Chapter Forty-Five: Time

Hermione kicked at the entrance to the Slytherin dorms. "Open up, you bloody piece of shit!" Her hand itched for her wand, even as she heard her mother's voice in her head, reproving her language. She rolled her eyes and pushed the memory away – her language was the last thing her mother needed to worry about now.

The book was heavy in her left hand. By the time her…friends had gotten back to her, Hermione had been too late; the Great Hall was full of screaming people and a few fights. The professors had their hands full on separating the hysterical students. There were a few lurking Slytherins, but they vanished every time Hermione started their way.

She had heard from various gossiping groups that Harry had had a fit in the hall, screaming about the end of the world and fire and – she shook her head a the latest rumor. There was nothing that proclaimed hysterical idiots like ducks being connected to the apocalypse.

"Hermione?"

She whirled, heart leaping. Ginny Black stood just behind her with two other Slytherins Hermione did not know.

"Ginny," Hermione said once she could speak. "I need to get in."

"Why?"

"I have information."

Ginny's eyes slid away and then darted back. "Information about what?"

"Don't be daft, Ginny. You know what's going on, you've seen it!"

"I…" Ginny clicked her mouth closed. The pair at her sides shifted glances between the Gryffindor and the Slytherin.

"Ginny, I need to speak to Harry right now."

Ginny's mouth twisted. "You can try," she said, stepping forward. "But he doesn't speak to many anymore."

Hermione's hand connected with the back of Ginny's head as the portal opened. A sea of Slytherin students gaped at them.

"You are a whiny little twat sometimes," Hermione snarled into the girl's face. "Now get your head out of your arse and start thinking with it instead of playing the poor-pity-me party on repeat!" With that Hermione marched into the dungeons, the book held high. "Sasha? Where are you, you cow, I've got a bone to pick with you…"

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Harry pulled the muggle coffee-table book up onto his lap. "Crom Cruach," he tried the name, glancing over the top of the slick pages at Hermione. "You're sure it's him?"

"From what my friends could tell me, yes," Hermione folded her hands in her lap, ignoring Sasha, who glowered at her from the corner.

"Your friends?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

Hermione's chin jutted out a fraction. "There are people who think the wizarding world and the muggle world should be closer to each other. I was…introduced to some people this summer who have been aware of the growing problems and had taken an interest in…preventing more."

"Merlin," Pansy recoiled, staring at Hermione. "You've been meeting with the exiles, haven't you?"

There was a collective gasp throughout the room. Harry studied the people closest, watching the strands splinter in front of him. "Why are they sure it's Crom Cruach?" He broke in before the fight could start.

"They are sure of it," Hermione turned back to him. "They say everything matches up from their sources. The god was originally based in Ireland, which coincides…"

"To my vision, now," Harry finished with a frown. He passed a hand across the page. "It says very little about him."

"There is little record," Hermione took in a deep breath. "The records do show that he slaughtered the first born in his rites. He was a solar deity – but some think he was mixed up with an older religion…that doesn't matter. What does matter is that at the height of his worship, his followers sacrificed one of three of their children to his altars. There was no end in sight – there are vague references to some sort of orgiastic plan…anyway, at the height of his power," she snapped her fingers, causing a few to flinch. "He supposedly disappeared. A great hunt and offering of blood did nothing. His followers killed themselves and their families in a great rush, believing the end of the world was nigh."

"Fat lot they knew," Blaise spat.

"Blaise," Neville touched the other boy's arm. The pair sank back into their seats.

"This helps us, how?" Draco leaned forward, eyes bright and trained on Hermione's face.

"We – I – have to stop him," Harry murmured. He saw Draco's hands tighten around each other. "Pythia said it must be so."

"How and why she thought," Draco cut off, jaw working as he shook his head. "We'll talk about it later."

"Later?" Harry tilted his head to one side, the heavy hand of grief tightening around his heart. "She is already dead, burnt to ashes after she was cut open, gullet to groin. Her eyes were pried from her head and eaten. The god doled out portions of her flesh for his followers – Merlin!" Harry's exclamation caused many to jump. "It was MacNair."

"Harry?" Draco latched onto his arm.

"I saw him." Harry dug his fingers into the pages of the glossy book. "I – he's been calling the Death Eathers…"

"Of course!" Sasha and Hermione swore at the same time.

"Wasn't there a way –"

"Lists of how many had unknown whereabouts –"

"Find and see if this lines up with –"

Harry turned to Draco as the room began to boil over with plans. "It will take more than this, you know."

