Author's Note: This is going to be a bit of a different sort of chapter. Also, I've had some questions on the timeline so I have put it at the bottom of this chapter. The time travel portion is wrapping up though.

As always I will post the next chapter once there have been some reviews. You know the drill. Enjoy!


ECOTS


"The bottom line is that we never fall for the person we're supposed to."

~ Jodi Picoult


Chapter 67 ~ Sharing Magic


ECOTS


December 14th, 1996

Eight days later, but four months earlier, in an unassuming cottage by the sea, lay a girl. Her room's window lay wide open, the wooden shudders flush against the old stonework. A salty, chilled breeze wafted in through it, blown from the nearby sea, sending a phoenix's red and gold feathers ruffling and long strands of golden hair rustling.

It remained the girl's only movement, other than the gentle rise and fall of her chest. For days even that had not been her own doing, and it certainly wasn't guaranteed now.

A phoenix trilled, wings fluffing out to send it hopping into the window sill, where bowls of fresh water and nectar sat. A warming charm had been placed in the window, keeping the winter chill at bay and the food from freezing over, rather like the icy chunks washing up against the shoreline visible through it. The phoenix plunked its beak into the nectar, slurping up the frankincense and ginger, before tilting its incredible red neck back and swallowing the sticky substance with a loud slurp, the brilliant colors a stark contrast to the frozen over world visible just outside that despondent window.

The bird swiveled its head, beady black eyes moving between the room's occupants and the winter world outside, as if at a loss. It tapped its talons on the ledge, as if dutifully considering its options. It looked like it'd rather like to go bite one of them, repeatedly.

It did not.

Instead it deemed the room's occupants a lost cause, leaping out the lower story window.

Outside the cottage bare, snow covered trees stretched skywards, the ice upon them so white they appeared nearly blue in spots. The bark itself, when viewed closely, held a silver-white glint to it, as if long pieces of glitter had been carefully interwoven into the wood as it grew. Beneath these forest trees the ground was unremarkable, littered only with slowly browning leaves and broken off twigs, all covered with tiny ice crystals. It was almost strange how nothing else, beyond these very particular sorts of trees, grew, and those trees grew all the way down to the sea's edge.

The beach itself was unremarkable. It had brown sand, lots of rocks, and at high tide there was not nearly enough of it between the cottage and the ocean's edge. It gave one the impression that all it would take was one good, swift storm to send the stone home crumbling to its foundations, sweeping out in the tide.

The combined effect was quite stunning.

The forest surrounded the cottage on three sides, the sea on the other, forming a natural defense. That was, of course, the appeal when Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore's fathers' father had bought it all those years ago.

Had the occupants cared, they'd have noted that Muggle Londoners would have paid top dollar for the rare sort of seclusion and view this lonely window afforded.

Unfortunately the occupants did not.

Footsteps creaked on old floorboards, the door to the room swinging open, a man with somewhat unkempt black hair and equally dark eyes looming in it. He used the doorframe as a prop, leaning heavily on an improvised cane, looking like his left leg was unsteady as he scowled at what he found.

"Keep this up," Regulus Black drawled, "and you'll begin to resemble one of those corpses you sounded so eager to screw."

Harry Potter sat in an old, wooden chair, the blue paint peeling from it, head in his hands. He did not look up. He merely released an unamused breath.

A loud thunk in the windowsill indicated Fawkes return, the boy's familiar shaking off snow and staring at the boy as if he rather wanted to attack him himself.

Black scowled, feeling like a nattering nanny. "You also need to eat. Unless of course actually becoming one of those things has become your life goal?"

Potter did not even look up. He just heaved a resigned breath, emotionlessly uttering, "No," back.

"Oh good," the last remaining member of the house of Black drawled, "we've progressed to using real words now."

The boy, now a man, lowered his hands to send him a look. The amount of fucks Regulus gave could be measured with the one finger directly in the center of his hand. "You need to eat," he repeated unquestionably, "preferably outside of this room." Spotting Potter's protest before it even came, he held up a hand. "You can have that insufferable elf of yours sit with her. He appears to actually like her. We, however, need to talk."

With that Regulus' dark eyes shifted, quietly assessing the room's other occupant. Kalliandra lay as she had for the past fortnight, unmoving. He'd weaned her off the ventilation charm before they'd come here, and yet the girl still lay there, not waking. Even worse, she was prone to ceasing breathing at random times, making Regulus question ever having taken her off the ventilation charm to begin with.

Truth be told Regulus had his suspicions about why. If he were correct, he wondered if it wouldn't have been kinder to have left her for dead. It was better than leading life as a brain dead vegetable with only a working brain stem.

Regrettably, despite these suspicions, he harbored a shameful belief that Potter actually knew what the hell he was doing.

Not that he would ever let that on to the wizard.

Potter was still looking at him as if he'd just asked him to slit his own mother's throat, rather than get a bite to eat. "I'm not," Harry finally vocalized, "leaving her."

"You can and you will," Regulus bit remorselessly, ignoring the boy's incredibly drawn features. Deep circles were beneath his eyes from sleepless nights, the wizard who had faced down Voldemort pale, exhausted. Black would rather chew the venomous spines of a lion fish than admit it, but what the boy had done in the forest had frightened even him.

It'd have frightened the most powerful of wizards, and yet a seventeen year old had harbored no qualms about facing off with the Dark Lord himself.

The blasted bird with incendiary tendencies let out a trill, hopping from the window to land on the mattress alongside the girl. The blankets sunk in beneath its feet, the phoenix nuzzling up against her, as if settling in for a prolonged nap.

In the corner another bird, a Great Horned owl, ooo-ed. It lay in a box, looking broken and fairly destroyed, yet even it had progressed to being able to move around somewhat.

Potter gazed at the phoenix with a dead eyed stare, the phoenix staring back. It looked, Black swore to things unholy, like they were having a conversation.

Eventually, just when Regulus thought he might actually have to hex the wizard, the boy stood. He breathed loudly, dragging his hands through his hair, fingers clenching within the black strands.

Then he walked stiffly to the side of Kalliandra's bed, the tense lines of his face softening for a moment. Potter reached out, his hand hesitating, before smoothing her hair out of her face with a gentleness Regulus did not understand.

Then Potter dropped a kiss on the unconscious girl's cheek, whispering something to her, before turning a forest green gaze onto him. Any temporary spark the boy might have had disappeared, his eyes looking dead.

Regulus sighed, knowing full well what the boy awaited. "Elf," he stated, "get in here." If it refused to cook on account it wasn't being paid to, then the very least it could do was babysit the girl.

With a pop Dobby apparated alongside the bed, the elf giving the Potter boy a strained, full-faced smile. The elf's ears, formerly straight, flopped over at the tips as he looked at the girl.

Then he sat down clumsily alongside the bed, his head flopping onto the pillow alongside Kalliandra's. Potter simply watched, looking like he wanted to cry.

"If you could," Black icily suggested, "get ahold of yourself. The girl's not going anywhere unless she decides to do us the favor of crossing over when we're not looking. In the interim there is asininely boring matter of not seeing you starve."

The candle on the end table abruptly snapped.

Black watched closely, seeing the spark of rage in Potter's eyes. It took some restraint to avoid antagonizing the boy further, but he'd gotten a sign of life out of him. Accidental magic…it was all he could do to not outright smirk at his small success, but that would not do. That would not do at all.

Potter wordlessly walked past him, the room's small fireplace crackling with an unnatural roar as the boy stormed out, and Regulus did not fail to miss the way the boy's fists clenched.

It left him alone, in the room with two birds and the elf, staring at the unconscious girl. Truth be told Regulus' stomach twisted unkindly as he beheld her. She was young. Seventeen was too young for the things she, Potter, and the others had faced.

Given he'd been drafted into the ranks of the Death Eaters even younger, he could relate. While his older brother had been off, gallivanting with his friends and shunning the family name, he'd left him behind on account he was a Slytherin, leaving him to be forcibly branded with a mark he had never wanted.

The idiots with the Order might hero worship his older, quite dead big brother, but Regulus merely remembered the rather selfish, single-minded teenager he'd been.

Regulus sighed heavily, bringing his focus back upon the girl, his patient. His throat went tight. "Any change in her condition, elf," he ordered, "and I want to know immediately." His dark eyes grew cold. "She dies on your watch and she will not be the only one to cross over to the hereafter today."

He might be trying to goad Potter into action, but he did want the girl to survive. If anyone had a chance of pulling a miracle out of his ass it was Potter.

Murderous threat delivered, Black stalked out of the room, walking through the small cottage to the kitchen, where he found Potter sitting. For all appearances, the boy had simply traded one chair and room for another. He sat there, at the kitchen table, elbows upon it, his head in his hands. He did not even appear to notice his bizarre surroundings.

Dumbledore's cottage away from Hogwarts was, after all, strange.

"Eat," he ordered. "Eat on account that that girl of yours will most likely kill you if she awakens to find out you have not."

Potter spoke into his hands, sounding hollow. "Didn't know you cared."

"I don't," he said coldly. "I do, however, care about how pissed a poorly controlled Reach will be in my direction if she finds I sat back and allowed it."

Potter's hands dropped, falling dully against the table. "Now that," he muttered flatly, "I believe."

Regulus scowled, a flick of his wand sending a plate of toast and eggs leaping from the trinket-littered counter top to land directly in front of the boy. It clattered onto the table along with a fork. "Eat. If I've degraded myself to the point of playing domesticated cook, the least you could do is consume it."

Potter stared at the fork as if it were a foreign object, before slowly picking it up. "What's the matter, Reggie," he stated, having stolen the moniker that dreadful color-changing cousin of his had adopted for him, "not used to house elves refusing to do the work even a first year could?"

Daggers shot from his eyes. Regulus did not sit down no matter how much his leg hurt, on account if he did he might take the boy's fork forcibly from him so as to stab him with it. That damn elf refused to cook.

"Remind me to unpolitely decline the next time that old man makes a request for me to accompany you back in time," he snapped.

"Dumbledore's not old." It was clear Potter said it merely to argue.

Regulus' lip curled. "He's older than perhaps God himself, Potter. Probably entertained Merlin in a broom closet. I've seen reanimated corpses that look younger than him."

Potter looked, momentarily, confused, as if slowly processing some new information about his beloved Headmaster. Regulus sneered triumphantly, having gotten his second sign of life out of him in as many days.

Potter, frowning, calmly stated, "I didn't ask you to come."

"Oh yes, and what would your solution have been when that girl of yours ceased breathing the other night? Or the night before that?"

Harry's head darted up at that, a panicked, wild look in his eyes. The girl had stopped breathing a half dozen times since the incident, and every time Potter reacted in the same manner. He made to stand-

"Sit," Black ordered. "The vital signs of that vegetable you're courting are behaving this afternoon. Take advantage. Eat."

The boy's chest was rising and falling heavily, as if he'd just run. His hands curled around the table's edge tightly, before he finally, stiffly sat. "Madame Pomfrey should have come."

Regulus scoffed. "And abandon the safety of her school? Please Potter. She is a washed up hack whose only relevant remaining skill is healing. If Voldemort found you alone with the sleeping snorer and that woman I'd give you maybe three minutes to live. She may be able to heal but dueling is beyond her repertoire."

Potter's eyes narrowed. "Kaylens doesn't snore."

"Ah yes, because I forgot, that was the main point of that sentence. Not Voldemort, but your precious girlfriend's sleeping habits."

Potter looked away.

Regulus sighed, arms crossing uncomfortably. Bringing a spark back into a depressed wizard's eyes was not his forte. Goading was the best he could do. "You need to realize, Potter, that her injuries were severe. All you wizards harbor this delusion that injury fixing is straightforward. It is not."

Potter listlessly stabbed at his food, not eating, but instead poking it with disinterest. "I know."

How unfortunate. If the boy wasn't even going to put up a fight what was the point of even trying to talk to him? For the second time in thirty seconds Regulus let out an uncharacteristic sigh. "Surely you know what I'm getting at then?"

Standing there, in a kitchen that could only be described as quaint had it not been for Dumbledore's insane trinkets lining the cupboards, he watched Potter angrily spear a scrambled egg, eating it more roughly than meant. He looked repulsed the second it went into his mouth, as if he'd been turned off from food entirely.

And still he continued to chew it; it was clearly an attempt to avoid talking.

Regulus would have none of it.

"She overdrew, Potter. She overdrew after suffering severe blood loss. That means even with all the interventions we provided to her she did not get enough oxygen to her-"

"Stop." The word was quiet, barely heard.

