Chapter Sixteen
Harry Meant To Tell Daphne About The Time Problem, Really, He Did
"Now, Harry, can I use the floo? There aren't any jinxes lurking for the unwary, are there?" Daphne asked.
"If you must," Harry sighed. "Have you got everything?"
"Oh, I left Witch Weekly at your flat," Daphne said.
"Let's go, and you can leave from there," Harry said, taking Daphne's hand. He took a pinch of floo powder from a container. They stepped into the fireplace, Harry dropped the floo powder and said, "Harry's flat." Following the WHOOSH, they stepped out of the fireplace into the apartment.
"Harry Potter, this IS a surprise," said Blaise Zabini, drawing a pistol and pointing it at Harry.
"Blaise, what are you doing in my apartment? And what's with the gun?" Harry asked.
"Whose apartment?" Blaise responded. "I think you'd better start off by telling me what you are doing, entering MY apartment, through a fireplace, hand in hand with my wife!"
"Blaise, I'm not your wife. You're hallucinating. And would you please stop pointing that gun at people?" Daphne said.
Harry had, by this time, taken in a good deal of information. Blaise was wearing a uniform, but not the 1918-era military issue he'd been wearing when Harry last saw him. This one looked very much like a current police uniform. There were differences, but the checkered band around the cap, rank insignia, and the color scheme were accurate.
Harry looked around the flat, or, at least, the part he could see from where he stood. The photos were wrong. The vase on the book case was wrong. The books looked mixed.
"What's going on?" asked a little girl, who had just come out of the bedroom hallway.
"Don't know, Lily, just standing here talking to your mum and this gentleman she's brought home," said Blaise.
The little girl, who looked to be eight or nine, more or less, looked between Blaise, Harry and Daphne.
"That's not Mum," she said. "She looks like Mum, but she isn't."
"Of course that's your Mum, Lily. I'm her husband, and she sure looks like your Mum to me," said Blaise.
"Listen to her, Blaise, I'm not your wife," said Daphne.
"Blaise," said Harry. "The gun. Someone's going to get hurt. Something is seriously out of adjustment here, so please put down the gun and we'll talk this through."
"SHUT UP!" Blaise shouted. "Lily, go to your room, please, now."
"Potter, sit down right where you are and put your hands on top of your head. Daphne, take Lily back to her room," ordered Blaise.
"Come on, Mum," Lily said, looking directly into Daphne's eyes, and taking her hand. Daphne looked at Harry, giving him a slight cock of her head. Harry sat with his hands on his head, and flicked his eyes toward the hallway in return.
Lily took Daphne into her room and closed the door.
"Who are you, and who is that man sitting in front of the fireplace?" Lily asked.
"My name is Daphne Greengrass, and the man is Harry Potter," Daphne said, "and we used the floo network to get to Harry's flat, and we came out here. Do you know where we are?"
"You're in our flat, in London," Lily said. "I have a theory, that you're a witch."
"Oh, well, who is it you're referring to when you say 'our flat'?" Daphne asked.
"Me, Lily Zabini, my dad, Blaise Zabini, and my mum Daphne Greengrass Zabini, of course," Lily said.
"Where is your mum, anyway?" Daphne asked. "Because, you know, if your mum was here, we could convince your dad that I'm not her, and we could get started sorting this out. I have a feeling that not wasting time is going to be important, although I can't say why at the moment."
"Mum went out to get some curry take-away from the place across the street, just before Dad and I came home. She's on her way back now. Dad just picked me up from playing with Scorpius at Auntie Astoria's. Dad would have thought Mum was in their room, until he saw you by the fireplace," Lily said. "Are you a witch?"
"Before we get to that, I'd like to ask you something, Lily. What do you know about witches? Have you ever met any?"
"Umh-hmm. They won't admit it, of course, but I see them all the time. I'm pretty sure I'm a witch. Dad doesn't know Mum went for take-away, does he? But I do. I can see her in the elevator, walking down the corridor, punching in the code, oops, nope, she just points and opens the door without the code. I suspect she's a witch," said Lily.
Daphne heard the flat door open.
"What is going on here?" demanded a female voice. "I step out for five minutes to get this family something for dinner…"
"That's Mum," Lily said, "Not hard to tell the difference, unless you're Dad."
"Maybe we should go back," said Daphne. "We can get started figuring out whatever it is that is going on."
"My guess is a hole in the space-time continuum, but Dad will say it is witchery, and he'll want to haul you in. I don't know what he'll do with Harry Potter. Is Harry Potter a master criminal wherever you come from? He's wanted here."
