AN: Hello, FF and Harry Potter fans. I do not own Harry Potter, but feel free to enjoy this or hate it. If you enjoy it, please leave a lovely comment, if you hate it, then leave some constructive criticism, thanks!

Can You Take the Jump?

Chapter 58

Lily woke up due to a blinding light. It took her a while to realize that the sun's rays shone so brightly on her that she could see and feel the sunlight through her eyelids. Despite being rudely awakened by nature's lightbulb, it took her a moment to fully wake up and open her eyes because of the waves of nausea that were threatening to break through her. She knew, instinctively, being still, keeping her eyes closed, against the light, was helping her nausea.

However, soon, she couldn't push down her nausea anymore and opened her eyes to vomit by her bedside.

"Mhm!" she muffled in shock. Her eyes grew wide, she couldn't move a single inch of her body. She tried to tense anything below her neck, but nothing.

"Argh!" She screamed this time. "Ahhh!"

Panic made her nausea disappear as she lay limp on the bed.

"Lily?" A familiar voice rushed to her side. "Lily. Can you hear me?"

"J-James." Her throat croaked as if she'd been a lifelong smoker. He looked down at her with utter relief.

"Oh thank Merlin." He cradled her head and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Thank you for being alive, thank you. Thank you." He stood up sharply and called out. "Madame Pomfrey! Pomfrey!"

With James next to her, she calmed down significantly, but tears collected in her eyes as she stared at him with utter confusion. Why was James calling out to the school nurse? Lily blinked, trying to think of the last thing she remembered, but that was when it hit her, the smell…a horrid smell radiating from everywhere, the main thing causing her nausea.

"What is that smell?" She grimaced, "Where am I? What's going on?"

But before her questions were answered, Madame Pomfrey was at her bedside.

"Oh, Ms. Evans. Good, I can see your eyes following me. That's very good."

"Madame Pomfrey, what are you… what am I…?" Lily looked around, realizing she knew exactly where she was. She was in Hogwarts, during the holidays?

"No," Lily shook her head, realizing that those questions weren't the most important. "Madame Pomfrey, why can't I feel or move anything below my neck?"

Pomfrey took a step back and stood up straight. A look passed her features, something Lily recognized from her childhood spent following Hermione around in St. Mungo's. There was bad news.

Slowly, Madame Pomfrey removed the sheets that were covering her body, and the sight before her made her gasp in horror. She was covered in bandages, which were already starting to seep with blood and puss. That's when Lily finally understood what the horrible smell was. It was her. It was her burnt skin and probably her hair, mixed with the smell of burn medication that was emitting the rancid smell.

"We had to paralyze and numb you. Or else the pain…it would've been too much for your body and mind to handle."

"James," Lily turned him the best she could. "What happened." She demanded.

…

There was a distinct grogginess when waking from an artificial slumber, one which Hermione was very familiar with. However, this time, in fact for the first time in her life, she didn't wake in cold sweats from her nightmares. Instead, she woke up from unbelievable heat and pain. As if there was a fire roaring right in front of her face.

As consciousness filtered into her mind, she began to realize that her thoughts might not be far from reality.

Her eyes peeled open only to find all her senses filled with fire. Her nose and mouth filled with smoke; her ears could hear the house creaking and groaning as the fire threatened the house's structural integrity. Her vision was burned by the sight of her childhood home being engulfed in orange and red flames, and fiery beasts of all kinds moving around the air, touching everything that wasn't already in flames.

Fiendfyre.

Normally, she'd be frozen from horrified awe by the flames as the memories of her past started filling up her mind, but her senses abruptly stopped her from dissociating into her mind. There was pain. A lot of pain.

Though Hermione had been spared from too much smoke inhalation by falling unconscious on the ground, the carpeted floors of her 70s-styled home were not a flame-retardant design. Her left leg had not been spared.

"Ah! Ah! AHHHHH! AHHHHHHH!" She screamed the moment she realized her leg was engulfed in flames. She reached down and frantically patted her leg down to douse the flames in blind panic but screamed in pain once more as the fire transferred onto her hand.

