Summary: Hermione's world topples on itself when a split second's decision changes her life forever.
Chapter 01:
"Merlin!" Hermione exclaimed, tapping the time turner hard on the palm of her hands. What was wrong with it? she wondered. The grey storm clouds, meanwhile thundered above her. She knew it was wrong to use her time-turner so trustingly given to her by Professor McGonagall for a frivolous thing like buying books, but hey! She was Hermione Granger and since when had books been frivolous to her? "Then again, that particular book is essential for my Ancient Runes class and I couldn't possibly get the mark I want without it!" she grumbled. Five minutes! A mere five minutes delay had cost her that book, but why should she accept defeat when she had a solution practically hanging around her neck?
"Just this once, I promise," she whispered urgently to the time-turner, hoping against hope it would turn now, unbeknownst to her that it wasn't her guilt that was tampering with the tiny golden instrument in her hands but the weather. Though with her single-minded focus, she did get it to work, or so she thought…
In a flash she was transported back in time. It didn't really register with her that the storm clouds that were marring the Hogsmeade weekend all day were missing above her head, nor did she realize that the buzzing streets of Hogsmeade were hauntingly vacant. But what did register was the soft groan of a man that lay bleeding and panting on the roadside beside her.
"Oh my GOD!" In a flash Hermione was by the man's side. "Sir, are you alright? No, I mean of course, you're not. How can I help?"
When she saw his lips moving, she bent her head towards the man to hear him. "My… brother…" he was wheezing, and with every rise and fall in his chest, Hermione knew she was losing him. Frantically looking around when she understood his whispers, Hermione noticed another similar shape not too far from where she was hunched over the man.
"He is right there," Hermione quickly nodded, looking at the man who was almost dead. "I'm going to help you both, okay? We'll get out of here."
Without a thought about the underage magic she was so boldly performing in the middle of Hogsmeade, Hermione raised her wand, summoning the other broken body towards her and brought herself close to the two gents who were quickly breathing too shallowly for her peace of mind, bringing the golden chain of the time turner around all their necks as she pressed the button that she had been warned by Professor McGonagall to use only in an emergency since that would take her back to the time she last transported herself from, which may cause minor glitches at the barest minimum and major anomalies otherwise; but if life or death of two people wasn't an emergency, Hermione didn't know what was! So she pressed the panic button to take her back from where she came.
In a flash they were under the thunderous clouds again. And with a lot of adrenaline and heavy magic, Hermione somehow brought the two injured men into Hogwarts. Hagrid and Professor McGonagall were by her side not two steps in, both somehow already alerted to the new presence beside their student.
"Dear Merlin, child, what happened?" the Professor exclaimed on seeing her most hard-working student struggling to keep two full-grown wizards levitating in front of her.
"I found them in Hogsmeade." Hermione breathed hard, her taut muscles slowly relaxing as Hagrid picked one floating body in his arms and the Professor continued the levitation on the other.
They had lost too much blood, their bodies and clothes soaked in it so heavily that recognising them before cleaning it all off was out of question.
As the group hurried towards the Infirmary, Madam Pomphrey stepped out of her chair.
"Oh Dear!" she exclaimed on seeing the two mangled bodies brought in by the two Professors. "Lay them here and I'll quickly check on them. Minerva, can you please call Severus, it looks like I'm going need a lot of help to bring them around."
Nodding, Professor McGonagall left. Madam Pomphrey then asked Hagrid to fetch the Headmaster. Hermione stood there, feeling helpless, as she stared at the medi-witch perfectly synchronising her work to look at both the men.
"You called, Poppy," Professor Snape entered the infirmary and on seeing the two still bodies on the beds, he quickened his pace and began helping the matron, the two working together so seamlessly, as if they'd done that on numerous counts before.
It was just when the oily haired and dark eyed Professor had begun cleaning his charge's face that he noticed the small intruder. "What are you doing here Miss Granger? Scatter!" he barked, and without another word, Hermione ran back to the Gryffindor Tower, not stopping to wonder why her legs were listening so ardently to the most-hated Professor ever.
…
Hermione had gone back to enquire about the two men, somehow feeling responsible for their well-being since she had been the one to save them.
They were recovering, Madam Pomphrey had told her, but it was a very slow process. Their bodies were cursed and hexed to within an inch of their lives and had they not been twins, she had once explained to Hermione, saving them would have been just about impossible.
