Chapter Twenty Two

"Aberforth," Constance greeted him, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. He smiled at his Kinship sister, returning the gesture, after which the pair took seats around the table he'd set up for the meeting. She pointed to James and Helen. "Who are they?"

She'd met everyone else at various points, mostly at Black family bashes in the last few weeks, although neither James nor Helen had made it in for one of those. He was honestly a bit wary to introduce Constance and Helen, knowing full well that they'd get on and be thick as thieves in no time, likely much to his own detriment. Still, manners mattered and he sighed and made introductions. He nodded toward the two Sanctuary representatives. "Helen Magnus, James Watson, this is Constance Dagworth. Constance, Helen and James. Helen is a Squib, and Heads a Network of Sanctuaries which protects magical creatures, and James manages one of her satellites. He's technically a Muggle, but his work on the frontiers of science and magic have left him…"

"Somewhat changed on the biological level," James finished.

Constance raised an eyebrow, looking at Helen. "Magnus, as in Ashley Magnus?"

Helen looked surprised. "It's usually my father's name that people remember, not my sister's. Of course, she's not been Magnus in years."

Constance smirked. "She and my father were dear friends. I've not seen her in some time, but she was a frequent visitor to the Dagworth Estate when I was young. I hadn't realized she had a sister, much less one so much younger."

"Ah, well, looks can be deceiving," Helen mused. "Ashley and I were twins, although I was a Squib and she was a Witch. I am a great deal older than I appear, Lady Dagworth."

Aberforth sighed in resignation as Constance waved off the official title. "No formality from you, dear. We're practically family. Your sister was Aunt Ashley to me all my life, after all. Perhaps while not in the strictest sense, it was a title of affection."

"It's a small world," Hermione teased, sitting between Helen and Constance. "I'm glad to see you two getting on."

"I find myself a bit concerned about it," Aberforth admitted.

The Mage snorted in amusement. "Don't be petty. You're fond of Helen, and fond of Constance. Them getting on should be a good thing."

"I think he's concerned we'll gang up on him," Constance teased, smirking at her brother.

"Anticipating it, actually," he grumped.

Sirius slapped him on the back, and sat to his right. "Well, if the ladies get to be too much, you can always retreat to Grimmauld. I've got your back, Abe. Melok, you in?"

"Stand between Hermione and her prey?" the Goblin asked, looking horrified at the thought. "Are you mad?"

"Who said anything about Hermione?" Sirius asked. "This is Constance and Helen's show."

"Oh come off it, Black," Melok scoffed. "You know full well they'll recruit Hermione and she'll join willingly. Likely Cedrella as well."

"Oh yes," Cedrella agreed. "I'm in. Whatever it is, I'm in."

"Same," Minerva agreed, smirking.

Abe slouched in his chair. "James, if Sirius, Melok and I show up at your place, assume our deaths are imminent and open the damn door."

He looked deeply amused. "Noted, although I would point out that Helen knows her way around my home nearly as well as she knows her way around her own. We would be prudent to select a neutral location the ladies don't know about as a retreat, should we ever feel we need to flee from the female portion of our little collective. I also think it wise to step up with bringing Keating on board. Things are getting a bit unbalanced at this point."

It was all good natured, and the group laughed. It was nice, Aberforth thought, that they could do this. Constance was new to the group but she seemed to be fitting in well thus far, although he'd not anticipated otherwise. Her connection to the Magnuses had not been expected, but it was a boon, as it would give her and Helen a point to bond over. In fact, it gave him something to nag Helen about; he hadn't known she had a sister either. The Head of the Sanctuary so seldom spoke of her family.

"Alright, let's get this meeting started," Hermione said, clearing her throat. "I think it's high time we start talking about the horcruxes in a bit more depth."

"Horcruxes?" Constance asked, frowning.

The Mage sighed. "Bugger, I knew there was something I hadn't gotten you up to speed on. Are you familiar with the term at all?"

"Afraid not," her grandmother replied.

