a/n: The next four chapters contain a multitude of plot revelations. Please be considerate to other readers and DO NOT INCLUDE SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS.
Chapter 25: Rightful Places
Potterverse
There are smaller magics in life which are not strictly magic at all. The length of a minute, for example, is a magic belonging to time, which can vary from a minute of watching a pot of water boil (approx. ten years) to the minute before class starts when one is running late (somewhere around four seconds). Some magics belong to place, like the way a familiar song can transport a person temporarily elsewhere, resuming their sensation of existence in a prior form. Some magics belong specifically to fortune. Of these, some are mundane and benevolent (the discovery of spare change in one's pocket precisely when one is in need of it) while some are mundane and malignant (the glove which invariably goes missing from its pair).
Much of this is chance, probability, and the endless possibilities in which some small sliver of a percentage lead to circumstances so immensely unlikely they appear to have occurred outside of nature. The truth is, of course, that one could run a simulation of any situation endless times into eternity, and some perfect cohesion of circumstance would inevitably result at least once. Perhaps twice.
The magic of a kiss is something very specific. There is much to be gleaned from a kiss, and although it is the magic of hormones (and therefore not magic at all but mostly science; specifically biology, which is mystifying enough on its own) there is something which feels very much like the sensation of performing magic. It manifests from somewhere in one's blood or internal organs or somewhere else anatomically unknowable, pulsing with something that will, in some way, change the course of one's life.
Some kisses are like doors. A kiss goodbye is a door closing, which both participants can typically feel. That's another thing about a kiss: it is a generally faultless method of communication. Very infrequently are things misrepresented with a kiss. A door which is opening is typically felt by both parties, viscerally and with the sensation of a collision, like apparition and being transported through time and place; like transfiguration and being reconstructed down to the elements, made new in some other form; like potions, bubbling up with chemistry; like alchemy, turning common glitters into gold.
For Draco Malfoy, the particular kiss he was experiencing with Hermione Granger (whom he had kissed before but also not kissed and really, honestly, there was no need to delve into these details again) was a door being opened, and it was not unlike the incomprehensible door to the inexplicable room on the impossible castle's sentient seventh floor. For one thing, it had not appeared with any convenient sort of timing. He hadn't precisely walked in front of her three times thinking very intently about what he wanted to discover, but… hadn't he, in a way? And inside the door was a collection of madness, of wonder and disarray, of what is this and seriously, what the actual fuck is this—but also this is treasure, isn't it? This is the discovery of splendor. This is affluence piled up in labyrinths of luxury. This is a blaze of solid richness. This is a sumptuousness that required years to build.
If his first kiss with her other self had been the turning of a handle, then this, with the version of her he had always (and yet never truly) known, was the destruction of a hinge. She'd caught him completely by surprise, flinging the door open with artless haste, and he'd let it smack him in the face, dumbfounded and frozen for perhaps ten years too long, or possibly merely a single second. Time was magic that way, and so was this. So was she, and when he melted into it—when he finally said yes, fine, come in, I should have known this door was here, I've always wondered what it led to—it washed over him in waves; swarmed at him in droves; draped over him in swaths of resolution.
Oh, he thought, feeling the scattered pieces of his life shift into alignment. Oh.
I have been broken so I could find a new shape. Oh.
I have suffered so as to one day be worthy of something. Oh.
I have learned to doubt so that someday, I might recognize faith when I uncovered it. Oh.
I have been humbled so that when it happened, I would know what it took to grow. Oh.
It didn't have an identifiable taste, but neither did gratitude, nor fascination, nor curiosity. It didn't make any sort of sound, but he suspected collisions with this volume of quietude rarely did. Her lips were as soft as he'd imagined, the little hint of uncertainty even better up close—that piece of her which remained daunted, which retained its fragility, was as vulnerable and wistful as he so often felt—and it was not at all like kissing some other version of her.
Either that, he thought, or he was now some other, unidentifiable version of himself from where he'd started.
He slid his fingers around her wrist and noticed the M carved in place there, and when they broke apart (one second or ten years later) he brushed his thumb over it with contemplation, studying the feel of it beneath his touch. He wasn't the type to look for signs, certainly not anymore, so it wasn't that.
But it also wasn't nothing.
