The Turn of the Tide that can make us Free
How shall I describe the realm of Faerie? There are the ordinary cliches- a place where the sun is brighter, where colours seem more intense, where the air itself is clearer and everything seems somehow more real than it is in mortal lands. These descriptions are accurate, but only for the borders, where physical reality serves as a kind of anchor. Harry Potter and Hermione Weasley, once they were manhandled out of the Burrow, into the woods, and through a peculiar doorlike frame or trellis constructed of hawthorn branches, quickly passed deep Underhill and into the very heart of Spring. Things shifted out of the corner of their eyes, kaleidoscopically blurring and shimmering. Their captor seemed to be an enormous black goat and an unusually handsome Greek man wearing a Phrygian cap all at once, while the path they were frog marched along was surrounded by a dense forest that was also an open field and an orchard in full bloom, depending on how they looked at it. Time passed differently there. Between heartbeats, they suddenly found themselves on the shores of a mirror-still mountain lake that burned with a kind of inner fire, or at the gate of a fortress carved from an enormous basalt outcropping, or at the foot of an impossibly gigantic tree. Within or beyond or above was their destination.
The Spring Court was much changed from the historical descriptions, which was only to be expected. The inhabitants were still unnaturally beautiful, often with pointed ears or hollow backs or other characteristics that marked them as fey, but gone were the sumptuous aristocratic outfits dripping with precious stones. Instead, they wore something like tastefully cut peasant's garb or worker's clothing. Crowns and hennins and carefully arranged powdered wigs were replaced by budyonovkas and Lenin hats, and the guards at the doors carried rifles with bayonets rather than elaborate swords and pikes. Harry thought he heard Hermione say something to the effect of "I suppose we can't call them the Gentry anymore", but the blood was pounding in his ears. The same feeling they'd felt on New Year's Eve had returned and even intensified, and they gasped like fish under the sheer metaphysical weight of Revolution around them.
After both an eternity and an instant, a guard pulled them away from the crowd as they were about to succumb to the temptation of partaking in an impossibly delicious looking meal. Through a colonnade or inside a small grove of trees or within the entrance to a stone circle was another somewhat more important looking guard who wore a faded commissar's hat and carried a sickle rather than the usual gun. They couldn't tell where he was looking since his eyes were a completely solid silver-green like a beetle's iridescent shell, but he snapped to attention and escorted them further on. "Her excellency the Premier of the Commune of Spring", the beetle-eyed man announced as a set of double doors parted and they entered a place that was either a European throne room, a palatial tent filled with pillows and hanging beads, a cave with a single opening at the very top where light shone down upon a circular pool, or all of those at once. Apparently he was traditional enough to adapt monarchist pomp to the new way the May Queen was doing things rather than getting rid of her titles altogether. In the back there were the splintered remains of an enormous hawthorn throne, carved with scenes of peace, prosperity, and exuberant lovemaking. Before the ruin was a polished wooden desk inlaid with a star the color of freshly spilled blood, and She was sitting there in a green kirtle with a maddeningly self-satisfied smile. "I suppose you thought I'd come for you on May first itself, did you? That would be quite foolish of me. You have much preparation to make before then. I must admit you would have given me a hard time if I actually had to enter your home- the use of opposing symbolism was quite inspired, though not, I think, a match for a mistaken invitation past the threshold. All the more proof that I chose you wisely. You led us on a merry chase, but now the hunt is over and you are mine."
The May Queen (for that is what they called her, even if she now claimed to be merely the first among equals) produced an enormous wooden scroll from behind the desk. "You have nothing to eat or drink. My agent made sure of that when he took you, and as such you are rather pressed for options. If you sign this oath of loyalty, I can procure mortal food for you. If you do not, you will have to eat our food and will become beholden to me, at which point I already have your loyalty under circumstances that are less favorable to you. I do not relish starving you out, but I will do so to ensure my survival and that of the Spring Commune." Harry was aghast. "You bitch!", he spat out with a glare. "It's no wonder you need an oath of loyalty if this is how you treat your allies!" But they both knew the May Queen was right about their need for food, and she did look like she actually regretted it. "Fine, we'll sign, but only if we can actually negotiate the damn contract." To Harry, the rattle as the scroll unrolled might as well be the thunderous sound of Azkaban's gates locking.
The parchment was long and winding, in a strange script that resembled a three-way hybrid between Georgian, Arabic, and the polar equations they'd used in their advanced Arithmancy class, the one that dealt with the drawing of ritual circles. The letters weren't any human language either of them had heard of and it might not even be written from left to right, but nonetheless they could understand it as clearly as if it were English. Almost immediately after reading through it, Hermione had objections to the wording. Hour after hour went by, and as they negotiated changes to the oath the scroll rewrote itself to match.
