Reverse

by Lady Moonglow

Hermione is unexpectedly swept into a dystopian world of opposites where Dumbledore reigns as Dark Lord and Muggle technology and the Dark Arts have revolutionized Britain. A Light wizard resistance led by Tom Riddle and the Malfoys has been left to a nightmarish fate. Can Hermione, posing as her darker incarnation, help save a world more shattered than her own? HG/DM

42. Ravenclaws With Wands

A/N: Ooo, I've missed all of you tons! I could not be happier that Bella/Hermione scene went down so well, since I was a bit nervous about making sure it was just right. I so loved reading your reviews (and much appreciated well wishes for the surgery). If I haven't responded to your message, it's because I have been typing away like crazy to get you another chapter out before it happens. And I made it by the skin of my teeth! :)

Fun fact: Did you know that if you have read this entire fanfiction (thus far), you've read the length of the Prisoner of Azkaban AND the Order of the Phoenix combined (JK's longest book)? BROWNIE POINTS TO YOU ALL FOR STICKING WITH MY SCRIBBLES!

Ravenclaws With Wands

White holiday lights sparkled merrily, strung with artistry and care around the small fir tree beside the hearth. Across from a crackling fire, Hermione curled beneath a soft fleece blanket, gazing with a soft smile into the dancing flames.

The tranquility, peace and comfort around her had helped greatly to soothe the hollowness in her abdomen that had nothing to do with physical hunger. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew she was perfectly safe, and all was well.

At last, she was home.

The sofa beside her depressed.

"Here we are," Jean Granger said in her no-nonsense way, holding out a steaming mug and keeping another for herself. "Your favorite: Hot water, lemon, no tea."

"Mm. Thanks, Mum." Hermione wrapped her hands around the rust-red glazed clay, savoring the water's heat as it seeped through her skin and up through her arms. "I needed this tonight."

Her mother pulled a knitted throw from the basket beside the couch, tossing it over their laps. "There. Now we can have a proper chat, just like old times." She held up the edge of the pale green afghan, crafted as a summer project when Hermione was ten. "It seems like only yesterday you and I were making this. I remember how determined you were to make each and every stitch exactly the same distance from the others."

Hermione giggled, shaking her head at the memory of her younger self. "Yes, and I remember how many more weeks it took to finish because of it." As she ran her hand over the precisely knitted twists of soft yarn, she could still sense a ghost of the pride she'd had as a child once she'd finished it. She let out a small, heavy breath. "Being here, it's so easy to feel as if no time has passed at all. But it has."

"Yes. It has, hasn't it?" Jean's smile became nostalgic. Taking one of Hermione's curls, she gently ran her fingers down the length of the strand. "Now you're a woman, living your own life, making your own decisions — not that you weren't ever before. I am proud of you, Hermione."

"Some credit should go to you and dad, obviously." Hermione sighed contentedly, leaning the side of her head against the sofa and smiling warmly at the woman who had never once doubted her worth or her capability. "I've missed this. Our talks. Our crafts." Her grin widened. "Your holiday squash risotto, which is still second to none…"

"Thank you, darling. As far as risottos come it really is choice," her mother mused. "Now that I think about it, I'm quite certain you know all the recipes by now. Your father and I may just take tomorrow off and let you do the cooking."

Hermione laughed. "If you fancy burnt turkey with a side of soggy stuffing, by all means, go right ahead."

"Oh, I'm certain you'd have more success than your father. As I recall last year he was so distracted by one of his Sunshine Tour tourneys the turkey was hopelessly singed. Of course he tried to pass it off as charbroiled."

Hermione made a face. "Oh, Robert! How typical," she groaned, shaking her head. She could just see her father being so engrossed in one of his beloved televised golf opens that he wouldn't even notice the smell of burning food. "Hm. Perhaps you're right, Mum," she said in mock seriousness. "We may all be significantly more well off if I did the majority of the cooking this year…"

"Well, if you insist, we — and by that, I mean I — can certainly be your sous chef," Jean said with a chuckle, patting the top of her daughter's leg. "My goodness, I so love seeing you here, hearing your voice. Stimulating as Robert's and my conversations may be, this house can get awfully quiet without you." She sat up then, her dark brows knitting slightly in a frown. "Now, your father's told me everything about this 'resistance.' What is this utter madness happening at your school? I know how strongly you believe in these things and I trust your judgement, but this does seem awfully dangerous."

Hermione averted her gaze to her mug and shrugged her shoulders casually. "It isn't, not really. No more than usual, anyway." Ironically, though perhaps no parents on earth had ever emphasized that knowledge was power as much as Jean and Robert Granger had to her, Hermione had always endeavored to keep them blissfully ignorant of the more pernicious elements of the wizarding world.

Until she'd needed to erase their memories and give them new ones.

Through a blissful haze, Hermione abruptly realized that her mother shouldn't know any of these things — shouldn't be in this house anymore, shouldn't remember their silly holiday traditions and past Yule baking mishaps…

Shouldn't remember that Hermione was her daughter at all.

Her focus returned to her mother's face, swiftly taking in every line, every detail that she hadn't been certain she'd ever truly see again.

"This can't be," she whispered. The hand holding her quarter-filled mug slowly fell to the couch while the other gently reached up toward Jean's face. "You can't possibly be here. This… This can't be real."

Jean's smile drooped sadly. "Hermione, what is it I always told you before we knew you had magic?" She gently caught Hermione's hand in her own. "If you're feeling something, and experiencing it with your own five senses… then to you, it is real."

Hermione's eyes began to sting and burn.

Jean's hand was solid, comforting, warm. There.

Her mother was right. Whether or not she was truly home right now…

It felt real enough.

And there was one thing she desperately wanted, needed to say before what might be her only chance was gone.

"I'm sorry, mum," she choked out — words that had been bottled up inside her since before the war had begun. "I'm so sorry I made you forget — erased your whole life—"

"Oh, love…" Jean opened her arms and guided her daughter against her side, and the tears Hermione had never shed after she had sent her parents away began to stream down her face.

"I didn't want to," she cried. "I tried to think of anything else — anything — but this was the only way I knew you would be safe—"

"Hermione. Hermione," her mother interrupted, gently cupping Hermione's cheek and firmly meeting her eyes. "My darling, brilliant girl. Right now, the only thing we want to know is that the one who is safe is you."

Hermione's shoulders contracted into a sob as the grief she'd carried for one and a half agonizing years poured from her with the potency of a great and terrible flood. She buried her face in Jean's purple sweater, gasping in a shuddering breath. "I — I miss you — so much…"

"We miss you too, my love," Jean breathed, holding her tightly. "Every moment of every day."

She tried to memorise the feeling of her mother's arms around her, the love and forgiveness in her voice. Tears clogged her throat. "I wish… all of this was over — that we were all home together," she said thickly. "I wish—"

"Well, that's ridiculous talk, Hermione. You are home."

The straightforward, slightly teasing male voice was unexpected, and Hermione jerked backward, sniffing and scrubbing at her eyes.

Then the familiarity of the speaker registered, and her head shot up over the back of the couch.

For a moment, she wasn't certain if she was staring at friend or foe.

"Harry," she breathed in surprise.

As he stepped out of the shadows of the entrance hall and into the twinkling lights of the Yule tree, Hermione saw his glasses and the lightning bolt scar and a silly grin he looked like he was trying to hold back, and she knew immediately that both he and the ginger beside him were the friends she had always known.

"Harry! Ron!" she exclaimed joyfully, leaping from the sofa. Seeing her two best wizarding friends standing in the midst of her Muggle world was a truly foreign but inexpressibly welcome sight. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Harry laughed. "What do you think? Wishing you a happy Yule, of course! That is what your family celebrates, isn't—?"

Hermione flung herself on the dark-haired man before he could finish, happiness welling through the entirety of her being. "Oh, you've no idea how much I've missed the both of you!"

Harry hugged her back tightly. "Believe me, so have we," he said, his voice choked. "It isn't the same without you here. Ron's been running amuck without you to keep him in line."

"Only me? What about you, Mr. Here-I'll-Have-a-Killing-Curse-In-The-Chest,-Thanks?"

Though Ron had clearly meant it as a joke, Hermione grasped Harry's shoulders, searching his expression. "What does he mean? Are you alright? After the Killing Curse that destroyed the Horcrux in your scar… the fight with Voldemort — you're still… I mean — What's become of everything? Everyone?"

He of course was able to translate the half-formed questions spilling from her lips and smiled grimly, shaking his head. "No, no. No more Killing Curses, thankfully. It's over, Hermione. There's still loads to do, quite obviously, but he's — he's gone."

A deep frown crossed his features, and he shook his head, letting out a long breath. "I hate this. It isn't right, not having you here to—"

"Alright, alright, we get it, mate," Ron cut in, sounding indignant. "What is this? A half minute hug for him and none for me?"

Hermione choked back a strangled laugh and released Harry, turning to the last of the trio. "Oh, come here, you great lout."

"Great lout? We're separated for months, and the first thing you do is bark out an order and call me a great lout?" he demanded, causing her to burst into laughter. "For crying out loud, Hermione. I'll have you know I've been searching tirelessly for a way to bring you back since the moment we figured out what in the bloody hell was going on."

Harry rolled his eyes. "That may be a bit of an exaggeration, Ron… Not that, erm, most of us haven't been searching tirelessly for you since the moment we figured it out," he added hastily to Hermione.

She stepped back in surprise. "You have?"

Ron looked less than thrilled. "Have we? Obviously! Leaving us with that two-timing, uppity cow? How could you? You've got to come home. She's driving us bloody mad—"

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Hermione's eyes flashed open.

She sat up swiftly, her heart racing.

She was in the midst of utter blackness.

As her eyes adjusted, the room around her slowly came into focus, but it was absolutely dark. Empty.

But Mum…

Harry and Ron…

So rarely did Hermione dream — beside the occasional nightmarish flashback — that it took her a moment to realize that this had been one.

Bitter disappointment swept through her.

She released a deep breath and let her forehead fall into her hands, her tired mind reluctant to cede unconsciousness. The last 36 hours had been mentally and emotionally exhausting, and she couldn't believe the amount of sleep she'd needed to feel halfway recovered from it all. She forced herself to blindly reach in the direction she knew a lamp would be, turning it on while simultaneously summoning the Marauders' Map.

The parchment showed Harry Evans and Cassiopeia Longbottom standing in the seventh floor hallway outside the Room of Requirements' entrance.

Her brow knit. They must have guessed she was here when she hadn't shown up on Harry's Marauders' Map - beyond the Chamber of Secrets, the Room was the only other Unplottable location on Hogwarts grounds (that she knew of, at least). But why not simply wait until she returned to the Head Common Room? Unless…

Hurriedly, she checked the time, and let out a quiet sigh of relief: 21:13, only slightly after curfew.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

The sound was impatient and demanding — certainly Harry's hand.

Hermione sighed softly and rose to her feet, already readying herself to throw him out if he decided to be a prying arse about absolutely anything. As the two sharp knocks came again, she unlocked the several advanced variations of the Colloportus Charm she'd placed upon the door and opened it cautiously…

To an empty hallway.

She frowned, gripping her wand.

From thin air, Harry said dryly, "Perhaps you'd be so kind as to let us by?"

"Oh! Yes, of course," she said, quickly moving aside and giving her head a firm shake to wake herself further. Momentarily, she heard the sound of footsteps, and the door was yanked from her hands and slammed shut.

Immediately, Peia flashed into sight, flinging her arms around Hermione's waist in a tight hug. "Hermione!"

A small 'oof!' escaped her lips. "Woah!" Her arms automatically moved to hug the spindly second year in return, though she couldn't restrain a slight laugh of surprise. "I'm glad to see you too, Peia."

The youngest Black looked like she hadn't returned to Gryffindor Common room all day, still in jeans and a sweater, her designer leather bookbag (nothing less for a Longbottom, even an adopted one) slung over her shoulder. Harry too was still dressed in one of his Quidditch practice uniforms. As he tossed his Invisibility Cloak over his arm, Hermione questioningly glanced at him over Peia's wild head of hair. "You're making house calls now?"