"Well?" she asked him, clearing her throat.
"Um," he said, because he was still mostly a teenage boy without the diction necessary to describe the magnitude of everything he had just experienced. "Are you—"
"Sure?" she guessed for him, and grimaced. "Yes."
He blinked.
"I'm not," he began. "She's… I don't know, um. If—"
"Right," she said, appearing largely unbothered, which didn't surprise him. He hadn't expected her to wither, and she didn't. She simply glanced down, startling him with, "Is it working for you?"—which, given his level of distraction, was a difficult question, seeing as he wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about.
His first guess was… well, his first guess was impossible, so he stopped just shy of thunderstruck for the pulse of a second before blinking again, orienting himself in reality.
"Oh, right, yes," he said, shaking himself. She'd meant the Elder Wand, of course, which he'd just been using to heal the person who was not his mother. "Why?"
"Well, she disarmed you," Hermione pointed out in her meticulously studied way. It seemed she, unlike him, required very little to resume a general state of normality, returning immediately to the business at hand. "And then you technically disarmed her, I suppose, but seeing as I picked it up—"
"I have to imagine there's some degree of intent," Draco managed to say, eyeing the wand; it certainly felt no different in his hands than it had before. "You intended me to use it, therefore it must still work for me."
"I don't think," Hermione said slowly, "that's how wandlore is supposed to work."
Yes, well, other worlds aren't supposed to exist, he wanted to remind her. Resurrection stones were never supposed to connect us, and yes, fine, people don't normally share ownership of a wand, he thought to point out, but normally, people don't find each other through the barricades of separate universes, either.
"Granger," Draco said, "some things just are," which was, in a way, the same thing as saying: When it comes to you and me, do you really think something as trifling as the laws of nature are supposed to somehow apply?
Her brown eyes rose to meet his with careful, incredulous deliberation, as if she'd somehow managed to hear his thoughts.
"Did you," she began tentatively, then stopped. "When we," she attempted again. Another stop. "That kiss… did you feel, um—?"
"Oh, yes," he said, clearing his throat. "Yes, definitely."
The corners of her lips twitched slightly.
"Okay," she said softly.
Behind them, footsteps resounded from the corridor and they jumped apart, Draco hurrying to resume his position bent over his mother (who was also not his mother) while Hermione made some very questionable choices about how to position herself in a semi-innocent manner, and within seconds, the other Hermione had burst into the room, Theo and Harry (and, it seemed, James and Lily and Ron) following doggedly after her.
"Found them," said the other Hermione, breathless.
Draco wasn't sure what he'd thought she might have noticed upon arrival. He'd considered, on the one hand, that perhaps it would be quite easy to see—was, perhaps, enormous and monumental and would forever project from the walls as The Place Where It Happened—but on the other hand, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes since she'd run off, and besides, it was possible two human beings had kissed before without the earth careening from its axis. She seemed to be fixated on the woman who had kidnapped her instead, which a swift mental kick (gifted from Draco to himself) sufficiently reminded him was more pressing than his potentially problematic romantic foibles.
"What happened?" Harry asked them, hurrying forward to crouch beside Hermione. He gave her a long look upon arrival, as if realizing he hadn't said a sufficient enough hello (having been, understandably, distracted by the resurrection of his not-dead not-parents) and she smiled faintly back at him, nodding in return.
"Well, you can… sort of see, can't you?" Hermione said, gesturing vaguely to Narcissa, and Theo meandered over after them, peering down from behind Draco.
"Should search her," Theo suggested after a moment. "Might help us figure out how she got here."
Harry shifted forward, about to reach into the pocket of Narcissa's robes, but stopped just short of touching her, glancing at Draco instead. "You should probably do it," he suggested, hesitant.
"Potter," Draco growled, "do you honestly think I have any interest in conducting a search on my mother?"
"Well, it's not as if I can," Harry grumbled. "So if anyone's going to—"
"Oh, hush, both of you," Lily said, venturing forward. "Even you, Harry," she amended comfortingly to him, who beamed, permitting himself to be briskly nudged aside as Lily put herself to work, patting down Narcissa's robes with the light-fingered expertise of someone who'd performed a similar exercise many times before.
