Chapter 1
Hogwarts, A Mystery
Their brooms, even as old as they were, got them to and around Manchester without a problem, so much so that Ron was beginning to look a little smug. As they crossed into Yorkshire the brooms began to tremble, and they had to touchdown in Halifax to feed their brooms the first batch of blood. The brooms failed for the first time precisely at the Scottish border, but by carefully using most of their rations and slowing down to a crawl (and now flying no higher than a few feet above the railway ties), they managed to get around the loop from Edinburgh to Montrose. Pushing themselves over the Cairgorms tore their hands to ragged ruins. At long last Hermione had had enough, declaring they were close enough to walk the remaining distance; roughly three days out from Hogwarts if not as the griffin flew, then as the Hogwarts Express went.
"At least we don't have to do this on the way back," Hermione huffed, taking another awkwardly too-long hop to the next wooden tie. Ron nodded, though his eyes were focused on the middle-distance ahead of them, not really paying attention to the particulars of the conversation they had had many times now over the past few days, just words to help pass the seconds by.
"Don't reckon it will come to that though," he replied, taking a slightly too-short step of his own. "It'll work out." he added a few moments later.
Hermione nodded grimly. The views were disorientating to say the least; the thin slice of magic that the Hogwarts Express had run across the country was still safely separate from the rest of the muggle country, and still the only guaranteed way to reach Hogwarts by way of linear geography. The path was a relatively flat if meandering line even if the land around them rose and fell, vales and now moorland crissing and crossing this way and that. Muggle roads, pastures, and even now the occasional hamlet that came close enough to the line acted strangely on her ability to perceive them in way that she had never noticed while riding on the Hogwarts Express properly – whether that was because of the magic of the train itself or her preoccupations with preparing for the new school term when she had been a student, she didn't know, and likely never would. But nevertheless, what she could say for certain was that walking the line was giving her a headache distinct from the one that had been bothering her ever since they had decided to make this trip.
They both fell silent for a time after that, she counted the passing ties and tried to control her breathing and not focus on the void now pulling inside of her, the pull that had gotten stronger with ever foot north they had traveled as they as they'd stepped foot on the mainland back in Portsmouth. It had been only slightly uncomfortable then, almost ignorable if one didn't think about it.
It wasn't ignorable now.
"Hogsmeade must be up ahead fair soon, don't you think? Ron asked after another half hour. "We passed what's its place hours back – it's got to be well past four now, you reckon?"
"Urquhart Castle – and yes, about that." Hermione pulled out a completely non-magical pocket watch from her coat pocket and glanced at it. "Quarter past four, actually." Ron turned towards hers and frowned slightly at the watch, lips pressed together thinly on his ruddy face, but he nodded. "Any minute now, then." He reaffirmed, a bit more confidently.
Any minute now turned out to be a little more over an hour, but eventually, Hogsmeade did come into view. Her eyes misted over – it would probably have come into view sooner, but the two great towers that should have greeted them – the Hogsmeade Owlry and the station belfry – were conspicuously absent from the low-lying collection of building that blended together at this distance.
"Don't expect too much now," Ron said as apparently he too noticed the missing towers, his own voice cracking slightly. "If been a few years now, can't expect things to have just stayed the same."
Hermione nodded, but the words sounded hollow. With their proper enchantments, five years would have hardly mattered so much as a day, even without a single witch or wizard to actively attend them.
But the wizards and witches of Hogsmeade were no more, gone with the enchantments.
The railway turned downward into a slightly gentle slope towards Hogsmeade Station. What had once been the most warm and welcoming sight every prior September was now cold and drab and lifeless; even the otherwise pleasant late summer sunshine felt dimmed. The string of shops that had lined the terminus of the track, with the platform itself in the center, were all dark and lifeless; here and there stone blocks and great slate tiles were beginning to fall off and form piles of rubble around the tracks. As for the tracks themselves, that miracle upon miracle that even now were unseen and untouched by muggles, and which had remained in fairly good shape for the entire length of the track from King's Cross, in Hogsmeade itself were rapidly starting to degrade and decay – iron straps were buckled and warped, the great oak ties popping off the rails or rising out of the ground like undead monsters, leaving the line unusable had it still been running.
And there in what should have been pride of place – Hermione's breath hitched, Ron's doing so a moment later as followed her look of sorrow – what had once been the Hogwarts Express sat alone, its once gleaming scarlet paint peeling, its wheels rusted, on of its carriages leaning precariously to the side where the rails had bucked up directly beneath it, giving the whole train the precarious look that it might topple over at any moment. As they got closer, a swarm of bats flew out from the tender.
"You think this is close enough to get off?" Ron muttered, wrapping his cloak tighter around himself. "We've got to be over the old ward line, if it's even still here. I don't fancy getting any closer."
Hermione looked around and then gave a quick nod, both to Ron's question and declaration. She wiped a finger quickly over her right eye. "Yes."
For the first time since King's Cross they stepped off the track – Hermione took one last look at the dilapidated Express before she turned away, shivers crawling across her back like spiders as she did so. She hurried up to catch up to Ron, who was walking away from with gusto.
"You know... if we don't – well, when we get back. We need to send people up here and start removing the track and well everything else. It's clearly only a matter of time until everything goes to pieces up here and it'll only start getting worse further south, and if the muggles-"
"Hermione!" Ron interrupted her ramblings with a bitter laugh. "You think the statute still matters? Not for us it doesn't. Let the Yanks or the Frogs figure it out."
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, then closed it with a snap. Then opened it again. She took a place on his left side.
"You may be right," she conceded after a few moments of silence, but nonetheless made a mental note to talk things over with Kingsley when she next saw him. "What happens will happen, I suppose," which wasn't much of a declaration one way or the other. Ron didn't say anything, didn't even shrug, but he did offer her one of his gloved hands, which she took.
Hogsmeade, even on the very edge of it, was too silent, and Hermione was grateful they were making the trip now, and not in a few more months when it would be long past dark at this hour. It was already like walking through a graveyard – one filled with ghosts that didn't want to be seen. The High Street was full of long grass now, with the occasional knot of thistles and even the odd brave sapling making a go of it here and there. Not soon enough, they came to the stone wall that marked the boundary of the town proper and which, hopefully, still held enough enchantments in the keystones at its foundation to if not protect the town from the antimagics that had been bombarding it nonstop for five years, at least would (with luck) hide it from the muggles just a little while longer.
The intense feeling of uneasiness inside of her suddenly leaped from her stomach up to her throat, as it really dawned on her that they were doing this. That there was no way but forward now. This had to work. Luna had told them it would before she left, and while historically that might not have been enough for her to put faith in an idea, in any idea, really... faith was all she had left.
The woods thinned towards the top of Hogsmeade Hill where the Shrieking Shack had once stood. She and Ron stepped through the gap where the old iron-wrought fence now lay rusted and broken, and they crested the hill into the clearing at the too of the town.
She could cry. For the first time in ages, she felt something akin to joy. There was Black Lake, its waters sparkling in the orange afternoon glow and rippling slightly as a small wind played across its surface, sending small waves back up along the tiny vein-like tributaries that flowed lazily into the lake from the Forbidden Forrest off to the west, which itself extended as far as she could see in that direction. And there, sitting on a cliff-face above the lake, stark and imposing and as proud as she remembered it, all its towers perfectly intact, was Hogwarts! There were differences of course that she couldn't fail to note: no smoke rose from Hagrid's hut, no screams of delight came from the Quidditch pitch nor were any boats out on the lake, no thestral-drawn carriages clattered up the road that circled from the lake to the main entrance.
But Hogwarts herself, stood.
Ron let out a deep breath, as if he too were letting go of a thousand wound up springs in his chest. "Reckon it's a good sign, yeh?" He forced a chuckle from his throat and gave her hand a squeeze. She nodded, wiping quickly at a glistening cheek with her free hand. "It's beautiful."
A pause, though one of a thirsty man enjoying his first taste of fresh water than one of trepidation. "Let's go."
They began the slow ascent along the carriage path to Hogwarts.
The door opened for them the moment they arrived and they stepped into the small entrance chamber adjacent to the Great Hall. As soon as they crossed over the threshold, it was as if a great weight, the great downward pressure that they had carried with them since Portsmouth was released from inside of her. By Ron's expression, he felt the same. But it was more than that – it was like an itching on her skin that suddenly ceased after years and years, from the Great Flight and the years on the island, even. It was, she realized with a start, the sudden sense that there was no shortage of magic. Nothing was calling for her blood.
With a shared look and nod, they continued forward into the Great Hall proper. Candles – maybe half as many as she recalled from her childhood but enough to fill the room with light even so – floated along the walls, and from time to time two or more of the flames would jump one sconce to another, dancing around together for a bit before returning to their original wick. Ron snorted at a particularly aggressive flame.
She continued to look around at the space which in adulthood was merely very large, and not the great cavernous space she remembered as a child. Where the four long tables had once sat in the their long rows there was no a single circular table, and as they approached Hermione could see that it had been carved out from the original four – the center-most pieces to be precise – such that engraved into the wood were the four Hogwarts house crests, and in the arrangement they now took they formed a single sigil. Each quarter had four chairs along it, Hermione noted, mentally cataloging away that Harry arranged things such that he had a table that could comfortable seat sixteen.
She took in the room once more. There were no portraits on the walls, and although the tapestries still hung, clean and immaculate, they were frozen: no golden griffins prowled alongside yellow badgers, no ravens flew nor serpents coiled among where the warps met the tassels. The dais that had once housed the High Table, running perpendicular to the four was completely gone, leaving cold, gray stone and a wide expanse of conspicuous emptiness, like a missing row of teeth.
Suddenly behind them, a fire roared to life, sending their shadows out and flickering at great lengths across the chamber all the way up to where the Sorting Hat would have once stood... sat.
Finally, Hermione steeled herself and found the courage to look up.
She gasped – despite all her intentions to steel herself against disappointment, her heart leapt. The enchanted ceiling of the Hogwarts Great Hall – one of the greatest enchantment achievements of the past five hundred years – was still there in all its magical glory, reflecting the same sky she had walked under minutes before, the sun shining through a wispy layer of clouds.
"It's been a long time," a voice called out from behind them, rich with a hint of laughter and cheer. "I'm curious though, quite how you found me."
She turned around with a start, almost bumping into Ron who was turning as well, though he was also halfway through taking off his gloves and throwing them down haphazardly on the table. She looked toward the large entrance way that led to the Grand Staircase, where she had come through hundred of times in a throng of young and not-always-quite-so-eager faces.
There was Harry.
He was smiling, taller and a bit broader than she remembered, messy hair exactly as they had left it, and even wearing a pair of the identical round-rimmed glasses that had come to define his image almost as much as the now nonexistent scar.
"Hello Ron. Hermione." He spoke again into the silence, eyes flashing with a hint of mischief.
She smiled back, relieved. The mission – everything – was as good as a success.
Then her lips twitched downward as the silence stretched.
"Harry," Ron said at last before she said anything herself. "It's um, well it's good to see you, mate." Ron sounded a little strained. She could understand that, now that they'd found Harry – or he'd found them – she was at odds as to what to say next. How exactly did you break the ice with an estranged friend you hadn't seen since the greatest catastrophe in Magical Britain, a catastrophe that he alone seemed to have survived unscathed. And apparently, in a fine enough state that if he'd wanted to find you – and you hadn't exactly been difficult to find – but he hadn't. And-
Perhaps they should have discussed this on the trip up, rather than busying themselves with useless small talk.
Thankfully, so she hoped, a question made itself known a moment later and hopefully one that was less explosive – figuratively and magically – than the one they'd come all the way up here to discuss.
"Granger."
"Weasley."
Coming to a stop on either side of Harry were two women, one only slightly shorter than he was, tall and willowy; the other somewhat shorter, though the two bared a strong relation to one another. Both had dark yellow hair that seemed to glow in the candlelight and with the addition of sunbeams softened by the stained glass, reminded Hermione of olive oil.
The taller on was smiling at them, but it was cold and slightly mocking; the amused glint of someone who is in on a secret and enjoys knowing that the others in the room are not. It was a look Hermione had been well acquainted with at muggle primary school, and Hermione took an instant dislike to her though she made sure not to openly show as much. Whoever she was, she was clearly in Harry's good graces for the time being.
The shorter one looked a little more wary, pressing herself slightly into Harry as Hermione's attention focused on her, and she did not miss how Harry reciprocated the gesture, his arm find her waist and holding her loosely to him, even his face never looked anything but relaxed and carefree in the company of old friends.
"It's Weasley now," Ron said a moment later, gesturing towards himself and then to her. "Two years ago, actually."
"I'm sorry – I don't think we've ever met?" Hermione cut in, eyes darting between the two women and racking her brain for any signs of familiarity. She had tried for airy, as if addressing the room at large, hoping someone at least would have the decency to make introductions.
The taller one with the presumptuous smile bit her lip slightly, revealing perfect teeth. "Oh, we have but it has been quite some time and I don't think we were ever formally introduced." She held out a slender hand toward Ron, palm facing down and fingers curved slightly. Not a single scar crossed her hands.
"Astoria, née Greengrass." Her eyes twinkled. "Perhaps you're more acquainted with my sister, Daphne?"
The timid one, the one that had addressed her originally, leaned away from Harry for a moment though his hand never retreated from her hip. "Weasley and Weasley then," she said, bowing her head slightly. "Delighted."
There was a pause. Ron looked at Hermione, unsure what to do, but she was as lost as he was. Astoria née Greengrass awkwardly pulled her hand back down, which would have been funny if not for the danger they may have offended Harry, whose smile did not appear rather fixed.
"I supposed things have changed a bit in the last few years, he gestured between the two of them, as if them being married were somehow more shocking than him apparently shacking up with Daphne Greengrass. Which given what they did know, raised many more questions than answers.
"I think we could probably all use a drink," Harry was saying as he walked the remaining distance to the table. "Please," he called out to her, jolting her out of her thoughts. He gestured toward the seats and took his own, Daphne and Astoria taking positions on either side of him once more. Hermione and Ron followed, eventually reclaiming the two center 'Gryffindor' seats as their own, noting that Harry had taken the edge-most Slytherin one across from them, putting Daphne in the Slytherin center and Astoria across the line in the Hufflepuff section. She knew Daphne had been a Slytherin – she couldn't recall much if anything about the younger Greengrass girl.
And it was important to take note of everything. One never knew what might end up being crucially important, especially in this topsy-turvy version of Harry they had run into.
All that said, despite everything that had happened, the enormity of what had even brought them to Hogwarts in the first place, it still brought her up short to see Harry all cuddly and cozy with the, the... the Greengrasses.
"So, you're married too, then? Well – congratulations, it's quite something, isn't it?" Ron plowed forward with gusto. "And you too – is your husband here, too?" He asked Astoria, who had not at all subtly folded her hands on the table in such a manner as to show off a truly garish golden ring.
Daphne let out a tiny snort. Hermione fought back a scowl.
"You look... very nice," she said at last. "Both of you."
Daphne's face curdled slightly at that and she let out a sour, tinkling little laugh, like an off-key Christmas chime. She rolled her eyes. "I don't look like death is drowning me halfway through the Styx is what you mean, isn't it?"
Hermione said nothing, in no small part because yes, that had been the thought that more or less crossed her mind.
Daphne swatted her hand as if dismissing the comparison. "It's fine, I'm well aware of what a nightmare I looked like back in the day. I'm the one who spent Merlin knows how many hours trying to apply concealment potions and quaffing beauty potions like some drunken sot at the Hogshead."
Hermione gave a shaky smile. Daphne had been... the most forgettable of Pansy's nasty little clique of girls back in the day, more content to giggle when Pansy or Millicent or even Tracey had said something nasty rather than initiate anything in her own right. She had always looked gaunt and pale, like her skin were made of old, unkempt parchment. Her hair had had the too-bright shine that Lavender and Parvati had said was the telltale sign of excessive potions use, which apparently was indeed the case. She had been bright enough in class; rivaling (though never seriously matching, she thought smugly) Hermione herself on theoretical work. But her wand-work had been weak at best, enough that Hermione had wondered a time or two if the girl wasn't somehow cheating on her parchment work.
She had had almost nothing at all to do with Astoria, who she now recalled had been a year or two younger, except that she had somehow looked even worse; the only memories she had of Astoria were going in and out of the hospital wind enough times that even students who had nothing to do with her had noticed, and occasionally gossiped when the teachers weren't around on whether she was perhaps a werewolf or had some other wildly unlikely malady.
Perhaps she had.
What was clear was that neither girl looked like that now. It was a lot to process.
"You do appear to be doing well." Hermione settled for what she hoped was a diplomatic response.
"As I said, I'm sure we have a lot to catch up on," Harry once more cut through the ice, still looking friendly. "It's been a long time, and I haven't exactly kept in touch with things in the wider world."
That was putting it kindly.
"I did promise you a drink, didn't I?" Harry half-asked, looking a little like the sheepish boy she remembered seeing when he needed help finishing up a homework assignment due the next morning.
"Woggy!"
An elf – an elf – popped into existence off to the side of the table and Ron gave a loud yelp of surprise. The elf was dressed in an oversized tea towel of midnight blue and covered in silver shooting stars – unbidden, a memory of Dumbledore, eyes twinkling at the head table in her third or fourth year, making some announcement or other wearing robes of the very same design...
"-four Butterbeers I think. Five, if you want to join us, Daph?"
Greengrass's – Potter's? - nose scrunched up. "I think not! Just tea for me, thank you." She sounded imperious, though Harry looked amused.
"Four Butterbeers then and one tea, please. Milk and -"
"Woggy knows how Mistress has her tea, Headmaster!" The affronted elf interrupted Harry. Harry barked out a laugh.
"Yes, I'm sure you do. Still, we should indulge our Harry when he manages to avoid acting like a brute, mustn't we?"
The elf bowed low and with exaggerated care. "Yes, Miss Daphne!" It squeaked and then disappeared with a pop, and a moment later four familiar brown bottles appeared on the table, next to the equally familiar golden Hogwarts goblets. A moment later, an ornate white-and-blue tea set appeared between Harry and Daphne.
Hermione's number of questions to get through continued to multiply.
"I'm afraid it's not real Butterbeer," Harry smiled apologetically as he answered one of them, Ron looking rather gobsmacked at his own bottle. Harry lifted the teapot as Daphne's cup slid itself under the stream of hot liquid and let out a contented sigh as it began to fill. Daphne looked at him with the first true smile she'd seen on it – no hint of mockery or even much in the way of formality.
"I've been messing around a bit with the formula, trying to recreate it," Harry continued as Daphne accepted her cup. "The bottles are genuine though, I nicked them from The Three Broomsticks. Gives them that touch of authenticity." He paused, then asked, "do you still have the real thing, down..." he trailed off.
"Isle of Wight." Ron supplied at once, letting out a happy groan as he took a deep drink. "Cor. That's close enough to the real thing for me. We don't I'm afraid – haven't' had one in years."
Hermione tried to give Ron a dirty look without looking like she was giving him a dirty look, and more importantly not to be seen to be looking like she was trying to give Ron a dirty look. It's not that they hadn't planned on telling Harry where they were living – and it wasn't exactly an enormous secret – but she had hoped to get a bit more quid-pro-quo out of the conversation beyond Harry taking up brewing as a past time.
Still, in for a nut, in for a galleon, especially since each was equally useless these days.
"We're all living there, that is all of magical Britain, for the most part," she added, taking a tentative sip of her own drink. "We have a town of sorts, a little square in Newport basically, but otherwise we're spread out over the island." She paused. "How much do you know about things in England?"
Harry shrugged. "Practically nothing, I'm afraid. I assumed everyone else had left Scotland of course, but I haven't ventured out myself." He looked down and fiddled with his bottle. "The last visitor I had was Luna."
A pall fell over the table. The last time Hermione had seen Luna, she'd been half mad and more than halfway dead, insisting that she would find Harry. That Harry would help them. That Harry would save them.
"I offered her a place here you know, at Hogwarts, but she wouldn't listen. Said she had contacts in America that would get her to Sweden, or else she'd die trying. Said there was nothing left for her here, and well, I don't know after that."
Hermione did know. Foreign ministries – particularly the Scandinavians, the Dutch, and of course the French were extremely thorough and repetitive in reminding the remnants of magical Britain what awaited them if they tried to reach their own shores and inevitably brought the dödsmagi, the antimagisch, the maladie anglaise with them. Luna's name had been on one such list not long over a year ago.
At least it had been the Norwegians and not the French, as cold comfort as that may be and certainly something she wasn't volunteering to Harry in the here and now.
"Wight is better than the mainland" Hermione said in lieu of the current topic after taking another heavy swig to drain away the ashes. "Whether it's because it's further south, or whether the water helps," she shrugged. "We think it's a bit of both."
"Must be a bit crowded," Harry said offhandedly, switching from his previous mood to a breeziness as if commenting on the weather. Ron and Hermione shared an uncomfortable look. There weren't enough wizards and witches left in Britain to form much of a crowd.
"We make it work," Ron replied, a little too loudly and a little too strongly. "We've got a proper set of shops again, and a Ministry. A bank – that's run by a witch nowadays, Bobbins – in what used to be her families apothecary on the island. Dunno if you remember her, she was in the year above us.
Harry nodded. "I do. Melinda, right? Slughorn was trying to set the two of us up together, I think." Harry shrugged, though Hermione didn't miss the look he shared with Daphne.
"So potions don't work for you either then." It wasn't a question. Slowly and every so slightly, Hermione nodded.
"Bugger." Harry said with great feeling, thumping his glass against the table for emphasis. "Looks like you were right," Harry turned to Astoria, who after her little scene with the ring had been almost invisible in the conversation, fading out such that Hermione had hardly remembered she were there at all. She nodded to Harry, her smile sour. "It does seem so."
Hermione's newfound focus on Astoria was pulled away by Daphne, who plowed forward in explanation. "Our working assumption is that we could make potions works again, but we would need to add blood, which would obviously ruin the potion." She sighed. "We need to reinvent the broomstick for every potion ingredient and method out there, if that's even possible. Thousands of years of study, rendered as useless as one of Longbottom's cauldrons!"
Hermione couldn't avoid a huff at the obvious explanation that the mere mortals of Wight had figured out ages ago, nor the needless jab at what should have still been someone Harry liked, yet seemed to tolerate.
"Yes well, I – we – had already figured out as much." She said instead.
"Don't mind her, Daph's been our one witch Department of Mysteries for years now," Astoria cut in again, a few droplets of Butterbeer sploshing out the top of her glass as she gestured with it towards Daphne. "Always a giant ego on those ones. Of course, we don't have the actual department available but we do have the Hogwarts Library, which is certainly the next best thing. And unlimited access to the Restricted Section since it's Harry's." Astoria chuckled. "One book wouldn't let Daphne read it until Harry signed a permission slip, you should have seen her face!" She took another, more gentle sip of her drink.
"Anyway, I don't think anyone has ever scoured the library as thoroughly as my dear sister, and that's including anything Madam Pince got up to after hours."
Harry and Ron both pulled a face at that, and Hermione did not.
And then, epiphany.
The Hogwarts Library. Hermione hadn't spared it a second thought in years. Or rather, she had spared a thought and assumed the entire place most likely destroyed, and couldn't bear sparing it another all this time.
But it was fine.
"You still have the Library!" Hermione's hands twitched. "You, that is – you have to let me look at it," she rushed out, realizing a moment later how desperate she sounded. Now Ron was giving her looks that clearly were not intended to be seen. She paused. She gulped. "Please."
Daphne twirled her free hand in a motion of airy acquiescence as though wiping her hands of the same thing, like she were being asked to share some silly trinket with Hermione and she couldn't care less what Hermione did or didn't do with what was being offered her. Even in agreement, the woman was infuriating her, like she was sneering at her from behind Pansy's skirts once more.
"I'll give you a tour of the whole castle this evening," Harry promised grandly, leaning back and raising his arms to gesture at the hall around them. "You'll love what I've done to the place. And anything we can do to help you before you return home, we are all at your disposal." He frowned, looking pensive, as if he'd forgotten how they must have come here.
"How are you planning on getting home, anyway? And for that matter, how did you get here in the first place? I have some theories, but I would love to hear how you did it." He gave her a rakish grin. "I can never be too careful."
Hermione paused, thinking how best to answer that, what and what not to say.
Ron though plowed ahead.
"Credit's all Hermione's," he boasted, flashing her a wide grin. "Flew."
Harry grinned back, but his smile decidedly did not reach his eyes.
"Thought the floo stopped working ages ago."
Ron snorted as if Harry had said something very funny. "No, no. F-l-e-w. Flew. On brooms. Well most of the way, ruddy things gave up a few days from here but, agh – I'm not explaining it right."
The kneazle was out of the sack now though, and Hermione knew it. Best to be open and straightforward about everything... everything that would be easily seen as a lie if she wasn't.
"The Castle and Hogsmeade were unplottable, and still are," Hermione said at last, accepting this as a done deal. "But the Hogwarts Express is still accessible at King's Cross, and once we were on the track so long as we didn't leave until we reached Hogsmeade, we could make it without the floo. And then it was just a quick walk up to the castle.
A quick walk haunted by a ghost town without so much as a ghost, but her thoughts on that were none of Harry's business.
Silence for another moment.
"Huh." Harry said at last, very eloquently. He leaned back and took another sip of this drink. "You know, I hadn't ever thought of that. Very clever, Hermione." He smiled. "Two points to Gryffindor."
On the far wall, a plink plonk sounded the fall of two rubies into the otherwise empty half of the hourglass that recorded Gryffindor's house points.
"Getting home is obviously easier – I called ahead and we have a car waiting for us in Inverness."
"Oh, going muggle?"
Hermione felt her blood boil at that and fought not to give Astoria too hard of a dirty look. "it hasn't been easy for the rest of us, you know. We're doing everything we can." She looked back at Harry. "If you would help."
There it was, out in the open now.
Harry turned towards Astoria. She looked sullen for a moment, then contrite.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make fun."
Hermione gave a short nod. Beside her, Ron looked very tense.
She looked at Harry. "Can you tell us what happened. It's funny but after all this time, after everything... we still don't know. Let's start with that."
"Right, from the top it is then."
Harry did, she was fairly certain, tell them everything he knew. That he had gone into the Forbidden Forrest, alone, to fight Voldemort with only shades for company, the stone in his pocket, Elder Wand in hand, cloak on his back. That he had attempted to disarm Voldemort but had failed, and Voldemort had used The Killing Curse: that Voldemort had summoned death while he had been in possession of all three deathly hallows. That for the second time it had not only failed to kill Harry but rebounded upon a furious Voldemort in full view of his inner circle. That in his final moments between life and death, and bereft of any anchors to the world, Voldemort had somehow lain a final curse upon Britain; not merely upon a forbidden word or a professorship, but on all Magic within Albion herself.
And irony upon irony, Harry, the only soul in Britain that in that moment shared blood with him, alone had been spared.
"Our best guess is he had been working on the ritual for some time, seeking some way to remove the cost of his own life from the equation, a way to destroy all magic in Britain that wasn't his own; giving him a blank slate to recreate in his own image, where every witch or wizards would have to bind themselves to not just him but to his magic."
Harry shrugged. "Obviously, we don't think he knew about me being immune to it, or maybe at that point he wasn't thinking clearly. Either way, facing death he went ahead and acted out of spite."
Hermione swallowed. "That... does seem to be the general consensus. Narcissa was the only surviving witness we have access too, and she didn't know anything about the Hallows obviously, but she and Drac- oh, what!?"
"Nothing," Harry said on behalf of all three of them, all wearing amused expressions. "It's just out of everything, I didn't expect you to be on a first name basis with the ferret, is all. Things really have changed."
Hermione let out an indignant huff. "The Malfoys – what's left of them – like the rest of us have put their differences aside. We're all just trying to survive now, worrying about anything else is silly."
"I still think he's an pompous git with a second wand that he keeps firmly lodged up his arse," Ron supplied. "And while he isn't a danger to anyone, how he acts towards the muggles in Newport is atrocious. And not just because he's an arrogant idiot, he's a buffoon. He couldn't be any more obvious about being a wizard if he were stark raving mad, which he might be for all I know. But!" Ron sounded slightly pained as he continued. "We put up with him. He's... helped. Brought his old faction into line so that we can all sleep at night without worrying about another war breaking out. Or at least a pub fight."
"Well next time you see my former fiance, do pass on my regards," Astoria sniffed.
Hermione goggled.
"He hasn't ever mentioned it?" Astoria did not look particularly distraught by that. "My father arranged my marriage to Draco in exchange for an obscene dowry and the knowledge that the Malfoys would be safely rid of me before I turned thirty. Daddy hoped that having a child or two with the Malfoy name might be enough to bring the Malfoy fortune to bear against our blood curse. Of course, all that fortune is now molding under goodness knows how much earth and stone beneath Gringotts, so I suppose it's only fair we both got nothing out of it in the end."
She sniffed, literally looking at them from beneath her upturned nose. And then, after she thought she had the whole dynamic sorted out even despite what she knew to be the case, Harry kissed Astoria, gently on the temple.
"I, on the other hand, have come out quite nicely." He said. Astoria giggled.
"Me too," she squealed.
Hermione's eyes shot over to Daphne who wasn't exactly jumping over the moon at the scene playing out for them, but wasn't exactly shocked or upset by it, either.
"So, I did promise you a tour!" Harry declared, standing up before they could organize the debris of this latest bombshell. "Let me show you the castle and I'll have Woggy prepare your rooms for the night and get supper going, and then we can get down to business properly rested tomorrow, properly rested!"
The amount of thinking – and she suspected, bickering – she and Ron were going to be up to tonight would leave them anything but rested. Still, she wasn't going to say no to poking around Harry's Hogwarts. It couldn't have changed all that much – Hogwarts was a big place, and five years in the whole scheme of things wasn't that much time.
