Ten
Columba
We are the sons of prophecy.
Hermione jerks awake.
Heart racing and lungs burning, she can't place the phantom tingles lingering in her half-conscious mind.
As they fade, her vision clears. Her senses rouse.
Smoke rises from floating bowls near her head.
A rich, herbal scent fills the air. A low, harmonious hum surrounds her.
She is in a hut with a large tree in the middle. Branches stretch high beyond the domed ceiling. Shelves covered in books and vials are notched into the trunk, starting from the floor and spiralling to a roof partially covered in moss. The windows look as if they were broken in their frames and perfectly pieced together one jagged edge at a time. Layers of grass, herbs, and flowers line the walls and grow wild like a garden, and a long table covered in plants and tools curves against a wall. A fireplace tucked into the wall next to it catches Hermione's eye, playing host to a cauldron floating above cooling embers.
This strange place looks like paradise.
Hermione hears movement, then sees a familiar face.
"Love." Her mother sags in relief.
Hermione tries to speak, tears springing in her eyes and grazing her ears, but nothing comes. Panic rises as she squirms, the lump in her throat growing, but her mother's touch tempers her.
"Your voice will return." A hand slips into hers and squeezes. "I know you have many questions. We are in the home of the forest centaurs. Ginny, your father, and I were smuggled out of the palace and brought here for safety and to be with you."
Hermione turns her head slowly.
There is a familiar sword that no longer glows. Next to it is a bloody chestplate.
"The king is here, Harry as well. Both have been healed of their wounds and—" Mother looks over her shoulder. "Vasades! Firenze! The antidote worked! She is awake!"
Hermione can only stare when Vasades appears next to another centaur with white hair and electric blue eyes.
"Welcome to my home, Queen Hermione," he greets kindly. "I have heard much about you."
"Hello again, my friend." Vasades comes to stand beside her mother.
The sight of them together brings Hermione a feeling of completion.
"You gave us quite a scare," Firenze says.
"Your body is healing and the block we have on your mind is temporary until we decide how to repair and remove it." Vasades moves, returning with a cup.
Mother slips a hand beneath her head and carefully lifts, helping her bring the cup to her lips. The liquid is thick and gritty. Hermione nearly spits it out, but she barely manages to swallow instead. A cool trickle starts in her throat and spreads through her limbs.
"This will heal you from the inside." Firenze's voice is deep, soothing. "It will take much more."
Hermione starts to relax, but an explosion of pain shifts her reality.
It shocks like lightning behind her eyes and roars.
She hears and feels the scream tear from her throat.
It is raw. Primal.
Something is waking, growing, battling for control.
"It should have held!" Firenze places a hand on her head and closes his eyes, mouth moving with words she cannot decipher.
The pain settles into a shaky numbness that leaves Hermione panting with relief.
"Our measures will not work. I am holding it for now, but it fights back. We need another plan."
"Firenze, it cannot be fixed," Vasades argues. "We have been trying all night."
"Removing it outright is risky."
"But it is the only way," Mother says. "Do what needs to be done. I know they meet with the elders for negotiation talks, but I will—"
"Lily, wait." Vasades lays an arm on her shoulder. "Make sure the king comes. He will anchor."
Hermione feels the pressure growing.
"I cannot hold it much longer," Firenze says shakily, breath now coming in pants.
"I can serve as an anchor."
"No." Vasades shakes her head. "You cannot."
"I am her mother," she argues. "Am I not enough?"
"The love that exists between parent and child is strong, but a more visceral tie to her emotions exists with him."
"I see." Mother steps back and is gone without another word.
Firenze's hand on Hermione's head begins to tremble. He lets out a cry and rips his hand off, stumbling back on shaking hooves.
Pain rushes in like a tidal wave.
But Vasades is there to brave the storm with her. To keep her from drowning.
"Your mind is in distress, Hermione. It fights but I need you to fight harder and stay awake."
She cannot.
Twisting and snarling, the nightmares never end.
A sneering laugh cages her in a forest of terrors.
