Part 2 - Your Heart's Desire
Chapter 8: Do or Die
29th December, 2010, 9 a.m
Did it work? Hermione looked around her in confusion. Where were they - Hogsmeade. The same place as they left. The alley behind the Three Broomsticks. And somewhere near them, someone was talking.
"Argh," Ron started moaning, but Hermione shushed him immediately. If she could only hear...
"Take Potter to my office," the unmistakable voice of Draco Malfoy came to her ears. "Kill the rest."
That was all they needed to hear. They reacted out of instinct, not thought. Immediately they rushed to the other side of the building, sending curses in every direction. "Stupify!" Hermione shouted. Next to her, Neville aimed his own Impediment jinx at more Death Eaters. They didn't dare use the Killing Curse, not when they didn't know who was there and where they were, but they used almost everything else.
One Death Eater down, four Death Eater down, then ten... They never saw them coming. Soon the snow was full of groaning bodies, and between them - their friends, getting up, a look of utter confusion on their faces.
"Wands! Take their wands!" Hermione shouted. "And Apparate to Petersfield Orchard. Go!"
Her friends rushed forwards. Some of them stumbled. Luna crawled forward to grab a Death Eater's wand, then disappeared in a twist of her body. A red stain was left on the earth in her stead. Dean pulled Padma forward, then grabbed them both and Disapparated. Neville rushed towards the group and sought Anthony, and they too disappeared. Harry helped Ron up, then grabbed a couple of wands and thrust one in his hand. "Go!" he shouted as he grabbed a body on the ground.
Hermione was the last to Apparate to the orchard.
The small cabin was in complete silence, except for Padma's sobs. She was sitting on one of the two chairs in the room, shaking and shivering. Luna was crouching on the floor next to her, one hand on her leg, the other on her shoulder, saying nothing. Behind her, Anthony and Neville hovered anxiously. Dean leaned on the wall, his eyes darting in every direction.
Ron and Harry stared at the door to the other room, their eyes wide with shock.
Hermione waved her hand. More chairs appeared. Ron stared at the chair as if he could not figure out where it came from, then tapped Harry's shoulder. Harry nodded and sat down. They both looked as if they'd seen a ghost.
And then she saw the ghost too, coming out of the other room.
She understood what had happened in an instant, of course. It was obvious as soon as Harry - another Harry, a different Harry - stepped into the room. But his mere presence there felt like a blow to her heart. His hair was all black, unlike Harry's - their Harry, the Harry she learnt to know all over again for the past two years - where the black was interrupted in disarrayed streaks of grey. His face was smoother, with no lines - not just less than Harry's, but less than hers and Ron's, she knew. The only lines she could see there were laughter lines. And his green eyes were bright and alert and so much like those she remembered from all those years ago.
"Parvati's dead," he said in a voice that was clear and strong and full of confidence. "I want to bury her as soon as possible. I don't want to leave the body there with Ron. He needs to recover."
He didn't go to offer his support to Padma. Nor did he look surprised when his eyes fell on the other Harry and Ron, on Neville and on her. He just nodded slightly, acknowledging them - as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if there was nothing surprising in the fact that they had arrived from an alternate universe - how ridiculous those words were!
There was something cold in him, Hermione realised. She now wondered what kind of a world he came from, despite the suggestion of his appearance that he had come from another perfect world, like the one they had left behind.
"I'll come with you." Padma was no longer sobbing. She held her head high, and stared at him in determination. He hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"If you wish," he said. "Let's go, then."
They left the cabin together. The rest followed them in silence, walked outside and into the orchard. Now, in the dead of winter, the trees stood barren and sad, covered with snow like the cabin, like the stone wall, like everything else around him.
Harry didn't stop to look at the trees. He stretched his hand, aimed his wand at the ground in front of them, instantly digging a hole in the ground with magic. Hermione was suddenly reminded of the last time she had seen him dig a grave - for Dobby, all those years ago. He hadn't used magic then. He insisted on working on the earth. She wondered whether this Harry had ever dug the grave for Dobby.
Another flick of his wand, and the body was summoned from within the cabin and lain gently in the grave. How easily he did it! Without effort or mistake. Only then he paused, then looked at Padma. "Do you want to say something?" he asked her, and now Hermione was sure that there was cold hostility in his voice, not just in his demeanour.
Padma shook her head. "Just get on with it," she said weakly.
