Author's Note:
The Houses Competition (or THC) Practice Round
Story Type: Standard (up to 3,000 words)
House: Slytherin
Class: Ancient Runes
Prompts:
[First Line] It was times like this that I hated people. (Alts, pronouns can change)
[Location] St Mungo's
Word Count: 2,516
Disclaimers/triggers: AU Time travel Snamione. Involves medical issues and hospitals. Also includes a really big snake and a snake attack.
Beta Love: Thanks to persnicketyfics and EndofthePage for looking over my story!
A Resonance in Time
It was times like this that I hated people.
"It's him! The hero!" A gaggle of medi-witches titter to one another as I enter the Curse Ward of St. Mungo's.
"He's so cute," one says, primping her hair and batting her lashes.
This is a blatant falsehood, considering my horrific scars and my waxy complexion, but some people will glom onto anyone as a celebrity if an idiotic individual writes a bestselling trashy romance novel with me as the brooding love interest. What possessed that witch to do such a thing is still beyond my comprehension. The snake was big, but it wasn't that big, after all.
"I am here to see the patient." I grab the authorization talismen from the scowling, middle-aged woman at the front desk to the ward. She's no-nonsense as she taps my wrist with the tip of her wand and syncs the talismen with my magical core to grant me access to the requested room. I like that about her. The other dunderheaded fools should be off changing bedpans and helping people, not peering around the corner at me like I'm an exotic zoo exhibit.
"Such a dashing hero, wouldn't you say, Winnifred?" A blonde witch is practically gyrating as she grips onto one of the medical reference tomes as though pretending to be in a lover's embrace.
I roll my eyes and billow by the pathetic gaggle as quickly as I can without sparing a glance in their direction. While I would not consider myself completely useless, I certainly do not care about any of this "hero" nonsense. Besides, I already am on my last nerve after a fitful night of sleep.
I let out a breath of relief when the doors to the room slide shut behind me and seal as they ought to behind the wards.
"How are you doing today, Hermione?" I say, still marveling at the fact that I've been calling her by her first name for over a year.
She turns to me, golden dust gently swirling around her as though orbiting her body. She seems to flicker a bit, as though peering through a curtain of golden water. I flinch backwards instinctively, though I know her condition won't affect me.
"Hello, Severus. I'm doing quite well, actually. Any luck with the ritual and serum?"
"I've got a few things we can try, but I have no idea if it will stabilize your frequency." I place the thick roll of parchment on the small, metal table by the charmed window, and she grasps at it hungrily.
"Thank you, Severus," she says, delighted at the gift I've brought her, and I fight the urge to grin like an idiot.
And I am an idiot for letting my feelings get the best of me. There's no guarantee she will even be here, in this time and space, tomorrow. For all I know, she could fall to dust before my eyes. And yet…my heart still swells at the light in her eyes and the way she nibbles at her bottom lip when reading through the alchemical equations I've been working on.
I know full well that this Hermione Granger isn't the same child who is on the Hogwarts student roster that I requested from the Ministry archives. She's someone else, from a different place.
A different time and place.
Something went deeply wrong in her original timeline. She was experimenting with Time Sand in an attempt to fix things in her own timeline when she'd found herself abruptly shifted here.
I don't doubt that. What is confusing to me is how she somehow found herself floating above my desk when I was bent over a stack of urgent reports on the efficacy of magical antivenins and fighting away sleep.
For a moment, she was utterly still. Then, her wild gaze had fixated upon me and she began a tirade about a war and some bloke named Voldemort killing everyone she loved.
At first, it was almost too much for me to absorb, and I've been aware of magic for nearly all my life. However, I've pieced together that this Voldemort was known as Tom Riddle, who was, as far as I can gather, one of the relatively unremarkable Ministers of Magic in my timeline. According to the biography I checked out from the library, he's now a grandfather of eight and raises hippogriffs for wealthy wizarding families.
