Ex Machina III
Chapter Three
It's a Livin' Thing
Updated 19 May 2010
Harry turned back to James and Albus. "Why are you doing this to me?" he asked, his voice raw with emotion. "Why are you bringing up these ghosts from the past? To haunt me? To make me relive the loss of everyone I cared for? Why?"
James looked puzzled. "Harry, I thought you'd be happy to see Hermione again," he told him. "How long has it been since you've seen her?"
"I see her every day," Harry answered, his voice cracking with anger. He tapped the side of his head. "In here. I see my Hermione." He dismissed the young brown-haired woman standing in front of him. "Not some artificial reality like her!"
"She is as real as James and I are," Albus pointed out, calmly. "She was not created by magic nor by any type of advanced technology."
Harry laughed mirthlessly, a hoarse cackle. "As real as you, Albus? You've been missing for one hundred and twenty-five years, and you were over one hundred years old then! You'll excuse me if I think some type of advanced technology is involved!"
Hermione stepped toward him, and Harry flinched back warily. She stopped, putting up her hands as a gesture of non-aggression, and spoke calmly, though there was tension in her voice. "Harry, please listen to me. I'm as real as you are — really!" she added, as Harry shook his head disbelievingly. "Where I came from, we knew each other for a long time before —" she hesitated, looking afraid, before blurting out in a rush "— before you-you were k-killed!"
"But I wasn't killed," Harry retorted, poking himself in the chest to emphasize his presence. "See? Here I am! What kind of game are you all playing at, anyway?"
"Not a game, Harry," James said quietly. "We never told you about the other Potterverses."
A frown creased Harry's features. "The what? Potterverses? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Parallel universes, alternate dimensions and realities," James explained. "You must have heard of the idea some time in the past hundred years."
"Ehh," Harry sniffed derisively. "Science-fiction twaddle — fairy stories! You're trying to suggest that she comes from an alternate dimension?" Harry jerked a thumb toward Hermione.
"Yes," Albus said simply. "As does James."
Harry gave his former headmaster a look of complete skepticism. "Right," he said condescendingly. "And I suppose you're from a different dimension as well?"
"Oh, no, of course not," Albus replied, cheerfully. "I'm from this universe, just like you, Harry. The difference between us is, I've been to other universes." He gestured toward Hermione once again. "Hers, for one."
"The one where I'm dead, right?" Harry snapped. He faced the three of them squarely. "Okay, then — let's cut to the damn chase. Let's assume —" he pointed to Albus "— that you're my old headmaster from Hogwarts, gone missing one hundred and twenty-five years ago, but now standing in my home looking not one day older than when you left!"
He turned next to James. "And for the sake of argument, we'll say that you came from a different universe, though this gives me no indication what technology or magic — or whatever! — was used to bring you here, or why. And you —!" He looked finally at Hermione, who was giving him a reproachful look "— you are someone I've known for most of my life, but don't know, because you're some kind of alternate version of Hermione Granger-Weasley! Does that about cover our basic premises?"
"Essentially," James nodded. "Though you've put a lot of your biases in there as well."
"Tough shite," Harry shrugged. He sat back down in his chair, leaning back and giving them a careless wave. "So let's hear it — the point of all this is for — what? Enlighten me."
"That's what we've been trying to do!" Hermione said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. Haven't you wondered what happened to Professor Dumbledore over all those missing years? Haven't you been thinking about me?" She pointed accusingly at the picture frame still laying facedown on the table next to Harry's chair. "That picture certainly suggests so! Aren't you the least bit curious why we'd come to you like this?"
"Like I said," Harry pointed out, "I'm waiting for you to enlighten me!"
"We want you to join us," James stated.
Harry put on a quizzical look. "Join you? To do what? What is it you're doing, that I might want to join you in? Should we find another Dark Lord slayer who's lived too long past his time, and torment him with images of his past life, too?"
"Harry," James said, beginning to sound annoyed by his seemingly deliberate obtuseness. "We're offering you the chance to explore other universes with us — to go places and do things you've never imagined possible. We're offering you the chance to be immortal."
"Psssh," Harry scoffed. "Already am."
"What do you mean?" Hermione's eyes had gone wide. "You didn't —"
Harry was looking at her, confused, until he realized what she must be thinking. "No, I didn't create a Horcrux, if that's what you inferred, dear Hermione!" he sneered. He reached into the collar of his shirt, pulling out a small beaded bag. Pulling the mouth open, he stuck his fingers in, followed by his hand, then his arm to the elbow. He seemed to rummage around inside the bag. "Hang on a mo', I'll find it — ah! There it is!" Pulling his arm out, he held out his hand, showing them a small, red roughly cut stone.
Albus's eyebrows shot up, while James smiled, and Hermione regarded the small object in Harry's hand with wonder. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked, astonished. "Is that the — the Philosopher's Stone?"
Harry grinned at her, pleased that she'd understood so quickly. "Not Flamel's Stone," he pointed out, "but one I made, after many decades of research."
"Extraordinary," Albus murmured, looking at the stone in Harry's hand. "Nicholas always believed that it was a unique set of circumstances that allowed him to create the first one — an event not to be repeated or duplicated. It appears you have proven him wrong, Harry."
