Standard Disclaimer: I own nothing in regards to Harry Potter or Pirates of the Caribbean. All properties therein are those of their creators. I am only working on my skills with worlds and characters that I love.

Note: Kind of a light bridging chapter here. The future is fucked and I will show it here. After that we'll happily get back to the past and the longer chapters. Also, the house elf last chapter was Kreacher. Sorry if I wasn't more clear about that. Harry is not coming back to the future.

Chapter Six - Let's Make A Deal

The Order of the Phoenix was in an outright panic. From the moment Harry Potter had arrived everything had gone to hell. His relatives were dead, the ministry was threatening expulsion and criminal prosecution, the boy had verbally and violently rejected both Hermione and Sirius, and he had been refusing to see anyone in his room. Then this morning they'd finally forced their way inside and found him gone along with all of his belongings. A note lay on his bed declaring that he was going to live a new life on his own terms and that they could all go fuck themselves. Magical residuals had led them rapidly to the library, but that entire section of the house had been sealed off with magic beyond any of their ability to pierce. Even Dumbledore couldn't get in much to his frustration.

The only one that had been able to pass through was Sirius, but he had not been able to find any real clues except a burned out circle on the ground. They were now truly lost on what to do as no method of tracking had led to anything resembling a location for their lost boy who lived. Hermione was practically inconsolable as she blamed herself for his running away.

They were currently meeting at the kitchen table to try and figure out their next move when every window and door slammed closed all around them with the finality of a guillotine drop. Of course the Order attempted to breach the barriers and apparate to safety, but they were all firmly rebuffed and soon enough they found themselves summarily yanked back into their chairs and stuck fast with their arms locked on the table. Their wands ended up clattering impotently to the floor.

A moment later Kreacher popped into being and snapped his fingers. With a fresh pop of displaced air a statuesque black woman in what looked like a faded and worn wedding dress stood tall upon the wood and stared imperiously down upon them all as if she were an empress gazing upon peasants.

"I do be grateful for your work here, Kreacher."

The elf bowed shakily, "It is a pleasure to serve, mistress."

"Now leave." The house elf disappeared.

Not one to take forced capture lying down, Mad Eye growled, "What is the meaning of this, Lassie?"

The mystery woman's eyes shot to the speaker and he suddenly found his throat locking up from an unseen pressure. "I do be Tia Dalma, and I'll not be tolerating no disrespect."

Albus Dumbledore was getting worried. Kreacher should have been under the singular control of Sirius, yet he was following the orders of this stranger instead. Maybe a dialogue could be opened? Yes, talking was one of his greatest skills! "Our apologies, Miss, but this is a strange circumstance to be sure. We were in the middle of a meeting when you showed up out of nowhere."

The stranger quirked her head and smirked, "Yes, you do be looking for Silent Harry. You will not be finding him in dis reality."

That nabbed all of their attention. "Not this reality?" Sirius spoke up then. "What does that mean?"

The woman began to strut along the table, her arms waving passionately as if she were an incredibly dramatic attorney addressing the jury. "Time is not a straight line. It be a tree trunk, branching off in different directions. Harry arrived in my own time, and offered me his place here in exchange for a few favors. Of course, he has started a new timeline with his presence, and he cannot return here now dat it has deviated from the original and I have taken his place. The boy is lost to you all. Best to be accepting it."

Despair filled the room at those words, and Sirius gasped with realization. "The Chart-Your-Own-Course ritual." The former convict's voice was a dead whisper. "I remember reading about that as a child. They said it was a one way trip."

"Indeed, dat be what Harry called it." Tia Dalma nodded.

Dumbledore was filled with dismay at these revelations. All his plans, all his hard work, all his agonizing sacrifices and compromises, all of his hopes for the future, they were all ruined! No, wait, they couldn't be. He was Albus Dumbledore, the leader of the light, champion of two wizarding conflicts, the leader his world needed, and he could not make himself believe that fate would not have delivered him the prophecy and then denied him the very means of fulfilling it. Thus this woman had to be lying, and there was an easy way to find the truth. On her next path around the table he met her dark eyes and triggered his strongest legilimency connection. Was it rude to attack a stranger in such a way? Yes. Incredibly illegal? Most definitely. But it was all for the greater good. She had information he needed and the aged wizard was not going to be denied.

At once time ground to a halt, but instead of his usual practice of sifting through surface thoughts and memories, he found himself standing on a stormy beach and staring at the form of his target, only she was the size of a four story building and there was a truly menacing quality to her aura as her grin revealed pitch black teeth.

"So, you do be wanting to read the mind of a goddess? You wish to view the experiences of eternity? Then let me share them with you." Tia Dalma's massive head leaned down and as Dumbledore's body was consumed in the light of a single eye bigger than his entire body, his world became a tidal wave of pitched sound, feeling, and memory. It was so much, too much, he saw everything, nothing, and all that could be or was. He saw the beginning of the earth, the end that was coming, and the wrath of a goddess that desired nothing more than to be unleashed from her chains. It was more than any man could take, more than anyone could comprehend, and in the face of it all his mind did the only thing it reasonably could to protect itself. It shut down completely.