Finally, they had a contract that left neither them nor Her satisfied but was more to their advantage than the original. Harry and Hermione would become enforcers for the May Queen, serving her interests and those of the Spring Commune above all else, as well as the interests of Faerie as a whole when possible. They would serve for as long as they both lived, or until they were released from duty, and in exchange their souls would be sent a decade backwards, to May Day nineteen ninety-one. Harry and Hermione would also be able to call upon the Verdant Guard in times of dire need, learn certain magically useful secrets from the May Queen's private library, and receive shelter and safe passage through the lands of Spring.
All in all, a rather favorable outcome considering they'd been forced to swear fealty to an unknowable, alien magical entity whose kind are the actual origin of the word "eldritch". Maybe, Hermione speculated, adapting herself to such a humanistic philosophy had aligned her morals with those of humanity. The May Queen's justifications for her actions certainly seemed more utilitarian and less "red in tooth and claw". Harry, on the other hand, was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
There was a slight hitch when Harry tried to sign his name as "Harrison James Potter", in the hope that he could claim he used the shortened version. His arm cramped as though he were being shocked, and he threw the modern-looking fountain pen away by reflex. Their captor laughed. "There's always one of you who tries that. I've lost count of the mortals who tried to call themselves Nobody or Ainsel, but at least you were somewhat sneaky. My colder sister once had a man pass himself off as Michael Hunt. She gave him one." She continued. "That little jolt was downright tolerant compared to what I could do to you if I truly wanted. Sign again, with your real names." The pair wisely decided to do as she asked.
As soon as they signed the contract, there was a sudden wrenching behind their faces, as though they were falling into their own bodies. When the feeling of vertigo ceased, they felt not quite at home within themselves anymore. Harry could somehow hear faint whispers from a voice that didn't sound quite like Hermione's: "Well, that isn't normal. It's Harry's internal dialogue, which means that she must have joined our minds. Doesn't seem very safe to me. I need to learn occlumency to keep our thoughts separate or we could become a hive mind!"
The May Queen made a gesture and the feeling faded out like a radio with a bad signal. "There, that should be less noisy." Harry's head hurt, but not in the way his scar had before he'd put an end to Voldemort. There was a place that hurt because it had been neatly scooped out and switched with an identical piece from Hermione, but the main source of pain was the fact that there was something foreign crammed into his skull, stretching it like an overfilled balloon. Hermione, extremely concerned, slowly turned to the May Queen in shock. "What the hell did you just do?", she asked. "I can feel you behind my eyes now!"
She was quick to answer. "That's most of my soul, distributed between you. Think of it like a heavy weight between two lighter anchor points. As the weight pulls down, the anchor points are drawn together, which is why you caught some of the spillover. I also connected you for added reinforcement. Again, all of this is regrettable but necessary. You are sworn to ensure my own survival, not the survival of a version of me from ten years ago. I'm coming with you and entering my younger self, except for the parts that aren't. My mind, body, and magic anchor me to this world, so I must leave them behind, but my soul and memories can go with you. I'll be able to think again once I'm in my past self- you are not only my agents in the mortal world but also my means of sneaking over the border between past and present. My very existence is in your hands, which is why I went to these lengths to obtain your services in the first place."
Over the next two weeks, Harry and Hermione trained intensively. Not their bodies, which would be consumed as they jumped through a bonfire that symbolized rebirth, but their minds. Day after day, they memorized historical events of the nineties, both world-shaking and seemingly inconsequential. True to her word, the May Queen supplied them with mortal food, which was delivered by the man with beetle eyes or a pair of short, wizened creatures with blue skin, depending on the day. During their off times, they talked with the May Queen about how they'd be able to make a significant difference in the past: History is a sticky thing, with too much momentum to be changed by merely one or two people's actions.
There was Voldemort to stop, of course, but the neoliberal "end of history", the environmental troubles, and the troubling rise in religious fundamentalism were all obstacles that would be significantly harder to change. The best advice they were given was to focus on the differences they could actually make. The earlier into the nineties the event, the harder it would be to make a difference. For example, it would be next to impossible to prevent the dissolution of the Soviet Union before their first Christmas back in time, as it was already in the early stages of collapse.
"Go to the Latin American section of the campgrounds for the 1994 Quidditch World Cup", the May Queen said. "The Zapatista uprising was a ray of hope for me, and if you can fan the rekindled flames of revolution there, you'll be that much closer to saving the Spring Commune".