"But wait a minute," Hermione objected. "How do we know that's not the original Philosopher's Stone, the one Nicholas Flamel created? Not that I doubt you, Harry," she added hastily, when Harry gave her a dirty look. "I just want to know how we'd know the difference."
"I know what happened to the original Philosopher's Stone," James told her. "I used it to create the potion for Harry's cousin, Dudley Dursley, that changed him and his mother, Petunia, into magicals."
"Ah!" Hermione gasped. "Like you told Harry earlier! I wondered what had been in that potion!"
Harry dropped the Stone back into the beaded bag. "So I've got immortality covered, thank you very much! So what else are you offering, if I join you?"
Hermione turned to James and Albus. "Are you sure that's Harry Potter?" she asked, and threw him a disgusted look. "It's like someone cut Professor Snape's hair and drew a lightning scar on his forehead!"
That earned her a venomous glare from Harry. "Well, aren't we being snippy, Miss Beaver-Teeth!" This Hermione's front teeth were still rather large; she apparently had never gotten hit with that Densaugeo curse during one of Harry's duels with Malfoy, thereby giving Madam Pomfrey the opportunity to shrink them to a more cosmetically pleasing size. Hermione's face went beet-red with embarrassment, and as she turned away James stepped in, holding up a hand to call a halt to their verbal jousting.
"Okay, that's enough, from both of you," he said firmly. After several moments of silence, broken only by the sound of Hermione taking deep breaths to compose herself, James continued, "Harry, look — we're not trying to trick you —"
"Which is why you showed up earlier, pretending to be vee-casters?" Harry asked, pointedly.
James looked at Albus, who shrugged. They both laughed. "Well, that started out as a prank," James admitted. "But we really didn't know the best way to approach you, after all this time."
"I guess the truth was a little too blasé?" Harry suggested, blandly.
"It was more along the lines of too much, too soon," Albus put in. "If James and I had appeared, after all these years, with Miss Granger in tow, we wondered if you might have believed your mind was going."
"Well, I still might!" Harry declared. "With all this talk of other universes and alternate realities, I might think I'm simply demented and hallucinating all of this."
"But you're not," Hermione pointed out.
"Yeah, and I should take your word for it?" Harry snarled at her. She looked at him, offended.
"Can't you get it through your skull, even now, that I'm here because I love you?" she shouted at him. "From what James and Albus told me, you and the Hermione of this universe spent decades in an unrequited relationship, committed to other people though you loved one another! Is that true, or is it all just shite?" She glared at him, waiting for his response.
Harry looked at her for a long time before answering. "Yes, it's all true," he said at last. "Hermione and I did love one another, until we had a misunderstanding that pulled us apart, and threw each of us into someone else's arms. Even though we each married for love, I think we both knew we'd made a mistake in breaking up. But we never found the right moment, or maybe the courage, to discuss it with each other. So I was married to Ginny for 35 years, happily for many of them, and Hermione was married to Ron for over 50 years. Maybe more," Harry shrugged. "I lost track of them sometime after their 50th anniversary…" his voice trailed off, and he looked away, seemingly lost in thought.
Hermione walked over to where Harry was sitting, crouching down beside the chair. She put one of her hands on his. Harry turned away.
"Why don't you all leave, now?" he said softly, not looking at her. "I'm tired of thinking about the past. I want to forget it."
"Harry…" Hermione whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. But Harry would not look at her. She turned back at James and Albus, pleading silently for them to do something.
Albus moved forward, lifting her gently to her feet. "Everyone must make their own choices, Hermione," he said softly into her ear. She nodded, and with a sob she vanished.
Albus looked back at James. "I will go and make sure she's okay," he said, then turned to Harry once again. "Farewell, Harry. Perhaps we will meet again, in this reality, or in the one beyond it." He vanished as well.
James stared at Harry for several moments before crouching down to join him at eye level. "Well, Harry," he said, shrugging as Harry's eyes carefully avoided meeting his. "I hope you'll be happy here in your little self-imposed prison.
"I suppose it's ironic — I tried to give you an early start on magic, to give you an edge against Voldemort, and while you were quite a player in that drama we know that you ended up being more of a Beater than a Seeker — you made it possible for your ex-Muggle aunt to kill Voldemort rather than doing it yourself."
Harry shook his head, but he couldn't deny the facts. Whatever Sybil's prophecy had meant, he hadn't been the one to end the Dark Lord's life.
"I suppose you'll spent the next six or seven decades trying to live that down, at least to yourself," James went on. "All of your accomplishments, both public and private — even though there's hardly anyone left on the planet that actually remembers what you did for the wizarding world."
He stood, leaving Harry slumped in the chair. "Albus and I may be back again someday — but then again, we might not. If we do, it's because we think you can make a better decision for yourself, next time we see you. For now, though, he and I are going to find some Harry Potter who's appreciate our Hermione for the person she is, not the ghost you wanted her to be. Life is for the living, Harry —and love's a living thing, though you may have forgotten that." James vanished.
It was several minutes before Harry looked up. A single tear was rolling down his cheek. "I haven't forgotten," he whispered. "But it's a terrible thing to lose, too."
The End
Author's Note: Kind of an abrupt end to this story, I know, but I have another Harry in mind for James Monroe to meet. Watch for Ex Machina IV!