Borrowed Time
Hermione spent a week searching for a way to reclaim lost time. Soon, Harry's wish became her own. As she fell asleep in Harry's arms after revisiting the picture, she imagined looking into a twelve-year-old Harry's eyes and telling him how much she loved him. The more she'd thought about it, the more the idea consumed her.
The bright witch initially wondered if she was hoping for too much – it was a pretty tall order, after all, to change a person's age. Am I really going to find it in a book that isn'tbound in human flesh or inked in dragon blood? Finally though, she found what she'd been looking for, and in the strangest place – a psychology book. The book listed the potion as one that might be helpful in the relief of "stress conditions." Traumatic childhoods seemed to be the impetus for the elixir's creation, though the book also noted that the potion had a positive effect on those who were merely going through trying times in their adult life. I suppose I was right about it being a therapeutic exercise. She had shaken her head and smirked at the irony.
After classes were over for the day and they'd retired to Harry's dorm for their customary evening cuddle, Hermione decided to make her proposal to Harry.
"Harry, what would you say to..." How to phrase it? "Some roleplay?"
"What kind?" Harry asked dubiously. He was a little surprised she'd ask such a question. Am I boring her somehow?
"Well, it's nothing too outlandish. It's not some kind of strict professor/naughty student thing." She snickered at the idea of Harry trying but utterly failing to look stern while she played the doe-eyed, wayward student.
"Who would I be, then?" Harry inquired in what he hoped was a confident way, though he was absolutely dreading the answer.
"Well, you'd be... yourself." She replied with adoring eyes.
That was a huge relief. It allayed his concerns about his own possible shortcomings. However, there was still an important question to be answered. "So who would you be?" He asked playfully, lightly scratching her neck. His breath caught a few strands of her hair which tickled her ears mercilessly.
"I would also be myself." She declared proudly, waiting to see if he would figure it out on his own.
He didn't. He fixed her with what he imagined to be a very unsexy look of total confusion. "Then how is that roleplaying?"
"I thought about what you said the other night – you know, about lost time – and I think we can get some of it back." She took him by the jaw and kissed him. He swore he could actually feel her lips vibrate with anticipation. "Harry..." She could barely contain the excitement in her voice. "I can make us young again."
Harry's first reaction was one of alarm. One typically didn't get something like that out of magic without substantial sacrifice. It was the sort of thing he associated more with a Dark Lord than with his sweet, bookish girlfriend. "How?"
Evidently she could see the concern in his face. "It's nothing dark, I promise. Age-reversal spells typically subtract the amount of the reversal off the end of your life, but that's only necessary if you're actually trying to steal youth. I was thinking maybe we could just..." She searched for the proper word. "Borrow youth for a little while. And there happens to be a potion with that effect." She smiled, leaving the idea for Harry's consideration.
He didn't immediately react. After a moment of silence and what Hermione assumed to be deep thought, Harry spoke. "So... we'd be younger again? Temporarily?" It seemed a little strange to be nostalgic for youth when they hadn't actually left it yet. They were only sixteen.
"Yes." She nodded.
"How much younger, and how temporarily?" He inquired.
"Well, I was thinking four years, back to the photograph. How does that sound?"
Harry thought back to his second year. Pine for Hermione, watch her sigh over Lockhart, nearly lose her to a basilisk. "It sounds... good." He supposed if they were going to do any age over again, twelve would be a good start. "What about the duration?"
"Hours. Maybe a weekend. The potion I've found has a spell as an activator, so if we wanted to end it early, we could just use finite incantatem and we'd be back to normal." She said brightly.
"What would we actually do, though?" He asked. He couldn't see Hermione proposing such a thing without having a loftier goal in mind.
"Well, for starters-" She began, scooting next to Harry and placing her pinkie over his. "We could recreate that photograph." She rested her head on his shoulder. "But this time, we could mix it up a bit."
"Less clothing?" Harry suggested with a waggle of his eyebrows.