"Are you daft?!" 30-year-old Hermione Granger shouted grabbing her wrists. "These are enchanted flames! Dark magic! Your hands are a million times more valuable to you than your legs! You're a witch!"

Hermione blinked rapidly. Her past self's sudden appearance and scolding reawakened her sense of logic. She searched for her wand but it was nowhere to be seen. Where had it gone? She was sure it was on her before, during the party. She took a deep breath and focused her magic. She waved her hand over her leg to snuff out the fire on her leg. She writhed with pain, but she tried to reason with herself that the pain was a good thing. Pain meant that the fire hadn't burned her deep enough to touch her nerves. Her leg might be scarred, but it can be saved.

"Your family." The older version of herself reminded her, pointing to the sofa where Lily and the rest were passed out. Luckily, none of the sofas in their living room were on fire yet, but being on a slightly higher elevation meant that there was a higher chance that they'd inhaled much more smoke. Hermione latched onto the armrest of a sofa and pulled herself up, she groaned despite trying her best not to put any weight on her injured leg. She quickly pulled her sisters and parents down from the sofa.

She knelt over them and shook her sleeping parents to no avail.

"Please wake up." She begged. "Please wake up!"

A python of fire opened its mouth, bearing its fangs toward her, and flew towards her, but she ducked out of its way. The fire was growing at an exponential rate. Her family had minutes left. They needed to escape.

Fiendfyre was unique in its horribleness. It was not an average fire, not an average curse. It was a curse that grew in strength the more it burned, and it would not stop until it had swallowed every single thing into ashes. Therefore, a fire this size could not be doused by a simple charm. There was no incantation to stop it at all. A small flame, like the one on her leg, yes, but the size of this house? No. They'd have to isolate the house from the surrounding houses in the neighbourhood and let the fiery curse snuff itself out with nothing more to burn.

The only person who could control the fire was the one who cast the curse, and even then, only the greatest magicians could truly control it. It was why Vincent Crabbe died by his curse in 1997. He'd been dark and corrupted enough to cast such a spell, yet he was not powerful enough to control it.

She searched through Lily's clothes for her wand, and nearly cried with relief when she felt the willow wand in her sister's dress.

She grabbed Lily and Petunia's arms to apparate but felt the magical pressure of something pushing her back down. Anti-apparition wards. She could break them down, but she didn't have enough time.

"FUCK!"

Hermione crawled, ducking and rolling away from the magical fire beasts that were determined to kill her. She burned her shins, her hair, and her face, but like her old self said, her hands and arms were the most important. She screamed and cried the entire way, but she made it to the front door. She attempted to knock the door down, but it did budge.

"Alohomora!" She cast at the door but saw that the door had never been locked.

"Alohomora! Alohomora!" She cried several times, "Patefacio! JUST FUCKING OPEN! PINKY!" She called to her trusty elf, but no one came. Dumbledore's protection wards that were supposed to prevent intruders into the home were preventing help from coming as well.

"You're surrounded…" Old Hermione let out a defeated laugh, sounding dejected. "You're in an unbreakable bubble of…fire…and death…"

"This can't be it." She rushed back to her family, only to see her father's arm engulfed in flames which were now crawling over his chest. Despite the Sleeping Draught acting as an anesthetic, he moaned through the pain. "No no no no no." Hermione waved her hand over her father's arm to put out the fire, but Lily's wand was resisting her.

"Gah!" She grunted, fighting with her sister's wand. Slowly and surely, the fire died down, leaving behind painfully raw flesh. The cotton and polyester blend had melted into the flesh causing an even more grotesque appearance.

"If only you had a—"

"A port key." Hermione's jaw slackened. "I do! My gift to Lily. It's a portkey! Accio portkey!"

After agonizing silence, a little black velvet box flew through the air and into her hands. A beautiful charm bracelet sat in the box, glistening in the fire surrounding her.

It was too small of a port key to transport all five members of the Evans family. Portkeys required the transportees to have direct and firm contact with the magical transportation device or they would not move at all.

"Engorio!"