Harry shrugged, then flicked his wand. The earth covered the grave. It was over.
Padma was the first to leave the graveside. She took three steps, then stumbled. Luna rushed to her, caught her before she fell. She was shaking in her arms. It was so obvious that Hermione could see it, all the way from where she was standing.
"Hey," Luna said quietly. "It's alright." She led her back to the cabin, in slow and measured steps.
Anthony was the next to move, but not away from the grave, but towards it. He placed a small stone on the earth of the grave, then stood in front of it for a while.
"What's wrong?" Neville said. He nudged him to continue, but Anthony looked at the cabin where Padma had disappeared with Luna instead.
"There's this prayer," he said. "My father... I don't know, he recited it in my grandfather's funeral. I tried to - well, I can't remember it now."
"Doesn't matter anyway," Dean said roughly, and his voice sounded all the louder after the quiet exchange before. "D'you think God is going to help?"
"I stopped believing in God a long time ago," Anthony replied and walked to the cabin as well. Dean and Neville exchanged looks and followed him.
They remained four outside now. Hermione, Ron, Harry - and the other Harry. Hermione sought Ron's hand, but he stepped away from her and towards the other Harry.
"You don't look surprised to see us," he said.
The other Harry shrugged. "Figured you'd exist. Don't get me wrong, I'm nothing short of thrilled that you're here. Means we can find a way to get the hell out of this place." He considered her for a moment. "How's Ginny? How did she take all of that?" he asked.
"Ginny? But... I'm not - where do you think we come from?"
He frowned. "Didn't you end up back where we come from?" he asked.
"Oh," Hermione finally understood. This Harry and Ginny, in his own world - well, why not, really? she thought. "No," she explained. "It wasn't your world. It was another world."
"Another world? How many are there out there?"
"I don't know," she said. "Could be just these three."
"Doesn't matter," he said and looked at her - no, she realised, past her. "We can go home. That's all that matters. I should go and tell Ron. Finally, some good news to tell him."
"It might not be so easy." She tried to say, tried to explain, but he wasn't listening. He already started walking back towards the cabin, undoubtedly to share the good news with Ron, even though they weren't good at all - how were they supposed to get into the Ministry?
"We better go after him," she said. "Before he gets too excited."
Ron said nothing. Neither did Harry. They walked back to the cabin.
They got there just in time to see Dean punch Harry - the Other Harry, as Hermione was already calling him in her mind.
Ron and Neville both jumped to drag the two of them from one another. Ron pulled Dean to one corner of the room, while the Other Harry, once he made sure his nose wasn't broken, took a step in Dean's direction, only to be restrained by Neville.
"It's his fault," Dean said in anger. "And he doesn't even give a damn. You don't care she's dead, do you?" he shouted at Harry.
"No," the Other Harry answered coldly. "I don't give a damn. I've had enough of this place, and I've had enough of you. Don't pin this me on, mate, because you all went along with it and you all decided to stay when I told you to leave. Wasn't that what you said? We don't understand your ridiculous sense of loyalty - no, get off me," he tried to shake Neville off now. "You stayed with me and Ron in Hogsmeade out of some ridiculous sense of loyalty but don't expect me to feel the same thing, not with you people."
"What the bloody hell is going on?" Ron asked now, staring at this new Harry in amazement. Harry had finally managed to shake Neville off and was now storming in the other direction - only to run into their Harry.
He froze in place. The two Harrys stared at each other for a while, none of them saying a word. Harry - their Harry - sent a hesitant hand to the stranger's head, removed the fringe from his forehead, as if to check that the lightning-bolt scar was really there. The Other Harry shook him off as well.
"I don't know any of you," he declared. "And I don't owe anything to any of you. Now fuck off the lot of you, I need to see how Ron is," and all the while he was staring at Harry. But, having finished his declaration, he turned back and went to the back room of the cabin where, presumably, there was another Ron.
Ron let go of Dean. Hermione was afraid that Dean was going to chase the Other Harry down to the back room, but he just sat back in his chair, looking defeated.
"Can someone - please - explain to me what the hell is going on here?" Ron asked again.
Dean sat in his corner, fuming in silence. Anthony made his way to Neville, and hugged him for a long while. Padma was staring at the door, the shock still evident on her face. Luna was the only one to speak.