In spite of himself, Harry grew to like their captor, and he could tell Hermione had as well. Maybe he was deluding himself, and maybe it was Stockholm Syndrome, but it seemed as though the May Queen truly regretted shanghaiing them away from the times and people they knew and loved. Her appearance didn't hurt, either. She looked so normal in the still very outlandish Spring Commune that they felt as though they were talking with another human being, except for when she avoided certain turns of phrase that a human wouldn't have to.
Her other form immediately dispelled that notion, but she wore it very rarely. Though it was perhaps truer to her innermost self, it was also very old and so not in keeping with her ideals of progress. In any case there is a grain of truth to the idea that people trust a beautiful face, so when Harry and Hermione learned to ignore the effect that shape had on them, they found the May Queen trustworthy then as well. On Friday the 28th, She approached them and asked that they let her bind their bodies as she had already bound their minds and souls with the contract. Their bodies would be left behind, but the added symbolism couldn't hurt.
It was a measure of Harry and Hermione's, if not unconditional trust, then at least their growing comfort around her, that when the May Queen outlined several ways this could be done, they not only agreed to do it but also chose the oldest and most intimate way. "After all", Hermione told Harry, "She may be the kind of Old God that used to drive people mad with her beauty, or 'dance' them to death, but She doesn't have a reason to do that anymore, especially to us." They were both trying very hard not to think about how much they missed Ron and Ginny, and how they'd never be able to see the versions they knew and loved again. So they resolved to drown their sorrows with pleasure, and comforted themselves by saying that at least their patron was the devil they knew.
Though we will pass over the lurid details, suffice it to say that the May Queen was still very much a spirit of fertility and lust, and both metamorphmagi and natural legimens gain their abilities from faerie ancestry. For three consecutive days and nights She seduced them, her now completely unrestrained form radiating sexual energy like an open blast furnace, and they learned things that they hadn't even thought possible.
Sadly, all good things must come to an end and on Monday the 1st they awoke and said their goodbyes. The May Queen's body was fading fast now, unable to maintain the ordinary, working class appearance she wore when she was out and about. It was fraying at the edges, and something that was not quite light shone through as though she were made of glass.
"Behind" it, blurred and covered up but becoming increasingly clearer, was her older, truer form. How this worked when her proletarian guise was the shape of an ordinary human woman and the other was twice their height, they couldn't say. Beyond her chambers was the room where the Beltane fire was being kindled with the splinters of the Hawthorn Throne. The May Queen bade them farewell for now and as a parting gift gave them her Name, both as a sign of trust and a means to gain the attention of her past self: Ashtaramé.
As the flames climbed higher, She opened the ceremony. "We are gathered here at the cusp of Spring and Summer that we may kindle the flame of hope from the ashes of despair. Though we can never visit the Springs of the past, the great Wheel brings the promise of new growth every year. To that end, we dedicate our minds, bodies, and souls so that these, my sworn servants, may return to a past reborn brighter than before."
Hermione threw a milky white vial into the flames, and as they flared a vivid indigo Harry caught an indescribable smell that reminded him of the loving home he'd never known.
"With these, my most precious memories, we bind our minds to find the passage home."
Harry stepped forward and drew an obsidian ritual knife through his clenched fist, the edge so keen that he could barely feel the pain of his parted skin until he threw the dagger into the flames. As the dark splash of blood followed the blade, the bonfire redoubled its heat and the roaring flames turned a brilliant scarlet. He chanted in turn:
"With this, my life's blood, we bind our bodies to receive us."
The pyre, at once funereal and of rebirth, turned a deep purple the colour of the May Queen's eyes. She stepped towards the fire. Though she was actively unravelling now, radiating not-light like an evaporating singularity, Harry caught a glimpse of her before his reflexes made him look away. Words could not describe it, and the memory fell out of his mind like dust through a sieve, but he got the impression of both divine, untouchable beauty and impossible voluptuousness: She was much, much older than the arbitrary distinction between holy and sensual. The scent of wheat, of growing things and freshly tilled soil filled his nose. She, too, spoke.
"With this, my living essence, I bind our souls to their sacred duty!"
The fire, now a vertical column of light that howled rather than merely roared, became suddenly transparent, traced through with whisps of iridescent colour like the sheen of oil on water. As the working reached its climax, Hermione shouted "GO!" and grabbed his hand. Behind them, the remains of the May Queen's old body died with a shriek as a sphere of strange energies burst from the place where she had stood, the shockwave as Her metaphysical weight "rang down" to the universal baseline pushing them forwards like the hand of an angry god.
The ensorcelled fire filled Harry's entire vision now, an endless rainbow of splintered possibilities…