Back in the real world the others could only watch in horror as their leader, the defender of the Light, and their only true hope against Voldemort, began to convulse bodily in his chair as if he were having a seizure. His eyes rolled up in his head, foam spewed from his mouth, and when he finally wore himself out all that remained where the powerful man had once been was a drooling invalid with no presence and no intelligence for any to behold.

"What have you done?" Molly Weasley shrieked, earning a silencing glare from their captor.

"I did nothing. That meddling fool did this to himself when he attempted to enter my mind. It be bad manners to be sure."

No one seemed to have anything to say to that, so Hermione spoke up. "What do you want from us?"

"Oh dat be simple." Tia Dalma stopped in front of the girl. "There be several particular items of interest to me. No one should possess them at this time and I desire them. Bring them to me and you shall be greatly rewarded."

It was Kingsley who spoke this time. "Why would we help someone that has invaded our base, taken us hostage, and assaulted our leader?"

"Because I can take you to Harry." That shut them all up.

"B-But you said he could not come back." Hermione noted.

"That be true. But I can take a few of you back wit me to the past. Harry exists in a separate time stream and has advanced himself too far to come back here. Going to de past is a different story. It will be a one way trip, so know dat if you agree to assist me, you will be leaving this world behind for good."

Mad Eye, who had reclaimed his powers of speech, scoffed. "You expect us to just abandon our time to the terrors of Voldemort? Fat chance, lady."

"I am simply giving you de option. Once I have your answer I will leave and you may do as you will. You can stay in this doomed time, or seek out Silent Harry."

All was quiet for a while then one by one the people gave their answers. It was almost overwhelmingly negative until it came to Sirius and Hermione.

"I failed the pup, and I need to make it right. Lily and James would neuter me in the afterlife if I just left things the way they are now." The former convict morosely stated. "I owe this world nothing and him everything. I'll help you."

"I have nothing in this world without Harry. He was everything to me and I betrayed him." Hermione muttered, and it was true. She'd no friends without him, no love, and her parents… the bookworm often thought her parents had had her just to fulfill the image in their minds of what a family should be. Man, wife, thriving business, house, and kid. There'd been little true affection, or even acknowledgement ever since she'd received her Hogwarts letter. "I need to make it right, I'll help you too."

As the others began to argue uproariously at their choices, Tia Dalma merely hopped off the table, called for Kreacher, and smirked as he whisked the four of them away.

They reappeared in front of the Library of Glasgow. "What are we doing here?" Sirius wanted to know. For a moment he was worried about the muggles seeing their clearly magical arrival, but was calmed by the fact that their current leader was dressed 'extravagantly' and no one seemed to care. Must be a notice-me-not on them.

"We are reclaiming my items." Tia Dalma answered simply as she marched forth into the building. "I cannot touch them meself, so you must grab them."

"Why can't you touch them?" Hermione asked as they made it to the section detailing the history of sea travel.

"Because of a curse that was laid upon me. It be why I left my time in de first place. There there be nine powerful lords to guard them. Here, well, no one to defend the pieces now. Ah, there they are." She stopped in front of a glass case detailing several items pulled from an undersea wreck. "These, take them all."

The wizard and witch glanced at the items in question and blinked. They were expecting cursed chalices or doubloons based on their locale, but these were just random pieces of junk. Regardless, they were too far along to question things now, so they merely vanished the glass, grabbed the trinkets, and quickly apparated away.

"Well, what now?" Sirius wanted to know as they found themselves on what seemed to be the British coastline.

Tia Dalma gave a mysterious smile and said, "We wait for de others."

"Others?"

They didn't have long to wonder about that statement as a new series of pops announced Kreacher's return. And he was not alone. With him were the Lovegoods, Abbots, Bones, and about two hundred other people. Out of that crowd came Luna, bouncing right up to the strange woman's side and offering an elaborate curtsy. "My lady Calypso, long has my family waited for your return."

"Luna Lovegood, I have heard your prayers across the winds of time, and yours be one of the only true souls left. Your love of the unknown and joy for the world do be pure beyond measure."

"Thank you, Calypso."

The goddess placed a hand on Luna's shoulder. "Are you ready to fulfill your destiny?"

"Yes, I've been ready all my life. I've dreamed of what to do since I was a little girl."

Calypso smiled warmly at the blonde. She had sent many feelers out through the depths of time for those that would be best suited to meet her needs. Her followers were few in this era, but they were loyal all the same. "Get de items."

And so Luna skipped over to a shocked Hermione, took the bag of junk from her hands, and brought it back to her goddess as her father pulled out his wand to light it on fire. Then she leaned easily to whisper in the dark skinned woman's ear in a voice as soft as the breeze, "Calypso, I release you from your human bonds."