Cedrella spoke up. "A horcrux is a very nasty bit of dark magic, in which the act of murder, along with a series of spells, allows a Wizard or Witch to cut away a piece of their soul and store it in a receptacle of their choosing. Once this is done, even if that individual's body is killed, they themselves - their spirit - is anchored to the living plane by the horcrux, allowing them time to manifest a new body and put their wandering soul into that. In essence, it's a route to immortality. While a horcrux is in play, a person cannot be killed."

Constance looked appropriately horrified. "Hermione just said horcruxes. As in plural. Are you telling me that Voldemort made more than one of these things?"

Sirius sighed. "By the future we came from, he'd made seven, although the seventh was an accident and that one will not get made this go around. We have some guesses on which ones were made when so in theory we could destroy the earlier ones and then go after him, but Hermione says the Arithmancy shows the most promise if we wait until eighty one when he was beat back for the first time, and have already taken out his horcruxes by then. I personally disagree with this notion and would like to beat the shite out of him before eighty one, but that's what we're here to discuss."

Hermione glared at Sirius, and tossed five stones on the table, and then set to Transfiguring them. Then, she pointed to each object. "The Gaunt Ring. Helga Hufflepuff's Cup. The Lost Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. Salazar Slytherin's Locket. A Diary he used as a boy at Hogwarts. The sixth is, or will be, his familiar Nagini. She's a rather large snake, so forgive me for not manifesting her in here. Those are what the horcruxes are or will be. As of this moment, I'm fairly certain that the Diary and the Ring are already horcruxes. I think the Locket and the Cup may already be horcruxes. He comes to find them during his time working at Borgin and Burkes in his twenties, but I have no way of knowing how long he held onto them before utilizing them as containers. The Diadem, I think, is not yet a horcrux, although I expect it will be soon. He finds it in Albania, and hides it inside Hogwarts not long after Albus is promoted to Headmaster."

"What of the snake?" Aberforth inquired.

"That's the one I'm uncertain of," Hermione admitted. "I don't have any sort of research to suggest he had her before his first fall, but that doesn't mean he didn't. I know she existed before his first fall. I had a conversation with Newt Scamander enlightening me on that end. I was researching the subject and was hitting dead ends on how an animal could be made into a Horcrux at all. I thought it required far more magic to hold a soul together than a simple animal could harness. Newt suggested that I consider that it may not be an animal at all, but rather a Maledictus or Animagus. Then, a conversation with Poppy told me about how a Maledictus fitting Nagini's description was sighted in Grindelwald's war, and she thinks it's possible that she may have flocked to Voldemort, if for no other reason than a desire to be heard and understood for the first time in years. The question then becomes one of if or not she was hosting a part of Voldemort's soul prior to his first fall, or if she merely remained loyal and he didn't make her into a living horcrux until after his return in the nineties."

"What difference does that make?" Cedrella inquired.

"If Nagini merely sought connection, but has not yet been infected by a horcrux, then she may yet be saved from that fate," Hermione explained calmly. "Rather than have to kill a creature which was once a human being, I was thinking that it may be possible to find another way to communicate with her, and give her an alternative to an allegiance with Voldemort."

Aberforth perked up. "I know a bloke, I could touch base with him, who's been working on a potion that would make a person a parselmouth for a day. For him, it's a desire to be able to read and understand some of the old journals left behind by Salazar Slytherin - he was a Potions Master himself, you see - but in this case the application could be useful for our needs."

Hermione nodded. "Get in touch with him. Do what you need to do to help him finish the potion if possible. If we can avoid the sixth horcrux ever being made, we save both Nagini's life and the life of whoever was killed to make her into a horcrux."

"Failing that," Minerva said, "there may be another option with Nagini. Maledicti can sense one another. We had a Hufflepuff girl in our year who was one. Rolanda Diggory. I think she married right out of Hogwarts, and I can't recall to whom, so I'm not sure what name she's going by now, but if she could be located and recruited into the Resistance, she may be of some help in locating Nagini."