It feels strange to use the phrase my timeline, for it is all I have ever known before Hermione appeared to me. After all, while Time-Turners exist, I've never seen one in working order, and nobody I know has ever used one. They don't go far back enough in time to make any noticeable changes, and time sand is difficult to source.
'Not so, now,' I think, as I see the sand floating from every pore of her body like a dusty halo around her. Her loose cotton gown billows as the sand slips through and floats around her, falling slowly, only to disappear at about a foot away from her and seep out of her once more in an endless loop.
The Ministry has tried fruitlessly to harvest the sand from her. It's nearly intangible, and it gives your skin a nasty crawling sensation as it slowly passes through your body. I've done some initial spells, and only this special warded room with a runic coil embossed into the floor to keep her resonance mostly stable has been able to help keep her on this plane of existence.
"Severus?" Hermione is looking at me with wide eyes, and I resist the urge to reach out and tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. I marvel at how the gossamer clouds of sand swirl around her. "Can we try it? I…I don't think I have much longer."
It's true. She's been slipping out of reality more and more in the past few weeks. At first, the glow around her was subtle. I noticed it, of course, but I had chalked it up to some sort of new magical makeup product. Her appearance wasn't what drew me in, though. I was fascinated by her stories. Everything had gone so terribly that there had been a war, and she'd lost almost all of her friends and family members. My heart went out to her, as my own parents are long dead due to a drunk driver's poor judgment, and many of my friends have moved away. Lily sometimes sends me postcards from America where she lives with her husband and three children, but they are few and far between.
I tell Hermione that in my timeline, I studied magical medicine until I landed a Senior Lab Research job at St. Mungo's in the laboratory. My main claim to fame is that I thought very quickly when a massive venomous snake exploded out of the mouth of an elderly witch I was treating. I killed the horrid beast with a quick-timed Sectumsempra spell, though not before it had latched onto my throat. The woman, a Ms. Bagshot, had been brought in by her neighbor, Ariana Dumbledore, when she started behaving oddly. Turns out the bloody huge creature had crawled down her throat and hollowed the woman out. It was fitting that my own antivenin had saved my life. All told, the dead snake weighed at least half a ton and was over twelve feet long. It was hypothesized that it may have been magically altered by someone, though there was still no leads as to who it could have been. Ms. Bagshot had been a widow without any family, and Ariana had been left to settle her affairs.
Hermione tells me that Ariana Dumbledore is long dead in her timeline. I'm not sure if living to see a snake explode out of your neighbor is much of an improvement, to be honest, but I make the appropriate noises of concern.
Some of the medi-witches have taken to whispering about how I'm some sort of hero for protecting the hospital from a massive snake attack, but I look down upon them for not being ready and willing to do the same.
Hermione smirks when I tell her the story.
"You're a hero in my time too, Severus," she says, growing wistful, "but you wouldn't like it."
"I imagine that I wouldn't like it in any universe," I grumble, but despite my curiosity she won't tell me more.
I need to focus. This has nothing to do with her timeline, and everything to do with keeping her here. My rational brain still tries to argue that this is all professional curiosity and the challenge that her ailment brings, but a not-insignificant part of my heart knows that this is mostly a convenient lie.
Hermione asks for me. She calls me Severus in a sweet way that makes my cold heart soften. She depends on me. It's quite addictive to be needed, and by such a clever witch, that I often wonder if perhaps the time sand is affecting me in an unintended manner after all.
"We can try the ritual on the night of the new moon," I reply, pinching the bridge of my nose to force my tired mind to focus. "It's not guaranteed, and there's a very real possibility your frequency will not stabilize. You may end up back where you started."
"Or in a completely different timeline," Hermione adds cheerfully. "Or possibly even dead."
"Yes, well, we can cross that bridge if we come to it," I say, trying to hide my worry under an irritable tone of voice.
"Indeed," she agrees.
I must force myself to leave and attend to my other duties, but not before I promise to swipe a slice of tiramisu for her from the employee lounge.
I may hate people on principle, but when it comes to one person, that is quite a lot more complicated.
Hermione has been diligent in checking my figures and gives me a few small revisions to incorporate into the ritual. I use a special concoction that I've been brewing for over a month to help with calming her resonance. From what we can tell, each timeline has a certain frequency to each living being within it. If a being leaves that timeline, the frequency is anywhere from slightly off to extremely different, and this can become worse the longer that a person spends in that timeline. In order for Hermione to stay here, she would need to have her frequency stabilized, using magic to trick the universe into considering her as just another dimensional object that is meant to be here.
According to Hermione's account of the world she came from, there is very little left for her to go back to other than the ashes of her friends and enslavement at the hand of a mad wizard. Even more selfishly, I find that I want to feel the touch of her hand on mine, to tuck that stray hair behind her ear, and to spend moments with her tucked into my side reading. I try to hide these flights of fancy from myself, but they creep back in whenever I hear my name on her tongue.
"Come, Severus," she says, holding out her hands. "The ring is ready."
She's done a tidy job arranging the runes and connecting them with the charmed chalk, though it nearly slips through her fingers a handful of times.
"I'm just finishing the last touches," I say, knowing that if I add crushed lotus petals before we start, the potency will be increased threefold.
She sits cross-legged in the middle of the runic circle. We've pushed aside all the furniture in her room and disabled the runic coil below. The wards still hold, but I will drop them as well once the ritual begins.
"Here. You must wait until all the runes have begun to glow before you begin to drink. You must make it last all the way through the third verse of the incantation." My words are stern, but I grow flustered as her fingers brush against mine when she takes the vial in hand.
"I'm ready, Severus," she says, her voice as even and calm as I wish mine would be.
"Any last words?" I say, deadpan.
She nods, saying, "Thank you, Severus. For everything you've done for me. I…consider you a dear friend."
I suck in a sharp breath, blinking rapidly to stop the stinging in my eyes from becoming anything more substantial.
"And I you, Hermione," I finally manage.
With that, I drop the wards and begin the incantation. The candlelight flickers and dims as I start the first verse, which involves a rhythmic beat in addition to the chant, and comes out as a guttural cry deep in my throat.
Hermione sits patiently, and I can see her form blurring more and more as I circle her, willing my voice to continue the chant to ensure it is unbroken. The sand seems to thicken around her, but then it lightens again and I can still see her underneath it, her hands on the vial as she sips it slowly. I finish the third verse just as she tips the last drops down her throat. She seems more solid than she's been in months and she grins at me as I stop in front of her. The only thing separating us is the circle of glowing runes.
"Severus, I feel…funny," she says, and I gasp as I see her fingers crumble into glowing time-sand. The horrible transformation begins to creep up her extremities until all of her is golden and crumbling away. Her eyes are the last to go, and she looks at me with a mixture of fear and sadness as they too turn golden and join the torrent of time sand.
"No!" I cry out, gritting my teeth and pulling out my wand. With renewed fervor, I begin chanting again, pouring my heart and soul into the intent of the magic.
'Please bring her back, please bring her back,' my heart beats in time with my racing thoughts.
The swirling time-sand rises high into the air and I stare at it with eyes blurred by unbidden tears.
"Please, don't go," I rasp in a horribly strangled tone. The words escape my lips before I can snatch them back. "I love you."
Something happens, then, and I can't bear to call it a miracle, but if magic exists, then perhaps miracles do as well.
The time-sand begins to rise and disintegrate like steam. Below, in the circle, a cloud of spice-scented magic rises, filling the room with an earthy, clove-and-cinnamon mist.
I do not dare to breathe even as a dark shape stirs beneath it.
Suddenly, she is springing to her feet and leaps into my arms. I feel her warm, soft cheek press against mine as she whispers, "I love you, Severus," over and over again, until I fear my heart may burst from the joy of having her here forever with me.