"Harry Potter, a criminal? No, where we come from, he is a very high-ranking police officer," Daphne said. "He has figured prominently in solving some of the most famous crimes of the century. Can I ask you a question? Why will Blaise want to haul me in for witchery? Are witches criminals here?"
"Strictly speaking, no," said Lily. "BUT, witchery is regulated, and if a witch uses her skills to do certain things, they haul her in. Are you ready to go?"
"Oh, let's," said Daphne. "At the very least we're going to have something interesting to talk about, and it could turn into a full-blown adventure."
Lily again took Daphne's hand and conducted them both down the hallway to the living room.
"Mum," said Lily, as she led Daphne into the room, "there's someone here you need to meet."
Daphne Zabini turned toward Lily and Daphne. No one said anything for quite awhile, as the two Daphnes sized one another up. The silence was broken by the sound of Blaise holstering his weapon. Daphne, Daphne, Lily and Harry looked at him.
"Whatever is going on here, I'm not going to figure it out with this," Blaise said. "BUT, I want some answers, beginning with, who are you people?"
Harry looked at Daphne. "I'll go first," he said, "I've got a little background."
"Nice of you to tell me, Harry, nothing thrills a girl like finding out she's bought a pig in a poke."
"WHO ARE YOU?" Blaise demanded.
"I'm Harry Potter, Head Auror with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Ministry of Magic. It appears we have become the unwitting victims of a temporal trickster. Someone in our time stream, operating in our year 1918, has been utilizing some poorly-understood techniques to sever time streams and re-connect the pieces. It appears to be experimentation. Remediation requires someone skilled in time stream repair."
"You're in law enforcement?" Blaise asked, showing some distress. "Harry Potter is in, what kind of law enforcement did you say?"
"Magical Law Enforcement," said Harry. "The aurors enforce the laws relating to improper use of magic. Dark Magic gets the most attention, but the aurors spend a limited amount of time on it. They arrest the witches and wizards who commit old-fashioned crimes like murder, theft, and robbery, using magic, or who otherwise might use magic to evade conventional law enforcement. I'm the Head Auror. Who enforces magical law here?"
"Clarification needed," said Blaise, "you said witches and wizards. What are wizards?"
"Wizards is the masculine, witches feminine," said Harry.
"You have witches, who are men, is that what I heard?" asked Blaise.
Daphne Greengrass looked at Daphne Zabini, who kept her eyes on her husband, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, shook her head.
"Well, we'd have to, wouldn't we?" Harry asked. "It really wouldn't be fair, otherwise, men and women being the way we are. Anyway, how do you enforce magical law?"
"We don't have magical law, I'm afraid, Potter. No need of it. There are witches, and witchcraft is regulated. Wizards, were there any, wouldn't admit it. They'd be considered mistakes, something Nature didn't get right. Anyway, the geneticists say it's chromosomal, two X chromosomes with the witch gene, you've got a witch, meaning a Y chromosome is disqualifying."
"Aren't we supposed to blow up, or something?" Daphne Greengrass asked Daphne Zabini. "End the Universe as we know it? Haven't we brought about an irreconcilable temporal anomaly?"
"Apparently not, since we're all still here. The question is, how do we get you back where you belong?" Daphne Zabini said.
"Any idea what James Potter is doing in this stream?" Harry asked. "He might be helpful."
The others turned to look at him.
"Why is that?" asked Blaise, sounding a bit suspicious.
"Who?" asked Daphne Zabini.
"Harry, what do you know that I don't know?" demanded Daphne Greengrass.
"There is a Professor James Potter at Cambridge University," Lily said. "The famous physicist? Does anyone read around here? Honestly!"
"Bingo," said Harry.
"Not so fast, Potter," said Blaise.
"When we get back, Harry Potter…" said Daphne Greengrass.
Harry looked in his Daphne's eyes.
"I think I'd better brief Blaise, to the extent I can," Harry said, "and establish some law enforcement liaison, even if it is on an ad hocbasis. I'll need to do it without anyone lacking proper clearances hanging about, so perhaps, you ladies could withdraw, and see if lynx with Cambridge could be useful in repairing a damaged time stream?"
Daphne Greengrass smiled. "Oh, I like that idea. Anything to get away from an overdose of man talk. Ugh. We'll just be down in that room at the far end of the hallway, then."
Daphne Zabini looked at Daphne Greengrass, obviously somewhat put out with the latter's assumption of authority, but she didn't protest. She held her hand out to Lily. "C'mon, Lily."
As soon as the three of them left the living room, Harry turned to Blaise.