"Actually, I was thinking you could dress up like Snape and spank me." She said flatly.
"Not funny." Harry declared crossly. "Be more comfortable dressed like Hitler..." He muttered under his breath.
"You love me." Hermione said dismissively.
"True." He admitted with a sigh and a small smile. "So when do you want to do this?"
"Soon. It shouldn't take much more than a week to get the potion ready." She'd gone over the list of ingredients, and all were available, though some might have to be ordered. The recipe's total time to completion was six hours for every year between one's current age and one's desired age, bringing the total to twenty-four hours. Might have to take that in shifts. Hermione mused internally.
"How are we going to handle other people seeing us? Are we even going to let them?" Harry was having a difficult time imagining any acceptable explanation for a couple undergoing a controlled age-reversal. It seemed the sort of thing that might net them a detention or a nasty prank from Malfoy.
"Well, if we feel like being out and about, my notice-me-not charms have gotten pretty good. And there's always the cloak for travel." She referred to Harry's invisibility cloak, which had been used many times for exactly the sort of things one would cite as reasons to keep such an item away from teenagers. "I was thinking we'd probably spend the majority of our time alone, though."
"Up here?" Harry indicated the dormitory.
"I was thinking... the Room of Requirement." Hermione said suggestively.
"Oh." Harry's heart leapt. "That could be fun." He nodded and smiled at the possibilities.
Harry and Hermione had ingested some pretty foul things in the course of their adventures, with polyjuice taking the top prize for vomit-inducing awfulness. Harry theorized that the laws of nature had a sense of humor, perhaps taking pleasure in making something so mind-bogglingly useful taste so horrible. He'd noticed the same issue with healing potions, of which he'd certainly had his share. So he was understandably apprehensive when it came time to drink the potion Hermione had made. Borrowed time, in liquid form. Quite valuable. This is going to taste like the inside of a vulture, isn't it?
"So the cook time determines the amount of youth regained, but the dosage roughly controls the duration of the effect." Hermione explained as she portioned the thin, emerald-colored liquid into two glasses.
"So how much are we taking?" Harry inquired, examining the half-inch or so of liquid in the bottom of the glass with a frown.
"Two hours worth." Hermione reported.
"How bad is it going to taste?" Harry asked bluntly.
"Well, if I had to venture a guess, I'd say not that bad. Perhaps just strange, maybe even good if we're lucky. It doesn't look bad." She said hopefully, gesturing toward the shimmering liquid.
Harry had to admit she was right about that. It was thin and clear, though tinted a deep green. If he didn't know any better, he could have believed it was a muggle sports drink or soda. Unfortunately, a preemptive smell test was not possible, as the recipe called for a fume vanisher to be placed over the cauldron during the cooking process. They were strongly cautioned not to inhale any of the vapor, lest the transformation happen with uncomfortable speed.
Hermione picked up both glasses and offered one to Harry. "Ready?" She asked.
"I suppose." Harry nodded, blowing the vapor off the top of his dose of liquid nostalgia. "See you four years ago?" He raised his glass with a smirk.
"Of course." Hermione rolled her eyes and clinked her glass against Harry's. They weren't really traveling through time, but it would be a trip of sorts.
The young lovers drank.
"Minty!" Harry exclaimed in surprise as he gulped his dose down.
"Mmm." Hermione agreed, nodding and holding the glass away from her face to avoid the fumes. Finally, she swallowed the mouthful of greenish liquid and let out a sigh of relief. She blinked in surprise at the sensation of her stomach bubbling. Though it tickled, it was really more shocking than pleasant. She was about to ask Harry if he was feeling the same thing when his eyes fluttered shut and he slumped unconscious.
"Oh, does that mean I'm going to-" She began indignantly, but before she could finish the sentence, she went limp. Thankfully, she'd been headed roughly in Harry's direction before her muscles betrayed her. Her last thought as she fell onto her boyfriend was a wish that she might not land too heavily on his crotch.