"Don't look at me," he said, sounding irate. "She's the one who dragged me here. Insisted it just couldn't wait."

Peia turned to wrinkle her nose at him.

"You did," he said, looking back at Hermione. "If you hadn't decided to go galavanting around Hogsmeade all day and I hadn't had Quidditch practice when you got back, I would have much preferred this all happen before curfew, with Weasley and his minions skulking about. What the devil are you doing out so late — here, of all the ruddy places in the world?"

Hermione ignored his barked inquisition. "It's a good thing I did go gallivanting around Hogsmeade or I wouldn't have learnt some critical information about the next month and a half," she responded. "Why didn't you tell me we're expected to attend these Elite holiday parties?"

For a moment, his brows simply lifted. "That's your critical information?" When she simply arched an eyebrow expectantly in return, he retorted, "Hm, I don't know… perhaps because on our current list of priorities those damned social functions rank about as high as a growth-stunted dwarf?"

"Do they? The paparazzi certainly thought otherwise. There were cameras everywhere — at Hogsmeade! All of them wanted to know which invitations I'll be accepting, who's designing my dresses, who's going to be my escort…" Hermione shook her head in disgust. "I'd like to know how on earth Hogwarts can call itself a prodigious pillar of learning when it lets those parasites halfway near its students and allows those students to skip halfway across the country for nights of drunken debauchery!"

Beside her, Peia burst into giggles.

Harry shrugged. "It isn't as if the school's committing a heinous crime; only Elites of age can skive off for them."

"Only Elites of age. That gives us — what — twelve students, at least? And with N.E.W.T.s coming up for some of them!" Hermione briefly pursed her lips disapprovingly, then crossed her arms. "Harry, how in Godric's name do you expect me to convincingly 'socialize' with hundreds of posh people I've never met like we're old society confidantes?"

"Christ. It is late and I refused to be sucked into Episode Fifty-Eight of the Great Granger Melodrama." Harry shoved both his hands through his thick hair, rubbing his temples. "Put it on ice, will you? If this in any way threatens our plans I'm certain there'll be a haut monde tutorial in your future somewhere."

A frustrated sigh slipped past her lips. Having to chat undetected with countless Sovereignty Ministers and possibly even Dumbledore himself certainly didn't seem like a small thing to her.

Peia pushed herself up on tiptoe to lean close to Hermione's ear. "Ignore him; he's grumpy he didn't get to spend any time with Pansy."

"I am right here, mandrake, and I'm not particularly appreciative of being referenced in the third person, thanks." Harry's gaze shifted to their surroundings. "Where is this?"

Hermione was surprised his voice lacked the thin veil of derision she always half expected from him. She followed his sweep of the room's pale seafoam green walls and white trimmings, minimally decorated with a few beloved photographs, gifted knickknacks and paintings she had accumulated throughout the course of her childhood. And, of course, two giant bookcases. "This is my bedroom. At home."

Harry's eyebrow arched slightly. "Bigger than I expected, from the way My would complain about it. Whined about living in prison-like quarters after the malpractice lawsuits."

Hermione's eyebrows flew up. "Malpractice lawsuits?"

He idly lifted a picture frame with an image of her between her parents, studying it. "After third year. Their lifestyle was downgraded rather severely." He grimaced. "Might've kept it quiet from the rest of the wizarding world, but we never heard enough about her 'dreadful misfortune.' Don't think I've ever seen anyone throw the fits she did when she first got her parents' posts about it."

"Well, that certainly never happened where I'm from," Hermione said tautly, snorting to herself. "Malpractice lawsuits, really. I can't believe they would ever…"

She trailed off, biting her lip. She was in no position to defend the moral fibre of the Universe B version of her parents as if it was the same as her own, was she? Who knew the type of people Jean and Robert Granger had been in this world?

After all, they had produced My.

"You know," she said thoughtfully, "you're the first witch and wizard who've actually seen where I live."

A painful realization stabbed through her stomach.

Draco knew the song she and her Granda would sing in front of the telly.

He'd probably seen her home. He'd probably seen her bedroom. He'd probably seen everything.

"No one ever visited you?" Peia asked, sounding surprised.

Hermione swallowed back the sudden emotion thickening her throat, blinking rapidly. "Well, no." She had never considered it to be the travesty Peia's tone made it appear. "Harry usually had a… rather difficult time getting out during summer holiday, and Ron—" she laughed slightly, "Ron wouldn't know how to find his way through a Muggle town if a form of public transit hit him head on." She smiled fondly as she thought of the pair of them. "By the time we all became a bit more mobile, the worse everything had become. I much preferred to keep it all away from my parents, to the extent I could."

She noticed both Peia and Harry had turned to study her with interest.

"What?" she asked.

Harry shrugged a shoulder, shifting his focus to one of the bookcases. "Don't talk much about your world, do you? You think we're mysterious — look at yourself."

Hermione stared at him. "Most of the time I get the impression you don't want to hear about it."

"Most of the time, I don't." He leant down to peer at some of the lower shelves, squinting. "Do you seriously have three copies of Hogwarts, A History?" he asked in astonishment.

"One's a first edition, the other's signed by the most recent editor and the last I've taken notes in since I was eleven," she countered defensively.

Harry shook his head, muttering something that sounded like, "Bleeding nutcases, the both of you." He straightened, gesturing toward Peia. "I'm off. D'you think you can return her to Gryffindor Tower without incident?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course. Obviously."

"Bye, Harry! Sleep well!" Peia chirped.

He grunted in response, throwing his Invisibility Cloak over himself. Before he pulled it shut, his emerald gaze met Hermione's. "I'll see you tomorrow."

The words held more than a simple parting wish: The next meeting of the group of seven… no, nine, now that she assumed Blaise and Bella had joined, was tomorrow morning.

Hermione nodded once, resolutely, more to herself than to him. Whatever else Tom Riddle, Bella Black or anyone, for that matter, was going to throw at her, she was determined to continue to stand her ground. It was as simple as that, really.

"Check your Map," she added tersely.

"I was planning on it," his now-annoyed voice retorted from seemingly empty space. She heard the sound of parchment ruffling before her bedroom door opened and shut.

Well. Wasn't that delightful.

She wasn't being entirely sarcastic — for Harry Evans, that had been rather civil, and surprisingly free of any hidden agendas she had partially come to expect from her interactions with Harry, Snape and Riddle. She couldn't help but smile at his reaction her Hogwarts, A History collection.

Harry and Ron would have no doubt said the very same thing.

Her smile drooped slightly at the faint memory of dear friends, reuniting in a dream. She was certain Harry and Ron had been in it, and… and her mother, too. But what had been said was lost to her, now, though she'd only awoken minutes earlier. She could only recall that…

She had been so happy.

With a small sigh, she turned back to Peia. The bushy-haired girl was exploring Hermione's former living space much like Harry had, moving from her chest of drawers to her bookcase, pulling Mohandas Gandhi's Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth off the shelf and then replacing it again. "This room is perfect for you, Hermione," she said. "Sophisticated and full of knowledge, just like you."

Hermione smiled slightly. "Thanks, Peia."

"The room the Loudbottoms shoved me into now is so dark and dreary and still. Like a coffin." Peia sighed, plopping down on Hermione's favourite reading chair, a plush armchair nearly as old as Hermione herself. "I hate it. I miss my room, back home. It was small, but mum and Aunt Cissy and Draco and I would find loads of fun ways to decorate it…"

Immediately, the image of a laughing Draco helping Peia paint her room orange with Albert the Irascible Slytherin-green Puffskein scowling in the background flashed through Hermione's mind. He'd always been so good with his cousin — somehow always knew exactly what to say to make her smile.

Just like he had with Hermione.

Her smile wavered, then slowly fell from her face.

She had been trying so hard not to think of him, and failing miserably. Even the littlest things that day had conjured his likeness — the smell of pine that permeated Dogwood and Deathcap, the platinum flash of a blond-haired paparazzo, the breathtaking, wildly expensive midnight black cloak in the window display of Gladrags Wizardwear painstakingly embedded with tiny enchanted jewels and silky threads that shimmered even in the darkness like constellations in a sky full of stars. The latter had stunned her to place with powerfully mixed emotions, but her gaggle of followers had noticed and fawned over it immediately, urging her to buy it.

It would have been out of character for My to deny herself something she seemed to like, Hermione told herself.

So she did.

The truth was, she felt so badly about their row — as much as yesterday had hurt her, seeing how much Draco had visibly been hurting twisted her heart just as much. At the same time, she knew she was well within her rights to be angry with him, and still was.

Hermione had sorted through the swirl of bewildering revelations to at least settle upon the fact that he certainly wasn't to blame for the visions he'd had of her. Yes, it was utterly unnerving that he — that anyone who'd once been a complete stranger — knew so much about her, but it wasn't as if she'd lived a life she was ashamed of. She supposed that if anyone had been destined to see her memories, know her intimately without her knowledge, she was glad it was him.

What clenched her chest in a vise-like grip was the very clear memory of him saying he hadn't really wanted her there at all.

It went against everything she'd ever known of him, but then again, so did all of it. Keeping a secret like this from her? Pushing her back to her world when until this point he'd only been pulling her toward him?

"Hermione," Peia said quietly, "are you alright?"

Abruptly, Hermione realized her eyes were stinging. She wiped at them roughly, blinking rapidly. "Yes. Of course." She shook her head. "I'm… so sorry, I'm listening, really. You were telling me about your home before the war…?"

For a moment, dark eyes identical to Bellatrix's searched Hermione's gaze. "You really are alright," she said after a moment, sounding relieved.

Hermione's brow furrowed. Though Peia's at times startling 'insights' had become less jolting over time, they were often no less mysterious. "Peia, love, are we… talking about the same thing?"

Peia looked down, curling her legs beneath her on the plush armchair. She fidgeted with her bookbag. "I meant, are you alright with my… mum," she said quietly. "I know you met her yesterday."

Hermione's eyes widened slightly. Rapidly, she replaced the Occlumency shields that had lowered naturally while she had slept, not that she mistrusted Peia in the least. "Did she talk to you about that?" she asked carefully, honestly shocked by the possibility Bella might have.

Peia shook her head limply. Hermione had never seen the usually bright-eyed child look so forlorn. "No. Only that she'd seen you already."

She couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief at that. "Oh." To be honest, she was slightly nervous Bella Black would never forgive her for her impromptu mental cleansing exercise, and could only imagine the stream of delightful ramifications it might have on what was certain to be several interactions between them in the coming weeks. She frowned. "Then why would you—"

She froze mid-thought. "Peia, you didn't see anything about that, did you?"

When the second-year quickly averted her gaze, looking even more uncomfortable, Hermione couldn't stop the horrified expression that spread across her face.

"I didn't mean to!" Peia said quickly. "It just happened. It always just happens." Her voice lowered to a whisper, as if she was embarrassed on behalf of the insane witch who was not her mother. "But I, erm… I couldn't begin to imagine what you probably thought when you saw her. And Draco… Draco thought you might want to have a friend nearby."

Emotion surged through Hermione's chest.

Of course Draco would have been witness to what had happened to her in Malfoy Manor. Now that Hermione thought about it, how often did he check himself before saying Bellatrix's name in front of her, or stop short of speaking about the woman for more than a sentence?

Of course Draco would have immediately wanted to make sure she was alright…

Because he was bloody perfect.

… except when he wasn't.

The corners of her eyes again began to burn.

She cleared her throat. "I'm so sorry you saw that, Peia," she said, upset at herself for allowing memories of Bella Black's utterly evil doppelganger to be anywhere near an area of her mind Peia could access. She wearily rubbed her forehead, sinking down on one of the chair's rather wide, padded arms. "It was my responsibility to shield you from that. Merlin, I can't believe it never occurred to me there was a possibility you could've…"

"It was before you knew I could, Hermione," Peia said with surprising reassurance; Hermione could tell she was trying to sound upbeat. "I see so many things, from everyone. I've gotten loads better at detaching myself from it. Even if it was of… of the other — that awful — her."