She told them how, when Hermione and the rest didn't return from the Ministry, they realised something must have gone wrong. How they broke into the Ministry and reached the cells, only to find these Ron and Harry in them, with no sign of Neville and Hermione, and how, after a while, they realised something odd had happened, and all their attempts since to infiltrate the Ministry, until their disastrous failure at Hogsmeade.
There was silence in the room when she finished talking. The four of them - Hermione, Ron, Neville and Harry - their Harry - stared at each other, completely at a loss. After a while, Hermione averted her gaze, only to look at the closed door to the other room, where the two strangers were. Then she stood up.
Before she went there, however, she stopped next to Padma. "Padma..." she whispered. "I'm so so sorry." Padma didn't react. Hermione waited for a bit longer, then nodded and continued. Padma will talk - eventually.
She opened the door without knocking. Neither Ron nor Harry turned to look at her.
Seeing them felt so much like the world she had left behind, and for a moment, her heart ached and the feeling of rebellion rose in her again. But that world never had a Harry, nor did it have a Ron anymore, and here they were, just like the two sitting back in the large room, and yet - so, so different.
Harry's appearance was the most obvious difference. When she looked at him, walking around with some bottles of potions and trying to figure out something to help Ron, she couldn't understand how Dean and the rest hadn't seen it immediately, hadn't realised it when they were still in the cell.
It wasn't just the jet black hair, or that it was shorter than her Harry's hair and looked less like a mane, if still just as untidy as it had ever been. He had more weight on, too, she was sure. And most of all, he handled himself with more confidence than she'd seen in Harry for years - barring one morning. He wasn't taller, of course, but he seemed taller than the Harry she knew, even as he walked crouched between the cupboards and the bed and knelt next to the bed and helped Ron drink some of the potion. He carried himself differently. He looked at the word differently.
Ron, too, looked different, although in his case the differences were less obvious, more subtle. But she knew. It was, perhaps, the expression on his face, more than anything. Yes, this Ron was pale and ill and recovering from a terrible curse and completely in shock, but in his eyes she saw the hope that Ron had lost all those years ago. Some humour and goofiness she had not seen in such a long time.
Ron finally noticed her. He choked on his drink for a moment, but Harry held his hand, made sure he didn't spill any of it. "Don't pay attention to them," he said. "Just drink this, you need to get better."
"Not Dean," Ron said. She knew him well enough to hear he was in pain, from his quiet voice, from the way he drew his breath irregularly. This Ron was not so different from her own Ron. "Hermione."
Harry turned around now, looked at her for a moment, then turned back to Ron. "Doesn't matter. Drink this, it will help."
Ron nodded, then took some of the potion. Harry had to help him finish the goblet. He stayed crouched next to the bed until Ron's breathing became regular and his face relaxed. He was asleep.
Only then did Harry get up. He washed the goblet in the small basin and put it upside down to dry. "What do you want?" he asked coldly, his back still turned to her.
"What's wrong with him?" Hermione asked.
"He caught a nasty curse from a Death Eater."
She wasn't sure how to respond to that. Ron's body language she could read in an instant, whichever one it was. But this Harry was so different from the Harry she knew, that she didn't think she could understand him at all.
"Harry," she tried, "can you look at me for a moment? Please?"
He turned around. The old scar was still there - on his forehead, she could see it, even though he was wearing his hair in what looked like a pointless attempt to hide it with his fringe. A lot like he did at school, she thought, and couldn't stop the smile. "I see you're still trying to stop people from staring at your scar."
He didn't reply. He studied her, silently, his arms crossed. They looked at each other in silence.
"Is he going to be alright?" she asked when she got tired of glaring.
"He's going to make it. Until the next time we run into Death Eaters, at least." Harry's clipped tones spoke of nothing but hostility. Was he blaming the rest of them for Ron's condition?
"The others... they told me what happened."
"Oh? Did they also tell you how they killed Gregory Goyle?"
"Don't you judge us, Harry Potter, don't you dare judge us! Not after they stayed - for you! - and you can't even muster sympathy for Parvati who died for you!" They were shouting at each other now. Ron had gone out of both of their minds as each of them was thinking of their own frustration.
"I never asked them to stay!" he shouted in return. "And a fat lot of good it did everyone, too!"
"You don't - you can't - you don't know! We've survived because we're loyal to each other and because we care for each other and we just had the opportunity to stay in this wonderful place where everything's alright and everyone's still alive and we left and we left for them and don't you dare judge us!"