Hermione had heard that tit-bit, gone to the library to scour whatever she could on twin healing, spoken discreetly with Padma and the Weasley twins, and then gone back to the medi-witch with a hoard of questions.
"So, from what I understand, they share their magical core, so they must be identical twins?" Hermione looked up in question and continued only after the Madam's nod. "Which means their magic is shared?"
"In the most simplistic sense of the word, yes, but so much more than that is at play here. They are strong wizards, undoubtedly, but what makes them stronger is the fact that they can draw from a rather large core as the two individuals are intrinsically linked by their magic since the womb. Their magical cores, you see, mesh in the womb of their mother, for twins. And the meshing of magical cores is never as simple as adding one and one to give you two, it is all so far beyond the rules of numeracy. Identical twins are a half of a whole, but each is conceived with his or her own magical core, giving them an entire well of power instead of just half, as is required. And then these two wells of magic mesh with each other…"
"Giving them access to four times the power that they would've otherwise needed." Hermione furrowed her brows in concentration and then looked at the matronly witch for confirmation of her hypothesis. And she was rewarded with same twinkle Professor Flitwick had in his eyes whenever she answered his questions correctly in class.
"At the very least, yes," the medi-witch nodded proudly at her student. "The stronger the core, the more robust the meshing, leading to a much more dynamic shared core between the set of identical twins. The more in-sync the twins are, the further their core fortifies with time and life experiences."
On seeing the effort Hermione was putting in to understand the concept, the medi-witch smiled indulgently and elaborated, "Ok, look at the Patil twins and Weasley twins for example. The Patil twins are fraternal and couldn't be more different, almost like a dragon-heartstring and a phoenix feather. And yet, aren't both of the Patil sisters just that tiny smidgen abler than your average third year student?"
"But the Weasley twins on the other hand are identical. They are individuals in their own rights, but can you ever imagine one without the other? And as much as they try to raise a riot around themselves, you just know their innate magical capabilities. Despite their easy laughs, no one can ever think of them as weak wizards. One look, and you just know they are made of sterner stuff than Percy Weasley, or even Ronald Weasley and Ginevra Weasley. The twins' power will never be disputed, unlike their other siblings who have to achieve something to prove their worth."
That day Hermione walked out with a lot of thoughts running rampant in her head. She would need some time to categorise everything before she went back to see the matron and her unconscious charges.
…
"If their magic is so strong, why haven't they still recovered yet?" Hermione was back again, with more doubts than earlier!
"At this point, their core is too deplete to support even one, much less them both," The matron replied. Despite the extra pressure it put on her, Poppy loved having the inquisitive third year in her infirmary, parroting away question after question endlessly. Having someone to speak to about her honourable art was as close to promoting her noble profession as she was going to get and she cherished the opportunity to do so with a witch as promising as Hermione Granger.
"How are they recovering then?"
Madam Pomphrey shrugged. "I am not quite sure but there's definitely another source at least one of them is drawing from, and that power which is being drawn is being shared between the brothers due to their shared core." She had often wondered in her solitude if they were drawing from their sister's magic, she was after all their only blood relative left alive. But somehow, their progress didn't seem to support her hypothesis. Had it been their sister's magical reserves they were using, the progress would have been constant between the twins. As it happened though, the magic seemed to be flowing from one to another, always the one on bed number 6 showed signs of improvement before the one on bed 7. Given the delay was in mere minutes, sometimes even seconds, but after the fourth time, Poppy couldn't help but wonder if the one on bed 6 was in fact tied separately to another magical being whose reserves he was unknowingly drawing from to heal himself and his twin.
"It will undoubtedly be a very slow process, assuming they ever recover at all, but I shall not let them out of my sight until they stand on their own two feet or their hearts stop beating for more than eight minutes straight. Till then, I am not losing hope, neither shall I give up."
Smiling at the matron's words, Hermione nodded, sincerely wishing she would someday find a vocation even she would be so passionate about.
…
"Do you think it was Sirius Black who hurt them?" Hermione asked the question softly enough but it still sounded loud in the din of the infirmary. No one in Gryffindor wanted to talk to her anyway, so she simply spent what little spare time she had with the medi-witch. Watching her working away quietly in her infirmary was a treat all in itself.
