stop. Please?"
After a time Hermione let out a small gasp as her breath caught, and the redhead instantly stopped. Looking over her flushed skin and goosefleshed state, Tam acquiesced, "Okay, Hermione. You wanted me to stop. So I stopped."
Now that was just so unfair!
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Hermione walked the halls of Harry's airship lost in thought. It was noon, a little over twenty‑four hours since the ethically dubious climax of their fortress infiltration. She still hadn't made up her mind about that, but with all of the other far more immediate concerns, the destruction of an entire city in a single blow had been put on the back burner.
Passing her Library—she shivered—on the way to find her friends, Hermione was lost in thought as had been said. Tamsyn had made her do all kinds of terrible things last night, and Hermione had tried to make her stop, but she wouldn't. And then this morning she had attempted to escape, and Tam had stopped her, forcing her to do more things. Afterwards, when the redhead had gotten her way, she had forced Hermione into a shower to "clean up," and that hadn't gone at all well either.
She didn't know what had happened. Wait! That was it! Tam was evil, this much was obvious, and she used all kinds of horrid Dark Magic every single day. The proclivity toward Dark Magic meant that she was probably an expert caster of the Imperius Curse. Therefore the only sensible conclusion was that she, Hermione, had been put under the Imperius Curse by Tam at some point in the recent past.
Coming across Sirius and Luna, noting with confusion as both of them complimented her on her hair for some reason. Which was strange because her hair was a notorious nightmare. Regardless, they did not know where Harry was, so she continued on her search.
Right then, well now she knew she was under the effects of "Fluch Der Imperius," she could begin doing something about it. In fact, from her fourth year experience under that awful curse, Hermione knew that there was a calming sense of euphoria which helped the recipient relax and follow orders. And Hermione was certainly feeling those kinds of effects right now, so it just added credence to her whole Imperius theory.
Now, what did the books tell her about fighting off the Unforgivable? It was all willpower. If Hermione could get her willpower strong enough to begin seriously questioning Tam's nefarious orders, then she needn't have a stronger will, only strong enough. Then she could break the effects.
It was simple.
All she had to do was say 'No!'
"Hello Hermione," Tam greeted from her position lounging around the main room, "have you seen Harry?"
"No!" Hermione asserted forcefully, before the evil immoral redhead kissed her.
Damn! So close.
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It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind. There had been, what was presumably a terrorist attack a little over thirty‑six hours ago, and as such normal memos really couldn't hold his focus to any great extent.
He turned over the second page of the memo, saw how much longer it went on, and gave it up as a bad job. Stretching his arms above his head he looked around his handsome office, a fine marble fireplace facing the long sash windows, firmly closed of course, against late summer's unseasonable cold.
His aide came in a short while later and set about a long garbled briefing. The repeated use of words like "impossible" and "preposterous," had primed the stately politician sufficiently to make an educated guess. There had been a detonation on British soil, however the investigating fact finders were informing his aide that none of the radioactive fallout was progressing much beyond a few miles of the blast zone. A sleepy out of the way village of no military or strategic importance whatsoever.
This impossible "bubble" being described to him, and the news that the whole scene seemed to have now vanished, screamed one thing; it was them!
He knew it.
Somehow it was them, and they were going to give him some answers. Chasing out his aide the Prime Minister moved over to a dirty oil painting in the far corner of the room. Depicting a froglike little man wearing a long silver wig this had been far from his favourite piece of art. Tapping the frame and glaring with menace, the Prime Minister spoke in command to the stationary figure.
"Get the Other Minister here right this instant!"
Thirty minutes later he was face to face with the Other Minister, a man with a shaggy appearance more lined with grey than last time the two had been in discussion. He proceeded to explain the magical side of the story, and how one of their citizens had magiced a device which was used to destroy the... city?
Had he heard that right? The Prime Minister's sources indicated less than a thousand inhabitants.
Regardless, the story seemed a little off to the politician, in that he doubted any such magical device had actually been used. The fact finders collected enough data to track down exactly which nuclear device had been set off for god's sake. They'd identified it with some kind of radioactive spectrum process which didn't seem important, so the Prime Minister knew the thing to be one of Russian design believed to have been decommissioned.
As this was one of the few times in which the Prime Minister seemed to be better informed than his magical colleague, he decided not to share this morsel of information.