"-brain. She might not-"

Potter stabbed his fork loudly into the plate.

"-wake up. It would explain why the girl cannot breathe on her own for long. You need to prepare yourself for the possibility that she may nev-"

Potter's plate blasted away, flying across the kitchen and slamming into the cupboards, yellow chunks of egg and crumbled toast exploding onto the counters and floor. "I KNOW!" Harry's hands had clenched into fists, knuckles white. His aura practically sparked. "I know. I just-she just can't-"

He cut himself off, breathing like he'd been engaged in a tussle with a rampaging nundo.

Regulus wiped a piece of egg off his robes, flicking it to the ground with disdain. "What exactly makes you think she can't, Potter? I assure you, she's a biological being and as perfectly capable of brain death as you or I."

"I just know."

"How?" he calmly demanded, raising his brow.

Potter fixed him with that same emotionless look he'd born the past several days. For the first two he'd looked desperate, pathetically hopeful. Then despair. Then this. The boy was useless in all three states. He had to get him to an entirely different one if any of this was going to work.

"Haven't you ever loved anyone?" Potter finally asked.

"No," he replied remorselessly. "I was in Slytherin. If you haven't heard, it is my house's prerogative to love thyself and only thyself, and cut the throat of anyone who got in our way."

"Damn," Potter drawled back with a trace of life. "Must have been busy, what with all that naked dancing in the moonlit-crypts thing you all had going on Saturdays. When'd you squeeze in the throat slittings? Lunch?"

Regulus Black stared at the boy's first attempt at jest in days, then decided to make no note of it. "It has been my good fortune," he instead stated, "to have avoided such affliction." Glancing back towards the room the girl currently occupied, he icily bit, "Something you have been far less of a success at."

The black haired wizard sat there, piercing green eyes staring almost deadenly, before…

"Some things are worth it." Potter's voice came out hollow, calm. "She'll be fine."

Regulus repeated his simple demand. "How," he drawled, "do you know?"

For a long time Potter seemed to think about this.

"Because the timeline hasn't changed," he finally said. Potter spoke so quietly, so fearfully that it scarcely sounded like him. He stared fixedly down at the table, seeing something only he could see.

Regulus was genuinely surprised when he spoke again without further goading.

"I was planning to…to do something." Potter swallowed audibly. "Something happened in May and-"

"What happened in May?" Regulus watched Potter intently. He'd already been told, informed by that head-injured cousin of his before he, Potter and the sleeping wonder had departed for her recovery. He was perfectly well informed, but the girl's only chance was for this stupid, immature boy to figure it out.

They could not do it for him; that meddling old man had been quite clear on that: only Potter would figure out a way, and he might need pushed past his depression into it.

Really, Regulus would have far preferred to hex his ass into intelligence, but apparently acumen wasn't transferred in such a manner.

Again, he repeated, "What happened in May, Potter?"

Potter's teeth practically ground. "It doesn't matter. It just gave me a swift kick in the ass to not dick around when it came to things with her." His eyes turned distant. "If she dies now, then what happened in May couldn't happen, and I wouldn't still remember wanting to do it. Not to mention…she dies now, so do I."

"And your thesis statement of that rambling nonsense is supposed to be…?"

The boy's brow creased, lines so deep and heavy it appeared to age him well beyond his years. "I'm not dead and I remember wanting to give her something damn specific. So she has to live." That despondent look the boy had carried within his eyes for days vanished, a glint so determined flashing that it was a marvel it'd ever been repressed at all.

There it was. Regulus leaned against the counter, cane partially supporting his left side. "So what do you intend to do about it?"

Harry Potter's head jerked up, meeting his levelly. "I have to go."

Regulus Black, keeper of the time travelling Hogwarts' students, one elf, and two overgrown chickens with attitudes allowed himself a satisfied smirk. "Good. Now go."

Harry Potter spun on the spot, disapparating with a loud pop and flash of literal flame.

Regulus Black was left standing there, in the kitchen, a wooden flamingo flying down from the top of one of the cupboards to graze on the discarded eggs. He was left with little to do than watch, wondering when in the hell Potter had learned to apparate, and how the hell he was going to explain to Albus why his kitchen floor was singed.


ECOTS


December 15th, 1996 – 12:02 a.m.

Sneaking into Hogwarts had been a hell of a lot easier than it should have been.

Not an hour ago he'd found himself in Hogsmeade, not knowing how in the hell he'd gotten there. All he knew was that a five centimeter stretch of his arm lay stretched open, bleeding and raw, painful as hell, and Harry Potter couldn't have cared less.

With a grimace he'd torn off a piece of his cloak and tied it taught around the minor splinching. Then he'd wasted no time breaking into the Shrieking Shack, angrily kicking in the magicked boards covering a lower window more for release than actual need. Taking the tunnel, subduing the Whomping Willow, disillusioning himself, stealing a practice broom from the Quidditch pitch, and making his way to Gryffindor Tower had seemed like standard daily affairs after that.

Really, he was getting good at sneaking around.

The only thing he had to worry about was blood from his arm seeping through his makeshift bandage and dripping on the ground behind him. But really, he was glad for the pain. It kept him alert, conscious. It kept him from thinking about everything he'd worked for being for naught. If Kaylens died…

"Hermione. Hermione, wake up!"

Hermione stirred, his bushy haired friend blinking groggily at him. It was the middle of the night, in the girl's dorm, and a confiscated Quidditch practice broom lay at the foot of her bed by her feet. Harry could almost understand the confused, tired look she gave him. Hell, she probably thought she was dreaming. "Harry?"

"No," he dryly replied, "it's the boogeyman."

You'd have thought he'd pulled his wand and threatened to kill her. Her brown eyes went so wide he practically saw straight back into her brain, the cleverest witch of their age jerking bolt upright. "HAR-"

Harry slammed a hand over her mouth before she could wake the whole dorm and silently prayed that the silencing charm he'd placed on her bed hangings had been up to snuff. With a flick of his wrist he sent them closing around them. "Try," he commanded wryly, "to not wake the whole house, or Ginny. But mostly Ginny."

Hermione continued to stare at him, her hair bushier than normal, eyes wide as saucers.

Then she intelligently tried to talk.

"Phatpharphophoingphere."

He proffered a grim smirk through the darkness. "Blink once if you promise not to scream."

Hermione, seeming to come to her senses, blinked twice.

"Forget how to count or are you actually intending to exercise your vocal chords as if you just found Malfoy in bed with ya?"

Hermione's eyes narrowed over the top of his hand, his best friend smacking his hand away. "Harry," she hissed, looking around the dorm frantically, keeping her voice lowered. "What are you doing here? You're on my bed. You-" she stopped abruptly, looking horrorstruck, head whipping towards the far bed. "Please tell me you and Kally weren't doing that with Ginny and I in-"

His stomach coiled with upset. "We weren't," he cut in. "She's not even here. She's down with Snape." He swallowed roughly. "I need your help, Hermione."

She looked instantly concerned, and suspicious, but mostly suspicious. "With what? Where's Ron?"

"Boy's dorm," he responded automatically, "with me."

Hermione frowned. "What do you mean with-"

Fuck it. He didn't have time to screw around. Harry abruptly pulled Dumbledore's timeturner out from beneath his shirt, shoving the golden hourglass directly in front of his friend's nose.

Hermione's eyes practically crossed trying to get a good look at the swinging object, the witch grabbing his wrist to hold it still in the dark room. Unlike him she couldn't see with the lights off. Harry made a mental note to try to remember that when invading her room in the future. No wonder she'd been startled. The last thing he needed was to get mistaken for a Death Eater and to land himself on the receiving end of one of her hexes.

Her mouth parted, hanging open for a second. Make that several seconds.

"Please tell me that's not-"

"It is." He tucked the timeturner back beneath his shirt before she could snag it and try to analyze the blasted thing. He was rapidly developing a deep and abiding hate of it. "Believe me, wouldn't have used it if I didn't have to. Makes shit complicated."

She was silent for a moment, doing an admirable job of processing a lot of information in short order. The fact that she was doing it on interrupted sleep, no less, ought to have earned her twenty house points, at least.

"Harry," she started cautiously, "all those were destroyed. The Department of Mysteries even reported that there aren't any left after all of us-"

She stopped abruptly, as if just remembering that Sirius had died due to his mistake, not eager to bring up a sorry subject.

Harry grimaced. "Yeah well, Dumbledore had a wildcard up his sleeve." He cast a surreptitious glance through Hermione's sheer bed hangings, towards where Ginny slept. She remained facedown and burrowed half beneath her pillow, looking for all the world like she'd been in a brawl with her sheets. She hadn't so much as moved since he'd snuck in, and he thanked the fucking founders that she had grown up with so many brothers. Given that the fireworks-loving-twins were her biologics, sleeping through lots of noise must have been a downright survival skill growing up.

"A timeturner…I can't believe it…"

Harry's darkened eyes slid back to Hermione. "For someone who used to use one on a daily basis as a matter of sport I'd think you'd be familiar." It was why he was here. Harry needed the help of someone smarter than him, and Hermione would be the most likely to accept the time traveling background in quick order.

"You know perfectly well that was for scholastics, Harry. Not for…mucking about and sneaking into girl's dor-"

"Not to be an ass," he cut her off, "but on a bit of a time crunch here. Any chance we could move past the gaping disbelieving component of the conversation and onto the 'practical, what the hell are you doing here, Harry?' part? I don't know how long Kaylens is going to stay in the potions labs tonight and it'd be rather inconvenient if she found me in bed with you and not her."

Hermione's eyes instantly narrowed with the threat of many, many questions; she settled on one. "So you've already used it then?" He didn't have to ask what she meant; it was obvious.

"Yeah," he told unblinkingly. "Went back six months the first time, then just over four the next."

Her mouth fell open again, flapping soundlessly. "But…Harry timeturners only go back a matter of hours, not-"

"Not this one," he finished for her. "Like I said, Dumbledore had a wildcard. It goes back in measured days."

She brushed her hair out of her face, as if it had somehow been obscuring her view and making her hallucinate. "Harry, what…what possible reason could you have to go back nearly a year…" she broke off, blinking. "Wait, six months the first time, four months the second time…" She frowned. "Do you mean to say that there's three of you running around at the same time?"

Despite the situation he smirked like a jackal. "Actually," he drawled, "for a few days in April there'll be four of me."

"Harry!" she hissed, struggling to keep her voice down. "I can't believe you'd be this…this…utterly reckless! It's irresponsible and downright dangerous and-"

"You've known me for years and you're just figuring this out?"

"Harry! You are the most paranoid person I've ever met. You make Moody look lax and he drinks out of a personalized flask! Did you ever stop to think what you'd do to yourself if you caught sight of-"

"Given I'm rather attached to both my head and genitalia, yeah. Believe it or not I did take it under consideration."

Hermione drug both hands through her hair, in a clear attempt to tame it. With the blink of an eye she was fussing with her oversized nightshirt. "I can't believe Dumbledore went along with this."

Harry stiffened. "His idea," he whispered, "actually."

It'd taken four days to stabilize Kaylens enough to so much as move her. Moody…was still in bad shape, Tonks not much better, but Kaylens…

She'd been the worst.

She'd been dying.

She was dying.

Harry'd barely maintained sanity. The memory of her laying there, limp in the grass, unresponsive, blood in more places than he could count

She hadn't been breathing.

The last thing Harry remembered after the shockwave hit, after awakening from it was crawling to her. He'd clutched her broken body to him, clasping her against his chest, face buried against her wildly tangled hair whilst Kaylens said nothing. She gave no protest. She made no sounds. She couldn't. She was nearly dead. There'd been shouting, yelling for him to let her go, Harry refusing.

Someone, probably McGonagall, had hexed him.

Harry hadn't been conscious when they'd worked on her, stabilizing her. All he knew was when he'd woken up she'd been in a coma, her breathing intermittently failing, Pomfrey and Black talking in hushed voices, discussing whether or not she was brain dead.

The magical world, unlike the Muggle, was lacking in that area. Without literal electronics, they had no way to tell.

Harry'd rolled over and vomited.

After that he'd waited as long as he could: four days. Four long days and nights in Hagrid's Hut. It'd been hell. Finally they'd reached the day before everything with him and Kaylens had gone to complete and utter shit at that Order meeting. They'd all swam in the Black Lake, earning the right to go after the island's horcrux. That day was hard to forget on its own, but it'd also been five days before he'd taken Kaylens as his own for the first time, claiming her body as his, dementors descending like the joy-sucking leaches they were and interrupting any chance they'd had at actually talking.

