Chapter 5: The PlanChapter TextHermione had no real aptitude for healing magic, nor any particular liking for it. What she did have, however, was lots and lots of practice — the natural result of a long, drawn-out war and of the six years of semi-constant mortal danger before it. Madam Pomfrey might have done things more neatly or more efficiently, but Hermione's quick and dirty methods — which mostly involved huge amounts of dittany and hoping for the best — did the trick just as well.
When Daphne opened her eyes, Pansy, who up to that point had been doing a great job staving off a bout of hysterics, finally broke down crying, hiding her face in her hands and calling someone — maybe Daphne, probably Daphne, and most definitely Daphne — a fucking idiot.
The fucking idiot in question reached up to tug Pansy closer and the witch curled down, hugging Daphne and sobbing loudly as the other girl stroked her hair.
And Hermione — who had seen more people hurt than she could count, who had healed open wounds and lacerations and broken bones as curses flew over her head — Hermione started shaking, too relieved to do anything but sit there, light-headed and overwhelmed.
She had thought the days of trying to patch people up with a band-aid and a prayer were behind her.
A soft hand covered hers and Hermione looked down at Daphne who smiled a soft, reassuring smile that only added to the gut-wrenching, all-too-familiar feeling of barely-avoided disaster. Daphne squeezed her hand, and Hermione squeezed back, blinking away tears.
"You reproduced these from memory?" she asked a while later, looking over the sheets of parchment scattered around what had previously been Daphne's circle and was now only a stretch of floor — empty and unremarkable.
Daphne and Pansy were sitting on a small cluster of pillows a few feet away, Pansy busy fussing over Daphne, while Hermione devoted her attention to Daphne's research and studiously avoided looking at them. There was something about that casual picture of intimacy — small touches and entwined fingers and the look of exasperated fondness Daphne was giving Pansy — that made her feel lonely and melancholy and left out, and she wasn't going to examine that too closely, because that way lay nothing but trouble.
"It's not complete." Daphne got up, despite Pansy's protests, and joined Hermione, picking up another piece of parchment. "This one and this one are correct, as far as I can remember. This one here has gaps. And this one is missing things even in the original we have access to at the Ministry. It's— It's old magic. It's something we study, but it's not really something— It's not really something we do."
"And you still thought trying it out was a good idea?" The anger in Pansy's tone was painfully obvious, but Daphne merely sighed.
"It was bad enough when whatever it was threw us back to our first year. But this… It's volatile Pansy, more than I thought it was. This sort of instability, it's— It's unnatural, it's dangerous, and I don't just mean because of what we may or may not change. Even if we're careful, even if we're as careful as we can possibly be — and it's impossible to do everything just right, but even if we did — it's only a matter of time until something snaps. We're too far from our point of origin and the spell is too unstable. Sooner or later, something will break."
"What happens when it does?"
Daphne stared at the chart in front of her for a moment, tracing the edges of it with her fingers. "I don't know," she said at last, her voice almost toneless. "There's conjecture, of course. But it's academic. Theoretical."
Which wasn't an answer, so much as an evasion. "Best case scenario?" Hermione pressed.
Daphne sighed and looked up at Hermione. "Best case scenario, the time stream rights itself. It removes the source of instability and adapts around it."
"Source of instability, meaning the spell?" Pansy asked.
Daphne glanced at Pansy but did not reply, which was answer enough for Hermione. "And worst case scenario?" she asked, because if the best case scenario was their impending death, she really wanted to know what the worst case scenario looked like.
"Worst case scenario, the time stream is unable to self-correct and it starts collapsing on itself."
If they ever made it out of this, Hermione was never going anywhere near the Department of Mysteries for as long as she lived.
They stood in silence for several moments, each busy trying to digest the many ways in which they were screwed.
"Okay," Hermione finally said, because she had been on the receiving end of Fiendfyre, and smashing spells, and the Cruciatus Curse, and she refused to die over a stun. She absolutely refused. "Okay," she repeated. "So we need a plan." And she was really good at those. She was absolutely great at those. "We'll find what went wrong and we'll fix it, and we'll try again."
It wasn't a plan so much as a prayer disguised as bullet points, and Daphne did not kid herself into thinking otherwise. It rested on a bed of conjecture and sketchy magical theory and the sort of extrapolations that could only very generously be described as anything but reckless.
"Even if what you're suggesting were possible," Daphne said, hunting down the package of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans that she knew was somewhere in the chaos of books and parchment littered around them, "no one can harness that amount of power. You try to channel something like that, and it will kill you."