"I wish to meet this Harry Potter character," he concluded.
"Well, there may be a slight problem with that," the man said with frustration, "he rarely answers his mirror. And even when he does, you're lucky to get any useful information out of him at all."
The Minister, Scrimgeour, seemed legitimately irritated when admitting this. "What do you mean? You are supposed to be in charge of your side of the government are you not? One man should be of little consequence regardless of how well connected."
"It's not that," Scrimgeour attested. "The previous administration threw him in Azkaban despite the fact that he was completely innocent, and he doesn't particularly like the Ministry."
There was obviously more to it, but the Prime Minister didn't think he'd get the full story. A young red haired assistant whose name he instantly forgot came through the fireplace a short time later carrying a hand mirror. The assistant was forced to hold the thing for him, as he was not magical himself and so couldn't operate it.
An extremely attractive woman with heavily lidded purple eyes offered a distracted greeting when he looked into the mirror.
She was not helpful.
At his request, she was replaced by a blonde woman he'd place in her mid-twenties.
The Prime Minister was suffering a headache by the end of the blonde's first sentence.
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Travelling with Luna and Bellatrix on the 24th of August, Harry was approaching Craigowan Lodge, whose appearance was being dominated by the shadow cast from his floating home. The Queen was currently residing in the seven bedroom stone house about a mile from the main castle in Balmoral, and luckily the flight hadn't taken too long. Harry had something important to do today, and would not have bothered showing up at all if not for the fact that The Crown apparently still had some authority over British Magicals.
Hermione had refused his offer to accompany him for reasons Harry was beginning to have deep seated suspicions. Instead making sure he understood this was the Queen he was meeting, and that he had to be respectful. She probably said some more things too, but Harry had only been half listening, so he may have missed some of it.
"Our entourage has been summoned by the monarch," Bellatrix Black intoned to the guard utilising some of her underused aristocratic mannerisms. Dismissively she finished, "We do not have all day."
A short time later the three were standing before the Queen in a modest greeting room, with Luna and Bellatrix flanking "Lord Potter" on both sides, standing with deference to make clear Harry was the centre of attention.
"Is this some kind of joke?" the monarch icily asked.
Not replying, Harry instead made a grand show of bowing respectfully. He was working hard to prevent his nose from twitching, or his menacing ears from intimidating the woman.
"Well!" she demanded, clearly impatient. Seeing that neither human was going to reply any time soon she went on, attempting to pin Bellatrix with a threatening glare. "I demanded the presence of Harry Potter, where is he?"
"Right here Your Majesty," Luna promptly replied, gesturing respectfully to the individual in question. Man but Luna could keep a straight face like a pro!
"The rabbit?" she asked dangerously. "Do you believe that because you are one of Our Magical citizens you can garner some amusement-"
Then Harry was standing there in the formal robes his family tome informed him were appropriate when summoned by The Crown, unwieldy Vorpal Sword strapped to his back, and giving his best effort at a commanding presence. There was an off chance it would help.
The Queen's gasping in surprise, coupled with a potentially deadly weapon on his back, caused the three guards to level SA80s at Harry and all but open fire.
"Whoa! Calm yourselves there kids," Harry ordered. "You don't want someone to get hurt." That last may or may not have been left intentionally ambiguous.
He must have made a sudden move or something, because after a few moments hesitation the three guards opened fire. Seeing this happen Luna casually lifted her right hand with splayed fingers and softly intoned a single syllable:
"No."
Every single one of the bullets careening toward the three slowed visibly, harmlessly halting in midair. The blonde then picked one from the air and examined it curiously before nodding once, causing the rest to fall to the floor.
That was pretty fucking cool. Harry silently thought, he'd have to learn that at some point. Aloud he turned back to the Queen, "Now that killing us didn't work, could we move it along please?"
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Hermione was standing behind the large wooden ship's wheel piloting the Caravel of Caerbannog, and mused idly that the name really wasn't all that bad. It had obviously grown on her since all those attempts to have Harry name the thing something sensible. Steering the airship was actually quite fun she decided, and also came to the resolution to do it more often.
Merlin alone knew what was going on with Harry at the same time, but Hermione simply couldn't bring herself to go with him when he met with the Queen of England. Even though it was obvious something was going to happen which she should be there for, on the outside chance she could prevent whatever it was from going too badly.
