Chapter Five
"They'll guess anyway," Minerva argued.
Hermione groaned, getting sick of having this argument with her lover. It was near the end of January, and they'd been going at it like cats in heat for more than a month now. Minerva, to her annoyance, thought it best to come clean about their involvement to Genia and Elise. She thought Hermione should come clean to the two Ravenclaws about being a time traveler as well, in fact, but her arguments about that were more flimsy than as to why they ought to be honest about their affair. Simply put, the two girls were observant, knew them well, and they socialized with the pair often, including today.
Speaking of, the door to the Room of Requirement swung upon and Elise and Genia stepped in. "They won't guess," she whispered, before stomping off.
"They will," Minerva countered as she followed.
"What are you two arguing about?" Elise asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing," Hermione huffed.
Genia snorted in amusement. "You're usually better at lying than that, Hermione."
She looked sharply at Genia. "When exactly have I lied to you, Genia?"
Genia glanced at Elise, who answered on her friend's behalf. "Directly to us specifically, I don't know we could come up with an example, but in the general sense, your entire history is a fabricated crock of shite. Do you know what my family is particularly gifted at, Professor?"
She groaned, understanding at once what Elise was getting at. "Reading auras. You can see mine is displaced, can't you?"
"Super displaced!" the young woman exclaimed. "I can also see that yours and Minerva's are a bit tangled these days, so if you're thinking we're not aware you two are shagging as well, you can just stop fussing with hiding that bit too. Honestly, we're Ravenclaws Hermione, and we've been friends with Minerva for ages and knew how she felt about you."
Hermione glanced at Minerva, who just shrugged. "I told you."
"Fine," she gritted out. "Minerva and I are together. I presume you two are smart enough to keep that to yourselves."
"And your displaced aura?" Genia asked. "You going to explain that one? There's only a few reasons why an aura would be displaced. Dimensional shift, time travel, or magical adoption, according to Elise's father. In any of those cases, you're not who you say you are."
There was no judgment in her tone, just a desire for understanding and a clear willingness to hear her out. Hermione appreciated, in this moment more than ever, how much of Filius' personality had been inherited from his mother. "Merlin, your son is so like you, Genia," she said ruefully, shaking her head. "Time travel. That's why my aura is displaced."
"You know my son?" Genia asked, smiling a little. "Do I… I mean is he…?"
"Your son with Melok," Hermione said, knowing what she was wondering. "His name is Filius."
"See!" Elise said, grinning widely. "I told you it was going to work out, Genia!"
"He grows up to be Charms Professor," Minerva added, smirking a bit, "and Head of Ravenclaw."
Poor Genia looked stupefied. "Really? I worried that if I had a child with Melok that their opportunities would be so limited. He'll… he'll have a good life, though?"
Hermione shrugged. "I don't know much about his personal life, honestly. He was my Charms Professor though, and we fought together in the war. He and Minerva are close, as they work together. In my time she's Head of Hogwarts and Filius is her Deputy."
"How bloody far in the future are you from, woman?" Elise exclaimed. "And who are you, really?"
"A little over fifty six years," she replied, "and I am a Dagworth, although I don't have the name, technically. I descend from Constance's Squib son, John. Rather than sister, Constance is my great grandmother. My name is Hermione, though. That bit is true."
"So where you come from," Genia said, frowning a bit, "there are decades between you and Minerva."
Hermione sighed. "And yet, I loved her before I got thrown back in time. We weren't together, but I did love her. That admittedly made resisting Minerva's advances here a bit troublesome."
Elise laughed. "Ultimate temptation."
"How are you two on temporal mechanics?" Minerva asked. "Me and Hermione have been trying to sort out what's supposed to happen to her. My older self hinted at her existence here and now, but only suggested she was here for this year, and didn't suggest she was around longer. That said, the wording she used didn't suggest she was gone either, so maybe she's not. We don't know if Hermione is meant to be looking for a way back to her time, or if something outside her control will force her back, or if she's meant to just live her life here from now on. I figured you Ravenclaws might know more."
Genia leaned back in her seat. "Melok and I have talked about temporal mechanics a bit. The Goblins don't regulate it nearly as much as the Ministry does. If they need to find and secure something but don't know where it is now, they just send an agent to when they know it was to deal with it then. From what he says, the timeline will always seek to correct itself. If there is no outside source by which the traveler can be correcting things themselves, then time itself will interfere at some point and simply drag the traveler back to their starting point, or near enough to it."
