What Else Can We Do?

Part 1:

The Dreamers

Chapter 10:

'But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down

Redeem the time, redeem the dream

The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile'

-'Ash Wednesday' by T.S. Eliot

A great glowing orb of light stood before them in the darkness. At its centre, an agitated cluster of runes flickered here and there, unable to leave but still throwing itself at the edges of its prison. Harry watched it, then reached out and caught it with a hand. It changed in his grip from runes to the ghostly strands of a memory, then just as swiftly to a sensation that reverberated up his arm and made him grimace. He looked to Hermione, who, in the strange shadow of the bond looked like she'd been dry-brushed silver, nodded to him.

'The last thing we need to add is its set of limitations before we assign it a physical trigger,' Hermione said as she too reached deep into the orb until the light just touched her shoulders. With a frown of concentration, a length of barbed wire sprang forth from her palms made from liquid darkness. She gripped and wrapped it about the squirming, nearly completed spell in Harry's grasp. The barbed wire passed through Harry's hand as if it wasn't there, crowding the runes tightly together.

Hermione stepped back as Ron came forward. This shared mindscape of theirs created by the bond had the essence of a dream, and held echoes of their own minds. Harry could hear the crunch of gravel as Hermione took her place as an observer again, and behind her Harry saw the ghostly echoes of her mindscape: a road, a paved side-walk and a stop sign, all receding into the darkness. Tall silhouettes of trees loomed over their heads, reminding Harry of their detention in first year that took them into the Forbidden Forest, courtesy of Ron and his determination to take a place he feared and to make it into a bastion in his mind. Harry couldn't see the echoes of his own mind but he could smell the sea, like he sometimes did at Hogwarts because of the loch that connected the Black Lake to the ocean. Harry turned the cluster over for Ron to inspect further.

Harry didn't know why but it still struck him how strange it was to see each other perform magic without wands. It didn't seem real somehow, but it was just another jarring reminder of what had changed. It was a very human thing to need a wand, he was learning. They were odd beings that had magic but not the body to act as a conduit for it as most magical creatures did. As he, an incubus, did.

It was odd to think that once he did not feel his magic as he did now. Before, it'd been isolated to incidents of spell casting – the initial rush of magic down his wand arm, the small awed glow after the spell was released, the hollow feeling of magical exhaustion – but now it was everything and everywhere. He could feel it throughout his body, racing along nerve endings, seeping its roots into the bond, mixing those tendrils of Ron and Hermione's magic with his into something new. Once he thought that there was only Light and Dark Magic, but there had always been Wild Magic behind it all, he realised. He could feel it in everything. It danced over his skin, as eager as an excited child to embrace him and his own. And like other magic, it was not inherently good or evil. It just was.

It was hard to think of how that once frightened him.

'All right, time to add the trigger,' Ron said, glancing up at him before turning to Hermione. 'I think the good old 'swish and flick' would do nicely.'

Hermione rolled her eyes. 'It'll do, I suppose.'

Ron grinned at her as he added the components: memories of both mind and body alike. Harry could feel the addition, the quiver of his arm as the muscle memory was added, the sudden influx of Hermione and Aberforth's Arithmancy equations that dictated cause and effect, amongst others that flashed by too quickly for him to comprehend. The cluster of runes rattled and shook, flashing angrily in its cage of barbed wire.

'You can let it go now, Harry,' Hermione said quietly as she stared at their new spell with something just short of pride. Harry did as she bid and took a step back, fingers still twitching from the contact.

'See you on the other side,' Ron said before giving them a salute. He collapsed into silver smoke that spread and petered out. Harry heard a wind that rustled the silhouetted trees above, signalling his parting. Hermione was smiling when he too slipped from their shared mindscape to the dreary reality of the cavern they had yet to find a way out of.

'Wingardium Leviosa.'

Harry couldn't help but grin at the indignant squeak Hermione made when her shirt was pulled up at the front. She caught it just in time before they could get a glimpse of her breasts and resolutely crossed her arms over her chest.

'Ronald Weasley!' she said with a glare that only faded when Ron sidled closer and placated her with a soft apology, a charming smile and a kiss. Just as Ron looked comfortably forgiven, Harry lifted his hand and made a swish and flick motion, his smile just a little evil.

Ron went flying into the air, led by his ankle, his tailcoat falling down like two floppy horns behind his head. Hermione jumped back with a startled gasp, then burst into laughter when she saw Ron's shocked face. 'Serves you right,' she said, giggling.