Somehow, Hermione doubted that, but she didn't doubt the girl's strength. From Peia's cheerful attitude, sometimes it was easy to forget about her 'gift,' and the constant impact of it on Peia herself. She couldn't imagine how many dark, horrible thoughts and memories Peia had observed, especially in a world like this one.

"That must be hard," she said. "Knowing so much about people, without them having the slightest idea of it."

Peia nodded. "Usually I try not to say anything. People have so many secrets, and they aren't mine to tell. Mum says I shouldn't think too much about most of them, either, because they shouldn't be my burden to bear." She shook her head, her glistening gaze frustrated. "But sometimes a secret means someone needs help. Sometimes I think it's wrong to pretend I don't know about it."

Hermione nodded in complete empathy. "You're so much like me, at your age. I always felt the need to speak up when I noticed something was wrong. I still do, all the time, but in this place, and for us especially… it's incredibly dangerous, Peia. I know how hard that is to hear, believe me, I do," she said fiercely when Peia frowned deeply. She gently squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "You have a big heart, and you're very wise. Someday, when it's safer to act on what you know, I'm very certain you're going to help a lot of people."

Peia sighed, then gave her a wobbly smile. "I hope so." After a moment, she unexpectedly laughed, though weakly, nudging Hermione's leg. "I'm the one who's meant to see you're alright!"

Hermione chuckled. "I'm allowed to return the favor, aren't I? There's no rule that says we can't help each other. And we absolutely should."

Peia gazed up at her, her eyes shining. "You miss your home as much as I miss mine, don't you? That's why you're here tonight, and the Room of Requirements gave you a piece of your world."

Hermione sighed deeply, gazing out around her bedroom sadly. "I do miss it," she said quietly. "I miss it terribly."

She had for a whole year and a half before she'd even arrived in Universe B.

Even still, Hermione hadn't the slightest idea of what Universe A would be like if she returned— if there would even be a "home" to return to. And the theory that Draco could actually be the key that transported her between universes with a simple wish seemed shaky at best.

But she had to admit she felt the smallest comfort that, if true, as mad as it sounded, she might not be condemned to never see her parents or friends again.

"I'd miss you if you left," Peia said suddenly. When Hermione looked at her in surprise, she smiled waveringly. "But I understand. Your place is there, Hermione. Where you're happiest."

Hermione felt her lips turn upward weakly at the sweet girl's consideration — something, it seemed, she hadn't inherited from either parent. "I'd miss you too, Peia." She bit her lip hard, thinking of what she had vowed to Firenze, and later declared furiously to Tom Riddle — to Draco. "But I'm not... going anywhere. Not for a while, anyway."

Against her will, the memory of Draco's hands tracing down her arms, holding her close to him, sent a shiver through her.

No. She couldn't think about that. He had hurt her.

"Peia," she said slowly, as a question that had begun to nag at the back of her mind as soon as Peia began to describe her 'gift' crept forward, "Have you known that… Draco knew me?"

Without an ounce of hesitation, Peia looked up at Hermione and nodded. "Yes."

Even though this was Peia, Hermione was rather astonished at how quickly she admitted to it. She let out a slow breath, nodding as that revelation sank in — that Peia probably knew as much about her as Draco did, if not more. "Don't you think that was my secret to know as much as his?" she asked carefully.

"Yes," Peia agreed wholeheartedly. Her eyes widened slightly. "Oh… I couldn't say anything, Hermione!" she exclaimed as if the very idea of it was unthinkable. "It wasn't my secret to tell!"

Hermione wanted to bury her face in her hands and resisted the motion. She couldn't find it in herself to divert any frustration toward Peia's ingenuousness. Why had Draco done this? Why hadn't he said anything?

At the beginning, she could more than understand, and knowing he'd only believed her to be a hallucination from the extremity of the pain he was experiencing broke something inside her thinking about it even now. But afterward… even if Riddle, self-serving snake that he was, had taken advantage of Draco in a vulnerable moment (and Hermione was furious at him for that), for Draco to have chosen to willingly discuss it with him first…

Well, Hermione didn't know what to think. The man she'd known and valued so deeply and the man Draco had shown her yesterday, apologetic as he was, were two different people, and now, her view of both was shadowed with hurt and distrust. She couldn't help but wonder what else he hadn't told her, wouldn't tell her.

Bloody relationships... now I know why there's so many sodding songs about this bollocks!

Peia tugged on her sleeve then, her angular features solemn and earnest all at once. "I've never seen Draco stop caring about you, Hermione," she said. "For as long as I've known him."

Hermione tried not to look as affected by that as she felt. "Sometimes people change, Peia," she said tonelessly, though she didn't quite believe her own words. "War affects everyone differently."

"Not Draco, not when it comes to you," Peia said firmly. "Oh! He wanted me to… give you something…"

Her heart skipped a beat, and she straightened quickly as Peia began to shuffle through the papers in her bookbag. She suddenly realized how much she wanted a reason to forgive him — wanted this to be over as much as she imagined he did, even if she wasn't certain if or how they'd be able to go back to the way they had been before.

Peia began pawing through her bag a bit more frantically, setting a few books and scrolls on her lap and the chair beside her. Hermione immediately recognized one as Draco's journal. "Oh no - Hermione!" she wailed, barely restrained panic leaking into her voice. "I — I had the note — right in this pocket, just in case I ran into you today… It — It must have fallen out…"

The anticipation that rose like hope in her chest deflated in an instant.

Oh bugger.

Hermione leapt to her feet, crouching down in front of Peia, who by now looked halfway ready to tumble off the front of the chair. "Peia. Peia, it's alright," she said reassuringly, even though it wasn't — usually Draco's messages were subtle and vague, but if there was anything identifiable in it, it wouldn't bode well for either of them if it was found. "We'll go in the hallway and summon it. Easy done."

Peia shook her head miserably. "Lawrence Cuthbert and Kelly Bell were always stealing my things. They haven't much lately, after — erm, well, just lately, but I spelled it with a Heavyweight Charm in case anyone else tried to…"

Hermione sighed softly. The Heavyweight Charm was one of many counter-charms to the Summoning Charm… which meant things had become considerably more difficult. "Right. Think carefully, then. When and where did you open your bag after you last saw it?"

Peia became utterly still, her brows furrowed in deep concentration. "My dorm room, right when I got up… the spare classroom on the fifth floor by the Ravenclaw common room—" she lowered her voice to a whisper, "I know I'm not supposed to know where it is, but I always study there 'cos nobody uses it and the Ravenclaws don't bother me if they find me… oh, and the Owlery."

Her eyebrows lifted. "What were you doing in the Owlery?" With Universe B's advent of cell photos and Muggle-Magical technology, owl messaging had not only become obsolete, it was looked upon with suspicion as an antiquated, conservative form of communication. The few owls kept in the Owlery now were students' pets.

"I like the owls there. I bring them treats," Peia explained. "They get bored and lonely sometimes, like me. The only difference is they can fly away if they want to."

Hermione felt such sympathy at the straightforward statement, but didn't have time to do more than gently squeeze Peia's arm in understanding. A bit warily, her gaze flicked down to the journal slipping between the couch arm and cushion. "Darling, is this… for me as well?" she asked hesitantly.

Peia nodded, fishing it out to hand to her. "I really am very sorry I lost Draco's note, Hermione," she whispered, looking up at her with worried eyes. "It's got to be in one of those places. I know it has."

For a moment, Hermione could only stare numbly down at the nondescript black cover; a flip open revealed the pages had once again become blank.

She could quite find the words to express that she hoped it was as well.

---

To her disappointment — though hardly to her surprise — Peia hadn't dropped the note in Gryffindor Tower. Obviously it wouldn't be nearly that simple, would it?

Despite the second year's pleas, Hermione had left her safely in the Tower (or as safe as the Gryffindor dorms could be considered) to search for it alone. She considered simply leaving it be 'til morning, but she knew the castle was cleaned daily in the early morning hours, and if she was being totally honest with herself…

She was concerned she wouldn't get a lick of sleep that night if she didn't find it first.

A quick scan of the Marauder's Map revealed that the castle was fairly quiet, for a Saturday night. With Percy's arrival had come random late-night and rather merciless "regulation compliance" sweeps, which meant prohibited after-hours activity outside the common rooms had decreased drastically (of course, that meant dodgy/unruly proceedings inside the common rooms had increased ten-fold).

Tonight, however, Percy's dot was settled in his office, along with a dot labeled 'Penelope Clearwater.'

Hermione's lip curled slightly. Hadn't he dated Penelope Clearwater in Universe A? How was it that such an overscrupulous prick as Percy had managed to nab the same woman's interest in both universes?

She didn't want to imagine the kind of 'work' they were currently accomplishing, though thankfully this likely meant he would be, erm, sufficiently distracted for the entire evening. All that remained ahead was a good, old-fashioned treasure hunt — one that she planned to conduct as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Under the safety of the Cloak of Invisibility, Hermione crept quickly through darkened halls she could navigate eyes closed, the Marauder's Map open in one hand to anticipate any unexpectedly approaching persons, her wand out in the other to regularly cast detection charms for hidden bugs and surveillance devices.

She didn't anticipate seeing Luna Lovegood on prefect patrol that night; Luna and pre-assigned sixth-year Hufflepuff Jake Farley must have switched at the last minute. As luck (or lack of it) would have it, Luna was centered in one of the very hallways she needed to visit, approaching the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower, so Hermione instead turned her attention to her second target.

As the heavy iron door to the Owlery scraped open, a blast of wind sent her hair whipping around her face. In a flash, she grasped the invisibility cloak's hood to stop it from blowing off, hastily sending a warming charm through herself. The floor-to-ceiling, glassless windows on either side of the West Tower channeled the bitter gale accompanying the mid-November sleet noisily falling in the black void outside like a makeshift wind-tunnel. With the majority of owl roosts empty and the floor clean of its usual mounds of bird droppings and hay, it also eerily resembled the interior of a mausoleum— with all the burial chamber doors open.

"Sweet Morgana, what I do for you, Draco," she muttered.

Aside from a lone bug inside one of the roosts — which she'd neutralized with Riddle's undetectable Impressions Charm as soon as she'd cracked open the Owlery door — her detection spells revealed no other magic present, Heavyweight charm included. Still, as long as she was here, Hermione decided a fast visual sweep of the pathway Peia would have taken wouldn't hurt.

As she approached, the ten owls roosting beneath the stairs leading to the top level of the Tower hooted in warning, shuffling and ruffling their feathers, visibly unsettled by the presence of an intruder they could sense but couldn't see.

"Easy, lovelies. It's alright," she murmured, keeping the light of her wand constrained to the floor beneath the Invisibility Cloak. "I'm only passing through… preferably very quickly…"

It took less than thirty seconds of searching to confirm the note wasn't there.

Fifth floor study room it is, then.

As she hurriedly pivoted toward the door, the Marauders' Map flashed bright red.

In the span of a breath, Hermione ducked beneath the stairs, holding up her wand to peer over it. She rapidly scanned the lines within its folds and creases, and then flipped it over to search the corridors leading to the West Tower.

Over the pounding of her heart, only silence, and stillness, met her adrenaline-powered perception.

No one seemed to be in the stairway leading up to the Owlery itself—

Abruptly, her eyes widened.

"Oh, bugger it!" she gasped. She twirled her wand in a tight circle around herself, muttering a weave of protective charms—

Just as Michael Corner, Terry Boot, and seventh-year Ethan Bexly flew in on brooms through the window nearest her, landing in the center of the Owlery. With an efficiency that bespoke previous experience, the three Ravenclaws quietly cast Warming, Impervius and Imperturbable charms on the Owlery's door's and both floor-to-ceiling windows, blocking the cross-winds and the elements, before they began speaking in a normal volume, their three illuminated wand tips casting light and shadows across the Owlery.