The bracelet's size grew significantly. The circumference that would normally perfectly wrap around Hermione's thin wrist grew to a size that would fit arms, several of them.

But not all. Judging by the size of the enlarged bracelet, only three of them would fit.

"No!" Hermione screamed with fury. "NO! Don't make me choose! Don't make me do this! HAVEN'T I LOST ENOUGH? HAVEN'T I DONE ENOUGH?"

"Hermione, there's no time." Her old self reminded her. There was harshness in her voice. A firmness that told her that she needed to make a decision, and fast. Flames were already starting to spread getting close to her mother this time. She pushed it back, while her eyes moved wildly trying to make an impossible decision. Five people. A lifeline for only 3. Her siblings or her parents. Who would live? Was she supposed to sacrifice herself now? Was that her fate? If she was to sacrifice herself, would she save her mother or her father? Who were the three that were to live? What right did she have to choose their fates like this?

"Hermione!" Hermione Granger shouted.

"JUST—just give me a second!" Hermione put her arm up as she frantically looked back and forth between her sisters and her parents.

"L-Lily must live, because she needs to give birth to Harry, a-and Petunia lives in the future, so she—" Her mother's hair burst into brilliant flames.

"Ah!" She put it out as quickly as possible, but half of her mother's beautiful hair was gone.

The flames were unpredictable. She couldn't just put out the fires that got close. The fire was all around them, not just the beasts that attacked her every moment they got, it fell from the ceiling as spackle fell, and kindling floated in the air catching her clothes or the drapes.

"Petunia neglects Harry and keeps him under the stairs for his entire life!"

"She is DIFFERENT now!" Hermione insisted, trying to cough the smoke out of her lungs. "If I sacrifice myself, then at least mum can—"

"No, you haven't figured out what the last Horcrux is." Old Hermione shook her head, frustrated with her hesitation and delay. "Why are we even discussing this and wasting precious time? If you don't act now, everyone will die!"

Tears streamed down her eyes and there was a pain in her chest, but it wasn't from the smoke. She stared at her loving, beautiful, and kind parents. They were the most logical choice. It was the choice that they would want her to take.

"They deserve better than to burn to death."

"They do." Hermione Granger nodded, following her line of thinking. "It'd be painless: mercy. Burning to death is said to be one of the most painful ways to die."

Hermione lifted her trembling wand arm, but as she looked down at her arm she realized that Lily's wand would never perform an act like this. She placed the wand in her pocket and raised her arm again; wandless. Without a vessel to focus her magic, to give her parents a peaceful death she would have to focus more, intend more, and mean it more.

"No…" She turned to Hermione Granger with fury. "No. You are a monster for even suggesting this! I cannot do this! I WILL NOT!"

She exploded with energy, but within a structurally failing building, it only worsened the situation as the second floor collapsed, landing right on top of Hermione Granger.

She didn't have time to ponder the symbolism that could mean in her mind. Her family was on fire. Literally. Without the harsh words of Hermione Granger's words in her mind. She could focus. She looked back and forth between her family members for a moment before making her decision. She put out the small fires that appeared on her siblings and parents as she moved them to the center where the fire had touched the least. She dragged her parents and Petunia, looped their arms into the bracelet and added a sticking charm for good measure.

She ripped the tablecloth off the dining table and snuffed out the fire to salvage as much of the cloth as possible. She grabbed the burnt-out leg of a wooden chair, now basically charcoal and wrote with the dark ash coming off the leg.

HELP!

She tied it to her father's good arm. He appeared to be the most injured, grabbing a healer's attention first, which means her SOS would be reached faster than putting it on Petunia or her mother. She then activated the portkey. With a harsh snap in the limited air, her parents and Petunia disappeared, leaving Lily and Hermione in a crumbling burning house.

"What is your plan?" Harry asked her staring worriedly as she coughed, hacking her lungs out. Her vision was blurring, her head was pounding and she felt confused. Did she have a plan? What was it again? The air she was breathing was 90% smoke and 10% carbon dioxide.

