Chapter 41: String Theory
Harry felt like the cold had seeped into his brain, freezing it on a running loop of his fight with Dean. He felt numb, like his head was stuffed with cotton. Wand light glinted off the walls up ahead as Harry trudged through the cave. His eyes glanced ahead at Hermione, who was walking with Dean, each step taking them further apart.
I'm sorry, Hermione.
He still didn't know how it had happened. One minute, he'd been quietly seething with anger, and the next he'd been punching Dean until there was blood in the snow.
The important question, Science said, is how this relates to your romantic inclinations.
Harry's inner voices remained silent.
Are you finally willing to admit that you have real feelings for Hermione Granger, and that repressing them has dangerous—even violent—consequences?
That's not the issue here, thought Harry.
You just beat up a love rival! That's—like—in every romantic movie ever! Can you stop running and face this head on? What are you so afraid of?
Harry's hands balled into fists, and he stopped short.
Sometimes, you…scare me, Harry.
He could still see the hurt and anger in her eyes, still felt the punch in his gut. Over and over, his mind replayed the fight, but there was something really wrong about the replay.
He saw Dean falling off the cliff. He distinctly remembered it, the sight of Dean's shocked face as he tumbled over the edge. It was strange how the terrible moment only lasted a couple seconds. One second Dean existed, and the next he didn't.
When Hermione had pulled them from the edge, Harry had already been scrambling forwards to catch Dean. But then he'd seen Dean was safe, and he'd exhaled in shock, recalling something about the malleability of memory in crisis situations just as Hermione started screaming at him.
Harry worried his lip. There was something wrong with that memory too.
He could remember reaching for Dean, attempting to save him. But he also remembered letting him fall.
It happened just as Dean was slipping over the edge, reaching out for safety. In that raw, cold moment, Harry thought, If you die, I'll never have to share Hermione with anyone. She will turn to me for comfort, and me alone.
As Dean's shocked face tumbled below the cliff, Harry realized his mistake. He reached for Dean, but he was already falling so fast…
Harry breathed out a shaky breath. If he hadn't been on the path to light before, this was a Herculean shove in that direction. He didn't know if he would ever forget that terrible feeling of complete and utter helplessness when he saw his friend die for no reason.
He vaguely wondered, if that happened, if he'd ever be able to cast a Patronus again.
But the worst part was, Harry no longer felt he knew who he was. Harry had thought he was starting to overcome his temper, that rationality had won him some self-control, but obviously he had vastly overestimated his progress. Maybe he was doing that again now, and next time he was angry, he wouldn't be able to stop himself…
Hermione doesn't trust me.
Some frantic part of him cast about for a way to fix it, to make her believe in him again.
Is she right not to?
Up ahead, Harry spied a flash of brightness, and knew that they were getting close to the monster's lair. Hermione and Dean stopped walking, waiting for Harry to catch up. When he did, Harry asked, "So…what's our plan?"
Hermione brushed a bit of her curls behind her ear. It didn't help, they were still frizzy, and even in his fractured mental state Harry couldn't help thinking they were beautiful. "We can't see into the cave, and our spells aren't revealing anything inside. I'm going to cast invisibility on myself and enter the room to do some reconnaissance. If the monster sees me and attacks, I'll be counting on both of you to help cover me. If he doesn't attack, then I plan to talk to the monster before we resort to violence." Her eyes lowered. "What…umm…do you think, Harry?"
He froze, studying her face. She bit her lip, as if nervous to have asked, and said with quiet honesty. "I thought you might have some good ideas."
Her gentle gaze met his, inviting his reply.
And there it was, a glimmer of hope.
Hermione might not trust him, not yet. But she still cared for him, still saw worth in him. He would make himself worthy of her trust.
"That seems—" His voice came out too high, and he cleared his throat. "That seems sensible to me. I can do some additional testing for magical traps and concealment spells as well."
She smiled, hesitant but warm. "That would be helpful. We don't know what to expect in there."
"In that case, I'll be thorough in my search," said Harry, drawing his wand. "If there's anything even remotely dangerous in that cave, I'll find it."
They walked to the entrance, all three of them together. He found his eyes drawn to Hermione, his mind already planning out the next steps for the "Zen Harry" program. He imagined her beaming at him, after he turned his cheek while people antagonized and belittled him. He wouldn't even be mad, might even send the bullies a few thank you cards.