Point was, the night before all of that Kaylens had come across he, Ron and Hermione in the common room, carrying her newly acquired wand, one she'd thought she hadn't yet used, and she'd most definitely been conscious and uninjured. Granted, she'd looked like hell, exhausted, pale, Hermione giving her pepper-up potion, but at the time he'd chalked it up to a lack of sleep and too much time apprenticing with Black and Snape.

Now…he wasn't so sure.

Thinking back, there'd been another sodding hint. That night he'd laughed in her face when she'd confessed her fear that her new wand wouldn't work for her. Ron'd been used a shield in their little chase near the common room hearth, Harry eventually capturing her in the confines of his arms, holding her, convincing her to try it in the Room of Requirement, in the rain…

She'd used it.

It'd worked, and Kaylens…

She'd been fine.

Given she'd never been able to use a wand for anything other than stunning – the equivalent of shocking someone with electricity – that had been surprising. It shouldn't have been that easy for her to use for the very first time. Which meant…

She'd used it before. She'd already practiced with it, beyond what she'd done in the clearing, even if she didn't remember doing so.

The answer to all of those inconsistencies – why Kaylens had looked so haggard, why her wand had actually responded to her the first time using it - it hung around his neck, the cool metal a reminder of just what he had to lose, the lengths he'd go to fix it, the lengths he already had gone.

Damn time travel was fucking confusing.

Sitting alongside Kaylens' bed, watching her grow ever stiller, her familiar fingers clutched between his own, he'd known the truth: she'd gone back in time with him. It made sense; by the time they got back, catching up to the current timeline, Kaylens would be healed, able to do all the things she'd need to do to survive that cursed island.

He'd told Dumbledore his suspicion, the Headmaster nodding thoughtfully, agreeing that they indeed, must have gone back in time again.

So he'd sent him, Kaylens, and Regulus back; Regulus had been sent due to his potions and healing abilities. The only problem was where to put them. Hogwarts was already occupied by two of them, so Dumbledore had suggested they go to his literal house.

For some reason Harry had been surprised to find out that Dumbledore owned an actual home outside of Hogwarts. He had no idea why it'd shocked him; the professors hardly could be expected to stay all summer long, yet it had still surprised him. The cottage was small, quaint, and secure as hell. Dumbledore rarely used it, only for a month or so each summer, so he had assured him that they'd be safe from running into anyone there.

Now Kaylens lay there, fading. He hadn't needed Regulus to tell him that this 'holding pattern' they'd thus far managed with her would be one they'd eventually lose.

Hermione didn't know any of this.

"But…Dumbledore?" Again, her mouth flapped wordlessly, oblivious to his thoughts.

Harry knew, knew Kaylens had to live.

He also was fucking terrified that she might not.

The line of his jaw simply set, humorless. "I'm desperate, 'Mione," he whispered. "Kaylens is dying. I think I know a way to save her, but I need your help."

Had he hauled off and slapped her she couldn't have looked more stunned. Her lips clamped shut, a worried line forming for a long moment.

Then Hermione Granger, witch extraordinaire, calmly said, "Then I think you might want to start at the beginning, Harry…but not here."

She tugged her legs out from beneath the blankets, her nightshirt clinging to her in a way that would have had Ron drooling. Harry just nodded, game-faced, and with a smooth movement had slipped off her bed and back through her bed hangings, shouldering the broom he'd used to get around the pesky 'stair-slide' problem. "I'll wait outside so you can…" He cast a pointed look at her clothing or lack thereof, Hermione blushing in the dark.

In a few minutes she'd joined him, properly dressed to go running about the castle on a cold December night, Harry snaring her hand and dragging her with him. He filled her in on the events in hushed whispers, Hermione doing an admirable job of not hauling off and slapping him for misuse of a magical artifact, but otherwise remaining fairly silent.

He conveniently left out the bits about tearing Death Eaters limb-from-limb.

He felt like utter shit for lying; an omission was a freaking lie, no matter what the whole of Slytherin house thought. He still left it out. He couldn't have her distracted, and he was pretty certain his best friend would be distracted from the task at hand if she was worried he'd gone 'dark side.'

They were in the library in no time. The door squeaked open, Harry wincing at the clearly unoiled hinges. "For a place that demands absolute silence you'd think they'd do a better job at maintenance."

Hermione shot him a scowl, looking quickly around. "Yes well," she said distractedly, "I think the house elves have enough on their plates, considering they're unpaid and still doing all our laundry, cooking, cleaning, robe mending, dusting the bindings and-"

Harry smacked a hand over her mouth before she could get started, waiting a few ticks of the library's grandfather clock before slowly removing it. He didn't care that he was getting a death glare; he just cared that Hermione had went with him in the middle of the night, even though he hadn't exactly done the best job of being there for her over the past few months. At least…in her timeline he hadn't.

In his timeline he might have made it up to her in recent months, but to this Hermione he was still the same asshole that'd ignored her when her parents had been taken – and most likely killed – by Voldemort, failed to stop her abduction in Hogsmeade, leading her to be tortured at the hands of multiple Death Eaters, only resuming actual chatting privileges barely a month ago.

The fact that she was still his friend proved something.

Hermione angrily growled, spinning quickly and casting a quick succession of charms at the library's door. Harry frowned, watching them, not recognizing anything other than one of her more complex locking charms that he still had yet to quite master. "What are those?"

"Those," she told, "will warn us if anyone, like a Professor or worse, the Librarian, is coming."

"We still have a librarian?" Hogwarts had been functioning at a skeletal crew staff ever since the Board of Governors had withdrawn support. He'd honestly had no clue they still had one.

"The Grey Lady took it on. You know, Ravenclaw's ghost? She's distinctly…unforgiving about library infractions."

Harry took a moment to mull over the very frightening possibilities involved when a ghost was incensed. "Not exactly inspiring confidence…"

"Shut it, Harry," Hermione clipped in uncanny impersonation of Ron. She still eyed the door, fretting against her lower lip.

Barely repressing a snort, he inclined an eyebrow. "Think of it this way…school's hardly in session and we're out at all times of day and night as it, Hermione. I doubt McGonagall's going to care."

She shot him a look. "She doesn't care because we're with her when we're out, and that's for war training, Harry. It's part of our schooling!"

"Ah yes," he said dryly, "she's okay with us skulking about as long as it's skulking about for her purposes."

"Exactly, and I don't think that'll transfer over to the Gray Lady quite so well…"

Harry simply stepped farther into the empty library, nerves rifling through him as the ghostly gray shafts of moonlight streamed in through the wrought iron windows, shifting as the cloud cover outside moved. Great. Now he'd be jumping at shadows thinking they were caught. He couldn't afford that type of delay; Kaylens had waited long enough as it was for him to pull himself together. He wasn't about to get held up by an angry ghost.

He drug a hand across the top of his head, hair askew, sticking up in every conceivable direction. His makeshift bandage dug against his bicep, Harry wincing as he flicked his fingers, several candles sparking to life, casting a dim glow throughout.

His best friend was squinting at him. Only now, in the dim candlelight of the library, was she getting a good look at him. "Jesus Harry, you look dreadful."

"Yeah," he grunted, "tell me about it. Black won't stop harping on about it."

"I rather think he should," she muttered anxiously, staring at him with open concern. "Somebody clearly has to." Her brow creased as she caught sight of his arm, voice rising. "Harry, what happened to your arm?"

Harry ignored her and pointedly took off for the Restricted Section, leaving her with nothing to do but trail after him. "Harry. Harry! Your arm! And what exactly are we looking for? You said you need my help-"

"Stop acting so surprised, 'Mione," he said, reaching the locked gate leading to the Restricted Section. "I've always needed your help." With that he shoved his palm against the brass gate, a magical line tracing the outline of his palm, glowing a dim blue, then unlocking with a click.

Hermione gaped. "Since when have you had access to the Restricted Section?"

"Since September," he responded guilelessly.

"Oh." She looked a bit surprised, but still eyed his arm like she rather wanted to grab and fix it.

"Pain's keeping me awake, Mione," he told automatically, before she could try anything. Then his eyes narrowed around the dusty, poorly frequented Restricted Section, his hand lifting and conjuring a dim orb of light within his palm.

Hermione made a surprised sound, but Harry's eyes were already raking over the stacks. "I need your help finding a spell. Anything on energy transference," he muttered mechanically. "In May something…happens to me. Kaylens transfers energy from herself to me. It worked. And I think," he continued, "the process could work in reverse. If I transfer some of my magical energy from me to her, it ought to bolster her natural magic and fix her."

"Define fix," she said hesitantly.

Harry's heart dropped to his knees, unable to think about this and function. "She has unicorn blood…" he whispered hollowly, reminding Hermione.

For the first time since this insane, out-there idea had occurred to him, Harry doubted himself. "If unicorn blood can bring someone back from the brink of death, then it should be able to fix her. So far all it's done is keep her alive though." His throat tightened. "Barely, at that."

The look on Hermione's face was terrible. "And Regulus," she posed carefully, "thinks she's brain-" She stopped, as if unable to bring herself to say the word.

Harry's throat tightened. "Damaged," he croaked. "It'd explain why she's still in a coma, why she can't…" Swallowing thickly, he forced, "Why she stops breathing a lot."

Hermione made an upset sound that he didn't listen to; he couldn't. He strode further into the Restricted Section, determined, moving in and out of shafts of moonlight as he scanned the ancient volumes.

"Harry…" Hermione tried.

He cut her off.

"I figure," he interrupted, "if I give her some of my magic, if I could just enhance the unicorn blood already in her, it could make her heal faster, before…" He glanced towards his best friend. "Do you think it'll be enough?"

Hermione looked at him sadly, lips parted as if at a loss. "Honestly Harry…I don't-I don't know."

He sucked in a breath, gaze darting back towards the book, solemn resolve returning. "Well I have to try." It'd worked. It had to of worked, because he was still alive, and he still remembered everything about her. That knowledge alone…it drove him.

"Energy transference is hard, Harry. It's only been attempted a handful of times by wizards, who were, well, a lot more…experienced than you and-and-well it could kill you."

"That's a chance," he grimaced, "I'm willing to take."

In the library's darkness his best friend stared at him, a thousand questions flashing within her dark eyes, but in the end she wet her lips. "I've read about this, Harry. This is obscure magic. Not to mention there's not exactly a lot of precedence for it being done on people with unicorn blood in them. I doubt there's any, and while your logic is actually sound-"

"Gee, thanks," he drawled.

Hermione scowled. "You know what I mean, Harry. Your premise for it being able to heal her and why is sound, but what you're suggesting…it's…"

"Dangerous, yeah. Again, I know. Not losing her, Mione. I…I can't."

Hermione rubbed tiredly at her eyes. "You just started dating…"

"To you," he uttered. "Not to me." To him it'd been a year, just over. He intended it to last a hell of a lot longer.

Kaylens had warned him, more than once, that those with her mutation weren't exactly evolved for longevity.

He was convinced he'd prove her wrong.

In the dimly lit library, beneath the not-so-towering shelves of the Restricted Section, Hermione still frowned. "This isn't some overly noble, saving-people-thing you're doing, is it, Harry? Because if it is-"

"It's not." His throat clenched.

"So you'd go to this trouble for just anyone then?"

Meeting her eyes levelly, not grasping the point of her questions, his teeth gritted. "No," he told truthfully. "You, Ron, Kaylens, Luna, Ginny, Lupin…maybe Neville…"

Hermione was gnawing on her lip, as if thinking. "Being overly emotional doesn't work well with this type of spellwork, Harry. That's why I'm askin-"

He about snapped. "Look, she dies, Hermione, the entire timeline changes. I die. Ron probably dies. Dean, Luna…" If she hadn't distracted that shark when she had he doubted any of them would have made it off that island to begin with. Survival had been a team effort, but if even one component of the team that had been there was removed…

His eyes clenched for a second, dispelling the images.

Hermione's shoulders rose and fell with a deeply indrawn breath, her eyes flickering desperately across his face in the dark. "So you mean Ron-"

"Don't," he begged, "make me answer more than I already have."

He saw her mouth open, then close sharply. Hermione was the one who had taught him the rules of time travel, and by talking to her here and now he was already breaking tons of them.

Still, he wasn't surprised when she opened her mouth again; he was just surprised by the question.

"You're in love with her," she whispered, "aren't you?"