Hand still aloft to maintain the spell, Harry walked towards them, marvelling at the impressive flow of magic that was necessary for them to use magic like this in the mortal realm, or, as Azadeh called it, the Waking. Though their Changing bodies were well on their way to becoming conduits of magic, their power would always be based in the Dreaming. It could only be touched through the path that all beings had to the Dreaming through their subconscious minds. It had been Hermione who first realised this when she tried - and failed - to use Aberforth's wand to cast spells. With the help of Azadeh and Aberforth, she found out that they could create and anchor spells in their minds with Occlumency and Legilimency, imprinting triggers on them so they could achieve manifestation of the spells in this realm. All it took was a trigger now, which sometimes was a few words or a physical movement, though it was slow going when actually creating the spells in question.

'Come on, mate,' Ron said with a tiny dash of plaintive to his tone. 'Let me down please?'

It was a curious, wild joy that swept through him when he came close to Ron, mingled with a mischievousness that seemed insistent on making him smile, even if just a little. Ron stared at him, waiting and interested suddenly, his face at the height of Harry's. He was going red from being upside down and he was trying to no avail to tug his boxer shorts up into their usual position. Harry wanted to kiss him all of a sudden, this Ron that had warm eyes and an embarrassed frown working its way onto his face. So he did, because why not?

It took the sort of courage he wasn't used to drawing upon to be the instigator of affection. It had terrified him actually, in a small way, to think of being the one to reach up, his hands on either side of Ron's face, and kiss him open-mouthed, insistent and with eyes closed, like he was now. Even after they slept together, when he'd felt as if he were in the background of things, touching only when he was touched, scared of reacting, so sure he was doing something wrong though he didn't know what it was. For all his fears, sex had been more awkward and wonderful than he could've ever imagined. Fears that need and sensation carried him further away from every day.

And this – this could be beautiful, Harry realised dazedly, if he could rise up above his terror of losing them. Ron had a stupid grin on his face when they parted.

'And good morning to you too,' Ron said. Without warning, Ron leant forward and planted a loud and wet raspberry on Harry's forehead, startling him into disengaging the Levitation spell. He landed in a heap on Harry, who grabbed onto Hermione on his way down, causing her to sprawl over the two of them.

'That panned out better in my head,' Ron groaned.

'I'm sure it did,' Harry said with a laugh as he rolled off him.

Hermione settled herself in the crook of Ron's arm as they lay on the ground, smiling a little as she used their new spell to tickle Ron under his nose with one of her curls. Harry put his head on Ron's chest, liking the steady sound of his heartbeat, closing his eyes when Ron brought him closer with his other arm. They lay like this for some time, half in a doze, tired from their morning of spell-crafting, knowing that for once Aberforth wouldn't scold them for slacking since the old man was off scouring the cavern for a way out, intent on working out the ancient mechanism that sealed them in. It was when Harry was close to sleep that Ron spoke, quiet and thoughtful, 'I've been wondering about this bond.'

Hermione hummed encouragingly as she snuggled closer.

'I know Aberforth said that he created it himself but what kind of bond did he base it off?' Ron continued, looking up at the far off ceiling of the cavern.

Hermione shifted and sighed, 'My guess is that it's a variant of a wizarding marriage bond.'

'Makes sense,' Harry said, tilting his head back to look at them. 'What with the fidelity clause.'

They fell into a comfortable silence that stretched and yawned like Harry did, disturbed only, when out of the blue, Ron said, 'You know . . . I wouldn't mind being a Granger. Ron Granger. Got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?'

Hermione propped herself up on her arm and frowned at Ron. 'Really?' she asked with surprise. 'But what about your - '

'Nah, there are too many Weasleys out there. The world needs a few more Grangers.'

Harry watched as Hermione became still, her expression curiously blank. With a nagging feeling that something was awry, he simply said, 'I agree.'

That seemed to shake Hermione out of it and she turned to him, a peculiar mixture of concern and disbelieving. 'There aren't many Potters left. Why don't we be Potters instead?'

Shrugging a shoulder, Harry replied, 'That old twit made an alternate timeline by going back and changing things. This universe already has a Harry Potter – it doesn't need two. But I think it needs a Harry Granger. After all, it seems only Grangers get things done around here.'

She sat up and tousled his hair for that. Ron raised a fist into the air and said, 'Here's to being a Granger!'

Harry would've joined Ron in his cheer had he not caught the look on Hermione's face. She had a trembling hand on her stomach and eyes that were dark and terrified.

With a few words, she turned their world upside down and sideways.

'I think I'm pregnant,' she said.

End of Part 1: The Dreamers

To be continued in Part 2: The Dream Walker