But even as he thought this, he realized it wasn't enough. This time, he needed to go further than learning to lose. His mental state needed a complete paradigm shift, and he needed to do it to save himself, not just to make Hermione proud.
They stopped at a corner close to the entrance. Harry and Dean cast a tracker spell on her, marking her location, then Hermione cast invisibility. Her mastery of the invisibility spell was not perfect—she shimmered in and out—and after a few tries, she asked Harry to cast it. She watched his hand movements carefully, already studying how to do it for herself.
Before she left to investigate, they did a final scan of the room. Harry checked for traps, feeling out for the room's secrets, finding it surprisingly easy to examine every ward, just like in Hogwarts.
"So the good news is, there's no traps," said Harry, frowning. "The bad news is, this is a cavern full of dragon treasure, so there really should be. Either a ward I need to break, or an anvil set to drop on our heads. So, either I'm missing something, or…"
He trailed off.
"…this final fight is too easy?" finished Dean.
"Basically," said Harry, avoiding Dean's gaze. It wasn't like Harry cared anymore about the challenge level, but it still felt rude to mention it. There was no conclusive proof it was Dean's fault, but McGonagall had warned that the quests would change based on the players involved. While Harry and Hermione weren't impressed by this Gryffindor quest, it seemed to be right up Dean's alley…
No, that wasn't quite right. Hermione enjoyed it too, didn't she? He thought of Hermione dancing around the store, searching for clothes, and it gave him an uncomfortable realization. Harry's quests with her were fun, but most of the time she was tired or focused on beating the game. He could count on one hand the number of times she was relaxed enough to enjoy herself.
Harry looked at Dean, standing at the mouth of the cave, re-checking for traps, which was a sensible idea. Hermione stood beside him, close enough to whisper in his ear.
He stubbornly willed his jealousy away, focusing all his energy on the mission.
"You're right," said Dean, lowering his wand. "I can't detect any wards or traps, either. What should we do? Just walk in?"
"I can't think of any reason to delay," said Harry, checking his watch. Thirty minutes until dinner. Normally, he could be sure the game would end on time, but now…he wasn't so sure.
"Random question," said Harry. "Before the game shifted before, did either of you wish to fight a dragon? Or maybe, before we arrived in Candy Mountain, were you feeling a craving for sweets?"
Dean—meeting Harry's eyes for the first time since the fight—shook his head. Hermione, as if she didn't hear, frowned into the cavern.
"Something about this room is strange," murmured Hermione. "It's like everything is set up for a —"
The cave went dark. Harry feared this was yet another game shift, but then he saw spotlights, and heard the sound of a screaming crowd. A spotted rhino entered, leaping onto a stage made from hewn rock. Gripping a microphone, he shouted, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Monster's Lair! Let's get ready to rumbbleeee!"
Hermione watched the announcer hyping up the crowd, tapping her foot in irritation.
For one thing, she felt duped. What happened to the winter wonderland theme? She'd been holding out hope for a grand finale with a misunderstood monster, or at least an epic battle with an actual dragon and not this nonsense.
The announcer brought some orangutans to do a warm up fight, wearing nothing but red underpants.
Oh, come on.
She wasn't a fan of wrestling. Even with her troll powers giving her a boost, it still wasn't fun.
But she was especially not a fan of wrestling when it came to these two idiots beside her. She'd already seen them tackle each other once today, and she really didn't want to watch a rematch.
She couldn't help but notice that both of them were standing at opposite sides of the cave opening, as far apart as they could get. Hermione sighed. She didn't know yet if they'd be fighting each other, but she supposed if they did, she'd have to choose one of the boys as her opponent. So who did she prefer to wrestle with? And would they have to strip down into—
Stopstopstopstopstop said her brain, but it just kept going on without her.
If we're going for looks, let's be honest, Dean is a Quidditch Chaser, so he's got the abs.
I know, but Harry did say he wanted to crush you against a wall that one time, and I've been wondering what that would be like—
"So my theory," said Harry, mercifully breaking her out of her reverie. "Is that the game is shifting based on our perceived interests, like an AI run amok. Just to confirm, does anyone here like wrestling?"
"Not me," blurted Hermione, who could feel her blush warming her cheeks.
"Me neither," said Harry. "Dean?"
He shrugged. "I've watched a few matches with my brother. But it's not my favourite thing in the world, and besides, it seems more likely the game is taking cues from our brawl outside the cave."
"That was my second theory," said Harry. "Anyway, if we can convince the game we want something to happen, it just might give us an advantage."