He met her eyes without question. "Yes."

She let out a breath. "Wow. That's…things changed since September."

"You have no," he said honestly, "idea."

Standing there, in the dark, the bars of the restricted section casting ominous shadows across the floor from the dim candlelight, he watched Hermione processing more information than it was fair for him to expect.

Yet she did it; she did it for him.

And to think he'd tried to push her away.

Finally she nodded quietly, as is reassuring herself. "Okay…okay Harry," she relented, as if coming to a difficult decision. "This way." Quickly she disappeared down the dark aisles, immediately crouching, targeting a small shelf near the floor. "All the books on energy transference are here…" she murmured crisply, dragging a fingertip across the bindings. "What you're talking about though…"

"Hermione," he questioned cautiously, "how did you know where this section was at?" He paused. "How'd you even know there was a section on it? I just figured this would be a place to start." The way she'd walked over here, quick and business like…

"I've had access to the Restricted Section since fourth year," she murmured distractedly. "I read this section fourth year when Ron wasn't particularly talking to either of us."

Now it was Harry's turn to blink. "How," he questioned seriously, "am I just hearing about this?"

"You never asked."

"But-"

"How am I just finding out you can conjure reading orbs of light wandlessly?" she countered, glancing at the glowing ball in his hand.

Harry's eyes darted from the orb to her, the wizard shrugging. "Probably cause I learned to make them in March and it's not March yet?"

She tutted with irritation.

A bit of a grin touched his face. "If I teach you, do you promise not to hex me for this?"

She tutted with a bit less irritation.

A book was pulled from the shelf, dust pluming in the air. Harry coughed, waving his hand to dispel it, Hermione impervious to its effects as she sat right down on the floor and began whispering soothingly to it, as if it may attack if exposed to sudden sounds. "Lumos," she whispered, reading by the light of her wand.

Harry wisely sent the glowing orb levitating over her, its warm light casting a gentle glow down upon the pages so her hands could be free.

She mumbled an absent thanks.

With nothing else to do Harry sat down alongside her, reaching out for one of the old tomes-

Hermione caught his wrist without even looking up from the book. "Not that one," she chastised quietly. She pointedly moved his hand to the one besides it. "That one. Towards the end. There's something about ancient runes and we need a few symbols out of it. If we're going to do this, I'm not about to let you go and get yourself blown up."

He eyed her. "Read all the books, have you?"

"Twice, actually," she muttered quietly, spotting his look. "What? The section's not that big. But the spell you need, it's…complex."

"Yeah well," he muttered, still trying to process that Hermione had read all of the books in the Restricted Section already, "wasn't expecting it to be on par with levitating feathers."

At that Hermione actually glanced up, a slight, sleepy smile lightening her face. Harry wished he could return it, but it felt like every internal organ he had was tied in literal knots.

The next hour was agonizing, ending only when Hermione abruptly closed the book, closed her eyes, sighing.

She'd found the spell.

It was simple; undeniably simple. The execution itself though…that was complex. The incantation was simple enough, just like casting a Patronus Charm, but it relied on force of will, and that….

Well hell.

That he could do. Somehow he reckoned his single-minded obsession with saving his girlfriend ought to be more than useful for that.

As for the spell's history, there'd been a handful of documented cases of wizards and witches of old attempting energy transferences before magical competitions, to get an edge – to cheat as Hermione put it. Problem was that kind of magic often backfired, spectacularly.

One documented case in the book was a pair of twins. The brother was competing in the Tri Wizard Tournament, and his sister tried to give him a bit of a magical boost pre-task. It'd ended with both of them having their organs solidly displaced. Magical boost or not, they were both quite dead. The professors had been finding pieces of their organs for days.

Harry had what he needed.

That meant he no longer needed Hermione's help. He hadn't been looking forward to this, but it was inevitable, his hand drifting to his wand-

He found Hermione's wand directly in his face. "I swear to Gryffindor, Harry," she whispered with a fierce, shaking voice, "if you try to obliviate me first I will hex you to within an inch of your life."

Harry stared at his friend, Hermione staring determinedly back. Seeing the distrust in her almond shaped eyes, seeing the slight shake of her wand hand, hearing the tremor in her voice…only then did he realize how badly he'd damaged the trust in their friendship.

He felt sick.

"Hermione…" he started.

"Don't," she whispered. "Just…save it, Harry. I-I know you're going to have to obliviate me, but…but first I am going with you to make sure you don't kill yourself trying this, and I will not take your stubborn, idiotic, overly brash no for an answer."

Hermione had definitely belonged in Gryffindor. Harry could only stare back, nodding fixedly. "Okay," he whispered, unsure of what else to say.

Surprise erupted on her face. "What? That-that's it?"

Staring down the length of her wand, Harry shrugged. "Take it you expected more of a fight?" He shut the book in hand, standing. "Need all the help I can get, Hermione. Not going to exactly protest the smartest person I know throwing in."

Hermione faltered, never one for taking compliments graciously.

She rebounded nicely. "Of course I'll help, Harry. It's Kally."

Tucking the book beneath his elbow, he revealed, "You know…I didn't even think you liked her." Not that she didn't like her, but she certainly hadn't made her thoughts on the two of them snogging incessantly secret.

Only then did she begin to slowly lower her wand. "I may not be particularly close with her, but honestly Harry she's one of us." In the dark library, surrounded by growling, rattling books, she paused. "If we can save an Order member we have to try, don't we? I mean, if we don't then what exactly are we fighting for anyway?"

To that…Harry didn't have an answer.

They left for Dumbledore's cottage thereafter, the trip back considerably better than the trip there.

Amongst the many things he'd missed in Hermione Granger's life that fall, her learning to apparate from Hogsmeade had been one of them.

She'd also gotten skilled at side-along.

His arm gave another painful throb, and he made a mental note to ask her for tips at a later time.


ECOTS


December 15th, 1996 – 1:32 p.m.

Regulus Black stood in the doorway, watching as 'that Granger girl' drew symbols liberally everywhere. Had it been any other day Harry might have punched him for calling her that. As it was, Hermione was too busy drawing runes all over the floorboards around Kaylens' bed, on the walls, and hell, even on Fawkes. She'd cooed at him, somehow convincing his increasingly grouchy familiar to hold still. They'd removed Kaylens' ailing owl from the room altogether.

The symbols would apparently serve as a buffer from magical outbursts or backlashes, and right now Harry would take anything he could actually get.

Harry stood alongside Kalliandra with a knife, an air of grim determination upon him.

They were doing this.

Slowly he leant over her, breathing calm, even. Hers was less so; it was more shaky, unsteady. Harry knew this pattern; he'd heard it before. It meant that soon, very soon, she'd stop breathing on her own again. Regulus would have to cast another spell to do it for her, until her body again picked it up.

If it picked it up.

His fingers found hers, tightening around them.

From the doorway came a voice: "I'd say this was inadvisable, if I wasn't already convinced you'd done it anyway."

Harry didn't so much as look up, his lips dropping against Kaylens' pale brow before responding. "I'd say you've gotten smarter."

Black grunted, Hermione standing up and brushing chalk off her hands. "Done," she declared. Harry lifted his head up from Kaylens, finding Hermione looking right at them. Her entire expression had furrowed, the witch worrying her lower lip. "We'll step outside Harry. I can activate the runic wards from the doorway and they should help absorb some of the residual energy, if anything gets misplaced."

"Ah yes, cannot have him blowing up Dumbledore's house, after all." Black looked around with an air of disdain. "It'd be such a shame if the old bat was forced to redecorate, after all."

Hermione made an angry sound in Black's general direction, before walking over determinedly to him. She stopped on the opposite side of Kaylens' bed, looking at him fiercely. "Harry," she said, "are you sure this is what-"

His dark gaze practically flashed. "Yes."

From the doorway came a scoff. "As responsible as I am for having encouraged this, ward-"

"Seventeen," Harry clipped automatically. "Not your ward anymore."

"-irregardless, are you in the right frame of mind to be doing this type of magic?"

Harry looked down at Kaylens' pale face, her hair sprawled messily out around it, and breathed deeply. She was dying. At the very least, she wasn't waking up. The panic that had been stabbing through him was enough to destroy his ability to think, and yet…

His mother's ring remained hidden in his dresser drawer back at Number 4 Privet Drive. He remembered this.

If Kaylens died now, if she died before he had, before she'd had a chance to save him on that cursed island, then he'd never have been pulseless long enough to talk to Sirius.

If he hadn't talked to Sirius, he wouldn't have realized how much he needed to make her that promise, the promise that he wouldn't leave her. He never would have asked Remus to help him find a ring, and never would have wound up with his mother's ring in the dresser.

The throbbing, stabbing panic exploding in his stomach abruptly calmed. Harry let his hand drag across her face, nodding. "Yeah," he told. "Yeah, I'm good."

And he was.

Harry sat down alongside her bed, and began.

In that cottage along the sea, hidden in an outcropping of magical trees that shimmered like ice, Harry Potter cast an ancient spell. The runic wards Hermione had drawn gleamed a pale gold, a strange, golden light forming on Harry's hands and sliding out of them, and into the non-witch he was trying to save.

A knife flashed, slicing into his palm with a wince and hiss. Then Harry turned it on Kaylens, taking her hand carefully in his own, uncurling her lifeless fingers.

Then, practically biting off his own tongue, he dug the blade into the smooth flesh of her palm and sliced.

Her reddish-silver blood welled out, Harry's heart pounding, hating that he'd gone against ever engrained instinct within himself and harmed her for this.

It needed done.

Harry clasped hands with her, their blood once more coming into direct contact, a sudden spark slicing through his arm.

Years ago Harry had been asked how he'd been able to cast the Patronus Charm. He'd said it'd been easy, because at that moment, traveling through time, standing alongside the lake with Hermione and watching the dementors swarm in upon he and Sirius, he'd realized that he'd already done it.

Just like then Harry knew he'd already cast this particular charm. He'd already cast it upon Kaylens, because if he hadn't, they'd both already be dead.

When he'd first laid eyes upon her, standing in those dress robes she'd never gotten to wear in Madame Maulkins, he'd had no idea how impossibly intertwined their lives and magic would become.

A sound began to fill the room, like a phoenix song.

There was a flash of impossibly golden light, it blinding to the two souls that looked on, Hermione and Regulus both averting their eyes from the doorway…

The wizard with the lightning bolt shaped scar slumped across the mattress, one hand clutching at the girl's, the other fisted within her impossibly thick, silky hair. Harry lay there, breathing hard, any and all energy he had taken out of him by the strength of the cast spell. It felt like he'd run five back-to-back laps around the castle's stairwells, and then been asked to drop and give Oliver Wood an additional twenty. Had he tried to make so much as a spark from his wand, he wouldn't have been able.

Like Kaylens eventually would do herself, he'd torn magic, life-energy, right out of himself and forced it into her.

Their hands remained intertwined, bloodied smears on the bed sheets even as his hand slowly began to heal.

It was only seconds before the cut upon Kally's palm healed as well. Harry's free hand slowly slid through her tresses, a loud buzzing in his head.

Through it he still heard a sound, the most beautiful fucking sound he'd heard in days.

Kaylens' unsteady breaths grew suddenly steady, a sleepy murmur expelled from her lips.

It was the first sound she'd made, and it was glorious.

Then he passed the hell out.


ECOTS


December 16th, 1996 – 3 a.m..

Harry woke up, feeling like he'd been hit by a truck.

"About time," Hermione clipped without looking up from her book. "I was about to charm your hair blonde and dub you Aurora." She flipped a page with a crisp snap, the fire roaring behind where she sat, having taken up residency in that same blue painted chair he'd spent so many days sitting in. Outside the window it was dark, clearly night, and looked every bit as cold as it had been.

At this stage in his life he'd been knocked out enough times that waking up in surprising no longer phased him. As such, he didn't even bat an eye, instead croaking, "Aurora?"

She looked up, brown eyes catching his. "Sleeping beauty?" Her brow furrowed. "Surely you heard at least some children's tales at the Dursleys, Harry?"

He grunted. "Can't say that I have," he responded honestly.

For some reason amongst all the abuses he'd been forced to endure at the hands of his relatives, this – the complete and utter lack of children's fairy tales – was what made Hermione hiss. "When you go to get your stuff from them this summer, Harry," she said seriously, "I'd rather like to go with you."

"Be my guest," he allowed. Hell, an angry Hermione unleashed on his Muggle relatives? The twins could sell tickets to that spectacle.