No. She couldn't bring herself to get involved with something else when her mind was already so occupied with other things. The biggest and most glaring of which was a discovery most unfortunate in its implications.
Hermione was not—it eventually turned out—under the Imperius Curse.
And that was bad. Very bad.
She spun the wheel and the ship lurched dangerously before righting itself. Okay, she'd admit doing that was pretty fun. Not out loud, but she would admit it to herself.
Her life would have been so much simpler had she just been under the Imperius Curse. Now she had to be all stupid and Griffindorish, because she knew what she had to do. And she had no idea what the fallout was going to be like.
No idea at all.
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From his position seated atop a giant tortoise, Harry was rubbing his temples and finally reaching the end of his tether. "Fine!" he exploded, less than fifteen minutes after entering the room. "You win now shut the hell up."
Given that this was possibly the first time in decades someone had spoken to her in such a way, Elizabeth Windsor controlled herself admirably. "So you admit to setting off a Nuclear Bomb on the British Isles."
"Yes," Harry confirmed, "and you are going to have to promise not to tell anybody. If the international community figure it out, all my friends are going to be facing such a shitstorm. It'll make recapturing the Falkland Islands look like a snap."
"What makes you believe a petulant child with a hereditary title can make demands of Us?"
The constant use of the "Our Plural" was beginning to annoy him, Harry was certain she knew it too, sure she was using it on purpose. "We saved your daughter in law's life!"
"What?"
"The Princess of Wales was apparently killed in a car accident sometime next year by a drunken chauffeur," Harry intimated, gesturing to his friend, "and Luna there found the guy and memory charmed him into moving to South Africa."
"Was killed, next year?" asked the confused Queen.
Harry frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did I not mention the time travel?"
The small group then spent the next hour and a half discussing a future that never happened, how the world was conquered by a half crazy, half insane madman, and how Luna came back to help Harry ensure things turned out differently. The bodyguards were obliviated once the Queen agreed to keep their secret. One word to the wrong Magical could have spelled doom for the group, and it turned out the Prime Minister had come within a hair's breadth of blabbing to Scrimgeour before they could start damage control at all!
"And this fiendish cascading firebomb of which you told the magical community..." Liz asked leadingly.
"...Is a red herring," Harry finished. "I'm hoping that in years to come it will end up known as the 'Riddle of Potter' or something, because the idea was a masterpiece." He paused, noticing the surprisingly friendly nature their conversation had taken. "The arithmancy and spellcrafting look as though they will work. Only the person attempting to re-create my made-up device, will solve one problem only to be confronted by two more. My hope is that dark wizards and witches attempting to construct a magical city destroying weapon will waste tremendous effort and energy on a hopeless cause, instead of hurting random people and making a nuisance of themselves."
"Quite thoughtful of you now that I think on it," the monarch commented, mulling this over for a while. "Not the kind of thing I would expect from the decedent of a man who you claim was made a Lord, because of his actions against-"
"Please don't mention that again," Harry pleaded, "how do you think I felt learning that little family fact?" Having been interrupted more times over the last ninety minutes than in the last nineteen years, the Queen did not bother to chastise. "Well I have something to do today, so if you have any more questions..." he trailed off. "Actually, I do have one more important thing to ask you."
"Yes?" Liz enquired.
"Is that a Rolls‑Royce you have parked out front?"
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Passing through long open roads, along motorways, and eventually down narrow suburban streets, Harry was enjoying the drive. He never took enough time to enjoy the simple things, and the soft leather and smooth ride of this luxury car definitely counted as something which needed to be enjoyed. All too soon he stepped onto the pavement of his destination, once again on the outskirts of Oxford.
Strolling up to Hermione's surprisingly well warded home he ratted on the door and was whisked in by his close friend Emma, who began nattering about everything that had been going on in her life since they last met up for coffee. Eventually Hermione's father came in, becoming visibly perturbed by the cosy nature of conversation, and would later explode when he found out how regularly the two met up to chat.
Turning to the imposing man, Harry stood, "Ah, Mr. Granger a pleasure as always."
The friendly smile and demeanour briefly left Hermione's father with a loss for words, managing but an eloquent, "Kgah-!"
"Now I wish this was simply a social call, however there is something quite serious I must ask you and your lovely wife," Harry went on determined.