She stood there, seconds from cursing him, but as he watched her, his expression changed. The anger disappeared, his face softened, and then he walked to her and hugged her. And she hugged him back.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
"Now you show sympathy," she said, but without any real malice. He chuckled in response, and when he let go, he looked almost friendly.
"Can we start over?" he asked.
"Sure. Hi, I'm Hermione Granger."
He laughed. After she raised her eyebrows to signal her anticipation, he said, "Alright, alright. Hello, Hermione Granger. I'm Harry Potter."
"I know."
"Oh? And how do you know?"
"You're kinda famous. And you're doing a very poor job of hiding your scar."
He stopped for a moment. She thought she might have said something wrong, that he was angry again, but then they both started laughing at the exact same time, in perfect sync, like the oldest of friends.
"How did you manage to get back here?" he asked once the laughter had died down.
"It's, uh - there's this Muggle device. That was what brought us here in the first place. The Muggles, they didn't really know what they were doing, but the Ministry could locate it - Dumbledore said it interfered with magic or something. I didn't really understand," she admitted. "We must have accidentally activated it when we went to release Neville and - "
"I am going to kill them!" Harry groaned.
"What?" she asked, startled.
"Oh - no, not you - no, no. That must have been how we ended up here. The Department of Mysteries had an accident... I don't even know what they were doing there on Christmas Eve! But they called everyone in, to help clear the area, and Ron and I... we must have been too close. When it went off."
"So you ended up here."
"Yeah. So what we need - do you have it on you?"
She shook her head. "It's not - you can't take it with you. You'll need the one the Ministry has here."
"Which means we really have to get into the Ministry." He swore. "We've tried, Hermione, we've tried, we did everything, every way I can think of."
"I know," she said quietly. "It's impossible without someone to help you from inside the Ministry."
"Is that how you got in there? When you went in to save Neville?" he asked. "Did you have help from inside the Ministry?"
She nodded.
"Well, then, what are we waiting for? Why can't you talk to them again? Why can't we get their help? Why didn't Dean and the others say anything?"
"Didn't - didn't Dean tell you that? It was a friend of Anthony's, but - Harry, they killed him. When Dean and the others broke in to save us and found - "
"And found us instead," Harry finished the sentence and swore again. "So we're stuck here. We either find a different way in, or we're stuck here."
"I'm afraid so."
He walked away now, and sat on Ron's bed. Even in his sleep, Ron was obviously still in pain. His face was contorted, and he was opening and closing his mouth, as if in a silent cry of pain. Hermione walked towards them, and sat on the bed next to Harry.
"He and I... are we..."
"Married five years," Harry said quietly. "You've got a little girl, Rose. And there's another boy on the way."
"That must be nice," she said quietly. She couldn't even picture the idea of a family. It sounded like he was talking about someone else, some stranger, not about her. She looked at him some more, and thought of the Ron who was waiting for her on the other side of the door. "We should let him rest," she said finally.
He looked at the door in trepidation, but eventually got up. They joined the rest of the group.
The first thing Harry did was crouch in front of Padma, like he did before with Ron. He put his hand on hers. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Padma nodded without a word. "Do you want anything?" he asked. She shook her head. "Alright. But if you need anything, anything at all, just tell me, okay?" He didn't leave her side until she nodded, and then he said, "Okay," and got up.
She saw he threw a quick look at Harry and Ron, but then walked past them to the small kitchen and put some water in the kettle. Neville got up to help him. Harry glanced at him for a moment as well - perhaps worried it might be Dean - then continued messing around. "What is this place, anyway?" he asked with his back turned to them.
"Oh, it's - there was a sign in front of our house," Hermione could feel her face reddening. It seemed silly - but it shouldn't, not when this place had saved their lives. Her voice became strong again. "I rented it - just in case we needed a hideout outside London, in case there was some emergency."
"Good thinking," Neville said.
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Probably saved our lives."
And with that, the shock of the meeting, of the separation, had disappeared. She found herself embraced, from Dean to Anthony to Luna, and even Padma got up and they hugged, and Ron and Neville as well, and only Harry stood slightly apart from them, looking at the rest of them.
Both Harrys - the new Harry was in the small kitchen, watching them as well. When the small reunion had ended, Dean turned to him and swallowed.
"Sorry," he said. "About your nose."
"S'alright," Harry said.
"And for shouting at you."