His entire body gave a painful throb, as if to remind him that he'd recently done inadvisable magic at disturbingly high levels.

Mentally he flipped off each and every one of his nerve endings.

Groaning, he rolled over on what appeared to be a conjured cot. It was set up considerately alongside Kaylens' bed and surprisingly comfortable. "Nice work," he complimented tiredly, aware it had to be Hermione's doing. Black would have just left him on the floor.

Hermione mumbled a sound of agreement, aware of her spellwork's adequacy, and flipped another page.

Harry paid that no attention. He'd already sat gingerly up, eyes focusing blearily on Kally.

Unlike before, unlike the past two weeks of inactivity where she'd laid flat on her back, immobile, she looked different. Her skin seemed warmer, her hair a tussled mess, as if she'd tossed and turned in her sleep, one of her arms tugged out from beneath the warm, patched-blanket to rest by her face.

What sent his heart leaping in his chest was the sight of her ankle, her foot sticking out from beneath the sheets, her purple and blue sock hanging halfway off.

Kaylens had spectacular ankles.

Kally, his Kally, was completely and utterly incapable of sleeping with socks an entire night. She always stubbornly insisted she was cold, keeping her socks on, but by morning they'd always, somehow, inexplicably be kicked off.

He still wondered how she actually managed that, since he'd never once witnessed her doing it.

Harry was on his feet, unsteadily dropping a hand on her bed. The pain that ricocheted through him was intense. Hell, he considered screaming like a little girl, but reckoned he'd never live it down if Hermione, or worse, Black, witnessed it. So instead he focused on the witch he'd done all of this for.

She'd clearly moved in her sleep. She hadn't done that could have blacked out on adrenaline from that alone.

"You missed her mumbling in her sleep before," Hermione told, reading his mind and glancing up from her thick tome on magical herbs. "They were actual words, Harry." She paused, considerately adding, "More than we can say for Ron most mornings, actually."

Harry swallowed dryly, waiting for his vision to clear and his bones to feel less brittle.

"It sounded almost," Hermione continued slyly, "like she was calling someone an idiot." A knowing smile crept onto her face.

Looking down at Kaylens, Harry let out a relieved laugh. He reached out, and for the first time since he'd thought he'd lost her a tingling traced against his skin as it came into contact with hers. He grinned stupidly. "She's okay…it actually worked."

Hermione shook her head in bemusement, finally shutting her book and standing to join him. "Please, you took on a dragon, Harry. Did you really think a little magical transference was going to be a problem?"

The small fire crackled, six pale blue and silver stockings hanging above it. Dobby had gone back with them, and had insisted on hanging Christmas stockings where Kaylens could see them. There was one for himself, Kaylens, Regulus, Dobby, Fawkes, and even one for Kaylens recovering owl.

Until now he'd hated the things.

Harry swallowed thickly, his fingers tracing against Kaylens' cheekbone, smoothing her tussled hair out of her face. "Admit it, 'Mione," he said, "even you were worried about this going sideways." The chalk runes still left on the ceiling stood testament to that.

His best friend worried on her lower lip. "Okay fine, maybe I was a bit."

Looking up he cast her a smirk. "Uh huh."

She scowled. "Fine, I was a lot. It's just…" She paused, a worry fretting her brow.

"Whatever it is," he told her, dragging the cot by the bed to use as an improvised chair, "spit it out, Hermione." He sat down, wrapping Kaylens' hand carefully in his, kissing the back of it.

Hermione watched the interaction, frowning. "It's just…I don't want to upset you, Harry." She eyed him worriedly. "You've been through a lot already."

"Yeah well," he told, "what else is new?"

She tutted, Harry ignoring her and kissing each of Kaylens knuckles, as if it would somehow rouse her. She was okay. There were signs of her being her again. He was furious with her. He wanted to grab her and shake her for that stunt she'd pulled, and yet he couldn't bring himself to do anything other than gently touch her.

Kally murmured quietly, her face turning towards his hand, the non-witch, his witch, nuzzling her face against his hand.

Harry's heart about fucking stopped. The pit of dread he'd been carrying around in his stomach finally, slowly, abated.

Hermione watched sadly. "We checked her, for signs of brain activity, Harry."

At that his head shot up, heart dropping. No. He'd lost too many people for Hermione to say anything other than 'she's absolutely fucking perfect Harry, and you need to decide what you two are having for breakfast tomorrow.' Before he could say any of that though his best friend held up her hand, stating, "I'm no Healer, but Regulus checked. He said she seemed," pausing and rolling her eyes, "despite the 'insolent ward'," making air quotes, "'manhandling her' to be fine."

He blinked.

His throat clenched.

Off in the corner Kaylens' owl, which also, against all odds, was still alive, ooo-ed.

"Next time," he grunted, "lead with that."

Hermione gnawed on her lip again, worrying a hole in it. "Thing is, Harry…there's not precedence for what you did. I understand that unicorn blood being mixed with a witch's-"

"Reach," he corrected automatically.

"-is unusual, but if what Regulus says is right then this actually repaired damaged brain cells." She took a deep breath. "What I'm saying is, we have no idea what she's going to be like when she wakes up. I just want you to be prepared in case she's…different."

For some reason, despite all the terrible, impossible ways her reasoning could go, Harry wasn't alarmed. In fact, he stared straight at Hermione and snorted in her face. "She'll be fine," he dismissed, eyes drawn to the half-kicked-off sock. He knew she'd be fine, because he'd still been in love with her afterwards.

He'd already encountered her, made love to her, laughed with her, even after all of this had happened. That knowledge was something he'd clung to like a literal lifeline through all of this. And now, seeing the first sign of success – a simple sock – he finally felt like it'd actually worked.

Hermione's eyes were critical for a second, no doubt thinking he was deluding himself, her lips parting to tell him just that.

She somehow restrained her natural tendency to argue and snapped them shut. "Okay Harry." Tucking a quill into her pocket, she said, "If she is though, do you know what that could mean, Harry?" She took a deep breath, trying to clearly not get too excited. "It could revolutionize healing as we know it, if healing neurons turned out to be possible."

Harry eyed her, curiously. He knew shockingly little about healing. He knew what Professor Gai had taught them, what Madame Pomfrey had taught him directly, and things he'd picked up during either his own hospital wing stints or Kaylens. What Hermione was saying though made sense. Hell, he'd been told that he'd been lucky to retain brain function after being dead as long as he'd been.

Harry considered all of this, and the fact that Voldemort was trying to kill, maim, as many of them as he possibly could, and honestly wondered.

"Seems like," he said, drawing it out, "something someone smart should be researching."

"Yes! But you have to make sure, Harry, absolutely sure that you don't forget to remind me later. I know we couldn't do it with unicorn blood necessarily, but there are other magical healing elements from species that we might be able to use easier, and thi-"

"How about," he interjected, a mad idea forming, "we skip obliviating you altogether?"

Now it was Hermione's turn to blink. "Come again?"

"We skip," he stated slowly, sounding it out, "oo-bliv-ee-ate-ing you. Know it's a complex word and all but really, with your reading level…"

Hermione stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "That is an abysmally bad idea, Harry."

"Best kind."

"What on earth could possibly possess you to think that breaking any of the rules of time travel could possibly-"

"You said possibly," he pointed out helpfully, "twice."

Hermione rather looked like she was suppressing the urge to slap him.

"Seriously Hermione," he said, ignoring the ache in his bones, "we're at war. If you think this is something that could work for actually healing people, you know, without driving them mad, then we shouldn't waste time not researching. Besides…" he thought and thought hard, "I don't think there's anything that you knowing the little information you already do know is going to affect, so long as you keep it to yourself and out of Viktor's head." He frowned. "He doesn't try legilimency on you does he?"

Her mouth fell agape. "You-you know about Viktor?"

Harry grinned like a jackal.

She practically sputtered. "Did I tell you?"

"Nah," he drawled, "divined it. All those naps in Trelawney's class, some of it finally seeped in by osmosis."

Now Hermione actually snarled. "I'm not sure if I'm more irritated by your cheek or your lack of understanding of how osmosis actually works."

Deciding to take pity on her before she hexed him, he simply said, "Dumbledore."

"Oh." Harry took some satisfaction in watching his best friend's face go suddenly white. "So…you know why I'm-"

"Casually seeing everyone's favorite Seeker, because the Order doesn't buy for a second that he actually is on our side?"

Hermione abruptly sat down on the cot besides him, looking equal parts lost and relieved. Harry used his free hand, the one not cupping Kally's face, to pat her leg consolingly. "Don't beat yourself up, 'Mione. You did good hiding it. To be honest, was a bit relieved when I found out. Was starting to wonder why Dumbledore was so trusting of so many of these Death Eater turncoats."

Hermione slowly nodded, absently reaching up and tugging Kaylens' sock back onto her foot, as if looking for something to do with her hands. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "He seemed to think the whole point of taking me, if not to get you to tell him about the prophecy, was to try to get a spy in on our side." She wet her lips. "Given Viktor and I's history I admit, it'd seem plausible that he'd change sides if I were threatened. He and I did have a bit of-"

Abruptly Hermione cleared her throat, both of Harry's eyebrows raising straight up in his hairline. "Oh no," he said, "don't stop on my account."

She shot him a glare.

Harry shrugged complacently. "Fine, be that way," he jested, reclaiming Kaylens' hand, running his fingers over her palm. "Here I thought that's what people did at slumber parties. You know, sordid detai-"

Spotting her increasingly red cheeks he stopped, horrified. "Wait, there are sordid details?" He about gagged, dropping the jest. "Fucking hell, Hermione. Please tell me you didn't-not with-"

Hermione flopped back onto the cot, covering her face with her hands, and groaned.

Harry thudded his own face against Kaylens' mattress and did the same. There were some things that simply could not be unvisualized.

It took a good five minutes of moaning – they seemed to take turns dramatically groaning each time either one of them tried to talk – before he ventured an actual look at Hermione. Her cheeks were still pink tinged, and she was determinedly looking anywhere but at him, but she'd adopted her logical, matter-of-fact voice.

"So…as much as I'm not…excited to have your wand pointed at my head," she said somewhat diplomatically, "seeing as how I've already been gone for twenty four hours and it's Sunday, well…" she trailed off, frowning. "You and Ron are bound to notice I'm missing. If I don't get back soon McGonagall and half the Professors will be on alarm looking for me."

Harry blinked, realizing what Hermione was asking him. "Er…"

She stood up from the cot, brushing her hands off on her robes. "Harry…" she drew his name out, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably. "I'm not any more comfortable with this than you are, but…"

He shook his head, coming to a decision. "I'm not obliviating you."

Her mouth fell open. "Harry you have to."

"I don't have to anything," he told her. "You have an idea. You can start researching ways to implement it with Madame Pomfrey. She doesn't have to know how you have the idea. It'll help the war effort, and we can't afford to lose any research time."

Hermione stood there, the fire's glow illuminating her bushy hair like a halo. Her lips pursed, the witch glaring at him.

"Fine," she said, "I'll just get Regulus to do it."

An overly articulate, cultured voice emitted from the door. "Regulus will do no such thing, girl, on account I regrettably agrees with him." Black stood there, addressing himself in the third person, in a dressing gown, holding an actual bottle of wine. Not a glass, not a decanter, but an actual bottle that was uncorked. His drawl turned somewhat biting. "The noise you two make could wake the dead. Clearly silencing charms mean nothing to either of you. Unless of course you'll have me believe that you're capable of advanced runic wards," gesturing at the remaining chalk outlines scattered about the room, "whilst remaining woefully ignorant of simple second year spells."

Hermione gaped, staring between the two as if they'd both gone mad.

Harry cast a relieved look of thanks Black's way. "Sorry Black," he told. "Got a bit carried away."

Black's eyebrows shot up in as uncharacteristic look as Harry'd ever seen on him, the man's dark eyes flitting towards Kaylens. "Indeed, I see the girl appears to have moved."

Harry squeezed her hand, nodding.

"Good. It's about time she ceased her impersonation of a corpse." Sirius' shadow took a long swig straight from the bottle, swishing it around in his mouth for taste.

Then he directed his attention towards Hermione. "Now, it seems there is the matter of getting you back to that tragic excuse of an institute for education. Will you require assistance beyond begging every wizard you encounter to scramble your brain unnecessarily?"

Hermione protested. Loudly.