"When I left, I was trying to escape a bloody corridor roof collapsing on top of me," Hermione said. "If I return to that moment, I could be killed. Shield spells only work as long as you're conscious, and with that much weight, I was worried I'd not stay awake long enough."
Minerva looked thoughtful. "Could you Transfigure enough of the falling rubble into something else - fluffy pillows, for example - rather than casting the shield spell?"
Hermione considered. "That might work, but only if I can get enough of it. I'd not have time to target each bit of falling rock."
"Why not develop a spell which is a shield, but rather than deflecting any falling debris when it impacts, it Transfigures into a specific thing?" Elise asked. "That way, the weight on the shield would be greatly reduced."
Genia shook her head. "Not a terrible idea, but you're all thinking of this too linearly. Hermione needn't worry about having to solve the issue by herself. If we know ahead of time when she'll be going back to, then we merely need to be there, that day and time, to assist. If all four of us are casting shield charms to protect Hermione, then it shouldn't be a problem."
Hermione's eyes lit up. "That's it. I remember that night, as I realized the roof was about to collapse. I saw two women in the distance. They were too far ahead of me to make out clearly, and I didn't think they were close enough to help, whoever they were. It must have been you two. Minerva, you must have followed me from behind, and I just didn't notice. That's exactly what's meant to happen."
Minerva perked up. "Well, in that case we can be certain all three of us survive that far."
"Was that a question?" Elise asked, looking annoyed.
The Defense Professor sighed. "There will be two wars between now and then. I only know Minerva, in the future. I know Filius, but not on a very personal level and he's never mentioned his mother to me or what she's up to. Minerva has not indicated to me if you're living or dead, Genia. Elise, other than a few stories from your school days, I'd had no indication on your state either. I think you end up married to a Black, but I'm not certain on that."
"A Black," the Ollivander asked, looking annoyed. "Seriously?"
Hermione laughed. "A disowned one. Don't get huffy with me. Genia, what's your relation to Eileen Prince, out of curiosity?"
Genia frowned. "We're cousins. Her father and my mother are siblings. Why?"
"Her son, Severus," Hermione said with a heavy sigh, "will play a pivotal role in the coming wars. I can't tell you ladies much, because it's essential the timeline be left intact, but I suppose I was thinking that at the very least, I could tell you three that there is more to Severus than sometimes seems."
"That's not cryptic or anything," Minerva grumbled.
She turned to her lover. "I know it's frustrating, Min. Just… trust him. Trust me, and even when you have every reason not to, trust Severus."
"Anything else you can tell us?" Genia asked. "Any other way we can help without altering the timeline?"
Hermione considered the question. "As long as it does not interfere with Albus' plans, do everything in your power to support and help Harry Potter. I wish there was more, but…"
"Timeline," Elise concluded. "This is buggered."
Hours later, after Elise and Genia had left, Hermione and Minerva sat together in the Room of Requirement, just talking, the latter still pressing her for ways she could help without disrupting the timeline.
"I just don't know, Min!" Hermione exclaimed. "I can't have you look in on Harry when he's young, before he comes to Hogwarts, because you'll be one of his Professors and he can't know that you have been looking out for him like that. He just can't. If you do, then I'd remember Harry mentioning you doing so. He doesn't keep things from me."
"He doesn't know Genia or Elise though, does he?" Minerva asked.
"Not that I'm aware of, although like me, he does know Filius, so he'd know the Flitwick name," Hermione cautioned. "He would also know the name Black, Minerva, so if Elise does marry into that family, any interaction that she might have with Harry would need to exclude the use of that name."
"What about Ollivander?"
"Who in the Wizarding world doesn't know the Ollivander name?" Hermione pointed out dryly.
Minerva sighed. "Point made. You already mentioned Severus Prince being a key player, so I'm guessing Genia using her Mum's name wouldn't work either. I'm sure we could come up with something, or just not tell the child a surname at all."
The older Witch snorted. "Harry's proper. He'd ask if it was someone spending more than a brief moment with him, and if you weren't his peer, he'd be respectful and want to address by title, not a first name of a woman he isn't on intimate terms with. For Merlin's sake, he's all but engaged and he still struggles to call her parents by first name, even though he's known them for years and they've given him clear permission."
"I'm sure we'll figure it out," the Scottish woman said, leaning forward. "At this point I'm just trying to figure out how long you'll be with us. My older self said that you were our Defense Professor for our Seventh Year. Does that mean you'll vanish right after we graduate? Longer?"