"They'll be busy with getting-to-know-you stuff for a few minutes, so here's the dump. As I said, someone is monkeying with our time stream, cutting and splicing. Daphne and I are objects of the perpetrator's attention, for reasons still unknown. This is the third incident we have figured in. Time repair teams with experience in the field have been able to make repairs without, as far as is known, permanent damage to any stream, but, of course, when it comes to time, damage isn't obvious right away. You know all this in my time stream. Does any of that tie in with anything your law enforcement agencies are seeing?"
Blaise looked at Harry, not speaking right away.
"Luckily for you, it does. Just barely. Our briefings didn't say anything about you running around with Daphne, though. You've still got some explaining to do."
Down at the end of the hall, Daphne Greengrass drew her wand when Daphne Zabini closed the bedroom door.
"Muffliato!" she said, with a wave of her wand. "Okay, now we can talk. Introductions: I am Daphne Alexandra Greengrass, MD, PhD. My parents are Fabio and Kendra, my sister is Astoria, and I'm a Healer at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies, specializing in mental illnesses that affect witches and wizards. Harry Potter, where we come from, is a very senior law enforcement officer. How about you and Blaise?"
"I'm Daphne Greengrass Zabini, this is my daughter Lily. My parents are also Fabio and Kendra, and I have a sister, Astoria. I am a qualified nurse, but I worked in infectious diseases. I haven't worked since Lily was born. Blaise is an inspector, with the Met."
"Are you both witches?" Lily asked, apparently unable to contain herself any longer.
"I am," said Daphne Greengrass.
"Oh, me too," said Daphne Zabini. "You might as well know, Lily, I'd have had to tell you sometime. Dad's mum was a witch, so you probably will be as well."
"I'm pretty sure I already am," said Lily.
"Fine, but let's not tell Dad just yet, hmmm?" Daphne Zabini said. "He's permanently a bit put out with your gran, just for being one."
"I want to hear all about how things work here, but I have to do something right away," Daphne Greengrass said, raising her wand. "Expecto patronum!"
The lynx coalesced from the light cast from Daphne's wand tip, and sat down on its haunches, looking eager to get to work.
"I want you to go to Cambridge, find Professor James Potter, and give him this message: Professor, this is Daphne Greengrass, letting you know that Harry Potter and I have been redirected from our time stream to this one. We're with the Greengrass-Zabini family at their flat in London, and in need of time stream repair. Any help or advice you can give will be much appreciated. Thanks!"
Without waiting for a command, the lynx jumped out the window and disappeared.
"Damn! You are one kick-ass witch!" said Lily.
"LILY!" said Daphne Zabini. "Language? You didn't hear me, or your dad, speaking like that."
Turning to Daphne Greengrass, Daphne Zabini started to apologize.
"I'm so sorry, Lily doesn't always edit…"
Daphne Greengrass waved her hand. "No apologies, please. But you do have to listen to your mum, Lily. She has had lots more time to learn than you, and you'll be on your way to wisdom if you let her guide you. Okay?"
Lily nodded.
"Now," said Daphne Greengrass, "why don't you tell me how witches function in this stream, while we wait for Professor Potter to get back to us?"
"It's not illegal to be a witch," Daphne Zabini began, "but it's difficult. Using magic for little things like bypassing locks or cleaning up after meals is fine, but potions draw attention. Divination is frowned upon, but a witch can practice as long as she keeps it to herself. There are some uncannily prescient female fund managers in the City, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to learn they cast runes. Collaboration, or teaching a young witch divination, can put you in jail.
"We don't have wizards. The official line is the geneticists have determined magical ability is sex-linked, you need two X chromosomes, but that's a crock. It's magic, isn't it? And yet, I've never met, or heard of, a wizard. It's a very sensitive topic. I had to do a lot of bacteriology and cytology, for my nursing qualifications, and, of course, I kept my eyes open for relevant journal articles, and there aren't any. That's either a huge blind spot or research is being restricted.
"There aren't any formal schools for witches, as far as I know, but witches organize girls' camps in the summer. The men don't seem to mind the girls learning how to sleep under canvas and cook over a fire. If some magical ability manifests, the witches bring the girl into a network so she gets used to the idea that she is a witch, not a freak. If she progresses, or shows an affinity for a field, she'll get mentoring by experts, so she can control what she's doing. A lot of problems arise from the informal structure. If the witches miss a girl, one whose parents won't let her go to camp, or try to suppress her magic, it can lead to tragic results. Strong magic has to manifest."