By the time the sun came up they'd formulated a plan. They'd provide Hermione no additional details about the future, beyond what she could already guess, and given it wasn't looking like he'd have anything better to do while his magic recovered – a process that could take weeks according to the texts they'd read – they would correspond by owl about her progress on the healing magic front., and he'd get her thoughts on the horcrux front.

Before she'd left, Harry'd filled her in on those too. It wasn't exactly a large leap to guess that Voldemort had created some given the rebounding killing curse hadn't killed him when he was one, and Hermione being, well, Hermione, had already harbored a sneaking suspicion of them. Him telling her merely confirmed what she already knew.

It occurred to Harry that there were a lot of things going on with Hermione – the Restricted Section, Viktor Krum, her suspicions about horcruxes without anyone having ever discussed them with her previously – that he and Ron hadn't been aware of.

He vowed to do better moving forward.

Months before he'd been wrong; no war was one acting alone. So he wouldn't.

Clutching onto Kalliandra's hand, hearing Hermione's pop of disapparation, Harry couldn't help but smile.

Five horcruxes had already been killed – Tom Riddle's diary, Riddle Senior's pocket watch, the tree in the Forbidden Forest, the Compass, and the coin that had been implanted into and reanimated Bellatrix Lestrange's hand. Kaylens had done it, and they'd saved her. What she'd said to him, on that boat, on the way to the island, about thinking she might be able to actually kill the one in his head while salvaging him, now made sense.

Feeling her wand hand in his, Harry finally, finally felt like they might have a chance.

There were eight more to go.


ECOTS


December 20th, 1996 – 8:54 a.m.

Four days crept by, and everything slowly, slowly began to make sense.

The pillows were soft, Kally blinking against them. She found a blur of pale blue in front of her eyes, the pillowcases clearly that color. She blinked once, twice. They remained fuzzy, blurred. Clearly her face was smashed against them. Breathing quietly, she slowly turned her face until sunlight hit her eyes. Kally immediately squinted at the harsh brightness.

It took a considerable amount of squinting for her eyes to adjust, but when they did she found herself in a room she didn't recognize, in a comfortable bed with soft sheets, and every single literal part of her body physically hurt.

That was the part that made sense. She'd been knocked out enough times now that she'd gotten used to waking up somewhere else.

A fresh, sea-scented breeze ghosted across the sheets, an open window the source. Outside it, at the angle she was at, beneath it and looking up out of it, all she saw was an endless expanse of gray sky, the kind that made mornings particularly bright. Snow was flaking down and it looked undeniably cold.

Kally shivered, making a small sound as she tried to curl into the blankets more. A rhythmic sound, like the ocean surf, could be heard. It did little to drown out the sounds of hooves in her head.

It'd been so, so long since she'd heard the sound of hooves within her mind. Laying there, eyes squeezed tight, throbbing in her stomach, she felt completely and utterly afraid that she would lose her mind to Lightning's memories all over again.

Trill.

A feathery breeze sent long strands wisping away from her face as something landed on the bed directly in front of her. Kally opened her eyes, finding a very, very close bird, its beak practically in her face, staring critically at her. The red and gold feathers could only belong to one thing.

"Fawkes," she croaked raspily, "hi."

The phoenix, one that seemed to only be around when it was crying into Harry's food or wounds, nudged her rather forcefully with his beak, making her wince. "Ouch, Fawkes," she muttered, trying to bat him away with her hand-

The phoenix just nudged her again, as if jabbing her with a stick to see if she were alive.

"Seriously…" she groused, finding the bird's head suddenly nestled up beneath her fingers, waiting for her to scratch.

Judging from the bird's screeching, angry sound, she hadn't complied quickly enough.

Kally weakly scratched the back of the bird's head, eyes tiredly closing-

The door to the empty room squeaked.

Her eyes shot back open, focusing slowly upon the figure within. She still heard dim, distant neighing within her mind; her eyes were still a little unfocused, but she could see enough. A poorly painted wooden door was halfway open, but the peeling paint looked like an antique someone would pay good money for. There was a sea-shell wind chime in the corner, some type of sparkling fly that she could scarcely make out flitting around it – later she'd find out that it was an enchanted fairy trinket that had belonged to Dumbledore's sister - and a moving painting of a beach, with a smiling, auburn-haired girl hung alongside the open door. A small fireplace crackled with multi-color flames, throwing warmth into the room.

None of those incredible things mattered.

It was the figure within the doorway that had her attention.

Relief flooded her.

Harry stood frozen within it, his hand stilled on the top of his head, as if caught yanking the perpetually unkempt strands out. "Kally…" His voice was ragged, raw. It sounded like it hadn't been used in days.

"Hey," she murmured back. She could barely talk, her voice so quiet that even Fawkes fixed her with a look that could only mean 'you expect him to hear you?'

Harry's hand dropped from the top of his head, the wizard staring at her. "You're awake."

"Yeah."

Harry shoved his hands into his pockets, a peculiar expression shadowing his face.

They lapsed into silence.

Just when Kally thought she couldn't take it any longer, Harry opened his mouth. "Know this might sound odd, but….do you remember me?

Her brow instantly furrowed. "Harry what-"

A look of relief flashed across his face.

Fawkes let out a loud, unhappy squawk and forcefully nudged her hand, clearly unhappy with the sudden lack of attention. She resumed weakly scratching his feathers, trying to sort out why Harry had just asked that.

"You sound," Harry grated hoarsely, not moving from the door, "like an undignified farm chicken."

Kally deeply contemplated hexing him. "I will find," she muttered exhaustedly, "a way to hex you."

"I was talking to Fawkes."

Her mouth formed an 'o' of understanding, whilst Fawkes' head turned menacingly towards the Seeker. The bird's feathers fluffed out, as if to say 'sod off, go away, you're interrupting my neck scratch.'

Harry seemed impervious to the phoenix's silent reprimand. "I'm not the one," Harry stated slowly, succinctly, clearly addressing the bird, "who squawked."

Kally's eyes wanted nothing more than to close for awhile. They didn't. She simply couldn't look away from where Potter stood, alive and intact.

Fawkes, however, was far less enamored. The bird closed his eyes and Kally swore to Merlin the phoenix actually hummed something mocking.

Potter's voice echoed hollow, "You should have told me she was awake, Fawkes."

Fawkes trilled quietly, making even more of a point of ignoring the wizard addressing him. Kally finally let her eyes drift closed, heart racing. "Gods…" she murmured to herself, "they're arguing…"

"Arguing," Potter drawled humorlessly, "would imply he has a chance of winning."

"It implies," she quietly managed, "that you think a bird can tal-ow." She cracked her eyes, glaring at the phoenix, who had just nipped her.

From the doorway came a dark chuckle, Kally redirecting her exhausted glare towards him.

Potter met it, the hint of mirth fading from his eyes.

He made no move to exit the doorway. It was as if he didn't know what to say.

Kally wet her lips, mouth impossibly dry, and concentrated on breathing. "You're okay…" she finally managed, looking him over. The last thing she remembered was Voldemort. He'd come back. Harry'd been chasing her, shouting, dueling

Harry stared back, expression inscrutable. "Yeah," he uttered roughly, "I'm fine." He wet his lips, mirroring her own action. "Wish I could have said the same for you."

A guilty look touched her countenance. "Can we blame it on Snape," she quietly questioned, "and call it a day?" He was the reason they'd been out there after all.

Harry grimaced. "No."

"Pity. He has to be good for something."

Something was off about the way Potter was looking at her. Something was extremely off. Kally shifted, wanting to sit up-

It was clearly a mistake judging from the sharp pain that daggered through her. It rocketed out from her stomach, radiating up to her chest and all the way down to her toes. She whimpered, closing her eyes.

"Kally?" Swift moving footsteps creaked loudly against the floorboards, the voice now much closer, frantic. "Kal!"

She was acutely aware of Fawkes settling down on the mattress, as if ready to take a nap in calm defiance of Potter's panic. She was also extremely aware of a rough hand on her arm, the palm callused and scarred, feeling rough even through the sweater she wore.

It'd happened so fast she'd barely had time to re-open her eyes.

"Kaylens!"

As the pain subsided, slightly, she forced her eyes to unscrunch, her hazel orbs finding Harry's far closer face. He'd dropped to the ground, kneeling alongside the bed in his rush to get to her. His hand clenched upon her arm, Kally letting out a quiet whine at the pain even that small gesture caused.

Instantly his hand loosened, but the wizard still said nothing. The only sign of anything was him breathing slightly harder than necessary as he looked at her.

The intensity of his gaze was startling.

He'd been worried.

A slight smile touched her lips. "Harry," she breathed, "I'm fine."

It looked like he strongly disagreed.

"Really."

He snorted skeptically.

Fawkes huffed.

Kally sighed.

Everything hurt. Several impossibly long seconds went by. The pain down to her toes subsided.

Harry's expression remained a grim, unreadable mask.

"So," she finally breathed, wanting to distract him, "did it work?"

She peered over Fawkes' ruffled feathers, the phoenix laying defiantly in between them, and watched the shadow cross Potter's face. "You remember." The statement was flat, emotionless.

Kally remained as still as possible and nodded.

The wizard looked at her as if he were processing a thousand things that could and would go wrong. The hand upon her arm loosened, his eyes growing dead. "Yeah," he said flatly. "You killed the horcrux, Kal."

Then he let her go, releasing a long breath, his eyes clenched.

The loss of contact was palpable. Unthinking her own hand slid to where his had just been, resting on her arm, the non-witch wetting her lips as she looked at him hesitantly. Kally's vision was slowly coming into better focus, and as it did she saw what she'd initially missed.

Harry's face was drawn, lined. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, the typical spark within them absent, yet they pierced into her like an ice pick. Beneath the long sleeved shirt he donned tension rippled from every centimeter of his body, tangibly visible, as if he were a tightly wound wire about to snap. The fact that she could see the tension in his musculature caused her breath to catch. He was…different. Subtly, but it was there.

It looked like he'd aged years.

Merlin.

Despite these small, subtle changes his dark mass of hair was still the same; it was utterly impossible.

Harry collapsed back to sit on his calves, on the ground, and his head disappeared from her field of view below the top of the mattress. All she saw was when his arms moved, the wizard dragging his hands through his hair as if wanting to tear it out.

"Harry?" she asked, quiet, hesitant.

There was no response.

Kally tried to move, a sharp, stabbing pain filling her with instant regret. She whined, dropping her head back on the pillow and clenching her eyes shut as she acutely remembered just how bad things had been.

Fawkes, as if sensing this, nuzzled closer.

It took awhile, quite awhile, for the pain to subside, and when it did…

Harry had risen back up to his knees, eyes locked onto hers with a fierce, swirling anger coalescing with deep and abiding concern. Until that moment she hadn't known it was possible to look that worried and angered at the same time. His hand lay near hers, hovering as if uncertain if he wanted to reach out or not.

Seeing his reluctance stabbed her in the stomach worse than the actual physical pain had.

Harry's eyes locked onto hers, expression drawing into a tight line.

Then he dropped his hand onto hers, almost mechanically, squeezing it.

A second later he was gone, grabbing a chair and dragging it over to the side of her bed, the wizard sitting. The lack of magic did strike her, Harry's habit of late to wandlessly summon anything nearby, and yet…he had not. Instead he sat in that wooden chair with the peeling blue paint, a thousand emotions swarming within his green eyes, none of them good.

His words expelled with a forced kind of calm, "What the hell, Kal?"

"I take it," she whispered, "you're mad."

His jaw went through a series of motions, as if chewing something that wouldn't break apart. "Why?" he asked stonily.

Never had a single syllable sounded so angry, not when directed at her.

Her heart pounded in her chest, Kally feeling dizzy, lightheaded. "The horcrux?" she questioned softly, wanting to know if that was it, what he was angry about.

His eyes met hers unyielding. "No," he stated flatly, "the pony you snuck into the common room. Clearly I must be talking about some other thing that recently tried to kill you."

Kally didn't know how to respond. Her head hurt. Everything hurt. She could distantly hear a musical neighing, the fading sounds of hooves beating against a forest floor. She didn't know where she was or exactly what had happened after-

Then it made sense.

Whatever had happened after she'd tried to kill the horcrux was why he was mad.

She closed her eyes, the sunlight having been hurting her anyway. "If we didn't kill it, Harry," she whispered plainly, "Voldemort would have stayed. He'd have kept attacki-"

"Getting rid of Voldemort was my problem, not yours."

She released a frustrated breath into her pillow. "He's everyone's problem. I didn't want you to get hurt."

"And I didn't want to see you nearly die, but we can't always get what we want," he bit intractably.