At one point, Lily's forearm disappeared from view, her brow furrowing as she dug around in the cavernous pocket. "Ah, extension charm. Of course." She dug around for a moment, brows furrowing as she appeared to locate something of importance, drawing it out slowly. "What's this?"
"Where'd you get that?" came a voice from the threshold, and they looked up to find the actual (in Draco's view) Narcissa standing there, frowning down at the gleaming silver object in Lily's hand. "I thought you'd destroyed it," she said, and then, as an apparent afterthought, "Hello, sweetheart. What happened to your eye?"
It took a moment for Draco to register she was speaking to him. He raised a hand to where he'd been struck, frowning a little at how to synthesize the little mishap with the sliver of Tom Riddle's soul. It wasn't as if he'd had time to consult a mirror to view the damage, but however his eye happened to look, he doubted it was worth explaining.
"Nothing," he managed belatedly, and then, "What?"
"I thought you said you'd destroyed the diadem," Narcissa repeated, venturing further into the room. She didn't appear to be overly concerned with the fact that they'd all crowded around an unconscious body until she happened to notice whose body it was, leaping back and stung by recognition the moment she looked closer.
"This," Narcissa said, backstepping in alarm, "is not good."
For some reason, she glanced around the room, as if she half-expected someone else to be present.
"Where were you?" Theo asked her.
"Out," she said succinctly, still frowning down at the alternate version of herself.
"You're this universe's Narcissa?" Lily asked, and Narcissa shifted a glance to her, indulging an imperceptibly swift double-take upon impact that anyone but Draco would likely have missed.
"You're," Narcissa began, and paused. "Dead."
"Yes," Lily said. "I've heard."
"Were you our friend also?" James asked Narcissa optimistically, and she slid him a disinterested glance.
"No," she said, and Lily rose to her feet, fingers still curled around the diadem.
"Does it do something?" she asked, and then, apparently remembering what she'd come there to uncover, she leapt into something of an incoherent burst of thoughts. "And Tom's network, do you know who else is in it? I have to find a way to disable it, somehow, so that I can save my—"
"What happened here?" Narcissa demanded, staring back down at the mirror image of herself before looking up at Draco with a palpable sense of concern. "What did she want?"
"I don't know," Draco said, shaking his head. "I didn't seem to be the thing she had any interest in, Mother."
"That's because you weren't."
The other Hermione's voice was resolute as ever, her chin just as high, and they all swiveled to look at her as she glanced between the two Narcissas, the look on her face a very particular cocktail of both scrutiny and contemplation. Draco registered it as the same look both Hermiones made use of quite frequently; it was the 'piecing together of information' look, which gave him an odd, misaligned sense of satisfaction at having recognized.
"Oh good. Now there's two of you," Narcissa remarked.
"I could say the same," the other Hermione pointed out. "But to answer your question, she was looking for you."
"Damn," Narcissa said, followed by, to Draco's complete disbelief, "So she's real, then."
"What?" asked Draco, Theo, both Hermiones, and Ron.
"I thought she was," Narcissa began, and then paused. "Well, I thought she was a delusion, to be honest. I thought I was having dreams, I suppose." She cleared her throat stiffly. "She's what I went to Azkaban to avoid."
"I thought you said it was Tom who'd come looking for you," the other Hermione said, and Narcissa hesitated.
"Well, it was, yes." Her fingers were balled tightly at her sides. "I have dreams, or so I thought, where he was passing me messages. I thought it was myself I was seeing," she clarified stiffly. "I thought I was telling myself things about the future, but they always involved him, and I kept—she kept," she repeated, quite visibly trying to bury the new information in her brain, "telling me he was coming back for me. Asking me to do things for him." She looked intensely uncomfortable. "Usually just… information. Messages. Things like that."
"But the diadem isn't a portkey," Hermione said, their attention swiveling back to her. "And besides, I just went to get it. So how was she getting here, then, during all that time?"
"Is that really what's important?" the other Hermione countered, and Theo made a low sound of agreement.
"Obviously it's not that difficult to travel between universes or we wouldn't all be here," he pointed out drily, fixing his gaze on Draco. "Besides, so Narcissa Malfoy is wily in all universes," he said, sparing her a wry smirk. "We could have predicted that. Isn't the more important issue what she came here to find?"
