What Else Can We Do?

Part 1:

The Dreamers

Chapter 4:

'There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.'

-'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by T.S. Elliot

Ron would've said she was 'doing her thing'.

She supposed she was, though she wouldn't have been so vague. Hermione would've called it taking stock of their situation, which entailed a number of hypotheses based on the data she'd gleaned so far, all of which would need to be thoroughly tested. It didn't help that Aberforth hadn't been as forthcoming as she would've like after his long-winded confession. It seemed to have taken a lot out of him, reducing him to an annoyingly tight-lipped state.

She sighed and put her hands in her pockets. She had excused herself earlier to go for a walk, to have room to think without the pressing presence of Ron and Harry's fear and anger, but her mind churned over everything Aberforth had said just as much in company as it did in solitude. On the bright side, Aberforth had given them clothes. As old fashioned and drab as they were, it made them decent. Granted, they looked like they'd been through a war-zone now, all worn with fraying patches and lines of stitching where the holes had been fixed. They seemed Edwardian at a glance, the white shirt she wore practically a night dress it was so big, while the breeches went to her ankles. That man is ridiculously tall, she couldn't help thinking as she tugged at her shirt.

Everything so far pointed towards Aberforth telling the truth. If she were being honest with herself, she didn't want to believe him. It was too big, too much all of a sudden. She thought that they'd have more time. More time before the war demanded they become soldiers. Hermione brushed her hair away from her face with hand, frowning in thought, pushing away the mindless panic that simmered underneath her calm. She'd inspected Aberforth's pack when he hadn't been looking. He had all kinds of things, mostly weapons which was alarming, but it was his collection of firearms that interested Hermione the most. She'd never seen anything like it – the odd designs, the strange mixture of metal and wood, the runes incorporated on both seamlessly. There was even a crank up box with a strap so a person could carry it on their shoulder which could connect to the firearms via system of intriguing tubes. She surmised that that was the steam aspect that'd been mentioned as part of the 'unholy' trinity their future counterparts used to fight a war against Dark wizards.

Hermione stopped and looked out at the cavern, at the way nightfall made it seem ominous. That'd been the most startling thing about what Aberforth had told them – that their future selves planned this and sent Aberforth out to fulfil their mission. And it upset her how much she could actually see herself doing the same. Without her knowing it, she'd somehow acquired a resolve that frightened her in that she knew she'd do anything to stop Voldemort. And she was afraid that Aberforth knew that and was banking on it.

Her future self didn't think her resolve enough though, not against Voldemort. No, they had to be something more than human apparently. She scrunched her hands into fists in her pockets. The anger was toxic, even overwhelming, but it certainly had no place now considering their situation. They needed a clever and rational plan to get out of this mess. Hermione knew that if she didn't do the thinking then none of them would.

And that would be a lot of thinking since they were alone now, without friends or family to rely on. They were strangers in this time period. We must be in the year 1991. Our first year at Hogwarts, she thought wistfully, remembering how excited she'd been. There was another younger Hermione out there, stepping into the Wizarding world for the first time. This was that girl's world, not theirs. She shoved away the odd, numbing sense of loss that crowded her, that threatened to swallow her whole, that would make thinking impossible after it made her fully realise the enormity of what she'd lost.

Like the anger, it had no place here.

As she made her way back to the flickering light of their fire, Hermione firmly turned her thoughts to their more practical issues, like how they'd survive in the cavern until they found a safe exit. They had running water from the stream, wood for fire from the trees that lined it and fish for food which Aberforth caught with a small net. The only worry for now was if one of them got sick or injured since they didn't have their wands and Aberforth could only do rudimentary spells until his magical core repaired itself.

It was like she could smell the cooking fish a mile away and with every step she got hungrier. She hadn't had a thing all day. But when she sat down at the fire, finding a spot between Harry and Ron, their dinner was a strangely queasy sight.

'Can't we go find something else to eat?' Ron asked plaintively, looking a bit ridiculous in a tattered tailcoat and white boxer shorts. 'I hate fish.'

Harry nodded in hasty agreement, unwilling to even look at the fish, now browning over the coals. Aberforth raised a white bushy eyebrow at them. 'None of this is for you, I'm afraid,' he said in a gruff and uncomfortable voice. 'You've Changed. You're no longer human.'

'You've said as much, no need to remind us,' Harry retorted testily, wearing a scowl, pulling at the material of the vest he wore as if it were annoying him, his trousers rolled up at the ends almost comically. They may have made a show of disregarding Aberforth's words, but Hermione could see how startled they were and the exact moment when their minds finally began to wonder what he meant. The shock had worn off then.

Hermione looked at Harry, wondering when he'd notice that his glasses were gone, or that he didn't need them now. Harry's longer hair was hiding it well, but she was pretty sure his scar was gone too. Ron seemed relieved and bewildered that the scars the brains left on him after their jaunt in Department of Mysteries had disappeared. She caught him a few times just staring at his arms, an absent hand rubbing his neck where the worst had been. Her changes were small compared to the two of them: her hair had calmed down to curls instead of frizz and her breasts had gotten bigger. She couldn't help but blush as she remembered the shock of her rude awakening that morning. And the unwelcome realisation that a hand and an arm wasn't enough anymore to cover herself up in a pinch.