"Now, as for you, young prospective witch, from this moment forward, you must learn to control your tongue. Loose comments get witches thrown in jail, or worse," Daphne Zabini said to Lily. "If you want to be a witch, the first thing you will do is make a commitment. The protection of witches will be your highest priority. Otherwise, you endanger the whole sisterhood. Understand?"
Lily, looking contrite, nodded vigorously.
In the living room, Harry was still jawboning Blaise.
"Blaise," Harry was saying, "I'm not running around with your wife, no matter what it looks like. In our stream, none of us is married. My mother, Lily Evans Potter, and Daphne's mother, promised us, to each other, you could say. It all happened before we were born. Daphne and I were just doing Sunday together when the time streams got confused. In our stream, you and I had lost touch for years, then you showed up at my office last week to brief me on this phenomenon. There's more but that is the essence."
Blaise looked skeptical. It made as much sense as anything. Harry Potter walking out of a fireplace holding hands with Daphne was a shock, but less of one than seeing two Daphne's standing in his living room. That didn't make any sense either. In Potter's favor, Blaise had gotten a briefing, very hush-hush, on possible issues with temporal anomalies, just the week before. He had wondered at the time how a municipal police officer would figure in something that sounded more like the purview of one of the secret services or some obscure office at a national laboratory.
Harry and Blaise both flinched when the telephone rang. Blaise picked it up and put the receiver to his ear.
"Hello," he said. Harry could hear some garbled sounds, but not enough to pick up the conversation.
"Yes, sir, I recognize your voice. Yes, this phone has a speaker function. Just a moment, sir," Blaise said.
"Hello?" said a voice coming from the speaker. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir," said Blaise. "Mr. Potter?"
"Hello, this is Harry Potter," Harry said.
"Excellent," said a familiar voice on the phone. "I'm the Commissioner of Police for London, Mr. Potter. My name is Kingsley Shacklebolt. I have Professor James Potter on as well, and I'm going to let him have the floor, so both of you please stick around. Professor?"
"James Potter here, Inspector Zabini, and Mr. Potter. I do research and teach physics at Cambridge. My field is particle physics. We look into the properties of sub-atomic particles at our lab here. We've encountered some phenomena in this time stream that seem to be leaking from a parallel stream. Up to now, these have been on an extremely small scale, but two people, intact! I must say, this is quite the red-letter day for physics and physicists.
"We're very lucky in that we have had a time repair specialist assigned to us. This is classified at the highest level, Inspector, so we'll count on your discretion.
"Mr. Potter, you and Miss Greengrass will have a portal opening, back to your London, shortly. Stay near the fireplace in the Zabinis' flat. You should see some shimmering in the bricks. When that happens, just walk through together, and that will be that.
"Now, the Commissioner has something to add. Get ready for the portal. Nice to meet you both."
"Chief Inspector Zabini? I'd just like to say well done on your handling of this extremely sensitive situation. You might want to write up some notes and I'll arrange for you to come by my office and give me a debrief in person on Monday," said Shacklebolt.
"Thank you, Commissioner," said Blaise. "I'm afraid it's just Inspector, though."
"That can be arranged, if you want me to take it back," chuckled Shacklebolt. "My office will let your supervisor know when to send you over. Best of luck, Mr. Potter. Keep your nose clean over there."
They heard the 'click' of Shacklebolt's phone hanging up.
Harry turned to see the two Daphnes and Lily in the doorway.
"I don't know who you are, or what kind of clout you have where you come from, Potter, but it appears you just got me promoted, by the commissioner himself, no less. Do me a favor, though, and try not to pop out of that fireplace again, please?"
"Not if I can help it, Blaise," Harry said, "and now, Daphne," Harry held out his hand, "we need to be ready for some shimmering bricks."
"Bye Lily, bye, me from this timestream," Daphne said, taking Harry's hand. "Thanks for a wonderful adventure!"
The brick surround looked a little darker, then lighter, then it started to lose that solid brick look.
"Ready?" Harry asked.
"Ready," Daphne confirmed. They stepped into the fireplace and walked forward into Harry's London flat.
Harry did a quick scan of the living room. That looked like his couch, armchair, bookcase, and the books in the bookcase looked right. Harry spotted Witch Weekly on the arm of the sofa. He looked at Daphne.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I think you'd better make a pot of tea, and tell me what is going on," Daphne said. "I didn't sign up for time travel. Not that it wasn't a fun, new experience, but I'm not sure I want to repeat it every time we try to use the floo network together."
"Right," said Harry, heading for the kitchen. "Be right back."
Harry put tea into his teapot, filled a kettle with water, drew his wand and cast a heat charm. He filled the teapot with hot water, put it on a tray, along with two cups and saucers, and took the whole thing to the living room.