"The issue," Lily countered firmly, "is that we have to get rid of Tom, and we have to do it now. So, we have to sort out who else is in the network, destabilize it, and then—"
"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" asked Hermione, looking frustrated by the prospect of so many answerless questions. "It's his magic, isn't it? How are we supposed to dismantle a bomb we didn't build without even knowing how the parts work—including how and why Narcissa got here?"
"Where did you go?" Harry asked Narcissa privately, the words somewhat muted amid the rest of the conversation.
This time, she seemed to consider the question significant enough to answer. "Nott Manor," she said, and Theo blinked, reeling on impact.
"Is my father involved in this?" he asked her.
Narcissa grimaced. "Perhaps," she replied, though the two Hermiones were, by then, engaged in some sort of escalating argument.
"—just saying, if we can't make sense of the pieces—"
"—what does it matter what the pieces are if the whole doesn't make any sense?"
"Hermione," Harry attempted, and both Hermiones rounded on him.
"What is it?" they asked in precisely the same agitated voice, and he blinked.
"Oh, um, I was just. Well, I—I mean, this Hermione," he said, gesturing to the one on his right, who was coincidentally the one Draco had just kissed, "certainly has a point, but then, um, you," he said to the other, "are, well—"
"Maybe codenames are in order," Theo said smoothly. "Perhaps Blade Granger and Books Granger, if you will?"
"Just call me my middle name," the other Hermione said, looking as if the prospect of this conversation, too, had driven her to considerable annoyance. "It's Jane—which," she added offhandedly, "for the record, I loathe."
"Jane?" echoed the Hermione beside Harry, frowning. "It's not Jean?"
The other Hermione frowned. "Why on earth would it be Jean? Jane is my grandmother's name."
"Yes," Hermione said slowly, "but the nurse who was there when I was born was called Jean, so my parents changed their mind."
"Well, then I suppose not everything is inevitable," the other Hermione replied. Draco, who was beginning to think of the whole conversation as a particularly reflexive quidditch match, frowned with the makings of understanding, something of potential use beginning to cement itself in his brain. "Parts of who we are must come down to circumstance," that Hermione continued to theorize, which prompted Draco to something very near a revelation.
"Circumstance," he echoed, and both Hermiones glanced up, catching the sound of comprehension in his voice. "If the circumstances of how Tom Riddle is behaving belong to the Tom Riddle from this universe," he said slowly, "then that's one less mystery, isn't it? Perhaps we're forgetting we already know the foundations of his life."
"Correction," Theo cut in, "we know what Dumbledore's told us about his life."
"Why would Dumbledore lie?" Harry asked him, and Hermione nodded her fervent agreement. "I don't see why he'd take such care to give us information only for it to be false. Do you?"
"Well, why not?" Theo asked, shrugging. "Perhaps he thought it was fun."
"Fun?" Harry echoed, caught somewhere between dismayed and doubtful.
"I don't know about you, Potter, but I simply don't see why he'd take an interest in you otherwise," Theo assured him, sniffing loftily.
Draco, of course, wasn't listening. He hadn't meant to watch the expression on the other Hermione's face (Hermione Jane Granger, as it were), but by the time it became clear she was piecing things together more rapidly than the others, he found it considerably difficult to look away. There was something highly mesmerizing about it, and the moment she looked up, locking eyes with him, he was certain she'd uncovered something.
"Dumbledore," she said.
He blinked. "Come again?"
In lieu of answering, she rounded on Harry and Theo. "You said Dumbledore was the only wizard Tom Riddle was ever afraid of, right?"
"Yes," said Harry firmly, at the same moment Theo said, "Fear is a debatable term, I imagine, but proceed."
"Why," Hermione Jane said slowly, "would Tom Riddle—a person who compulsively seeks power, by all accounts—fail to take over my universe? Why not kill Grindelwald himself?" she asked, turning her attention to Draco and imploring him to see whatever labyrinthine concept she was inexplicably seeing. "This network," she pressed him. "What exactly is it?"
"It's a network of favors," Lily supplied for the room. "The reason Tom can't be killed. Everyone who does him a favor becomes part of his network, and the consequences of defying him mean inevitable harm to someone else."
"Right," Hermione Jane said, triumphant, and the others—including her alternate self—stared at her with confusion until she paused, recognizing no one else had registered whatever unlikely conclusion she'd come to. "Doesn't that sound familiar?" she asked them.