It was the sort of harebrained idea that only sleep-deprived Gryffindor brains high on sugar could come up with — daring and desperate and wildly ill-advised.
"No, but look," Hermione said, grabbing a tome that should Madam Pince ever learn had been removed from the Restricted Section would have her on a war path to rival the crusades. "We do it like a coven. We split the strain among the three of us."
"Old school," Pansy said appreciatively, popping another bean into her mouth, the thieving fiend.
"Three witches aren't a coven." She took the package from Pansy and then immediately cringed when she bit into a tripe bean. "There's too few of us to even consider—"
Hermione tutted her while stealing the Every Flavour Beans, because apparently both her and Pansy lacked any sense of shame. "Three is enough if we use anchors."
"What would you even use as anchors for something like this?" This being using the school as a gigantic battery on steroids. Those had been Hermione's exact words, and while Pansy had frowned at the concept, Daphne knew exactly what a battery was, thank you very much, just as she knew that trying to tap into the school's magic like that was less like using it as a battery and more like touching a live wire.
"I'm so glad you asked." Hermione's excited smile was enthusiastic and infectious and stunning, and for a split second Daphne minded much less the fact that they were all going to die. "We'll use Essence of Dragon, Basilisk, Phoenix and Unicorn."
Daphne opened her mouth to point out all the reasons why that wouldn't work, only to close it again. "Where would you even find a basilisk?" she asked instead.
Hermione laughed, looking down at the book in front of her. "That really won't be a problem."
It was a good plan, a solid plan, the sort of plan that had everything to work except for all the parts where it could all go to hell, which made it exactly the sort of plan Hermione was used to.
Their biggest problem at the moment was a logistic one. Daphne was right — the spell that had landed them in the past was unstable, and it kept tossing them back and forth. Two hours spent back in 1991 gave way to two days in their sixth year, gave way to almost a week stuck in April 1993. There was never telling how long they would be at any given point in time and no way to trigger the change that they could see. And because the Room of Requirement was subject to the passage of time as much as anything else, if they moved forward in time all their notes and all their research was still there, but if they moved back, it was all gone.
It was maddening and in no way improved by the fact that every time the timeline skipped, Daphne got that same blank expression, that trademark unflappable Unspeakable look that meant she thought this was it, this was the skip that finally broke the universe, only showing it would be against some sort of Unspeakable covenant whereby they were not supposed to spook civilians about their imminent death.
So far the fabric of time and space had held.
Essence of Phoenix and Essence of Unicorn were relatively easy to get, in that they only required them to sneak into the Headmaster's office (without getting caught) and the Forbidden Forest (without getting caught and/or killed). Tricky, perhaps, but not impossible, specially considering Hermione was uniquely qualified to pull those off.
She got her hands on Essence of Phoenix in 1992, and then waited until they had moved on from 1996 (because they'd have to rely on getting at least that far in the timeline again to access it) and past 1991 (because Quirrell had spent much of that year prowling around the Forbidden Forest for unicorns with Voldemort on the back of his head) to finally get her hands on Essence of Unicorn in the single day they spent in 1993.
Essence of Basilisk was hard, because it required a live basilisk, and Hermione had no wish to get herself killed down in the Chamber of Secrets trying to get it. Luckily for her (or not so luckily for her), the spell very conveniently landed them in their second year just in time for Hermione to get what she needed before forcing herself to look at the damn thing's reflection and get herself petrified. Again. Because she was a good little soldier who understood that sometimes the good of the many outweighed the good of the one. Really.
Through all of that they went to class and did their homework and pretended everything was fine and dandy (or as fine and dandy as things had been at any given time, which tended to vary wildly).
They met when they could, late at night in the Room of Requirement, when everyone else was asleep and none of them — meaning Hermione — was busy sneaking around elsewhere with Ron and Harry. Hermione didn't even know what sleep was anymore. She was so incredibly, completely, absolutely tired all the time, exhausted down to her bones, that she was always one hair's breadth away from a crying fit or a shouting match or a nervous breakdown, only she couldn't indulge in any of those, because that's not what had happened the first time around.
All she wanted was for them to get to the right part of their first or fourth year so that she could get the Essence of Dragon and do the stupid spell or die trying, which at this point was absolutely fine with Hermione, as long as it meant she could close her eyes for more than two hours at a time.
When they finally made it back to their fourth year, however, it was June and the dragons were long gone.
They sat in silence in the Room of Requirement, the floor around them covered in colourful pillows and sheets and sheets of parchment, and the occasional half-empty box of Caramel Cobwebs and Fizzing Whizzbees and Peppermint Toads, because while it might not look it just then, they were all adults and if they wanted to eat their weight in sugar, that's what they were bloody well going to do.
"We'll need a full moon," Daphne said, breaking the silence. She frowned at the chart in front of her before checking something in the leather-bound book next to it. "Or a new moon, but a full moon would be better. Once we have everything, I mean."
Hermione made no reply. They'd never have everything. With their luck they'd just keep getting tossed back and forth, skirting the couple of weeks when there had been dragons at Hogwarts until reality was entirely screwed up, or they were dead, or both.
And that wasn't the only thing on her mind. It wasn't even the most pressing thing on her mind.
"In our third year," she said when she could no longer stand the what ifs rolling around inside her head, "McGonagall got permission from the Ministry for me to use a Time-Turner to keep up with all my classes, and Harry, Ron and I used it to save Buckbeak and Sirius Black." For all the good it had done Sirius down the line. "We went back three hours and changed what happened. We changed what happened and—"
"No, you didn't." Daphne's voice was kind, but firm, and Hermione did not look at her, because if she did she'd never be able to finish what she wanted to say.
"No, we really did. We knew what was going to happen, so we went back and changed it. We changed that and it was fine, so maybe if we—"
"Hermione, look at me. You didn't change it. It always happened like that. You were able to go back and change it because you always went back and changed it."
"That makes no sense."
Daphne's smile was soft and sad and apologetic. "Time travel doesn't always."
They were quiet after that, and Hermione should have dropped it, except that she couldn't. The more she tried to focus on the book in front of her, the more her mind kept coming back to that one thought.
"Cedric Diggory is going to die tomorrow."
Not 'Voldemort is going to rise again tomorrow'. Not 'He Who Must Not Be Named is gaining his powers back tomorrow'. It was 'Cedric Diggory is going to die tomorrow', because in Hermione's mind that was the one death that had opened the floodgates to all the others, as if Cedric dying had somehow started a trend. Because Cedric had died, Sirius had died, and then Dumbledore, and Dobby, and Tonks, and Lupin, and Moody, and Lavender, and Colin, and McGonagall, and Luna, and the Patil twins, and the Weasley twins, and Ginny, and all the other Weasleys except Ron — even Molly who had treated her like a daughter, even Percy who despite everything had died like a hero — and so many others until all Hermione could see were corpses and coffins and graves.
"Yes," Daphne said only, in that toneless voice Unspeakables had perfected to an art.
"Maybe we could—"
"We can't."
"But—"
"Oh, for Merlin's sake." Pansy had none of Daphne's patience, and seldom any inclination to pretend otherwise. "We've been bending over backwards trying to remember what we said and did every minute of every day so we don't mess anything up, and you want to what? Save Diggory? He isn't dying tomorrow, Hermione. He died already. He's been dead for almost ten years, and there's no amount of Gryffindor sentimentality that would make trying to change that a good idea."
"Better Gryffindor sentimentality, Parkinson," she said, almost relieved to have a chance to lash out, to give expression to all the things bubbling inside of her, "than Slytherin callousness."
"Ah, yes." Pansy smirked, getting up. "We're evil, we're vile, we're the devil. Unlike you bastions of purity and goodness. But at least we have enough common sense to know when to cut our losses."
"How did cutting your losses work for you after the war, Parkinson?"
"How did making reckless, half-assed decisions work for you during it?" Her voice was sharp and cutting, like the edge of a knife. "How many died because the great Hermione Granger was too busy being good or heroic or brave to remember to be smart?"
Hermione didn't even realise she had drawn her wand until Daphne got between her and Pansy.
"Alright, that's enough," Daphne said, looking from one to the other. "This isn't helpful."
No, but then she hadn't meant it to be. Hermione wasn't sure what she had meant it to be. Cathartic, perhaps. As if by letting go of all the bile rising in her throat, she could stop herself from choking on it. In the end it had only made her feel worse, and she hadn't even known that was possible.
"Fuck you, Pansy," she said only, and turned to leave.
Chapter 6: The SpellChapter TextThe timeline did not change again for another day, by the end of which Cedric Diggory was dead, He Who Must Not be Named was in full control of his powers, and Hermione — who had become progressively quieter and more withdrawn as the day progressed — had acquired the vacant look of someone who had been slowly hollowed out until there was nothing left but an empty shell that moved and talked and looked human, but only just.
And Daphne knew she ought to feel bad about it — about Diggory, and the Dark Lord, and all the things that would follow — but mostly she was just relieved that Hermione hadn't done something incredibly stupid. Cedric Diggory was dead, but they were still alive and the world was still spinning. It was as good an outcome as could be expected.
When all the students filed out of the Great Hall — quiet and subdued, some openly crying — Daphne looked around for Hermione, grabbing her arm in the confusion of people, and pulling her with her towards a small alcove, hidden by a heavy curtain.
"It was the right thing to do," she said, once they were alone.
Hermione looked towards the window, her gaze on the dark grounds outside. "Was it?" she said, her voice low and toneless.
There was really nothing Daphne could say that would make it better, so she didn't try. She reached out for Hermione instead, cupping her face with her hands and turning her face towards her.
"Yes," Daphne said only, before kissing her, a soft peck on the lips followed by another one on the cheek, followed by a soft sob Hermione buried in her hair.
Daphne didn't really care about Cedric Diggory. She hadn't then and she didn't now. He hadn't been someone she noticed, certainly not someone she cared about, and his death had registered as no more than an intellectual curiosity — the precursor to a war that had passed her largely by. Maybe it did make her callous, but no one became an Unspeakable who wasn't at least a little unfeeling.
She did care about this however, about the girl softly crying in her arms, about what it did to her. She cared and that fact would have surprised all of them — the young Daphne who had been only very vaguely aware of the existence of Hermione Granger, and the adult Daphne who had tasted strawberry shots on her lips, and any version of Hermione who had ever met any of them.
The only unsurprised one among them would probably have been Pansy, who had always claimed Daphne had a soft spot for strays.
"You need to talk to her," Daphne said without looking away from her book.
"I don't see why." Pansy was sitting next to her, their legs touching under the table. "If she wants to sulk like a child, that's her business."
It was early 1994 and they were working in the Great Hall under the supervision of Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall while the school was searched yet again for signs of Sirius Black. Neither the Dementors nor the teachers would find a thing, of course, not on this occasion, and not on the many that would follow, but at least it was better than sitting through classes, and it made it easier to talk, as long as they weren't too obvious about it and made sure to refresh their Muffliato Charms.
"You're both acting like children, and I need you to get over yourselves."
Pansy and Hermione weren't talking to each other, because apparently the three of them had been stuck back at school long enough that they were reverting to actual teenagers. It was absurd and aggravating, and Daphne was about ready to strangle them both.
"If you're so worried, you talk to her," Pansy said, adding in a lower voice when McGonagall shushed her, "You're such great pals now, after all."
Daphne snorted. "Jealousy doesn't suit you, Panse. You're just bitter you let her goad you into an argument and said more than you meant to say."
"I said exactly as much as I meant to say, thank you very much. And you're a fool if you think she will ever look at either one of us and see anything but prejudiced, cowardly, treacherous snakes, however little she cares about it after a few drinks. As far as she's concerned — as far as any of them are concerned — any difference between us and Bellatrix Lestrange is purely academic."
Her tone was all unconcerned nonchalance, but Daphne knew her well enough and had known her for long enough to hear the hurt underneath. Hooking a hand around the back of her neck, she pulled Pansy to her and kissed her temple before letting go again, just in time for Snape to turn a blind eye to the both of them, as Daphne knew he would.
"You like her," she said, turning her attention to her textbook and underlining the three main causes of the Goblin Rebellions.
"I don't. Not in general and certainly not like you're suggesting."
Daphne smirked but did not press other than to say, "Talk to her."
They finally managed to get their hands on Essence of Dragon in May 1991, and Pansy was only mildly surprised to learn that the precious Golden Trio had smuggled a dragon out of Hogwarts in their first year, because of course they had. During the seven years she had spent at school there had been only two things she had been entirely certain of: the stairways always moved in the way most likely to make everyone late for class, and Potter and Co. were always up to something that was grounds for expulsion ten times over unless you happened to be Dumbledore's pet Boy Wonder or one of his friends, in which case it was grounds for house points and a pat on the back.
Not that she was bitter or anything.
It did mean, however, that Hermione finally deigned to grace the Room of Requirement with her presence to let them know they had everything they needed to put an end to that charming trip down memory lane and go back to their own time.
"Good timing," Daphne said, putting the flask Hermione handed her in the box with the other three. "Tomorrow's a full moon."
Good timing would have been several weeks and far too many time skips ago, but Pansy would take what she could get.
They spent the better part of the night going over every last detail of the spell until Pansy was ready to scream, not the least because while Hermione had been off Merlin only knew where nursing her injured pride, she and Daphne had spent long evenings working on the bloody thing, learning it backwards and forwards. Not that Miss Perfectionism cared.
"For the tenth time, it's TEM-po-ra, not tem-PO-ra."
"Oh bite me, Granger," Pansy said, and added despite Daphne's audible sigh, "We've been at this for three hours straight. We know it as well as we're going to."
"We get one chance at this. If we screw it up—"
"We die, everyone dies, the universe dies. It will be bad, it will be terrible, it will be the worst. I get it, I heard it, you've made your damn point."
The TEM-po-ra v. tem-PO-ra debate was the highlight of the evening. Neither the mood nor the content of the discussion improved from there. By the time five a.m. came around and both Daphne and Hermione agreed it was probably for the best if they all went and got some sleep, Pansy had half a mind to mess up the spell just to spite them both and their pathological need to try and control every last thing.
The few hours of sleep she managed to get did very little to dispel the aggravation from the night before, and it was probably a good thing they were going home, because if she had to spend another second playing nice with Hermione-Freaking-Granger, she was going to stab someone with her wand. Probably Granger. Probably repeatedly.
Her mind was busy going over the many reasons why she could not stand the other woman (never had, never would, and Daphne could stuff it) — a very long list in which Muggle-born did not rank nearly as high as "insufferable know it all" — when everything changed.
One moment she was running down a staircase — late for class because she had slept for only two hours and the universe hated her — and the next she was in the Great Hall, the words out of her mouth before she could recall them back:
"But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"
Pansy stared in horror at her outstretched arm, at the accusing finger pointing at the wizard across the room.
No. No, no, no, no, no. Not this. Not this day. No.
"Thank you, Miss Parkinson." Pansy barely even heard McGonagall, her mind too full of panic and fear and rage at the unfairness of it all. They had everything they needed to go home. They finally had everything. Weeks of trudging through first-year classes and third-year homework, and the Yule Ball, and the Triwizard Tournament and Cedric Diggory, and they could finally go home, except that they couldn't because it wasn't a full moon and even if it had been they would never have found the time to do the bloody spell in the middle of the chaos about to be unleashed in the castle.
And where the hell was Hermione?
Pansy was surrounded by a sea of hostile faces — hard, belligerent, accusing — more than one wand pointed at her, and she couldn't even bring herself to care, because she couldn't see Hermione, and had she been in the room the first time around? She couldn't remember. She couldn't think and she couldn't remember, and so many of the people in the Great Hall would be dead before the night was out — Neville Longbottom, who was shaking his head sadly, as if personally disappointed in Pansy; Ginny Weasley who would love nothing more than an excuse to hex her all the way to the other side of the school. So many other Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs and even Slytherins.
A warm hand on her back nudged her forward, and Pansy moved to follow Filch out of the room as she had all those years ago, only this was wrong. This was all wrong.
"We can't leave without her," she whispered to Daphne who had fallen in step beside her. "Daph—"
"Quiet," Daphne hissed, flicking her wand once to cast a silent Muffliato. "Nothing can change. You know as well as—"
"Not this time. Not this." The Battle of Hogwarts had been a massacre. Too many Death Eaters, too many kids playing the hero, too many flaws in the school defences. They had been overrun in a matter of hours and it was nothing short of a miracle that Potter had made it out alive. Pansy had never once doubted that leaving had been the smart thing to do, and the benefit of hindsight had done nothing to change her mind on that score, which made what she was about to say all the more ridiculous. "We can't leave. She'll see them all die. Again. We can't—"
"We can, and we will." Daphne's tone was iron and Pansy did not have to look very hard to see the older Unspeakable in the face of the young girl walking next to her. "You know the consequences of—"
"Oh for Merlin's sake." Millie gave them a funny look, but Pansy was fairly sure she couldn't hear most of what they were saying and wouldn't have understood it if she could. "Do you honestly think," she continued, lowering her voice, "that Hermione is just going to stand by while everyone she loves dies around her? Things are going to change. She is going to change them. And get herself killed for her troubles, like as not. She'll burn the universe to the ground before allowing this day to play out like it did the first time, and if you think any different you haven't been paying attention. And if we can't stop her, we might as well help her."
Daphne swore under her breath and Pansy knew she had her. It was hard to argue with the facts.
"We can't be seen," Daphne said. "After what happened in the Great Hall, you'll be seen as a fair target."
"Lucky me," Pansy said just as a discreet wave of Daphne's wand caused Filch to stand a little straighter. "So what do we do?"
"Pray." Daphne grabbed her arm and slowed down, letting the other Slytherins walk past them. Pansy didn't know exactly what spells she was using — non-verbal magic had always come easily to Daphne — but she could see its effects. None of their friends spared them so much as a glance; no one seemed to notice or care that Pansy and Daphne had fallen behind.
Chapter 7: The Battle of HogwartsChapter TextThey hurried in the opposite direction, avoiding the main staircases and choosing instead the back passages to the upper floors, hoping that would lower their chances of running into anyone. If they were lucky — and they were surely overdue for some luck — most everyone would still be in the Great Hall.
"Filch will know we haven't left," Pansy said, because that was going to be a problem.
"Filch will tell anyone who asks that we've left with the rest of our House."
Pansy glanced at Daphne but did not comment. There was only one spell that would get someone to do someone else's bidding, and the fact that her girlfriend was a little bit terrifying should not have been as hot as it was.
They made their way to the seventh floor without incident, and into the Room of Requirement without anyone being any the wiser.
"We need Hermione." Daphne went straight to the box where they kept the four essences.
"What are we going to do?"
"Something daring and desperate and wildly ill-advised. She'll love it."
Pansy's Patronus was rushing out of the room before Daphne had even finished speaking — bright and sharp and more solid than Pansy felt. Merlin, this was such a bad idea.
Not ten minutes had passed before Hermione came bursting into the room.
"What in Merlin's name are you two still doing here?"
"Making really bad life choices. Come here, both of you." Daphne knelt on the floor, opening the box and picking up a small flask Pansy hadn't seen before. "We don't have a lot of time."
"What is that?" Pansy asked.
"Felix Felicis."
"How on earth did you get Felix Felicis? If we give it to Harry—" Hermione made to reach for it, but Daphne moved it out of reach.
"Potter will make it alive to the end of the day. That's lucky plenty. We need this more than he does."
"What are we going to do?"
"We're going to win the Battle of Hogwarts and try not to destroy the universe in the process."
There was no amount of Felix Felicis, no amount of luck in the world that could make up for the fact that what they were about to do was a really, really bad idea, but since Pansy had been the one to encourage this lunacy, she was not about to point it out.
Daphne's plan was simple and elegant and very likely to get them all killed either through working perfectly (and thus risking screwing up the time stream for good) or not working at all (in which case they'd probably end up on the receiving end of an Unforgivable, thus changing what had happened and risking screwing up the time stream for good anyway).
There was magic in Hogwarts that was older and more powerful than anything even Voldemort could dream up. Magic that was not meant for mortal hands, that no mortal could hope to control. They had been counting on that power to get them home, and now they were counting on it to stop the war before it even began. It was either incredibly optimistic of them or unbelievably arrogant, and Pansy wasn't sure which. She wasn't sure it mattered.
"The current flows both ways," Daphne said. "We'll be able to tap into the castle's magic, and it will be able to tap into ours."
"Our magic is like a drop of water compared to—"
"That's not the important part. It will be able to tap into the Felix Felicis. In theory."
A lot of it was theory. Not terribly sound theory, either, but they were desperate and out of time.
"Give me your hand," Daphne said, grabbing a dagger and cutting a thin line across her palm. Blood magic was old and dangerous and not nearly the stupidest thing they were about to do. It would connect them all, make sure the three of them were sharing the burden of the ritual even though Hermione would be down in the lower floors playing the hero while Daphne and Pansy worked from the top of the Astronomy Tower — the highest point in the castle, right above the entrance.
Pansy sucked in her breath when the spell worked and Daphne and Hermione were suddenly right there, their minds close enough to touch, nothing between them but air. She could have closed her eyes and been able to see them all the way across the castle, all the way across the country.
"Merlin," Hermione whispered, and Pansy could feel the fear and nervousness and sheer sense of wonder radiating off the witch, could feel her prodding tentatively at the edges of their shared bond.
"It will be hard enough with three people," Daphne said, the agitation bubbling right under her skin as clear to Pansy as if it had been her own. "If one of us dies, the sheer amount of power will kill us all."
Odds were good they were all going to die regardless.
They shared the Felix Felicis. There was only enough that each of them got a few drops, but it was enough. The moment Pansy drank it, all thoughts of death and gloom fled, replaced by an unshakable belief in their ability to achieve the impossible and make everything right. They would make sure the castle held, make sure their side won the battle, make sure the time stream remained stable long enough for them to pull it off. And they would go home afterwards.
"I'll meet you guys in the tower when it's over," Hermione said, her surety in the fact that they would all be alive at the end of the day a bright light, loud and clear across their bond.
"Hermione," Pansy called when the other girl turned to leave, not even questioning that it was the right move, not even pausing to think. Felix Felicis left no room for doubts or misgivings, and Pansy had none when she kissed Hermione — nothing but the realisation that she had wanted to do that for weeks.
"Took you long enough," Daphne said, and Pansy could hear the amusement in her tone, could feel her fondness, warm and bright all around them.
It was a heady thing, that feeling deep in her gut that nothing bad could possibly happen, nothing bad would ever happen — like jumping off a cliff and trusting that something would catch her. It was illogical and ridiculous and unlikely to keep her alive in the long run, but it hadn't failed her yet.
The castle was humming in and all around her, old and magical and powerful, like a breathing, living thing. Hermione could feel its magic coursing through her, could feel its rage at the invaders that dared trespass upon its halls and courtyards, puny little creatures who fancied themselves powerful because they knew how to wave a stick.
And it should have made her feel small, it should have made her feel tiny next to that behemoth with its ancient magic and deep foundations and towers that reached upwards towards the sky, but it didn't. Hermione felt untouchable, unreachable, invincible. They would carry the day if she had to carry it herself.
Not that she would have to. Not single-handedly. No one else had drunk the Felix Felicis, but its effects were felt throughout the castle, carried by their spell, held in place by sheer force of will, and people were ducking out of the way of curses that should have killed them, and hitting masked nightmares with deadly accuracy, and becoming smarter and faster and better.
It wasn't perfect — nothing in life was, not even magic. Many still fell to Death Eater wands, many still broke under Death Eater curses. But Hermione had seen the world end once before, on this day all those many years ago, and it didn't begin to compare. A time would come to mourn their dead — and her heart broke at the though of those whose fate they had been unable to change — but she would make sure it ended here. Whatever else she did, she would make sure this war ended today.
Pansy could feel the moment the Felix Felicis started to wear off, like a sudden chill in the air. It was subtle at first, a small hint of doubt, the sudden realisation that even if they made it though the day, chances were still good that they were probably screwed anyway.
When the Dark Lord walked into the school with Harry Potter's dead body, she knew their luck had finally ran out.
Hermione's pain — shocked and sharp and overwhelming — reverberated across their bond like movement on a spider's web, hitting her and Daphne like a brick wall. Daphne whimpered and Pansy squeezed her hands, trying to keep them both grounded because they were still connected to the school, high up in the Astronomy Tower, and they had come too far to falter now, with or without their extra luck.
"Come on, Potter," Pansy said through gritted teeth, Hermione's grief raw and crushing in her mind. "Make your own goddamn luck."
When Harry rolled to his feet — and only Potter could be such a drama queen as to literally rise from the dead — Pansy wasn't sure if the overpowering sense of relief was hers, Daphne's or Hermione's.
The moment Voldemort died they had half a second to share in the general euphoria before a wave of energy almost made them lose their hold on the spell.
"Get up here, Hermione," Daphne said even though Hermione couldn't hear them. She'd be able to feel Daphne's urgency, however, much like Pansy could. And Pansy could see only too clearly what had Daphne worried — the four essences they were using as anchors were almost gone. There was barely anything left in the bowl that held the Essence of Basilisk, and Essence of Dragon wasn't looking too good either.
They either did the spell now or not at all. And if they didn't drop their hold on the school's magic before the essences ran out, that was the end of the line for all of them.
"I'm here, I'm here." Hermione barged in, her clothes filthy, her hair a wild mass of curls. Daphne dropped one of Pansy's hands and Hermione joined them in the circle.
"The moon is waning," Pansy pointed out, as if there was anything they could do about it.
"Yeah," Daphne agreed. A small squeeze of her hand was all the warning she got before Daphne started the ritual, her voice loud and clear in the stillness around them. And after the insanity of the day they had just lived through, this was almost relaxing — the familiar pacing of a spell they had gone over time and time again until Pansy could chant it in her sleep, every word rolling off her tongue effortlessly.
And then Essence of Basilisk ran out and the extra burst of energy tore through them like dry kindle catching fire. Pansy almost let go, the pain sharp and blinding and punishing, but Daphne's grip on her and Hermione was like iron and it only took the witch a second to adjust, to ease the strain on both of them. Pansy would have admired the sort of skill required to do that, if only she hadn't been so painfully aware of the fact that Essence of Dragon was on its last legs, and Daphne would not be able to do it a second time.