Otherwise, they hadn't changed. They looked human, for all of Aberforth's assertions to the contrary. She didn't feel different.

'What are we then?' Hermione asked, her tone revealing the barest hint of her burning curiosity. She poked the glowing embers with a stick before she gave Aberforth a side-long glance. She warmed her hands as he gave her a long and calculating look.

'That's a good question,' Harry said mildly with angry eyes that belied his tone. 'Do tell.'

When Aberforth refused to reply, Ron spoke, his frustration making him almost hiss, 'What's the point in sending us out there with absolutely nothing? Did you do that to your people when you sent them out to fight Death Eaters? Did you let them be cannon fodder?' His glare became a scowl and he added in a mutter, 'This just stupid. Bloody stupid, if you ask me.'

Aberforth flinched. 'I will not be spoken to in such a manner,' he said coldly.

'I damn well have the right to when it's the lives of me and my friends you're toying with,' Ron replied just as sharply. 'Answer her bloody question.'

Hermione had the inexplicable urge to give Ron a high-five, but stopped herself in time. She watched Aberforth instead as they wore him down with their stares alone.

'All right, all right,' Aberforth relented, 'Just get those damning eyeballs off me. One of the terms of the deal with the daemon was that you three would become like him – an incubus. A succubus in your case, Miss Granger,' he amended. 'I don't know the finer detail of what that entails, but I know this: you don't need food anymore. You feed off sexual energy.'

Hermione blinked. She made the conscious effort to keep her expression completely neutral. Something that Ron and Harry seemed entirely incapable of doing.

Aberforth continued, as if the truth hadn't floored his listeners, 'Now, if two of you will comply with a small demonstration that'll make this fact clear to you…'

'I'll do it,' Hermione offered, throwing caution to the wind. They'd gotten the old man into a corner at last and made him spill the beans. They couldn't have him retreating into his shell again before they got the information they needed.

'Good show,' Aberforth said, a little taken aback. 'Now you need a lad to kiss.'

With barely a pause, Hermione turned and asked, 'Ron?'

Ron looked at her with wide, wide eyes. He nodded quickly when the silence became questioning and moved closer to her, cheeks flushed red, eyes warm with disbelieving delight. When he reached for her, his hands were shaking, just like hers. She tried to remain unaffected, because they had company, but this was Ron. She couldn't not react to that hopeful smile of his. Though if she were being honest with herself, she would have never imagined their first kiss to be like this.

But she had to know the truth, even if it was utterly ridiculous.

The first thought she had was that Ron's hands were warm, their touch gentle, as one rested on the side of her neck, the other moving slowly from her cheek to cradle the back of her head, fingers sliding into her hair as he leaned forward. She found herself reaching out to him, touching his chest, gripping the fold of his coat. With a need that was independent of thought, she pulled him closer and closed the gap between them. She'd been kissed before, but this was on an entirely new level. She didn't know if it was because this was Ron, or because they had Changed – or if it was a mixture of both – but it didn't matter right then. Not when it could make Ron gasp in that breathless way. Not when she could feel his smile against her lips. Not when there was a hunger for more, more taste and heat, more skin and contact –

When they parted for breath, Hermione blushed when she realised that she had somehow found her way onto Ron's lap, her legs on either side of him, her arms around his neck. She clambered off him with a muttered apology to Harry and Aberforth, embarrassed that she let it go so far in their presence. She tried to stuff her shirt back into her breeches as subtly as she could, but Ron looked far too pleased with himself for having gotten his hands under it in the first place to make that possible.

'Well,' Aberforth started with a frown, uncertain about how to proceed. 'Do you feel . . . stronger than before? Not as . . . hungry?'

Hermione was hungry for something, but it wasn't for what Aberforth meant. She could still taste Ron on her tongue, her skin still tingled where he had touched her, her whole body heady and wanting more. It took her longer than she liked to concentrate on Aberforth's question, exacerbated no doubt by Ron's wandering hand tracing her lower back. She looked at Ron and couldn't help grinning at his expression, so open and bright, unable to take his eyes off her.

'What do you reckon?' she asked Ron softly, nudging him playfully with her shoulder.

'Oh,' Ron blinked and looked back at Aberforth a bit reluctantly. Hermione suddenly wanted that look back, the wonder in his eyes. 'I don't know . . . I think I feel stronger. My stomach doesn't ache anymore.'

'Me too,' Hermione agreed in a murmur, eyes wide.

'That kiss should sustain you two for a while,' Aberforth said in-between bites, breaking his fish apart with his hands. It did not surprise her that he was stoic in the face of all this, but it did when Harry wasn't.

When Hermione looked away from Ron, who had never been so fascinating, close enough for her to inspect every little perfect detail, she saw Harry. She recognised immediately the way he had withdrawn into himself, closing all the windows and locking up all the doors like he did after Sirius died.

He looked like something important had been stolen from him and it scared her because she didn't understand what is was, or why.