It starts like this: In every version of this story, Orpheus turns. The why differs. He doubted the mercy of the Gods and turned. He got too excited and turned when she was just a step away from life. He heard her stumble and turned to catch her.

But the why doesn't matter, all that matters is how the story starts and how it ends. Orpheus loves Eurydice and she loves him. It's the sort of love that could end the world. She dies, he still turns, and there is no happy ending.

It starts with Orpheus and Eurydice, and then it starts with Hermes, older than the cracking remnants of humanity and so tired of watching this tragedy play out over and over again. His solution? Ensure that those chosen, those Fate touched and doomed, won't be the sort of people who fail.

Here's how it goes: Hermes settles down at a loom. And somewhere in the mortal world, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger begin to cry, so alive it's brilliant.

There is a war on the horizon, blooming around them and Hermione laughs, she tilts back her head with her teeth bared to the heavens. It's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. She looks over at him, "Why are you staring?"

Harry shifts closer, his hands slipping over her scars, over the grey-streaked braid, "I love you." They're seventeen and he has this terrible feeling they won't live long.

She looks at him, and when she finds only the truth she says, "I don't." But then her eyes widened slightly, "I mean I don't but I could." Softer, a whisper carried away in smoke-tainted air, "I would."

And Harry hears it so clearly it burns, I would - if we had the time. I would love you if we both lived, if our story was a kind one and I got to live just a little longer with you. It makes him want to scream or wail, but war is around them and there is no time for breaking.

So instead he smiles, winding her braid around his fingers and flushing at the easy way she falls into his side. "I know, Mia, I know."

Hermione leans forward into the crook of his neck, pretending that she can't hear what he doesn't say. I know you would have loved me if we had the time, but I'm afraid we don't.

(She goes first, she always does. She falls, expecting him to catch her. Her hand stretches out in the air, waiting. There is no one to catch it. He is moments too late.

Hermione falls, Harry watches, and Hermes flinches back. He takes the tapestry, a masterpiece of life and death, and he unravels the string. He sets it back on the loom and starts again. He went wrong somewhere, he'll fix it.)

He looks up at her, blood staining his pale white lips, and he is so young, a part of her screams. They're all so young.

His fingers dig into her arm, desperate and clawing and it's her fault he ended up here. Hermione hadn't trusted him, she had been so confident until she wasn't. She had faltered, and Harry paid for it.

She smiles, or tries to, "You're gonna be okay, okay? Just stay awake a little longer, please."

Her words ring false and he knows it. Harry pulls her closer, desperate for a human touch, for any bitter-sweet comfort. He whispers, iron-soaked and wet, "My mom - you have to - my mom."

Hermione takes one blood-soaked hand and holds his face, it's not like the pressure would actually save him. The red looks horrific on his pale skin, and the act of drifting her thumb back and forth only serves to smear the red everywhere.

Instead, she whispers, "What? What do you want me to tell your mom?"

Harry's eyes water, and wizards live long lives. But heroes don't. He writhes on the ground, his back arching with pain before he falls back to the ground. He spits out, pain echoing in his voice, "Tell her - I tried, I really tried."

She nods, and for the first time in years, her words fail her. As the light slowly fades from his eyes she manages a whisper, "I will. It's okay Harry, I will."

Then he dies, and Hermione starts screaming.

(Hermes tears up the tapestry, this one short and thin, barely able to cover his legs. He had gone wrong somewhere early, poisoned the rest of the threads. Too daring, too blunt, too clashing. They would never live if they first could not fall together. Falling together is essential. Because only then can it truly hurt, only then could they love each other so much they would try and defy the Fates themselves. Falling together, really, is the first step in this story. Hermes starts again.)

Hermione doesn't trust that he'll wait for her, that she has something to stay for. She leaves the school, and she does not look back. If she did, she would have seen the first crack in Harry.

Without Hermione, he breaks a little earlier in this life, and this time there is no way to put him back together. Ron dies in a battle at Malfoy Manor, and Harry sinks him into the earth surrounded by grieving spirits.

The next time he faces Voldemort, Hermione is half a state away with the rest of the Unspeakables. She's fighting the same war but on a different front. Harry takes a look at Voldemort, and then at the Gods cowering while their children die, and he snaps.

He tears Voldemort's half-ichor body apart, tearing the threads of Fate along with it. By the time he is done, there is nothing left of Mount Olympus, and his mother is somewhere buried in the rubble of Hogwarts along with dozens of students.

Harry looks at the destruction, he looks at the blood-soaked earth and there is no one to hold his hand. There is no one to look at him and so utterly believe in good that he too believes. There is no one to make him see the light.

When the Gods arrive at Olympus ,Harry kills three before he dies. He tears them apart using the very thing that makes them - them, he tears the Godliness from their blood and he laughs all the while, or maybe he cries.

Aphrodite drives Athena's spear through his still mortal heart, and as he dies on the other end, bleeding red that mixes with the gold-splattered throne room. As he dies, Harry looks up at her, and for a brief moment, all he sees is Hermione.

Then he's gone, and somewhere amongst the forests, licking their wounds, Hermione of the Unspeakables feels a piece of her die.

"Why?" She's begging him, pleading with him for a simple answer that'll somehow make all this better. Harry laughs, and it rings hollow. Hermione flinches back, blood staining her temple.

He steps closer, his eyes glowing and a vicious smile on his face. He truly looks like Voldemort's right hand, like the boy who betrayed all of them. Like the wizard who tore apart Poseidon, gold spraying across the ocean beneath them.

Harry tilts his head, mocking and confident, "Come now, Hermione, we both know how this story goes. And it's been too long since the Gods faced the consequences of their actions, of their kin."

She curls her hand around the hilt of her knife, useless against the boy who can control blood. But letting go of it almost seems like a betrayal. Hermione shakes her head, "There's another way, there has to be another way."

Because this - this world he and Voldemort created - it can't be right. So many wizards and witches, so many children dead at the hands of their friends, their siblings, their kin. This can't be the right solution, even if history echoes down the line,

Harry laughs, and this time it isn't cruel, it's full of pain. "There was no other way. You know that, Mia."

It's the nickname that does it, the reminder that once they were young and half in love, that once they almost had it all. She lets out a sound that could only be described as keening. And Hermione Granger, one of the last remaining Generals of the Unspeakables fighting for the Gods, falls to her knees.

She hits the ground, her body shaking with pain, although whether it's from her bruises and wounds or the boy in front of her she doesn't know. Harry watches her shake, he watches her break, and then it's clear he hasn't forgotten her.

He slowly kneels in front of her, his voice so quickly losing its cruelty that she almost wants to forget what she's seen him do. "There isn't another way, but we can make a better world." She tilts her head up and when she meets his eyes they're bordering on kind. "You can make a better world."

Harry offers out his hand and Hermione takes it.

She drags him into an embrace, holding him tightly even as her hands tremble. After a moment of shock, he hesitantly holds her back. His arms wrap around her easily, and it's like coming home, it's like nothing has changed.

Tears carve a path down her face, and Harry buries his head in the crook of her neck. He whispers, for one moment forgetting exactly who she was, "I missed you, Mia."

Hermione closes her eyes, and the sounds of the battlefield, of dying children and the crackle of their pyres, fade briefly. "I missed you too Harry."

And then she opens her eyes, and her hands do not hesitate as she drives her dagger into his scar - into his one vulnerable spot.

Harry chokes, his weight falling on her and she takes it readily. He thrashes in her grasp but her hold on him doesn't waver, and the dagger only sinks in further. Blood trickles around her fingers, her hands stained a red that will never quite come out.

Hermione holds him until the fight stops, and it's telling of both of them that he doesn't stop her heart in his last moments. It never occurs to him to try. It's rather telling that she kills him, and that he cannot kill her, not even for this betrayal.

Harry slowly stills in her arms, his breathing becoming more and more quiet, barely there. In his last moments, she finally relents, and guides him back, the knife slipping out of place as easily as she had fallen into his arms. He looks up at the stars with awe, no -

He looks at her with a sort of awe in his eyes. Harry lazily tries to lift his hand, he doesn't reach her face but his hand manages to grasp one of her braids. He traces the end of it, and Hermione remembers suddenly being sixteen and the intense way he had watched Lavender braid her hair with careful hands, the way she had found him practising on a dummy later. His sheepish smile, I want to be able to help you, if you need it.

Harry Potter, the son of Lily Evans and James Potter, smiles up at her. And with blood smeared across his teeth, and not the faintest trace of betrayal or hate in his eyes, he whispers, "It's you. Of course, it's you."

And then he dies.

Voldemort finds her hours later, still by his side despite his body having long gone cold, she does not run and she does not fight. Hermione turns up her head, she straightens her back, she looks Voldemort in the eyes, and snarls. "You've already lost."

The swing of the wand, and the spray of blood as it hits her throat is almost a relief.

(He stares at the threads in both confusion and annoyance. They're so heavily connected that he couldn't untie the two mortals if he wanted to and yet - yet they still keep straying, still keep following this ancient path of Fate and Tragedy. They never mean to, he knows this, Hermes is well aware of this fact. But the Gods meddle, and demigods break, and the story ends the same. So he has to make sure the Gods do not meddle, if only that were easy. Hermes picks up the thread and begins again, the loom creaks under his fingers, and gold sweat stains his forehead. It is hard playing Fate when you are not her, but he has come too far to give up now.)

There is no war in this life. They have never had to fight, to carve their place in this life. The two of them are gentle, or as gentle as wizards and witches can be. And somewhere after Harry's fourth summer, they fall together like Fate.

Everyone expects it and the next time Ron visits and sees Harry intently listening to Hermione rant about magic, smiling and looking at her like she's the sun, he passes Neville ten dollars. The world is as kind as it can be, and they're so love-soaked that Aphrodite squeals every time they're mentioned.

It's lovely, it's amazing, it's -

Hermione laughed, and under the faint light of the stars, Harry thought she looked beautiful. Flowers lingered in her curls. Her hair spread around like a dark halo, and he wanted to kiss her until the word stopped.

She looked over at him, an eyebrow raised, "What?"

He tangles their hands together, "You're amazing. You're just amazing."

She smiled, almost like she couldn't help it. Hermione rolled her eyes, "You're so stupid." She didn't mean a single word. And from his smile, he knew it too.

He pulled her closer and she let it, moving until they were only inches apart. Harry just kept looking at her, his eyes darting to her lips, before finally he said, "Can I kiss you?"

And Hermione Granger, who may be halfway in love but was not stupid, said, "I've been waiting for you to ask that for months."

Her slight laugh died when he kissed her, when he swallowed it and held her face like she was the most sacred thing in this world. Her eyes slipped shut and oh, oh. This is what they mean.

Everything is perfect, the world is kind, and two months later while visiting her father she's cornered by a pack of werewolves. Hermione Granger dies in an alley, alone and shaking.

Not even the God of the Dead can be persuaded by Harry Potter's rage, by his grief. The story ends, and heroes die young.

(Hermes looks at the tapestry, wondering where he went wrong. He finds it, lost amongst the blue and the grey, the lack of a War. While the Gods' meddling leads to the end of this story, the end of their version, it's also essential for their survival. It's a balancing act of too much and not enough, of give and take and finding just the right amount. Their lives must be hard, they must taste hell, because only then can they have the strength to fight their way back to each other. So he starts again, hopefully for the last time.)

Everything remains as it was, but the Gods are not as horrific, and while the world is just as cruel, occasionally some kindness slips in. Harry and Hermione fall together amongst blood and death, and they find the sort of love that could end worlds.

It's beautiful, it's devastating, and they are both so young and broken. But it has the potential, Hermes pulls at his loom, and it teeters on the edge of everything, on being enough, on almost.

Their story is as old as stories, as love and tragedy and all the ways they are intertwined. It ends a thousand times, a thousand different ways, but in this world, it goes like this: There is a fight, a battle for the Gods, there is always another fight.

This battle is different, stained with the sins of the Gods. Although perhaps every battle is that. A string weaved around Hermione's ankle, and hell's hungry mouth beneath her. (Eurydice dies and Orpheus tries to save her, but he still turns.)

Harry caught her, his fingers digging into the unforgiving cliffside. He looked down, and even bloodied and half broken, her dark skin covered in a myriad of bruises and cobwebs, he thought Hermione was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

(Strings wove together, the whisper of the story is reaching the end, will it be different, let it be different embedded among the bright red and black.)

"We're staying together." (Orpheus steps into the daylight. Eurydice behind him.) "You're not getting away from me. Not this time."

(The Fates and Hermes and the wind held its breath. Only a few more steps.) "As long as we're together."

He looks into her eyes for one last blissful moment, and then Harry lets go. (Orpheus turns around, Eurydice doesn't step into the daylight.)

"If I was Orpheus, I would simply not turn around." Yes, you would. If you were Orpheus, and you loved Eurydice, you would. To love someone is to turn around. To love someone is to look at them. Whichever version of the myth - he hears her stumble, he can't hear her at all, he thinks he's been tricked - he turns around because he loves her. That's why it's a tragedy. Because he loves her enough to save her. Because he loves her so much he can't save her. Because he will always, always turn around.

Hermes watches as the thread continues to spin, the loom going on and on without his hands. The story continues on when it should have stopped. The demigods live on, in Tartarus but still after everything he's given them, everything they've taken, they will find a way to survive.