"It's okay. I was being - "
"Insufferable as usual, yeah, but it's no excuse," Dean said.
"Yeah... Come on, I'll get you some tea. I think Hermione even got some biscuits here."
29th December, 2010, 12:40 p.m.
Don't tell anyone else. If they're there, if we have to say goodbye... we'll never leave.
Hermione opened her eyes to the darkness. The memory of her words to Dumbledore was still fresh in her mind. She was the one who told him quietly, privately, that they had to leave as soon as possible, without a word to the others. She felt now the same despair as she felt back then when he nodded and said that he thought so, too.
But she knew where she was going, she told herself. There was no time for self pity. No time for longing for a world they had left behind. She got up from the mattress.
It couldn't have been long after noon, she knew. She didn't feel refreshed at all, and all around her, people were still sleeping. The room itself was dark. It wasn't meant for living, and especially not for such a large number of people. The man who had rented the orchard to her said it was just a small cabin, if she had to stay after a long day's work. She had no intention of working in the orchard, of course, but she didn't tell him that. She took it because it was better than nothing, because it was far away, because there was no reason to think the Ministry will ever search for them there.
Hermione looked for Ron in the darkness. With only two rooms - one of them occupied by the other Ron - there was no chance of privacy, of course, but she still wanted to find him. She knew she had to talk to him.
A quick survey of the room confirmed that he wasn't there. Could he possibly be in the other room, she wondered. Could he have possibly gone to the same place as - the other one? No, she thought. Not Ron. Harry, perhaps... but not Ron.
She grabbed a coat and walked outside.
He was there, sitting at a fire that was burning much more merrily than it had any business to. She walked up to him and sat by his side.
"Well, I'll give you that," he broke the silence, "you were right that we had to hurry. Had we waited any longer, there would have been no one left to save." His voice was full of anger. Anger at the world, she knew, that was, just for a bit, masquerading as anger at her. It still filled her with guilt and pain to hear it.
"We would have spent the rest of our lives there thinking about them," she answered, refusing to accept the guilt. She missed that world already too.
"You know, I think I could have lived with that."
"When we get to the Ministry, after we send Ha - after we send the two of them back where they came from, maybe we could test it. See if we can go back to that world."
Ron's laughter was mirthless and angry. "We're not going to get to the Ministry. We're not going to get to Malfoy. Have you been shutting your eyes and ears all these years, Hermione? It's not going to work." He got up. His expression was harsh and uncompromising. "We're stuck in this hell, and now they're stuck in this hell too, and no one's getting out."
She didn't go after him. All of a sudden, sitting here in the snow felt less cold than being in any room with Ron.
29th December, 2010, 4:20 p.m.
"Shh, you'll wake him up."
"It's late."
"He didn't sleep for like, three days or so."
"Why on earth not? I had an excuse, I was imprisoned by Voldemort. What's his excuse?"
"Dunno..."
"My excuse is that prats like you are waking me up all the time," Harry muttered, his eyes still closed. Someone smirked. Could have been Neville. Probably was Goldstein. He opened his eyes, rubbed them for a moment, trying to force them to stay open. He felt like he could just close them again and sleep forever. All he wanted to do was fall asleep again. Fall asleep, and perhaps he'll dream of Ginny.
He forced his eyes to open. He'll get that chance sooner than he wished, he knew.
Harry surveyed the room. Ron - the other Ron, he assumed - was sitting in one corner. He noticed Hermione was sitting at another. Padma was still staring at the window, Dean and Luna at her side. Neville and Anthony had just sat on the same chintz sofa he had Transfigured earlier, when he pointed out he was too worn out to sleep on a mattress. They were both holding bowls full of hot - something. Probably soup.
Harry felt the bile rise in his throat as soon as the thought of food crossed his mind. It might be the last chance he ever had at eating something, but he couldn't think of food now. Instead, he sent his hand to his pocket and checked that the stone was still there.
His gaze fell on the other one.
He couldn't call him 'Harry'. Not really. He was Harry. If there was one thing he was sure of in that entire damned world, it was that he was Harry. But the other one was Harry too.
And the other one was looking at him. He held his gaze for a moment too long, then turned back to Anthony and Neville. "What's with him?" he muttered.
"Same as you, I imagine," Anthony said dryly.
Harry's eyes were drawn back to the other one, only to discover the man's eyes never left him.
"Leave him alone," Anthony said. "He's had a rough time lately, from what Neville said."