The empty bowl burst, shards flying everywhere, and that could not be a good sign except that suddenly everything stood still, broken fragments hovering in mid-air. They just stood there for a second and then flew back the other way, stitching themselves together again, as if time was being rewound.
And this had to mean something. It had to be a sign that they were on the right track. They only needed to hold on a little bit longer. They were so close! So close.
When the four bowls burst at the same time, Pansy only had half a second to feel something akin to shock before the world went dark.
Chapter 8: EpilogueNotes:(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter TextHermione stood across the street from the house, a soft drizzle caressing her skin and playing havoc with her hair. It was late, around dinner time. The lights on the street were already on, casting dark shadows on the buildings. The amount of passers-by had slowed down to a trickle of people who rushed past her without so much as a glance, in a hurry to get home and out of the rain.
The house was just an ordinary house — white, two-storey, with potted plants in one of the windowsills. Hermione wondered briefly which of them cared for those. There was something incongruous about the idea of Pansy Parkinson gardening, for all that she was named after a flower.
Hermione was stalling.
This was ridiculous. The great Hermione Granger, war hero twice over, rooted in place at the thought of ringing a doorbell. Some hero.
She wasn't sure what it said about her, that it took liquid luck or large amounts of alcohol for her to make a move. Bravery indeed.
They had been back in the present for two days and she hadn't seen either Pansy or Daphne in almost that long. They had technically only been gone two minutes, but that had been enough to ring some pretty big alarm bells up and down the Ministry, and teams of Unspeakables had interviewed all three of them separately, going over everything that had happened, making sure they gave a thorough and detailed account of everything that had happened — dates, places, things they had changed, big and small.
When they had finally let her go, Hermione had felt no small amount of relief. None of the Unspeakables had looked terribly impressed at their "reckless disregard for the laws of time, put in place for very good reasons and by far smarter and wiser minds than yours, Miss Granger," and she had half-expected her brain to end up floating around in a jar somewhere, deep in the Department of Mysteries.
Her relief had been short-lived, however, because no sooner had she got out of one interrogation, she had run straight into another. Harry and Ron were waiting for her outside, and Hermione would have blown them off — because she was exhausted, and her nerves were shot, and she badly needed her bed — except that Ginny was right there, alive and well and looking at her.
So she had gone with them, and told her story, and burst into tears at the sight of Molly Weasley bringing her a cup of tea.
There were many people who had not made it despite their best efforts — Fred, Tonks, Lupin, many others — but Hermione did not dwell on those. She was grateful for the ones who had made it. She would be grateful for that for as long as she lived.
"I'm sorry," Ron said when she was done telling her story. "Can we go back to the part where you slept with Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass? 'Cause I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one."
Ginny let out a snort of laughter, and Harry threw a cushion at his head, and Hermione rolled her eyes at all three of them, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Merlin, it was good to be home.
That had been the night before, and today she had spent the better part of the day fussing and fidgeting and going crazy, because apparently unless she was in mortal peril she did not know what to do with herself. And it wasn't even that. She had been there before — the adrenaline crash, the struggle to make herself climb down from that state where her fight or flight response was constantly on. It wasn't that.
It was the fact that they were back and she had barely had the time to say two words to Pansy and Daphne, and she didn't know where the three of them were, if anywhere. She didn't know what that thing between them was, or if it even existed anywhere but inside her own head, and part of her didn't even want to find out for sure, in case she didn't like the answer.
But not knowing was driving her crazy.
And that's how she had ended up outside their home that rainy evening, nervous and awkward and frozen in place. Just standing there. Like a stalker. A creepy, creepy stalker.
"Get a grip, Hermione," she muttered under her breath. All the things she'd been through, and this was what scared her? A little rejection wouldn't kill her. Might sting a little, but she'd live.
She forced her legs to cooperate, crossed the street and rang the doorbell before she had time to think better of it. The thirty seconds it took for someone to come to the door were more than enough time for her to regret ever coming here, realise she should at least have been wearing something more flattering, and what the devil had she even been thinking, standing in the rain for so long? Her hair did not need any more incentives to rebel than it already had.
Merlin, she was pathetic.
When Daphne opened the door, the startled look she gave her was enough for Hermione to start regretting several of her life choices, and this one in particular, but then relief spread across Daphne's face and she smiled.
"Thank god," she said, pulling Hermione in for a hug tight enough to hurt, and Hermione wasn't worried anymore.
Pansy was standing on the other end of the corridor, a fond smile on her lips.
"Took you long enough, Granger."
Notes:Hope you enjoyed it :) Thanks for reading!