"I have sugar and milk, probably out of lemons," he told Daphne.
"No need," Daphne said. "Let's talk."
"Okay, it all started out on Halloween, when Ivy Fletcher muffed her chance to confund me in Hyde Park. You were not directly involved in that incident. You were closer to the second one, at the manor, on Saturday, and directly participated at the end when you put the cruciatus on the guy who wanted to blindside me.
"After Blaise took those three away, we all went back to the house, and a couple of hours later, I left again. When I disapparated from just outside the wards, I went to the western front, in France, in 1918. Kingsley and Blaise were there, and I found out about the temporal anomalies, and the theory that someone is doing some intentional cutting and splicing.
"I also learned that the people working on the problem theorize that you and I are somehow of interest to whomever is experimenting with time. Oh, it's not time travel as we think of it, either. It's an intentional interruption of two streams and re-connecting the disparate ends. Then the experts have to do time repair to get the streams matched back up again. So far, there hasn't been any permanent damage, but that could change the next time this happens.
"Another thing, I met James Potter in France. He's involved in repair. He helped the proper people in our stream get a repair function set up. He's not my dad, of course, he's James Potter from his stream. That's how I knew to ask for James Potter, back there. It looks like James Potter has something to do with repairing the anomalies, something to remember if this happens to you, and I'm not there."
Daphne poured herself a cup of tea, then she looked at Harry.
"Please," Harry said, and she poured a second cup.
Daphne picked up her cup and took a sip.
"So, were you going to bother to tell me, or wait for me to find out by myself?" Daphne asked.
"Of course I was going to tell you," Harry said. "It was just an accident that we ran into one another today, then we got involved with Grimmauld Place, and it just never seemed to be the thing to do, until we walked out of the other fireplace and into Blaise. The thing is, I'd been told the subject is very secret, and time repair is responding. For all I knew, it could have been all over, problem solved. We just found out that isn't the case."
Daphne sat, pondering.
"It's possible it's a shared hallucination. We did share dreams. Even with magic, I don't know how to explain that, and I searched the literature. Do we have any evidence from any of your episodes that they actually occurred?" Daphne asked.
"Maybe," Harry said. "Go to the bedroom and bring back whatever is lying across the chair opposite the bed."
Daphne looked puzzled, but got up and walked down the hall. A minute later, she came back carrying a twill tunic, and matching trousers, both looking soiled but quite serviceable.
"There's our answer," Harry said. "I was half hoping it wouldn't be there. At least that would mean I was crazy, and not an unwilling participant in someone's time experiments."
Daphne sat down again on the couch and took another sip of tea.
"We need to think this through," she said. "We need to coordinate. I don't know what we can do tonight, but going through tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, not knowing if we can apparate or use the floo without jumping to another time stream, that's just not viable. What if James Potter isn't in the next stream one of us jumps to? What if time repair isn't available in the next place? There must be an infinite number of things that could go wrong, and a limited number of ways they can go right. This has to be fixed, Harry. I have to know everything you know, as soon as you know it, and I'll reciprocate. That's if anything happens to me, without you along."
"You know what else we have to discuss, don't you? Harry said. "You're a very smart witch."
Daphne nodded, face flushed. She turned her head to the side and sniffed.
"Tissues?" she asked, and Harry held out a box from the bookcase.
"I want to try going home, and going to work as usual until Wednesday," Daphne said. "Let's keep our lunch plans, but besides that, we won't see each other. If either of us gets diverted between now and then, assuming we get back, we'll send a patronus to the other, immediately. You find out to whom we report these incidents. You'll have to tell Kingsley everything you've already told me. He will probably be annoyed you've violated security, but I'll be happy to tell him he's all wet.
"I'm going to go. You stay, I don't want to have us together in the floo again, in case that was the trigger. I'll let you know I've arrived. The lynx has proven reliable, and you said giving them something to do is good for them."
"Your lynx did a great job back there," Harry said. "I probably should have mentioned that earlier."
Daphne stood, reaching out her hand to Harry. When he took it, she pulled him to her, wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a kiss. For the first time she pushed right past his closed lips, taking what seemed to Harry an eternity or two, before pulling away. She looked into his eyes and ran her fingers through the hair at the back of Harry's head.
"If that stag had jumped the ditch back at Hogwarts, we'd have a ten-year-old by now," she whispered, then, "Oh, Harry, you're presenting with a physical response to stimulus! How sweet."
Daphne walked into the fireplace, gave Harry a smile, dropped some floo powder, and said, "Greengrass Manor." Then she was gone.