"Yeah, and we haven't?" Harry asked, but tore his gaze away from the man. It was for the best, he knew. Anger rose in him every time he saw his counterpart. But it wasn't his fault.
Other people joined them on the sofa - Hermione, and after another moment - Ron, he supposed. Ron - at least until the real Ron woke up.
"Hey," Ron said, somewhat nervous. He sounded so much like Ron. The nervousness at this new, impossible situation was so much like Ron. If he just closed his eyes, Harry knew, it would be Ron.
"Hey," he said, his eyes wide open.
"We didn't want to wake you up," Ron said in a somewhat apologetic voice.
"Thanks. I wasn't really sleeping, just nodding off. I guess."
"Is he..." And becoming a bit incoherent when he was wrong-footed, just like Ron.
"I gave him something for the pain, so he could sleep it off," Harry explained. "Madam Pomfrey brought some potions, but they're all back at the Three Broomsticks, so I did what I could here. But she said if he just got some rest he should be alright."
"Oh." Ron's cheeks turned bright red. "Good."
They both stared at their fingers for a while.
"Well, this is awkward," Harry said at last. Ron's laughter was full of relief. "Tell me about all the people you saw there," he said all of a sudden, hungry for some good news. "In that other world. Hermione said earlier they were all alive, Sirius and Remus and Dumbledore and - "
"And your parents," Ron completed.
"Yeah."
"So they're all dead in your world, too?"
"They didn't survive the war." He felt guilty, saying it like that. No, they didn't survive the war, they were all dead, but... But. Their sacrifice had helped Harry win the war, helped him defeat Voldemort. So many other people were alive, that here were dead.
"It was... strange," Ron admitted. "Although, for all I know, your world's strange too."
"Nah, my world's normal. It's this place that's mental." None of them laughed. Ron shot a glance at Hermione, but if something crossed his mind, he kept it to himself
"When did Dumbledore die?" Hermione asked tentatively. "In your world?"
"End of sixth year," Harry explained to them about Snape and the curse and the Horcruxes. He needn't have bothered - they already knew the story.
"And then at Bill and Fleur's wedding - "
"Hold on," Ron stopped him, frowning. "Voldemort took over during Bill and Fleur's wedding?"
"Yeah."
"But that happened here, too."
Now the other - Harry - was listening in, as well. They were all looking at Harry. "Why is that such a surprise?" Harry asked.
"I thought - I was sure - But if he took over, how did you win?" Ron demanded.
"Well, we knew about the Horcruxes - "
"Yeah, we did too, we spent all that winter hunting for the damn things - "
"Yeah, exactly, we found the locket on Umbridge and you - well, you - "
Ron's face reddened. "I still left?" He asked quietly. "I still ran away?" There was something ironic about that. After all they've been through in that world, that Ron would still feel guilty about that, so long ago. It made Harry wonder whether his Ron - the real Ron - whether the Ron he knew still felt guilty about it as well.
"You still came back," he tried. Ron turned an even stronger shade of red.
Hermione, however, was already thinking of the rest of their adventures. "And then the cup at Gringotts - you also broke into Gringotts? and the diadem at Hogwarts - you still went to Hogwarts?"
"And Voldemort came after us, yeah."
Hermione and Ron looked at each other, incredulous. "But how did you win?" she demanded of him, as if his very presence offended her. "This is exactly what we did! This is exactly what happened with us! How did you manage to defeat him?"
Harry scratched at his scar absently. He only stopped when he realised the other one was doing the exact same thing. The other one realised a second later, and his hand froze comically above his own scar. They looked at each other, and suddenly Harry understood.
"Who was it?" he asked him - the other one.
"Bellatrix."
Bellatrix. This was the great secret? This was where his life went right? Sheer dumb luck? One sister, rather than the other? How close did he come to the other one's fate! How close did his world come to this nightmare, this hell, and he never even realised, not until now.
"I don't understand," Hermione said.
Harry looked at the other one, and the other one shrugged, as if saying - you explain. He nodded. "I had to go to him," Harry explained. "I had to turn myself in. My scar."
"You were a Horcrux too, yes, we know that," Hermione cut him short, impatient to hear how her life went so wrong, as if the most terrible experience in Harry's life meant nothing at all. As he looked at her, he thought he couldn't really begrudge her that attitude.