"You have a plan, right? Hermione, this is a huge gamble!" He glanced back and forth between her and his mother. She blinked rapidly as her chest rose and fell quickly trying to get more air, which only led her to cough more rapidly. "HERMIONE! Focus! What is your plan?"

She tried to shake the feeling of faint out. Her plan. She had a plan. They were witches. They had magic. It would protect them and buy them time until help came. Yes, that was her plan. Or at least, that was her theory.

She knew a lot was at stake for just a theory: she had given up her place in the afterlife with her children to ensure the survival of Harry Potter, but now she was threatening his very existence by leaving Lily behind. However, she was tired of sacrificing lives for the greater good, especially her own family's. She had given those with the smallest chance of survival a chance to survive while leaving herself and Lily behind. She'd read about witches' and wizards' magic subconsciously activating to protect their person. She'd experienced it herself the day her children died in Hogsmeade Village.

Lily may be unconscious, but the subconscious knew when death was imminent.

She did not gamble with lives since gambling was based on luck. She did, however, put them at risk based on theory since that depended on her knowledge.

They would survive. She'd make sure of it.

She pointed her sister's wand and muttered Aguamenti, with the heat, dryness, and fire that roared around her, she was shocked that even a weak stream of water burst through the tip of the wand. She doused Lily and herself in water, despite knowing it was basically useless against the Dark flames.

She tried placing a bubble-head charm over Lily's face, but the advanced spell made her sister's wand fight back.

"Please, I'm trying to save her. Listen to me. Hear my pleas and intent. So just… fucking work!"

The bubble-head charm formed around Lily giving her a bubble of oxygen that she desperately needed. Even in deep sleep, Lily started coughing as her lungs got the air they craved.

She pointed Lily's wand at herself and repeated the charm, but could not cast it.

"Fuck you." She coughed. "Fuck you! I know I'm not as sweet and bubbly as Lily, nor am I warm and friendly, but I'm her fucking sister!" She tried recasting, but it made a feeble small bubble, and nothing else.

"Hermione it's not the wand," Harry told her, but she was starting to see three, no four, of him standing there. "There's not enough oxygen around you anymore. At least not enough for both you and my mom."

Well fuck. Hermione fell to the floor, her mind and body succumbing to the oxygen deprivation.

"Please." She prayed into the world before her eyes closed once more.

…

Every decade or two, a muggle would somehow stumble their way across the Hogwarts border. The age-old wards and protection around Hogwarts, while effective sometimes had holes. Often they were nature explorers or photographers who enjoyed the Scottish Highlands or canoers who found themselves floating along the Black Lake too far from the shore.

The intrusion was never a big issue. A small warning sign would alarm through the Headmaster's Chamber, but Dumbledore would simply go find the individual, alter their memories and send them on their way. No one in over a century had gotten even remotely close to the castle.

It was almost fitting that the only muggleborn Slytherin in over a century was the one to break this record as well.

Dumbledore was having a dinner party with some of the professors when he first noticed that something was wrong through the odd movements of the paintings. There was a general sense of unrest. It didn't take long until a painting rushed into the room.

"Muggles! MUGGLES IN HOGWARTS!"

Pomona gasped loudly, dropping her glass of Elf wine. Minerva was quickly on her foot, rushing outside and looking up and down the corridors to see the perpetrators of the intrusion. No one in living memory had ever witnessed a muggle enter Hogwarts, at least with no warning like this. How could they have just appeared?

Dumbledore slammed his hand on one of the panicking paintings.

"Where are the muggles?"

"H-hospital wing!"

He rushed to the Hospital Wing, trailing behind him were the rest of the professors, wands at the ready.

"Dumbledore!" Pomfrey greeted with relief as soon as he opened the doors of the Hospital Wing. "W-what should I do?"

Three individuals covered in soot and the smell of fire were slumped on the floor of the Hospital Wing unconscious.

"Ivy Evans?" He recognized the woman on the floor.

"Evans?" McGonagall gasped. "As in Lily Evans? Hermione Evans?"

Everyone rushed to the people on the floor, their horror growing with every step closer. They had burns and scars.