"What is it Harry dear?" asked Emma, concern evident in her tone of voice. Smiling to Hermione's mother Harry turned, and with resolve looked the family's patriarch directly in the eye:
"I would like permission to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage."
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Two hours later Dan Granger was slumped on the floor of his study. The place was a mess, absolute total devastation. All of his medical journals were ripped and torn, loose pages littering the carpet, which was itself ripped in places.
The snow globe his mother Mary Granger bought him as a souvenir from her trip to the Azores was in pieces, the tinted water it once contained staining his heavy wooden desk. In rage and desperation he'd shredded the photographs of his beautiful family, and they too lay scattered on the around his study.
The world was over.
His baby—his beautiful little girl—was going to marry that monster. Dan just knew it! Nothing he could possibly say would dissuade her once his angel made up her mind. And even Emma, his traitorous better half, was going to side against him.
God alone knew what that... person... was making his little girl do at night. A boy like him would undoubtedly have her acting in ways she would think abhorrent, and making her think it was her own idea!
Dan shuddered as his overactive imagination spiralled out of control, bringing to the forefront of his mind scene after scene of depravity. Hands shaking, the man thought, Hermione was always such a sweet little girl.
There was only one thing he could reasonably do to stop this. There were a few niggling problems as to the logistics, but even if he were caught it would be worth it.
Dan Granger had to kill Harry Potter.
It was the only sensible course of action. Okay, so the boy was a wizard and that made things more difficult. Nevertheless witches and wizards were still human, Hermione had said so, and they could die just like anyone else. Only well, that bastard Potter had apparently survived his death once already...
Dan almost started to cry; was there anything he could do at all?
He heard someone at the front door, and then heard the front door open, and then heard Emma call, "Dan can you come downstairs for a moment, Hermione has something she would like to tell us."
Dan numbly got to his feet and went downstairs, bracing himself to hear news of the apocalypse from his daughter's lips.
When Hermione informed him that she was in a same sex relationship with a girl she'd met at school, Dan physically cried for joy. The relief was just that strong.
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"Confundo!" Harry shouted. Stupid bloody police, I really need to learn memory charms at some point!
Stepping from the wreckage of a Rolls‑Royce Silver Spirit he checked himself over and noted a few bumps and scrapes, but no lasting injuries. Being a wizard was awesome, how he ever believed Lily and James Potter could have possibly died in a car crash he'd never know. Taking a couple of moments to ensure none of the Muggles were seriously hurt, Harry then ran off to find a quiet place from which he could safely apparate away.
Reappearing noiselessly in a small dirty alleyway in London he let out a brief sigh and loosened his aching shoulder, making his way toward the mostly refurbished Order Headquarters at twelve Grimmauld Place. After a brief conversation with the Weasley twins, and the purchase of a small pod-like cartridge about the size of his arm, Harry was confronted by Tonks.
"I can't believe you got away with it!" declared the metamophmagus.
Tilting his head to the side Harry responded, "Got away with what?"
"Setting off a—umph..."
"A Fiendfyre Cascade!" Harry interrupted forcefully, hand over her mouth. "You should not have been told! How did you even know?"
"Luna was questioning Aunt Bellatrix and didn't notice I was in the room," Tonks admitted warily, not really liking the unaccustomedly fierce expression. "And I won't tell anyone if it's that important. I was just amazed you managed to get the Queen to sign off on it."
Harry's expression brightened to his more familiar, annoyingly cheerful appearance. "I think the thing which went furthest in convincing her was Luna's assertion that the most challenging aspect of time travel was grammar."
Was Tonks rubbing up against him more than usual?
"You seriously can get away with absolutely anything can't you?" the surprisingly pretty twenty‑three year old stated in amazement.
"Anyhow, school starts back up in a week, so what we going to do now?" Harry asked rhetorically, moving into the sitting room and whoever was hanging around headquarters.
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"It still hasn't worn off Harry!" Hermione chastised from a cosy position next to her girlfriend.
"Will someone please tell me why the fucking hell I'm riding the Hogwarts Express again!" Harry shouted. "Honestly, I'm a legal adult and Sirius has no authority over me. And I even spent last night in the castle for Merlin's sake. I had to apparate to Kings Cross just to board the train to go back to... oh wait, the exact same friggin' castle!"
Everybody in the compartment ignored Harry's rant with practiced ease. He made it every single time he rode on the Hogwarts Express, so it was nothing new.