"I'm a medi-witch not an Auror, Miss Granger," Madam Pomphrey tsked and got busy with her work again before her eyes fell on the witch sitting in silent contemplation in front of her. She understood her fear for her best friend and smiled. "Sirius Black wouldn't dare to come so close to Hogwarts, my dear, so don't fret about it."
Well that theory had soon enough flown out the window though.
…
"Do you know who they are yet?" Hermione had asked another time, when she'd gone to visit Harry at the infirmary after he'd injured himself yet again during quidditch!
Madam Pomphrey had faltered, her eyes shifting uncomfortably before she shook her head. "They'll have to be questioned once they're up. They are showing slow progress, but progress nonetheless. Headmaster Dumbledore will speak to them once they are in better health." And with that the medi-witch walked away from the curious girl unwilling to lie any further to the intelligent young witch.
…
The groans were getting insistent these days. "They're coming around," Madam Pomphrey smiled a beatific smile of a healer whose hard work had paid off in the form of the lives saved.
…
They had slowly come around. The soft treading of feet around them, sometimes the louder scuffle was one of first few things they heard. Then came a familiar face, that somehow didn't look so familiar anymore. And then came a lot of potions! Some strengthening them, some knocking them out for hours, some aiding their senses – making them sharper, some making them too lethargic to even look at one another.
The curtains around their beds were always drawn though, it sometimes felt as if someone didn't want anyone to know that they were there.
And then one day came a few hushed voices. Not that that was an unusual occurrence. They were at Hogwarts Infirmary after all, the place almost had a muggle rotating door at the entrance! But what those voices were saying was making their blood run cold.
"….. I can't believe we just faced off a werewolf!"
The twins looked at each other, their eyes big in alarm.
"… you don't think… turn next moon…?"
"Obviously not…. It was the willow, Ronald…. You just rest…."
"Before it happened…. Sirius said I could stay with him you know….?"
That made the twins look at each other in confusion. Sirius? As in Black?
Then the voices went softer, a soft murmur passed between the group as someone else who had treaded in quietly joined them.
"I think three rounds should do it, Miss Granger." That definitely was Dumbledore, they could bet their Gringotts account on it.
"You were just there.." the pained voice of the patient spoke. "How are you….?"
The confusion only increased until the brothers felt their limbs moving themselves….
The doors thudded open as heavy footsteps ran inside the Infirmary. "Where's my boy?"
The twins' eyes widened. They knew that voice just as well as they knew their own.
"Ronald, my boy.. Are you alright? Where are you hurt?" Molly was mollycoddling her youngest son when the curtains of the beds at the far end of the hall were ripped open. A stunned man stood on wobbly feet by the bed while the other one tried to do the same.
And in sync the two almost identical voices spoke out, "Mols?"
Molly Weasley for once forgot to look at her own child as she turned around towards the source of those voices. Voices she'd never thought she'd hear again. On seeing the two wizards at the end of the hall, her hand clasped her husband's arm just that much harder.
The three stared at each other in stunned silence, the moment heavy with a lot of feelings, emotions running very high indeed.
"Mols?" One of the twins repeated himself.
"Is that really you?" the other one frowned, she looked like their sister, their younger sister and yet she looked just so much older.
Molly, on the other hand, let out a shuddering breath, her tears now freely flowing for a whole other reason. "My… my…" she croaked, her voice constantly breaking with all her emotions. And then, getting up from Ron's bedside, she ran towards the strangers, confusing her own brood and Harry and Hermione while Arthur simply stood, internalising everything that was unfolding in front of them.
Every one of her child present saw her break in the arms of the two men. The three crying together and then smiling together as one of the men gently wiped her tears away and she simply shed more before hugging them both all over again.
"Dad…" Ron started.
"Who are they?" Fred and George chorused together.
"They are your uncles Fabian and Gideon," Arthur whispered quietly, not for a second his eyes leaving the scene playing on in front of them.
"Fabian." "Gideon." Molly Weasley said and hugged the two individually again.
"I'm not Fabian, he is," the one she had called Fabian said.
"I am Gideon, not him," the other one said.
"Honestly, little girl, you call yourself our sister," the duo echoed together while their sister cried anew.
"Wicked," the Weasley twins chorused, smirking at their uncles' antics.
Wicked indeed Hermione agreed, her heart beating faster with the ramifications of what she had done…