Hermione let out a ragged breath. "I arrived here on August seventh. It was late afternoon sometime - I didn't look at the time specifically. From everything Genia was saying earlier, I think it's most likely, since I'm doing nothing to take myself back, that I'll be drawn back a year to the day. It meets the requirements of me being here long enough to be your Professor for your final year at Hogwarts, but not too much longer. It also prevents me from being here long enough that I'd have time to feasibly stop some of the horrible things I know are on the horizon from coming to pass. I talk a noble talk now, about preserving the timeline, but honestly if I stayed here long enough, and got up to the sixties and seventies… Minerva, there are people I don't know I could leave to die, or leave to their fates otherwise. There are things that will happen that don't need to, and it's taking all my strength to choose to respect continuity. I've never been able to keep things from Harry or Ron, so I know full well that I'll have to tell them about this when I get back, and I'm not sure how I'll do it. How will I tell them I did nothing to prevent things from coming to pass that might have saved them both pain?"
Minerva gave her an encouraging look. "You've told me how we can help Harry Potter. Who's Ron? How can we help him?"
She laughed. "Ron is a Weasley. He's Iggy's grandson. His life is mostly okay. There are losses in his family along the way. Most families lose some people over the course of two wars, and his was no different. It didn't really get deeply personal for him until the end of the second war, though. He lost one of his brothers. I won't tell you which one, but I will ask that you and the girls do what you can, even if it means nagging Ignatius to be there for his grandson, to support Ron through that loss. Ron's parents are great, but after, well, they still had five more living children to help, aside from him, not to mention handling their own grief."
"Understood," the Scottish woman said.
Hermione looked at her lover, who was taking all of this in stride like the Gryffindor she was, but Hermione knew full well that underneath it all she was hurting. She was falling in love, knowing full well she was going to have her heart broken when time decided to pull the Defense Professor forward, and it would be a long fifty six years before they'd be truly reunited. What Minerva had with Hermione Granger was not the same as what she had with Hermione Dagworth. She suddenly understood why Minerva, in the future, had spurned her advances. How could she accept the romantic affection of a version of Hermione who didn't know their whole story yet? How could she begin to explain something that could only be understood by living it?
The question still remained, in Hermione's mind, what would become of them in the aftermath. Would their goodbye, as she was thrust forward in time, be a final goodbye so far as their romance was concerned? Hermione's feelings had translated through space and time, but for her it had taken seconds, and would take seconds more when she moved forward again. For Minerva, she'd come to love Hermione Dagworth, and would have to wait decades to see her again. Hermione already knew Minerva had married Elphinstone Urquart in the early eighties, for as brief a marriage as that had been, but that did not mean she hadn't otherwise moved on. It wasn't fair to expect Minerva to wait for her. It just wasn't.
"Don't wait for me," she whispered. "After I'm gone, I mean."
Minerva's eyes narrowed. "What?"
"If I'm gone, Minerva, don't put your life on hold," she said calmly. "Don't hide your heart away and wait for me to maybe make it back in one piece. That's not fair to you. You should have happiness over the next fifty six years, and I won't be here to give it to you."
"You don't get to decide that for me," the Scottish woman said, standing abruptly. Her eyes were blazing angrily as she repeated herself. "You don't get to decide that for me, Hermione Dagworth. It's my life. My heart. If I decide that my heart belongs to you, for better or worse, then that's how it's going to be, dammit! As infuriating as you sometimes are, I happen to think you're bloody worth it."
With that, Minerva stormed out the door, no doubt to find somewhere to calm down, which was likely wise. Hermione sighed. For better or worse? Was that what this was? The truth of the matter was that she knew if she got back to the future and Minerva had moved on, it would break her heart as surely as her disappearance would break Minerva's now, so in either case they were bloody well fucked. She wondered absently if Minerva's older counterpart had ever considered not allowing the accident to occur which had sent her hurtling through time. Briefly, she was baffled that she hadn't. Then, she remembered something Minerva had told her that night.
"Honestly I'm not certain I'd have survived this long if not for what she taught us that year."
Hermione's eyes narrowed with resolve as she stood and made for her office, determined to rework her syllabus for the upper years. No more NEWT preparation. It was time to prepare her students for war.
Hermione wasn't terribly surprised when Genia Flitwick showed up at her office just after hours the following evening. After learning of her origins, she'd have been astonished if she and Elise didn't have further questions, likely ones they preferred to ask in private. "Come in, Genia. Tea?"
"Please," the young Ravenclaw said with a nod, taking a seat. "I wanted to ask you some questions."
"I figured as much," she replied, placing a cup in front of her student and friend. "You do understand, though, that there are limits to what I can say. I can't risk corrupting the timeline."