"Maybe," said Dean uncertainly.
Harry sighed. "I can tell you don't approve of this plan, Dean, and I'd rather you said why than silently disagree. If you can't criticize, then you can't optimize."
"Well umm…I just don't see what would be the point? Thoughts aren't so easily controlled, and if we spend all our time on that, we won't be thinking of a way to win this round. And our turn might be up soon, from the looks of things."
As he spoke, one of the contestants got body slammed, to the cheers and booing of the crowd. Harry set his jaw, then shrugged. "Fair point. I'll keep thinking."
Hermione glanced up at Dean, realizing he was rather intelligent in his own way. While Harry could think his way out of anything, Dean came up with solutions by testing and doing, which usually meant getting things wrong a couple thousand times. He never stopped trying, though, and there was something charmingly Gryffindor about that. She was starting to really see him as a good friend, someone she would like to keep around.
He wasn't hard on the eyes either, but…she was cautious about going there, mentally. After all…
She turned to Harry, who watched the match with his arms folded, his expression calculating. Always thinking, this boy. Just…not about her. Except to imagine some other guy's hand going up her skirt, what the heck was that about-
Romantic jealousy? Her heart squeezed with pain at the thought, and she forcibly shoved the idea away. Hermione wasn't sure what he felt for her, but she did know one thing. Whenever Harry got jealous, she didn't end up closer to him. She just ended up getting hurt.
Hermione heard cheering, and one of the orangutans on stage raised his furry arms, howling triumphantly. The match was over.
And now, she bet the announcer would call one of them into the ring. Great.
The losing contestant was thrown off the stage, into a spotlight near their tunnel. The audience threw things, booing him, while others began chanting a name. Mar-qwa! Mar-qwa!
A huge pterodactyl swung down, screeching, and snapped the orangutan into his mouth. The spotlight showed blood dripping from his jaws.
"So!" cried the announcer. "Who wants to prove themselves as the next champion in round 2?!"
Well. That was...err...unexpected.
Harry watched as the creature chewed and swallowed, listened while the crowd (animals? people? a soundtrack?) screamed with rage in the background. Hermione shrieked, a hand flying to her mouth. Harry, feeling a compulsion to do something for her, touched her shoulder. He realized, as he did, that there was blood spray on the back of his hand.
As his eyes strayed unwillingly to bits of the carnage, his brain recalculated all his plans, inserting "carnivorous pterodactyl" in place of "unknown punishment." He quietly cast Somnium and Pertrificus Totalis on the carnivore, but it didn't seem to notice or care. So, magic resistance, then.
It wasn't like he hadn't faced giant beasts before in-game, but usually he had some type of advantage. A weapon, a shield, and some form of illumination. But after the creature retreated, it was completely hidden in the cave's darkness. Harry cast a few sight enhancement spells, and now he only saw a vague, dim outline.
Harry racked his brain for more ideas, when the Spell of Power popped into his head. He could still remember the incantation, it was simple, he could easily…But no, it hadn't worked the first time, and he wasn't stupid enough to experiment with that when people were relying on him.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you of the prize. If you win in this round, you will be summoned by the Great Beast! He will reward the champions beyond their wildest dreams!"
The audience cheered. Harry considered that their definition of "rewarded" might be different than his, as their definition of "losing" was turning into a snack.
"And now, I ask you, who would like to be our next champion?"
Harry didn't have a fully formed plan, though part of it included Harry clobbering a dinosaur, then taking out the pterodactyl using Hermione's speed ability and some well placed traps. He was still thinking, weighing it against an internal clock that grew steadily louder the longer he took to decide, when Dean raised his hand. "I'll do it."
No!
Hermione grabbed Dean's arm. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Buying you time," said Dean, giving a soft shrug. "I've got the muscle and you've got the brains, so I'll hold off the next contender until you both come up with a plan."
Oh, bloody hell, I can't let him—no. Control it.
The crowd was going wild as two dinosaurs came lumbering towards them. Hermione squeezed his arm. "Dean, you idiot."
He grinned. "Hey, chances are I'm going to win anyway, right?"
The t-rexes took Dean, walking behind him as he entered into the ring. Dean made a show of it too, pumping his fists like he was a heavyweight champ coming back for a rematch.
Hermione pressed her hand into Harry's, squeezing hard enough to hurt. He didn't make her move it.
Instead, Harry came to a realization.
"Hermione," he said. "I know how we can get Dean out of there alive."