"What about that well minging cat?" Terry asked. He shook water and ice from his broom — an Impervius Charm seemed to have help keep their persons dry on their jaunt from, possibly, Ravenclaw Tower itself.

"Eh, she's a cannie cheetie, int she?" Bexly replied in a thick Scottish accent. "Nicht like th'nicht, blowin' a right hooley, only a dobber'd be ootside in it, wee beasties included."

Michael shook his head. "You've been our supplier a year now, Bexly, and I still don't follow half the words comin' out your gob."

"Mibbe ye simply dinnae try 'ard enough, ye deid bawbag—"

"Shut it, you howlers, I've had more'n enough aggression for one day, thank you," Terry snapped testily. He collapsed beneath the Tower's second slit, opposite her hiding place, and shoved his hands through his hair. "Please tell me you've got quality shit this time 'round," he groaned.

Bexly sat beside him, pulling something from his pocket. "Aye, pure belter, ya junkie bastard." Terry shot him a waspish look, and he held up his hands. "Dinnae fasch yerself. I'm doon there wi' ye, min. It's a sair ficht for half a loaf, bidin' 'ere, init?"

Hermione squinted across the Owlery gap, trying to make out the palm-sized, thin objects Bexly passed to Terry and then to Michael…

Oh.

She felt herself relax, but only incrementally, as Terry lit up a cigarette far too large and messily rolled to be a normal. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and leant his head back against the stone wall. "Bloody hell, was I needin' this now."

Hermione wanted to cover her eyes; as it was, she pursed her lips disapprovingly, shaking her head.

Why aren't I surprised… they come up here to do drugs!

Michael coughed loudly, pounding his chest, then let out a whistle and held up his own cigarette, his eyes abnormally wide. "Bli-mey… This stuff's the dog's, this is!"

Bexly grinned. "The Neon Witch. Muggle-Magical mix, newest oot. Ma cousin posted a puckle tae a box in Hogsmeade— high heid yins dinnae check anythin' there." He sprawled out, closing his eyes. "Boot, cast the spell afore I'm pure melted oan flyin' pixies, would ye?"

Terry disillusioned them, and they extinguished their wands, their continuing conversation interspersed with moans and exclamations of delight. Thankfully, it appeared the Imperturbable extended only to light and sound, because the smoke was spilling out the massive windows into the stormy night rather than choking up the Owlery.

Still, Hermione wrinkled her nose, turning her attention to her exit. Especially as distracted as they were, it should be easy enough to cast a Protego Totalum charm around the door and leave without notice, but she couldn't help but wonder why rather high-level Ravenclaws were relying upon only fairly basic protection charms to hide themselves. The punishment for narcotics possession wasn't nearly as severe here as it was in Universe A (suspension, possibly expulsion, though at the Haunt drugs had been everywhere and no one had said a word).

But Percy policing the school certainly changed things entirely. She was honestly astonished these three hadn't been caught yet. They would've been that very night, for that matter, if she hadn't disabled the Owlery bug (lucky sods; you're all welcome, she thought darkly). Off the top of her head, she could name at least 15 other spells to fortify their little getting high haven: a specialized Protego shield, or at the very minimum a warning charm on the stairs to notify them if someone was coming, not to mention checking the Owlery for hidden life or surveillance devices…

If only they knew them.

Those spells — spells that had saved her life more times than she could count — fell beneath the auspices of defence against the Dark Arts. Not only weren't they taught here, all the books with halfway proper instructions were crumbling to dust in the Forbidden Section.

Though Hermione didn't pity these men, she certainly felt for their collective disempowerment.

Taking a breath, she cast a Muffliato charm on herself and pushed herself to her feet, moving slowly, cautiously across the now nearly pitch-black Owlery. She was halfway to the door when Michael asked in a hushed voice,

"S'did you do it?"

Hermione paused, cocking her head in their direction.

"Yeah," came the eventual, heavy reply, definitely from Terry.

Bexly muttered something under his breath.

"Save your judgment, Bexly," Terry responded defensively, his words more staccato, nervous-sounding. "My record's in shambles. My— My parents're bloody— well, you know what they are now. At the Phoenix, thank God. Can't imagine seein' them here. My marks might be better'n those blind fanatics in Hufflepuff, but that hardly matters now, does it? I've no— no family, no contacts, I'm skint, and it's about who you know, how loyal you look, in'it?"

Bexly snorted. "An' bein' a wee clipe makes ye look loyal, does it noo?"

"S'long as you're helpin' the— the right side, it does. Hurry up, pass me another of those — those bleedin' magic sticks, yeah?"

A long, slightly wild whistle before a chuckle. "Ye sure o' that, mate? Ah'ament explainin' tae McGonagall how come her elves be wipin' ye oof the floor come mornin'."

"Yeah, I'm b-bloody…!" Terry let out another groan. "Oi, of all the buggerin' people she could've helped, I reckon of course it would've been— would've been—" He heaved a great sigh Hermione could hear even across the tower, and another large cloud of smoke drifted out the window. "Why don't those Hufflepuff tossers ever react like this? They practice more o' the Dark Arts than the entire lot of us combined…"

"Dark Magic, it's'n thair bloody nature, init? Dinnae hurt if ye — ye worship it. An' thair classmates ar'nae the ones they be torturin.'"

A deep feeling of unease prickled at the back of her neck. Terry Boot was one of a number of Ravenclaws who'd remained loyal to the Sovereignty while their family members had been imprisoned as House-Wizards, making him a bit of a societal outcast. It sounded like he'd reported someone to try to improve his situation, and recently, if even the Hogwarts gossip mill hadn't caught wind of anything amiss during dinnertime… but who? Hermione doubted it was her if Terry felt so gutted about it, since as My she hardly deigned to look at any Ravenclaws but Muggleborns like Isadora…

She took another, careful step toward the door, still listening closely. Michael sounded less affected than the first two men, though whatever they were smoking seemed to have firmly reached their brain's language centre, peppering their quickening speech with repetitious lurches and added accentuation.

"For Rowena's—Rowena's sake, you two, don't go full— full Slytherin on me. Forget what you… did to that slag. Had to be done. One bad apple — bad apple puts us all at risk."

"You only talk that hard man rubbish 'cos you're— you're gagging for Weasley clunge, sad bastard you are," Terry retorted. "How is your black— black cat, b'the way? Still locked away for good behavior?"

"Fuck off, you stropping — stroppy wanker," Michael retorted defensively. "She'll be out of rehab inna—"

SKREE! SKREEE! SKREEEE!

In a great rush of air and flurry of wings, all ten owls abruptly took off from their roosts behind Hermione. She lurched in surprise, ducking as they screeched angrily overhead, swooping chaotically around the Owlery.

Simultaneously, the three men screamed.

With final shrieks, the owls unceremoniously torpedoed out the windows into the frigid night.

Hermione clutched at her racing heart, gasping in air. Even when 150 owls had resided in the Owlery, she'd never seen a group of them migrate as a flock. What… What could have caused…?

On the other side of the tower, a high-pitched, terrified squeak came from one of the Ravenclaws.

"C-Cu—Cun…C-Cuntybuggeryfucktoleybumshite!"

"What'n the — What'n the bloody 'ell?!"

"F-Fu… Fuckin' hippogriffs, they were!"

"Wi' red eyes, th' d-devil take us!"

Hermione held back a groan. The drugs must have been potent… and apparently, hallucinogenics.

"S-Steady on, lads," Terry stammered in a low voice like a man readying troops in the trenches before charging forward to attack. "We're Ravenclaws. With wands." His voice slowly gained volume, confidence and speed. "We've the wits of an owl and the ferocity of an eagle! If they come back, we will pummel them into the rock!"

"Yeah!"

"YEAH!"

Hermione sensed the usefulness of their conversation had officially ended.

Oh good goddess, I need to get out of here before I'm the hippogriff.

Her eyes straining in the darkness, she crossed the remaining distance to the Owlery door and held out her hand, carefully feeling for the Imperturbable Charm. Only inches from the wood she sensed it, and with a focused flick of her wand, erected the highest protection ward she knew around the door and herself.

She doubted the Ravenclaws would even notice they could no longer see the door.

"Finite," she murmured.

Another detection charm showed the Imperturbable was gone.

With a small sigh, she grasped the doorknob with her hand and briefly leant her burning forehead against the cold iron of the door. She could only hope to all the gods Peia had dropped Draco's message in the spare classroom—

Within the span of a second, the metal handle became as cold as ice.

Hermione gasped and jerked backward, releasing it as swiftly as if she'd been burned.

A shiver ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the miserable weather.

Despite multiple warming charms, the temperature around her suddenly became as bitter as the depths of winter. Heavy despair sank into her bones like deadweights dragging her to the bottom of a sea of darkness.

"Corner, ye incompetent goolie!" Bexly snapped. "It's bloody baltic! Thought ye cast a warmin' charm!"

Whispers tickled at her ears. Of failure. Of torture. Of screams and dying and death.

Her heart jumped to her throat.

Sweet goddess… It couldn't be…

Hermione leapt away from the door, shoving any positive thoughts she could find to the forefront of her mind and gripping her wand tightly.

"What's happening? What's this? What's goin' on?" Terry demanded, his rapid, amped-up voice cutting painfully loudly though the void. "This stuff's wonky! Thought it was meant to—meant to make it all better! It hurts like a — a wallop straight to the heart!"

"I'm gonna spew, gonna spew," Michael began chanting.

She cagily scanned the Owlery, her breaths coming in short, visible pants in the frigid air. Bloody Morgana, it was nearly impossible to see a sodding thing, the ideal situation for a Dementor to prey…

A sudden, unmistakable rattling at the Owlery door rapidly drew her attention back to it.

Slowly, the doorknob started to turn.

Buggering hell!

Hermione flung up her wand. "Colloportus maxima!" she hissed frantically, swiftly adding the same protection wards she'd given herself for good measure.

To her unspeakable relief, the doorknob stopped turning.

The sluggishness of the very worst misery she'd ever experienced didn't. If anything, it only intensified.

Fighting a debilitating exhaustion, Hermione pulled the Marauders' Map from her pocket and checked it frantically. She hadn't been aware of any Dementors setting foot on castle grounds since the night Dumbledore had visited. From the displeasure McGonagall had expressed at their presence the last time, surely tonight she would have warned the faculty, as well as herself and Harry so they could inform the prefect on patrol…

But, no. Percy was still in his office with Penelope, McGonagall was in her quarters, and Luna was down on the first floor. Aside from the three behind her, the entire west side of the castle was now completely abandoned save the mass of students in Ravenclaw Tower.

Dumbledore wasn't here, nor Lily Evans or Arthur Weasley, for that matter. But surely even the Sovereignty wouldn't simply turn a Dementor loose on potentially miscreant students! Did that mean it was after someone specific? Her, for instance?

The doorknob started rattling again, loud and hard.

There was only one thing to do.

Hermione straightened her shoulders, gathering her magic, and turned her wand on herself, steadying her mind as best she could. In the off case Dementors were simply patrolling the castle, an Eighth-Level Invisibility Charm on herself and the Ravenclaws should at least cause them to lose interest— or so she hoped.

She'd done this spell twice before. She could do it again. She could do this…

Occaeco! she thought firmly.

Quickly, she shrugged her arm from beneath the Invisibility Cloak to check the results.

Her heart dropped when visible fingers and a wrist appeared.

The spell hadn't worked.

Bugger it all to hell!

A sudden rush of icy wind from the open windows to her left again sent her hair whipping around her face.

Her brow furrowed.

The elements shouldn't've been able to breach the windows. She hadn't lifted the Ravenclaw's Imperturbable Charm from them…

The gust died as quickly as it came, and a thick, terrible stillness settled upon the tower.

Hermione spun in dread, her wand raised. The voices swimming in her ears became howls from the past, screams from battles long fought and the worst heartache still stinging and fresh.

"Allow me to… die with dignity, human…"…. "Hermione, the tea's ready!"…. "Obliviate…"… "And if I could take it back, believe me I would!"