"We have enough time," Draco answered. "We'll make enough time."

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"Harry, this is…" Severus trailed off. Harry watched the man's reflection in the window.

"Mad?" He finished for the professor.

Snape pressed his lips together and shot Harry a dark look. "Mad, yes, that is an apt description."

Harry turned from the window, away from the crawling designs of the hoar frost and the way the edges would weave together words and bits of futures Harry did not try to understand. "Pythia said it," he touched his throat, where the new bandages were wrapped around him. The blast from the abyss had caught them all off guard. Harry had relived his worst wounds, staring up again at the Winter King as he smiled down at Harry, gray eyes too kind for such a fearsome reputation. The episode had been quick, but almost fatal. Madam Pomfrey was becoming quite vexed at how many blood-replenishing potions Harry had been going through. He wasn't too keen on it either.

"She said a great many things," Snape sliced a hand through the air. "No, Mr. Potter, Harry. You cannot go. You would be killed!"

"I will be killed here just the same," Harry guided his fingers over the rough wood of the sill.

"You can't know that!"

"Just as you cannot know that I will be killed there."

Severus looked ready to explode. "Why will you not let us help you, Mr. Potter?"

Harry blinked and turned to face the man. "I thought you meant…"

"It is becoming increasingly apparent that something or someone has no sense of propriety when it comes to dolling out the various harsh tasks of fate – all I am saying, Mr. Potter, is that far too often you are the one chosen for the short stick while the rest of us watch helpless from the sidelines!"

Draco looked up from his clasped hands. The Headmaster stayed silent as he stood near the hearth in Snape's office, blue eyes shadowed by the dim light of the room.

Harry took a nervous step from the window. "Then…you're not going to try and stop me?"

A muscle worked in Snape's jaw. "I am sure that if we attempted such an idea, you and Mr. Malfoy would come up with a sufficiently idiotic idea to work around it."

Harry blinked again. "Draco? But…"

"I'm coming with you, Harry," the blond did not move from his seat on the stuffed ottoman. He had his back to the fire, causing shadows to mask the expression on his face. "I told you I would follow you to the end of the world. I meant it."

"Mr. Potter," Dumbledore clasped his hands in front of his waist, catching their attention. "I fear I have failed you on many levels, and I do apologize. But, above all else, you make me proud, proud to have known you and proud to have had you as a student here."

Harry swallowed past the sudden lump that had formed in his throat. "I'm not going to die, sir." He slid a glance to the silent phoenix perched on the back of a chair. "…Am I?"

Dumbledore's expression softened. "Ah, Mr. Potter, we all die. But I am most encouraged that you shall far outlive my years."

Snape was glaring daggers at the old wizard. "That was unkind," he growled at the Headmaster.

"Unkind, Severus? I meant to be encouraging."

"You're an insufferable old man who meddles too much in the lives of those around him."

Dumbledore bowed his head. "Yes," he sighed. "I suppose I have."

Harry took another step towards the center of the room. "We need to move quickly," he said. "Pythia said the gods would be sacrificed at the equinox."

"That is more than a month away."

"A month and a few weeks. Time is slipping through our fingers."

"But…" Draco pushed up from his hunch. "If we few move now, we dive in blindly to the problem. We have a month, Harry, to plan and prepare."

"A month of our time," Harry nodded. "But how fast does time move elsewhere?" His question was met with wide stares.

"You mean…" Draco trailed off.

"Time moves and shifts, like colored sand in a glass," Harry tipped his hand back and forth. "The dark god is breaking the glass, bit by bit, until all the sand rushes out at once," he spread his fingers wide, staring at the empty gaps. "Pythia was a pillar, that kept time at bay. Her veil is cracked and Homer is no longer there to mend the pieces back together. Time moves faster now," Harry met Draco's gaze. "It will move faster still, the more pillars he destroys."

"You believe…"

Harry pressed his eyes shut with shaky hands. "All I see when I close my eyes are people dying. Many woman, a few men. A little boy. They all die screaming and each time the glass cracks a little more."

"This has already happened?"

Harry opened his eyes. "Not yet. But it will. The faster we find the Morrigan and the Winter King, the fewer die. The more time we have."

"And the others…"

"I cannot save them all," the words burned in Harry's throat. "Would that I could. I have to choose and the gods must be saved. Only they have brought him down before. Only they can do it again."