"Hurry," Dumbledore snapped everyone out of their shocked daze. "We need to get them treated."

"Y-yes," Pomfrey nodded, everyone worked together to gently get the individuals free from each other, but it took a while as the heat had melted them together, especially the younger girl's clothes contained sequins made of plastic, acting like glue, moulding the three of them together with blood, flesh, and colourful plastic.

Pomona and several other professors looked positively green at the amount of flesh they needed to cut off to separate them three but once they were done separating them, all the professors rushed to each person to try and help.

"We need to first check their airways. Smoke inhalation is what can kill them, not the burns!" Pomfrey told everyone. Most of the professors at Hogwarts were trained in basic first aid, so they all got to work, clearing airways, cleaning burns, and applying the salve. It didn't take any of them a long time to figure out the wounds were from cursed fire. It didn't heal like a normal burn. This would take professional expertise.

"Poppy," Dumbledore looked around. "Did the girls arrive as well?"

"What?" The school Healers barely looked up from working on Ivy.

"The girls. Lily and Hermione Evans."

Her hands froze. With wide eyes, she shook her head. "Oh, sweet Merlin. Are the girls…are they still…?"

"Albus!" Minerva's voice called out. She held a white burnt cloth in her hands.

Everyone couldn't help but freeze at the ominous writing against the cloth in charcoal writing.

HELP!

"Get those two to St. Mungo's now!" Dumbledore demanded as he raced to the closest floo. "Cokesworth, Evans Residence!"

The green and safe flames of the floo faded, it was replaced with red hot flames of Fiendfyre. Dumbledore couldn't even gasp at the sight, the non-existent air was suffocating and soot-filled.

"Miss Evans!" He shouted into the crumbling home, ducking away from the flames that tried to attack him. He might be the only thing not burning in this house.

"Miss Evans! Hermione!" He coughed. Dread filled his chest. There was no way that the girls could survive this. The level of destruction and magic was uncontainable. Undefeatable.

"Lil—" He was cut off when the house shook, its very foundations crumbling beneath his feet.

He needed to leave. Even he could not push back a Fiendfyre this large and advanced. He must leave or else he too would be crushed under the burning house.

"I—" He stepped back before the fireplace crumbled in on itself. "I-I'm so sorry."

Just as he put his hand inside his pocket to pull out more floo powder something cried from a distance.

"Wraughhhhhhh!" It was a terrible gut-wrenching sound of pain and anguish. It didn't sound human at all. Like nails against a chalkboard, it was uncomfortable and chilling.

"Miss Evans?" He hesitated, his hand still in his pocket. He looked toward the direction of the cry.

Albus Dumbledore was not a Gryffindor. He never was and never had been. He was not one of those rare cases that the Sorting Hat got wrong, he was a Ravenclaw through and through. Intellect helped him appear braver than he was. Intelligence gave him solutions to problems and issues, it gave him magical prowess to stand up for what he believed in, and it attracted actual brave individuals to him, but none of those things were true bravery.

Someone who was truly brave would have run toward that desperate cry. There would have been no hesitation.

There was a deep sense of helplessness, something he hadn't felt since he was a child after those muggle boys abused his innocent sister. The event had led her to become an Obscurial, just like Hermione Evans. A curious, fun-loving girl had become a recluse, a prisoner of her own home because of it.

Hermione Evans had not let the parasite overtake her. She took charge. She fought.

"She would fight now too. She is alive. That note on her father's arm was for you. She was begging you."

He clenched his jaw and ran through the flames. He could feel his long robes catch on fire, his hat, his beard, the heat was unbearable. His lungs were burning and his eyes tearing up from the fire.

"Gah!" He cried when his skin singed against the fire, he wanted to stop. His instincts demanded it, but he couldn't. What was it that the Muggle Prime Minister said once? When going through Hell, keep going? Yeah, that was quite literally what this felt like.

By the time he arrived at the sitting room where two burning bodies were, he couldn't help but stop at the sight before him. He'd never witnessed anything like this. It was something that was entertained as a thought exercise amongst friends or colleagues without ever expecting to see it happen in reality.