"Mostly, I just want to know about my son," came a soft admission. "I've been so worried about my future with Melok. I love him, I really do, but I know full well that the love of a mother runs deep, and I questioned if I would regret having a child with a Goblin. People can be cruel, and I found myself wondering if society would limit my child's options, and if he or she would find themselves ostracized and without a future to speak of."
Hermione laughed. "Filius was never held back professionally speaking. As I told you, I know very little of his personal life, although he is well liked by his colleagues and very respected in the Wizarding world in general. He'll attend Hogwarts, sort to Ravenclaw, then go on to become Grandmaster in Charms, and compete in the professional dueling circuit for a number of years, earning numerous championship titles. He also holds Masteries in Defense and Arithmancy, and is credited for spell development in all three fields. I think he mentioned at one point about spending a number of years studying with his father to achieve some Mastery in the Goblin Arts as well. Eventually, he'll return to Hogwarts, replacing Keating as Charms Professor and Head of Ravenclaw full time, a position he maintains for years, eventually promoting to Deputy Headmaster under Minerva, following the second war."
The young woman beamed proudly. "What of your relationship with him, Hermione?"
"Not much to tell," Hermione shrugged. "He was my Charms Professor. That sort of goes without saying. I worked with him in the Order a bit…"
"Order?"
"Ah," she said, "it'll be an underground organization to fight the Dark Lord behind the next two wars. Albus Dumbledore leads it."
"Okay," Genia said with a nod. "Go on."
"Filius and I worked together in the Order a bit, which is how I know as much as I do about his professional history," she mused, thinking back to the summer she'd stayed at Order Headquarters. "I was always a dab hand at Arithmancy and there weren't many in the Order who had a knack for it, so even though I was still so young at the time, I got tossed in a room with Filius and a few others who knew Arithmancy to run projections and so forth. We'd talk, sometimes. We bonded a bit over being the underdogs, I think. He was half-Goblin. I was Muggleborn."
"What's being Muggleborn got to do with anything?" the Ravenclaw frowned.
Hermione sighed, rubbing at the Mudblood scar on her arm by force of habit. "The Dark Lord who leads the opposition in the next two wars does so on a platform of blood purity. Pureblood supremacy runs rampant, and while half bloods are sneered at, Muggleborns are found extremely distasteful. By the last year of the war, people like me are being actively hunted and exterminated."
"Merlin," Genia breathed. "How horrid."
The older Witch nodded, forcing herself not to get lost in the memories. Instead, she refocused on Filius. "The bond between me and Filius ended up serving us well during the last battle. The summer we worked on Arithmancy together, we spent a bit of time in the basement of Headquarters working on dueling exercises, and during that last battle, there was a bit of time there when I got separated from my boys, and I found myself without backup. I saw Filius a few meters away, also alone, and it just seemed the natural choice to link up with him. We were already used to dueling together, and we ended up taking down a good many enemy combatants working together. Of course, the prat did have the audacity, when we had room for a breather, to comment on how my footwork needed practice!"
Genia chuckled. "Ever the teacher, I take it."
"I'd love to know how the blazes he had a spare second to take note of my footwork while knocking off Death Eaters left and right!" Hermione exclaimed. "Honestly, Genia, your son is a marvel. I'm lucky to know him, and look forward to continuing building on my relationship with him. Other than Minerva, he'd been one of the few at Hogwarts I'd hoped to continue seeing after graduation."
"Did you not care for your other professors?"
"It's not lack of care, mostly," Hermione shrugged, "just lack of personal connection. The Herbology Professor, in my day, is a lovely woman, but I don't have much interest in the subject outside of what I can use for Potions, so we have little in common. Horace is teaching Potions at the moment, and you already know I don't care for him. He came out of retirement after our Potions Master, well… that's a story I'll have to refrain from telling. I liked him better, even if he was a taskmaster with a vicious attitude. At least he wasn't fake. As for the rest of the professors, there's just nobody I really connect with. Well, the Care of Magical Creatures Professor is a dear friend, but honestly I often forget he's a Professor. He was a friend first."
"That sounds like a story," Genia mused.
"All I will say is that Filius won't be the only half-breed Professor at Hogwarts, in the fullness of time," Hermione said with a smile. "I think that under Albus Dumbledore's tenure, the school really became a place for misfits to fit in. Many of the staff had histories that made fitting in somewhere else difficult."
"I like the sound of that," the Ravenclaw said with a smile. "Thank you for this. Thank you for helping me to not worry about my son's future."
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