Her heart sped up, eyes opening. He sat so close, but that meter of space seemed like an uncrossable, gaping chasm. "So you mean I-"

"Would you like to know," he answered bluntly, "how many times you stopped breathing the past few weeks, how fun it was having to see you resuscitated from each one, never knowing if that was it, or would you prefer to just hear the highlights of my brooding?"

Kally lay there, stunned. She didn't know what to say.

Harry, however, did. His voice vibrated darkly into the warm room, betraying a smoldering upset. "You overdrew, Kal."

The unfamiliar room seemed to close in on her. "Weeks?" she asked meekly.

"Yeah well," he said stiffly, "apparently when you fry all your cells that can carry hemoglobin it's got this grand damn side effect of oxygen depriving you and putting you into a coma." He paused, caustically adding, "Who the hell knew?"

Kally wanted to curl up into a ball.

All Reaches eventually overdrew, she knew this, and now…she had to.

All the others had died.

The curtains to the room blew, the gentle snowfall gusting against an invisible barrier in the open window, unable to enter the warm room and instead, sizzling. "But I'm alive," she softly denied. "If I overdrew then…how?"

He met her gaze humorlessly. "When I mentioned that resuscitated you part, did I stutter?"

Kally couldn't breathe. She couldn't. "How bad-"

"Bad." His teeth practically ground, it looking like he wanted to say something else, only thought better of it.

Then he decided to screw it and said it anyway.

"Regulus thought you were brain dead. That we'd kept your heart beating and revived only a barely working brain stem," he said darkly, fixing her with an equally dark look. "Not even a good working one at that, given you didn't seem to want to breathe on your own for too long. That's why I wanted to know if you remembered me."

She wanted to leap out of the bed and go to him, to wrap her arms around his neck and promise that things were okay. Only they weren't. Clearly.

She wet her lips, and then made it worse. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she whispered. "I'm not sorry I did it."

Harry's eyes flashed. Whereas before he'd sat tensely, restraining himself, now he abruptly bit, "So nice to know my mental health means so much to you."

"It does-" she plead.

"Does it?" he asked, tone tainted with sarcasm so thick it practically bled from the wooden-planked walls.

"Yes-"

"What the hell, Kal?!" He stood up so quick he nearly knocked the chair over. The wizard began to pace, crossing the length of the room in a heartbeat, his fists clenching open and close on thin air. Kally was left not knowing what to do, what to say. Her head swam as the air around her practically crackled.

Harry's words echoed within her head. Weeks

Whatever this was it had been a long time coming, for him at least.

"You couldn't have just waited?" came his eventual demand. "I'm not dumb enough to think you'd not want to try to kill one given…given things, but you couldn't have waited until, you know, you hadn't just suffered major fucking blood loss?"

Kally's hand went still upon Fawkes' head, fingers trembling.

Harry wasn't done though. "I never should have told you I might be a horcrux," he proclaimed coldly, pacing. "Then this wouldn't have happened."

Now it wasn't just her nostrils that burned, but her eyes.

All she could do was stare.

She'd just woken up, and Harry wished he hadn't shared that with her? He thought it'd been a mistake?

Silently she willed for the mattress to open up and swallow her whole, or for the unicorn memories to render her oblivious to him; either option seemed more appealing than the ball of dread welling within her stomach.

She clenched her eyes shut so as not to look at him, eyes fiercely burning.

"Kaylens, what-shit. Kaylens?"

She heard him. She heard him walk quickly back to her, and when she felt him touch the side of her face she quickly turned it to look away from him.

Unfortunately looking away and closing her eyes didn't stop her from hearing him hiss. "Kayle-Kally," he forced, the cold calm of his tone shifting. "Look…I'm sorry."

Despite herself she sniffed in derision. "No," she countered softly, "you're not."

"You're right. I'm not. You scared the hell out of me." The admission nearly drove her to open her eyes again, but she didn't. Not even as she felt him determinedly cup her chin, gently turning her face back towards him. "Kaylens," he darkly requested, "look at me."

She didn't want to look at him. She really didn't want to.

She also knew he wouldn't stop until she did.

His thumb traced across her skin, a gentle tingling present everywhere he touched, it a stark difference from his harsh words.

Cracking her gaze, finding it watery, she saw the sudden upset flash in his own. What he'd said felt like a knife to her stomach, her lips moving before she could stop them. "You don't trust me."

She didn't want Harry anywhere near her after what he'd said, and he ought to know why.

The movement of his thumb froze against her jawline. "I do trust you."

Fawkes, still curled up against her, fixed Harry with an annoyed look. Kally mirrored it, knowing the watery quality of her eyes probably ruined the effect. "You said you never should have told me," she pointed out, not bothering to mask her upset.

She looked away; the far wall was freaking fascinating. Colorful flames leapt and bounded in the fireplace, shifting red and green.

Harry didn't move. He didn't get up. His presence remained there, looming like an unstoppable shadow.

"I didn't mean that."

"Sure you didn't."

"Believe me Kaylens," he uttered severely, "I tell you a hell of a lot more than that. I do trust you, and I don't stop telling you things. Just because I'm pissed and rather wish I had better self-control around your ass doesn't meant I'll ever actually stop telling you things."

It took her a moment to understand the meaning behind his words.

Then the memory of the things he'd shown her, the things he'd brought her into his mind to see, came roaring back.

He'd traveled back in time for her, to save her.

He'd trusted her with his memories, with those terrible things he'd done.

Her heart practically stopped.

She forced herself to look back at him, him and his shadowed eyes. Anger and concern swam there, as if unable to settle on one particular emotion. The lines of his face and the dark shadow on his chin…

Truth was, Harry looked haggard, tired.

She didn't know why they were fighting. She honest to god didn't. She just wanted it to stop. "How far?"

He stiffened, as if thinking over what to say.

It infuriated her. "How far back in time did you come, Potter?" she demanded, losing patience. "I know you're not the Harry that was waiting for me in the common room the other night."

The hard furrow of his forehead disappeared. "Well hell, straight to it then." He frowned. "How'd you know?"

They sat there, together, in the quiet room, only the crackling fire to disturb it."You went back in time to save me, Harry. You showed me. If you have a timeturner, I doubt that's the only time you've used it. Besides…" her eyes flickered across his face. "You look…different." Older.

"Clever Kaylens," he muttered, the humor not quite reaching his eyes. "Leave it to me to date someone who'd figure it out."

Then he took a deep breath, reaching out, hand hovering hesitantly near her own. "May I?"

She glared.

Harry ignored this and slipped his hand into hers, hesitating for a half second, before his fingers interlaced tightly. It was like a shock to her arm, Kally sucking in a breath at the feel. It was electric, tingling, and everything good.

For a second Harry stared at her, just…stared, and then… "A few months," he ground out. "Six months the first time, then the few days I showed you," his voice grew hoarse, "another four and a half this time."

It took her a moment to process that. A year. Harry'd been time travelling for nearly a year.

Then her mind snagged unyieldingly onto two words.

"What do you mean this time?"

He met her gaze plainly. "I told you," he stated tightly. "It was bad."

"Potter-"

"You nearly died, Kal. You were barely alive and that meant the timelines didn't match up, alright?"

She blinked, saying nothing. She merely waited for him to continue. Harry stared at her as if he'd rather like to throttle her. His fingers tightened upon hers, as if to reassure himself she was indeed, actually there, and then-

He took a deep breath. "What you did to kill the horcrux…Regulus said that could have killed you all on its own, but you were already injured, which made it worse. If it wasn't for the unicorn blood and the fact that we had Fawkes right there, you would have."

She wet her lips. Seeing him look like that… "Yet I can't help but notice," she said softly, "that I'm not dead." Waiting but a moment, she carefully posed, "So…what's this about the timelines?"

Harry's brow creased. "I can't believe," he uttered, "that I've been losing my mind over you, and you're taking this so calmly."

She smiled sympathetically. "Mhmm," she agreed, "it's almost like I've been desensitized to crazy situations. Must have been some guy I dated."

Harry growled. .

"What," she posed again, "did you mean about the timelines?"

"Kally…" Dark green searched gold. "How about we wait until you've not just woken up after a few weeks?"

Again she repeated, "Weeks?"

He sighed, clutching her hand and dragging his free hand across the top of his head. "Impossible…" he muttered, earning a squawk from Fawkes. "Fine. Look…last April you were fine,but after what happened you weren't. The timelines didn't match, so I realized we must have went back in time with you, to give you enough time to heal, before-"

He stopped abruptly.

"Before what?"

The line of his mouth grew strained. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that knowing the future only causes trouble?"

"No, unlike you I didn't take then flunk out of Divination."

Harry shot her a scowl. "I didn't flunk out."

"We'll see what your lizards say."

"NEWTS, Kal. NEWTS. Lizard just sounds like another one of those freaking 'come on's' that make Ron twitch."

"Yeah," she replied, ignoring the dig at Weasley, "those."

Harry squeezed her hand. Together they sat there, the silence penetrating. But slowly, very slowly, it looked like a heavy weight was finally lifting from his shoulders.

"You scared the hell out of me, Kaylens." There was no mincing words, no beating around it. Harry cut straight to it.

"Not," she whispered, "intentionally."

"Yeah well, I'm beginning to think it's a matter of sport with you."

Her thumb rubbed slowly against the back of his hand, a tiny, mischievous smirk touching her lips. "Well, when you can't play Quidditch…"

Harry sniffed in amusement.

Again, the two lapsed into silence, his expression growing troubled. It was awkward. The way he was looking at her…

"I'm in love with you." No preamble. No apology. "I thought I'd lost you, Kaylens." His eyes blazed with that same terrifying intensity, Kalliandra unable to think, let alone speak.

Her lips, mouth went dry.

She'd heard him….she'd heard him back on the grounds, and she'd heard him now. She stared at him with a quiet sort of shock. She opened her mouth to say it back, only no words came, only a stammer.

His mouth seemed to twitch, his other hand lifting to seal her smaller hand protectively between both of his far larger ones. "I love you," he repeated solemnly, not once looking away. "Sorry to spring it on you."

There'd been a lot of new information sprung on her. Memories of what he'd shown her, of how he'd gone back, changed literal time for her, killed for her…

She didn't doubt him for even a second.

Her whispered words came with a quiet sort of awe, "You went back for me."

He met her gaze unblinkingly. "Yes."

Her heart raced. "Potter…you shouldn't have risked that."

"I just told you," he stated tightly, "I love you. Like hell was I leaving you for dead when there was any other option."

"You shouldn't love me either," she practically whispered. "I'm not-"

"Yeah well," he interrupted heavily, anticipating her protest, "I've never been particularly good at walking the recommended line, now have I?" He paused, drawling, "Seems kind of fitting I'd fall in love with someone I wasn't supposed to."

Kalliandra's heart raced, words impossibly quiet. "Who were you supposed to?"

"Honestly? Probably Ginny. Surrogate family and all, not to mention their mum's dropped enough hints over the years." He smiled humorlessly. "You…you're damn difficult, but you're worth every second."

She closed her eyes for a moment, head swimming, only to find him looking at her intently when she re-opened them. She raked her eyes across his face and practically begged for him to understand. "I'm not a witch, Harry. I'm not going to be one of those…those girls who are going to live a really long, happy life. I'll overdraw again. I'll-"

"Then I guess I'll just have to keep saving you then, now won't I?" he uttered bluntly.

She spoke in a bare whisper, "Harry…it'd be so much easier for you if you just…didn't."

"Trying to dump me, Kaylens," he informed, "isn't going to work."

"I wasn't."

He inclined an eyebrow.

"Really." Waiting a moment, something squirming in her stomach, she quietly intoned, "So…where you came from...we're still together?"

The look he shot her could have cut glass. "There was a question?"

"Well," she posed diplomatically, "you do have a bit of foot-in-mouth syndrome."

Harry actually growled.

A smile tugged at her lips.

Harry glared.

Fawkes made an annoyed sound from between them, Harry steadfastly ignoring the phoenix and reaching out to claim her other hand.

Kally wasn't overly inquisitive. She knew that Potter would talk in his own time about things, but her brow furrowed curiously. "Harry, is this the first time you've told me that you-" Pausing, unable to say it, she finished, "That you've told me this?"

His eyes glinted. "No, but have to say…this time's going a hell of a lot better than the first." Spotting the question she was about to ask, he expounded, "This time you're just trying to logically convince me why I should walk away. The first time you spent a good five minutes yelling at and shoving me. In fact," he continued, "I think you even kicked sand at me."