For a moment, no one spoke.
"I hate to be that person," James said, raising a hand, "but what the utter fuck are you talking about?"
"This isn't about a network," sighed the other Hermione, rolling her eyes. "Don't you see it? This is a game," she said, and Draco blinked, exchanging a rapid glance with the Hermione at his side. "Not only is it a game," Hermione Jane continued, "it's also a game you've all been part of without even realizing it. Who else has asked for inexplicable favors?" she demanded, turning urgently to Harry. "Who else has given you pieces of a puzzle without ever revealing the whole thing?"
Theo caught hold of her line of thought first, jerking to cognizance. "You think Dumbledore has a network as well?"
"I think he must," the other Hermione said, still imploring Harry to see it. "He did to you precisely what Tom's been doing in my universe. Don't you see? He never lifted a finger to destroy Voldemort because…" She blinked. "Because he couldn't."
"I," James began, and then stopped. "No, never mind. Carry on, I'll catch up—"
"Game theory," said the other Hermione, and immediately, her other self stiffened.
"No," Hermione said flatly. "No. You can't really think—"
"Oh, I definitely do," said Hermione Jane, defiant this time, and all at once, it occurred to Draco with a sweeping wave of delayed reaction.
"A game," Draco said. "You think Tom Riddle is playing an actual game, not just a theoretical one?"
"Yes," the other Hermione said, turning to him with obvious relief. "It's simple game theory, Draco," she said, and while he didn't entirely grasp the reference, he was beginning to see what she meant. Hadn't he said precisely the same thing himself? It's really not enough to simply win at someone else's game, he'd said to Hermione. You have to design the entire game yourself.
"Explain," Narcissa said, and the other Hermione nodded eagerly—as if she'd waited her entire life for someone, anyone, to ask.
"Game theory isn't just about the outcomes of the game you're playing, it's about how you're playing the game you're playing," she explained. "It's two people making moves dependent on their understanding of the behavior of the other player. This is a cooperative, zero-sum game in which Tom was mimicking the behaviors of someone else—in a way that seems much more like blindly following rules than it does following any rational line of thought," she said, emphatically adding, "Why didn't he kill Grindelwald? Why send others to spy for him, but never leave himself?" she demanded, and the others glanced at each other, uncertain of the answer. "Perhaps because it wasn't allowed," she suggested. "Perhaps, even, it was because if he did, he would lose—which is the one thing he couldn't abide."
"That assumes someone else is also playing," Hermione said accusingly, and the other Hermione turned to her with a slow, subtle smile; the same smile, Draco thought with a jolt of recognition, that she had given him in the precise moment she'd noticed she had him fooled.
Abruptly, Draco remembered something else he himself had once said: Doesn't it make sense that Tom would choose to locate himself in the universe where Albus Dumbledore wouldn't be able to stop him?
"I may not be a witch, but I'm still a fucking genius," said a matter-of-fact Hermione Jane Granger, "and while you lot were learning magic, I was learning what people are really like. Tell me honestly," she beckoned to Harry, turning to face him again. "Put your fondness for Dumbledore aside for a moment—assume for a moment you're an orphan, a child, unloved and uncared for, and an adult is kind enough to you to tell you you're special," she said with her particularly brutal lack of finesse, prompting Harry to swallow hard, stung. "And now tell me this: Did Dumbledore ever ask you to carry out any favors on his behalf?"
"Countless," said Ron.
Everyone in the room jumped back slightly, startled to remember his presence, but Ron took a cautious step forward, locking eyes with Harry as James and Lily exchanged furrowed glances beside him, looking quietly dismayed.
"Where to start, even?" Ron said directly to Harry, his voice quiet and solemn. It was, as far as Draco could tell, an overdue intimation of friendship between them, and a necessary reminder of everything Harry had been through with Ron at his side. "Everything he ever asked from you was a favor, wasn't it?"
In response, Harry said nothing. Beside him, Theo reached out a hand to rest it with a pulse of pressure on his shoulder.
"Yes," the other Hermione confirmed, still fairly clinical in her analysis. "And didn't he ask favors of others, too?"