At once the world went still. The water stopped crashing against the rocks, the wind stopped blowing, and every mite of bird song quieted. Then, before their very eyes, the dark skinned woman grinned an impossibly wide smile of pitch black teeth and expanded back into the waters until her form was near the size of a skyscraper.

"I am free!" A voice as wild and untamed as the elements proclaimed, before Calypso's massive head lowered down to view them all up close. "My followers, you have stayed true through the centuries, and you are those who shall inherit this earth. Bear witness!"

As the goddess spoke, immense thunderclouds arose overhead and the sea began to scream and writhe with dark winds and unholy forces untold and unimaginable to the human mind. It all culminated in a boom louder than a thousand cannons before the ocean itself rose to the heavens and crashed out in a massive retreating tsunami, consuming everything in its path.

As the others present cheered for what they called the 'rebirth of the world' Hermione fell to her knees. "What have we done?"

"Put de world back on its proper path and resumed de natural order." Tia Dalma's voice spoke soothingly into her ear, making the girl jump and turn to face the formerly massive woman, now back to a far more reasonable size. "It be my duty to make sure de planet's seas do be maintained and de world by dat same wrote. When de Brethren Court bound me my ability to do that was crippled. As a result, this future be beyond saving. De seas were corrupted, de skies barriers burned through, and de people too large in number to maintain de world's resources. My followers do be starting over fresh."

"We helped to destroy the world?"

"No, you helped to save and cleanse it. Just think, at its current pace, Earth would have ended in but another century. Now nature has de chance to fix humanities wrongs. And as a result, you get to go to de past and try to find your lost love, eh."

That was right. Hermione knew it to be true. Her feelings about this were complicated to say the least, but they could not be taken back, and if she went to the past then technically this would not have happened yet anyway. In the end, it had all been for Harry, and everything else she did from here out would be the same. "Can I really see him again?" It was a question that Sirius was listening to very clearly.

"See him, yes. Be with him… that remains to be seen. I know Harry well, and you betrayed him. He will never forgive that completely. Your days of being his love are done."

"I know." Hermione muttered miserably.

"That said, he may accept your friendship again."

That snapped her head right up. "Really?"

"Oh, yes." Tia purred as she entered into the girl's personal space. "You have a touch of destiny about you, and I can see it clearly. I can send you to de perfect place to cross your path with Silent Harry once more. It will not be quick, perhaps years before you see him, but you will meet him again and have de chance to make amends and be a part of his life once more. Is that agreeable?"

Hermione swallowed thickly. She'd known deep down that Harry's heart was lost to her, but even without it she craved his friendship again more than anything. "It is. What must I do?"

"Simply live your life. You are tied to your fate, and it currently includes him. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Hey, what about me?" Sirius wanted to know.

"De same rules apply. You go where I send you, live for a time, and eventually Silent Harry will come to you. You freed me, so I have woven destiny around you. Fair exchange." She smirked. "I do so look forward to seeing Harry again myself. I imagine his bedroom skills have only improved with time."

"B-B-Bedroom skills?" The bookworm stammered.

"Oh yes, I taught him much, but now that I am free, my senses do be greatly enhanced. De pleasure will be of truly 'divine' proportions. Now, hold your breath."

"What?"

"What!"

Tia Dalma didn't care to explain. Instead her hands latched onto their arms and a singular tube of water rose from the sea, encompassed their forms, and pulled them into the depths. The last thought Hermione had until the darkness of unconsciousness claimed her was to wonder if she had been tricked by a wrathful goddess.

The Past

"Man overboard!"

She woke to screaming and a bell clanging overhead as the waves rocked her prone form gently. What was this, a piece of driftwood?"

"Woman overboard!" Someone else shouted, further waking her from her delirium. Her eyes opened and two things became readily apparent. First, she and Sirius were adrift in the sea using what looked like a giant door as a makeshift raft. Second, there was a rather large ship pulling up next to them with hooks and ropes being lowered down with deckhands ready to grab them.

She didn't care though. The witch was too exhausted to move. She remembered being slightly winded her third year every time she used the time turner, so this must be the cost of true time travel. In short order she was gently raised and set down on the deck while people ran to grab her blankets. The others were still seeing to Sirius, so it was with surprise that the witch took note of a golden haired girl perhaps a year or two her junior kneeling down to take her hand.

"W-Where am I?" Hermione gasped out.

"On the crossing route to the Americas." The girl answered simply. "What's your name?"

"H-Hermione G-Granger." The cold was finally starting to sink in as well.

"My name is Elizabeth Swann. I'm watching over you, Hermione."

"T-Thank you."

Author's Note: Here we go, all the main players are in the same place and things are about to heat up. Let's just say Hermione is gonna have a tough time coming to grips with stories of what Harry has been up to lately…

Note: Yes, this chapter was a bit short and that was for a couple reasons. One, it was by design. The transition back to the past didn't need to be that long. Two, and more importantly, the next section being written is rather long, to the point that it'll probably get split into a couple chapters when it is done. There was no other clean place to split this into its own chapter than here.