Hermione looked at her curiously. "Do you happen to recall what her form was, perchance?"

Minerva laughed a little. "Hard to forget. When we were in first and second years, Rolanda was still learning to keep control of her form, so sometimes we'd be in the middle of class and she'd just transform at random. She's a Hawk."

The Mage smiled a little. "Well that explains a bit. I think I may have a good idea what name she's using these days. I'll look into it. Thank you."

"What of the other five?" James asked, pushing them back on topic.

"That's the debate," Sirius said stiffly. "I think we should go and grab the ones we know for sure are already horcruxes, now. Get them destroyed, and as soon as we get those five done with, go after Voldemort. Hermione thinks that's too risky and that the Arithmancy doesn't jive."

Hermione glared at Sirius. "All the calculations I've run suggest that if we start arbitrarily destroying horcruxes now, Voldemort will figure out that someone is onto him and start making more horcruxes, which we won't know what they are, or we'll manage to kill him before he does rise to any real power and because we do that, one of his followers will call him a martyr and rise to take his place."

"So why not do in whoever takes his place then," Minerva asked.

"I ran that as well," Hermione replied. "The cycle just keeps going. We kill them, someone rises to take their place, and it's endless, like a bloody hydra. Decades of war as we try and fail to get ahead, more and more people flocking to the cause because they rally behind a group who can show evidence of being constantly under attack by those who would only oppress them. They'd become a symbol for political freedom."

Cedrella nodded, seeming to understand. "Whereas if we wait, and allow Voldemort to become the terror we know he will become, then taking him down will become the obvious choice that everyone will thank us for."

"And while we wait, people we love are going to die!" Sirius snapped. "James will…"

Aberforth's eyes narrowed as Sirius cut himself off, glancing over at James Watson, and not surprised to see a number in their group doing so. What was surprising was that James himself did not seem disturbed at the insinuation that he might die if they were not earnest in their actions. "James?" he asked.

The Sanctuary representative shook his head. "Sirius is not speaking of me, Aberforth. He only ever calls me by my surname, a fact that I have always found curious, although at this juncture I do believe I understand. There is another James with whom you are - or will be - close, isn't there, Sirius? If I were to take a guess, I'd bet good money on James Potter."

"Bloody Ravenclaw," Sirius grumbled. "Yeah. James Potter."

Minerva, who knew Dorea Potter quite well, looked horrified. "You mean that baby that Dorea is carrying right now? She mentioned last I saw her that she and Charlus wanted to name the baby James if it was a boy. He's going to die?"

Hermione sighed. "He'll grow up, marry, and have a son of his own first. If things go the same as before, however, it's likely. Both in Alpha and Beta, he and his wife died protecting their son from Voldemort, and their son became a symbol of hope as he was the first and to date only survivor of the killing curse, as it rebounded on Harry and struck Voldemort down."

The group was silent. Aberforth found his tongue first. "You mean to say… I mean you've talked about Harry Potter being important, and you've mentioned that Voldemort was beat back in eighty one, but that's how? He was taken out by a baby and a rebounded bloody killing curse?"

"That's just…" Cedrella muttered, opening and closing her mouth several times. "That's impossible."

"Eight years of knowing Harry Potter says otherwise," Hermione mused.

"No, Aunt Hermione," Cedrella said, shaking her head. "I mean it's impossible. I can think of some older magics that might have made it possible to make the killing curse rebound the way it did, but the baby couldn't have cast it. Unless…"

Aberforth suddenly sat up straight, eyes meeting Cedrella's, who was nodding vigorously. His throat was raw. "Baccae concordiae?" he whispered.

"That's the only way," the redhead agreed. "The only thing I can think of, and that would explain why it happened both in Alpha and Beta. The Potters certainly would have had the text to describe the ritual."

Sirius frowned. "Want to enlighten the rest of us?"

"It's an old, near dawn of Wizarding kind sort of ritual," Aberforth said with a sigh. "Fruit of Harmony. The casting is done in stages, and can only be used by a couple who have a harmonic and for a child they had together. The father casts on the mother first. He gives her his magic. At that point he's rendered defenseless, and nothing more than a Muggle. Then, the mother must cast on the child. If she does not do so within minutes, the father's magic will kill her. It just overwhelms her system. When the mother casts on the child, it forms a shield unlike anything else. She is equally as defenseless as the father was, equally as Muggle, but the idea behind the ritual is that the parents assume that no matter what they did, they were all likely to die in whatever attack. The ritual assures that come what may, the child would survive. Their parental sacrifice all but guarantees the child will survive, and the backlash on the shield is so powerful that the enemy coming for them is most often destroyed."

"Bloody hell," Hermione breathed. "That does explain a few things. Harry had wondered, over the years, why it never seemed like his parents fought back or tried to escape, or why one parent didn't take him and run while the other held Voldemort off long enough. They did this instead. They assured Harry would survive, even if they didn't, and that they'd take down Voldemort with them. Brilliant."

Sirius looked furious. "Not brilliant! Horrible! Don't even think about it, Hermione!"

"I'm not thinking anything I wasn't already thinking, Sirius," she snapped back. "The Potters' deaths may well be a Crux event. I told you that, dammit! The fact that we may now understand why and how is beside the point entirely. It just is what it is."

"Not if we kill Voldemort first!" he argued. "Not if we take him out before he gets to James and Lily!"

"He has a point, Aunt Hermione," Cedrella said softly. "We're talking about my cousin's son here. How can we not consider options which preserve his life? Don't you want better for Harry than to grow up an orphan?"

"Of course I do!" Hermione ground out. "I also want better for him than to grow up a child soldier, but I'm not certain I can have it both ways. If his parents live, he may grow up the same as he did before - central to a prophecy dictating he'll be the one to bring down Voldemort - and one day do just that. Or, I can let him become an orphan, but plan it in a way that assures that he'll grow up with war being a thing of history lessons and not something he's ever had to live through. You have to consider the greater -"

"I swear to Merlin, Hermione," Sirius said angrily, waving his finger at her accusingly, "if you start spouting on about the greater bloody good I'll book you a room at Abe's and you can stay here indefinitely."

"Hey now!" Aberforth said, getting half out of his chair.

"Leave it, Aberforth," Constance said softly, pulling him back down.

"Well I'm definitely going to stay here tonight if that's your attitude," Hermione said coolly.

"Fine!" the Head of the Blacks snapped, standing up.

"Fine!" Hermione snapped back, standing as well.

With that, Sirius Black turned heel and stormed out the door, the loud crack of him disapparating seconds later causing a number of them to flinch.

"That went well," James said, leaning back in his chair. "Shall we table this discussion for another time, or…"

"No," Hermione said, sitting back down. "If my husband wants to be a child and storm off, he can be filled in later. "Anyone else want to get up my case for the probability that James Potter and his wife will die in eighty one?"

Minerva frowned. "Dorea isn't here to defend her child. I am, however. If this were my son's life on the line, Hermione, I'd be fighting the odds. No matter how slim. There must be a way around this."

"Not without a high probability of decades of war," the other woman replied. "I'd show you the numbers, but according to Svetlana, Arithmancy is not your subject."

"That's not good enough!" Minerva shouted, hand slapping the table. "Come on, Hermione, you're a bloody Mage. Figure it out!"

"You act as if this is my fault, Minerva!" Hermione retorted. "As if I'm the one putting James and Lily in the line of fire, or the one who's going to kill them! Voldemort kills them, for fuck's sake. What in Merlin's name are you blaming me for?"

"Convenience, okay?" the Scottish Witch snapped.

Constance spoke up. "When do you think we should begin taking out the horcruxes, Hermione? If we did it your way with no argument?"

"We did it in six months in Beta," she replied after a pause. "If we begin recon by late eighty, there is absolutely no reason we can't have all the horcruxes sorted a year from then with time to spare. I hesitate to start the hunt any sooner than that because if Voldemort was tipped off, it would leave him too much time to potentially begin crafting more of the blasted things."

"That map you made Sirius," James said thoughtfully, "if sometime between now and then we could manage to add Voldemort's magical signature to it, then we could assign teams to track his movements once the horcrux hunt began, allowing us to watch out for any sign that he was onto us, or that he was making new ones."

"Wise," Constance agreed, Aberforth having told her about Sirius' map. "Given my position in high society, I may be able to get some of the signatures of the Death Eaters you still don't have for it as well. I just need to know who you need and what spells are required to get them added to the map."

Hermione nodded. "I may set you and Sirius to task on that, Constance. It wouldn't be odd for the pair of you to be seen at high society functions together. Even if it took us several years, it would be advantageous to have that map include as many people as possible."

"Have you considered making more maps like it?" Minerva inquired.

"Unwise, my dear," James said. "One is dangerous enough in the wrong hands. The more copies which exist, the more chances it could fall into enemy hands and become a key to our destruction as much as it could be a key to our success."

"I feel like most of my suggestions are bad ones," the young Transfiguration Professor said ruefully.

Helen patted her hand. "You're young, Minerva. You're learning. You'd not be here if we did not think you had something to contribute. Do not hesitate to speak up."

Hermione chuckled. "In Beta, I went looking for your older counterpart not because I gave a toss about her skill in battle, which was formidable, but because of her gift for strategy. That sort of thing can't be taught. It's innately inside of you, Min. Give it some time, and we'll all be benefitting from that talent."

Aberforth smirked as poor Minerva blushed profusely at the compliment, his expression being mirrored by Constance and Helen. His gaze shifted when Melok spoke up. "I do think that at the least we should recon, in the near future, where we think the horcruxes are. This is an alternate reality, or at the least an alternate timeline. It's not Alpha and it's not Beta. I suppose you might call it Gamma, if we're going to continue on with the Greek lettering. My point is that what if the horcruxes are not where we think they are? I would hate to learn that when we're down to a year before our deadline. I think it wise to look for them now, but leave them where they are."

"If we do that," Helen mused, "I'd urge use of disguises when in the area, on the off chance Voldemort has some sort of monitoring system. It would be devastating if he learned who exactly is working to undermine him this early on."

"Good call, Helen," Hermione agreed, "and Melok, that's not unwise, although I repeat, I'm only certain a couple of them are already made. I'd suggest starting with confirming the Ring and Diary. If we get certain confirmation of those two, we'll consider going forward and seeking confirmation of the second two."

"Where are those two located?" Cedrella inquired.

"The Ring should be in Little Hangleton, in the Gaunt Shack," Hermione said, looking thoughtful. "The Diary should be at Malfoy Manor."

Cedrella's shoulders slumped. "Oh bloody great. It's always the Malfoys isn't it?"

The meeting broke up not long after that, everyone apparating away save for Hermione, who was in fact planning to stay the night after her argument with Sirius. Melok delayed a bit, softly talking to the Mage for a moment before departing, Aberforth sighing in exasperation as the Goblin clearly offered her emotional comfort in the wake of her discord with her husband. Once Melok had gone, Hermione returned to the bar, clearly not quite ready to head up to bed. He poured her a Firewhiskey, and she offered him a grateful smile.

"You and Melok?" he posed, knowing he didn't need to specify the issue at hand.

She rolled her eyes. "As you may have noticed, Sirius and I had a row."

"I don't think even the Muggles trying to get into outer space missed it," he joked, the pair of them recently having discussed the space race between the Russians and the Americans. Aberforth was of the opinion that if Wizards put their mind to it, they'd beat the Russians and the Americans.

"He was making sure I was alright is all," she explained.

"That's not his job, Hermione," he chastised. "You're a married woman and he's a man with whom you've had an affair. Letting him be an emotional comfort to you is asking for trouble. You must know this. Why not speak to Helen or Constance about things? They were both here this evening."

"And I love them both dearly, Aberforth," she said with a small smile, sipping her Firewhiskey, "however neither of them are him. Melok and I have an understanding of one another that simply can't be duplicated. It's the nature of our bond as Mage and Master, and beyond that, he was the first friend I made in this reality. He's the first person I've truly trusted with all that I am in the whole of my life. I don't know if I could pull away from Melok any more than I could deny my own magic. It's instinctual at this point. I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying I shouldn't be confiding in Sirius instead. I'm just saying it would destroy me to cut my heart off from him. It was never lust between us. We fell in love. When you fall in love and it's real… my friend, there's no magic on earth to make that feeling evaporate."

He grunted in acknowledgement. "I'm not saying you should stop loving Melok, Hermione. I'm just saying that what's between you is a wound, and the sooner you stop encouraging it to fester, the better for both of you, because what you feel is not something you are in a position to act on."

"I know that," Hermione sighed.

His eyes narrowed. "You are, generally speaking, a very smart Witch. Why is it that this one thing leaves you so bloody stupid?"

She took another sip of the Firewhiskey. "I think that relative intelligence completely aside, love makes anyone a bit of an idiot. I think part of it's that, and part of it is that Melok is the father of my sons, and it feels so strange to me to not be in a relationship with him for that reason alone. I mean Sirius and I have Arcturus and Lycoris of course, but they're grown and can mind themselves. They don't need me as children need parents in the general sense, at least not usually. Filius and Caelum do, however, need me in their day to day lives, which means Melok is in my day to day life, and present in such a way that I can't ignore he is the father of my bloody children. I didn't mean for this to happen. It wasn't how I planned it at all. I specifically, in fact, intended not to have children, because I did not want my attention divided like this."

"If you had children with Sirius, do you think you'd find more balance?" Aberforth posed, curious.

"I've considered the notion, especially in recent years," she admitted. "I wouldn't be willing to risk it until I was certain we were in an alternate reality instead of a loop. In my mind, there are a few things that could determine that one way or another, but the most definite one would be Bella's sorting in sixty two. Even if I got pregnant right after that and only had one child, then my child would be born in sixty three or sixty four, and best case come of age in nineteen eighty. Aberforth, if the Potters are to die in eighty one, it is very possible I will need to be moving pieces myself to ensure that happens. With as many ripples as we've made, I may very well have to lead Voldemort right to their bloody doorstep, as sick as it makes me to even think that. I'll do what must be done, though. My point is that if I consider I may die by eighty one, and any child of mine will barely be of age by eighty, is it really fair to have a child who will lose me so young?"

"Filius and Caelum won't be much older," he pointed out.

"Filius and Caelum will have Melok," Hermione countered. "A man who is already acquainted with grief and I am confident will be able to stand strong for his sons as they face the loss of me. The last time Sirius lost someone he went off half-cocked, got himself framed for murder, and spent the next twelve years in Azkaban having a bloody pity party. I'm not confident in his ability to be there for a child as they face losing their mother."

"You don't trust him," he realized.

"Not to put others' emotional needs above his own when it counts," she admitted softly. "Sirius has many wonderful qualities, and he'd lay down his life in a minute for a perfect stranger if you asked him to, but he's rubbish when it comes to emotion. He's rubbish about stepping up when others are broken and he is too, and there is need for him to put his needs aside and be strong. I do think he has it in him to grow in this regard, but he's not there, Aberforth, and I hesitate to have a child with a man who's not there."

Honestly, he couldn't blame her for that. "Fair enough," he said. "Just, do try to preserve your marriage, will you? The Resistance needs you and Sirius to be functioning cohesively. It was bad enough for our lot to see you rowing. Don't let people at larger meetings see that. It'll undermine confidence in your leadership. Nobody will trust a leader who can't keep their own house in order."

She let out a ragged breath and tapped the edge of her glass, signaling him to refill it. He did. "Noted," Hermione said softly, taking another sip.

Aberforth wasn't sure when was the last time he'd seen her look this weary.

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