Draco rose and crossed the room, shielding Harry from the adults' gazes. Harry curled his hands into Draco's robes, shuddering. Futures spread out in front of him, each more chaotic than the next.

He was so tired of being forced to choose.

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Sasha watched Draco move from table to table, having a quiet word with all of their House members. Huddle by huddle, the younger years drifted back to their dorms, the shadows still heavy under their eyes, but calmer from whatever Malfoy said to them.

Draco avoided the young Black girl and headed to the table that Sasha and the others had claimed. He gripped the back of a free chair, knuckles blanching white from his fierce grip.

"There is a problem," Draco began.

"You think?" Sasha snorted.

"Time will start to unravel soon," Draco turned a baleful glare her way. Her mouth turned dry, repeating his words in her head.

"But that…" Neville stuttered.

"The Dark God is going to slaughter the pillars that keep time steady," he held up a hand to forestall her barrage of questions. "It is in every future Harry can see. There is no way to stop it…so, we have to find a way to either hold everything together or fix it."

"Fix it? Fix time? Are you bloody daft?"

"Yes, Blaise, because I would have thought we could do something about it!"

"We need Hermione," the admission burned her, but she knew it to be true. "There are muggleborn wizards that have been studying time. I…" She shook her head. "This isn't something we can do ourselves."

"You're right," Draco's hands flexed on the back of the chair. "I don't know what will start happening when the pillars are killed. One is already gone, but as far as I can tell, the only one affected by it is Harry."

"The centaurs!" Neville exclaimed. "They would feel it too, wouldn't they?"

"Excellent, Neville. Contact them, do everything you can," Draco nodded.

"What are you going to do?" Blaise asked, narrowing his eyes at the blond.

"I," Draco sighed and looked away. "I am going to do something idiotically Gryffindorish."

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They each had a pack. Their robes were set aside for their particular adventure, too cumbersome for a trek through unknown territory. They each had their wands and little else – steel would do them little good, aside from their utility knives. Neither of them knew how to use a sword or any other sort of weapon. Harry hoped it would not come to that – that their wits and magic would be enough to get the job done to rescue the goddess and the Winter King.

Harry stood with one pack on his shoulder and the other at his feet. Draco was putting the last touches on the gateway to the Otherworld – they would start at Gwenn's village and hope for more information there. They would need it.

The door to the workroom opened and shut behind him. Harry cast a glance over his shoulder and froze. "Sir?"

Severus Snape narrowed his eyes as them both. "Did you think that I would let the two of you gallivant off into some unknown adventure without adult supervision? Neither of you have the knowledge or the experience for such an attempt. I am coming with you."

Harry met Draco's wide-eyed gaze. "But, sir…" he began.

"No," Severus folded his arms over his chest and stared down his nose at them. "I have quite made up my mind."

Light flared behind Harry's eyelids. He gasped and stumbled, finding the wall with one hand as Snape caught his elbow.

"Harry?"

He opened his eyes. The blazing Path stretched out in front of them, pulsing with each beat of his heart.

"Yes, professor," Harry heard himself say. "You are most welcome to join us."

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Crom Cruach studied the lines of his temple with critical eyes. It was grander than anything he had ever demanded in the past. His worshippers groveled at his feet, casting fearful glances at his face. The power they had gained from the sacrifices on his altar – the death of that blasted Oracle – had infused him with enough energy to cast off his human bones he had possessed to stand before them in all of his radiant glory. His Priest huddled next to his feet, fingers worrying the hem of his clothes.

"Perfect," he let them bask in his smile. "You have all exceeded my grandest wishes. You have done very, very well."

The rising wail of a child broke the sweet moment. The God turned, studying the earthen pit dug next to the pyres. The equinox was too far away. His pitiful catch would not last the elements in time for his celebration. Even as the two gods writhed in their own pit, a trap he had put together with the deaths of the unborn, if they were left alone for too long, the Dark and the gods' own powers would crumble their cage to pieces and the game would be up. No, he needed time to move faster and there was only one way to do that.

"Rise, my beloved," he turned to face the growing crowd. They came in pairs, sometimes more. Followers of his followers, wild and mad with grief or pain. Some of them had stinking wounds where the children had been torn from their bodies, too broken in mind and spirit to leave the place of their torment. As if he would ever let them go.

"We have much work to do," Crom Cruach cupped his Priest's face, stroking a thumb over the sunken hollows of his cheeks. "And time," he smiled. "Is our enemy."

End Chapter Forty-Five