Dean stared off into the invisible crowd, smiling broadly and waving his arms. He jabbed the air, listening to the screams swell and the announcer's voice booming as he introduced the contestants.
He was not sure he could pull this off. But if he was going down, then he was going down swinging.
Dean turned to the opposite corner of the roped ring, where his opponent waited. The velociraptor he was fighting looked a lot more destructive and terrifying close up, now that he could see his yellow eyes, scaly skin, and huge, jagged teeth.
Dean started to sweat under the spotlights. He really hadn't thought this out. Why had he raised his hand, again? Because he thought he was tough enough to punch monsters?
Well, it was more like Dean knew if he didn't do this, then he wouldn't be useful at all. Harry and Hermione would save the day without him. Probably still would, even if he failed miserably.
Dean shook his head, forcing away the sense of doom. Everything would be fine. If he got a few teeth knocked out, he was pretty sure there was a spell to fix that. He imagined finding Padma and telling her, "So guess what, I punched a dinosaur." She'd call him a fool, but secretly she'd be impressed, and maybe he'd even win a smile.
Dean spotted a bright light in his peripheral vision, like the flash of a camera. As soon as he turned to look, his vision flickered, like a giant skip in a record. He stepped back, confused, and turned to see the monster lunging towards him.
Oh, shit.
Dean ducked, but the swing never came. Instead, it kicked him square in the gut.
He was thrown back against the ring, collapsing all the air out of his lungs.
"Ooooh, another hit as the champion gears up for his next lunge."
Dean looked up as the dinosaur roared and thundered towards him.
"Incarcerous!" cried Dean, forgetting that he didn't have his wand. The dinosaur barrelled into him, his tail knocking him clear across the ring.
Not good, not good, thought Dean, as the dinosaur backed up for another hit.
All of a sudden, his vision went double, and Dean felt like the world was spinning, as if someone left the VHS of his life on fast forward.
When he could see straight again, the champion was no longer on the stage, and Dean was hauled to his feet.
"What do you think, everyone? Is our Great Beast still hungry?"
Resounding cries and screams came from the audience, and two guards shoved him forwards.
Another flash of light appeared, flittering about in the darkness like fireflies. Dean recognized it as the Avis charm, and something huge took to the air after it.
"Now, Hermione!"
The birds burst, and the dinosaur screamed as glowing ropes snapped into existence, twirling around and illuminating a giant snout—then the dinosaur fell, slamming into the ground. Light burst through the room like a bolt of lightning, and Dean saw Harry hurling huge, jagged rocks at the creature's wings, pinning them to the ground. More ropes snapped around his claws—restraining wings and legs. The dinosaurs ran, and Dean backpedalled away from the battle, only because he had no idea how to help while not getting killed.
Well, there was one thing he could do. "Lumos Maxima!"
The entire room erupted in a bright flash of light. Now Dean could see the creature struggling against the bonds, snapping them. Hermione suddenly appeared at the beast's snout, and she had Dean's hammer.
She whacked it several times.
The creature slumped over.
"NOOOOOOO!"
The collective great cry rose up from the audience, and Dean turned to see they were…
…Pink and blue unicorns?
"YOU KILLED THE KING!"
"NOOOO!"
And then Dean felt ripped in half. A few seconds later, a unicorn rushed him, impaling him with a horn, then exploded.
They'd incapacitated the monster. Harry had expected there might be another fight, they'd prepared an extra few traps just in case but…
There just weren't enough for a thousand rampaging unicorns.
"Harry!" screamed Hermione, and suddenly he saw two of her. One was running to him, and the other was carrying a bleeding Dean.
What.
"Harry!" said the Hermione approaching him. "We have to save—"
Dean ran towards them, gasping for breath. "What in the world is happening?!"
Fuck.
How had he not seen this before? The fractured quests, the duplicated memories, the game was breaking down.
Harry grabbed his pouch. "Portkey to the train station!"
We are so dead.
He grasped the portkey, almost dropping it as the room shifted, began caving in, collapsing on itself.
He brandished his wand, shouted, "Protego Maximus!"
Then he grabbed Dean and Hermione's arms, and snapped the portkey.
The world bubbled as the portkey attempted to drag them to their destination, except it took them through the fire of a thousand suns.
Harry screamed, but his voice was wrong, his body was wrong, everything was Wrong.
Then there was a burst of light, and everything ended.
Hermione sat on the bench near the bus stop, her hands held in front of her. She stared at them.