A black swarm circled them with red eyes was fighting off the Fiendfyre. An animated fiery curse vs a live parasite.

It was art come alive. A manifestation of philosophy in action. Heat vs cold, external darkness vs internal, and cursed light vs cursed darkness.

Which would win?

Both had their pros and cons. The Obscurus was limited as a parasite, connected to Hermione Evans and dependent on her survival to live, but it had a sense of intelligence as it ate away at her consciousness, thinking and strategizing as she would. It was alarmingly intelligent, making itself solid and then an intangible mist-like manifestation so that it could not burn. It used these aspects of itself by circling the heads of the Fiendfyre curse, snuffing it out by making a vacuum within itself. Albus always knew that Obscurials' power was dependent on the innate power of its host, so seeing this thing was a clear sign of how powerful and fearful Hermione Evans truly was. Even unconscious, she was using her parasite to fight off a dark curse as powerful as this.

However, the Fiendfyre was relentless. It attacked from all angles, trying to burn the only thing in the room that was no longer in flames.

Albus peered through the fire, looking for a second body belonging to Lily Evans. He couldn't see anyone. Could he risk looking through the house more to save Lily Evans as well?

Hermione Evans's Obscurial screeched in that unsettling sound once more. Its host had been burned once more, weakening the parasite. Ultimately, this was a battle against time, not strength.

Hermione Evans would never trust him or forgive him if he didn't save her sister, but if he left her here any longer, he would lose a vital key player for the coming war.

He made a decision that would scar him for the rest of his life as he charged forward, blasting a powerful spell to blow the Fiendfyre and Obscurus away from Hermione Evans's body.

"Ha!" He let out a gasp of joy.

Hermione Evans had fallen unconscious on top of her sister, covering Lily Evans nearly from head to toe, protecting her from the flames.

He felt a sharp snap against his shoulder as the Obscurus fought against him, trying to protect its host from him. It was going feral, like tiny needles stabbing him all over the body. It wasn't needles, however, it was her pure unadulterated magic mixing with a parasite's, fighting his magic. His nerves burned in a way that the cursed fire couldn't.

He cried out with more pain than he'd ever experienced in his life, causing him to drop to the fiery floors. He didn't care about the fire, burning through his charmed clothes, now travelling up his legs. It felt like a Cruciatus Curse.

"ALBUS!"

Albus Dumbledore had never been more glad to hear the sound of his old friend's thick Scottish accent in his life. Minerva McGonagall grabbed him and then they were gone.

…

Hermione groaned awake, being rudely awakened by pain all over her body which was slowly accumulating.

"Nnggh," she whimpered. She was used to a more deep throbbing pain from her failing organs, but this was sharp and hot.

"Miss Evans?" A familiar voice coaxed her eyes open, but even that was painful. "How is she awake? She should be unconscious for hours at least?!"

She wanted to grab the owner of that voice, demand more drugs and potions to put her under once more for sweet unconsciousness, far far away from this pain, but she couldn't move her arms. She couldn't move anything at all, but she had a feeling that even if she hadn't been immobilized by magic, her burns and the pain would have immobilized her regardless.

"Miss Evans, don't struggle." Hermione could recognize the voice now, it was Pomfrey. "You've been immobilized for your safety. You were…burned. You have second and even third-degree burns all over your body. If you move, it'll be bad for you."

"L-Li…ly?" She tried asking, but her throat and lungs were searing by the mere whisper she produced.

"Your entire family made it. Everyone is alive," the school Healer reassured. "Everyone made it."

The relief she felt almost made the unbearable pain disappear in an instant. Almost.

She didn't have much water left in her body, but she could feel the tears well up in her eyes. She couldn't speak, but continuously mouthed words of gratitude to everyone around her and to a god that she didn't particularly believe in. The salt in her tears stung the burns on her face, but she didn't care as she sobbed at the feeling of assurance that everyone did in fact, survive.

"Poppy is—"

"Albus, you should be in bed!" The school Healer scolded, but it was no use when the Headmaster stood over Hermione's still body.