She clenched her jaw, trying to keep her head. Blood pounded through her brain. In the blackness before her of indiscernible depth, she could see nothing… until something darker than the impossibly darkest night itself became faintly tangible, like a black hole in the midst of space, and she knew with certainty another Dementor was already there.

Behind her, the Owlery door still shuddered wildly, as if another Dementor was trying to wrench it open. In front of her, a nightmarish, sucking rattle echoed off the tower walls. She felt her breath condensing on her lips as her chest heaved with frantic breaths; the almost-paralyzing Universe B mantra of don't practice ostentatious magic in public lest you place all those you know at lethal risk! clashing violently with the primordial urge to defend herself.

Michael was now chanting, "T'only a bad trip… t'only a bad trip… t'only a bad… bad… I want my mummy!" he wailed.

"Stap yer havering, yeh wee bairn!" Bexly snapped, though he sounded deeply shaken. "Surely the worst'll… wear oof inna wee bit…"

"I hear my parents — I hear m'parents!" Terry howled. "They're—They're screamin'… They're screamin', Bexly, you great bastard—!"

Hermione's mind screamed, I am not dying here, with these — these monged nitwits!

The surveillance bug had been disabled. No one was around the West Tower, and the ones who were were already delirious…

Instantly, her choice was made.

Focusing her breaths to block out the men's yells, she narrowed her eyes in concentration and with a shaking but determined hand wrenched up her wand. Strangely, the first happy thought that flashed through her mind wasn't actually a memory at all, but she clung to it with her entire being.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

One of the largest creatures Hermione had ever seen burst from her wand, illuminating the whole West Tower in a blaze of light.

At the sight of it, she actually gasped.

The Ravenclaws screamed again.

For a split second, the Dementor's towering, cloaked spectre was dwarfed in the Patronus's immense glow before it wheeled and barreled headfirst out the window. The Patronus pursued it, long and sinewy, disappearing into the night only to sail in the other window right over the Ravenclaws' heads before its scaled tail had even vanished from the opposite side of the Tower. Hermione hastily leapt out of the way as it plunged straight through the wall and Owlery door where the other Dementor (she assumed) had been, finally vanishing from sight.

She stared in shock at the startlingly black void left in its wake, her mouth partially agape.

Her otter… What had happened to her otter…?

"What is this shit!" Terry shouted. "Fuckin' hippogriffs — and nightmares — and dragons—"

"Telt yeh it was well good, didnae I!"

"I didn't say it was good, you sheep-shagging wanker!" The sounds of a great scuffle erupted. "Where's my broom? Where is it?"

Before any of the Ravenclaws could light their wands, Hermione hauled open the door, shut it, and lifted her Muffling and protection charms on it, her hands shaking. She expected she was as wired as they were, but from adrenaline alone. Without stopping to breathe, she barreled down the spiral stairs, muttering an erasing charm to wipe her latest cast spells from her wand's history, just in case.

She hadn't the slightest idea as to why Dementors were in the castle. All she knew was if they weren't here for her, she wasn't going to give them anymore reason to seek her out.

The rest of the castle was calm, quiet. On the fifth floor, she felt safe enough to stop briefly to rest her burning lungs, clutching the wall. At the end of the hallway, illuminated only by scattered torches, was the hidden entrance to Ravenclaw Tower, and, just a few meters from her, was the door to Peia's study room.

Through pants, Hermione automatically sent out another detection charm.

The area was bug-free.

Her shoulders collapsed in relief, and she bent double again, wheezing. She expected a Patronus of that size — she could hardly think of it as her Patronus, it looked and felt like nothing she had ever known — had bought her enough time to zip in quickly to look for the note and return to the Head Common Room before the Dementors came back.

A Patronus of that size… her Patronus had changed.

Her Patronus had changed.

To a bloody, bleeding dragon.

She couldn't shake the memory of bared fangs at least three times the size of a basilisk's, a long, silvery beard, its immense length — the most massive Patronus she'd ever heard of beyond Andros the Invincible's famous, and literal, giant. It was unlike any European species she'd seen; she suspected it was an Asian variant, though she'd have to do some research to determine the exact species.

No matter what kind of dragon it was, Hermione knew what it meant. Such switches were rare enough to begin with, so there was no denying what it meant, even if she wanted to; the symbolism wasn't exactly subtle, nor was the happiest memory that wasn't a memory at all that had helped conjure it, still clear as crystal in her mind's eye:

Of being at home, her real home, for holiday dinner, decorations and lights and music all 'round, with her parents, with Ron and Harry, with Ginny… and with Draco.

Even though she'd been so hurt by him, her Patronus had still manifested in this form.

Hermione knew what that meant as well.

She blinked back tears, the frustration and confusion of the past two days welling up in her chest and eyes. All she wanted was for this mess with him to be over, one way or the other. She needed to talk to him, tomorrow, needed to understand why he'd said what he had, and if he'd truly meant it—

Abruptly, a cold hand clamped onto her arm like a vice.

Still cocooned within the Muffliato Charm, she let out a shriek and whipped around. "Stupe—"

For the briefest of moments, Harry's head and shoulders flashed before her, hands up. He gestured in front of his mouth in a 'speaking' motion, before he flung his Invisibility Cloak over himself again.

Hermione slumped slightly, dropping her wand. How had he possibly found her? She was invisible! Unless…

Unless he'd used his own Marauder's Map to navigate close enough to her to try to grab her.

She extended the Muffling Charm to include him. "Could you have possibly found a less panic-inducing method of alerting me to your presence than latching onto me like the Giant Squid?" she hissed.

"Yes, and perhaps I'll take up waltzing while I'm at it! What the devil do you think you're you doing? I've been watching you dance around the castle for the past forty minutes!"

Hermione let out a groan of exasperation, surreptitiously glancing around the dim corridor. The walls held a number of portraits, and though their occupants were currently asleep, Hermione would much rather avoid any risk of raising their suspicions.

Reaching out blindly until she found Harry's arm, she dragged him into Peia's spare classroom and firmly shut the door. For an extra room, it looked like it saw fairly active use: it was still faintly illuminated by lamps on their lowest setting, throwing deep shadows across long rows of study desks, supply shelves and locked armoires filled with Ravenclaw-coloured banners and some old-looking plaques and awards. Directly above them, a chimaera skeleton dangled from the vaulted ceiling.

Hermione was so distracted by the bizarrely placed skeleton she nearly tripped over a splintered bench jutting into the aisleway just past the entance.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, staring down at the two study tables beside the door in surprise. Both were utterly wrecked, tipping precariously from shattered legs, ink and broken glass splattered across the floor. "What happened in here?"

Harry didn't sound concerned. "Duelling students? Dark Arts spells gone awry? Granger, what happened out there?"

She flung off her hood and spun back toward Harry, who had done the same. "Have you heard anything about Dementors in the castle tonight?"

At his thunderstruck expression, she nodded. "Oh yes. I had a charming encounter with at least two of them at the top of the Owlery, along with three Ravenclaw drug addicts, might I add. I sent them off before they could do any damage — oh, don't look at me like that! I was trapped and they were nearly on top of us! There weren't any bugs around, I checked."

"Then you got lucky." Harry crossed his arms, looking unsettled. "That does explain some things," he said in a low voice, more to himself than her.

Hermione's brow furrowed. "How d'you mean?"

"Clearwater, for starters." He shot her another narrow-eyed glanced. "I hope you've been astute enough to notice she was here."

She blinked in confusion. "What — Penelope? Percy's girlfriend?"

"His—?" Harry abruptly let out a dry laugh. "You're joking, right? A quick-rising Muggleborn like her, give a falling Old-Blood a second of her time? No, Granger. Clearwater is my mother's Personal Assistant."

Hermione froze.

Bloody Morgana.

She backpedaled quickly. "Why would the Dementors explain her presence?" she asked, voice hushed.

"Over the years I've learned Mother dearest prefers to use a few pocket Dementors to conduct transactions without going through the Phoenix's main channels. If they're here with Clearwater, it means there's someone at Hogwarts she wants. The PA's here to ensure it gets done and the Dementors are here to 'escort' them under the radar."

Hermione's heart began beating faster. "Harry, the Dementors were coming after me!"

For a moment, Harry was absolutely still, his expression shadowed. "If Mother Evans wants you, I doubt she'd send Clearwater in place of herself," he said slowly. Then he grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the door. "Even still, you'd best be staying in the Chamber of Secrets tonight. In the chance I'm wrong I'll feign ignorance when they come to our room."

"Wait— Wait!" Hermione wrenched her arm from his, muttering another detection charm.

In the northwest corner of the room by the row of armoires was a Heavyweight Charm.

Hermione let out a sigh of relief and dashed across the classroom.

"Granger—!"

"One bloody second!"

Hermione fell to her knees. Well out of sight beneath the second of the cabinets was the note, small and rolled up like a scroll, along with a quill. She stretched out her arm, the tips of her fingers just managing to snag it. She grasped it tightly, releasing a quiet breath.

Please have said something that'll help make this better, Draco.

"Right," she said, straightening. "Coming—"

CRACK!

The sound was unmistakably that of someone Apparating into the room.

Hermione threw herself flat on the floor, flinging the Invisibility Cloak's hood over her head and recasting Disillusionment and Muffling Charms on herself in the same breath. Over the pounding of her racing heart, she heard a once airy and now almost startlingly grounded female voice speak almost immediately.

"As I said, there's quite a bit of destruction, and the floor's certain to need polishing beneath it. I'll need them for a half-hour, no more."

Oh, you've got to be joking!

What were the bloody odds Luna Lovegood would have chosen that very moment and classroom to be The World's Most Exemplary Prefect?

Warily, Hermione poked her head up over the top of the desk she'd crouched behind.

Luna was all but blocking the classroom door surveying the damaged desks with a particularly well-dressed House-Elf, which Hermione had learnt meant he directly supervised a House-Wizard cleaning 'team'. And indeed, in the door's rounded alcove a few steps behind the elf, two House-Wizards huddled. In the shadows, it was impossible to make out their features except, Hermione noted with some worry, that the taller, broader of the two appeared as though they were physically supporting the smaller other.

Harry was nowhere to be seen.

Her gaze returned to Luna— hardly the Nargle-spotting barefoot girl of Hermione's world. This Luna's pale hair was piled neatly on the top of her head in a practical bun, and while Hermione hadn't had much reason (as My) to get close to her here aside from Prefect meetings, she'd observed from afar that the Ravenclaw, though still direct and even-tempered, was firmly cemented in reality.

Like many Ravenclaws, she didn't appear to be particularly vicious, but she also seemed fairly detached from the conservative's dire situation.

"Our usual arrangement still stands, I expect," she said crisply.

"Yes, Mokey will come at your word, Miss Luna, miss, or in a half-hour."

"Excellent," Luna said. She reached into her bookbag to hand the House-Elf a bottle of butterbeer. "Enjoy."

Hermione's eyebrows flew up as the House-Elf clutched the butterbeer, beaming, and cracked! out of sight.

Immediately, Luna transfigured from disinterested to methodical. With two muttered repairing charms, the broken desks reassembled themselves; she waved her wand to sweep the broken glass and spilled ink aside. "Here. Lay her down here."

Carefully, the taller House-Wizard, a gray-haired, rather wide-girthed older man, hoisted the limp young woman beside him into his arms. Like many of the older House-Wizards Hermione had seen at Hogwarts — aside from former Death Eaters— he didn't look familiar, and Hermione wondered who he was. As he moved into the lamplight, the woman became visible.

Her face and arms were bloody, covered in pockmarks and boils. Even from several feet away, Hermione could hear her shallow, struggling breaths.

Hermione's stomach turned in horror.

As he placed her on the now-repaired table, she moaned, her eyes still closed. In the improved light, she realized with a horrified squirm that she was Morag MacDougal, a Ravenclaw who, in Universe A, had been in her year.

Here, she looked like death.

Luna turned her attention to the very door Hermione had been quite keen on exiting. "Colloportus obstructus."

An advanced locking charm — and this one did have an alarm attached.

Someone had been taking advantage of the Restricted Section.

Still heavily cloaked, Hermione stood and gripped her wand tightly, breathing through the familiar anger and the shot of hatred toward the Sovereignty that abruptly laced her veins. She knew students or staff must have done this to Morag, and she was abruptly filled with dread at the thought of Luna's true intentions.

Whatever was happening here, it wasn't a vandalism clean-up.

The blond witch returned to the table, her wand drawn. "Move her hair from her face. You know the timeline we're on."

The ashen-faced, grizzled man obeyed the brusque command, brushing tangled, blood-splattered ash hair from Morag's blood-stained cheeks, his body language heavy with concern.

Hermione quickly weighed the risks of an intervention. A light sleeping charm on all three of them could be the best option to keep Luna from—

Unexpectedly, the man spoke, his low, gravelly voice taut. "The last treatment didn't agree with her. Are you certain you know what you're doing, girl?"

"For having no Healing training to start, I'm doing my best," Luna responded, her expression all concentration and calmness. She lifted her wand to Morag's forehead. "I knew what we were covering in the Dark Arts this week so I found something different to use. This spell is from the family Astringere. It shouldn't react badly with the magic that caused this."

Hope crept through Hermione's chest like a slowly kindling fire.

Sweet Morgana… she's actually helping them.

She stared, mouth partially agape, as Luna began to heal Morag's injuries with an almost dispassionate efficiency. Memories flooded her of doing the exact same for Draco only two months earlier, every day, for weeks on end, and she gripped his note more tightly, her eyes filling with emotion. Despite Snape's rapid dismissal of the idea, she desperately hadn't wanted to believe that she, Harry and Peia were the only ones at Hogwarts sickened by the conservatives' horrible treatment. But to witness it in person for the first time — that someone completely unexpected was actually being good, and compassionate…

"Granger!"

Only the extreme restraint she'd built from withholding herself from instinctively reacting in situation after situation as a spy kept her from firing another startled Stunning spell toward Harry's head. He was standing, visible, behind her, his Invisibility Cloak open.

"Muffliato. Disillusionment," he said in a low voice, reading the primary questions on her mind. "I erected them around us and lowered yours. Take off your bloody hood, I'm not talking to a blasted wall. Good job I have that Map or I would've never found you."

Hermione loosened her Invisibility Cloak as well, shoving Draco's note into her pocket. She glared at him. "What did I just tell you about not scaring me half to death?!"

"What did you expect me to do, sit on my hands until you decided to do Merlin only knows what to get yourself involved somehow? I think not."

Her glare deepened to a scowl. She tilted her head toward the odd trio. "Did you know?"

"About what? Lovewood?"

"Lovegood."

"…whatever. Said last week I saw the Ravenclaws looking uncomfortable, didn't I? And they should be, considering they're all Kendra Dumbledore's classmates; it would be quite the personal betrayal to the Sovereign's family itself if word of this got out." He shook his head. "Have to say I didn't expect it'd be Loveblood who was putting herself at risk. She always struck me as being the most indifferent of the bunch."

"That doesn't mean she's incapable of loyalty," Hermione retorted, miffed on Luna's behalf. Though she was more than a little curious to learn the Ravenclaw's motivations for undertaking so radically subversive an act - and what the House dynamics might be between them and Dumbledore's professional Quidditch-playing great-grandniece, who Hermione still hadn't directly encountered yet - she hadn't forgotten about the Dementor. "What do we do about this? There's no subtle way to disarm that locking charm and get out the door with them so close to it. We could try a distraction, of course, but Luna's smart. She might see through it."

Harry shrugged. "Too bloody messy. It's obvious Lovemood's been through this charade before. They'll be out of here soon enough. Clearwater and Weasley haven't left his office all night; if they start heading this way, then I'll be worried."

Hermione looked back out across the room. Morag's eyes had finally cracked open, red-rimmed and tear-filled.

"Thank… you, Luna," she croaked, her voice so hoarse it was difficult to understand.

"Don't thank me now; we're hardly out of here cleanly yet, are we?" Luna responded, continuing to work on her arms.

The older man patted Morag's head with a rather gruff reassurance, though his startlingly blue eyes were hollow. "Lovegood's found you an improved lot of healing spells this time around, child."

"D'you know who that is?" Hermione asked, gesturing at him.

Harry didn't even pause to think about the answer. "Irenaeus Parkinson."

She turned toward him in surprise. "You mean—"

"Yes." He continued to gaze at the scene before them without looking at her, his expression hard.

Another former Death Eater, though he was one that, during all the battles of the war, Hermione had never run into to recognize. She wondered if he had any idea he was so near his daughter. "Does Pansy—?"

"Yes. And no, she hasn't seen him. We haven't sorted out the logistics of it yet. With 'His Assistant Ministership's' bugs and spies everywhere, haven't ascertained if mucking with the House-Elves and a lead beyond our control would be too risky."

Hermione's gaze lingered sadly on the man's limp motions, his morose expression largely distant. "He looks so defeated," she murmured. "I can't imagine being imprisoned believing your daughter is somewhere experiencing the same."

Morag sat up very slowly, her hand held tight around her waist.

"How do you feel?" Pansy's father asked.

She nodded heavily, her voice still hoarse. "Better… than before." She winced, looking toward Luna. "Luna, I am so… so very grateful, but you shouldn't keep putting yourself at risk for—"

Luna crossed her arms. "Nonsense. None of that from you again. The Intervention may have cost you dear, but it didn't strip us of six years of friendship. I can't ignore that, Morag."

For several seconds Morag was silent, but then she spoke again, sounding weary and defeated. "Even— Terry knows… you can't keep trying to—"

Hermione stiffened. Something tugged uneasily in the pit of her stomach.

For the first time that night, Luna's expression deviated from an air of rational detachment. "That House traitor deserves no respect from you. He's gone the way of the Corners and Appletons," she said, her voice hard. "When your lot lost, he, Anthony, Bex, Padma, K and I swore we wouldn't hurt any Ravenclaws unless we had no choice. He had a choice today, and he chose to practice on you. So don't try to sway me with an argument involving Terry Boot."

The three West Tower junkies' rather unclear conversation from a half hour earlier bounced off the walls of Hermione's mind.

Terry Boot… not a snitch as long as you're helping right side… their classmates aren't the ones they're torturing…

'Of all the people she could've helped, why did it have to be…'

Her heart stopped.

Oh goddess, no.

Hermione seized Harry's arm, eliciting the smallest of startled grunts.

"Harry, this — this is a trap," she breathed. "I don't know what's involved, but Terry set it for Luna with Morag as bait. He must have told Percy to expect Luna to help her tonight." Her brows lifted. "Perhaps that's why the Dementors are here — if he told Percy, and Lily Evans found out about it—"

Harry cursed and grabbed her arm, wrenching her toward the door. "Then we aren't bloody well sticking around for the show."

She stubbornly planted her feet. "No! Harry, we have to warn them!"

"Granger, are you mental?" he hissed. "Lovebug's choice, her consequences. We don't get involved. If Lily Evans wants somebody, she's going to get her no matter what you or I—"

In that instant, Percy Weasley and Mokey the House-Elf cracked into the center of the classroom.

In the span of a second, Luna spun around and was immediately disarmed, Morag let out a muffled sob and shrank into Irenaeus's chest, and Harry pulled Hermione out of the way of the door as quickly as he'd tugged her toward it, Invisible though they both now were.

"Whatever your best human detection shielding charm is, Granger, cast it on us now!" he hissed in her ear.

Without a reliable Eighth Level Invisibility Charm, the best Hermione could do was the same complex weave of advanced protection charms and wards she'd used on the West Tower and the Golden Trio's camping sites.

As she muttered them rapidly under her breath, her heart racing, Percy sauntered forward, his hands clasped behind his back, pompously dressed in his most extravagant Ministry robes. He appeared as pleased with himself as ever, depraved sadistic slug he was, she thought vehemently.

"Well, well," he said smugly, surveying the room up and down. "Multiple counts of aiding prisoners of the state… bribing official Hogwarts staff… vandalizing Hogwarts property. Ms. Lovegood, it appears you are violating several laws at once."

Hermione's grip on her own wand tightened, and she desperately itched to stop this calamity before it worsened. "There's only one of him," she hissed to Harry. "We could easily Obliviate him and replace his memories with—"

"—and simultaneously stun and Obliviate two House-Wizards, and a House-Elf, and Lovegood, and then deal with Clearwater and two Dementors who're clearly waiting for something we aren't informed of downstairs?" he finished, his tone indicating that the very suggestion was absurd.

"It isn't impossible—" she protested, though more weakly.

"No, but without knowing everything it's damned near it, and if we miss one detail, if my mother suspects a single thing, your starry-eyed conservative and the woman I love are dead, Granger." For once, Harry's voice, quiet out of necessity, almost sounded sympathetic. "You and I may not agree on much, but I know neither of us want that."

Angry tears filled her eyes as Percy placed magical shackles on Luna's wrists; the blond witch was standing silently, her eyes slightly wide and jaw tight.

"Goddess damn it, Harry, I hate living like this," she breathed. "What kind of saviors are we? Letting this happen over and over without doing a single thing to stop it…"

"You are doing something to stop it," he said forcibly. "We are doing something to stop it. Leave this now and stick to the plan, and you might be able to rescue a hundred conservatives like the ones here later. Even Lovegood, if she makes it that far."

Hermione let out a heavy breath, biting her lip so hard she tasted the bitter metallic tang of blood.

She knew he was right.

And she hated that, whether she liked it or not, Tom Riddle's grand and painstakingly planned scheme for challenging the Sovereignty, and the minds working together on it, were very likely the best and only chance these people had for liberation.

In the classroom, Luna seemed to regain her footing.

"Who's made these allegations?" she asked coolly.

Percy lifted an eyebrow. "Allegations? A curious choice of words, Ms. Lovegood, given I'm witnessing your despicably dissident acts as I stand. And here I was under the impression you Ravenclaws were the intelligent sort."

Luna glanced over her shoulder at the repaired desks, Morag, and Irenaeus. "What — This? This House-Witch was so incapacitated she could hardly handle the simple job she was given. I had to clean her up so she could finish scrubbing out the ink. As for that House-Elf, well— look at that face." She gestured at Mokey with a shrug, but whereas the Luna Lovegood Hermione knew paired empathy with reason, this Luna hardened with every point of logic she made. "Can you blame me for indulging its bad habit?"

Mokey squeaked, a bizarre mix of gratification and indignance on his face.

"And as for your completely ludicrous accusation of vandalizing—"

"Enough, Ms. Lovegood," Percy interrupted, his lip curled disdainfully. "You believe yourself to be so terribly clever, do you? Well, I am here to inform you that unfortunately for your father and now for you, no amount of cleverness can supplant a steady trail of insurmountable evidence." With a flourish, he produced a quill and scroll and began to scribble across it. "As soon as she arrives, you will accompany my Phoenix associate to the Prisoner Interrogation Centre, where they will decide your ultimate fate."

"No!" Morag burst out unexpectedly, tears streaming down her face, her exhausted green eyes blazing. "If it was Terry Boot who orchestrated this, that scabby scrote, I hope to Merlin he gets exactly what's coming to—"

"Silence, you insolent Fusty! You should have told your warden immediately you were receiving aid, and you can be damned well assured that it will come as an order to you all by the dawn!" Percy touched a hand to his forehead, as if pained. "Merlin, I've been reduced to common obscenities." Somewhat blindly, he waved his hand. "Mokey, remove these parasites. See to it they're suitably punished, and return later to clean up this—" his swept his hand toward the ruined desk, his lip curling, "ghastly mess."

Mokey bowed deeply and, but before he could Apparate away, Luna turned quickly to Morag. "Don't blame yourself. This was my choice."

"Do not speak to the prisoner!" Percy snapped as, with a crack, they and the House-Elf disappeared. He lifted his quill. "Though I will make a note you did."

"If you need to make a note to remember that, it's no wonder you weren't in Ravenclaw," she responded derogatorily.

Hermione's mouth dropped.

For a moment, Percy simply stared at her, then started spluttering. "Why, you shoddily bred wench—!"

Before furious actions could accompany his words, the classroom door shuddered, then swung open. Immediately, fiery sparks began to fly around the room's entrance alcove.

"Finite!" a feminine voice exclaimed. The locking charm disabled, and Penelope Clearwater all but bounced inside the classroom, flawlessly dressed in lustrous but unmarked robes. She was as beautifully groomed as Hermione would have expected any personal assistant to Lily Evans to be, with sleek brown hair so dark it was nearly black cascading down her back with perfect straightness.

"Good evening, Assistant Minister," she said cheerfully. "I hope I haven't missed too much excitement."

Her arrival was accompanied by a familiar, blood-chilling cold.

A foul expression instantly crossed Percy's face. "Penny, really, was it necessary to invite that thing upstairs?"

Penelope actually laughed, despite the fact that the entire room had abruptly taken on the leaden desolation of a tomb. "Oh, I know how much it tickles your delicate senses, Percy," she replied with a coy smile that masked her somewhat dry remark.

Hermione at once desperately wanted to leg it to the door but knew exactly what would be hovering in her way if she did. Harry must have felt her jerk, because he hugged her closer. "No. Don't move," he breathed. "It isn't here for us. Half a chance it won't sense us out separately with so many other people around."

Penelope turned to Luna, her expression pleasant. "My name is Penelope Clearwater. You may remember me — I had the delightful privilege of serving as Head Girl with this one a few years back. And you are—" she looked down at her scroll, "—Miss Luna Aqueria Lovegood, aged 18, daughter to the late Pandora Lovegood and incarcerated Xenophilius Lovegood; no additional family on record. Is that correct?"

Luna's unflappability was honestly astounding. "I assume you already know."

Her brusque response didn't throw Penelope like earlier replies had Percy. "My, but you're as sharp as your father was, aren't you?" She rolled up the scroll and smiled almost too graciously for the conversation at hand. "If you'll come this way, my silent companion shall accompany you to your next destination."

"I won't go with a Dementor," Luna said, standing her ground. "I'm not yet formally charged. Regulations mandate all suspected Hogwarts students be transported to the Prisoner Interrogation Centre by the Floo Network."

When Percy gaped at her in a motion that unflatteringly resembled a dying fish, she gave him an icy look. "Oh, yes, I expect you thought we students're too daft to read the fine print on the metre-long edicts you've peppered throughout the castle."

Rarely had Hermione respected anyone in Universe B as much as she did Luna Lovegood at that very moment.

Even Penelope's lips curled upward in a smile that appeared decidedly more genuine. "You precious girl. It truly pains me to see such an intelligent, clear-headed Ravenclaw caught up in this. No comment necessary, Assistant Minister," she added as Percy opened his mouth, his face set in a disparaging sneer. "Unfortunately, in this particular case, the regulations simply don't apply to you, lovely." She lifted her wand. "Stupefy."

Luna slumped to the ground. Penelope stopped her fall with a levitation spell and floated her to the door — and presumably, the Dementor outside it.

"Deliver her unharmed," she instructed sternly, her shoulders rigid. They dropped a smidgen as the Dementor vanished, its pernicious effects fading, and Hermione was slightly pleased that not even Lily Evans' protégé was entirely immune to their emotional leeching.

Percy cleared his throat and smiled widely. He began rocking back and forth on his heels like a complacent child. "Well, Penny. The first successful crackdown of many between us, I hope. We make quite the team."

A scowl briefly tugged at Penelope's genial features before she turned around to face him, smiling. "You may be pleased to learn we aren't finished quite yet. On their first retrieval assignment, the Dementors claimed they met resistance from one of the most powerful Patronuses they had encountered in their ancient lifetimes. However, your surveillance equipment revealed nothing out of the ordinary anywhere in the castle."

Hermione's breath hitched and she felt Harry stiffen, but she didn't for a moment regret her chosen action. With as little to go on as that, she couldn't imagine any way even the most pedantic Weasley would be able to pin her as the caster.

Percy's disdainful reply added to her confidence. "Was that their excuse for returning thirty minutes behind schedule?" he scoffed.

Penelope shrugged. "Of course, there's that, though I've hardly known Dementors to make excuses for their behavioral choices, have you? All the same, I expect Viceroy Evans would be less than pleased if you didn't look into it. Remember that."

"Of course. Please inform the Viceroy I will always do everything in my power to do ensure the full extent of the law is enforced on Hogwarts property," Percy said, never one to miss a brown-nosing opportunity.

"Yes, she expects nothing less, Assistant Minister," Penelope said, briefly patting his chest like a trainer rewarding a dog for good behavior, though Hermione didn't buy her charming sweetness for one second. "Now, my second Dementor has managed to collect the Boot boy, as we discussed. I trust our interactions tonight will remain discreet."

Hermione's eyes widened in surprise.

"Terry Boot reported this. He allowed me to perform Legilimency on him to ascertain his innocence in this unscrupulous affair," Percy said with a frown. "Penny, I want to be as helpful as possible, but I'm afraid I still don't understand why you believe—"

"That's the beauty of it," Penelope interrupted, impatience abruptly infiltrating her voice. "This is one thing you don't have to understand. Weasley." She swiftly lifted her wand. "Obliviate."

Percy's surprised eyes went blank.

"Insufferable Old-Blood," Penelope muttered, straightening her robes. She sighed, smiling brightly. "Ah. Silence at last." With calculating quickness, she cast the same memory replacement enchantment Hermione herself had used when she'd sent her parents to Australia complete with false memories.

"You followed official Phoenix reporting policy regarding Ms. Lovegood and Mr. Boot," she said emphatically, "and transferred them both to the P.I.C. via the Floo Network, a procedure Ms. Lovegood so accurately surmised. You believe Terry Boot reported Ms. Lovegood in order to alleviate suspicion from himself when he may, in fact, be equally embroiled in this House-Wizard assistance scandal. No additional report to nor follow-up with the Phoenix from you will be necessary, and your further investigation is not needed. You were surveying the damage either Lovegood or Boot caused here when — Oh!"

Penelope dipped her wand again. With a creak, the chimaera skeleton perched above the door rocked back and forth, then crashed down upon Percy. "—this fell on your head." Her dark eyebrow arched. "How unlucky for you." The former Ravenclaw appeared to be narrowly withholding a smirk as she studied the redhead now gracelessly sprawled across the floor, out cold and half covered by bones.

She summoned the reporting scroll he'd been scribbling on from his hand and straightened her shoulders, inhaling deeply. Smiling to herself once more in satisfaction, she turned on her heel and flounced out the door without bothering to look at Percy again.

The safety of silence settled back upon the spare classroom.

After a few moments, Harry's iron grip on her began to loosen, but Hermione didn't move, rapidly trying to process everything she had just seen.

Penelope Clearwater had just fabricated evidence, tampered with the very memories of another Sovereignty official, and, if what Harry said about Lily Evans' dabbling in dodging mainstream Phoenix enforcement channels was true, had effectively made two students disappear without so much as a paper trail.

Was this a sporadic act by Penelope, or ordered by Lily Evans herself? What could they have wanted with both Luna and Terry, who for all intents and purposes hadn't appeared to be involved with Luna's activities at all?

"Harry," she breathed, "What's going to happen to them?"

He sounded grim. "I think," he said in a low voice, "you need to prepare yourself for the decent chance we're never going to see those two again."

---

It was nearly midnight when Bella slunk into Tom's room in Momento Mori. Despite the lateness of the hour, she didn't expect to find him asleep, and he wasn't. Moving stealthily, she padded closer to a gap in the wall that opened to a small balcony. Through it, she could see him — or rather, the back of his head and shoulders — sitting in a chair overlooking the Chamber of Secrets. Narrowing her eyes, she thought of her best jinx and silently raised her wand—

The length of wood flew from her hand before Tom so much as spoke or moved a muscle.

She cursed vehemently. "Every time!"

He chuckled. "I would've thought by now you'd have learned you can't sneak up on me."

"Doesn't mean I can't keep trying," she huffed, venturing into the cool night air of the Mediterranean climate. He held out her wand as she passed him, and she grumpily snatched it up. In the moonlight, she thought she saw a flash of something in his hand she had hoped to never see again, but he palmed it quickly, so she couldn't be certain. When she reached the foliage-covered railing, she turned to face him, leaning back against it to light a cigarette. "Do I get a chair, or are you planning to make me sit on the floor?"

"If you've conveniently forgotten every transfiguration spell you've learnt at Hogwarts, you deserve to sit on the floor."

Bella threw him a brief scowl. "No, but I've only finished brewing the first stage of the Ossis Delenitorius Draught. Draco's leg, helps with the process," she explained at his slightly quirked brow of inquiry. "I'm irritable and I'm knackered, so perhaps you could—" she waved her hand at him as if he would find that encouraging, "find that charming gentlemen I know you keep hidden away for special occasions and lend a lady a hand."

Riddle considered that and nodded, pointing his wand to the grass-covered ground beside his chair and murmuring a few soft words. A circular mound of greenery began to bubble and expand upward and outward until it finished its transformation…

A grassy hummock in the perfect shape of a chair.

Bella stared from it to him and back again until she finally settled on a sidelong glare of perfect exasperation, to which he simply raised his brows innocently. "A wild chair for a wild woman," he said suavely.

"I find it disgusting that some women would actually fall for that." She cast Cushioning and Impervius charms on it before she sat down, crossing her arms testily while managing to balancing her smoke. "I'm still mad at you. This doesn't help."

He massaged his temples. "What have I done this time?"

"You know bloody well what you have. That boy is devastated, you clod, because you interfered. I'll restrain myself from going on again about what those bloodsucking Elite scum did to him, but pulling him in to your game of ultimatums is one more burden he didn't need."

Bella was relieved to see at least some regret in his expression. "The strength he's shown throughout this has been remarkable, Bella. He was improving steadily until one of the Weasley brood's unexpected reappearance a few weeks ago served as a severe trigger."

"Improving or not, this isn't some war pawn for you to manipulate, this is Cissy's son!" She inhaled a lungful of smoke rather vehemently. "I've tried to coax him to talk to me about it but he won't tell me a single bloody thing. All I know is he is not himself, and his anxiety diagnostics are off the charts. You can thank me for starting a draught to help with that as well, by the way."

Tom sighed. "I had hoped if he could work through it instead of relying on a potion, he would find it to be a more permanent source of healing."

Bella blew out a breath of disbelief. "I find it difficult to believe you know nothing of severe PTSD for undergoing some awfully traumatic experiences yourself. He's only 18 years old, for the love of Merlin, and with what you're planning to ask of him tomorrow? He's going to need help, but he's too— too Draco to come out and say it. If I can't reach him, perhaps his witch can. If you haven't ruined things permanently between them," she added in a mutter.

"That particular situation was hardly ideal before I stepped in," he said, the faintest vein of tetchy warning finally entering his voice. "Hermione's smart, and her care for Draco runs deep; I'm fully confident she'll come around and realize he meant no harm by his actions."

"Perhaps, but let's not pat yourself on the back and say 'jolly good, old chaps, disaster averted' quite yet. You certainly didn't help, and you fanned the flames by demanding the Unbreakable Vow at the worst possible time! What are you going to do tomorrow? Get down on one knee and ask her again?"

"This coming from the witch who thought a simple 'zap to the head' with the Imperius Curse should suffice her," he retorted with as much snark as Tom Riddle was capable of showing. "Bella, I'm surprised by you. With the final prophecy as vague as it's materialized to be, I was under the impression you supported my plan to do whatever it takes to keep Hermione and that power, if it truly is hers, here."

Bella shook her head. "I do support your plan, but you've read her wrong if you honestly believe a show of your authority's what it's going to take. She might be a warrior, but she's looking for a family, not a military overlord to control her. So you're going to stop Riddle-ing that girl and apologize to her, do you understand me?"

For several seconds, he didn't speak. When he did, his voice was low. "What did she show you on that staircase, Bellatrix?"

Bella swallowed hard. "You don't tell me your secrets, I don't tell you mine," she snapped. "But you'd best believe this is me vouching for her, and you know we don't see that everyday."

An extended silence stretched between them.

"It's not a bloody joke, is it?" Bella said suddenly. "This other world." She turned her head toward Tom and nearly spit fire when she saw he'd nicked another of her cigarettes; she pretended not to notice for the sole reason that she knew he expected the opposite. "Have you managed to be civil enough with her to learn your double identity?" she prodded.

He didn't rise to the provocation in her tone. Instead, he exhaled a large cloud of smoke, staring out into the Chamber. "A dark lord," he finally said tonelessly.

Bella stared at him. Then a humorless laugh escaped her lips. "Of course you were. Always have to be in charge, don't you?" Her fingers began to desperately itch for another cigarette, and she lit one quickly. "Did she dump a lifetime of memories in your head as well?"

Tom glanced at her briefly, looking surprised, which she supposed answered her question well enough. "She's let me in, but not that. I've only seen one memory of…" He trailed off. Bella managed to restrain herself long enough for him to decide to speak again. "I — he — it was so consumed by the Dark Arts it didn't look anything like me anymore, let alone human. The depth and depravity of the black magic he must've practiced…" He shook his head, his eyes distant. "I shudder to even think of it."

Bella let out a long, tremoring breath.

Unlike an inhuman monster, the face she'd seen and the voice she'd heard had been identical to her own. As if she was witnessing the worst of her darkest, most depraved thoughts parading about in sunlight for all to see.

"This woman…" she ventured aloud, "She was like me, but she was… mad. Utterly certifiable. What would drive… people — people who seem to have our basic traits — to torture and take the lives of tens of innocents?" She began to fidget uncomfortably, spinning her lighter round and round in her hand, then snapping the top on and off. "Obviously we will always do what it takes to defend and protect, but that level of insanity— I mean, erm—" She hedged for a moment before she spoke the worry most gnawing at her abdomen. "If they were able to do it, does it mean that propensity is – is somewhere within us as w—"

"Bella!" Abruptly, Tom's hand flashed out, grabbing hers and the clicking lighter to halt the sound. He turned toward her, the look on his face reminding her of a stern lecture she'd received from him when she was 16 for jinxing Amelia Bones in his Alchemy class after the evil-minded bint had hexed Cissy.

"Those people and what they did were not us," he said firmly. "Look at the juxtaposition. Here Dumbledore's a megalomaniac; there he was content to be Headmaster with no thirst for power. Down to our very characters, these places and the beings in them appear to be utterly opposite in their moral nature." He sat back with a heavy sigh. "I take comfort in that, at least."

Bella focused inward, trying to separate the image of the woman in Hermione Granger's memories from what she knew to be herself. The memories were so recent it was bloody nearly impossible, and she had to believe it wasn't so simple even for Riddle's steel trap of a mind, either. Despite the bravado in his speech, she'd also heard the exhaustion he was failing to hide.

She felt bold enough to nod at his hand. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked, trying to sound detached.

The dark-haired man — always steadfast, never shy — looked away from her with no response. A response in itself.

"I thought you buried that years ago," she said carefully.

"I haven't used it," he said flatly after a few moments.

"Good." Still, concern prickled through her. If Tom felt the need to physically cling to Sinistra's memory, he was more shaken by the recent turn of events than she'd thought. "I suppose that means the Chamber hasn't solved your nighttime ordeals."

It took him about twenty seconds to respond. "I still see it. The blood circle. Sinistra." His voice sounded dead. "Now, the sea of faces I never met who someone with my name killed."

Bella let out a long sigh and shook her head with tainted sympathy. Insufferable man, he brought this upon himself! Despite the amount of times she'd pushed DSP at him, he'd flat out refused it. She hadn't had any problems downing half a bottle last night to block out the inevitable nightmares of herself horrifically torturing a poor girl who her nephew happened to be dating and screeching on and on about killing others like her.

"Why do you suppose the Muggleborn Bitch never put together another one of those frighteningly effective stone rings of sacrifice?" she wondered.

"We don't know she hasn't. She has plenty of dispensable lives at her fingertips now," Tom said hollowly, though he sounded distracted. Abruptly, he sat forward and clasped his hands together tightly, staring at the floor with rigid shoulders. "Bella, if this doesn't go like we hope it does — if I fail these people again, permanently…" He shook his head. "What makes my legacy any different than the dark wizard I decided to be in a different world and a different life?"

She stared at him. "Because from the sounds of it, you aren't a mass murderer, to start!" She let out a loud breath and leaned toward him. "Listen, I realize I'm harsh with you because I think someone needs to give you a good kick in the trousers sometimes, but we're all doing our best here, and that includes you. You insisted that war table be round and not rectangular; now treat us like we're equals in this, not like you're the only wizard standing at the head of it. If this goes wrong it's on all of us." She sat back in the literal lawn chair, pulling her knees to her chest. "So don't you dare pull that lone savior bollocks on me."

Tom sucked in a heavy breath and slowly rubbed his hands over his face. He shifted, looking over at her. "I don't tell you I appreciate you nearly as much as I should."

It was the second time that night he'd struck her speechless, which was completely unacceptable. Harshly, Bella scrubbed the crook of her finger beneath both eyes before she flicked her cigarette away, clapped her hands together and stood. "Well then. If that's your sunny outlook, I know exactly what to do to make this entire nightmare dissolve into blissful oblivion."

When he regarded her in question, she raised her eyebrow suggestively, slowly tracing her fingers down his chest.

He let out a halfhearted, disbelieving chuckle and shook his head, looking away. When Bella didn't laugh, only clasped a fistful of his shirt, he looked back at her again, his eyes losing some of their seriousness.

"What would you do if I actually looked my age?" he asked dryly.

She grinned, pulling him to his feet and inside. "Then you'd be shit out of luck, old man."

---

Neither Hermione nor Harry said a word to each other after they entered the Head Common Room. Of course, like every government entity in any universe, she expected there was corruption within the Phoenix, but what she had witnessed was unlike anything she could've imagined. She remembered Draco mentioning that people had begun to 'simply disappear' before the Second Defiance started, but to see it was still happening, and to a potentially competent ally, was a bitter and sickening pill to swallow.

And yet again another reminder of how unspeakably dangerous all of this was.

For a moment, she simply stared at Harry's back as he trudged toward the stairs to his dorm. Then she blinked. "Harry," she called abruptly. He stopped, looking over his shoulder with a slightly testy expression. "I'm glad you came looking for me. With Peia, first, and then… after," she said. "Having you with me in that classroom was… extremely helpful."

She certainly wouldn't have known about Penelope Clearwater without him, and she wasn't certain she would've been able to stop herself from trying to impede Percy before the latter had arrived. The results could've been disastrous.

For the briefest of moments, the surprise on Harry's face was real. Then he crossed his arms. "Don't make this maudlin, Granger. A lot of people depend on you; I'm not going to let you walk into a situation that puts them in danger. But I, er…" He fidgeted, briefly averting his gaze. "I appreciate that you listened to me. And didn't try anything daft."

Hermione let out a groan, shoving her hands through her hair. "Why is it that everyone thinks I'm going to do something daft?"

"Because you're like the Ravenclaw we just watched be taken away. You care, and you aren't afraid." His voice held far more gravitas than she expected. "In a fight, that may serve you well, but as a spy in hiding it makes you risky." He coughed once, looking away. "Still, I'd… much rather take this version of you than whatever other damned versions there are running about the universe."

Hermione stared at him in surprise. Though he'd spoken brusquely, she still felt a smile tugging at her cheeks. "You and I… We're friends now, aren't we." The statement was tentative — confirming.

Harry scoffed. "What is it with you and Cassiopeia and that word?"

Hermione couldn't help but shake her head at his continued opposition to the idea. "We say it because you deserve to have friends, Harry. Yes, you," she said as his jaw tightened. "You might…" she flung her hand at him, "hide it under all your gruffness, but there is goodness and decency inside you. And as much as you try to deny it, that part of you wants to be known."

Abruptly, Hermione thought she saw a gleam in his emerald eyes, but he abruptly tilted his head back toward the ceiling, blinking rapidly. "Stop drinking the midget's Kool-aid, Granger," he said acerbically. "You'll drown in it if you aren't careful."

Hermione wasn't about to simply let him end the conversation there — not when he was clearly open to hearing it, or he would have marched off in a huff by now.

"Whatever you've been told, Harry, you have people now, and you're as worthy of having us stand beside you as we are of you standing beside us. You don't have to keep yourself hidden from everyone but Pansy anymore. Sweet Morgana," she said, thinking of Luna, and Terry, and Morag and Pansy's father, "our lives are too short to deny yourself that joy for even a moment that you have the chance to live otherwise!"

She might as well have slapped herself in the face for the speed with which her own eyes began to sting.

Slowly, her fingers inched down into her pocket, finding the note and shrunken journal buried deep within it.

Our lives are too short.

She pursed her lips tightly, rapidly blinking back the burn of emotion at the corners of her eyes.

Harry cleared his throat, tilting his head back down to look back at her with a dispassionate expression and red-rimmed eyes. "Ruddy hell, don't tell me you'll start insisting I call you Hermione next."

Another smile pulled at her lips. "That would be rather nice, actually."

"Is that what your Potter called you?"

"He wasn't my Potter. But yes, he did. As did everyone else I knew," she added pointedly.

Harry was silent for quite awhile, as if considering it. Then he let out a heavy breath, vigorously ruffling his hair. "Sorry, Granger. Our lives'll be long enough for you to keep waiting on that one."

In the course of five seconds, his black mane was poking out wildly in all directions, and their rare moment had passed.

Hermione let out a sigh. "And we were making such progress," she muttered.

Harry either didn't hear her or ignored her, tromping up the stairs. "…most powerful Patronus it's encountered," he muttered, sounding skeptical. He stopped, glancing down at her. "What is it, anyway?"

Suddenly she was unable to look at him. "Erm… It's a — erm…" She felt her face flush. "A…"

Harry spun completely. "For Christ's sake, it's too late to try to translate the bloody ermbles; speak up, will you?"

"A dragon!" she snapped.

For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then he burst out laughing.

"Oh, shut it!" she said indignantly, her cheeks flaming. "It's hardly a laughing matter!"

He hauled in a breath. "No. No, it isn't, I suppose not. In fact, I didn't realize quite how serious it is. Have you shared the happy news with the Poster Boy yet? His mopey face yesterday was making me want to cry."

Something inside her chest twisted, and Hermione scowled at him with narrowed eyes. "You're a skrewt, Harry Evans."

To her astonishment, a real smile that for an instant looked so much like Harry Potter's burst across his face. "And damned proud of it."

His bedroom door slammed shut.

Hermione let out a disbelieving huff, vacillating between anger and a surprised laugh.

Even though he very clearly wasn't Harry Potter, being on friendly terms with him, insofar as this constituted friendly, made something about this alien world feel a bit more right.

---

A/N: I know this didn't have the DH reconciliation we're all waiting for, but it's on the table for next chapter, I promise. Lots of foreshadowing in this chapter. Thoughts on H's nighttime adventures? Would YOU want to run into a Ravenclaw with a wand?

I will not hesitate to take advantage of this rare opportunity to say it would lift my spirits immensely to come out of general anesthesia this week and read any reviews you leave. So please do take a moment to drop one on your way out! :)

Also, if you haven't yet, be sure to check out MDP's Reverse character photo gallery - link in my bio. It's absolutely delightful and so much fun to browse. Thanks to her editing skills as well!

cannie cheetie - smart kitty
Dinnae fasch yerself- Calm down.
It's a sair ficht for half a loaf - It's a sad thing; no matter how hard you struggle, you never get the full loaf.
high heid yins - the high-ups (in management; an order system)
Clipe - tattletale, informer