She was not thinking. She was not doing. It took all her mental energy just to sit.
Harry and Dean seemed as lethargic as she was. Dead to the world.
I'm in shock, she thought. What are you supposed to do when you go in shock? Get a blanket.
A bus left the lot. It might be the bus they needed to go home, but none of them cared.
Do something.
No.
Come on. Time to earn your Auror stripes.
She parted her lips, then said, her voice sounding foreign. "I think—" she stopped, clearing her throat. "I think we should call someone for help."
Another moment of silence. She couldn't remember who to call, or if she even had a means to do so.
"We should be dead," said Harry, sitting beside her. "I do not know why we are not. Unless, we actually are dead, and this is a state before death where the mind is still active."
Hermione remembered dragging Dean, bleeding from a stab wound, to Harry—but the Dean beside her looked unhurt. This shock thing was seriously screwing with her mind.
"Okay," said Harry. "I'm going with the hypothesis that we are not actually dead in this reality, in this universe. In which case, we ought to follow Hermione's suggestion and call someone."
"McGonagall," said Hermione's lips, pulling out her wand to speak the spell that would call her. She hesitated, her hand shaking as she lowered the wand. She felt like she might burst to pieces if she even tried, her magic screaming at her to stop. "Perhaps that's not a good idea."
Harry didn't raise his wand to cast the Patronus, and neither did Dean, apparently feeling the same.
"I got stabbed," said Dean. "And a unicorn exploded."
"I saw that," said Hermione. "And I saw Harry getting crushed by a rock."
"I'm guessing this isn't how your quests normally end?" asked Dean.
"No," said Harry. "We do not normally interact with physical representations of the 5th dimension."
"What?" asked Dean.
"The 10 dimensions," said Harry. "It's a theory of space time in physics. The first dimension is a line, the second is a 2-d shape, and the third is length, width and depth. This is a slice of our reality at any given moment, the dimension we are most familiar with." Harry swallowed, barely slowing down. "The fourth dimension is time and duration, as expressed in a line from birth to death. The fifth dimension is choice, the small alterations in reality that we can make at any moment that affect the line. The sixth dimension is all choices from the same initial condition, multiple branching timelines, which is how you could meet yourself as a rock star in another reality." His voice rose, getting faster. "And the seventh is different initial conditions of the universe, the eighth is the plane of infinite universes, and the ninth is moving across different universes, and the tenth is everything contained as a dot and okay I'm rambling—"
"Harry?" asked Hermione, her hand reaching for his shoulder.
He swallowed, his pupils dilated, his voice still rapid, "You would think that after all my exploitation of time turners, jumping into the fifth dimension with different concurrent timelines wouldn't be so traumatizing. But, as it turns out, seeing your friends get impaled and fall off cliffs really puts a different perspective on things. In fact, this was the exact sort of result that haunted me about time turners when McGonagall first showed me one. I mean, what if we'd gotten killed in the collapsing dimensional planes, or what if we'd just gotten stuck there…" He trailed off, his eyes widening. "What if we were really in the seventh dimension, within a world of different starting conditions? What if that's where the Hogwarts quests were all along?"
Hermione took Harry's hand, laced it in hers. "Calm down. Breathe."
Harry coughed, heaved and threw up on the sidewalk beside him.
Vomiting, a sign of shock, said some part of her brain. Or he could be bleeding internally.
A man walking to catch his bus stopped to look at them, his careworn face regarding them with concern. He knelt down beside Harry, his brown tweed coat dusting the ground, reminding her of her father. Examining him for a moment, he asked Hermione, "Do you and your friends need help?"
She nodded. "Yes, please."
The man stood and drew a wand, murmuring a few words so that the world blurred around them. "Expecto Patronum!" A glowing wolf leaped from his wand. "Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts. Tell her that I have three students I'm taking to St. Mungos. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and…"
"Dean Thomas," her friend said, so softly she could barely hear. She turned to him, and noticed his eyes were glassy.
"Dean Thomas," said the man. "Tell her I will return them to her care as soon as possible."
The Patronus departed, and Harry finally looked up. "…Mr. Lupin?"
Author's note: Thanks to my awesome beta reader, RemedialAction, for looking over my work and helping brainstorm with me. :) Check out his story about Slytherin Hermione, Brilliant but Scary, on Archive of our Own.
Also, if you don't get the 10 dimensions, that's okay, it's a weird concept. "Ten Dimensions Explained" on Youtube gives a pretty good description though, if you're curious.