"Miss Evans," he smiled softly at her open and tearful eyes, "it's truly good to see you alive." He seemed sincerely reassured.

Hermione opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"Her throat is too severely damaged by the smoke and fire." Pomfrey tutted with sympathy. "It'll be a while before she's able to talk normally."

"I see," Dumbledore nodded in understanding. Even his own throat and voice were hoarse and croaking from the mere minutes he was in the house. He glanced back at her, but then was shocked to find himself in a white blank room. The Hermione Evans that stood before him was not burned and injured, she was not bedridden or crying from the joy of being alive. She stood there with the most serious of expressions on her face.

"I want to first thank you for saving my life and my sister's." She spoke clearly.

"Is this…?" He looked around his surroundings with awe.

"A Legilimency projection," she nodded. "We are talking through our minds and our magic. However, it isn't just our voices or our thoughts. I've projected all of this into your mind. As a powerful Legilimens yourself, you've naturally projected yourself into this room with me."

"So we're still in the Hospital Wing, just standing there. Staring at each other?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded. "It will probably appear weird to others if we prolong this so we need to make it fast."

"What do you need?"

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"20 minutes? Maybe slightly longer?"

"Shit."

"What's wrong?"

"Professor, I need you to go to the closest, no, to the biggest morgue in the country—muggle or wizard, it does not matter—and find me three unidentified bodies, one male and two female, preferably around the same size and age of my parents and my oldest sister."

"W-what?"

In all of Dumbledore's years, he'd never been quite so shocked to hear a request.

"After you do that, I need you to burn them, to a crisp. Make sure they are unidentifiable. To the point where no restorative spell will be able to fix them and make them recognizable."

"Wait," he held up his hand. "What are you saying?"

"Professor, I need you to clear that smoke-filled head and think. Otherwise, I need you to simply fulfill my commands as I ask you to."

"You want me to steal human bodies from morgues in the country and burn them so that they can…be replacements for your family? You saved your family."

Hermione shook her head. "We were targeted. All of us fell unconscious before the fire. I was sure I saw someone outside my family home during the party. I know it, but I let my guard down. We were drugged, Pomfrey must have run a blood test by now and confirmed it."

"You want there to be bodies so they never try again." Dumbledore's eyes widened with realization.

Hermione nodded.

"But what about after? Won't they eventually realize that they're not dead?"

"Not if we displace them," she spoke with conviction. Dumbledore wanted to say that her face was hard at the difficult choice she was making, but the fact that she wasn't was perhaps much more terrifying. There were no lengths Hermione Evans wasn't willing to go to win this war. She embodied pragmatism completely, leaving morals, connection, and emotions out of the equation completely. "Put them far away from England, keep them safe, under guard, and away from the war."

"Hermione," Dumbledore shook his head. "I don't think—"

"Exactly. Don't think. Don't put needless emotion into this. Grab the bodies with no identification, no family, people who won't be missed."

Although this face of hers was unscarred and unburnt, Albus Dumbledore found it harder to look at than the girl who was lying in the Hospital Wing crying. He was struggling to believe that they were the same person at all.

"Trust me. The end will justify the means."

Dumbledore was a firm believer in those words as well, but now, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be.

…

"Fuck, what happened here?"

In all his 20 years in the police force, Detective Inspector Lancor had never seen an arson case like this.

"The firefighters aren't sure," A local cop informed him. "They tried putting out the fire for hours, but nothing worked. They claim that was as if they were pouring oil on the fire instead of water. They described the flames as 'being alive', sir. They ended up having to wait for the flames to die out by themselves. However, what's more interesting—"

"There's something more interesting than living flames?" Lancor interrupted with disbelief.

"Look here," the young beat cop pointed to the ground. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

The two men looked down at the ground where their polished shoes turned ashy from the crunched dried up and burnt grass, right up to where the police tape line was. As if someone had placed a flame-repellent wall right where the police line stood, nothing beyond that point was burnt. Not even a flicker of embers was beyond that line.

"It's a perfect line," Lancor paused with disbelief.