"I hate to say it," Hermione said, glancing tentatively at Harry, "but she is making sense—and as for you," she said, turning to Lily, "didn't you say Tom asked you to spy on Dumbledore?"
"Yes," Lily said warily, "he did."
This was confirmation neither Hermione nor Draco had needed. "Tom could have ruled your universe," Hermione pointed out to Lily, starting to pace slightly as she thought it over. "He could have done so at any time, with or without the Elder Wand. Why did he need it?"
"Let me guess," the other Hermione said, half-laughing. "Dumbledore had one?"
"Jesus H Salazar fuck," Draco exhaled under his breath, and Theo lightly scoffed his agreement.
"Narcissa?" he drawled, and Draco looked up, abruptly registering his mother's now-conspicuous lack of commentary. "Anything you'd like to share?"
Silence fell over the room for a moment, and Narcissa cleared her throat.
"Dumbledore once asked me to keep a secret," she said, "though I didn't understand it at the time."
They waited, and she grimaced.
"It was a favor to him," she finished with a weighty sense of resignation, and the other Hermione smiled again, darkly this time.
"He must have known Tom would try to reach you," she said to Narcissa, looking even surer and more insistent now. "There's a reason all the same players are involved on either side. This," she said, gesturing around to everyone in the room, "must not be a coincidence. Tom must have sought out the same people Dumbledore sought out; possibly even vice versa. And perhaps Dumbledore was losing," she added, with a pointed glance at James and Lily. "He was losing players, losing pawns—but luckily Tom made a mistake too, didn't he? His horcrux self, Voldemort, accidentally created a loophole."
She glanced at Harry, softening just slightly.
"Don't you see?" she asked him, apparently beckoning for him to question his entire existence, and predictably, he winced. "Tom must have had to do something in order to come back. He can't win my universe—he has to win yours," she said firmly, "but some other version of him made a mistake, and Dumbledore must have always known it was a trap. The game goes on, then, even without Dumbledore."
"The secret," their universe's Hermione ventured to Narcissa. "The one Dumbledore asked you to keep. Is it…" She hesitated, glancing at Harry, but seemed to gather a bit of conviction herself, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin as she made what was almost certainly an accurate guess. "It's about how to win this game between them, isn't it?"
Narcissa nodded slowly.
"It was after Draco had taken the Mark," she said, giving him a steady glance. "Dumbledore told me he knew what Draco had been instructed to do. Then he told me, as I already knew, that one day the real Tom Riddle would come to find me." She swallowed heavily, glancing at Harry with apology. "He told me he'd done something to make sure that if Tom harmed Harry, Tom himself would die, but also," she clarified, "if anyone ever tried to kill Tom Riddle, then Harry would die, too. It must be a similar concept as Tom's network," she said with a glance at Lily, "if not precisely the same thing. The two of them must be connected somehow."
Hermione reached out for Harry, who remained silent.
"Neither can live while the other survives," she said, giving him a long, apologetic look.
Then, with weary finality, Harry filled in the blanks for them.
"So it is a trap, then. Worse," he said bitterly, "it's some sort of… stalemate."
The truth seemed to crash down on all of them with a palpable heaviness, cloaking itself over their shoulders and dragging them to their proverbial knees as the reality of the situation became clear. If this had all been a game, then in the face of Tom Riddle's loophole, Dumbledore had successfully initiated a cruelly impossible détente.
"How do we win, then?" Theo asked, grimacing.
"I think," the other Hermione said slowly, "we don't. I think we lose."
Tom would have to win; at best, they could try to keep him in the wrong universe, though he'd already made certain no one on either side could touch him if he remained. It seemed that was their only plausible option, short of Harry finding himself inconveniently dead.
"We could contain him," Hermione suggested gently. "Now we know what it takes for him to come back, don't we? The wand, for one thing—so we keep him in check. We keep him there. We try to neutralize the network incrementally," she said, gesturing to Lily, "to make sure things are safe, but…"
She trailed off.
"Maybe this universe is just terrible," she said, sliding a wry smile to her other self. "Maybe this is just… the dark one, the bad one, where no matter what, we simply lose. Maybe the best we can make of this world is to use it to rebuild something worthwhile, and maybe that's good enough." Her gaze slid to Draco, half a thought lingering on the tip of her tongue. "Isn't it?"