The curse pierces the fog and seizes her by the throat. It is his face. The wrongness of red eyes. They beckon her to walk to the edge. She cannot stop.
Her mind is not her own.
You and I are alike.
Blood spreads across her undergown, coating her tongue, dripping from her lips, sliding down her cheeks like tears.
Bend to me or die.
Death exhales fire and ice.
She tumbles over the edge, falling into emptiness.
Head over feet. Feet over head.
Reaching desperately, clawing at nothing but air and force.
Her screams create a terrifying melody.
Falling is endless, suffocating and cold.
There is no rest.
Only pain.
Hermione chokes on her own breath.
Overheated and dazed, she fights against the hands holding her down. A cool palm presses against her forehead.
Of all people, it is Draco.
Bruised and battered, he is here.
"Draco, you must anchor with touch. Do not let go. If she projects thoughts, look. Do not ignore them. If she speaks to you, speak back. I will reach into her mind and begin to peel away the block. Firenze will monitor." She looks over her shoulder. "I will need you all to stay here during this if the king's anchor is not enough."
Vasades closes her eyes and begins chanting words in a language that makes Hermione jerk against the weight holding her down, strain against the pressure, and sob in pain. Screams tear from her as pressure fills her skull and pulls it tight. She feels herself breaking from the inside.
"Your mind is fracturing, Hermione." Firenze's voice is but a whisper. "I know this hurts, I know you are scared, but there is no time. We must remove the block now or you will drown in darkness."
Hermione twists and sees her parents, afraid and worried, hands clasped tight. Harry and a teary-eyed Ginny stand next to them.
Block?
Vasades' voice fills her mind. I will show you.
Her world peels open and burns with light.
The lake water cools Hermione's feverish skin.
Floating next to Ginny, she relishes the sight of the sun sitting low in the sky on a golden afternoon, casting long shadows in the wrong direction. This sky is unnaturally blue. The trees sway against the wind.
Fragments of this world split at the corner of her peripheral before mending. Ginny's hair changes from red to blonde, from brown to black, eyes from brown to green to blue.
She is a blend of comforts Hermione's mind cannot choose from.
This world is not real.
"Torture changes your mental landscape." The voice of her blended companion sounds like Vasades. The ever-changing eyes look sad. "But, my friend, there is more pain here than ever before. Torture could not have done all this damage."
"I have missed you so." Hermione cannot stop the tears from falling; emotions make it hard to speak, to breathe. "This life is harder than I thought."
Teardrops grow black, twisted wings and fly away.
Hair drifts from blond to black while the eyes stay Ginny's warm brown. "I am sorry for my absence, but there are some paths we must walk alone."
"I—has it been long?"
"Two days."
"I thought centaurs would not heal my kind. Elders—"
"They owed my old herd a debt that I lived to collect," Vasades says as they drift towards the centre of the lake. "What the centaur elders meet about is not our concern just yet. Right now we focus on you."
"What if I am lost forever?"
"You are not lost."
The comforting words give her none.
Logs float by with dates and times carved into the wood.
"What are these?" Hermione asks.
"Your blocked memories. You were tortured into releasing fragments of them. We tried to piece them together and set them back, but we could not fix them all. This is the only way to save you."
"What do I do?"
"Touch a branch. It contains a piece of the truth."
When she does, Hermione is transported to the night when she, Harry, and Ron were chased in the forest by a transformed Remus; the night Wormtail tried to kidnap Harry.
Only now, Hermione remembers more.
She remembers everything.
Father adjusts his glasses while Mother cleans a cut on Harry's leg with a minty salve.
"Like the Longbottoms, our bloodline is marked by Voldemort's Curse." Father breaks the silence. "My father thrice defied him on his rise to power. I was born with that mark, just the same as Harry. The only difference is Harry was born as the seventh month died, which makes him—"
"A chosen one," Hermione blurts out.
Her brother's eyes widen. "But I am just… me."
"Exactly," Father says with a sad smile. "You are you. Brave and loyal. You fight and will not bend. It is a family trait. Passed down from my father to me and now to you. Just like the mark on your forehead and my neck. Like the Deathly Hallows, it is a symbol of our strength."
The lightning bolt mark that Harry was born with now has new meaning.
"Voldemort cannot return to his full strength without the blood of the chosen ones."
"But he knows that the prince lives. He could go after him instead," Hermione says hopefully.
"Although chosen, the prince was not naturally born. His birth required magical assistance and this is why he bears no mark. Still, he is protected by magic and might. Voldemort fears Dumbledore and he sits at Queen Augusta's side as her advisor. But you are not as protected here. Voldemort did not know of your existence until after you were born because we were hidden."
"How can we protect Harry?" Hermione looks at her terrified brother.
"We will send him to fulfil our family oath by training as a knight alongside Prince Draco. Voldemort will not attack. This will keep him safe for now."
For now.
Harry looks shaken, voice trembling when he asks, "Mother, did you know?"
Their mother nods. "I was bound with an Unbreakable Vow when I married into the family. We had to place a charm on you and Hermione when you were babies. Each time you two get too close to the truth, it causes you to forget."
Hermione's pulse kicks up. "I will forget this?"
"You both will—not that today happened but why." She sounds sad. "You two attract trouble and have been exposed to shards of the truth too many times. Like tonight. This is not the first time or the last, but we will tell you each time, no matter how often you forget."
She touches Harry's face, drying his tears as they fall.
"I do not want this, Mother."
"And we did not want this for you, Harry. Fate has dealt you a terrible hand, but we will not give up. You must be strong."
"I will be, but I am scared."
Hermione limps over to Harry and hugs him. He holds her just as tight. Just as long.
Mother wraps her arms around them both. "The only benefit of this spell is that you both are free to live without this truth darkening your lives."
Hermione cannot stop thinking about one small thing.
"Father."
"What is it, love?"
"The chosen ones are royals."
His shoulders sag and it takes him minutes to speak after exchanging looks with their mother.
"It is true. We are not of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but we are royal. We served a sacred family and when the king died with no heir, he named my ancestor, Ignotus, his heir. We were the first non-sacred family to rule in the realm."
Hermione's mouth drops.
"I am the missing king of the Lost Kingdom, and Harry is my heir." He turns to her with sad eyes. "In our way, we tried to tell you both the truth."
When Hermione resurfaces from the memory, the sun is gone and the sky is full of stars that spill across the stretched canvas of darkness.
She lays at Kaida's side trying to catch her breath, barely able to grasp anything. Flushed and confused, so many emotions war within Hermione. She is exhausted to the point of numbness.
"Each star is a memory broken loose. Past and present. Touch them. They are within your reach." The dragon's lilt is too much like Vasades to be a coincidence. "This time they have the answers you seek."
"I am scared of what else I will learn," Hermione admits quietly.
"It is natural to fear change. This knowledge will change everything. Knowledge is freedom, yes, but it can also bring about pain, which is a vital tool for survival."
"I feel as though I will bear these fears, these scars forever."
"You will," Vasades says as the dragon shifts, breathing deeply in an invitation for Hermione to match its breaths. "But this does not sadden me. Without a past, there is no future. These scars will remind you where you have overcome."
"How do I touch the stars from the ground?"
"You reach." Vasades makes it sound simple. "You reach with the boldness I know is within you. The same bravery no amount of darkness could destroy. The same strength that faced evil and won."
"I did not win." Hermione hugs the dragon's leg, closing her eyes. "I faltered. I died."
"Yet you live."
"I am hollow, lost in my own mind. This world is not real, Kaida is not here, and you—"
"You cannot be lost if I am guiding you." Vasades voice accompanies an easing pressure in her head that makes her shoulders sag. "You are experiencing trauma, Hermione. It is what lingers now that the danger has passed."
"I want to go back to who I was."
"Be patient. Give yourself time to heal, to cope, to learn and figure out who you will become in the aftermath. But unfortunately, my friend, there is no going back. You are forever changed. Yes, you may be scarred, but do not let trauma control you. Feel your emotions, express them, but do not become them."
Hermione nods, still struggling with the truth. "I was ready to give up when Draco found me. I was ready to die. That is my shame."
"You have nothing to be ashamed of, Hermione." The dragon's stare probes her in a way that reminds her of Vasades. "I do not see a victim, I see a victor. A warrior. A survivor. And there are many who see the same."
"I am tired." Tears turn to glowing stardust and scatter amongst the black sand. "I do not know where to begin."
"The road will be hard, but you cannot quit now. Climb on my back. I will bring you to the stars."
There is no wind as she climbs on Kaida's back and they take off for the skies.
Hermione grabs the first star she reaches.
Father looks rough from a long night that has ended now that Hermione is awake from petrification. Mother sleeps next to her, their hands locked.
He helps her sit up and she knows the lecture is about to begin even before he clears his throat.
"You walked into an Acromantula colony."
"Yes," Hermione says. "And I found out where the Basilisk was hiding."
"You are lucky Hagrid was there with you."
"I knew they would not harm me if he were there. He raised Aragog."
Father pinches the bridge of his nose. "And then you went after a Basilisk? In spite?"
"I did." Hermione cannot lie.
"You nearly got the Weasley boy killed, Hermione. What were you thinking?" He does not sound angry, he sounds hurt. Worried.
"I—" Frustration brings tears to her eyes. "I thought we were a team, but you were keeping secrets from me, Father."
"Not about the Basilisk. I wanted you to wait for me before we took care of it together."
"But you and Sirius and Remus were talking about it. I heard you. You were trying to figure out how it came. What it was looking for. If…" Hermione shakes her head. "I do not remember why."
"You misheard, Hermione. At least about this."
"What do you mean?"
"I keep many things from you, but only because you are a child."
"I am no child. I can marry at this age."
"Over my dead body."
Hermione cracks a smile. They both do. The tension starts to ease only to return when Father takes her hand.
"I thought I only wanted sons until you were brought to us," he says with a smile. "The truth is, with Harry gone, we were trying to figure out if the Basilisk was sent after me or you."
"Why would it be sent after me?"
"Because the Carrow Kingdom did not kill your birth parents."
Hermione recoils. "What do you mean? The village—Vasades found me in the rubble."
"This is true, but your village was destroyed after your parents were given a choice to hand you over or die. They chose death."
"I thought—"
"We all are plagued by fate, but it is extra cruel to be part of prophecy." He smooths down her hair. "The stars speak of a common-born who will rule these lands. Born on the final breath of summer, she is to be the half of a whole that will bring about a new age, not only here, but in the realm. There is more out there that we have yet to discover. You are destined to be the mother of a bloodline that will expand this world beyond what we know."
"That is—"
"Impossible?" Father cocks a brow. "Three must fall before you rise."
She blinks in shock. "What?"
"The many pieces of a clock must fit together just right before the hands will turn. Fate is like that clock. Every person has their own and there are pre-established rhythms, precise times. Remove one piece and the clock will not run."
"I do not understand."
"There are those who sought to kill you so that you would not play your role: a pebble in the water that causes a ripple which would change everything, including other prophecies. Your parents were warned by Unspeakables, but before they could hide, their village was attacked. The magic from your parents' sacrifice made them unable to touch you so they destroyed the village instead in hopes to destroy you with it. But they did not succeed."
Angry tears track down her cheeks. "Who was it?"
"Evil wears more than one face. There are other evils beyond Voldemort, others who seek power and want to send the realm plunging into darkness. Sirius searched and we found no trace of those who destroyed your village. They will not return."
"How did it really happen?"
"Your village fought back and trapped them with magic. Nearly everyone escaped and scattered, except the elders who sacrificed themselves and burned with their enemies. Those beyond the spell fought with the centaurs in a gruesome battle that destroyed the herd. The very last was killed by Vasades before she found you."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because the burden of knowledge is one I will carry for you until it is your time. I do not keep secrets from you because I want to, I hate it, but I do this as your father, out of love and my duty to protect you and your brother."
"What protection does Harry need?"
"Far more, for he cannot truly live while another survives."
Hermione stands in the aviary, birds flying above her head in time with a melody she cannot hear.
There are dates written into the feathers.
"Touch one."
Hermione looks down at the sound of Vasades' voice but the person before her resembles Queen Narcissa. She is a work of art painted in this false reality, tiny flakes peel away from her cheek.
"How are you here?"
"She is but a fragment of your subconscious." The beautiful queen now stands before her. "But he is not."
Behind her stands Draco.
There are two of him. One is the king and warrior she knows, the other is a painted portrait without a frame. A broken boy who carries burdens and a sword too large for his small body. They stand side by side, watching, blending, becoming one in the same before her eyes. Parts of him are painted, parts are real.
Draco vanishes then reappears next to his mother, but his eyes stay on Hermione.
"Your anchor." Vasades sounds amused as the queen places a hand on her son's shoulder, still breaking like art exposed to the elements too long. "Tethered to you not only by fate, he keeps you from drifting by force of will. He refused to let you go."
Before Hermione can respond, Draco opens his hands.
Inside is a dove of peace.
Her finger grazes its wings, but this does not make her fall into a memory.
Odd.
Curiously, Hermione meets the gaze of her husband and instinctively reaches for him instead, touching his cheek first, then the side of his neck.
His skin is warm, pulse strong, eyes heavy.
"Draco," she murmurs. "We are connected, you and I."
He closes his eyes. "We are."
The world dissolves.
Hermione is in the room with her parents and Harry the night before she is set to leave for Wiltshire.
"You will not remember, but I must tell you." Her father looks grave and worn. "The tale of the three brothers is real. The wand, the stone, Harry's invisibility cloak. The Peverells are my ancestors."
Hermione tries to wrap her mind around the truth. "But—"
"The third brother was given the cloak of invisibility. They passed it from generation to generation, keeping it out of sight when Death calls. When Voldemort came for my grandparents, they used it to escape. Thinking they died and to cover his unwarranted genocide of the entire kingdom, he used cursed magic to charm the rain so people would forget—"
"I know this story. I tell it to my students."
"I taught you this story carefully so you would not be completely blind," Father says. "My family fled with the help of Vasades' herd, whose lands were in the forest surrounding the castle. They took the surname Potter to avoid suspicion, and purchased the land from King Abraxas, who remembered them. So long as the family paid tribute and sacrificed our eldest son to fight as a knight, he would keep the secret. My memories were altered in infancy to keep the secret. As were yours."
"How did you learn of this?" Hermione asks.
"Only death can break the spell," Father tells her sadly. "When I was in the field, your mother revived me and my memories returned."
"And Harry. Did you—"
"I touched a horcrux. A diadem Dumbledore sent us to find and destroy. It was the first. I did not die, but it was powerful enough to break the spell. I nearly perished in the fire from the shock of the spell ending. King Draco came back for me and we only narrowly escaped the flames."
"What?" Hermione shakes her head. "A horcrux?"
"Terribly dark magic." Father's haunted tone chills her. "Voldemort sought immortality. When the Flamel stone was destroyed, he found an option by committing horrible acts of murder to split his soul. He made seven horcruxes and gave one of each to his trusted, should anything happen to him."
"The king's grandfather supported Voldemort at first." Harry gets up and crosses the room to the window. "They received a diary."
"But the Malfoy Kingdom's allegiance changed when it was discovered that the second chosen one lived." Father looks pointedly at Harry. "Queen Narcissa, who is a distant cousin, was aware of this and kept silent, as she knew allying with Voldemort would compromise her son's future. She paid for her lie when King Lucius ruined himself trying to destroy the diary. He should not have, only those chosen can eradicate horcruxes, but like poor Regulus, he succeeded against all odds."
Hermione only knows vaguely of Lord Sirius' brother. A defected Voldemort follower who was given a hero's funeral. It happened before she was born, right before Father married Mother, but she remembers him telling stories about how Sirius stayed in his animagus form for months after the funeral.
"The war Draco wages is not about conquering the realm," Harry says with unfamiliar fierceness. "It is about eliminating those who protect these horcruxes. We were tasked by Dumbledore to destroy them, along with the hope of those who want Voldemort to rise again."
"How many are left?"
"One."
"The last one lives inside of Rodolphus," Hermione blurts out, still fresh from the memory. "The last horcrux possesses him."
"We know." Vasades' voice is odd coming from her mother's lips as they walk through the forest. "When Voldemort died from the rebounded spell, a piece of his soul was fractured from the rest. It was found next to his body. Stolen by his loyalists and fused to Rodolphus, it cannot survive forever and time is running out."
She looks down at the ground that moves with her, struggling and overwhelmed with all she has learned. "I was tortured because the truth was concealed from me."
"You would have been killed had it not been."
Hermione struggles with this truth. "Who am I?"
"You are exactly who you were before. A queen, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a survivor. Only now your eyes are open. I have been repairing your mind and now it is wholly your own."
"But all this talk of fate and entwining prophecy, I—"
"What the stars say about you is not all of who you are. You cannot worry about what is to come. You can only prepare for it by living, recovering, and filling the emptiness. You need to be whole to be ready. I am with you, whether at your side or not. There are others as well. Your loneliest place does not need to be within you."
Hermione looks at her mother's changing features. "When I was—when Bellatrix was—I heard a scream. I heard your voice."
"The scream was likely from your past. A memory you were too young to process."
"My birth mother?"
"Perhaps."
"And your voice? I swore I heard you the night before my summons. I swore I heard you again that night, too."
"Sometimes, I try to reach you to see if I can, but your mind is never open to the possibility. Always so stubborn." Vasades' chuckle makes Hermione smile. "But there are moments when your guard is low enough, when you are lonely and searching, that I can. If only for a second."
"That is—"
"I heard your plea to nature from miles away. It rippled through the trees, roared on the wind. You shook the earth, Hermione. I knew that I could reach you then."
"How?" Hermione asks. "We do not share the same bond as familiars."
"No, we do not, but we are connected. There is much about centaur magic that you know, but there is more that you do not. We cannot risk sharing it all for the safety of our kind. There will be more time to discuss, but for now, our journey ends here."
Mother turns to someone who stands in their path.
Draco.
He's bathed in contradiction: both darkness and light.
Hermione stops, unsure where to go.
"Keep walking." Vasades voice is but a whisper in her ear.
The world shifts with each step she takes towards Draco. Hermione looks back to find her mother gone.
Draco stands alone.
He grasps her hands, the warmth she remembers floods her senses as he pulls her close.
"I will stand in the flames with you."
Hermione does not know what he means until explosions begin without warning. But she does not jolt.
The ground turns to white molten lava. The blue sky darkens to black. Colour is eaten by flames that grow bolder and brighter.
Yet she feels no pain. Sounds pound her senses, but she feels no fear.
Hermione closes her eyes and holds his hands tight as everything swirls with an intensity she has never known.
Peace greets her in the chaos.
The world burns, but they do not.
Together, they stand, sentient and strong.
Columba means "the dove" in Latin. The constellation's original name was Columba Noachi, meaning "Noah's dove." It was named after the biblical dove that informed Noah that the Great Flood was receding.
A/N: Hi, hello, and good day. Holidays were hectic with sickness, injury and life. So hope you enjoyed! Tons of answers in this update. We get to see into Hermione's mind, those who are in her subconscious, and hints about the underlying bond between Draco and Hermione as he serves as her anchor...the only voice outside Vasades that she hears. More on all this. This story is a canon twist so Harry being a different kind of Chosen One was going to come into play as Neville wasn't naturally born, even though he was the chosen one to kill him the first go round. I looked at the canon ages of everyone and was like "hmm..Voldy is a GOOD 34/35 years older than James Potter. What if he heard the prophesy earlier in life? He would want to wipe out the potential of a chosen one, which would mean dark magic to mark the bloodlines of those who fit the parameters." And voila. Just wasn't expecting that sacrifice from the Longbottoms or he would've gotten away with it.