"He, uh, after he hit me with the Killing Curse, it affected him too. Because of all the - well, all the mess he created. Wands and blood ties and Horcruxes. He was too afraid to check whether I was dead himself. He sent..." he faltered. "In your world, he sent Bellatrix Lestrange to check up and she told him he - I - Harry was alive.
"In my world it was Narcissa Malfoy. And all she cared about was seeing Draco again and making sure he was alright. And she knew there was one way to make sure of that. If they all marched, right there and then, to Hogwarts, and there was no chance of continuing the battle.
"So she lied. She told him I was dead. She saved my life. She did - God, she did so much more than that, didn't she." She saved him. She saved the world. Narcissa Malfoy.
He'd have to buy her flowers when he got back. It would kill him, probably, but he would have to go and buy her flowers or something. If he got back. He looked again at the other one - at Harry - the one whose fate was so much worse than his. One sister, rather than the other, and here was a wreck of a man, something Harry could have been, if he'd been less lucky.
Something Harry could still be.
It wasn't fair. To any of them.
Fear threatened to paralyse him. He didn't want to look at the other one anymore - he couldn't look at him. He didn't want to look at Ron and Hermione, either. He didn't want to look at Neville and Anthony and Dean and Padma and Luna. He felt the weight of the stone in his pocket, mocking him, so he took it out to have something to stare at, then started to play with it, tossing it up and down, then catching it again, trying not to listen to the conversation around him.
But he couldn't block it out. He couldn't help but listen, how they were mourning all over again, now that they realised how the world they lived in had been ruined by sheer chance.
Up and down, the stone went, up and down, and he stared at it all the more intently.
"You know what my mum always used to say," Ron said at last. "No point crying over spilt potion. We need to figure out how to continue from here."
Up and down, up and down. He caught the stone, hesitated, then threw it in the air again. Up and down, up and down.
"Don't take it the wrong way, mate, but we don't have any more contacts in the Ministry, and breaking in there without it would be suicide," he told Harry.
Up and down, up and down.
"Potter knows," Anthony said roughly. "We've already lost good people there."
Up and down, up and down. Harry tried to speak, but he couldn't find his voice.
"We need to set up a new base," Hermione said in a business-like voice. "We need to lie low for a bit. They're bound to be looking for us now, after your stunt at Hogsmeade. We'll have to stay away for a while."
Up and down, up and down.
"We could stay here," someone suggested, but Hermione shot him down.
"No, it's not very well equipped. It's an emergency base, not a place for all of us to live in. We need - we can't go back to London, can we? Maybe another big city, one that doesn't have such tight restrictions?"
"We could try Birmingham."
"Or Manchester, I don't think there's a lot of wizards in Manchester, could buy us some time."
"And then what? We start fighting Malfoy all over again? But he has his hit-wizards and his Death Eaters and we can't even get into the Ministry."
"There is a way into the Ministry," Harry finally managed. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. So far away. He tossed the stone one last time. Up - and down. And then he stopped. He clutched the stone in his hand, drawing strength from the pressure in his palm. "There's always been a way into the Ministry."
They looked at each other before they looked at him. Parallel world or not, he knew that expression well enough. They thought he had lost his mind.
"What are you talking about, Potter?" Anthony asked.
He opened his palm.
"What - the stone? The stone can't get us into the Ministry. It doesn't work that way. It has to be activated inside the area before Apparition, I thought Ab Dumbledore explained this to you!"
"No," they heard a new voice. An old voice. Ron's voice. The real Ron. He stood at the doorway to his small room, wrapped in a blanket, and as Harry looked in his eyes he knew that, of all of them, Ron understood. "You can't."
"What are you talking about?"
"The stone was originally used by the Ministry to Apparate into Azkaban," Harry explained. "Stan Shunpike - or whoever was the guard there - would turn it on, it'd give a signal in the Ministry, and they'd Apparate."
"I know how it works, Potter."
"We haven't been able to take on the Ministry because we can't get past the Atrium. That wasn't a problem for you guys because your contact got you through, and once you were in, you could do whatever the hell you wanted, even break out prisoners from within the cells themselves."
"I know that too, Potter. What's your point?"
"My point is that we can't get to the Ministry from the Atrium. But we can - if we can Apparate straight inside the Ministry."
Now they understood. Hermione gasped. Ron - the other Ron - stared at him in shock. Even Anthony covered his mouth.
"If I get inside the Ministry and activate the stone, you guys could Apparate in," he finished.