Kally couldn't help it: she let out a stunned laugh. "Took it well did I?"

"Funny," he deadpanned, "at the time that's exactly what I said."

"And?"

"You kicked sand at me."

She let out a tiny laugh. For the longest time she just studied him, there in that quiet blue and tan room, not saying a word. From beneath his messy black hair he studied her right back. Potter held onto her hands, Fawkes slumbered, and Kally felt like something unbelievably warm was swelling within her. Finally…

"I stand by what I said, Potter," she softly disclosed. "I still think you're insane." Months back, when he'd shouted in her face that he was trying to ask her out…

Potter's expression broke into a grin. "I'm still not arguing."

"I still wouldn't blame you," she told, "if you obliviated me."

He scoffed, another swirl of falling snow blowing against the open window's invisible barricade. "Not getting off that easy, Kaylens. If you didn't want this to happen, should have cowarded up a bit. Instead you just had to let me know you have a backbone."

"What?" she breathed on a confused laugh.

"You heard me. You had me soon as you threw your shoe at Remus-the-wolf."

"So the basis of your attraction was suicidal bravado?"

"Sizable chunk, yeah."

She shook her head with a small smile. "Potter," she argued disbelievingly, "I'm not brave."

He arched a brow. "So did I or did I not hallucinate that thing where you went toe-to-toe with Voldemort?"

Her eyes shot wide. "I was terrified!"

"You still did it." He waited a half second, then… "Tell you what, next time if you don't want me to fall in love with you, don't let me kiss you in the first place. Easier all around, because really, second you let me do that, I was doomed, so this is technically on you."

She stared. "Technically," she told, "that was mouth to mouth."

"So don't drown around snog-deprived wizards."

"I was oxygen deprived. Can't possibly be held responsible for you not leaving me ther-"

He snorted. "Want me to obliviate you?"

Her lips flapped soundlessly and Harry let out a bark of laughter.

She shook her head slightly, a lock of hair slipping in front of her face. Before she could move Harry had, leaning closer, smoothing it out of her eyes. His hand lingered for a moment, and the brief, shining joviality of before disappeared as if a shadow had blotted out the sun.

A certain darkness shadowed his face, his fingers sliding to her ear, moving along it. "You could have died, Kally," he muttered far more seriously. "What were you thinking?"

This time it wasn't uttered angrily, accusatorily; it was a question, nothing more.

Kally breathed a little easier. "That my time traveling boyfriend would save the day?"

He fixed her with a dour look, her lips turning. "Kal…"

"I told you, Harry," she softly disclosed, looking at him earnestly, "Voldemort came back for it. I couldn't let him just…take it back. He can't die until they're all dead." Harry'd been the one to tell her that.

"Yeah…" he grimaced. "Believe me, I'm aware. Still doesn't answer why you'd risk your life to kill it right then and there."

"Well…not to inflate your ego, but…I want you around, not him, and seeing as how he keeps trying to kill you and all wanted to get a head start on killing him."

Harry stared at her, no emotion on his face, nothing readable in his eyes. He simply sat, holding her hand, malachite gaze flickering light lightning across her face.

Kally was nervous, and she didn't know why.

"Plus," she spoke, "you told me Dumbledore thinks you might be a horcrux. And if you are…I was scared I'd not get another chance to try to kill it. I wanted to see if I could, so you won't have to…" she trailed off, neither wanting nor willing to finish the sentence.

Horcruxes had to be destroyed in order to kill them.

The thought of that happening to Potter was unbearable.

Potter seemed far less affected. "Die," he finished unapologetically for her. "So I won't have to die." He now wore an incredibly strange expression on his face, and she wanted nothing more than to know why.

But she didn't ask. She said nothing. Instead she nodded quietly, staying silent, wishing his lot in life had been far different than it actually was.

But it wasn't.

Harry looked like he wanted to say more. He breathed heavily. "I was right," he uttered, as if finally deciding something. "You've made me insane."

She hissed a breath, pointing out, "Argument could be made you already were."

"Does it matter? We're both already at the point where we're pulling insane, life-risking stunts."

"Or at least," she offered, smiling almost shyly, "ones that carry a potential Azkaban sentence."

Harry grunted, unamused. "Stop getting hexed in forests or nearly crushed by flying fire engines and perhaps we can avoid that."

She made a noncommittal sound.

Harry growled.

Her lips twitched tiredly.

His mouth moved in honest concern. "How are you feeling?"

Laying there, head swimming, eyes and nostrils still burning somewhat, she considered this. "Probably just a bit better than you look," she disclosed. Biting down on her lower lip, she pressed, "You look dreadful, Harry."

He snorted. "Now you sound like Hermione."

She inclined an eyebrow.

Harry simply shook his head. "Remind me to tell you about it sometime."

"Not exactly going anywhere," she pointed out reasonably. "Now seems like a good enough sometime."

Harry clasped his hands around hers tightly, as if scared to let her go. "I suppose," he drawled reluctantly, "it couldn't hurt." He heaved a breath, looking like he'd rather be doing anything else, anything but this, and still…

"Please?" she entreated.

It didn't take long to convince him.

Harry talked. There, in that warm room that combatted the bitter cold she could see outside, Harry filled her in on the horcrux, how when it'd been destroyed Voldemort's soul had exploded out of it in a shockwave, how the actual Voldemort had fled the scene. He told her how McGonagall had to fucking stun him to prevent him from interfering as they'd tried to save her life, then of how she'd lain there for days, showing no signs of ever coming back to him.

Now it was a few days before Christmas.

He told her about time travel, how they'd gone back to give her time to heal. He told her about going to find Hermione and the Restricted Section, how Hermione had apparently had access for two years and had failed to mention it. Then he told her how Hermione had stubbornly insisted on helping, how he hadn't been able to bring himself to obliviate her, how…

How she was alive.

Kally didn't care that it hurt. She didn't care that it was excruciating. She grabbed at the front of Harry's shirt and pulled him towards her, pressing her brow to his and just holding him there.

He'd torn out some of his magic and given it to her.

He'd been afraid she'd been brain dead.

She probably had been.

Kally's breathing had gone undeniably shaky. "Harry please tell me you can still-" do magic. She was terrified, scared to even give voice to it.

"I can," he assured, breath ghosting against her lips. His hand slid alongside her face, the feel of his callused fingers against her smooth skin electrifying. "Just…going to be a bit before I actually can again. At least properly."

Kally tried to protest, tried to tell him he shouldn't have risked that, not for her, not when Voldemort could find him and attack him, but all that came out was a pathetic whine.

Against her lips Harry chuckled darkly. "Worth," he promised, "every second."

His mouth pressed to hers gently, slowly. It was as if he were scared to break her, a stark contrast to how he usually handled her. Things with Harry…Merlin, they were usually rough, heated.

Now his hand slid into her hair with a gentleness she never would have thought this man could possess, the wizard pausing to breathe against her lips, promising, "I love you, Kaylens. I'd do it again, because you're worth it. Every. Damn. Time." Each syllable was punctuated by his mouth brushing against hers, before he finally gave in and seized her, Kally making a contented sound to allow him anything, anything he wanted.

She was in love with him, even if he obviously already knew that. But just in case…

"Don't," she murmured, "make me say it too."

Harry laughed deeply against her, his hands sliding upon her, kiss deepening.

The fireplace crackled merrily, it a long time before his ministrations upon her lips ceased. Harry merely bowed his head over hers, breathing her in, Kally breathing him in right back, his scent inexplicably calming.

It brought them back to a topic, an uncomfortable one that was only just beginning to gnaw at the edges of her mind.

"You're going to have to obliviate me of all of this," she whispered, "aren't you?"

Harry Potter met her gaze tiredly, as if too world weary to contemplate.

Then he nodded. "I'm sorry."

Flecks of darker green were within his irises, Kally's own flickering searchingly across his. Her hand slid across the side of his face, the rough stubble from days of not shaving coarse against her skin. Despite where they were, what he had risked, what it had cost for them to get here, for him to have saved her, Kally couldn't help it, she had to ask.

"So why me," she softly whispered, "why do you have to obliviate me, when you didn't Hermione?"

There it was, that shadow. Harry's eyes closed and he heaved a hard breath against her. His hands tightened, and Fawkes squawked, having long since abandoned his spot on the bed with them. "Hermione doesn't do anything the next few months that knowing about this would affect," he disclosed honestly. "You though…" gaze raking across hers, his voice grew gruff. "A few days after you got hurt Kally, something…something major happens. I get hurt. Bad." He wet his lips, Kally instinctively tilting her face against his, hands bringing him closer. He breathed against her, almost gratefully, finishing, "It's different, Kally. If you know, if you remember that I survive, then you might do things different and well, then I might…not. You might not…"

Harry stared at her, somewhat helplessly, Kally suddenly understanding.

She let out a dazed breath. "I save you, don't I?"

He smiled grimly. "By June," he drawled, brushing small strands of hair out of her face, "we have one hell of a new tally in that game of ours. Literally getting hard to count who's saved who."

Laying there, incredibly distracted by his form, it took Kally a second to remember what he was talking about, but when she did she choked on a laugh. Saving each other's lives tally… "You mean we're still counting?"

Harry simply smirked. "Yeah, and after this little adventure reckon I'm winning, so…" he spoke directly against her, demanding roguishly, "what do I get?"

She gnawed on her lower lip, suppressing a laugh.

Then Harry Potter gnawed on it for her.

There, in that quiet room within the cottage, Harry Potter kissed her, because he loved her. Kally was scared, acutely so, to be obliviated, but she trusted him. Somehow, knowing it was him who was going to do it made it better. There was only one thing she still needed to know…

"Harry," she whispered, "where exactly are we?"

Harry's ministrations upon her stopped.

Then the wizard let out a loud, boisterous laugh. He laughed so hard and so long, that the door actually opened, the figure of Regulus Black looming within it, staring dourly at them.

"Oh good," he drawled, seeing them on the bed together, "this again."

Now it was Kally's turn to laugh.


ECOTS


Author's Note: Someone asked how long do I see the story becoming due to the number of horcruxes - not all the hocrurxes will be as detailed as these last few so they'll take far less time. I don't want to give anything else away on that front though. I'm guessing the story will be probably around 1,500,000 words-ish though (if I had to make a rough guess) by the time it's done. We're over 800,000 now.

Below is the timeline and guest review replies.

Timeline

July 30th, 1997 – Tonks, Moody and Harry go back six months to February 1st, 1997.

April 22nd, 1997 – Tonks, Moody and Harry gather outside to dry their mandrake leaves in the light of the full moon, only to hear Bellatrix Lestrange laughing. The fight in the Forbidden Forest ensues.

April 23rd, 1997 – Just after midnight, Harry goes back in time 3 full days, to April 20th, 1997, to change the events that transpired in the Forbidden Forest.

April 20th through April 22nd, 1997 – Harry 'enlists' Madame Pomfrey's help to learn how to heal and change events. Umbridge is obliviated into not remembering she is a witch in the process.

April 23rd, 1997 – Harry succeeds in saving Kally, but Voldemort finds the group lingering outside the Forbidden Forest, unable to return to the castle due to the protective charms Dumbledore and McGonagall had placed upon it to protect the students. Kally suffers near fatal injuries and finally overdraws, the typical death for all Reaches.

April 27th, 1997 – Harry realizes that the two timelines do not match. On the night of April 27th Harry meets up with Kally, Hermione and Ron in the common room. Harry finds out that Kally hasn't ever used her wand before (she has but doesn't remember, due to the time travelling). Kally and he go to the Room of Requirement (chapter 48) and she uses her wand with success. However, as of April 27th Kally is still unconscious and quite honestly dying. She cannot breathe on her own for long and spells are keeping her alive. She is well and truly in a coma and bad shape. He, Regulus Black (a Healer) go back in time four months to December of 1996 to give her time to heal. That, Harry justifies, is the only way the two timelines can match up and make sense (if she had time to heal before the events of April 27th took place).

April 28th, 1997 – The Order of the Phoenix all decide to take a 'swim' in the Black Lake, that McGonagall enchants to try to drown them, to see who gets to go attack the horcrux on the island.

May 1st, 1997 – Dementors attack Hogwarts.

May 2nd, 1997- The Order of the Phoenix goes to the island to kill another horcrux.

May 3rd, 1997 – Harry Potter dies, and is brought back by Kally and Regulus.

This chapter took place in December, 1996, after Harry and Regulus go back in time with Kally.