It sounded very much like something he might have said, he thought. After all, he was so very gifted with cynicism by then. He'd gone through enough of a life with poor decisions to know that some things, particularly spirals of misfortune and circumstance, could not be easily redeemed. How could any of this be reversed? It might have begun nearly half a century before, and if their suspicions were right, then the only person they could ask to reverse it was already long gone.
They were all pawns, as it turned out. Pawns caught on the boards of not one, but potentially two psychopaths. What agreement might have taken place between Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore, Draco wondered? Was it possible that was why neither ever stood to challenge the other, at least not directly? Had it truly been some sort of maniacal gentleman's agreement that meant every life each man touched—every allegiance each one gained—was part of some incomprehensibly larger web? Perhaps one man had done more good with his life, but did it really matter, in the end?
Did any of them matter, or was it all just some cruel, cosmic game?
"No," Draco said, and the others looked at him, startled. "No," he repeated, shaking his head. "I refuse to lose. I refuse to give up, not like this. So we take a whole lifetime," he said firmly, glancing up at his mother. "So what? So what if we run forever, or if we have to hide, or if we have to do whatever it takes to stay alive so long as we can make things right? So what," he spat, "if this is the losing universe? I don't accept that," he said firmly, turning to Hermione. "I won't live like that, not again. We're taking him down. I swear, however long it takes, however fucking… weird it gets—"
He glanced down at not-his mother on the floor and scowled.
"I'm not done," he said, and looked fiercely up at Harry. "Are you?"
Harry's mouth twitched, the corners flickering with the makings of satisfaction, or else possibly defiance. "No."
"What about you?" Draco demanded from Theo. "I chose the wrong side once. I promise you," he swore, "I won't do it again. So, are you done fighting?"
In the moment, he could have sworn he saw Theo finally forgive him.
As it was, though, Theo merely shook his head. "Not fucking likely, Draco."
"Good," Draco said roughly. "And you, Weasley?" he asked Ron, who shook his head, "and—"
He stopped, his gaze falling on Hermione, who was watching him with a glorious, breathless look of triumph; different than her counterpart, he realized, because this was relief, and it was joy, and it was more than the satisfaction of solving something.
This, he thought, was the satisfaction of having been right all along.
"I hoped you'd say that," she exhaled, and for a moment, he nearly crossed the room; nearly took her in his arms, nearly held her close, nearly whispered to her he'd let her down for the last time and would never, not ever, do the same thing again.
He didn't, though. Not yet. Not while so much was still to be done.
"So," Harry said. "Where do we start?"
To their surprise, it was Narcissa who spoke first, lowering elegantly to give her other self a cold, impassive glance.
"Oh, I have an idea about that," she murmured.
Hermione Jean Granger had never liked an unanswered question. There were many in the room, though, and she was more than happy to let Narcissa deal with the ones pertaining to her alternate self. She had a similar sensation, as things were, and once the rest of them had filed out—minus Lily, who expressed some degree of enjoyment at the prospect of questioning the alternate Narcissa Malfoy—Hermione turned her attention to the other possibilities she'd been pondering since the theory of Dumbledore's game had floated in the room.
"I'm going back," she said, prompting the others to blink with surprise. "Tom Riddle and I have unfinished business."
She felt Draco stiffen beside her and glanced at him, wondering if he'd say anything. Before he could, though, Harry had leapt in with concern.
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, amusing her with the prospect of opposing recklessness which, astoundingly, did not belong to him. "What are you going to do?"
"Well, I have an idea," she said, flicking her gaze to her other self, "though it will, of course, depend on what we want to do about the other Narcissa. In the meantime, I think we should talk about fixing this universe." She turned to Ron. "What do you think?"
He looked surprised. "Me?"
"Yes, you," she said. "You've been here, haven't you? What needs to be done here?"
"I—" He looked astonished at being asked, which she supposed was partly her fault. Perhaps not being the smartest person in the room had finally taught her something, Hermione thought grimly, avoiding a glance at her other self. "Well, the Death Eaters are definitely a problem," Ron said. "They're mostly just a small militant group right now, but that's just how it bloody starts, isn't it?"
"I know how to get rid of at least one," Theo said darkly, "assuming he isn't under Tom Riddle's protection."
