Chapter 11
After putting in a brief appearance at breakfast in the Great Hall and announcing that Professor Granger's classes are cancelled because she is ill, Draco returns to the children's rooms, where they are eating breakfast. Hermione is drinking tea and looking at an empty portrait frame that hangs on the wall.
"Was that here last night?" she asks.
"No," Draco says. "I had Blinky hang it so Severus could join us."
Severus, Hermione thinks. She called him Severus in that memory. Of course she did, if he was her husband. She can think of the man in that memory as Severus, he was so different from the Snape she knows.
That Snape steps into the empty portrait frame, the skinny, greasy-haired, buttoned-up, scowling Snape, not her memory-self's husband Severus.
"How are you feeling this morning?" Draco asks the children.
"My headache's a little better," Gus says.
"Mine, too," Becky says.
"You both have headache?" Snape asks sharply. "Since when?"
"Yesterday," Gus says. "It started when we were back in the past."
Snape sighs. "You'll have to run diagonstics on them," he tells Draco. "Normally less than a day in the past wouldn't have any effect, but they're children, so…"
"What do you mean, normally?" Hermione asks. "I used a Time Turner for my entire third year and never had headaches."
"How did you obtain a Time Turner when you were a child?" Snape demands.
"Headmaster Dumbledore thought—"
"That dunderhead," Snape snaps. "I might have known."
"About the headaches," Draco interrupts.
"Presumably you only traveled back a few hours at a time when you used the Time Turner, Professor Granger?" Snape asks.
"Of course," Hermione says. "That's all anyone can go back…" She looks at the children. "Oh."
"Indeed," Snape says. "There were only a few of those Time Turners created, and to the best of my knowledge, no one but Unspeakables ever used them, or even had access to them."
"And they got headaches when they went back years?" Draco asks. "Were there any other side effects?"
"Organ damage. It could be quite severe if left untreated."
Draco takes out his wand and casts a diagnostic charm over Gus, and Hermione does the same with Becky.
"I had hoped we wouldn't have to tell anyone else about this, but we need the Mediwitch," Draco says.
"No," Snape says. "I can tell you what you need. The healing potions you can get from the Hospital Wing, but there's a potion designed specifically to counteract the temporal shift."
"How do you know all this?" Hermione asks.
"I did a bit of…contract work with the Department of Mysteries. I'm the one who developed the potion."
"If we take the potion when we go back to the past to fix things, we won't get sick?" Gus asks.
"Considering how well you fixed things the last time you inserted yourselves in a time when you didn't belong," Snape says, "I'd say your time traveling days are over."
"Do you suppose it was the souvenir?" Gus asks Becky.
"Souvenir?" all three adults ask in unison.
"This," Gus says, pulling the diadem out of his pocket.
Hermione gasps.
"What is it?" Draco asks. Snape looks as uncomprehending as Draco.
"It's a Horcrux," Hermione says grimly. "The only one we couldn't find and destroy. We looked everywhere, thought it would be in the Room of Lost Things, but it wasn't."
"Is that the room on the seventh floor that's full of all kinds of old junk?" Gus asks.
"Yes," Hermione says. "Is that where you found it?"
"Yes," Becky says. "What's a Horcrux, Professor Granger?"
Draco looks startled at how Becky addresses Hermione, but says nothing.
"It's a piece of the Dark Lord's soul," Hermione says.
"Who's the Dark Lord?" Gus asks.
"Someone I hope you never meet," Draco says.
"What I don't understand," Hermione says, brow furrowing, "is how the Dark Lord never came back at all in their time. He came back at the end of our fourth year, and we destroyed the other Horcruxes in our sixth and seventh years. If the diadem was in the Room of Lost Things before they took it, wouldn't the Dark Lord still have come back in our fourth year, but been destroyed in our seventh?"
"Something else happened between your first and fourth years that prevented his return," Snape says.
"What?" Hermione asks.
"I have no idea," Snape replies, "but something must have. And when the children took the diadem, they prevented that something—whatever it was—from happening."
"Then they have to put it back," Draco says.
Or we could just destroy it here, now, Hermione thinks as Draco writes down the potions Snape tells him the children need, and how to make the potion to counteract the effects of the temporal shift. But the Dark Lord may have made other Horcruxes, she realizes, and even in the unlikely event he hasn't, someone would still have to kill him, and that someone would be Draco. She'd lose him either way. Losing him to Astoria Greengrass is better than losing him to death – and then having to live in this world without him. In Gus and Becky's world, she wouldn't know what she'd lost, would never know what it was like to love and be loved by Draco Malfoy. Only that other Hermione did, didn't she? Draco said they were engaged, and she left him for Snape. In what kind of world was that possible? A world where she had never known a Dark Lord, never hunted Horcruxes. A world where Ron and Harry were alive, and Harry and Draco were friends. A world where Severus Snape was almost attractive and called her pet and kissed her in a way that made her memory self—"
"Hermione!"
"Yes? What?" She looks up at Draco, who is looking at her with a worried frown. The children and Snape's portrait are looking at her as well. "Sorry," she says. "I was…"
"Miles away," Draco says.
She nods.
"I've sent Blinky to fetch the potions the children need from the Hospital Wing, and I'm going to brew the Time Turner potion."
"I'll help you," Hermione says.
"I can manage," Draco says "Severus will coach me through it. I thought you might want to spend some time with your daughter."
Hermione nods, but does she want to, really?
Blinky pops back with a tray of bottles. As the children swallow the prescribed amounts, Draco tells the elf, "Put an empty portrait frame in my lab, please," then turns to his godfather. "I'll see you there."
"Can I help?" Gus asks Draco. "I've been helping my dad with potions since I was old enough to hold a knife."
"Have you? Then come along," Draco says, offering his arm for side-along. Gus takes it and Draco turns. The two of them disappear with barely a sound. Snape nods formally before stepping out of sight beyond the portrait frame, leaving Hermione alone with Becky.