"When are you going to release it then?" asked Tam.
"Release what?"
"The morph," Tam nudged patiently. "She is stuck in that crazy heterochromatic blue‑haired morph Luna made up ages ago, and everyone knows it was you."
"What makes you think it was me?" Harry asked defensively.
Luna—who really had no need to be here either—snorted in amusement, "She came flying out of your room, completely naked and looking like that." Seeing Harry was going to protest she finished, "Give it up, it was obviously you... although I am interested in what she did."
Toying with the idea of proclaiming his innocence, Harry gave it up as a bad job. "She tried to shag me."
"And you were against that happening?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Well yeah. No... Yes and no," he confirmed helpfully. "I think she was doing it as a thank you or something stupid like that. If she wanted to shag me for the hell of it, then it'd be the same as if you wanted to Hermione. But as a thank you for something?" his face twisted, "That's just wrong."
Hermione looked a little bit thoughtful, but Tam's eyes narrowed dangerously at him. Giving the raven haired sixteen year old a distinctly menacing red-glowy feeling, despite the fact that her eye colour remained a soft brown.
Seeing this Luna stepped in, "Well Tonks has been stuck like that for a week, when are you going to release her?"
"Huh?" Harry said, "Oh, I'm actually quite surprised she hasn't worked it out for herself yet. I only put a moderate Confusion Curse on her, so when Tonks tries to morph she'll get distracted. The reason she's still stuck is because I told her she'd be stuck until I allowed her to change."
"So it's mostly psychological?" the blonde asked in good humour.
"Yep, pretty sneaky eh?" After a while chatting about nothing, something occurred to him, "Did you and Albus ever pull off enchanting a new Sorting Hat?"
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"Why is the new Sorting Hat singing in an unconvincing Scouse accent?" Harry asked in dismay from his position slouched at the Slytherin House table.
"It was the best we could do," Hermione responded. "The Headmaster and I successfully made five, and that was the best one."
"What about the other four? And Scouse?"
"Well, two of them just Sorted everybody into Hufflepuff," she replied, "and one of them spoke Spanish on par with your French."
Ignoring her obvious jealousy when it came to his awe inspiring command of the French language Harry gestured for his wavy haired friend to finish, prompting, "And the fifth?"
"Had something of an angry personality," Hermione answered wearily. "It upset Bellatrix and she torched it with Fiendfyre."
"Oh," was all he said, concluding that Bella probably had a good reason.
As Harry drifted off watching the Sorting, Hermione was deep in contemplation. Following the meeting a week prior with her nice—and surprisingly accepting parents—she and Tam had come to an agreement. Tam had eventually agreed not to do too much evil, promised not to ever put her under the Imperius Curse, and that she would never make Hermione do anything she really didn't want to do.
Hermione couldn't exactly shake the feeling that the redhead found her demands amusing, and was carefully repressing the emotion when the two had talked. Nevertheless she had agreed, and now Hermione believed she could keep the other girl in line for the most part. By simple force of will if necessary. That she could fight whatever nefarious influence the other girl seemed to have over her.
So long as the redhead did not find herself in some kind of position of power over her, Hermione considered herself level headed enough to avoid getting too caught up in things. Providing everything at Hogwarts went on as it had been for the last week of the summer, things should settle into a more stable pattern over the coming year. So long as the status quo remained the same.
"...and introducing this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts instructor; Professor Tamsyn Riddle."
"Son of a bitch!" Hermione loudly swore.
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It was late evening on the first of September. Fleur and Robért had enjoyed such a wonderful day, all kinds of excitement and fun. The two had been to new places and taken pleasure from interesting experiences.
Robért took her by portkey to Rome following a luxurious breakfast in her favourite restaurant in Carcassonne, and the two spent the whole morning shopping. In the afternoon they had sat a short safety briefing and then they were up high in the sky on one of those Muggle aeroplanes, which they then proceeded to jump out of. Skydiving was certainly a new and exciting experience for the French woman.
They had been served a lavish meal accompanied by fine wine, and then gone on a starlit turn around a lake in a boat shaped like a swan. Robért had told her she was beautiful, and the two kissed. It had been a magical time spent together, one she would no doubt remember fondly for the rest of her days.
So why in the name of Merlin was she so gods damned bored?