To that, Draco nodded. "I'm coming with you," he said firmly. "Even if he is, we'll figure it out."
Hermione paused, surprised. She supposed she'd gotten used to a Draco Malfoy who insisted on being present any time she did anything, but she had expected him to join her in the other universe. "You're staying here?"
"You don't need me," he assured her, shrugging, "but Theo does." He slid a look at Theo, who said nothing. "This time," Draco said, "I pick Theo."
"Well, I hate to do this now in front of everyone, but I'm afraid I'm just not interested in you that way," Theo drawled, and Draco rolled his eyes.
"Not like that, you fucker. I just meant—"
"I know what you meant." Theo smiled thinly. "And frankly, I think it's about time."
Maybe in some other other universe, Hermione thought with an internal sigh, that was some sort of apology and acceptance. In this one, it was just boys being stupid, and she turned to her other self, beckoning her aside.
"Can we talk?" she asked her other self, who nodded, walking with her down one of the long corridors in the Black family house. "So, listen," Hermione said when they were alone, the others at a sufficient distance away, "I wanted to talk to you about something."
"Draco?" her other self guessed, looking unimpressed by the prospect. "A little too predictable, I'm afraid."
"Not that," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Actually, I have an idea about how to take down Tom, but…" She cleared her throat. "I wanted your thoughts on it. You know," she added, half-laughing, "to see if it makes sense."
Her other self blinked with surprise, then nodded. "Okay. Tell me."
Hermione leaned forward, murmuring it in her other self's ear. It was a risky concept, magically-speaking, but she was fairly certain her logic was sound, and besides—magic was not always bound by rules. There was intent there, too, wasn't there? How else would people manage to find each other through universes; through time and space; through this world, or any other? Perhaps there were other magics which did not come in textbooks or classes or exams. Perhaps there were larger magics, like loyalty, or friendship or love or sacrifice. Maybe those were the magics which did not require things to be done the same way twice, or perhaps there were no rules at all.
Her other self leaned away, contemplating it with a low, thoughtful hum. "Sounds dangerous."
"Well, of course," Hermione said. "Nothing worth doing is ever safe, is it?"
She'd suspected her other self would find that a reasonable answer, and she was right. "You're sure about the theories involved?" she asked, and Hermione nodded.
"Maybe you're a genius, but I," she said, indulging the smile pulling at her lips, "am fucking magic."
"Well," her other self said, biting down on approval, "then I suppose we'll just have to convince everyone else to be on board, won't we? Though, as far as I can tell, it won't be difficult." She glanced over her shoulder at the others, contemplating them from afar. "Most people here are loyal to you, aren't they? They trust you."
"Sort of has something to do with me not tricking them into things," Hermione said, and her other self gave something of a colorless laugh.
"Well, I hardly claimed to be perfect," she said. "I like to leave a little room for improvement, assuming I have time left."
Hermione hesitated, wanting to ask just what her other self intended to do when it came to time and universes, but also not entirely sure she was ready to attempt it. What could she have said, really? But before she could attempt it, Draco was walking over to them, only the faintest tinge of color in his cheeks at speaking to both of them serving as evidence he'd had any reservations.
"Here," he said, holding out the Elder Wand to Hermione, "you'll need this."
She frowned, dismissing her romantic concerns in favor of strategy. "You're sure? You could certainly still use it."
He shrugged. "You need it more. Can't exactly get there without it."
"Right," she said, and reached out, pausing just before she might have closed her fingers around it. Across from her, her other self watched with an almost palpable longing; Hermione supposed the promise of an unbeatable wand never did get less desirable. "Well, be sure to keep the stone," she told Draco. "In case I—"
In case I need you.
He heard it, his fingers brushing hers as he passed her the wand, and nodded carefully, a swallow nudging at his throat.
"Of course," he said, and released the wand, his touch falling away from hers.
She tried not to shiver, catching her other self's glance between them and hurriedly clearing her throat.
"You should stay," she said to the other Hermione. "Go with Theo and Draco, I mean. You know, until I come back."
She did her best to make it sound like a promise.
I'll be back, she thought, in my rightful place.
Her other self nodded. "Of course," she said, and in the same moment, the door to the room containing the two Narcissa Malfoys had opened.
And just like that, a game was, without question, afoot.