"He'll kill you," Ron - his Ron - said. "As soon as you show your face there. They'll kill you. You'll never get the chance."
"No. They'll kill anyone else. But you heard what Malfoy said. He wants me alive. He won't kill me." That was it, wasn't it. Malfoy wanted him alive. Of all the others.
"You'll never get the chance to operate it. You can't waltz in there with the stone activated!" Ron was now raising his voice, and becoming paler and paler, and Harry was starting to get worried that his friend was overtaxing himself, that the curse would take its toll. "That's what happened the last time we went to the Ministry! They'll never give you a wand! You'll never get the chance! If you walk in there, you won't walk out!"
"All I need is three seconds. Three seconds with a wand. Surely I'll be able to steal Malfoy's wand - or one of the guards' - or something."
"You can't do that!" Ron swayed and his face contorted in pain. Harry jumped to catch him and led him to the sofa. The only available place was next to the other Ron. The other Ron jumped and moved closer to Hermione, as if afraid to be too close to Ron. Harry couldn't really blame him - but that wasn't the topic now.
"It can't be anyone else, Ron," he said quietly. "And if we don't do that, we're stuck here. Who knows for how long. Maybe forever. And I can't do that. I'd rather take my chances with the Ministry."
"You can't let him do it," Ron appealed to the rest of them.
But, as Harry had hoped - and, perhaps, dreaded - none of them came to Ron's rescue. Hermione looked at her fingernails. The other Ron looked at Luna. Luna bit her lips and studied Harry. Padma and Dean looked at each other, and Padma curled into her chair further. Neville looked at Ron for a moment, then averted his gaze. Anthony shifted uncomfortably.
The other Harry stared at Harry, unblinking.
"Well?" Ron demanded.
"He's right," Hermione said finally, her voice small and weak. "That's the best chance you two have at going home. We'll be happy to have you here - " she shook her head, as if remembering something particularly ironic. "But if you want to go back where you belong, we don't know of any way to get you there. That's the best option."
"Think of Hermione, Ron," Harry said quietly, and finally met his best friend's eyes, his brother-in-law. "Think of Rose." Next to him, Hermione recoiled unintentionally.
"And what about Ginny?" Ron demanded. "What if something goes wrong?"
"Then you'll come after me," Harry said, and did his best to believe it. Slowly, reluctantly, Ron nodded. Harry allowed himself to breathe. One obstacle removed.
But an unexpected obstacle appeared, as it became obvious that Ron had agreed. "Don't do it," someone said, and it sounded so much like Harry himself that it took him a moment to realise it was him - it was the other one. "If you go in there..." the man's green eyes pierced Harry. He tried to look away, look at Ron, at Hermione, at anyone else, but the other one stood up and crossed the few steps between them in a second, then grabbed his face and forced him to look at him.
Harry studied the face in front of him, so much like the one he saw in the mirror every day - and yet, so very different: the deep lines, the grey in the hair, and the eyes - those green eyes, full of despair and pain.
"Look at me," the other one said, and Harry looked at him. And now that he looked, he couldn't tear his eyes away. "Take a good look," the other one said. Finally, he let go of him. "Don't do it."
But it wasn't an option. "Maybe I'll be lucky again," he said. "Maybe I'll draw the long straw again." The other one looked at him in disgust. Harry shook his head, then got up, and stashed the stone in his pocket.
"You're not going - now?" Both Rons said at the same time.
"Well, once Hermione shows me how to connect that stone so that you'd know when it's activated, yes. No point in postponing the inevitable." And if I don't go soon, I may never go at all, he didn't say.
Hermione finished her own magic in two minutes. He was ready in another three. He looked at them - all of them - and paused only when his gaze fell on Ron. "I'll see you in no time," he told his best and oldest friend.
"You better," Ron's voice was shaking slightly.
"If I don't - " Harry hesitated. "Tell Ginny..."
Ron nodded. "Yeah."
"Yeah."
They just stood there and looked at each other. "Wish me luck," Harry said at last and turned on the spot.
29th December, 2010, 7:10 p.m.
The security guard raised his eyes for a moment, then looked back to finish the article in the Daily Prophet, when all of a sudden he realised who it was his eyes saw. He froze, clutched his wand, and only then looked up again.
The man in front of him smiled. "Hi. I'm Harry Potter. I'm here to see Draco Malfoy."