"No, sir. It's more than that." The cop used his finger in the air to draw a wide circle. "It's a boundary. Like someone placed a dome over the house and property while the fire raged. It's how the fire was calmed down so quickly considering its size and level of destruction on the house."

Lancor's brows came together as he stared at the border of burnt ash and fresh grass. "Thank you, Officer." He muttered.

"Lancor," D.I. Cortez, Lancor's partner, handed his partner a mask to shield him from the residual smoke. "Everything's burnt to a crisp. The whole thing might as well be a pile of charcoal. We don't even have an origin of what might've caused the fire. From the accounts of the neighbours, the family that lives here, the Evans, apparently had a birthday party here last night."

"So what," Lancor asked as he frowned at the burnt remains of picture frames. "Are you implying that it might have been a homicide? Someone might have done this on purpose?"

Cortez shook his head, "Apparently everyone left way before the fire did."

"So, this entire thing was a freak accident?" Lancor asked, but his partner still seemed unsure. "What is it?"

"They had daughters, twins. Apparently, they were quite strange, going to special schools."

"Special schools?"

Cortez nodded, "Somewhere in Scotland for the Gifted? But one of the twins was…extra special? There's no record of her attending school before she was 11. I thought it was weird, so I asked around which led me to the boyfriend of the eldest daughter. He said, 'If she did this, I'm not surprised. She always had a look in her eyes, it made me shiver with fear.' At least, that's what I think he said, he was blubbering a lot at the loss of his girlfriend."

"What's the girl's name?"

"Hermione Evans."

"Are there any bodies yet?"

Cortez nodded, "They weren't hard to find. They were huddled in, what we assume to be one of the bedrooms."

"How many?"

"Three."

"And the mystery continues…" Lancor mused. "I'm assuming we haven't ID'd the bodies yet?"

"I'm not sure we'll be able to, they're too burnt. But one of the science guys said that they think one of the bodies is male. Two females. That's all he could give me for now, and even that he wasn't 100% sure of."

"Fuck."

"Exactly my thoughts."

"So we don't know if the burnt bodies are the daughters or the parents yet."

"No," Cortez shook his head. "But we should put out an arrest warrant on the daughters. Although the case for the odd sister is pretty fucking strong."

Lancor slowly nodded, "Fuck, I sometimes really hate this fucking job."

"Don't we both?"

Cortez nodded, "Could be rage? Jealousy? Hermi-what's-her-name was clearly discriminated against by her parents and maybe even by her siblings."

"What if her parents knew she was capable of something like this?" Lancor looked at the ash and rubble that used to be a home mere hours ago. "That's why they kept her away. Hidden."

"If that's the reason, she's…a pure monster."

"It could still be a freak accident," but Cortez scratched his head, knowing he didn't believe his own words.

"Yeah, if you can call Hell opening its gates and releasing hellfire on this poor family a 'freak accident'."

"Fucking hell."

Cortez started walking away to get more witness statements when Lancor stopped him. "Get that guy you were talking to for me, the science one. I wanna pick his brain about something." He glanced at the unnaturally clean border between the burnt and unburnt lawn. "Although I'm not sure even science can explain that."

…

AN: Wooo! It's getting pretty hot in here! …Too soon?

It's been a while since I uploaded on a Tuesday, so I decided to shake things up!

As always, I love you guys. Your support means everything to me. Your comments make my heart swell to a medically concerning amount. I check my email constantly to see if someone else might have made a comment or made a joke or was freaking out about a certain chapter. I'm literally that obsessed with you guys.

I know many of you said that I don't need to feel sorry for the lack of weekly updates, but I am…I try to get one chapter up every other week, but I still feel bad because I started this story with 3 uploads a week at some points. I guess I was just scared in the beginning that if I didn't upload frequently, people would forget about my story and stop reading haha. However, now I'm banging my head on a stone wall at that stupid strategy because I should have kept a consistent uploading schedule of once per week so that I didn't run out of pre-written chapters so quickly.

Anyways, what's done is done. I just wanted to get out a small rant, and a small apology for not uploading like I used to.

Thank you guys for continuing to read and support me!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter~