Paradox

By: olivieblake

Fandom: harry potter

Summary: Draco Malfoy wakes up one night to find Hermione Granger in his bed. But she's really not Hermione Granger at all, is she? Dramione, Year 7, Deathly Hallows AU. COMPLETE.

Status: Completed

Fic type: Books/Harry Potter

Pairings/Main char.: [Draco M., Hermione G.] [Harry P., Theodore N.]

Published: 2018-06-05

Last updated: 2018-10-19

Words count: 166,184

Chapters count: 28

Converted using www.FF2EBOOK.com
Date: 2020-06-13

1. Rude Awakenings

Paradox

Summary: Draco Malfoy wakes up one night to find Hermione Granger in his bed. But she's really not Hermione Granger at all, is she? Dramione, Year 7, Deathly Hallows AU.

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and claim no profit from this work. Credit where credit is due, Joanne Rowling.

a/n: This story is an expansion of the one shot of the same name from my Amortentia short story collection. It will contain excerpts from the original one shot (including this introduction), but will be almost entirely new material, and will update at least once a week.

As ever, I can't wait to start another story with you, and hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1: Rude Awakenings

Draco Malfoy woke up at precisely 12:07 a.m. to a set of overlarge brown eyes and tickle of something soft beneath his nose, prompting a sneeze that was immediately followed by a frantic scream (his own, unfortunately).

"Shh," warned the unwelcome intruder, smothering his mouth with her palm. "You'll wake someone."

"Getoiergioffgme," Draco muttered indignantly, glaring up at her. Mudblood legend and Potter-loving idiot Hermione Granger was straddling him in bed, wearing a set of those muggle jeans she apparently loved—tighter than he'd ever seen her wear, but that was an observation that would decidedly have to wait—and a shirt made of soft grey material that drifted unpleasantly above his bare torso. She raised one brow, pursing her lips; a warning.

"Don't scream," she whispered, and he felt something cold slip against the sharply pebbled flesh of his abdomen. "If you do, I promise, I'll leave a mark."

"Whaatuiyifrfuck?" Draco demanded, feeling his eyes widen as he took stock of what, exactly, she'd so casually pressed into his stomach. "Isiyqfwirvbljknyyf?"

"Yes, it is a knife," Granger replied, looking pleased. "Good on you for noticing, Malfoy."

He made a face—Fuck you, he thought furiously, since she didn't seem to be willing to let him say it out loud—and she narrowed her eyes. "Promise not to scream?"

He nodded. She slowly retracted her hand and he jerked up, reaching for his wand.

"Ah-ah-ah, nope," Granger said quickly, shoving him down and then shifting the knife's edge from his stomach to his neck, holding it directly beneath the bone of his jaw. "My fault," she permitted, breathing heavily as she grinned. "I suppose I didn't give you explicit enough instructions."

She leaned forward, her hair tickling his chin as she spoke in his ear. "If you move," she whispered, "if you breathe, if you say anything, if you try anything, I will stab you in the chest, pull apart your ribs, and feed your heart to the peacocks outside." Then she leaned back, satisfied, and spared him an expectant look of finality. "Got it?"

"Fucking hell, Granger," Draco exhaled with difficulty, his heart pounding in his chest. "What on earth happened to you?"

"I need your help," she replied, glancing around, "right now. We need to get out, firstly, and then I'll explain everything—"

"Like hell you will," Draco retorted gruffly. "I'm not going anywhere with you, you—" He paused, flustered. "You intolerable little mudblood—"

"What does that mean?" Granger demanded, and scowled. "Whatever it is," she sniffed decisively, "I certainly don't like your tone."

"Where's Potter?" Draco pressed, ignoring her. "And Weasley? Are they here?" His pulse quickened at that, finally registering what her presence in his house could mean. "Because if they are—"

Granger frowned. "Who?"

"Potter and Wea-" He stopped. "What do you mean who?"

"Potter?" she echoed, blinking. "Wait, do you mean Harry Potter?" She sat back, quietly marveling. "Am I friends with him here?"

Draco gaped at her. "Are you friends with—" He faltered. "Did you just say—"

She sighed impatiently. "I told you I would explain everything," she reminded him, "but we have to get out. There's something we have to find."

"What do we have t- no. No. You know what?" Draco interrupted himself. "I don't know what you're playing at, Granger, but I'm not just going to entertain diabolical guessing games from you all night. In case you've managed to forget, I hate you," he reminded her, "and secondly, the Dark Lord is living in my fucking house, so I really don't think you can afford to—"

"Dark Lord?" Granger repeated vacantly. "Who?"

"What?" Draco asked, and grimaced. "No, I can't—seriously, I mean it, I physically can't," he snapped, as she made a face, obviously skeptical. "Even if I were buying into your little game—which I'm not," he added scornfully, "I can't say his name. There's a taboo."

"Oh, are you talking about Grindelwald?" Granger asked. "And what's a taboo?"

Draco opened his mouth to answer and then, thinking better of it, permitted himself to go limp beneath her blade. "Actually, just stab me," he muttered, exasperated. "Seems easier."

"God, you're difficult," she groaned, redoubling her efforts on the knife at his throat and prompting him to inhale sharply. "And apparently this happens to you often," she added, glancing down at his chest with something he might have flattered himself into thinking was curiosity, had he not known better.

"What?" he asked gruffly. "Being awoken by Gryffindor idiots in the middle of the night? No, frankly, that's new—"

"No, getting stabbed," she corrected, running a hand over the lines of his Sectumsempra scar. He shivered a little at her touch, hoping desperately that she wouldn't notice; luckily, she didn't seem to, or if she had, she clearly didn't care. "This looks bad."

"It was," Draco grunted. "And you know what it's from, Granger, so I don't know why you're—"

"Listen," she cut in, rolling her eyes. "If I explain myself, will you be less annoying?"

"No promises," Draco muttered, though at her menacing lean towards him, he shrank back against his pillows. "Fine, yes," he sighed. "Tell me what's going on and I'll be—I don't know." He offered as close a motion to shrugging as he could manage while pinned beneath her. "Better, I guess."

"Better?" she echoed doubtfully.

"I'll ask fewer questions," he clarified, and she shrugged.

"Close enough. Well," she began, clearing her throat, "I'm Hermione Granger."

He rolled his eyes. "I know that—"

"I'm not that Hermione Granger," she cut in, annoyed. "Whoever she is."

Draco frowned. "So are you—is this Polyjuice, then? Or—"

"I don't know what that is," she informed him bluntly, "because where I come from, I'm not magic. Well, I am," she clarified, "or I should be, anyway, but according to—" She broke off, shaking herself of whatever she'd been about to say. "There's some guy named Grindelwald in charge, apparently, and so I'm not allowed to become a witch."

Draco swallowed cautiously, feeling the edge of her knife once again tease at the arch of his throat. "So where exactly is it that you're from?" he asked, abruptly finding his mouth quite dry.

She tilted her head, considering it. "I think it's technically a parallel universe. It looks like this," she added, gesturing around. "Same world, really. Just—totally different, also."

"So apparently Hermione Granger without magic is a total psychopath, then," Draco noted, gesturing to the knife. "Do I have that part right?"

"I'm not a psychopath," she informed him. "I'm perfectly capable of empathy, I just choose to discard it. Logically," she added, as if she felt he needed the clarification.

"Comforting," he scoffed.

"The thing is, I have to steal something," she said. "And I don't have a lot of time—I made a deal with someone." She shifted slightly, holding up a small silver pocket watch. "This thing," she explained, "is what lets me travel back and forth. Well, it let me go forth," she clarified. "I assume it will work the same way going back, though I haven't exactly tried it yet."

"And what is it you're trying to steal?" Draco asked, the gears in his head not turning quite fast enough to process what was happening.

But then there was a shout from downstairs, and immediately, they both froze.

It had been a long time since Hermione Granger had seen Draco Malfoy, but she'd definitely never seen him like this. He was sweating, nervous, fumbling for words, fidgeting with his hands; his face was deathly pale, and he was visibly shaking.

Which didn't seem fair, really, considering she was the one who'd been taken hostage, and Harry and Ron, too. If anyone was going to be dissolving to a puddle of nerves, it should have been them—not him.

For a moment, she despised him. Loathed him. But then she remembered where she was, and figured she really couldn't expend the effort at the moment.

Malfoy had done a somewhat shoddy job of denying that he recognized Harry—if that had even been his intent, which from her vantage point remained frustratingly unclear. The stinging hex she'd managed to hit Harry with had been relatively effective, but certainly far from miraculous, so Hermione couldn't imagine why Malfoy would not just identify them—unless, of course, he was having some sort of extremely slow-acting moral crisis. He kept glancing into a corner of the room, she noted; checking for something, like he was being watched.

Hermione couldn't imagine what the problem was, but she did know that they were fucked.

They were fucked, and that was not a sentiment she typically used lightly. And if that were not enough, Bellatrix Lestrange had found the sword of Gryffindor—had panicked, too, and turned dangerously paranoid—which meant that she knew.

She knew—ergo they were solemnly, flagrantly, egregiously fucked.

"I'll take the mudblood," Bellatrix hissed, grabbing her arm. Hermione felt her heart plummet somewhere into her intestines; tried to swallow her fear and failed, miserably. Half a whimper wormed its way out of her throat before she managed to clamp her mouth shut, pleading with herself not to cry.

She looked up at Ron, watched them drag him and Harry away, and then slowly let her gaze float to Draco Malfoy—her only remaining option.

Please, she thought, hoping he could read her intent. Please, Malfoy, please—

But then he'd disappeared, and she was alone.

Worse. She was alone with Bellatrix Lestrange.

"You have to help her," not-Granger hissed, her fingers twitching around the worn handle of her knife. "Are you seriously going to let that woman torture her?" she added pointedly, jabbing the blade in the air between them. "Or worse?"

"First of all, 'that woman' is my lunatic of an aunt, and she's not exactly someone I want to mess with," Draco muttered, sparing her a glare, "and more importantly, that wasn't the deal."

Very much not-Hermione Granger (the real one being downstairs, blistering his sensibilities with her screams and thus fully traumatizing him for life) had said she would answer his questions, would explain her presence, if he would just sneak down and keep quiet. She would have murdered his family if he did not, or so she'd claimed (and he certainly believed she was mad enough to do so if she felt like following through, which she ostensibly did) but he'd hardly needed the threat.

A parallel universe? And proven, too, by the convenient appearance of the real Granger herself? Draco would have been a fool not to ask questions. Specifically, the very significant question of whether there was a universe where he was not trapped in a house with Lord fucking Voldemort.

"Well, we obviously need a new bloody deal!" not-Granger spat in response, pacing the floor of the corridor before pausing in place, grimacing. "You have to do something," she pronounced for the third time, as the real Granger let out another excruciating scream that made both of them flinch.

"Perhaps I did not make it clear that I hate Granger," Draco reminded her, "and her friends, and everything that she is, and everything she stands for—"

"Maybe so, but you don't want her to die," not-Granger interrupted bluntly. "I know you don't."

He grimaced.

"Maybe I don't," he permitted, scowling, "but there's still nothing I can do. The Dark Lord resides in this house, as I've mentioned, and as long as we're here, she's not safe—"

"Then we'll get her out of here," not-Granger determined firmly, her brown eyes widening to an unmercifully optimistic degree. "I can get us out, Malfoy."

"Out—you mean, out out?" Draco echoed, his gaze flicking to the pocket watch she'd shown him. "Out of this entire—"

Universe?

He paused, swallowing. "You're joking."

"I don't joke," not-Granger informed him seriously, managing to cross her arms over her chest with the blade of her knife still aimed at him. "I find it a poor use of my time."

Evidently not, he wanted to agree, but determined such a thing was madness. Was he really going to trust her? Even under the best of circumstances, he found the entire situation discomfitingly uncertain.

"Fuck, what are you even like?" Draco groaned. "I don't know you, and I hate her—"

"You don't hate her," not-Granger corrected, with a very familiar (and highly loathsome) degree of condescension. "It's all over your face, Malfoy. You feel bad about this," she urged, softening slightly. "You know it's wrong—"

"Yes, I fucking know it's wrong," Draco snarled, resorting to contempt in his desperation, "but that doesn't mean that I can do anything about it!"

"But I just told you that you can," she retorted none-too-politely, all but accusing him of idiocy. "Malfoy, come on—I know you're not the massive shit you appear to be—"

"Oh, wow, flattery, nice," he muttered.

"—and I know you want to save her," she insisted, reaching for him. "Just—just grab her, and I'll get us out—"

"You don't even know how to use magic!"

"No, but I know how to use a pocket watch," she snapped. "I'm not entirely devoid of thought Malfoy—and I swear," she said, softening again from primacy to pleading, "if you can just get us in there—I promise, I'll get us out."

He felt the line of his mouth tighten, forcefully trapped. "I just—I don't know if—"

"Don't be a pussy," not-Granger interrupted, glaring at him.

"Don't be a cunt!" Draco retorted. She narrowed her eyes.

"Malfoy, if you don't—"

There was another scream, the sound of it slicing firmly through his conscience, and then something in Draco promptly withered, grudgingly giving way.

"Fine," he snapped, scowling. "Let's go, then."

Hermione had been crying; trying not to, of course, but feeling the tears work themselves from her eyes, the pain immense and excruciating and cruel—

And then there had been Malfoy again, more sure this time—almost angry, actually, had she been in the state of mind to gauge the little she'd catalogued from the last six years of his emotions—and then there had been… her? And then Hermione had known she'd gone mad with pain, gone absolutely delirious, watching herself spin the dials on a silver pocket watch and then swirling with Malfoy—and herself—into nothing, nothing, nothing, and then landing somewhere, somewhere else, and yet—

"Where are we?" Malfoy asked, turning to the version of her who was holding the watch. That Hermione was wearing a tight pair of jeans—quite tight, though she really was pulling it off, wasn't she?—and a grey t-shirt, a knife clutched in her free hand.

A knife?

"Your house," the other Hermione replied, her voice snotty and clipped. Hermione forced her eyes shut, every fiber of her being resolute in its denial of her surroundings. Is that really what I sound like? she wondered, and half-shuddered. No, no, this isn't real—

"My house?" Malfoy demanded, furious. "I thought you said you'd get us out!"

"Well, we're out, aren't we?" countered the other Hermione. "Do you see any insane women carving things into her arm?"

"Still, I thought you meant—"

"It's a parallel universe, Malfoy," she retorted. "We moved somewhere parallel."

No, no, it can't be—

"What," Hermione forced out, slowly dragging herself upright, "is happening?" She paused, frowning, as she realized they were indeed still in Malfoy Manor; only Bellatrix had gone, and Lucius and Narcissa, and that could only mean—

"Harry," Hermione gasped. "Harry and Ron, we have to—"

"Are you really friends with Harry Potter?" her other self asked her. "I've met him," she offered vacantly in explanation, "and I have to say, I can't believe that. I really can't."

"Neither can I," Malfoy remarked, before adding under his breath, "Not that it apparently matters what I think, as I've yet to have anything go my way today—"

"You," not-Hermione informed him, rolling her eyes, "are incredibly whiny. You have no idea how close I am to slapping you."

"It wouldn't be the first time," Hermione murmured, hissing a little in pain as she shifted onto her left arm. "Ouch—"

"Are you okay?" not-Hermione asked, and for a moment, Hermione could only conjure up the energy to stare at her, running through every reasonable (more reasonable) explanation for how she could possibly be talking to herself.

"I mean, I've been better, but—" She paused. "Who are you?" she finally asked, squinting at her. "I assume this is Polyjuice, but I can't—"

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" not-Hermione snapped impatiently, taking a moment to glare at Malfoy. "What the hell is Polyjuice?"

"It's a potion," Malfoy informed her, looking distinctly ruffled at having to explain. "It lets you take the form of someone else. Which is the logical explanation for this," he added, waving a hand between Hermione and… not Hermione, "but clearly I'm still waiting on the truth."

"I already told you the truth," not-Hermione sniffed, and shrugged. "This is a parallel universe. A paradox, if you will."

Malfoy sighed. "Yes, I'm aware that you said that, but—"

"Paradox?" Hermione echoed, frowning. "That's nonsensical."

"Oh, says the witch," her worse version scoffed. "Are you really telling me that you can wave a silly wand around and do magic, and yet you don't believe there might be a way to transfer through alternate realities?"

Hermione blinked. "That can't be," she croaked, finding herself at odds with the very suggestion of such a thing. "That's—"

"If you say impossible, I'll slap you," horrible Hermione sniffed. "I don't care that you look like me, or that you are me, or whatever this is—"

"She's you, but with magic," Malfoy supplied grumpily. "That, and an overdeveloped sense of righteousness, and a fucking unbearable hero complex, and—"

"I have to go back," Hermione announced suddenly. "I have to get Harry and Ron out of there."

"—and the worst friends in the entire universe," Malfoy finished. "All the universes," he corrected himself, opting to ignore Hermione's subsequent glare at him. "Look, you have a lot more questions to answer," he continued, turning back to not-Hermione, "like what, exactly, you were instructed to steal, and who it was that told you to find me—"

"I believe I can answer that," inserted a new voice—only it wasn't a new voice at all.

"Malfoy?" Hermione gasped, watching him come into view. He was wearing a uniform of some kind, looking even smirkier (and smarmier) than usual. His name and some unidentifiable rank were stitched in prominent letters on his chest, beside a symbol she'd seen before—something uncomfortably familiar—

"That symbol," she said, her right hand flying to her mouth. "That's—that's Grindelwald's symbol," she realized, stunned. "The Deathly Hallows—"

"Very good, Miss Granger," not-Malfoy cut in, smiling. "And speaking of Miss Grangers," he added, his tone cooling with notable distinction as he turned to not-Hermione, "you'd better have good news for me."

"I... hit a bit of a snag," not-Hermione admitted, not particularly shamefully. "But as I promised—"

"Wait a minute," the real Malfoy interrupted, tugging at his tie—his tie, Hermione registered, rolling her eyes; it was the middle of the night and still, he was in a full black suit—"Are you telling me that he's your source?" he asked, staring in disbelief. "Me?"

"Ah, lovely to meet you," not-Malfoy supplied, taking a jaunty step forward and extending a hand. "Charmed, I'm sure."

"I am not charmed," Malfoy retorted. "You decidedly do not charm me."

"Well, that's just as well, I suppose," not-Malfoy said, grinning. "But as it happens, I will need you to cooperate."

"Are you threatening me?" Malfoy asked, his brow furrowed. "Because if you are—"

"What?" not-Malfoy drawled lazily, glancing briefly at his cuticles. "My father will hear about it?"

Malfoy gaped at him, staring, as Hermione slowly gave in to laughter that shook inside her ribs, devolving instantly to sobs.

"Is she okay?" the Draco Malfoy who was so very obviously not him ventured carefully, watching Granger burst into tears on the floor of what was also very clearly not his own family home.

"No way to tell for sure," Draco replied drily, "though I would imagine torture doesn't generally sit well with anyone's psyche."

Not-Draco's smile flickered; a telling glimpse of irritation that Draco guessed was not entirely foreign to his own countenance.

"So, is this what I'm like when I'm important, then?" not-Draco asked him, his gaze sharply appraising Draco. "An utter cunting snot?"

He drew back, affronted. "I am not—"

"Yes, he is," not-Granger ruled definitively. "That about covers it."

At the interjection, not-Draco turned back towards her, arching a brow. "Well, back to you, then," he mused, with an obvious tone of impatience. "What are you doing back here without the wand?"

"I had to get her out," not-Granger said, gesturing to where Granger was now curled in a ball on the floor. "She was being tortured, Malfoy—"

"And that's my problem why?" not-Draco prompted, crossing his arms. "I thought we had a deal, Granger."

"We still have a deal," not-Granger replied, unfazed. "That hasn't changed. I just had a bit of a setback, that's all."

"Mm," not-Draco permitted, smirking. "Just a bit of a setback, hm?"

"What is it you're looking for?" Draco asked, stepping towards his other self. It was amazing—astounding, really—how strange it was to see himself, as arrogant as ever (or so he assumed) but in an entirely different way. This version of himself was notably unburdened; as if he, unlike Draco, were not living beneath the shadow of something sinister.

A tyrannical Dark Lord, for example.

Not-Draco glanced at not-Granger for a moment, calculating something, before swiveling to face Draco. "I need to procure a wand," he determined curtly, apparently judging the information (or the audience) worth sharing. "I believe in your universe it is currently being used by Tom Riddle—"

"Who?" Draco asked, just as Granger managed to hiccup out of her hysteria, sniffling and lifting her head in apparent recognition.

"Ah, yes, in your world he is called Lord Voldemort," not-Draco said coolly. "Here, of course, he is nobody in particular. In fact," he added, laughing, "I was quite surprised to uncover that he becomes anything of note under other circumstances. Here, he's little more than a smuggler," he explained, his nose wrinkled distastefully. "A nuisance, at best."

"Why would you want the Dark Lord's wand?" Draco asked, frowning, and a smile—no, a smirk, which Draco was realizing was an infuriating facial expression, particularly on his face—twitched on not-Draco's mouth.

"Because that wand's not his," he said softly. "It's yours."

"What?" Draco repeated. "But—but how—"

He looked helplessly at Granger, perhaps because she was the only familiar thing in the room that was so ironically identical to his own home. She swallowed, slowly sitting up.

"That wand," she said, half to herself. "It's the Elder Wand, isn't it?"

It must have been an answer of some significance, as not-Draco proceeded to take a step forward and crouched to look her in the eye, his fingers carefully tracing his mouth as he eyed her. "Yes, it is," he murmured, watching her curiously. "I wasn't aware anyone in your universe knew that."

Granger's eyes flashed as she glared at him. "I know a lot of things," she said flatly, and to Draco's horror, the other version of himself began to smile, seeming to process that information in a way that decidedly did not look promising.

"Look, our deal doesn't have to change," not-Granger cut in sharply, looking annoyed at having lost the other Draco's attention. "I can still get that wand for you, Malfoy, and then you'll teach me magic. Right?" she prompted, her fingers tightening threateningly around her knife hilt.

"Yes, yes," not-Draco replied impatiently, not taking his eyes from the real (though, what was reality anymore?) Granger. "Give me a moment alone with Miss Granger, would you?" he asked, turning to let his gaze flick over Granger's scowling doppelgänger. "I suspect she needs tending to."

Draco frowned. "Wait a minute—"

But it seemed his curiosity was considerably one-sided.

"Let's go," not-Granger said, grabbing his arm. "We'll be back in a few minutes, yeah?"

"Sure," not-Draco replied impassively, barely sparing a fleeting nod as not-Granger dragged Draco away.

Hermione glanced up, startled by the look in the eyes of the man who was most certainly not Draco Malfoy. He was quietly appraising her, gaze falling slowly over her face; his grey eyes traveled with meticulous calculation, taking in the landscape of something he'd never encountered before.

"Stop staring at me," she said bluntly, skirting his attention. "I need to go back," she added. "I need to get to Harry, and Ron—"

"They're not your friends in this universe," not-Malfoy informed her, his tone needlessly blunt. It struck her with a hard blow, followed by a trickle of uncertainty that slid from the back of her neck. "Nobody is, in fact. Aside from me," he clarified, his teeth flashing as he smiled at her.

She recoiled. "You're not really friends with her," she said, with more certainty than she felt. "You made a deal with her, that's all—and it doesn't seem like she really understands it, either—"

"She's curious," not-Malfoy said, shrugging. "She can't help it."

"Well, she's smarter than you think she is," Hermione told him, a bite of irritation reaching her voice without warning. "You shouldn't underestimate her."

Unfortunately, the warning only seemed to amuse him. "Oh, sweetheart, I know precisely how smart she is," not-Malfoy assured her. "I wouldn't have sought her out otherwise."

Hermione frowned. "You sought her out?"

"Of course," he said. "I needed someone from here who also existed in your universe. Specifically, someone who was clever enough to do the job," he clarified, "but who would still have an incentive not to turn against me. Someone who might have an incentive, in fact, to join me." He gestured over his shoulder, nodding at where the other version of herself had disappeared with Malfoy. "Voilà."

Hermione bit her lip. "But how did you—"

"You're hurt," not-Malfoy interrupted, as he reached out to take her wrist in his hand, startling her with his touch. "M," he murmured, the motion of his thumb absurdly gentle as he let it float above the single letter Bellatrix had managed to carve into her wrist. "M for Malfoy," he mused, glancing up at her with a curious look in his eye.

She said nothing, holding her breath at his touch.

"Look at that," he remarked, his lips curling up in a sly smile. "It's a sign."

Abruptly, Hermione's senses returned with a vengeance.

"It's not a sign," she grumbled, tearing her wrist from his grasp. "It's an abomination."

He shrugged, perennially unbothered. "Yes, well, so am I," he agreed, his smile unwavering. It was unsettling, really, seeing a version of Malfoy who smiled. "That doesn't mean it can't still mean something."

Hermione's mouth tightened. "That's not the word it was going to be."

"Was it Aunt Bellatrix, then?" not-Malfoy asked, settling himself at her side on the floor. "It looks like her handiwork."

Hermione's breath caught at how easily he could make such a pronouncement. "Yes," she said, and swallowed heavily around seven years' worth of injustice that had been so effortlessly reduced to nothing. "She was carving the word mudblood into my arm," she accused, lifting her chin in defiance before pausing for a moment, registering the distinct absence of something she was surprised she hadn't noticed sooner. "You're not calling me a mudblood," she realized, feeling her brow furrow. "You haven't—you're almost—"

"Nice to you?" not-Malfoy guessed, grinning. "Is it really that shocking?"

Hermione stiffened, not wanting to answer the question. Instead she shifted, avoiding eye contact with him, and promptly changed the subject.

"Are you really going to teach"—me, she thought, and swallowed—"her how to do magic?"

Not-Malfoy shrugged. "Maybe."

Hermione straightened, making a wordless sound of protest. "What do you mean 'maybe'?"

"Well, it depends, of course," not-Malfoy said slowly. "If I'm going to defeat Grindelwald, I really may not have the time." He shrugged again. "Priorities," he clarified, flashing her another cutting smile.

"But—" Hermione stammered, disbelieving. "But you made a deal with her, and you're—you're making her do your dirty work—"

"Yes," not-Malfoy confirmed, unfazed. "And?"

Hermione gaped at him. "You're—you're tricking her!"

Not-Malfoy yawned widely, leaning back to nudge his shoulder against hers. "I thought you said she was smart," he whispered in her ear, chuckling softly.

"Is this—is it because of her birth?" Hermione demanded, pulling away. "Because she's a mudblood like me?"

"Of course not," not-Malfoy assured her, waving a hand. "I couldn't manage to give two fucks what's in her blood, so long as she can give me what I want. See, the thing about blood," he added, shifting to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear and smirking as she drew away, flinching. "The thing about it is that it can only take you so far. For example, my pureblood status means something in your universe, but here I'm simply one of Grindelwald's many well-born minions, and he doesn't care much for England. I was summoned to attend Durmstrang," not-Malfoy explained, waving a hand carelessly. "I was well-born enough for that, it seems. But I was passed over for Prefect, and for Head Boy, and for Triwizard Champion, and I'm quite certain I'll be passed over in the future, too."

His smile faded then, melting to a grimace. "I do not enjoy being passed over," he remarked flatly, and then glanced at her. "And that's where she comes in."

Hermione frowned, realized she'd been holding her breath throughout the entirety of his outrageously tyrannical speech before registering, briefly, that this Malfoy was also in dire need of a slap. She stiffened, clenching a fist.

"You're still using her," Hermione muttered. "Whatever your motivation is—and whether or not you're not judging her for her birth," she clarified roughly, "you're still using her."

"Well, we should all aspire to be valued for our talents, don't you think?" not-Malfoy replied carelessly, reaching for her wrist again and letting his thumb brush over the M that was now permanently carved in her skin—or so Bellatrix had promised, cruelly, and several times over. "Surely you of all people can understand that," he added quietly, drawing her towards him as she held her breath, frozen, wondering why—why, why, why—she was letting him get so—

So close.

His lips quirked up in a smile at the notion that she was not immediately pulling away, just before his eyes dropped to the still-bloody letter in her arm. His breath skated lightly across her wrist, warming her, and flooded her with something unknowable as he lowered his head, pressing his lips to the wound; softly, gently. Intimately.

Like a lover.

She shuddered, pulling away.

"You may not be the Draco Malfoy I know," she said, her voice clipped, "but you're something just as awful, if not worse."

He chuckled, looking delighted by the assertion. "No, I'm not the Draco you know, sweetheart," he agreed, and nudged her with unforgivable ease, his lips brushing against her ear. "I'm better," he whispered, laughing.

She bristled. "You're evil," she managed to croak, pulling away.

His unerring smile only broadened. "Like I said," he assured her coolly. "I'm better."

a/n: Thank you for joining me! Second chapter will post sometime midweek. Hope to see you there!

2. Better Versions

Chapter 2: Better Versions

The moment they were safely out of sight, Draco yanked his arm from not-Granger's grip, glaring at her.

"Are you fucking insane?" he demanded. "Do you have any idea what you've signed up to do?"

"Of course I do," she said, with the same swotty certainty his own version of Granger (the one he was familiar with, that is) often employed. "I understand everything," she informed him, and then, directly undermining her irresponsible claim to cognizance, she shrugged. "So I have to steal a wand. Big deal."

"Big deal?" Draco echoed, flailing in his disbelief. "You don't even have magic!"

"No, I don't," not-Granger agreed, and to his dismay, she spun, suddenly pressing him back against the corridor wall with her knife held deftly to his chest. "But I'm pretty handy without it," she murmured, eyes flicking with amusement over his face. "And besides," she added, releasing him to continue striding down the hall, "nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition."

"What?" Draco asked dazedly, abruptly regaining his senses and jogging after her. "What does that have to do with—"

"Never mind," not-Granger said flippantly, shrugging. "Just a little muggle joke."

"Oh," Draco said, waiting for a moment of revulsion that, much to his confusion, didn't come. If he had to guess, though, he figured things were far too odd for a single muggle reference to upset his unerring sensibilities. "Still," he pressed, and took a few more lengthy strides to cut her off, stepping directly in front of her. "Why the fuck are you trusting him?"

"What?" not-Granger asked, pausing abruptly.

"Why do you trust him?" Draco repeated. "He's obviously arrogant, and underhanded, and completely self-interested—"

"Huh," not-Granger snorted, arching a brow. "Interesting assertion, seeing as he's you—"

"He's some other version of me," Draco corrected her stiffly. "A version that doesn't really seem to understand consequences, for one thing, and who doesn't seem to care much about you other than how he can use you, so—"

"I don't trust him," not-Granger informed him, unblinking, with the very heavy implication Draco had somehow been the stupid one for thinking so. "I'm not an idiot," she added, cementing the overtones with a scoff. "I fully intend to kill him once I have the wand."

"You fully intend to—" Draco stared at her. "What?"

"I'm going to kill him," she repeated, shrugging. "I'm almost certainly going to have to, since I doubt very much that he plans to stick to his end of the bargain."

"What?" Draco repeated, and then, frantically, "What?!"

Not-Granger seemed to find his dismay unconcerning, or possibly even exhausting. She looked distinctly tired out.

"Look," she sighed, "he's not without his uses. For one thing, he's given me the means to steal a wand. An unbeatable wand, and a portkey that travels between universes. Ergo," she mused, once again prompting the sensation that she was speaking to an imbecile (which Draco supposed she may have been, considering nothing she said or did was making sense to him), "I obviously need him right now, but I won't for much longer."

"But," Draco attempted hoarsely, "but you—you don't know how to use magic, and—"

"I'm going to have an unbeatable wand," she reminded him, waving away his concern. "I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'm sort of a genius." She said it like she'd been commenting on something as inarguable as her hair color, or the fact that he'd barely managed a breath this entire conversation. "I was going to start early at Oxford until Malfoy found me—and anyway, I can definitely make things happen on occasion. Nothing I can control, of course," she admitted under her breath, "but I know I have magic. I know I have it."

She looked lost for a moment, and dazed, and there was a flash of innocence on her face; a hint of longing, and at the sight of it, Draco felt a pull of something in his chest he very much wanted to violently smother.

"You don't seem to understand how difficult this will be," Draco pointed out, growling it in his frustration. "The man—the wizard—that this version of me wants you to steal from is no ordinary target. This isn't going to be easy, and you might very well die, and—"

"That word you called me," she interrupted, and he grimaced, realizing with lofty displeasure that she hadn't remotely been listening to him. "Mudblood." She frowned up at him, tilting her head. "What does it mean?"

"I—" Draco faltered, finding himself suddenly rather unwilling to define it. "It," he attempted, fidgeting, "it means someone who—who isn't… a pureblood."

"Like you," not-Granger guessed, frowning. "You're a pureblood?"

"Yes," Draco confirmed, half-relieved. It may have been a day of uncertainty, but at least he'd always been sure enough of that much. "I'm a pureblood, and you're—"

"Mudblood," she repeated, and frowned, abruptly combatant. "Why?" she demanded. "Because my parents are… what's it called. Muggles?"

Draco shifted uneasily. "Well," he began, and immediately faltered. "I mean, it's common knowledge that—"

"But you saw her blood," not-Granger objected, staring at him with apparent disbelief. "You saw her bleed. Are you really going to tell me yours looks different?"

"I—well, it's hardly literal," Draco said hastily, "I only—"

"Because we can find out," not-Granger interrupted, suddenly using the entirety of her surprising strength to shove him against the wall, the knife in her hand once again finding a home against the hollow of his throat. "Shall we?" she whispered, and he inhaled shakily, alarmed. He didn't quite believe she was capable of killing him, true, but he also wasn't convinced she wasn't. "Shall we find out what pure magical blood looks like, then?"

"Granger," he choked out. "Please—"

She glared at him, her eyes flashing gold, and then grabbed his palm. She sliced it open with her knife, a helpless whimper ripping from his throat in the same motion, and then she stared up in triumph as blood began to seep from the wound, oozing up in a viscous, too-real scarlet.

"Fuck," Draco whispered, and with a rapid flick of her wrist she did the same to her own hand, brandishing it in his face.

"Blood is blood," she said through gritted teeth. "Blood means nothing." She stopped, eyeing her own wound; flexed her palm, swallowing hard, and watched that same troubling crimson trickle down her wrist. "Blood means nothing," she said again, half to herself, as his gaze followed the narrow trail of it, a single darkened tear that traversed the blue-green channels of her veins. "Magic means everything. Power means everything."

She glanced up at him, defiant. "I want magic," she said flatly, curling her injured hand into a fist as longing turned to frustration, and then to abject fury. "It isn't fair that I'm the same as you," she snarled at him, "and yet I have to do without."

He swallowed, unable to take his eyes from the thin trickle of blood that slid down to the bone of her wrist.

"No," he admitted, not sure what possessed him to say it. "No, it isn't fair."

It took a moment—a considerable effort, in fact, that clawed its way from an uncomfortable, inexplicable numbness—and then, before he quite processed what he was doing, Draco reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wand.

"Here," he murmured, taking her hand and unclenching her fingers one by one, easing them into openness, submission. "When you have a wand. The spell for this is Tergeo," he said, waving his wand and cleaning the wound. Then he paused, taking stock of her withheld breath, before doing the same to his palm.

She breathed out sharply, her gaze alighting on his with something he couldn't quite put a finger on before she suddenly nodded once, seeming to have determined something for herself.

"The wand," she said. "This Dumbledore guy—"

Draco swallowed uncomfortably, glancing away. "Yes?"

"He's dead here, too," she assured him quickly. "Or so Malfoy says. But anyway, Malfoy told me that you disarmed Dumbledore in your universe, so even after that Tom Riddle person took the wand, you're the rightful owner. It will obey you—and only you," she clarified, "and that's why he needed me to convince you to be the one to steal it."

"Why doesn't he just try to win it in this universe?" Draco asked, frowning. "Surely that would be less effort, wouldn't it?"

"I don't think so," not-Granger said, shaking her head slowly. "He'd have to rightfully win it, which is apparently some sort of wandlore I'm not familiar with. But the way he tells it, this"—she held up the pocket watch—"is just some family heirloom he came across by accident. All you'd have to do to get your version of the wand was to rightfully possess it, which is hardly any effort for him at all."

"But then—" Draco swallowed, connecting the very troubling dots. "But even if I could possess it, he'd still have to take it from me, wouldn't he?"

She glanced slyly at him, a delicate smirk finding a home on her lips. "He'll have to take it from me first," she reminded him softly, and Draco forced another swallow, wondering once again what the utter fuck he'd gotten himself into.

"Ah, you're back," not-Malfoy said, his cunning smile flashing again as the real Malfoy reentered the room with her counterpart.

Upon entry, Hermione watched herself walk; eyed the presence she had, and marveled. This version of her was brash, unconcerned with others, and she was… bigger, somehow. Not physically, but she carried herself differently; wore her spine straighter, held her chin higher. Hermione recalled herself as she had been in the muggle world (read: friendless and alone) and wondered if perhaps this version of herself had never made friends. She might have never needed them, perhaps, or had possibly never even wanted them.

Hermione wondered, then, if this version of her wasn't somehow much more dangerous.

"Yes, we're back," not-Hermione confirmed smoothly, sauntering into the room with Malfoy at her heels. "You were in a hurry, weren't you?" she asked, dropping her gaze pointedly to Hermione. "Have you thought of a plan?"

"I… no," she admitted, glancing warily up at the real Malfoy. "I don't know the house very well."

"Potter and Weasley would be in the cellar," Malfoy supplied, grimacing. "With—" he paused. "With a couple of other people," he confessed, visibly deflating.

To Hermione's dismay, her attention snagged on not-Malfoy beside her, noting against her will that his pale brow had risen in apparent amusement.

"Interesting," he murmured in her ear, opting to address her privately. "This is the version of me you prefer? The kind who takes prisoners?"

"I hate all versions of you," she whispered back. He smiled, indifferent, and Malfoy seemed to catch the interaction, his brow furrowing suspiciously.

"Maybe we should talk," he suggested to her, though he looked distinctly uncomfortable at the thought. "Go over the plan? The house, I mean."

"Go ahead," not-Malfoy permitted, stretching languidly. "I'll get you a wand to use for the time being," he added, leaning towards Hermione. "You'll need it for when we go back."

"We?" Malfoy echoed sharply, and not-Malfoy turned, offering him an oddly graceful tip of his head.

"Yes," he said. "You really think I'd let you do it alone?"

Malfoy blanched and his alter ego laughed, somewhat alarmingly. He rose gracefully and without hesitation—even sparing Hermione a courteous bow—before he turned to exit the room, not-Hermione slowly falling in step beside him and frowning in thought as she turned the corner in his wake.

"So," Malfoy ventured when they were alone, staring uncomfortably at her. "Are you okay?"

Hermione grimaced. "No," she muttered, and she wasn't, but she very much preferred not to get into it with him, of all people. "But we should really talk about this," she pressed, dropping her voice as she changed the subject. "We can't let him get the Elder Wand."

"No, we can't. And we can't let her get it, either," he muttered, gesturing to where her other version had been. "It can't be good in either of their hands."

Hermione nodded, fidgeting. "Paradoxes really aren't meant to converge like this," she said, glancing at him as he grimaced in agreement. "Entropy and all that—we really shouldn't disrupt anything, or be seen with them. Who knows what an event in one universe could cause in the other?" she added, suddenly apprehensive. "Those two don't belong in our universe, and the Elder Wand in ours certainly doesn't belong in theirs—"

"Oh, so you believe in paradoxes now?" Malfoy joked drily, and Hermione flashed him her most impatient glare; the kind she usually saved for Harry and Ron.

"We have to destroy that portkey," she said, pointedly not mentioning how he scarcely deserved the right to mock her, particularly given the position they were both in. "We can get the wand from him—we should get the wand, really, it's not exactly safe in You-Know-Who's hands—but we should… I don't know. Destroy it." She shuddered. "Nobody should be in possession of an unbeatable wand."

"Given the circumstances, we might have to," Malfoy agreed, much to her surprise. She looked up, catching the grim line of his mouth. "We might need to use it to send them back," he pointed out. "And then we can destroy the portkey."

"So you agree, then," Hermione exhaled, relieved. "We have to get the wand, and then get them through the portkey—"

"Take them back here," Malfoy confirmed, nodding. "And then steal the portkey and go back through—"

"And destroy it in our universe," she breathed out conclusively. She glanced up at him, treading carefully. "Which means we'll have to work together. Can you stomach conspiring with a mudblood?" she asked him, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

His grey eyes dropped inexplicably to his palm as he flexed it, toying with something on his tongue.

"Yeah," he eventually muttered, and did not elaborate.

It was surprisingly easy work; transference into Draco's version of the Manor was almost worryingly unobstructed as they traveled from not-Draco's bedroom into his own, landing with a soft thud in the corner of the room.

"Listen," Granger said, nodding her head towards the door. "He's not here yet," she ruled, listening to Bellatrix shriek frantically at Lucius and Narcissa. "Seems like they haven't called him. Maybe they still haven't decided what to do?"

"Do we wait, then?" not-Granger asked, frowning at Draco. "Will he be back later?"

"He will," Draco confirmed slowly, "but—" He paused, shifting uncomfortably. "I could also call him."

He touched his right thumb to his left wrist, and immediately, both versions of Granger looked uneasy. Draco could tell, instinctively, that even if the alternate version of Granger didn't fully understand what the gesture meant, she still had some general perception that his ability to do so was no flattering connection.

His other self, however, wasn't so easily distracted. "Do it," not-Draco instructed crisply. "Once we've restrained everyone else—"

"What?" Draco cut in, balking. "Restrained?"

"Yes," he said impatiently, as though this should have been intensely obvious. "Obviously we don't want to chance someone else getting in the way—like your father, for example," he offered pointedly, "or Aunt Bellatrix—"

"Right," Draco said, feeling less and less confident in his choice of company.

He changed his mind, though, upon realizing what an asset their paradoxical selves were; not-Granger was nearly as good with a blade as Granger was with a wand, and his oddly confident clone was certainly a force to be reckoned with—not to mention that it was an easy enough trap for both Lucius and Narcissa, considering neither of them had time to realize it wasn't him before he'd stunned them from elsewhere in the room.

Within ten minutes, every Death Eater and Snatcher in the house had been meticulously apprehended, paralyzed or bound to something they could not easily escape, with their memories suitably modified where necessary. Granger had left the door to the cellar open after stunning Potter and Weasley, and returned Weasley's wand with a fragile, reverential sort of care—treading, in fact, with a mournful guilt that Draco was pleased to see not-Granger observed from afar with impatience; "Is that really who she's dating?" she asked, making a face—and then, within minutes, they were alone in the ballroom with Draco's wand pressed to his Mark, his hand shaking as he summoned the Dark Lord.

"Draco," Lord Voldemort said, apparating in with a subtle crack and a burdened frown that gave Draco more than a moment's breath of pause. "I presume," he began silkily, "that if you've called, that must mean you have—"

There was a thud, a crash, and then Lord Voldemort promptly collapsed, sinking to the floor with an oddly graceless impact. Draco frowned, stunned, and then Not-Granger stepped forward, gripping the handle of a sizable antique vase that had shattered upon slamming into the back of the Dark Lord's head.

"Got it," she declared loudly, tearing the wand from the Dark Lord's fingers and then appearing breathlessly at Draco's side.

"Did you kill him?" Granger asked, eyes wide. "You can't, you know, there's horc-" She broke off, swallowing. "I mean, there's… things to consider. For one thing, we have no idea what that could do to your universe, much less to ours—"

"Relax," not-Granger said, cutting her off with a wry twitch of her lips. "It's just a flesh wound. You're not the only one who mistrusts paradoxes, you know."

It was all so rapid and nonsensical that Draco could scarcely process the series of events, much less what they were talking about; he stared at Granger, reaching helplessly for clarity, and she gave a limp approximation of a shrug, seeming a certain degree of unsettled herself.

Not-Draco, meanwhile, was as collected as always. He held out a hand to the other version of Granger, beckoning for her. "Give it to me," he said, stepping towards her, and immediately, her eyes narrowed.

"It's his," she reminded him, slowly holding it out to Draco. "Remember?"

There was an uneasy pause, leaving Draco and Granger to exchange apprehensive glances.

"Ah, yes," not-Draco confirmed, his eyes flashing briefly with what even Draco could see was anger before it quickly cooled, the spark of silver soothing back into the grey. "Right. Of course."

Draco took the wand from not-Granger, barely breathing as his fingers closed around it. Was it really everything they said it was? It was impossible to tell, though a rush of something unknowable flooded through his bloodstream almost at once, jolting him slightly as he made contact with the wood.

Still, whether the wand was unbeatable or not was hardly the primary issue. He had the wand for now, but how soon before his paradoxical self took it—either by force or by theft—if he refused? Whether he came for it sooner or later, what could Draco really do to stop him? The portkey between universes was more than a small problem, particularly if not-Draco continued to use it to travel however he wished.

"How about a trade," Draco offered to his other self, hoping his voice did not betray his sudden rapid influx of scattered thoughts. "What if I loan you the wand," he suggested, more firmly this time, "temporarily. You came with us, after all," he added, gesturing between himself and Granger. "You helped us. What if we help you with Grindelwald?"

Granger frowned for a moment, concern flicking over her face; but then she nodded, seeming to grasp his intent. "Yes," she said quickly. "Yes, of course. You helped us. It's only fair."

Not-Draco stared between them for a moment, and then promptly burst out laughing.

"You can't seriously think I believe you," he said, struggling through his apparent mirth. "You really think I'd let you just—"

"You can have the wand afterwards," Draco offered quickly. "I'll even give it to you to hold on to, as a sign of good faith. But I want it back."

Not-Draco frowned at that, taken aback. "What?"

"There's a war here," Granger contributed, leaping seamlessly to Draco's aid. "We could end it with that wand," she added, pointing to it, "whereas you only need it to disarm Grindelwald once, and then you can take his Elder Wand."

Not-Draco's mouth twitched; a smile, though an unsettling one.

"Disarm," he murmured, winking at her. "Right."

She bristled, and not-Granger flashed her other self a look of something Draco suspected was skepticism, or else pity. Such naivety, he imagined her saying disdainfully, and realized that part of him wanted to laugh at the thought.

"Well, fine," not-Draco ruled, shrugging. "Give me the wand, and then we'll all go back to our universe. We'll get Grindelwald's wand by disarming him," he clarified, smirking, "and then return this one to you, and then you can be on your merry way to win your little war with Riddle." He leveled his gaze at Draco, holding out a hand for him to shake. "Deal?"

He was lying. He was so, so clearly lying.

"Portkey first," Draco suggested slowly. "Then I hand you the wand—"

Not-Draco waved a hand. "Logistics," he ruled, dismissive. "Not a problem. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal," Draco confirmed, consenting to give his own hand (but not) a brief squeeze before leaning over to murmur in Granger's ear.

"Get the wand from him," he whispered to her.

She nodded, not looking at him.

"Get the portkey from her," she breathed back, her lips carefully unmoving.

a/n: Chapter 3 will post later this week to help get us to the meat of the plot sooner. This chapter dedicated to gaeleria, who prompted the initial one-shot: prejudiced!Draco forced to confront his bigotry. Thank you to everyone for reading!

3. Pendulum Swings

Chapter 3: Pendulum Swings

"Let's celebrate," Malfoy's more evil version declared, the Elder Wand clutched tightly in his hand as he grinned, spiritedly pouring them each a drink upon arriving at his home. My parents are in Scandinavia, he'd already explained, laughing into his glass of Ogden's. They leave me alone often, he added, winking at Hermione, as I'm an undisputed paragon of good behavior.

It had been a messy display of spiraling from there. Spirits alone were something Hermione was woefully inexperienced with, and when paired with a set of intently focused grey eyes, intoxication was an understatement. By the time there were two sets of attentive glances on hers—Get him alone, Malfoy mouthed urgently, gesturing to his doppelgänger—she'd nervously (and half-dizzily) conceded to clear her throat, glancing up and trying, hopelessly, to steady her faltering smile.

"Do you," she began to not-Malfoy, and paused, swallowing an onslaught of nerves. "I'm—a bit tired," she lied quietly, gripping the arm of the sofa. "Is there an extra bedroom, or—?"

She caught the motion of the real Malfoy rolling his eyes; Smooth, he mouthed, but she was determinedly focused on the other version of him, who had run his tongue slowly over his bottom lip.

"There's mine," he suggested wryly.

She forced herself to stay calm.

"Show me," she suggested, feigning confidence, and the grey sparked, suddenly bright with something a jolt near the base of her stomach (itself already warmed by whisky, and further ignited by nerves) informed her must have been anticipation.

"I'm not stupid," he informed her over his shoulder, leading her down the corridor of a darkened wing of his manor house. "You seem to think I'm ruled by my cock," he added with a scoff, blatantly unimpressed, "which I very firmly don't appreciate, but—"

"How did you know to find me?" Hermione interrupted. "Her, I mean."

"I've used the portkey myself a few times," he answered, shrugging. "Spent a bit of time collecting information about you. You'd be surprised how many people have an answer to a question as innocent as 'what's the deal with Hermione Granger,' even when it's some apparently prejudiced version of me that's asking it," he explained, giving her a distinctly wolfish look of interest that sent a furious thrill up her spine. "Though, in all honesty, I had no idea you knew about the Deathly Hallows."

"Who says I do?" she countered, and he smirked knowingly.

"Don't bother trying to cover it up now," he told her, pausing in the long corridor. "I already know you're brilliant."

"I can be brilliant and still not know anything about the Deathly Hallows," she informed him, her breath catching slightly as he turned to face her. By then, the pieces of the world seemed diminished to little more than the basest of what she could see and touch and feel: him, in front of her. The wall, behind her. A distinct and bewildering lack of self-preservation, hovering around her. "The two aren't mutually exclusive."

"Mm," he agreed, his tongue traveling slowly over his lip again. "Not for you, though. Figured out the monster in the Chamber of Secrets too, didn't you?" he asked, though it was obvious he already knew the answer. "You know how to get there, and what it is, don't you?"

She held her breath. "I—yes, but—"

"You brewed a successful Polyjuice potion in your second year at Hogwarts," he continued, and leaned towards her, the crisp smell of him floating up and prompting a shiver. "You know about the Philosopher's Stone too, don't you? That's just a rumor here, you know," he mused, laughing a little, and his breath slid punishingly against her neck. Why wasn't she pushing him away? And worse, she processed with an internal flinch, why didn't she seem to want to?

"I've even heard," not-Malfoy continued, his lips brushing her jaw this time, "that you've been in the Department of Mysteries."

"You've heard a lot of things," Hermione noted, trying not to gasp as his hips aligned themselves with hers. "How?"

"You know, I'm afraid you rather underestimate me. I'm somewhat clever myself," he whispered, and pulled back to look at her, rakish and hungry. He looked at her as a thing to be unwrapped, and then devoured; like a thing to chase, and then ravenously consume. He looked at her, alarmingly, as nobody had ever looked at her before, and she wished the visceral reaction telling her to run hadn't also (confusingly) compelled her to stay, rooting her in place. "There's a few things I could still stand to know, though, if we're being honest."

"Why do I feel like you're rarely honest?" she asked dazedly, her eyes falling shut as he reached for her waist, one finger at a time. She could feel it, the settling of each of the pads of his fingers; index, middle, ring, pinky, primed with deliberation, and then finally his thumb, which smoothed lightly across a single electrified inch of her stomach.

"I'll tell you something true right now," he offered, and leaned down, brushing his lips against hers with an impossible softness; a delicate hardly-anything almost-nothing that was met with a rush of something wild in her. It was, among many things, the insane realization that she was kissing Draco Malfoy—only it wasn't, and that was even crazier, and what was the craziest of all was that she liked it, she liked it, she liked it—

"I'm going to kiss you," he confessed against her lips, a breathy spill of sweetness into her mouth. "And then I'll do it again," he added, making it true, "and again, and again—"

She gasped as he guided her legs apart, strategically placing his thigh against her; encouraging her, moving against her, moving with her.

"—and I suspect you're going to like it," he finished with a laugh, as she felt her knees go weak, letting him pull her with him into his bedroom; she let him toss her back on his bed, let him slide a hand into her jeans, his palm flat against her stomach as she keened beneath his touch. The thumb he'd pressed to the M on her wrist—to the span of her waist—slipped with ease under the button of her jeans, dragging down the zipper, and continued its unhurried descent against her until she gasped, a desperate breath he trapped effortlessly with a satisfied growl between her lips. It seemed unlikely to end there. It seemed unlikely she would want him to.

She let him touch her; let him savor her and devour her. She let his hands smooth over her, enveloping her, like the settling of an ocean wave. She took her rewards, too, where she wanted them; let her gaze rove over the contours of his chest to catalogue the shapes of his motions, matching them piece by piece to each paralyzing result. She followed the movement of his lips, watching them as he spoke her name; she watched them on her skin, too, and the way his tongue slid out between them, alighting just to taste her. She craved him, she ached for him, she coveted him. She wanted him and she had him, had all of his attention; had him catching in the light that streamed in from the window, moonlight cast about his shoulders and dripping in shadowed rays against his back.

But before she did all that, she watched him put the Elder Wand in the drawer of his nightstand, tucking it away before pulling her into his arms, thoroughly distracted.

Draco was uncomfortably aware of every spare breath in the room once he and Granger's parallel self had been left alone, observing with palpable disquietude that she hadn't let a single one of his dodged glances go unnoticed. Either she held her liquor particularly well, he thought, or he held his own extremely poorly, finding himself dizzied by either the liquid in his glass or the disarming look on her face (or worse: both).

"So," not-Granger said eventually, her lips brushing against her glass. "She's going to steal the wand back from him, isn't she?"

Draco choked a little on a swallow, promptly coughing up a lie. "No—no, of course not, she's just—"

"Don't lie to me," not-Granger advised, smiling at him as she slipped her bare foot into his lap. She slid the arch of it against his thigh as he forced himself back against the leg of the sofa, yanking his entire spine as rigid as the antique frame; as unwavering as his centuries of infallible breeding. "It's not a very complex plan, first of all, and more importantly, you're not nearly as practiced at it as he is."

"He's not a very good liar either," Draco muttered, and she laughed, letting her head fall back as the sound of it drifted musically into the air between them.

"No, he isn't," she agreed, setting her glass down and shifting to crawl towards him; easing him back, first, and then towards her, until somehow (impossibly, he was sure) he'd undergone the mechanization of drawing her into his lap. "You both have at least that in common."

"You're seducing me," he commented, letting his hands settle loosely on her hips as she shrugged, not bothering to deny it. "Which is odd," he added vacantly, suffering a moment of instability he wished he could blame on the whisky, "as you have nothing to steal from me."

"Nothing but your loyalty," she mused in his ear, and he stiffened, pulling back to stare at her.

"What?" he asked, startled.

"You don't even like her," she reminded him, and paused for a moment, waiting for his denial, before adding, "I could take her place, Draco."

He shuddered at the sound of his name on her lips. "I—you—I couldn't—"

"We could work together," she suggested, her voice so low and so tempting he had almost no choice but to lean in to listen, permitting her to whisper little mutinies, little dissident beguilements in his ear. "You and I both know you don't actually want the wand," she added, laughing a little. "You're just making excuses because her insufferable morality is part of the deal, isn't it? But it doesn't have to be."

"I—" he began weakly, jolting forward as she moved against him. Shifting her position, he supposed, or purely tormenting him. For a moment, the intent was unclear, until it very suddenly wasn't, and then her hands were on him, traveling an unfamiliar path. "It's not—"

"Let him keep the wand," she suggested, her fingers sliding up the back of his neck, twisting and coiling into his hair as she lowered herself against him, the motion of her hips ruthlessly hypnotic as they shifted on his lap.

"She'd—she'd never let that happen," Draco managed gruffly, trying not to let his mouth fall open as not-Granger let her hands slope forward over his shoulders, her fingers spreading across his chest. Her fingers, he thought miserably, and her hands, her lips her hair her face her body—Granger, whom he'd secretly wondered about for years, hating himself through every second it—only not Granger at all—Granger, except eleven hundred times more tempting—except awful and insane and fucking irresistible—

"You don't know what she's like," he continued, dismayed to find his voice alarmingly hoarse. "I could never get away with not taking that wand with us—"

"What if you didn't have to worry about her?" not-Granger—NOT Granger, Draco adamantly reminded himself—offered demurely, leaning back to meet his gaze with her fucking golden brown eyes, her absolute vision of innocence that was now, somehow, veiled with an oppressively coquettish charm; an undeniably entrancing disregard for rules, or consequences, or anything, it seemed, aside from wrapping him around her fucking beautiful finger. "What if," she murmured, brushing her lips lightly against his, "I took care of it for you?"

"What?" Draco asked, breathless, but then she was kissing him, pinning his shoulders to the useless sofa he was leaning against and slipping her arrogant tongue into the helpless deficiency that was his speechless mouth. She made a show of tasting him, of biting lightly on his lip, and then leaned back to watch his eyes flutter open, a smile creeping across her face.

"You want me," she told him. "Don't you?"

He gulped. He fucking gulped.

"I—"

"Not her," she said, and then corrected herself with a laugh. "Well, maybe you want her," she permitted, with a confusing brush of Granger's signature primness that was abruptly tainted—improved—by her roguish smirk. "But you want me more."

He shook his head, fighting to breathe. "I—that's not—"

"You're an absolutely horrific liar," she whispered, and kissed him again, her quick fingers slipping to the strip of skin that remained (that she had shamelessly taken stock of, damn her) between the untucked hem of his shirt and the band of his trousers, prompting an immediate shudder. She deepened the kiss, tugging his head back by his hair, and he gave in with a growl of resignation and fury, ripping the shirt over her head and pausing to stare at her fucking perfect breasts; just like he'd imagined but better, less restrained and more—more—

More his.

"You want me," she said again, and with a final conflagration of his misgivings, he flipped her back onto the floor, marinating in the sound of her laughter as she tore his shirt open, pulling him against her.

"Fuck, I really do," he muttered with incalculable, ineffectual agony, pressing his lips to the skin of her abdomen and tracing his tongue down to the button of her jeans; savoring her, even as his heart creeped up to beat itself against his throat.

Fuck, he thought again, I really, really do, even as his fingers closed around the pocket watch; the cold and dull and unfeeling metal that sat in the pocket of her trousers. He slipped the portkey from her pocket, aflame with the worst kind of hunger (read: confusion, desperation, devastation) and with a confusing clash of temperatures, he tugged her jeans down her legs, cursing himself breathless with anticipation.

It all happened so quickly.

"Malfoy," Hermione said urgently, grabbing his half-dozing form by the shoulder and throwing his shirt at him. Jesus, Malfoy, she thought, grimacing at the evidence of his misbehaviors, did you really—

Oh well, she amended with an internal sigh, recalling the sordid details of her own evening and withering in resignation. She thought, unwillingly, of the closed door she'd left behind her, and all the things she'd left inside it; the sensations that had been stolen and inhibitions that had been lost, which she hoped her mind would be merciful enough to forget, if only for the general purpose of survival. So that she could move forward without perpetually staring over her shoulder, lost in a handful of hours she'd cast off at her back.

Maybe something would come out of this after all, even if it hadn't really been him; maybe something in front of her was better than what was behind her. Or maybe—in the only safe option her poor battered brain would permit her—maybe nothing would happen, and somehow nothing would change, and in the face of everything she now knew (a new world, a new universe, a new set of secrets to hold in the dark), everything would still be precisely as it was—maybe, maybe, maybe—

"Malfoy, we have to go—"

It was chaos, turmoil, disarray—not-Malfoy skidding in from the hall after her, his cheeks flushed and eyes wild, a look in his eye like don't, you wouldn't, you couldn't, how could you, don't, don't—the other version of her looking furious, incandescent, ablaze, lunging after them like the strike of a match—her own fingers tightening around the wand—"I've got the wand, Malfoy, we have to leave now"—him struggling to his feet—"Let's go, grab my hand"—a touch, a yank, a sudden suction—a tumble, a fall—

A stumble, a darkness, a sense of loss—how could you, how could you, how could you?

It all happened so quickly.

For the second time in less than twelve hours, Draco woke with a start, lying on his back in his bedroom and suddenly jolting up in alarm, gasping.

"Granger," he choked out hoarsely, his heart pounding. "Granger, how did we—"

"It's okay," she said from somewhere beside him, gripping his shoulder and stilling him, her fingers cool and stiff. "You—you hit your head on something," she explained, grimacing, "but I've got it."

She held the Elder Wand out for him.

"We're here," she said. "We're safe."

He turned to her, forcing himself to breathe, and nodded slowly, taking the wand from her hand. "Right," he murmured, and then looked around, feeling for the portkey. "Where's—where's the—"

"Here," she said, offering it to him. He reached for it, fumbling slightly, and then aimed the Elder Wand at it, his breath catching in his throat.

"I," he began, hesitating. "Are we sure about this?" he asked, meeting her eye.

She grimaced in sympathy, or possibly commiseration. "Paradoxes aren't meant to coexist," she reminded him quietly, her hand tightening around his shoulder. "I know that it's—that we're—" She flushed, dropping her gaze. "I know it was different with them," she admitted. "Different than it is between us." She bit her lip, forcing a shrug. "But still."

He swallowed. "They don't belong in our universe," he confirmed aloud, more for his benefit than hers.

"No," she agreed sadly, shaking her head. "They don't." She paused, the grimace twitching into a tentative smile. "But it'll be okay, Draco," she added, testing his name on her tongue. He felt something ease comfortably in his lungs at the sound of it, and managed a hesitant nod.

He set the pocket watch on the ground, aiming his wand at it. "Reducto," he murmured, and watched as the portkey was abruptly blown to pieces, shards of silver thrust into the air. Almost as quickly, it dissipated into nothing, swept away on an inexplicable breeze.

"They're gone," he exhaled, feeling tightness in his chest. She's gone, he thought, and shut his eyes, wondering why it hurt quite this badly if she was right there—she was right there, the real Granger, and maybe all wasn't lost—

"Come on, then," he said wearily, gesturing to the door. "Let's... I don't know. Find Potter, I guess." He sighed. "And Ollivander and Lovegood, I suppose—"

"Who?" she asked reflexively, and then froze, mouth promptly snapping shut.

Draco jerked to a halt, slowly turning to face her.

"Lovegood," he repeated, forcing himself to remain calm. "You know who that is, don't you, Granger?" he asked, stepping forward to look at her; to see her, to make sure his eyes and his recalcitrant mind were firmly in agreement, before he reached out, fingers curling helplessly around her shoulder. "Don't you, Granger?"

Her lips twitched into a smirk. "You fucking idiot," she murmured, and he released her with a start, breathing hard.

"You," he gasped, his hands all but shaking in disbelief. "You—but you—you had the wand," he stammered frantically, staring down at it. "This is the Elder Wand, and it wasn't supposed to be—it was—she was the one who—"

"I made a deal," she explained flippantly, shrugging. "He was amenable. You have a war to win, after all," she reminded him, a wary smile crossing her face. "You need this more than he does." She paused, gauging his reaction, and then clarified, "We need it," before holding an unwavering hand out for his.

He stared at her, blinking; torn and uncertain.

"Draco," she ventured uneasily, taking a step towards him. "Say something."

It seemed like an eternity before he found his voice; but then, after a moment—

"Thank god it's you," he gasped, yanking her into his arms and burying his lips in the side of her neck.

Hermione opened her eyes slowly, something throbbing in her head.

"Malfoy," she muttered, feeling nauseated. "What happened? I thought we were—"

"You know, considering everything," Malfoy remarked, lowering himself to sit beside her on the sofa, "you should really start calling me Draco."

"Why?" she asked groggily, pressing a hand to her temple. "I mean, I guess," she muttered, and then blinked, trying to steady her vision. "Where's the wand?" she croaked. "And the—the portkey, where's the—"

She stopped abruptly, watching the expression on his face gradually come into focus.

"You're not Malfoy," she croaked, and he tossed his head back, laughing.

"I am, actually," he said, winking. "The better version, as promised."

"What the—"

She shifted away from him, struggling to back away. He, meanwhile, merely watched her, unapologetic and unmoving, with that same smile of amusement that she'd somehow—infuriatingly—come to expect.

"Did you—" She stared at him. "Did you kidnap me?"

"Kidnap is a strong word," he said, shrugging—an absurd reaction, in her view, and not much aided by anything that came after it—"albeit not entirely incorrect, I suppose. I wanted you, so I took you. As it happens, I'm rather intent on getting what I want, and it turns out that what I want is you." He paused, arching a brow. "Are you upset?"

"Of course I'm upset!" she retorted indignantly, as the realization of what had happened suddenly struck her with vicious force, jarring her entire consciousness. "Malfoy was going to destroy the portkey," she registered with halted apprehension, "and—the wand—"

She felt her breath catch. "The wand," she sighed with relief. "He'll know it's not me if she doesn't have the wand—"

"Oh, she has the wand," not-Malfoy commented blithely. "I let her go with it."

"What?" Hermione squeaked. "Why?"

He shrugged. "I only need you," he said. "If I'd known you were an option, I might never have bothered with the Elder Wand at all. After all," he added, shifting towards her, "I highly doubt anyone on earth could stop me with you by my side." He reached for her wrist, his thumb tracing over the M. "If," he murmured, "you wish to be by my side, that is."

"But I could be trapped here," Hermione realized, nervously chewing her lip. "And Harry and Ron, they're—they'll be alone, and—"

"They exist here too, you know," not-Malfoy said. "Well, I assume, though I'm quite good friends with Harry, actually. We share a certain desire for justice, you see," he explained, as if it were a clever joke, or perhaps a wild understatement, "and we're a rather united front on the whole bringing-down-Grindelwald thing." He shifted again, closer—much too close, or would have been, had she not resolutely lost her mind already—and gave her a spectacularly vulnerable look of sincerity. "We need you, Hermione."

She half-shivered at her name on his lips.

"Is this version of Harry as horrible as you are?" she asked him, trying not to stare at his mouth. In the light of day it was no less compelling, and in flashes—between blinks—she saw it in shards of moonlight again, whispering promises to the curves of her hips.

"Far less horrible," not-Malfoy said, leaning towards her. "Almost not horrible at all, in fact."

"I see," Hermione said, forcing a swallow.

"We could try to find another portkey, or make one. You're certainly brilliant enough that we could figure it out eventually. I only hope that in the meantime," he mused, his own gaze dropping to her lips, "before I help you return to your other life, you might give me an opportunity to prove how badly I want you." The corners of his mouth jerked into a smile, as if he'd confessed something intimate by accident. "How badly I need you," he amended at a murmur.

She hesitated, not quite giving in. Was it a threat, or an offering? With him, it was difficult to tell, and she couldn't rule out the possibility of both.

"Why me?" she asked instead.

"I have a war to start," he reminded her easily. "You would help me win it."

Succinct. Dangerous. The pause of a pendulum swing. She stifled a whimper as he tilted her chin up, his fingers floating delicately along the column of her throat.

"Oh, is that all?" she forced out, aiming for wry, or dispassionate. Instead, she arrived somewhere near breathless, and felt him smile against her lips.

"Not quite," he whispered.

He kissed her. Release, she thought. Breathe in, breathe out. No toes. Dive in. Static hummed in the air and thrilled in her veins; for a moment, captivity was a snare, but not a noose.

"I won't forgive you for this," she said, eyes still closed, and she felt the laugh that rose up in his chest, rumbling from somewhere in the depths of him.

"Good," he said. "I didn't ask for forgiveness."

a/n: For unicornshenanigans, for whom I would literally deny nothing, and who is therefore to thank and/or blame for this WIP. From here... all new material. Thanks for reading!

4. New Worlds

Chapter 4: New Worlds

Potterverse

"Say it back to me," Draco instructed again as he hurriedly shifted through his closet, and the Hermione who was not Hermione (but who was definitely Hermione now) gave a great and terrible sigh. "We really need you to get this right," he reminded her, pulling out a pair of trousers and tossing it into a magically expandable bag as she stubbornly rolled her eyes, but relented.

"My best friends are Harry Potter and Ron Weasley," she recited dully, following after him as he picked up the bag and headed into the corridor, gesturing for her to follow. "I have very little patience for Luna Lovegood, but I tolerate her. I'm friends with Ginny Weasley when it's convenient, but we frequently disagree." She paused, frowning. "How do you know all this about them? I thought they weren't your friends."

"They aren't," Draco said firmly, holding a finger to his lips. Quiet, he mouthed. "Do you have your w-"

He broke off, groaning. "Your wand," he whispered to her. "You don't have one, do you? I'd give you mine, but—"

"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione told him. "I haven't the slightest idea what to do with it yet. Besides, you should hide the Elder Wand," she advised, gesturing to where he'd tucked it away. "Particularly if you're not sure you should trust them with it."

He was most certainly unsure. He knew one unassailable thing, really, and it was that only Hermione Granger could conceivably trust Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, and more importantly, vice versa. Luckily Draco had Hermione Grangers to spare, if nothing else.

"I suppose she—you—might not have gotten your wand back," Draco grumbled under his breath, beckoning again for her to follow. "Still, eventually you're going to have to do magic, so—"

"You'll teach me," she said, catching his arm. "Won't you?"

"Of c-"

He cut himself off, catching the sound of a low moan from the other side of the wall as he paused before passing the open door frame to the ballroom.

"They're waking up," he whispered to her, and quickly disillusioned them both, beckoning for her to run. "Fuck, I really didn't think this through," he determined with barely-stifled hysteria, hurriedly making his way through the house. "The Dark Lord will blame me, he'll try to punish me—my parents will be furious," he added with a low groan, "and now, with Potter and Weasley, you'll have to convince them you're her, when in fact you're you, and you're—"

"I'm what?" she prompted indignantly, and he paused to glance at her.

"You're just you," he determined after a moment, and she rolled her eyes. "But more to the point, the real Granger hates me, remember? She'd never agree to work with me, not in a million years, so you can't appear to like me. Got it?"

"She did work with you, though," Hermione reminded him. "You two had some sort of ill-conceived plot together, didn't you?"

"That—" Draco grimaced. "That was by necessity. Under normal circumstances—if this had never happened," he clarified, "which by all accounts it didn't, as it's impossible to prove—there's no way she'd trust me, and Potter certainly won't."

Hermione leveled her impatient gaze at him. "Interesting."

"What's interesting?" Draco demanded.

"You like her," Hermione judged; a simple calculation. Like two and two were four, that sort of thing, only in this case, two and two were… orange.

"Who?" he scoffed.

"Me," she said. "You know. Hermione."

"No," Draco tutted, shaking his head. "Remember? We've been over this. I hate her. Or hated, anyway," he amended, no longer very certain about where he stood.

"It's cute that you think so," she remarked, smirking.

He stifled a groan. "As a hopefully unnecessary reminder, it's you that I—" He broke off, feeling himself flush. "You know."

"You don't have to be embarrassed about it," Hermione informed him, folding her arms over her chest in apparent impassivity. "I'm just saying, you were obviously attracted to her. Or weirdly fixated on her. Or at least on Harry Potter, for that matter." She arched a brow. "You seem to know a lot about him, you know, for someone who claims to loathe him so thoroughly."

"You'd understand if you'd met him," Draco said.

"I have met him," she reminded him. "I told you this."

"Whatever," Draco sighed, rubbing his temple.

All of this was already much more stressful than he'd bargained for. If the Dark Lord had begun to wake by now, how long until the others regained consciousness? Draco didn't want to wait to find out—but if he didn't at least stay long enough to find Potter and Weasley before they escaped, he was pretty sure he'd never find him. The Dark Lord hadn't, and he'd been looking all year. To make things worse, even if Draco did manage to find the idiotic wonder twins, there were still matters of difficulty to contend with.

"I don't know if you're going to be able to do this," Draco muttered, making his way to the cellar. A sound from the other room indicated someone else had already woken; he quickened his steps, pulling Hermione after him.

"Do what?" Hermione asked. "Be myself? Seems pretty straightforward."

"No, be her," Draco growled. "She's—you're not—you're just really not that similar."

Sure, they looked identical, but the girl amiably half-jogging beside him was as unfamiliar as anything, and she certainly wasn't the person she would now have to pretend to be. Fixation or not, the Hermione Granger that Draco had known since he was eleven years old was very firmly one thing, and this girl was… very much not.

"Can't we just tell them who I really am, if you're so worried?" Hermione asked, exasperated. "I mean, surely you can offer them something, regardless of who I am."

"I just—" Draco grimaced. "They're not going to be sympathetic to my cause. If you're not… you," he emphasized, "then I guarantee they won't want to help me."

"Why not?" she pressed. She had a distinctly frustrating ability to force him to confront things he very much didn't wish to, like the truth. He imagined it was her muggle breeding, combined with a natural aptitude for stubbornness. If she'd had his upbringing, he guessed they would have politely exchanged half-truths and parted ways by now, never to speak of it again.

"Because—" He hesitated, then redoubled his efforts at moving forward. "I told you. Because we're not friends."

"Don't you have other friends, then?" she asked. "Why does it have to be Harry Potter?"

An excellent question, though he didn't particularly want to tell her so.

"My friends aren't very helpful in this regard," he replied gruffly. "They're either completely spiteful," (Pansy) "violently narcissistic," (Blaise) "or chronically stupid," (Crabbe and Goyle) "and quite frankly, none of them would handle the truth particularly well, either." He paused. "I had one friend who would definitely help," he admitted, grimacing, "particularly in the matter of discreetly procuring you a wand, but I'm not going to him. Don't even ask," he added in warning, and thankfully, she didn't.

Nothing—nothing—was going to make him seek out Theo Nott.

"Seems relatively problematic," Hermione said, "but okay. Harry Potter it is, if you say so. Are you sure he's going to be able to help?"

"Honestly? I don't think he's going to be able to prevent himself from helping," Draco grumbled. "Chronic heroism is one of his many heinous charms. But you're going to have to be the Hermione Granger they know," he warned, "as there's no way they'll believe the whole paradox thing. They'll just assume I've done something horrible to you, which I imagine would be somewhat unhelpful to my cause."

He paused before the door to the cellar, reaching for his wand, and Hermione shifted, her fingers curling around the handle of her knife where she kept it tucked into her waistband.

"Hermione Granger doesn't carry a knife," he hissed to her.

She scowled. "You want me to wander around defenseless? There's a reason I started carrying it, you know."

"Yes, and I'm sure it's a charming bedtime story," he assured her, "but for now, you have to be her. I've got you," he reminded her, gesturing to the wand in his hand. "I won't let anything happen to you."

She seemed to disagree. "You were basically captive in your own house less than twelve hours ago," she reminded him drily, "so forgive me if I'm not convinced."

She was infuriating. That, too, was consistent. She was also infuriatingly lovely, and much to Draco's dismay, she had an infuriatingly accurate point.

"Let go of the knife," he said, half-pleading. "I swear, as soon as I can, I'll get you a wand and teach you what to do with it."

She grimaced, but gradually raised her hands in the air, letting him see she'd released it.

He exhaled swiftly, beckoning her forward. "Good. Now all we have to do is—"

He broke off as he took a hard elbow to the face, promptly getting himself knocked to the ground. He scrambled for his wand, nearly losing it, and looked up into a narrowed set of bespectacled green eyes.

"Malfoy," said Harry Potter, from where he'd set an apparent ambush. He bent over Draco, eyeing him closely, and for a moment, neither of them moved. "You didn't think we were going to leave without her, did you?"

"We," Draco echoed distastefully, as Ron Weasley stepped forward, dropping his wand to throw his arms around Hermione.

"Stay the bloody hell away from her, Malfoy—what have they done to you?" Ron asked Hermione, immediately checking her for injury as she made a face, stifling an expression of discomfort in his arms. "Are you okay? Hermione," he exhaled in relief, holding her. "Oh, thank god, I was so worried—"

"What were you doing with her?" Harry asked Draco suspiciously, glancing up at the doorway above as if he half-expected someone to spelunk down into the room. "And why's it so quiet?"

Draco supposed he should have been relieved; at least Harry had the requisite intellect to note that silence (under these circumstances) was usually somewhat deadly. Before he answered, though, Draco's attention snagged briefly on Luna Lovegood and the wandmaker, Ollivander. They were sitting quietly in the corner, the small blonde witch holding tightly to the elderly wizard and watching Draco with her unnerving stare.

"They're unconscious," Draco offered to Harry in explanation, and glanced uneasily at Hermione, who thankfully said nothing. "Stunned."

"So were we," Ron growled, glaring at Draco over Hermione's shoulder. She, Draco noted, seemed to have adjusted her stance to permit the embrace, but her shoulders were stiff with noticeable discomfort—or what he hoped was discomfort, anyway, considering he truly didn't care for seeing them together.

"Well, would you rather you were dead?" Draco asked him drily.

It seemed an effective point. At their silent détente, Draco sat up, leveling a threatening glare at Harry until he grudgingly rose to his feet, permitting Draco room to stand.

"You do realize they'll all wake soon, don't you?" Draco grunted, dusting himself off. "We have to get out, right now—"

"We?" Harry cut in, doubtful.

Draco bristled, but said nothing.

"How did you get out?" Ron asked Hermione, turning his attention back to her. "I'm so sorry, I tried so hard to reach you—"

"Malfoy saved me," she offered succinctly, easing herself free from his arm. Draco supposed it was true enough, though he felt the word 'saved' was rather heavy-handed. Apparently Ron felt the same way, opting to gape at her rather than speak. "I realize that's hard to believe," she added, her gaze sliding pointedly to Draco, "but it's true."

"Well, Malfoy's right about one thing," Harry said, glancing upstairs again. "We have to go, now. Fast. He has something," he added to them in an undertone, and in a voice that could have only been referring to the Dark Lord. "Something bad."

Draco shifted, careful not to reach subconsciously for the Elder Wand in his back pocket.

Ron, meanwhile, glanced at Harry, disbelieving. "But what about the—"

"We'll find another way," Harry cut in firmly, turning to Draco. "What's the best way out of here?"

"Disapparation," Draco said. The obvious answer, though with less obvious implications. "But you won't be able to do it. Wards," he explained, gesturing vaguely overhead, "not to mention you've only got one wand between the four of you."

The subtext: I have to be the one to do it.

For a moment, they were all silent. Luna murmured something comforting to Ollivander, but Draco didn't hear what she'd said. Instead, his ears were ringing with frustration, with apprehension, with fear, and with the sickening knowledge that everything hinged on whatever Harry Potter, Boy Who fucking Lived, said next.

"Well," Harry said stubbornly, clearing his throat, "then I suppose we're getting out the muggle way."

Draco's mouth tightened, furious. "You can't be serious."

"This house has doors, doesn't it?" Harry countered, which Draco hoped was a seriously unfunny joke.

"We'll figure it out," Ron muttered in agreement, and before Draco could argue, he'd taken Hermione's hand, pulling her after him.

She, though, remained firmly rooted in place.

"I'm not leaving him," Hermione said flatly, glancing at Draco.

"What?" Ron asked, astounded. "But—but Hermione, it's Malfoy—"

The real Hermione would have left him. Or at the very least, she wouldn't have said it quite so confidently, or in those precise words. It seemed this was to be their first major obstacle.

Please, Draco thought silently, please don't fuck this up—

"It would be wrong," Hermione insisted, freeing herself from Ron's grasp with a look that Draco was relieved to find was, in fact, perfectly accurate. "He helped me, Ron. He may be a prat," she added, giving him a prim look of smugness, "but we can't just leave him behind. They'll kill him, won't they?"

Ron's brow furrowed. "But Hermione—"

Told you they wouldn't care, Draco wanted to tell her, but was almost immediately interrupted.

"Fine," Harry said neutrally, startling both of them. "If the easiest way to get out of here is to take him with us, then fine." He set his jaw. "But that doesn't mean I trust him."

"We don't have to trust him," Hermione said. "He's spent the last year with that Lord thing, hasn't he? So—"

"What?" Ron asked, and Draco winced.

"I meant—" She glanced at Draco, who rapidly mouthed You Know Who, hoping neither Harry nor Ron would notice. "You know who," she echoed weakly. "Anyway, Malfoy knows things, doesn't he? He can help us with the—the, uh—"

"That's true," Harry noted, exchanging a glance with Ron as Hermione hurried to stifle what Draco could see was a sigh of relief. She'd obviously been guessing, but this Hermione seemed about as quick as the other one, and the gamble had paid off. "He might be able to help with the—you-know-whats," he said, with his customary lack of subtlety. "And we wouldn't necessarily have to tell him anything."

Hermione glanced at Draco, bemused, and he grimaced. The downside to her roll of the dice was that he had no idea what they were talking about, but the real Hermione Granger almost certainly did know. She was probably an expert on it, whatever it was, and this version of her…

He tried not to sigh. He hoped that this one was an extremely good actor.

Luckily, she did have a keen sense not to waste time while she was ahead. "We should go," Hermione told them quickly. "We can't stay here. You heard Malfoy, they'll all be waking up soon."

"We can go to Bill's," Ron said quickly, his hand tightening around his wand. "We can figure out where to go next from there—"

"But we need somewhere we can get wands," Hermione cut in quickly, and Draco glanced at her, surprised. "Malfoy has a friend who can help," she added slyly, and at that, the tiny spark of hope he'd felt was positively diminished to the crushing inevitability of failure. "He was just telling me that—right?" she prompted, giving him a pointed look.

He gritted his teeth, wishing he'd never brought it up.

"Right," he confirmed, and scowled at her, though she spared him little more than a furtive smile.

"Wait a minute," Ron demanded from Hermione, taking a moment to shoot a pinched-sort of glare at Draco. "We can't let him disapparate us. What if he just turns us over to You Know Who?"

"He won't," Hermione said.

"You don't know that," Ron countered.

And she didn't. The real Hermione wouldn't have, anyway. But it was Harry who surprised all three of them.

"Can we trust you, Malfoy?" he posed, expression unchanging.

It wasn't a threat, or even anything loaded with implications, really. It was a simple question, and was perhaps more formidable as a result. Harry Potter was always uncomfortably earnest, and Draco was beginning to understand that such a quality could sometimes be used as a weapon, when aimed correctly.

"You can," Draco said, filling the words with as much weight as they could carry and trying desperately not to think about the Elder Wand he was knowingly concealing in his pocket. "I swear," he promised. "I want to escape as badly as you do, and you can trust me to get us out."

Above them, noise was beginning to erupt. The pressure of circumstance was on his side, if nothing else.

Harry considered him a moment, glancing briefly at Hermione for certainty, and then nodded. "Come on, then," he said simply, heading over to Luna and Ollivander and giving Draco a pointed indication to follow.

Ron hurried after him—to argue with him, Draco guessed—but Hermione slid beside Draco for a moment's pause, murmuring something before moving to join the others.

"Where's the other one?" she asked under her breath, and he frowned.

"What other one?" he asked.

Grindelverse

"This way," said what was possibly the worst version of Draco Malfoy, though by this point, Hermione was no longer sure how to quantify such an impossible calculation. He held a hand out for hers, waiting, as she stepped through the Floo into yet another elaborate manor house, glancing uneasily around the room.

Reality hadn't quite set in yet. That she would not find Ron or Harry, that they remained trapped and helpless without her, or that perhaps—worst of all—the real Draco Malfoy had destroyed the portkey between universes and would not be coming after her had not settled into her brain. She felt fuzzy with uncertainty, unsure where she was or where she was going.

Worse, this Draco's hand holding hers was deeply unhelpful to the stability of her rather fragile mental state. She released him the moment she'd steadied herself, pointedly opting to dust some invisible ash from her jeans rather than look at him.

"He'll probably be in the study," Draco remarked, apparently unconcerned with her poorly-feigned avoidance.

"In the… study?" she echoed, finding the concept of such a thing totally unbelievable, and the new Draco Malfoy shrugged, the sound of his long stride ricocheting off the high ceilings as they passed what seemed like countless portraits of surly-looking dark-haired men.

This Draco (not unlike the other one, had a gift, Hermione thought, for never shrinking. In a house like this, he should have been positively dwarfed, but it was as if he had stretched out to fill the space instead, faultlessly projecting vastness. His pale head shone like a steady flame through the corridors, effortlessly at ease.

"Yes," he confirmed, and paused beside a door, listening for a second and then knocking twice. "It's me," he said.

"Not now," came a familiar voice, followed by a muffled gasp.

"Yes, now," Draco said impatiently. "You know I hate to be kept waiting."

"As do I," drawled another voice, "so you see our predicament."

Draco glanced at Hermione, silently expressing his agitation, and then shook his head.

"I'm coming in," he announced, and opened the door, pausing in the doorway to roll his eyes as Hermione crept in after him, almost choking with surprise.

There—just there, as if this were a real thing and not a terrible, inexplicable nightmare—Harry Potter was leaned casually against an ornate wooden desk, trousers unzipped. To make matters indescribably more confusing, Theodore Nott—of all people—was rising up from his knees, not even bothering to conceal the motion of his hand sliding down to unambiguously cup Harry's—

Hermione swallowed in disbelief, promptly looking away.

"You animals," Draco remarked, as if he were neither particularly surprised nor especially bothered.

"Draco. Might have called first," Harry acknowledged lazily in return, and once Hermione had heard the sound of trousers being re-fastened, she hazarded a moment of looking up, giving him a long, curious glance.

Her first impression (once she'd recovered from what she'd walked in on) was that this version of Harry was extraordinarily… neat. Both he and Nott, like Draco, wore what appeared to be a uniform, made up of black trousers and similar jackets emblazoned with the symbol for the Deathly Hallows. This Harry wore glasses, too, but unlike her Harry, this one wore a pair that were thin, black-framed steel, with a rectangular shape that might have passed for fashionable. His hair was slightly longer, parted to one side, and unlike Nott's hair, which was slicked back, Harry's had something of a wave to it. He looked, in short, like he'd fallen out of an artsy poster for handsome post-war gentlemen.

He also didn't look particularly pleased to see her.

"What's she doing here?" he asked Draco.

"It's not her," Draco told him. "It's her."

"Oh," Harry said, and beside him, Nott tilted his head curiously, eyeing her. "So you know us, then. Or versions of us."

It took a moment for Hermione to find her voice. "Yes, I know you," she said, a bit too softly for her liking, and then lifted her chin, turning her attention to Nott. "And I know of you," she informed him, not particularly politely. "We aren't friends where I come from."

Nott's gaze fixed on hers. He had the same unsettling quality that was so distinct to the Draco Malfoy who stood beside her. As if he were reading her, weighing her for value, and then making a deliberate determination of her worth.

"Theo," he said simply. She had the feeling that if she wanted more words from him, she would have to earn them. Beside him, Harry seemed to have finished his own surveillance of her, opting to take a step in her direction.

"I suppose you must be wondering where you are," he remarked. He didn't offer an explanation; she guessed that he was daring her to ask.

"I assumed it was one of your houses," she said. "Yours?" she asked Theo.

"No," Theo replied. He had a gift for expressing nothing, she thought, which must have been a benefit borne from immense wealth, or at least endowed through some sort of aristocracy starter pack. "My house has a very distinct aroma of cynicism and decay."

"And sage," Draco said.

"Cedar," Harry contributed.

"That's the cynicism," Theo told them. "You're both misremembering."

It was obvious the friendship here was effortless, possibly even thoroughly tested. The three of them seemed to have formed a protective triangle, shifting almost imperceptibly from their initial places in the room until they'd managed it. Hermione, meanwhile, was left to look on from the outside in, with the impression they typically stood that way, equidistant. She doubted many others had broken through their ranks.

Harry caught her glancing between them, noting her silent observation.

"This is my godfather's house," he offered, and she blinked.

"Sirius lives here?" she asked, surprised, and Theo and Harry exchanged glances.

"You're familiar with Sirius Black?" Draco asked her.

"Well—yes, of course," she said. "He's Harry's godfather."

They exchanged another set of looks again, with all the familiarity of people who could very well read each other's thoughts; not unlike what she'd had with (her version of) Harry and Ron. Clearly, Hermione thought, in addition to physically keeping her at arm's length, they also had secrets they didn't care to share.

"You can trust her," Draco said eventually, confirming her suspicions. "It's not like she's going to tell anyone."

Theo's brow shot up. "What does that mean?"

"That she's staying," Draco replied coolly. "With me."

"Mostly because I don't have a choice," Hermione reminded him.

She caught the motion of him smiling. "Everyone always has a choice, sweetheart," he murmured, his gaze flicking pointedly to the places his lips had touched the night before.

She swallowed, shifting in what was both dismay and discomfiting interest. "Arguable," she muttered under her breath, and then looked at Harry again, who was still watching her closely. "What is it you want to tell me?"

"Well, there's the truth, and then there's the truth," Harry told her, which was absurd, and absurdly frustrating. "Which do you want to know?"

Maybe she snapped. In all honesty, the whole thing was beginning to grate on her a bit, so maybe she lost her mind for a moment. Or maybe the three sharp-eyed rich boys staring down at her from their positions of privilege and isolation cost her a bit of her patience.

"Just tell me who the bloody fuck you are," Hermione said, "or we're all done here."

Initially: silence.

Then Theo's mouth twitched up, a smile catching at the corners.

"This is Orion Henry Black," Theo told her wryly, gesturing to Harry. "Called Harry by his friends and admirers—which are, of course, innumerable."

Harry rolled his eyes, but said nothing.

"He's the son of Sirius Black," Theo continued, "and, like Draco and myself, a Sacred Twenty-Eight heir." At the mention of his own name, Draco turned to look at her, checking (rather inanely, in her opinion) to see if she was following along. "He's also the godson of James Potter."

She frowned. "But—"

"Of course, all of that is what the rest of the world is permitted to believe," Draco assured her, his hand slipping to brush against her inner arm, soothingly. "But the people in this room know differently."

"Perhaps you know about my mother?" Harry asked her, and by the way they'd all leaned towards her, she could see this was the most intimate piece of information she'd been permitted so far. "Considering what you both have in common, that is."

"She's—" Hermione paused, blinking, as she considered the implications. "She wouldn't have been a witch in this universe," she realized, and Harry nodded, "so it couldn't have been legal, could it? And so you were raised by someone else—"

She pieced it together, stunned, and glanced up at him.

"But the other version of me," she said, abruptly remembering. "She called you Harry Potter, didn't she?"

Harry, who was hardly Harry at all, shrugged.

"Makes for a more manageable alias," he said. "She didn't need to know I was a Black. The name carries a certain weight, particularly considering my father—Sirius," he clarified, "and myself, of course, are the only ones remaining."

"But—wait. James Potter is alive here?" Hermione asked, and then blinked. "And this is his house?" she squeaked, and Harry smiled, looking pleased.

"Well, you're at least as clever as Draco assured us you'd be, Hermione Granger," he told her. "So let's see how useful you are, shall we?"

a/n: Dedicated to aurorarsinistra, who had to answer the question, "Wait, is this completely insane?" at least thirty times this week.

5. Fragile Things

Chapter 5: Fragile Things

Grindelverse

"Sirius raised you as his son," Hermione echoed slowly. This Harry, whatever he was, might have just been praising her for her cleverness, but shock was drawing a veil of stupidity over her temporarily afflicted (she hoped) ability to process anything. "But James… he's your real father, isn't he? Biologically?"

After all, this Harry was precisely as he was in her universe, fashionable glasses aside. Same black hair, same green eyes, same height and same wiry build; he was precisely the same person, and while Hermione may not have understood paradoxes, she certainly understood genetics. The boy before her was, without a doubt, the son of James and Lily Potter.

If, Hermione thought with a frown, Lily Potter had ever become Lily Potter at all.

"I'm not sure they ever planned to reveal the truth to me," Harry replied in answer, predicting her inevitable question before she'd thought to ask it, "but eventually the likeness was rather undeniable."

He gave a wry smile, or a tired smirk, and then turned a photograph in a frame on his desk for her benefit. There, as she'd never seen them before, was an adult James Potter and a clean, refined version of Sirius, both with their arms around a teenage boy who very obviously belonged to one man and not the other—despite the prominent Black family crest on his monogrammed ring.

"It was illegal between James and Lily, as you so rightfully pointed out," Harry said, catching where her gaze had landed, "and while the Potter name isn't exactly inconsequential, only the Black name is Sacred Twenty-Eight. James wasn't the first of his name to have a scandal on his hands, and he wanted more for his son. For me." He glanced away. "I don't think he ever intended for me to find out he'd given me up."

For the first time, Hermione caught a glimpse of the Harry she knew. He looked lost and a little lonely, but while it might have been her place to console him where she'd come from, here she watched Theo's fingers twitch towards him instead of hers, as if by instinct, to smooth out his insecurities from afar.

"I thought I was a Black until my seventeenth birthday," Harry said. "I never questioned it for a moment, even when the rumors first started to circulate. Sirius Black and James Potter, practically brothers, joined at the hip," he joked, in a tone of mimicry so precisely familiar Hermione might have sworn it came from Rita Skeeter. "One a known lothario, the other a secretive recluse. Could one have sired the other's child?"

His voice was bitter by then, and the moment his emotions seemed to be getting the better of him, Theo moved from his place in the room. He strode forward quickly, facing Harry, and turned his head, offering no more than a handful of unintelligible words in Harry's ear that seemed to soothe him immediately. With a firm nod, Harry straightened, and Hermione marveled quietly (not even Ron had been able to do that, she thought, and certainly not Ginny or herself) as Theo turned, impassive, and fixed her once again with his scrutinizing glance.

"My father and my godfather sat me down and told me I was a Potter," Harry continued, in control again, as if nothing had happened. "Thought it wasn't fair to me to make me wonder whether the gossips knew more than I did, I imagine, even though no one else could ever know, because we'd all be killed. They also revealed that my mother was quietly put down because of Grindelwald, and so James gave me to Sirius to raise." His expression hardened. "Right around then, I decided I was no longer particularly pleased with serving Grindelwald."

"And that's where I come in," Draco supplied, his voice startling Hermione. For a moment, caught up in her confusion, she'd forgotten he was there. "As I've mentioned, I don't particularly care for being under some elderly general's thumb. In truth, military service doesn't suit me," he added, mouth curled up with arrogant humor. "I have something of a problem with authority."

"I—" Hermione blinked, dizzied. "I don't understand. You…" She frowned at Draco. "You went looking for the Elder Wand to bring down Grindelwald?"

He nodded. "Yes."

"You already knew there were parallel universes?" she asked.

He made a noncommittal gesture. "It's sort of a longstanding theory. Not unlike time travel or eternal life."

"And then you simply happened upon," she realized, disbelieving, "a portkey to travel between… between worlds. Between realities."

"Yes," Draco said, briefly eyeing the cuticle of his thumb.

"And now, instead of an unbeatable wand, you simply have me," Hermione exhaled slowly, "and you want to use me as some kind of weapon against Grindelwald."

"Yes," confirmed Harry, Draco, and Theo in unison, and Hermione stared at them, balking.

"What is your bloody plan?!" she demanded, and the three of them, infuriatingly, all exchanged yet another secretive glance before returning their attention to her.

"The Deathly Hallows," Draco said simply.

"They're not real," Hermione snapped.

Theo lifted a brow at Draco, as if to say, Is she serious?

"She's something of a cynic," Draco supplied in answer.

"She's standing in a parallel universe," Theo said, disapproving.

"'She' is also standing right here!" Hermione pronounced hotly.

"The Hallows are real," Harry said, interrupting before anyone else could speak. "I have one of them. My godf- my father," he clarified, "gave me one of them on my seventeenth birthday. He said he'd been saving it for his—" He broke off momentarily. "For his son. For when I was of age."

"The cloak," Hermione guessed unhappily, and Draco smiled smugly at her.

"For something that's not real, you know quite a lot about them," he murmured to her, and she glared at him.

"We know Grindelwald has one," Harry continued. "The wand."

"Which leaves the stone," Theo said.

"If it exists," Hermione argued.

"Which it does," Theo said coolly.

"Which it doesn't," Hermione growled.

"Which it does," Theo replied.

"Say it does exist, hypothetically," Harry inserted, glancing at her. "Would you know where to find it?"

"Of course I don't know where to find an impossible resurrection stone," Hermione said impatiently, rubbing briefly at her temple. "I wouldn't begin to know where to start."

"You know other things, though," Draco reminded her. "The Chamber of Secrets. The Philosopher's Stone. And if I'm not mistaken, you even know a thing or two about horcruxes," he mused, and she sighed heavily.

"Those things have nothing to do with the Hallows, or Grindelwald," she retorted. "All of those things have to do with Voldemort, who isn't even Voldemort in this universe, so—"

"That's it," Harry said, glancing at Theo. "That's what we need."

"What?" Hermione asked.

Theo, meanwhile, grimaced, his brow furrowing as he looked at Harry. "Are you sure?"

"Wait," Draco said, stepping towards them. "You don't actually want to—"

"Well, I certainly don't want to," Harry said. "But given everything—"

"It is a bit difficult to deny the common thread," Theo murmured, toying with his chin, "but still, it's a longshot—"

"Oh, and defeating an evil overlord isn't?" Harry asked.

"An excellent point, Lord Black," Theo replied thoughtfully.

"Still. We can't trust him," Draco pointed out.

"Who?" Hermione demanded, but they weren't listening to her.

"Of course we can't," Theo scoffed. "What else is new? I barely trust either of you."

"Shut up," Harry said, nudging his glasses impatiently. "I'm trying to think."

"About what?" Hermione half-screeched.

"He might know something," Draco contributed in a low voice. "He might not believe it is what it is, though, you know. He might be like her. We don't have to call it by its name, do we?"

"Still, we chance clueing him in to what we're up to just by looking for it," Theo suggested. "Are we willing to risk it?"

"We have to risk everything," Harry said plainly. "This is only the tip of the iceberg."

"True, and you know I hate just the tip," Theo mused.

"I'm not going in," Draco muttered warningly, rounding on Harry, "if you don't have an escape route."

"Of course I have an escape route," Harry said, indignant. "I always do, don't I?"

"ESCAPE ROUTE," Hermione shouted, "FOR WHAT?!"

They all paused, turning over their shoulders to look at her.

Part of her wished she hadn't asked. She knew it was going to be bad well before Harry opened his mouth.

"Tom Riddle," Harry supplied without elaboration, and she felt her eyes widen.

"No," she said firmly. "No, no way—I'm not going anywhere near him—"

"Well, that's a nay vote in the minutes," Theo said. "Do the ayes have it?"

"You haven't voted," Draco pointed out.

"Well, I would vote no, only you both know perfectly well I have something of a self-destruct button I can't help but push," Theo sniffed. "Do I know it's a bad idea? Yes, of course, naturally. Do I plan to prevent myself from pursuing it? Absolutely not. I've never deprived myself my idiocy before, and I'm certainly not going to start now."

"You," Harry said to Draco, nodding at him. "What's your vote?"

To Hermione's surprise, Draco hesitated, which was not something she'd seen him do up to that point. "There's other ways," he said eventually. "Without the Hallows, I mean. We could defeat Grindelwald some other way."

"Yes, by devoting our lifetimes to an unwinnable war," Harry said drily. "It's certainly an option, albeit perhaps the least palatable."

"I'm just saying," Draco said, grimly toying with his mouth. "We have options."

"Yes, and I'm sure we could come up with something suitably clever," Harry said, "but no risk, no reward."

"Big risk," Theo added, "big reward."

Draco glanced at him, considering it, and then turned back to Harry.

"You want this," he determined, and then, "You really want this?"

Harry nodded. "I really fucking want this."

Draco tangled with his thoughts for another long moment, and for Hermione, who was helpless to do anything but watch, time seemed to suddenly slow. She might be pulled along with this scheme, barring any other option, and they (the spoiled, overprivileged boys in front of her who'd scarcely known loss at all) didn't seem to realize who or what they were dealing with. He's a murderer, she wanted to scream, he's a psychopath, he'll kill you all without batting an eye—

"Give me a moment," Draco said suddenly, and then, without warning, he took hold of her arm, guiding her out of the room and depositing her outside the door as he pulled it shut after him, facing her in the corridor.

She spun, glaring at him. "Don't manhandle me—"

"You don't want to do this," he noted, eyeing her. When she didn't answer, he continued, "I told you I needed you. So I need to know why not."

"I—" She stared at him. "What?"

"If there is a reason you don't want this—aside from insisting the Hallows don't exist," he warned, cutting her off before she could speak, "I need to know what it is. I won't make this decision without hearing it."

She swallowed, taken aback. "What?"

"Did you think you're some sort of toy? You're a fucking encyclopedia," Draco said. "You're a goddamn oracle. And they may not know what's out there," he added vehemently, pointing to the room containing Harry and Theo, "but you do, and if there's something I need to know about Tom Riddle before going after him, then I need to know it. Now. Before I let us get dragged into something that gets us all killed."

She stared at him. "You're serious?"

His mouth twitched. "Deadly serious."

She grimaced, and then took a breath. "Tom Riddle is dangerous. He's obsessed with living forever, and he'll destroy anyone to do it. He's murdered countless people. He's no less genocidal than Grindelwald. He's not some sort of better option—"

"He's not an option," Draco corrected. "We're not trying to trade in one megalomaniac for another, but I told you. He's a smuggler who specializes in impossible things, and what we want," he said, gesturing again to the study where Harry and Theo remained, "is one very, very impossible thing."

"I know," Hermione growled, "but that doesn't change what kind of person he is. In my universe, he's been trying to kill Harry since the day he was born. He killed James!" she said, waving a hand around the house they were currently standing in as Draco processed this information, still not looking nearly as concerned as he should have been.

"And if none of that means anything to you," she warned, softer, "then you should know he's in the process of killing the other you, too. Slowly. Painfully. Like he will do to many, many others, if they aren't lucky enough for him to murder them outright."

Draco looked at her for a long moment, taking her in, and then, for whatever reason, he carefully extended out his hand. She stared at it, bemused, and grudgingly offered him hers, letting him brush his thumb gently over her knuckles before grazing the skin down to the M on her wrist.

"We need him," he said quietly, and she moved to yank her hand free at the words, but he held her still. "We need him, but I'll give you a veto," he offered, and pulled her closer until her chest collided with his, her breath suspending somewhere in her throat. "I can't say no to Harry, Hermione. Not to him, and not to this. Maybe you can't understand this, but we've been through too much together. There's no saying no when he needs me."

She said nothing. There was, in fact, nothing in the world she understood better than that exact sentence.

"But," Draco continued, leaning forward to lower his forehead to hers, "I'll give you a veto. Anytime you want us to get out, call it. I'll drop everything, no questions asked. Just let me prove to you there's a smart way to do this," he murmured. "Let me try, let us try, and if everything is as bad as you fear it is, then call it. I promise I won't argue, I won't fight you on it, if you let me do this. If you help us do this."

He was still stroking the M on her wrist.

"I'll kill him for you," he whispered after a moment, and she shivered. "For what he's done to you. Better yet, when we're done—when we have what we need—I'll hold him while you cast the spell that kills him. He won't get away from his crimes, Hermione. Not here. Not there. Not anywhere."

His lips were perilously present. Shouldn't she have been afraid, or at least repulsed? He was whispering to her about murder the way he might have coaxed her into bed, as if the words I'll kill him for you were just as sweet as the ones last night: I'm going to kiss you again, and again, and again—

"I don't believe in the Hallows," she croaked, trying to draw moisture to her throat, "but—" A deep inhale. "If there's actually a stone that can resurrect the dead, I suppose I'd want to find it. For research purposes. For, um." She cleared her throat. "For science."

Draco leaned back slowly, smiling his infuriating smile down at her as he arched a pale brow.

"You know, if the Hallows are what they say they are, you might find your way back home," he posed impassively, and she grimaced.

"I have my doubts about that, as you know," she reminded him. "About that," she added, giving him a pointed once-over, "and other things."

He laughed, and it wasn't without a touch of mockery, but it wasn't without humor, either.

"You know, you'd better start believing in myths and legends, Hermione Granger," he advised, lifting her chin, "because you are one."

"You mean I'm in one," she corrected.

"I didn't fucking stutter," he said, and kissed her, and it was such a striking clash—an amalgamation of all the confusing pieces of him—she barely even gasped, hardly managed to process what was happening. She only shattered, melted, careened through time and space, landing somewhere breathless and dauntless and bold and unafraid—and was this an adventure? Yes, it was an adventure, a quest, and he was an expedition directly into danger, into the heart of darkness, into the wilds of the unknown. He tasted like the snap of a branch underfoot, like the creak of a solid door, like the glitter of a thousand golden keys. Under her fingertips, his breath filled his chest, and he moved and she moved and he kissed her and she kissed him and this was rapturous silence, and this was a primal scream, and this was the rip of circumstance, the tear of reality, and she imagined the rigid claw-marks on her past as she let it go and took a step with him, barreling with him past the brink of undeniable, unknowable disaster.

"A future veto," she summarized when they parted, "in exchange for a present yes. Is that the arrangement?"

"Say yes, Hermione Granger," he beckoned in answer, his hand carved around her cheek. "Say yes, and see if this world dares to deny you."

She bit her lip.

"Let's find Tom Riddle," she said, and his entire countenance slid into a look of unconquerable certainty.

"Harry," he called over his shoulder, shouting it through the closed door. "We're in."

The door opened and Harry stepped out, leaning against the door frame on one side as Theo joined him in the other.

"Great," Harry said flatly, as if he'd already expected as much. "Then settle your affairs, boys and girls, and make your excuses. This war," he began, and glanced at Theo, who smiled wickedly in return, "is officially begun."

Potterverse

"No," Theo said flatly, backing away. "No, no, absolutely fucking not—"

"Theo," Draco attempted through gritted teeth, taking a step towards him. "Listen to me, please, I—" He leaned closer even as Theo pulled away, dropping his voice. "You know I wouldn't be here if it wasn't completely necessary—"

"That," Theo hissed, jabbing a finger at the Floo, "is fucking Harry Potter, in my house, where I goddamn live, with my motherfucking father—who may be old, but who isn't blind or deaf! If they get caught here when he gets back, Draco, you absolute fucking lunatic—"

Behind them, Draco caught a glimpse of Hermione arching a brow, as Ron furrowed his.

"We just need a minute," Draco called to them over his shoulder, taking hold of Theo and dragging him around the corner from the living room. He ducked them both just out of sight, facing his back to their speculative audience, and hastily cast a silencing spell. "Listen to me, I need this, Theo, I fucking need this—"

"Funny," Theo said with a scowl, "the last thing I remember you saying to me was that you firmly didn't need me. Does that sound familiar, Draco? Something about being favored by the Dark Lord… Oh, right, and how you didn't need me anymore, because what was I? Ah yes," Theo mused, tapping his mouth. "Just a monumental fucking failure, and a liability, at that—"

"I was wrong," Draco said quickly, grimacing at revisiting their last (and only, and most terrible, and friendship-ending) fight. "You know I was wrong, Theo. I don't know why you have to rub it in like this—"

In response, Theo merely scowled.

"Look, you can yell at me later if you want to, just—look," Draco growled, and dug the Elder Wand out of his pocket, holding it up to his chest for Theo to inspect while obscuring it from the others' view. "This is the Dark Lord's wand. This is the Elder Wand. And that," he added at another whisper, gesturing over his shoulder to where the others stood in Theo's study, "isn't the real Hermione Granger. There's a parallel universe where Grindelwald won, and something happened there. Something happened, and—" He swallowed. "I need you to believe me. I need you. Please, Theo, I need you, because I have no one else. You know," he added, and if his voice was pleading, it was the least of his shame, "you know that I have no one else."

Theo's eyes narrowed.

"You expect me to believe you went to a parallel fucking universe," he parsed slowly, as Draco flinched, "got yourself a different fucking Granger, stole the fucking Dark Lord's wand, and then met up with fucking Potter and fucking Weasley and brought them back here, and I'm supposed to be able to fix this for you?"

"Not fix it for me," Draco said quickly. "Just—help me. I'm in deep, Theo." He glanced over his shoulder again, unnervingly catching Hermione's eye before turning back. "The Dark Lord's going to want me punished, want me dead. Potter, Weasley, I don't know if they'll help—if they can help. This—this Granger, she's—" He swallowed. "I don't know. I don't know. My head's fucking spinning, I'm desperate, I'm about one wrong move away from irrevocably fucked, and—"

"Swear it." Theo's voice was low and firm.

Draco blinked. "I sw-"

"No," Theo cut in, staring unnervingly at him. "I don't want just any swear." His grimace tightened, with something Draco feared was irreversible loathing still evident on the bow. "Swear it on Camelot."

"What?" Draco gaped at him. "That's—seriously?"

"Yep," Theo pronounced without pause, folding his arms over his chest. "Once upon a time I would have done anything for the person you used to be, Draco fucking Malfoy, so swear on what you were, or you won't get a damn thing from me."

To that, Draco dropped his chin, rubbing furiously at his temple.

"You know Lancelot fucks Arthur's wife," Draco muttered under his breath. "In retrospect, it's really not the portrait of chivalry we thought when we were kids."

"Yes," Theo replied, unconcerned. "I'm aware the storyline leaves some things to be desired. But that doesn't erase what it meant to us."

No, it didn't, and Theo wasn't wrong. There was a reason Theo Nott was the only person Draco could think to go to, even with the drudged up reminders of their toxic past. Because once upon a time, Theo swore his fealty to Draco, and Draco swore his to Theo, and if there was anything Draco believed, Theo believed it, too.

And if there was anything Draco needed, it was Theo's belief, right about now.

"I swear," Draco said slowly, "on Camelot. I swear on Excalibur, on Avalon, on Merlin's fucking ballsack, on every fucking story we both believed. That isn't Hermione Granger," he said, letting his gaze flick over his shoulder again, "and this is the Elder Wand, and now, without you, I am totally, undeniably, indisputably fucked."

Theo paused for a moment, gauging him, and then nodded.

"Okay," Theo said.

"Okay?" Draco echoed, disbelieving.

"Okay," Theo said, shrugging. "What do you need?"

It might have been too good to be true. Might have been, only Draco didn't bother wasting any more time. "A wand," he said quickly. "A few wands. Potter doesn't have one, and neither does Granger. Or Lovegood, or Ollivander."

"They can't all stay here," Theo warned, glancing at them. "Certainly not for long."

"We'll keep moving," Draco said.

"To?" Theo prompted doubtfully.

"I don't know," Draco exhaled. "This Granger," he said, gesturing for Theo to come closer so he could lower his voice even further, mistrusting even the silencing spell, "she doesn't know any magic."

Theo stiffened. "Fuck. Where's the real Granger?"

"Back in the—in the other universe. This one—" He grimaced. "This one sort of, um. Tricked me."

Theo gave him a look of unfiltered skepticism. "Tricked you?"

"Well, there was a portkey, and the real Granger was supposed to take it, only this one was—" He trailed off, looking down at his hands. "I thought she was the real one. Or maybe I wanted her to be. I don't know."

Theo, entirely unhelpfully, spared him a smirk. "You fucked this one, didn't you?"

Draco flinched. "I didn't, it wasn't—" He groaned. "Look, if Potter and Weasley find out—"

"Well, she tricked you," Theo pointed out, still entirely too amused. "If she fooled you, she can probably fool them too, can't she? I doubt these two are actively looking for reasons she might be a different version of herself from a parallel universe."

"Is there any way you two can hurry this up?" Harry called impatiently.

"No," Theo drawled, and turned his attention back to Draco. "Do I exist in the other universe?"

"I didn't meet you, but she did," Draco said. "You're, um—"

He was unsure how to say that the other version of Theo seemed to be in some sort of voraciously sexual relationship with the other version of Harry. It seemed so far-fetched, even among everything else, that he was nearly positive Hermione had simply made it up. Where's the other one? she'd asked Draco, before proceeding to vaguely describe some raven-haired deviant who apparently liked to fondle the other Potter's balls, and then, upon seeing Theo, she had merely said, Oh. Well, that's interesting.

Draco shook himself, shoving it from his mind.

"You're basically the same," Draco managed eventually, and Theo nodded, satisfied.

"Well, I take it you're trying to get the other Granger back, then?" Theo prompted.

"Uh," Draco said, blinking.

The thought had not occurred to him.

"You're joking," Theo said, instantly recognizing the blankness on his face. "Tell me you're joking. You can't just fucking leave her there!" he hissed, glaring pointedly at him. "Fucking hell, Draco, I know you're selfish, but fuck—"

"How am I supposed to get her back?" Draco demanded. "The portkey's destroyed, and I don't know about you, but I don't even know where to begin digging one up—"

Theo frowned. "What about the Hallows?"

"Shh," Draco warned. He doubted the others could hear him over the silencing charm, but still, it seemed an idea worth shushing. "What about them?"

"Well, the story's got that whole 'master of death' thing, doesn't it?" Theo said. "I bet if you have the Hallows, you can do pretty much whatever the fuck you want."

Ah yes, so we believe in fairytales now? Draco wanted to say, but figured he shouldn't push his luck. "Even if that were true, I only have the wand," he reminded Theo firmly. "Where am I supposed to go about finding the other two?"

Theo paused for a moment, considering it, and then, to Draco's surprise, he stepped out from their corner of secrecy, turning his attention to Harry.

"Where is it you plan to go next?" Theo asked him.

"None of your business," Harry replied.

"Fuck off," Theo said.

"Fuck you," Harry snapped.

Hermione lifted a brow at Draco, gesturing as if to say, Interesting.

"You're looking for something," Theo accused, "and I'm guessing it's not the Dark Lord, because you know damn well where to find him."

"I'm not telling you shit," Harry replied.

"Fine. I'll just keep guessing, then," Theo said, as Draco withered internally. "You're wanted and on the run, but you haven't left the country, which is what someone who isn't an idiot would do. Ergo, you're looking for something."

Harry scowled at him.

"Don't tell me what it is," Theo said, shrugging, "I don't care. But I'm looking for something of my own." He glanced pointedly at Draco, who frantically mouthed his opposition until Ron's attention landed on him with a questioning frown. "That's my condition for helping."

"Who says we need your help?" Ron demanded.

"You definitely need my help," Theo assured him, sparing him the most impassive of glances. "You need me, and you need Draco. If you're going to bring down the Dark Lord, you need both of us."

Draco figured it was a win, though at a truly unpleasant cost.

"Since when do you want You Know Who brought down?" Harry asked, glowering with suspicion. "I thought you were both fairly clear where you stood."

"Actually, you never fucking asked me," Theo informed him loftily, "and you know what they say about assumptions, Potter."

"Still. We're pretty clear on where Malfoy stands," Ron growled.

"Stood," Theo corrected, which Draco considered another win. "The point is, you need me, and I'm perfectly willing to help. I'll get you lot wands and get you out, if," he said emphatically, "you help me find something I need."

"Which is?" Harry asked.

Theo cocked his head, demurring. "What are you looking for again?"

Draco grimaced, and Harry shot Theo a look of unfiltered distaste.

"Fine," Harry muttered. "Just get us out of here, then."

Draco glanced at Hermione, who was smiling triumphantly at him. Clearly she was in the throes of a victory he resolutely didn't feel. Sure, there were little wins here and there—and he'd been right about Theo believing him, even if there was still bound to be tension moving forward—but the secrets, it seemed, were compiling from all sides. What was he supposed to do if getting the proper Hermione back to this universe meant giving this one up? Even if he wanted to lie to her (which he didn't) he may not have a choice.

And what did Theo really want with the Hallows? It wasn't exactly in his nature to care about Hermione Granger, or about anyone, for that matter. Aside from Draco, Theo had been a loner all his life, and doing the right thing for the sake of morality alone was really more the real Granger's speed than either of theirs.

In short, the entire thing was set to collapse at any moment.

"This is a lovely house," mused a wide-eyed Luna Lovegood. Her gaze was fixed on a painting called The Torments of the Betrayer, which was a gruesomely violent narrative of a man being repeatedly impaled.

"Thanks," Theo said.

Draco sighed.

"Right," Theo agreed, glancing at him. "Well, now that that's sorted, let's all get to work."

a/n: In case you didn't catch it, these plots are definitely divergent, but not totally separate. In the words of carmenjanebeach on Tumblr, what a time to be alive. Dedicated to susiequeen300, who just wrote a wonderful review of Masters of Death. Girl, you slay.

6. Little Talks

Chapter 6: Little Talks

Grindelverse

"Harry."

The voice at the door was unfamiliar, but the face was absurdly not. It was all Hermione could do not to gape at the man in the doorway, despite the lack of attention spared by any of the others. They were much too busy planning their war, it seemed, to be interrupted by a man who should have been dead for almost two decades.

"Harry," James Potter said again, shaking his head with a sigh. "You haven't changed since you were a boy, you know. Every time things are too quiet I know something's gone horribly wrong."

He was the exact mirror image of Harry. That Harry could be anyone else's son was such an outrageous impossibility Hermione wondered how they'd pulled it off for so long. He was dressed casually—though in something Hermione was beginning to think of as 'moneyed-casual'—in a camel cashmere jumper with slate grey trousers. He wore glasses, like his son, but had far unrulier hair. All in all, adult James Potter was lean and artfully rumpled; like a literature professor, or a character from fiction.

Harry glanced up briefly, barely acknowledging his father (godfather, Hermione corrected herself) with a nod, and then glanced back down. "Nothing's broken, James. Hardly even bespoiled my good name today."

"Well, that's not entirely true," Theo murmured, and Harry elbowed him, rolling his eyes.

"I'm sure Sirius has done it for you," James said, and nodded politely to Hermione. He seemed to be good-natured, if not also avoiding something. He didn't ask who she was, and nobody offered up the information. Instead, James continued to address Harry directly.

"We talked about this," James warned, and Hermione caught a flicker of annoyance in Harry's gaze, though he didn't look up. "You should be packing, Harry. The rest of term starts in a day."

"I'm not going back," Harry said, still pretending to fixate on the book in front of him. Hermione could feel echoes of repetition in the words; evidence they'd been said before. "There's no point to it, James. And I thought the whole purpose in giving me rooms here was that you wouldn't bother me while I was using them," he added coolly, as James' mouth curved, shadows carving themselves out in his cheeks.

"When," James said softly, "are you going to stop being angry with me?"

To that, Harry finally looked an ounce of sheepish.

"I'm not," he said. "I just—I'm not going back, that's all." He looked down. "I don't see the point."

By the looks on both their faces (one stubborn, one not-mad-just-disappointed), it was perfectly clear James and Harry had had this argument many times before. "And let me guess," James said, glancing between Draco and Theo. "You two are along for the ride, are you?"

"In fairness, it's a very good ride," Theo offered, as Harry elbowed him again. "Ouch, fuck—you're only making it worse, you know, that could have been a perfectly innocent comment—"

"It never is with you, Nott," James informed him. "But Harry—"

"Why don't you ask my dad what he thinks?" Harry asked, looking up. His gaze was impassive, but there was an undeniable lilt of defiance to his voice. "Might as well both weigh in, don't you think?"

James looked as if he knew he was being tested, and after a moment of I know precisely what this is and I'm choosing to entertain it, not because you've won, but because I have all the patience in the world, he gradually raised his wand, conjuring a silver stag and speaking into it.

"Sirius," he said. "Your son is being an obstinate wanker."

The stag disappeared, and after a matter of moments, with a pop, Sirius Black appeared in the room. Again, Hermione had to stifle a sound of disbelief; he was rather firmly unlike the Sirius she had known. This one was handsomely dressed in a set of fashionable black robes, and compared to James, he looked far more princely than professorial. At her obvious stare, Sirius glanced at her, bemused, but turned his attention immediately to James.

"Must be trouble if you're calling him my son," Sirius said, with a light-hearted humor Hermione had only seen glimpses of during her time with him. "You know perfectly well he's been our shared bundle of joy for the past near-eighteen years."

"He's calling himself your son," James supplied grimly, as Sirius' gaze cut to Harry's, displeased. "He's also thinking of gallivanting off to murder Grindelwald instead of finishing his schooling, if you'd like to weigh in on that."

"Well look, Harry, we all know Durmstrang isn't ideal, but you're so close," Sirius said half-heartedly.

"Close to what?" Harry prompted. "Eternal servitude?"

Sirius swiveled to scowl at Draco. "This is your influence, is it?"

"What, someone says the word 'servitude' and I'm automatically to blame?" Draco asked, bristling. "Hardly seems fair."

"The point," James said, mildly exasperated, "is you can't just run off, Harry. You're going to get yourself killed, and—"

"Dad?" Harry asked, ignoring James in favor of boldly eyeing Sirius. "You know I wouldn't be doing it if it weren't important."

Sirius looked terribly uncomfortable. Hermione was beginning to guess that perhaps Harry had not taken the news of his patronage well at all, and now seemed to be doling out separate but equally effective forms of punishment.

"Well," Sirius began, glancing at James, "he is of age, Jamesy-boy—"

"Don't Jamesy-boy me," James snapped. "I don't care if he's of age, Sirius! Nobody's ever 'of age' for the sort of thing he wants to do, and he's barely old enough to have any idea what he wants! We certainly didn't," he added, and Sirius grimaced. "When we were seventeen, I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life, and you were—"

"Mistake," Harry cut in sharply, letting the word hang in the air between them, and James flinched.

"I didn't mean—"

"No, no, you said it," Harry said, staring down his father. "Keep going. Of course it was a mistake, wasn't it?" he asked harshly, and beside him, Theo and Draco both looked down, uneasy. "You knocked up a muggle girl and got her killed. Had a son you didn't want. That's a mistake, isn't it? Objectively speaking. It's a mistake."

James looked pained, and glanced sharply at Hermione, the outsider in the room. "Harry, I wasn't saying you were—"

"You don't have the right to stop me," Harry interrupted, "because you aren't my father. And you," he said, rounding on Sirius, "can't stop me, because it's not in your nature. So why don't we just stop pretending I'm going to listen to either of you, and all just continue on as we were, hm?"

At that, James looked livid. Sirius looked stunned. Harry looked… not very much like Harry, that was for sure.

"Harry," Hermione couldn't help blurting, and every head swiveled to her. "I just—I, um—"

"Who's this?" Sirius asked Theo, gesturing to her.

"Oh, you know, just a muggleborn witch from a parallel universe," Theo said. "Draco picked her up on the way over."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Theodore, for the love of god—"

"I need to talk to my godson. Now," James cut in, never dropping his gaze from Harry's. Harry, too, hadn't looked away, and he hadn't lowered his defiant chin, either. "You can be as angry with me as you like, Harry, but I'm not about to let the relationship we've had your entire life fall away simply because I'm not what you thought I was. I'm still the man who helped raise you, like it or not, and you will listen to me now, or so help me, I will chain you to that desk until you do. Am I understood?"

The ensuing silence was sharp with tension, but eventually, Harry spoke.

"Theo stays," he said flatly.

"Theo goes," James snapped.

"Theo stays," Theo said.

"Theo fucking goes," Sirius growled. "Draco, too."

"Draco has no interest in being here," Draco assured him coolly, "so Draco's perfectly fine with that. Come on," he said to Hermione, who hadn't quite recovered from what she'd just seen, staring blankly between them. "A piece of advice," Draco whispered in her ear, and tugged her along after him out of the study and into the hall. "Muted gaping doesn't become you, Miss Granger."

"It's just—" She looked over her shoulder, watching the door shut. "The Harry I know would have been desperate to speak to his father, and that—that was—"

"It's easy to love the idea of someone," Draco said, shrugging. "But when that someone disappoints you, it's quite another matter entirely. They're very close, actually—not that you can tell," he added, gesturing vaguely over his shoulder to the mess they'd left behind. "But Theo and I always envied Harry's relationship with both James and Sirius. My father is something of an overstuffed sack of ego. Theo's father—" He broke off, grimacing. "Theo's father was a nightmare of a man, if you can even call him that. He was a fucking brute, to say the least."

"Was?" Hermione echoed, and Draco paused, turning his head to glance down at her. He stared at her for a few seconds, gauging the words that lingered on his tongue and weighing them against their impact.

"Harry and I took care of him," was his eventual choice of phrasing, his voice a shadowed kind of softness, like a secret in the dark. Then he continued forward as if he'd said nothing at all worth commentary, leaving her to freeze in place, eyes wide.

"But Harry would never—"

"Let me be clear," Draco sighed impatiently, turning to face her. "You don't actually know him. Do you understand? You may be his friend in some other world, but it isn't this one. In this world, I am his friend. And I am your friend. But you will not judge what he is or what he does until you know all of it. Am I clear?"

"Excuse me?" Hermione said, suddenly furious. "In case you've forgotten, you trapped me here! You trapped me, and if there are things I don't know, or don't understand, that certainly doesn't mean you get to—to condescend to me," she seethed, glaring at him. "And if this is how you're going to treat me, then—"

"Then what?" Draco asked, taking a lunging step towards her and dropping his voice. "Tell me what you'll do to me, Hermione," he beckoned, daring her to come closer, to turn around and flee. "Will you run, Hermione? Run out into this world you know nothing about, and where you're not even supposed to belong? Where you'll be killed just for having a wand? Will you curse me, maybe, or kill me? Do it," he suggested, snatching up her wand from her pocket and shoving it into her hand, aiming them both at his head. "Here, I'll help you. Go ahead."

"I—" She stared at him, suddenly balking at the sight of her wand where it pressed into his forehead, already leaving a visible imprint against his skin. "I wasn't—I wouldn't—"

"Don't make threats unless you plan to carry them through," Draco warned, not moving. He barely flinched, and didn't drop his angry gaze. "Don't threaten me unless you mean it, Hermione, because I don't have the patience for bravado. And if you do mean it, then—" He stepped closer, digging the tip of her wand in further. "Be my guest."

She gaped at him. "I—"

She faltered.

And then she broke.

She barely realized she was crying until after her wand had clattered to the floor, falling with a loud, echoing sound that cracked against the ceilings of the too-tall room. She brought her shaking hands to her face, pressing them to the liquid at her eyes, and wondered wait, are these mine? for what felt like a full minute before she was suddenly being pressed against his chest, her muffled gasps buried in his shirt.

"I didn't—I was just—it's just too much—"

Draco sighed. "I'm sorry," he murmured, resting his chin on her head. "I suppose it's been a very trying day for you."

It has, she wanted to wail, only that seemed largely counterproductive. Instead, she sniffled her agreement, letting him tighten his arms around her.

"I'm your ally here," he said, with an audible grimace. "I promise, I won't… I won't do that again. I'm sorry."

His lips brushed the top of her head and gradually, slowly, she regained her breath, feeling ever so slightly comforted by the pressure of his embrace—even if he had just admitted to her he'd murdered at least one person, which certainly implied more. She stiffened at the realization and pulled away, glancing up at him.

How, she wondered desperately, had she ever been put in a position to take comfort in Draco Malfoy?

"Let me make it up to you," he said, his grey gaze falling over her face and sweeping back up, certain. "You must be hungry."

"Starving," she admitted, pressing her fingertips to her eyes. Puffy, of course. Probably swollen and stupid. She turned away, utterly humiliated, but he reached down, picked up her wand, and then took hold of her chin, holding her still; locking his eyes on hers.

"I swear to you, Hermione Granger," he said, placing her wand in her hand with significantly less malice this time, "if I ever make you feel like that again, I give you permission to stop my heart. Curse me to oblivion. Punch me in the face. Whatever you want. I won't do it again, I swear, and if I do, consider me yours to punish."

He kissed her, hard and undaunted, and for a moment, she let her breath catch in her mouth.

Then she leaned back and slid her wand up, the point of it aimed just below his throat.

"If you ever make me cry again," she warned, watching him freeze uncomfortably as she slid the tip of her wand over his larynx, "I will make you so sorry, Draco Malfoy, you'll wish you were in some other goddamn universe."

For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then she felt a chuckle from his throat, and let her wand arm fall as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again; longer this time, and if she believed him capable, she might have also said it was sweeter, or at least more oblivious, as if he'd had less to prove and more to give.

By the time they'd broken apart, she'd forgotten about her hunger, and for a moment, she'd even come close to releasing her pent-up misery at being trapped somewhere she didn't belong. Harry and Ron's faces flashed in her mind for a moment, and at the memory of where she'd left them, she couldn't help a wince; but still, there was nothing she could do. Not for now, anyway. Not yet.

And besides, she certainly needed Draco's help if she was ever going to make it back to them. In the long run, she needed him on her side—even if, at the moment, she couldn't decide which of her needs was most pressing.

"Now that," he murmured softly, "was a very convincing threat."

Potterverse

Part of the reason Draco had gone to Theo to begin with was that Theo's father had an extensive antique wand collection. It would have made a less wealthy person (like, say, Ron Weasley) weep for knowledge of its value, but Theodore Nott Sr was a collector purely for the sake of collecting. He rarely checked on his belongings, and it wouldn't be the first thing Theo and Draco stole without his noticing.

Unfortunately, there was only one way to test a wand, and Draco was becoming more and more anxious about how that process would go for Hermione, who had never touched one before. He needed to speak with her, and quickly.

"Maybe you should rest," he suggested to her, throwing it out wildly. "I mean, after what happened—"

"What happened?" Ron demanded, hysterically alarmed, and she turned to him with something of an impatient glare, as if she would have expected him to know better.

And she did, evidently, as a single word, "Torture," was all the answer she gave.

"Oh," said Ron, pained.

"She should, you know, lie down," Draco tossed out quickly, giving Theo a meaningful glance. "I can take her to one of the bedrooms while you all pick out wands."

"Why are you taking her?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Because I already have a wand," Draco informed him, holding it up for emphasis. "I hardly need to select another one, Potter, honestly, use your head—"

"I also have a wand," Ron began, but Hermione cut him off.

"No, you go with Harry and the others, Ron," she assured him, giving him a mournful look. "I'm just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes." She smiled weakly, proving herself a rather capable actress indeed. "You don't mind, do you?"

Ron looked uneasy. "No, of course not, but—"

"Great. Draco will show you to the guest room," Theo said, obviously half-laughing under his breath. "He's very familiar with it."

Draco glared at him, and he shrugged, feigning innocence.

"That sounds lovely," Hermione said, and then yawned. "I'll see you both soon, I promise."

She turned, gesturing for Draco to lead, and he hurriedly aimed himself down the hall, nearly sprinting for the guest room to get them both out of earshot.

"I have a question," Hermione said the moment they reached it, letting him nudge her inside the door and seal it shut behind him. "Why are they all so afraid of that You-Know-Who person? It's all they talk about. He certainly went down easily enough," she mused, and Draco opened his mouth to answer, but then shook his head, determining it would have to wait.

"Okay, look," he said instead, "when you touch a wand for the first time, if it's the right wand, something happens, so try not to be alarmed. There's these—sometimes there's these sparks, and—"

"You're nervous," Hermione noted, flopping down on the bed and eyeing him. "I fooled you, remember? I can certainly fool them."

"But for how long?" Draco demanded, frustrated; not exclusively because Theo had said the exact same thing, but it certainly didn't help. "Okay, look, let me just think about a couple of spells for you to start with. Wingardium Leviosa, that's a staple, only you have to make sure the emphasis is properly on the—"

"You're babbling," Hermione said, and sighed, patting the seat beside her on the bed. "Come," she beckoned. "Sit."

He glowered at her.

She patted the bed again.

He scowled.

She smacked the duvet twice, hard.

"Fine," he groaned, and fell down beside her. "But listen, we don't have much time, so—"

"Look, I can figure the magic part out. I'm going to. But right now, I need to know things about them," she said, gesturing idly to where the others had gone. "Like, okay, Theo. How do you know him?"

"Childhood friend," Draco said uncomfortably. "He's—he's like a brother to me. Or he was."

"Until what?" Hermione asked.

"It's—" Draco grimaced. "It's not important. The real Hermione Granger doesn't know about it," he added, "so why should you?"

She stiffened.

"I'm real," she said.

He swallowed. "That's not what I meant."

She took a moment (inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, all of her fingers drumming on the duvet between them) and then she turned her head, glancing at him.

"I know what you meant," she eventually said, her voice quiet, "and fine. But I need to know about Harry and Ron," she pressed, inescapably firm. "They care about her—me. Obviously. And I need to know why. I need to understand why."

"Fine," Draco permitted grimly. "Ask me whatever you need to, then. I'll try to answer. If I even know the answer," he warned, and she shrugged, turning to look at him.

"Okay," Hermione said, patting his knee gratefully and then, on what was seemingly a whim, resting her hand on his thigh, slipping her thumb blithely over the fabric of his trousers. "So, how did I befriend them?"

"Weasley was—" He grimaced. "Ron," he amended for her benefit, "had made fun of you. You ran to the bathroom in tears. Then a troll was set loose on the same floor as the bathroom—"

"A troll?" Hermione asked curiously. "The kind who lives under a bridge?"

"I—what?" Draco said. "What bridge?"

"Any bridge," she replied. "You know. Guarding it and such? That's trolls, right?"

What utter nonsense, he thought, but was immediately distracted by the acute widening of her eyes, which for whatever reason discouraged him from mockery.

"No," he said, somewhat gently. "They're just rather large, stupid things. Very large," he emphasized. "Very stupid."

"So a troll," she confirmed, and he nodded.

"Right, so, Pot- Harry felt rather bad for you," Draco continued awkwardly, "and insisted he and Weas- Ron," he sighed, exasperated, "go back for you. As I understand it, they both saved you from the troll, and you took the blame."

"Why?" she asked, frowning. "I assume I got in trouble, didn't I?"

"Well, perhaps a bit," Draco said, feigning at difficulty remembering, though in fact he recalled perfectly every instance in their entire schooling wherein Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger could have been expelled, and inexplicably weren't. "You weren't really ever in trouble, though. Bit of a swot."

"Some things are bound to be true in every universe then, I suppose," Hermione said, half-smiling at him. Her palm was warm on his leg, and he swallowed, trying to remember what he'd been saying and tragically, flagrantly failing. "So it's Ron's fault, then. But Harry went after me?" She paused, considering this information. "Even though he and I weren't friends?"

"As I've said before," Draco pointed out, shrugging. "Incurable heroism."

"Hm." Her lips twitched. "Am I in love with Harry, then?"

"No, actually," Draco said, thinking of the way the other Hermione Granger had taken such care with Ron Weasley in his cellar, giving him what could only be called a forlorn glance of adoration. "I mean, as you've seen, it's Ron she seems to like."

She frowned. "Why?"

It was inconceivable to Draco that he would have to be the one to answer this question.

"Maybe," he forced out, "he's… nice to you?"

"Is he?" Hermione asked doubtfully. "He made fun of me, didn't he?"

"Well, we were eleven," Draco reminded her. "We were all stupid then."

"So he was nicer to me after that?" she asked.

"Uh," Draco said, thinking of the way she had barreled past him in tears during the Yule Ball—and actually, cried for what felt like most of sixth year, now that he thought about it. "Yes. Sure, that."

She didn't seem to believe him.

He sighed.

"Another thing," he told her. "You hate me, so you'll really have to start acting like you hate me."

"Why?" she asked.

"I told you. So they'll believe it's you," he began again, and she shook her head.

"No. Why do I hate you?" she asked, and though he could not have imagined a more troubling question than the one she'd asked before, he found he was once again mistaken.

"I'm very mean to you," he managed, and glanced down at where her fingers stiffened against his leg. "I am… actually quite cruel."

It was difficult not to think of the way the other Hermione Granger had looked at him just the day before, when he'd asked her how she was doing. It was perfectly clear she didn't believe him capable of caring about the answer, as if she considered him a monster. Had always considered him one, in fact.

Slowly, the Hermione beside him retracted her hand.

"You call me names," she remembered, recalling the 'mudblood' incident and glancing down at her newly-healed palm. "You mock me for my blood."

He nodded, unable to look at her. "Yes."

"Have you done worse than that?" she asked.

He nodded. "Mostly to Potter. You and I, we were…" He grimaced. "You didn't consider it worth pursuing, for the most part. In fact, you rarely reacted when it was you I was—"

"Bullying," she supplied for him, and he flinched.

"It was usually when it was someone you cared about that you would respond," he continued, clearing his throat. "You slapped me, third year, when I insulted the groundskeeper."

"Well, as I should," she remarked.

He tried to laugh, but couldn't.

"I," he began, but immediately floundered. No explanation really came to mind. It wasn't you, he wanted to say, but maybe if it had been you, I wouldn't have been so—

No, he thought. If he said it, it would almost certainly be a lie, and she didn't seem to have much patience for those. Instead, he took the resulting silence as a penance, biding his time for her to decide what she wanted to do next until he could no longer stand the wait.

"You could always go with them. Without me," he suggested eventually, voice dry. "There's no need for me to come along, if you don't want me there. Or I could just stay until you've learned some magic, and then you could—"

"Are you sorry?" she cut in, and he blinked.

"What?"

"Are. You. Sorry," she repeated, slower, and turned to face him from where they'd both perched on the bed. "It's a simple question, really. Do you regret what you did to me, what you said? And not just me," she added, because of course she did, because of course no version of Hermione Granger would be quite so conveniently selfish as to permit him to be sorry only to her. "In a larger sense. Are you sorry?"

He opened his mouth, and then closed it.

"None of it was real until it was," he told her painfully, which wasn't exactly an answer, but it still had to be said. "My headmaster was thrown over the side of the Astronomy Tower. It was my fault, and so was everything after it, too. A professor I used to see almost every day was exsanguinated by a fucking snake, right in front of me. A classmate of mine was tortured in my own house. I'd said something terrible about every single one of them at least once, or even openly ill-wished them. Said they deserved to die." He shut his eyes. "I am more than sorry. Pointlessly so. I've done terrible fucking things, and no matter how sorry I am, I can never possibly be sorry enough."

He opened his eyes to find her watching him closely.

"You work for him," she noted. "This Dark Lord person."

He swallowed hard, hating himself and everything, and wordlessly yanked up the cuff of his left sleeve, holding it up for her to see.

"Oh," she said, her eyes widening, and then she reached out, taking his hand carefully in hers to look at his Mark for several silent moments. "A bit ostentatious for a gang tattoo," she murmured, and while the remark made positively no sense to him, he was more relieved than he could say that he didn't identify any obvious indications of loathing in her voice.

"I suppose it's rather pointless to ask if you could take it back if you could," she remarked, the touch of her thumb cool against the inside of his arm. "Seeing as that would be impossible."

"This is impossible," he reminded her, croaking it out, and she glanced up, her tongue slipping briefly to pass over her lips before she pulled his hand towards her, fingers wrapping loosely around his wrist.

"How sorry are you?" she asked, and brushed her lips lightly against his Mark, sending a shiver that fled up the taps of his spine.

"Very," he said, swallowing. "Desperately."

"You'd take it all back?" she asked, with another kiss this time, slower and more deliberate. She slid her lips higher, to his palm, and kissed him there, too, curling his fingers around it and then shifting his hand to her waist, drawing him closer.

"Yes," he said, and yes, there were people elsewhere in this house who resolutely could not know he was doing this and yes, he had to find the Deathly Hallows for reasons he only half-believed, and yes, this was highly inconvenient, and in fact highly irresponsible, but he held her anyway, proving himself a fool. "Fuck, yes, all of it, I take it all back—"

"So you'll never do it again," she mused, reaching up to toy with his hair. "Will you? The name-calling. The prejudice, the insults. It's all going to stop?"

"It's done," he promised, holding his breath as her fingertips brushed over his mouth. "All of it, I swear—"

"Don't lie to me," she warned, her lips right there, just there, his lungs positively exploding as she danced out of reach, sliding her nose along his. He tried desperately to kiss her; tried not to kiss her; tried to breathe; tried not to falter into oblivion. "Don't lie, Draco."

"I wouldn't," he whispered, and only then did her lips touch his, as delicately as if the kiss itself had been sugar-spun. "I swear," he said, hands shaking as they slid under her shirt, "I won't—"

The door opened a crack and they sprang apart, Hermione quickly lying on her back to pretend she'd been sleeping.

"Hey," Theo said, rolling his eyes as he waltzed into the room. "Just me. They're looking for her, though."

"Right," Draco said uncomfortably. "Right, um. Yeah, she should—you should go, so—"

Hermione stretched out sleepily on the bed, admirably committed to the part.

"I suppose we'll have to finish resting later," she determined, rising to her feet and slipping past Theo, who in turn arched a brow knowingly at Draco.

"Don't," grunted Draco.

"Oh, I wouldn't," chuckled Theo in return, before he slipped back into the hall, whistling innocently.

a/n: Dedicated to nymphadoraholtzmann, who makes my garbage heart happy.

7. Just Trees

a/n: If you are sensitive to topics of physical/emotional parental abuse, take caution ahead. Important to the plot, I promise.

Chapter 7: Just Trees

Potterverse

"Harry, you can't seriously be thinking of—"

"Shh," Draco warned Ron sharply, glaring at him. At the moment, he was considerably less sure he was in the right choice of company, he thought, as he gestured frantically for the others to stop their obtrusive bickering. True, Theodore Nott Sr was downstairs and therefore hardly able to hear the whispering from where they were concealed in one of Nott Manor's narrow passages, but it certainly wasn't doing anything for his nerves. As it was, Draco's thumb drummed percussively against the side of his leg, only easing when the side of Hermione's pinky oh-so-carefully brushed his hand.

He glanced at her briefly, but her facial expression hadn't changed. She stared straight ahead, and even if the little not-a-hallway they were shoved in (probably once used to transport mistresses discreetly, if Draco were to guess) had permitted anything more than narrow crevices of light, nobody would have been able to see the two of them were touching.

At once, his apprehension faded. It was an ongoing series of tides, in terms of Draco's certainty. There were moments when he was quite sure he'd made the right choice in taking her here, or even further back, in the permitting of himself to be taken by her. She really was brilliant in ways the Hermione Granger he had known was not; she seemed, in fact, almost Theo-esque in the way she blended to her surroundings, picking up on the moods of others and responding beautifully to their shifts in countenance. A consequence of lonerdom, Draco suspected; camouflage.

She'd also been able to school her expression fairly well when picking out a wand. Draco suspected it was only because he'd seen the look on her face when he'd performed his initial spell on her palm that he even noticed the way her eyes had widened. She'd been called almost immediately to a pale wood, almost an ivory, which he'd nearly whispered to her was a polished vine when Ollivander had done it for him.

"Vine wands mean the owner has a greater purpose. A vision beyond the ordinary," the old wandmaker noted softly, the first words he'd spoken that Draco had heard, and nearly everyone in the room had jumped at the sound of it. He crept closer with difficulty, leaning heavily on Luna Lovegood's diminutive form, and rested a wrinkled hand on Hermione's shoulder. "The same wood as your first wand, of course."

Hermione barely heard him. "My first wand," she echoed, momentarily looking lost.

Draco suspected only he could hear the touch of longing in her voice, though even if the others could as well, it was certainly easily explained. It wasn't an easy thing to be parted from a wand; even now, with the Elder Wand concealed, Draco wouldn't have wished to part with his own.

"This one," Ollivander said, scrutinizing the wand she'd been drawn to, "has some distinctions." He squinted at her for a moment, a look of concentration creeping over his features. "A bit longer than yours was, and this one is strung with—" He picked it up, appearing to listen to the sound of the wood. "Unicorn hair. But all in all—" He turned it over in his fingers, closing his eyes briefly. "Yes. Very similar to your first wand."

"Oh," Hermione said, and Draco watched, curious, to see what she'd do next. She reached out, about to take the wand from Ollivander's hand, and abruptly froze, her fingers still outstretched before her gaze fell on a wand tucked further back. "I, um—sorry," she said, turning to Theo, "may I?"

Theo shrugged, unconcerned (and likely uninterested) and Hermione glanced at Ollivander, who watched curiously as she pointed to a wand nearly concealed from view.

"That one," Ollivander noted, shifting slightly at the sight of it, "is laurel. They say that a laurel wand cannot perform a dishonorable act; although, in the quest for glory, laurel wands have been known to perform powerful, and—" he hesitated before adding, "sometimes lethal magic."

Hermione frowned uncertainly, her itching fingers stilling in something Draco suspected was a careful read of Ollivander's tone, and in her hesitation, Ron had reached for her, settling his hand on her arm.

Abruptly, sparks ignited from the tips of Ron's fingers where they brushed Hermione's skin. He brought them to his mouth with a yelp, sucking lightly at them.

"What was that?" he asked, frowning, and though Hermione didn't look at Draco, he abruptly recalled what she had said: I can definitely make things happen on occasion. Nothing I can control, of course, but I know I have magic.

Draco probably shouldn't have been quite so pleased her reaction to being touched by Ron Weasley was so visceral even her mostly-dormant magic was opposed, but some things couldn't be helped. He opened his mouth to cover for her (he hadn't yet decided how) but to his surprise, she spoke first.

"After a traumatic event," Hermione hurriedly explained, turning to face Ron, "magic can sometimes… it can be rather unpredictable. It's called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," she added, reaching out to rest her hand gently on his with a poised deliberation. "I'm sure it's nothing."

Draco exhaled, half-relieved and half-astonished. It did sound very much as if Hermione Granger was in the room with them, and she'd certainly bought herself an excuse, in case anything misbehaved in the future. Ron looked worried, but not suspicious; Harry looked curious, but not concerned.

Clever girl, Draco thought, and only then did she look up, sparing him a twitch of a non-smile before firmly taking hold of the laurel wand.

"This one, I think," she said, and the moment her fingers wrapped around the handle, the wand gave a low, faint glow, warming all of her features with the softness of arrival; with the particular sensation of arriving home. "It feels right."

"It looks well on you," Ollivander agreed, as Hermione continued to stare down at it, letting her fingers mold to the feel of the wood. "This one is phoenix feather. A wand of resurrection," he noted, curiously eyeing her features as Harry tore his gaze away, shifting to inspect his feet. "Renewal, and rebirth. Not unrigid," he added, watching her test it through the air, slicing with the deftness of a knife, "but certainly subject to change. An excellent choice for someone beginning a journey," he finished, "as the wand will gradually pledge its fealty to you, and learn you over time."

"Probably shouldn't try any spells, though, don't you think?" Luna said, her dreamy voice surprising them. "Since, as you said. The stress," she mused, "which can have similar effects to canadensis infestations, in my experience."

They all looked blankly at her.

"Explosions," was her added clarification, and they all nodded, determining such a thing was uniformly undesirable.

For a moment, Draco permitted himself to let out a breath, feeling they'd once again managed to escape something of an apocalyptic fiasco. But such breaths were never to last long, and now, hidden behind Theo's bedroom wall with the quibbling set of hero-twins, he was apprehensive again, tensed and anxious as Nott Sr's voice echoed below them, gravelly with rage at his son.

"—WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SEEN HIM, YOU RECKLESS FOOL! AS IF I WOULDN'T KNOW HE'D COME TO YOU—"

"Papá, as I've said," Theo replied coolly, "Draco and I haven't spoken in at least a year. If you were listening, you would know I'd be the absolute last place he would go."

"DO YOU THINK I'M AN IDIOT?"

"We can't take him with us," Ron was continuing to argue with Harry. "I mean, if we already have to take Malfoy along—"

"They'll kill him," Hermione snapped, the pressure of her touch momentarily firm against Draco's leg. "You can't possibly still be insisting we leave him behind after he's helped us!"

"I'm just saying, this is rather a cumbersome crowd—"

"We'll take Luna and Mr Ollivander to Bill's," Harry said, frowning in calculation or, perhaps, in pain. Draco had already observed him rubbing absently at his scar a few times, which wasn't unlike the prickling at Draco's own Mark. He wasn't quite sure he understood Harry's connection to the Dark Lord, but he assumed the two were not unrelated, given the coincidental timing. "But you might be right. It might be dangerous to take Nott with us," Harry conceded, cutting a glance at Draco as Ron nodded, relieved. "For your sake as well as his, Malfoy. If neither of you go back to Hogwarts tomorrow—much less even one of you—"

"First of all, shut your goddamn mouths," Draco hissed for the umpteenth time, "and second of all, you can't honestly be thinking of leaving him. You just said—"

"I know what I said," Harry growled tightly. "But think about it, Malfoy. You can't go back, fine—but if Nott doesn't go back, that's a target on all our backs. I can't fit five people under the cloak, and—"

"Cloak?" Draco asked, but immediately held up a hand as a shout came from downstairs again.

"—DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME, THEODORE? DO YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW MY OWN SON'S A COMPULSIVE LIAR? IF VERITASERUM WON'T DO IT, THE DARK LORD WILL CERTAINLY GET IT OUT OF YOU—"

"Well," Theo replied with a dry, weighty sigh, "much as I love being drugged by my own father—"

"Where's the cloak now?" Ron asked Harry, panicked. "Last I checked it, was in Hermione's bag, but she—"

"I left it with you," Hermione cut in quickly. "With Harry, I mean," she amended, glancing meaningfully at him, and he nodded, patting his pocket. Draco exhaled swiftly, realizing she must have been watching her other self while they'd all been in the Manor. "Everything should be in there."

"The point is, we don't have to take Nott with us," Ron said. "He'll be fine at Hogwarts, won't he?"

"Depends," Luna mused, her voice several octaves too high.

"On what?" Harry asked her.

"What definition of 'fine' you're using," she replied, idly watching a piece of lint that floated through the air.

For his part, Draco was torn. On the one hand, Theo was very clearly a liability, particularly if he intended to force Draco on an unwilling hunt for the Deathly Hallows. On the other, however, Draco knew all too well what awaited Theo back at Hogwarts.

That, and he owed him much more.

"If you don't take Theo," Draco said in a low voice, "then I can't leave him. I can't."

"Then maybe we don't need you, either," Harry mused at once, not looking at him, and Hermione jammed an elbow into his side. "Ouch, Hermione—"

"He's not wrong," Ron grumbled. "Even if you have information, you hardly need to follow us around. It's not like it isn't dangerous enough with three of us, and—"

"Or two," Harry cut in under his breath, and Ron's mouth snapped shut.

For a moment, Draco finally got the silence he'd been demanding for the past several minutes. Unfortunately, in this particular instance, he firmly hoped it didn't last.

"I thought," Ron ventured quietly, "you understood that I was…"

He trailed off, catching Draco's look of bemusement before Draco blithely averted his gaze, becoming fascinated with the darkened beams of the ceiling.

"I forgave you," Harry said. "That doesn't mean I understood."

Hermione's fingers tapped lightly at Draco's thigh. He didn't need a translation; she was asking him what happened between them, but he had no idea.

A troubling thought, though only mildly troubling compared to what came next.

The sound of footsteps came closer, drawing into the room, and Nott Sr's voice grew louder as Theo's lengthy footfall broke into a run, his voice panicked in a way Draco had not heard it before.

"Father, listen to me," Theo was saying, "I wouldn't hide him, Father. I wouldn't do that, I know perfectly well it could get me killed—"

"GET OUT OF MY WAY, BOY—"

"Father," Theo gritted out, "Sir, please, if you would just listen to me, I c-"

He broke off with a halted gasp and there was a thud, a loud one; the unmistakable sound of a body dropping to the floor.

"Listen to you?" Nott Sr spat, as they saw the shadows changing shape through the cracks in the walls beside them, all of them holding their breaths. "Give me one reason I should listen to you. Do you think I trust you, Theodore? You've been a liar and a coward all your life. You've been a disappointment from the day you were fucking born, and if you think I won't have a word with the Carrows about what to do with you when you return to Hogwarts—"

Draco caught the sputtered sound of a low groan.

"Fucking stay down while I'm talking to you," Nott Sr snarled. "Did I say you could get up?"

Hermione's hand tightened on Draco's leg.

"No, Sir," Theo said quietly, the sound of a long-familiar rage caught at the backs of his teeth and sticky from his throat. "But," he forced out, and now even Harry and Ron were glancing apprehensively at each other, "as I said, he isn't here—"

"Are you sure?"

Nott Sr's voice cracked through the room as Theo let out a strangled yelp of pain.

"I'm—I swear," Theo panted. "I fucking swear, he's not here." He gave a ragged breath and then repeated, "I swear. He's—he's not here."

Silence.

Draco permitted a gradual look up, scanning the others for their reactions. Ron was pale. Hermione was so still Draco wondered if she were still breathing. Harry had his eyes forced shut, casting demons out of his head.

"You'd better not be lying to me, boy," Nott Sr said eventually, and then his footfall sounded through the room, the door slamming behind him and bathing the rest of them in hateful, blanketing silence.

It was Harry who moved first, scrambling to force his way through the passage back into Theo's bedroom. He took only one moment's glance around before shoving through the door, Draco directly at his heels, and the two of them spilled into the room as Theo was still struggling to rise to his feet, his head carefully turned away.

All at once, whatever had propelled Harry forward paused him, wrenching him back in place.

"Nott," he said, and Theo glared at him, the cut on his cheek smeared across his nose. His face was swollen and red, but the bruising would start later. Draco had seen it enough times to know. He felt a deep crevice of shame open up in his chest, forcing itself wide and nearly swallowing him up as Hermione and Ron crept out behind him, their attention carefully glued to the beams of the floor.

"Something you'd like to say, Potter?" Theo asked, gritting his teeth.

Harry blinked, one hand curling tightly to a fist.

"You can't stay here," he eventually said.

"You don't fucking say," Theo mused harshly, turning to spit on the floor. Draco didn't have to look to see the stain it left behind; instead, he waited for Theo's eyes to fall on his and forced himself not to flinch. It was what he deserved, after all. He didn't have the right to look away; not when he'd already done so for the entirety of the last year.

These are the men you choose to stand with, Theo had hurled at him during their last fight. You know what they are, what they've done—and that's what you fucking choose over me?

"My dad says hi," Theo told him, catching the echo of Draco's thoughts.

Draco forced a swallow. "I heard."

"Jesus Christ, Nott," Ron exhaled, shaking his head, and Theo turned, glaring at him.

"About that thing I need to find," Theo began, but Harry cut him off.

"We can talk about it later," Harry said flatly. "Right now, we need a plan."

Draco looked over his shoulder at Hermione, whose face had gone from pale with concern to flushed with sourceless anger. She seemed to be calculating something in her head, and after a moment's pause, she walked directly up to Theo, taking hold of his chin in one hand and aiming her newly-acquired wand at his cheek. Theo, who wasn't accustomed to being touched (much less by parallel-universe muggleborns) wrenched himself away, but she held him steady, ignoring both the motions of him flinching and of Draco stepping forward, unsure whether to intervene.

"Tergeo," she said firmly, voice clear as she used the spell Draco had inadvertently taught her, and miraculously, the wound healed. Cleaned itself, smoothed over, leaving behind nothing but a faint line in testament to what it had been. Then she released him, astoundingly betraying no surprise at what Draco knew to be her very first (intentional) use of magic, and stepped back.

"Now you can continue plotting," she said to Harry, without pause for refusal. Theo looked stunned, drawing a hand over the ghost of his injury, and glanced questioningly at Draco, who spared him the smallest of shrugs.

She learns quickly, he thought.

(As if he'd really needed a reason to want her more.)

Harry, meanwhile, was launching manically into action. "Take them to Bill's," he said to Ron, gesturing to Luna and Ollivander as they made their way out behind him. "When they're settled, I want you to meet us at King's Cross."

Ron frowned. "King's Cross? Why would y-"

"Because," Harry said, turning to Theo and Draco, "I have something else you need to help me do before we go anywhere. Or look for anything."

"Which is?" Theo prompted brusquely, still tense.

Harry's mouth curled into an alarmingly unsettling smile. "We're going to blow up the Hogwarts Express."

Grindelverse

By the time they'd returned to Malfoy Manor, Draco's parents still weren't home. Instead, a small creature toddled into the room, presenting Draco a letter on a delicate silver platter and holding it aloft for his reach.

"Wait a minute," Hermione said, noting the elf's familiar expression (albeit unfamiliar set of non-clothing bearing the Malfoy seal) as Draco distractedly picked up the letter addressed to him. "Dobby?"

The elf she could now see very clearly was Dobby turned to look at her, mildly disinterested.

"Is you needing something from Dobby, Miss?" the elf asked. He seemed to be checking her for something, his gaze drifting ambiguously near her pockets, when Hermione realized he must have been confusing her for her other version. She wondered what this universe's Hermione had thought of house elves; probably something similar, she assumed, though Dobby seemed mostly concerned with looking for evidence of a knife.

"Some food would be ideal, Dobby," Draco suggested, having skimmed the letter and replaced it on the tray. Hermione could see that the broken wax seal also bore the Malfoy crest, and was therefore likely a note from his parents. "Do tell Marla to see what she can put together in the kitchen, would you? I'm famished—"

"Well, hold on," Hermione said, stepping forward with a lurch just before Dobby raised a hand to apparate himself away. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. We can make something ourselves, can't we?"

Draco gave her a wildly skeptical look, which was magnified tenfold by the elf's expression of near-contemptuous disbelief.

"Would not be proper, Miss," Dobby said doubtfully, and as Hermione opened her mouth to reply (something along the lines of what's 'proper' can go and hang, I have literature on the subject in case you'd like to read some—) Draco stepped in carefully, addressing the elf.

"Miss Granger has slightly different customs from ours, Dobby. Please tell Marla I would appreciate it if she'd set out some fresh ingredients, but Miss Granger and I will prepare dinner ourselves." He paused, waiting for the elf's expression of disagreement to ease before adding firmly, "Thank you, Dobby."

Dobby gave something of a crinkled grimace before bowing low, then disapparating with a crack. Hermione, meanwhile, turned to Draco with surprise.

"That was… unusual," she remarked, unsure whether to be pleased or simply bemused. "The Draco I know wouldn't have been nearly so polite to an elf. Or to anyone," she amended, grimacing.

"You know, I'll have to thank the Draco you knew for being such a flaming wastebasket of a human being," Draco replied casually, "as it makes improving upon him so effortless—but I can't actually take credit for that particular episode of betterment." He beckoned for her to follow as he made his way through the hall, continuing, "I learned my lesson, you know. I can't say whether I was particularly cruel to Dobby before, not having thought about my treatment of him much. However, I certainly make an effort not to be now, considering I know perfectly well what that elf does to my family in your universe." He glanced at her, shaking his head. "Needless to say, I'm rather not in the business of provoking any sort of mutiny, elvish or otherwise."

"You know about Dobby?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"I know about a great many things," Draco reminded her. "Not much about cooking, though, so I can't say I'm too thrilled about preparing supper myself."

He flashed her his unnerving smile again, and she wondered (not for the first time) just how much information he'd gathered about the universe she came from.

"I take it the note was from your parents?" she asked instead, figuring 'tell me everything you know' was likely a conversation that would have to wait, and he nodded.

"Wishing me a lovely final term while they extend their holiday with Grindelwald's elite," he offered tartly, rolling his eyes. "Sycophants, the both of them. They really only wish to be comfortable, not powerful."

"Is that so terrible?" Hermione asked him.

"Terrible? No. Admirable? Hardly," Draco replied. "You should see Sirius' impression of them after Grindelwald's visits. He does a particularly spot-on imitation of my father's most sickeningly feigned laugh. In here," he beckoned, gesturing her through a rather small door. "You'll have to duck, obviously. Not too many wizards come through here."

She conceded to bend her head, entering what was clearly the kitchen, and what was obviously a space occupied exclusively by elves. Everything was slightly smaller than normal-sized, the shelves placed low on the walls, but it was all spotlessly in place. The whole kitchen gleamed with cleanliness, and in the center of the room, a variety of fresh produce and carefully portioned meats were waiting beneath the spherical glow of an artful, temperature-controlling chilling charm.

"That was fast," Hermione commented, impressed.

"They're elves," Draco reminded her. "They're better at many things than humans." She arched a brow, surprised, and he shrugged. "Or perhaps that's merely my convenient excuse for not having freed them. In my defense, there's not exactly any place they could go without being rejected by the rest of their kind—though that's also true in your universe," he mused, not looking at her, and she sighed, realizing now why he'd so quickly offered to do the cooking.

"You know about S.P.E.W., then," she said, half-grumbling it under her breath. It was difficult to tell how much of him was sincere and how much was curated for her appreciation.

Regardless, his response was as coy as ever. "I know a great number of things, Hermione."

Dinner was something of a challenge, given she was deathly certain he'd never prepared his own meals in his life, but cooking was still more easily managed with magic than with muggle equipment. Ultimately, Hermione was guiltily relieved to finally sit down and fill her long-deprived stomach with something comforting. She hadn't had fresh vegetables in months, and certainly not enough of anything to permit her the long-lost swells of satisfaction in the base of her stomach; it was the luxury of being full, after months on the run.

Even Draco's company was something of a pleasure, despite the constant wavering of her faith in him. He was extremely well-educated, highly well-read; probably not unlike her own version of Draco Malfoy, albeit much more tolerable to be around, given his lack of unassailable prejudices. They spoke about a variety of topics, from Caesar's Rome to Shakespeare's Caesar ("So Shakespeare was a wizard?" she asked, to which Draco had shaken his head; "Fae, and scarcely trying to hide it, much to Mab's displeasure") and for a minute, caught up in conversation that wasn't about horcruxes or Hallows for the first time in weeks, Hermione began to relax, settling into her new environment.

She was so relaxed, in fact, that she didn't even argue when Draco suggested Dobby fit her for some new clothes, advising that at the very least she would need more than one set of them. She stepped onto something of a makeshift platform without much fuss, feeling that of all the places to temporarily occupy, perhaps this one wasn't so terrible. She was comfortable, after all, and well-fed; she could make her way back to Harry and Ron soon enough, she thought, while Dobby bustled his way around her, taking her measurements.

For the time being, the best way to survive was to simply… be. At least until a useful opportunity presented itself.

"Knee length," Draco advised Dobby, sipping what looked like an espresso as he gestured for the elf to alter the hem of something he was conjuring.

"Higher," came a voice behind them, and Hermione turned sharply, nearly knocking Dobby aside with the suddenness of her motion. "Just above the knee," Theo suggested to the elf, entering the room in a slightly more casual outfit (only in that it did not feature any particular symbols or crests) and falling into a seat beside Draco, "given her height."

"Excuse me," Hermione began, feeling oddly exposed despite being fully dressed. She hadn't expected to be observed and was about to protest that he shouldn't be permitted to watch, but it became clear right away that Theo was scarcely paying her any attention.

"I thought we were aiming for something a bit more respectable," Draco said, turning to Theo.

"It's not unrespectable simply because it's more flattering," Theo said. "It's not going to escape his notice that she's still a teenager, for fuck's sake. Hem it above the knee," he suggested to the elf, who bowed, lifting a finger to comply before being interrupted.

"Wait," Draco instructed Dobby curtly, and Hermione watched with idle hesitation, still no less bewildered by their back-and-forth. "Is it going to fit her character, though? I thought we were aiming to implicate old money."

"You were thinking that, yes, but I was thinking no," Theo replied smartly. "Perhaps something a bit sillier, you know—like a young witch collecting trinkets, or seeking out some sort of bauble. Something he won't take seriously."

Hermione frowned. The sensation of being out of her element was quickly returning, leaving her unhappily adrift.

"He needs to take the money seriously, though," Draco told Theo sternly. "Or else why would he even agree to the commission?"

"Well, hence her being… I don't know. A disgraced heiress," Theo suggested wildly, as Hermione sighed, hands on her hips.

"What's going on?" she demanded, and both boys turned to look at her, each expressing varying degrees of misbehavior.

"Look," Draco began tentatively, "it's just th-"

"Give us a minute, would you, Draco?" Theo interrupted, cutting Draco off with a glance. "Miss Granger and I aren't particularly well-acquainted, after all."

It was a rather unsubtle way of saying let me handle this, and Hermione fully expected Draco to argue, only it seemed that Theo, like this universe's Harry, was not someone Draco readily refused. Instead, Draco merely opened his mouth, closed it, and then nodded.

"As you wish," he determined with a sigh, and rose to his feet, glancing at Hermione. "I'll be right outside the door," he told her, gesturing. "Just there."

"Am I in danger?" she asked drily, letting her gaze flick to Theo, who shrugged.

"Never can be too careful," Theo advised.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I'll be outside," he said again, and slipped outside the door.

In Draco's absence, Theo rose to his feet, stepping carefully towards Hermione. She was on a platform but he was still plenty tall enough to meet her eye, placing himself directly in front of her.

"Your other iteration was a very good actress when she wanted to be," Theo commented. "Did us quite a few favors in places we couldn't afford to show our faces." He paused before adding, "It's rather an invaluable thing, being invisible. She was very good at it—again, when she wanted to be."

Interesting he would say that, Hermione thought. The Theo Nott she knew was certainly an expert at invisibility; so much so that she'd scarcely noticed him for six entire years, and still couldn't name any remarkable facets of his personality.

This one, however, wasn't particularly difficult to read.

"You want me to be the one to commission Tom Riddle for the resurrection stone," Hermione sighed, and Theo's mouth quirked up, pleasantly satisfied. "What a wonderful treat for me," she added with a scowl, and at that, Theo's lips curled into a full, uninhibited smile, preternaturally amused by her sulky retreat into how did I get here, how did I get here, how did I bloody get here and how the bloody hell will I get out?

"You know, your other self was rather easy to manipulate," Theo postured delicately, "or so Draco believed. I think he believed he was using her as much as she believed she was using him—but as they both had such clear-cut goals, in the end they were probably both right. He wanted the Hallows, she wanted magic. But then, that begs the question," he mused, staring entirely too intently at her face. "What exactly do you want from this, Hermione Granger?"

She opened her mouth, about to let the dam break—I don't know, I don't know, I DON'T KNOW—and saved herself at the last second, holding herself aloft against the precipice of breaking.

"What do you want me to want?" she managed to counter, and his smile broadened knowingly again.

"Have you ever looked a monster in the eye?" he asked, his tone neutral, and she blinked, caught off guard. "A real one, I mean. Not a creature. Not what Grindelwald calls monsters—which you are, of course," he teased, and she grimaced, shaking her head. "No, I mean a true monster," he continued, the smile gradually fading as he spoke. "Have you ever looked in a man's eyes and known, somehow, that he felt nothing? Less than nothing, even. That where a heart would feel empathy, or a brain would at least process some semblance of morality, there is nothing in him but a ringing, faltering silence. A vacancy," he clarified, "where something else should be."

Hermione swallowed, fairly certain Theo wasn't speaking exclusively about Grindelwald.

"Maybe it's rather foolish of me to claim I want to rid the world of monsters," Theo mused, abruptly falling back on his toneless charm. "But in fairness, I never said I wasn't a fool, did I?"

He transitioned easily to humor, but Hermione found her own throat rather dry.

"Tom Riddle is a monster," she eventually managed to point out.

"Is he?" Theo countered, shrugging. "Or is he just a man? Because those you can crush underfoot, you know." He scrutinized her again, curling a hand around his mouth before dragging his gaze back to hers. "Maybe you mythologize him, romanticize him. In the end, I suppose it doesn't matter, really. Truth is monsters bleed just the same."

She shivered, suspecting he'd seen as much already.

"In my universe, Tom Riddle corrupted his soul," she reminded him. "He made himself as close to immortal as he could get."

"Do you think he did the same thing here?" Theo asked. It was a highly neutral question; he seemed genuinely unmoved about the answer. Her answer, like a subtle breeze, would do nothing to shift the placement of his feet, nor the certainty of his decision. He wanted to know it, his tone indicated, but it would not change his mind.

"I don't see why not," she replied. "His wanting to live forever seemed… unavoidable, somehow. As if he might have tried it either way."

"Well, he's one of the last half-bloods remaining to have attended Hogwarts," Theo mused aloud, and Hermione was pleased to see he'd done his research, at least. "I suppose he'd have the means, magically speaking. Shortly after his tenure there, Dumbledore lost the duel to Grindelwald," he added in explanation, as she nodded, piecing the timeline together. "Riddle himself had a promising future, or so they say, until Grindelwald's rise forced him into hiding."

"Hiding?" Hermione echoed, surprised. "But if he's hiding, how are you all so familiar with his dealings?"

"It's a criminal's form of hiding," Theo amended with a shrug. "Black market. He's a purveyor of rare goods for Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley. The sort of purveyor," he clarified slyly, "one doesn't exactly speak of in polite company—"

"Which is why a Black, a Nott, and a Malfoy can't be seen seeking him out," Hermione sighed, grudgingly making the connection.

Theo's broad smile returned. "Exactly."

"You really think he won't find me suspicious?" Hermione asked, skeptical. "I'm muggleborn, in case you've forgotten, which is hardly an improvement—"

"Well, I distinctly hope you're not going to go in reciting your family history," Theo advised, arching a brow. "We'll give you an alias, of course. What that will be is obviously another story," he conceded, "because as you've heard, Draco wants to pass you off as a respectable British pureblood, whereas I think differently." He glanced at her for a reaction before continuing, "Tom Riddle has the resources to check your pedigree if he thinks you might be someone he can leverage. Therefore, I say we make you someone far more irresponsible. Someone with nothing to lose. An heiress with a drug problem, for example," he suggested, either pretending not to notice or not particularly minding as she blanched with dismay, "or with an affinity for gambling. In short, someone with too much money and no useful concept what to do with it. Maybe some daddy problems, too."

"Like you," Hermione guessed, and Theo paused for a moment, and then laughed.

"Yes," he agreed. "Someone very much like me."

They paused in silence; for a moment, oddly, something nagged at her.

"The other me," Hermione ventured carefully. "What did you think of her?"

For once, Theo looked surprised by the question.

"I liked her," he confessed eventually. "I recognized things in her. The loneliness. The boredom. The crippling, burdening sensation she didn't belong," he added drily, as if this were something as equally nondescript as her hair color. "The things that made Harry mistrustful of her—and which made Draco underestimate her," he added, as Hermione inclined her head in agreement, "were the very things I found… extremely tolerable."

"What a compliment," Hermione muttered, rolling her eyes. Extremely tolerable. A sparkling review.

"It is," Theo said simply. "From me, it is."

She realized she believed him, which she didn't like in the slightest. She hated the feeling, in fact.

It reminded her of trust, which was something she resolutely didn't want to do. Not here.

"So you want to kill a monster. Is that it?" Hermione asked.

"That's it," Theo said, shrugging.

Hermione sighed, composing herself, and then nodded.

"Take the hem up, then," she ruled, and he blinked, surprised a second time. "But use a more expensive fabric, and maybe add some rips in the hems; some holes or damage or something. I should look like I've lost everything, or that I'm about to," she clarified. "Like I have nothing to lose, so that he'll think I'm nothing. He'll think I'm nothing, and he'll be wrong."

Theo smiled slowly, nodding his head.

"And that's how you kill a monster," he murmured.

"That's how you kill a monster," Hermione agreed, exhaling it out onto the tenuous foundation of their understanding.

a/n: Dedicated to hesitantsoup, who always asks the thoughtful questions.

8. Bad Ideas

Chapter 8: Bad Ideas

Potterverse

"You can't possibly think this is a good idea," Draco said for the thirtieth time as Harry beckoned for them to follow him into one of the public toilets, conjuring an out-of-order sign and locking the door behind them.

"So you've mentioned," Harry said, casting a silencing spell over the door (already more magic than Draco had seen him use successfully at Hogwarts) and turning to face them. "And so Ron's mentioned, too. But Hermione thinks it's a good idea," he insisted, motioning to where she was casting a rueful glance over the dinginess of the floors, "so it can't possibly be that bad."

Draco bit back a groan. If only he knew.

"I just think it makes sense," Hermione supplied unhelpfully, gingerly avoiding a soggy mass of toilet paper on the floor to stand between Harry and Draco. "It's not like anyone's going to get hurt, right? And if people are being tortured there—at a school," she growled, pursing her lips, "then we can't exactly let them go back, can we?"

Unfortunately for Draco (or fortunately, he hadn't yet decided which), she was fiercely determined in a way that felt very, very in character, even knowing what he knew. It wasn't particularly difficult to see why Harry believed her, though Draco wasn't entirely certain the Hermione Granger he'd known would have taken quite the same stance. Surely there were more logical plans than dismantling such a mammoth form of transit, weren't there?

"What do you think?" Harry asked without warning, directing the question at Theo, who instantly balked.

"What the fuck do you care?" Theo demanded.

"I don't," Harry snapped, ruffled. "But if you're going to be here—"

"Well, if you really want to know what I think, then here it is: I don't understand your fucking plan," Theo said, with perhaps more bite than strictly necessary, though no more than usual. "You're going to intercept a train. So what? No matter what you do, they're just going to fucking fix it, Potter. You can't actually keep people from arriving—"

"No, but we can beat them there," Harry said quickly. "Get to Hogwarts first. You-Know-Who's probably already headed there," he added, grimacing, "as there's almost certainly something there that he… that he wants." He glanced at Hermione, who by then had learned when to nod in agreement and conceded to do so now. "So all we have to do is wait for Ron to arrive with—"

"With what?" Draco cut in, scoffing. "What exactly are you planning to use to stop people getting on the train, much less to destroy the thing to begin with?"

"Well, I'd be happy to tell you," Harry said coolly, "if you would stop interrupting."

Draco resigned himself to moody silence with as loud a scowl as he could muster.

"As it happens, I have some familiarity with train malfunctions," Harry informed them, as if this were any sort of reasonably fun fact. "So, once Ron gets here with—"

There was a crack, and then two figures appeared in the bathroom with them.

"Dobby?" Draco asked, disbelieving, and the elf quickly placed both hands on his narrow, toga-ridden hips, glaring up at him.

"Dobby is a free elf," announced Dobby, somewhat maniacally, "and young master is no longer free to—"

"Hi, Dobby," Harry said, and the elf immediately cut off to look at him, positively enraptured. "So, uh. Malfoy's not going to make you do anything, but I actually wondered if you might do me a favor—"

"Anything for Harry Potter," the elf offered with a slavish wail as Harry quickly shushed him, bending to speak at eye level in something of an awkward crouch.

"Probably should have been nicer to your elves," Theo noted in Draco's ear, observing the way Dobby's wide eyes fixed reverently on Harry with something of a stifled laugh.

"Extremely helpful, Theodore, thank you," Draco muttered, giving him a shove.

"—so basically we can't let the train leave," Harry was saying, "but we also can't destroy it while students are getting on, so we need you to do… whatever you did last time," he said to the elf, who looked sheepishly at his feet. "To keep them from boarding. While you do that, we're going to destroy the engine—it is an engine of some kind, right?" he asked, and the elf nodded slowly. "Right, so, we'll do something about that, and then for however long it takes us to reach Hogwarts first, I might need you to, er. Keep them from succeeding," he exhaled carefully, "in case they try to fix it."

"But how will Harry Potter be arriving at Hogwarts?" Dobby asked with palpable concern. "If Harry Potter will not be taking the train and Dobby will be needing to stay here, if Harry Potter needs him—"

"Brooms," Harry supplied, and glanced over his shoulder at Hermione. "Sorry, Hermione. I just can't think of a better way to get there, seeing as the spells on the castle won't let us apparate."

"It's fine," she said neutrally, shrugging.

Ron blinked. "Wh- really? But the last time I tried to get you to fl-"

"This is rather important, Ron," she sighed loudly, having hastily caught her mistake. It was a very lucky thing, Draco thought yet again, that when a person was behaving strangely, 'alternate person from a parallel universe' was unlikely to be the go-to assumption for an explanation. Lucky too that she'd already thought of some reality-resembling stress disorder to fill in the gaps. "I think I can stomach my discomfort for something this important," Hermione added pointedly, "don't you?"

"Yes, and wonderful note, Potter, but may I just point out," Draco said, hurriedly drawing attention away from Hermione's misstep and back to their horribly mismanaged plot, "we don't actually have any brooms?"

"We can't go back to my house," Theo warned, which was certainly true enough. For one thing, part of Harry Potter's inane episode of chaos had involved leading Nott Sr to believe Theo was going back to school as normal, and for another, Draco didn't want to go back there again for as long as he lived. "First of all," Theo continued, "I don't have any brooms. Second of all—" He paused. "No, just the first thing."

"Dobby?" Harry asked the elf hopefully.

"Dobby could be getting Harry Potter some brooms," Dobby said warily, frowning in thought, and then brightened. "Oh, Dobby knows! WINKY," he called loudly, and with another crack, yet another elf appeared, her little legs wrapped tightly around a bottle of butterbeer.

"Oh, Winky," Dobby lamented disapprovingly, as the female elf gave a tiny, indelicate hiccup.

"What you be wanting, Dobby?" she demanded suspiciously, rising to her feet and immediately collapsing back onto the ground. "Winky is not wanting any more of Dobby's intervenings—"

"Interventions?" Hermione asked.

"WINKY IS FINE," the elf bellowed, as Harry hurriedly shushed her, turning in what looked to be an achingly-uncomfortable stance until he could place his hands carefully on her shoulders.

"Yes, good thinking, Dobby—listen, Winky, we need your help," he said to her, as her wildly-oversized eyes struggled to focus unsteadily on his face. "Do you think you could bring us five brooms?"

"Why not just have her take us?" Ron asked, frowning.

"Dobby would not suggest Winky be transporting Harry Potter or his friends in her current state of beings," Dobby said, as Winky passed him an impatient glare.

"WINKY," she shouted in obvious distress, "IS F-"

"Winky is fine, yes, yes," Harry assured her, "but still. Can you get us some brooms?"

She glared at him, submitting herself to another violent hiccup. "Horses," she said nonsensically, and then added sternly, "You be holding thems."

She disappeared.

"She's a peach," Theo said.

With a crack, Winky was back.

"Here," she said, handing Harry a single ordinary kitchen broom.

"Oh, sorry," he said awkwardly, "my fault. I meant, um. The brooms for flying? I think Madame Hooch keeps them in the—"

"YOU SHOULD BE BEING MORE SPECIFIC," Winky admonished him, smacking the backs of his knees with the broom before disappearing a second time.

"Also, we need five of th- ah, she's gone," Harry lamented, turning back to the others with a shake of his head. "So anyway, once we get to Hogwarts—"

"Yes, what an excellent consideration," Draco declared, turning combatively to face him. "What is going to happen once we get to Hogwarts, Potter? Because as far as I can tell, you've figured out approximately zero percent of a plan."

"Zero seems unfairly low," Harry replied, frowning. "I mean, I have at least fifteen percent of this thought through, which is honestly more than I usually have planned—"

With that, Winky reappeared, laden down with an entire bouquet of racing brooms before toppling out from beneath them.

"Where'd you get those?" Ron asked, eyes widening at the sight of the newest Nimbus models, and Draco groaned.

"The Slytherin locker room," he muttered, as Harry's troubling grin only broadened again.

"Well, that's ideal," he mused, hefting one up and tossing it to Draco. "I take it you know how to ride one, Malfoy? A generous assumption," he added slyly, "seeing as I've never witnessed it before."

"You're the one who can't stay on a broom," Draco reminded him, as Hermione looked on between them, rolling her eyes. "I'm not the one who consistently crashed to the ground during every single match, as I recall—"

"Maybe you two can compare brooms later?" Hermione suggested blithely, and Theo buried a mocking peal of laughter in his hand, abruptly turning it to a cough.

"Fine, yes, okay, so—" Harry reached into his pocket, pulling out a small beaded bag and thrusting it into Hermione's hands before gathering the remainder of the brooms from Winky. "We'll just, um, keep these in here, and—"

Draco caught the furrowing of Hermione's brow as he realized the bag must have been magically expanded, and likely by her, which she probably didn't know.

"Really, an undetectable extension charm, Granger?" Draco drawled loudly, hoping she'd get the message. She seemed to, as she hastily opened the bag, leaving the rest of them to catch the sound of several large objects toppling over. "You do know those are illegal, don't you?"

"Not any more illegal than anything else we've done today," Harry remarked, tossing in the brooms as Hermione held the bag steady, carefully schooling her curious expression into something appropriately un-rapt. "Anyway, let's see—we'll have to get onto the platform first, and then Dobby—"

"Dobby will seal the entrance to aid Harry Potter's madness," Dobby supplied proudly.

"—right, yes, and then we'll just have to figure out how to disable the engine, but that shouldn't be too difficult, right?"

"Make go boom," Winky contributed dizzily, from where she was lying on her back on the floor.

"She seems to have it," Theo said approvingly. "That is basically the crux of the plan, though I hope we have something more refined in order?"

"Well, we'll see," Harry said. "And anyway, when we get to Hogwarts—"

"Harry." Ron looked pale and uneasy. "What are we supposed to do if we run into You-Know-Who once we've gotten there?"

A valid point. Draco and Theo exchanged a glance, both obviously suffering the same wave of crippling dread at the thought.

"It's really more of a when than an if," Harry supplied with a painfully false brightness, "and we'll sort that out when we get to it. It's not as if we have much time to plan for anything else, do we? And besides, maybe Hermione will think of something by then," he added to her, sparing a small, affectionate smile that she seemed thoroughly warmed by. "She always does."

Draco hoped only he had caught her brief flicker of hesitation. "True."

There was a moment of unsteady silence; clearly there was something Ron wasn't wanting to point out in Theo and Draco's presence, but it seemed the abominable Chosen One had already made up his mind. Whatever Ron Weasley wasn't saying, it was clearly going to remain unsaid, at least for the time being.

"We can't let things continue as they are," Harry reminded Ron, and Draco noted Harry's gaze had flicked momentarily to Theo as he said it. "We have to do something now. Ginny's there," he pointed out, and Ron grimaced, "so we can't—I can't," Harry amended, exhaling, "live with myself if I simply do nothing. And it's not like we really know what else to do next, do we?"

"I suppose," Ron replied morosely.

"Well, good. So," Harry announced, briskly forging ahead, "let's go then," and that was that. Without much further argument, the five of them were making their way through the already-bustling platforms of King's Cross, slipping through the barrier at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters with Dobby's help.

It was around the time that Harry was telling Dobby to be careful (and advising Winky to drink some water before apparating back to Hogwarts) that Draco realized Hermione was far more vulnerable than anybody else might have realized. He waited until Harry and Ron had walked ahead, muttering rapidly to each other as they made their way towards the engine, before discreetly taking her arm.

"Wait," he said, pulling Hermione towards him and ducking briefly out of sight between the train cars, letting Theo walk ahead of them. "Use Stupefy to stun someone," he told her quickly, voice hushed. "Expelliarmus to disarm them—"

"Oh, Latin, easy," Hermione murmured, nodding along. "Got anything to, you know. Cause some damage?"

"Confringo," he supplied, "which is a blasting charm. And Expulso—"

She cut him off; kissed him briefly, swiftly, and with a ruthless certainty he might have diagnosed as insanity before pulling back, a smile playing brilliantly across her lips.

"Thank you," she said, breathless, and rested a hand on his chest, making sure he felt it. "Really. Thank you."

"You're welcome," he replied, slightly dizzied, and then she grabbed his hand, pulling him back towards the engine as they hurried to follow Harry and the others. Theo lifted a brow, questioning, and Draco shook his head in warning.

"She doesn't know how to defend herself," he murmured under his breath, and Theo nodded slowly, a brief moment of concern registering in his brow as Harry continued inspecting the train's engine.

"Well, I doubt it has a fuel tank," Harry commented, turning to Ron with a grimace. "That'd be easy, only I assume a magical train hardly needs a muggle source of energy, does it?"

"Most trains run via some form of combustion," Hermione supplied, crouching down to look. "There'd be some sort of diesel engine here," she added, pointing, "and a radiator over there, some sort of air compression system—"

"And a driver," Harry said, frowning. "But if there's no engine and no human conductor, how—?"

After a second of pained confusion, he broke off, sighing. "I really thought this would be easier."

"Could transfigure it," Theo suggested. "Make the train into a cat and I doubt anyone's going to be able to board it."

"Can you transfigure an entire train into a cat?" Ron prompted.

"I don't hear any of your brilliant ideas," was Theo's icy response.

"What if you divert the rails?" Draco asked, frowning.

"It would help," Harry murmured, "but that's probably easily fixable, isn't it? Who knows if the train even requires rails to run," he sighed, and Draco shrugged, not particularly experienced with the muggle contraption on which the magical train had been based.

"It has steam," Hermione pointed out, gesturing up. "So there's something making this run—"

"Oi," called someone behind them, and immediately, Harry went rigid, the frame of his shoulders freezing in place. "What are you kids doin' out 'ere this early? The train won't be leavin' til—"

There was a smack against the ground as Hermione whipped around, aiming a rapid Stupefy and knocking out what must have been a Ministry official on the first try.

"What?" she asked when Ron's eyes widened, startled. "It's not like we could let him see our faces!"

"Check him," Theo suggested instantly.

"For what?" Harry demanded. "You think he carries around some sort of pocket manual for how to destroy magical trains?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Theo countered brusquely. "Maybe he's at least got a badge or something we can use, or—"

"Yes, badges, precisely what we need," Harry muttered, and before Theo replied with something about putting Harry's helpful comments back in the posterior chasm they rightfully belonged, Draco wandered over to where the Ministry official had fallen, taking a moment to nudge the man onto his back.

Draco reached into the inner pocket of the wizard's robes, sighing, and pulled out a thin book, holding it up for the others to see.

"The Official Ministry Handbook for the Operation and Maintenance of the Hogwarts Express," Theo read aloud, smirking irreverently at Harry as he strode over to pluck the book from Draco's hands, licking a finger and briskly turning a page. "Ah, look, who would have thought it, a diagram of the engine—"

"Give me that," Harry growled, snatching it from Theo's hands and gesturing for Hermione to look at it with him. "The engine is definitely an engine," he said, showing her the anatomy of the train, "but we were right. It doesn't have fuel."

"It looks like it still relies on combustion, though," Hermione said thoughtfully, as Theo and Draco (and, briefly, Ron) exchanged glances, thoroughly bemused. "There's still water involved, which means there's still maybe a way to corrode the insides? Though it might take awhile, and there could be more people coming." She frowned. "Maybe if you destroy the boiler, you could—?"

She paused, sighing. "You know what? Confringo," she determined without warning, aiming her wand, and before Draco could think to explain that was probably not the best idea from this particular distance, they were all blown backwards upon impact, soaring through the air to crash against the ground before being forced to duck beneath enormous particles of metal.

"Protego," Draco shouted, throwing up a shield charm overhead and dragging Hermione under it as Harry, Ron, and Theo did the same, all of them struggling to hold the spells beneath a veritable storm of rubble and bits of steel. It went on for several seconds, pieces blown and scattered to ash, until the popping sounds of bursting too-hot metal eventually faded, the dust gradually clearing from the platform.

"Well," Harry said, coughing, as the ruins of what had been the train's engine revealed themselves to be little more than a pile of refuse on the rails. "That was—"

They all froze, a loud crack echoing through the platform from somewhere overhead.

"Uh," Ron said with discomfort, pointing up. "Harry?"

"Shit," was Harry's apt response.

"BROOMS!" Theo boomed impatiently, as it became increasingly clear that the train station's ceiling was going to be the next to crumble, having been hit with the radiating impact of Hermione's blasting charm. Obviously Hermione's completely untrained use of magic had been a bit (read: considerably) larger than she'd intended, and judging by the voices approaching, the magnitude of the damage wasn't going to go unnoticed for long.

She fumbled with the bag, and without much pause, Draco aimed his own wand for a summoning charm. "Accio brooms!" he shouted, each of the others catching the brooms that leapt up from the bag before hurrying to mount them.

"Are we really doing this?" Theo shouted over the sound of another loud crack from the building's frame, and Draco glanced apprehensively at Hermione.

"To steer it," he half-whispered to her, "you just have t-"

But she'd already mounted the broom, eyes widening as it jolted forward.

"Oh no," she said, looking queasy, but by then Harry had flown up towards the ceiling, beckoning the others with him.

"It's already breaking," he said with a grimace, glancing at Hermione for reassurance as a number of people (most of them Ministry workers with panic-stricken faces) began to stumble onto the platform. "So I guess we might as well just—"

"DUCK—Confringo," Theo yelled, blasting a hole through the ceiling, and with a rapid launch of speed, Harry led them out and up as the glass and steel and brick above them shattered to pieces, falling steadily to the ground below.

Draco, who internally likened the experience to the time Marcus Flint had forced them all to play through quaffle-sized hail, did the best he could to create a trail of sorts for Hermione to follow behind him; to his relief, Ron did the same, and after a few seconds of extreme proximity to death by massive head trauma, all five of them emerged from the train station into the clouded London sky above, gasping and breathless and panting.

"What now?" Theo shouted at Harry, who glanced around, orienting himself.

"That way," he said, pointing, and gave them a hardened smile that Draco was beginning to realize was a very discomfiting sign, letting out a whoop at the sight of the chaos below them. "Alright, Hermione?" he asked her jubilantly, and though she was looking down, obviously terrified, she managed to spare him a nod. "Perfect. Let's go find Tom Riddle, then—"

"Who?" Draco demanded.

But by then, Harry had already taken off, rushing headlong towards Hogwarts with a trail of sunlight streaming from the path of his broom.

Grindelverse

The last time Hermione had been in Borgin and Burkes, it had not been a particularly wonderful experience. This time, much to her immense displeasure, was somehow exceedingly worse. While Knockturn had always been an exceptionally seedy place, the version of Knockturn under Grindelwald's militaristic regime managed to be even more disarming. It was a bit more like a covered marketplace, structurally speaking, as if concealing itself from prying eyes above, and rather than shops as there had been in Diagon, there were merely small woefully-curtained stalls. Each of the occupants within them peered beadily around, clearly prepared to flee at any given moment.

Wizards bearing Grindelwald's symbol walked the perimeter of Knockturn's borders, but Hermione could see they were patently uninterested in anything going on inside. They seemed uneasy themselves, rarely standing still, and before Hermione prepared to slip through to Knockturn's winding alley, she turned to a concealed Draco beside her.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked him, breathing it out in agitation and pulling her hood tighter around her. "What if they stop me?"

"They won't," came Draco's crisply certain voice, and though she was hardly convinced, she discovered he'd been right. Nobody even glanced her way as she slid through a narrow passage between crumbling buildings, intently focused on keeping one foot in front of the other. "They'd have the Knights to deal with if they did," he added in her ear as they walked, keeping to a brisk, uninterrupted pace.

"The Knights?" Hermione echoed, whispering it.

"The Knights of Walpurgis," Draco confirmed, guiding her with a touch at her elbow. "It's something of a loosely-formed organization run by Tom Riddle and the other Knockturn crime lords. Grindelwald doesn't spend enough time here to know it exists."

Hermione frowned. That seemed quite an irresponsible oversight, even for someone whose primary interest was seated on Europe's mainland. "But—"

"The rules are simple," Draco breathed impatiently in her ear. "Don't look at anyone, don't disturb anyone, and for the love of fuck don't speak a word against anyone, and in return they won't disturb you."

"How do you know all this?" she asked him.

"I just do," was his hopelessly ambiguous response, ushering her forward.

Borgin and Burkes was one of the only permanent structures that had not been affected by decay of any sort. It was a building of old brick and cobbled stone, just like any she might have found in Diagon. On the door, however, there was a single carved symbol that was enough to lessen Hermione's pulse to nothing; a skull, with a snake running through it.

She paused before the knocker on the door, watching the eyes of the snake snap open.

"Who callssssss?" the snake asked.

"Penelope Clearwater," Hermione said, bracing herself. One of these days it was bound to work.

"And what issssss it you wishhhhh?" the snake asked.

"I—" Don't ask for him by name, Harry had instructed her that morning. He definitely won't speak to you if he thinks you're actively looking for him. "I'm not sure," Hermione said, glad at least that for once, the statement was extremely genuine. "I just—I need something. I need to find something. I need help."

The snake blinked once, then twice.

"One moment pleassssssse," it said, and disappeared back into unanimated wood, eyes falling shut.

"Hold the door open," Draco said in her ear. "I'll be right behind you—"

I know, she would have said if she could have managed to speak, only the door had already swung open, revealing a startlingly familiar face in the frame.

"What?" asked the person Hermione was quite certain was Remus Lupin; only who couldn't have been; only who almost certainly was. He was dressed in an old, faded leather jacket and a pair of black trousers, his hair pulled back in a knot at the back of his head; strangely, the scars on his face were stark in an almost curated way, as if he'd put them there on purpose.

"I," Hermione began, and swallowed. He looked younger than he had when she'd known him, though aside from a few key details, the resemblance was scarcely recognizable. "You are?" she prompted carefully.

"Me? I'm the one asking questions," Remus muttered, glancing behind her. He gave a slow, careful sniff. "There's someone else here," he determined, giving her an impatient look. The golden-flecked eyes she remembered were less sad, but considerably less kind. "I advise him to show himself."

Hermione felt Draco tense beside her.

"Maybe I'm not making myself clear," Remus said after a moment of expectancy, folding his arms over his chest. The knuckles of his fingers were tattooed with a series of runes; protective enchantments, she realized. "I know you're there, so show yourself or leave in pieces."

He toyed pointedly with the sharpened nails of his hands, and Hermione winced. Harry and Theo had offered quite a bit of preparation, but still; they hadn't accounted for a werewolf.

"I'll remove the spell when we're inside," Draco's voice returned, apparently having made a decision to reveal his presence. "I can't be seen outside this shop. Surely you understand why."

"I don't like secrets," Remus said, eyeing his nails again. They were stained in a way Hermione suspected was something more morbid than purely dirt. "Find them distasteful."

"Well, to each his own," Draco replied. "Personally, I don't care for threats."

To that, Remus' eyes narrowed, displeased.

"Remus," came a coolly impassive voice behind him, "let them in. It's impolite to keep guests waiting. Were you raised by wolves?"

Remus scowled, but rolled his eyes. "That joke doesn't get any funnier the more times you tell it, you know," he growled, but conceded to clear a space in the frame, stepping back.

Hermione, meanwhile, stepped inside the shop tentatively, waiting for Draco to reveal himself beside her. Once the door shut at their backs (prompting her to a lurch; she half-imagined the click of a heavy lock and struggled not to panic) she permitted a glance at Draco to register that he'd transfigured his clothing, dressing himself in something similar to what Theo had worn the night before.

He'd intentionally rid himself of the Grindelwald insignia, she noted, as well as the Malfoy seal.

"You'll have to excuse my guard dog," came the low, purring voice of what looked to be a middle-aged man with raven-black hair, his hair flecked with silver at the temples. "He was just leaving, I believe. Weren't you, Remus?"

To that, Remus rolled his eyes. "Might as well stay," he grumbled, falling into a clawed armchair that was seated opposite a crackling fire. The store under Tom Riddle's dominion had been designed to resemble the Slytherin common room, Hermione realized, or what she assumed was the Slytherin common room, based on Harry's description of it from their second year. The walls were covered in blinking portraits and medieval tapestries, and the black leather furniture was about as inviting as a suit of armor, though Remus certainly looked comfortable enough.

"You're going to have me do the procuring anyway," Remus pointed out drily. "Might as well not pretend."

"Well, I do feel much better when you're here," chuckled the man Hermione was quite certain was Tom Riddle, who beckoned for her and Draco to have a seat on a stiff Victorian sofa. "You were saying you needed something, Miss Clearwater? Alias forgiven," he added, prompting her to yet another internal jolt. "Understandably, not too many people choose to use their real names in this business."

He was entirely too pleasant. It made her stomach twist with anguish.

"You do," she noted, and then added, "Tom."

His lips curled up slowly. He was wearing a strangely archaic black suit, the chain of a pocket watch tucked into a waistcoat, and he looked almost like some sort of gentleman-dandy as he lowered himself into the chair opposite her, sparing her a long, sweeping glance.

"I won't ask your real name," he said, "but you're certainly free to use mine. Only liars use personas." Interesting you would say that, Hermione thought morosely, though he continued without pause, and she didn't interrupt. "I like to establish my relationships with clients based on trust."

"Trust," she echoed.

He smiled.

He was an abominably handsome man, even at his age, which must have been… she calculated quickly in her head. Seventy or so? He certainly didn't look a day over forty-five, and Hermione wondered briefly how he was doing it—only she was distracted by the sudden motion of Tom crossing right leg over left, summoning a platter of tea that landed abruptly beside her face.

"Earl Grey?" Tom prompted genially.

Hermione swallowed, glancing at Draco, who indicated nothing. He was yielding to her lead; a makeshift part of the act, she assumed. Harry hadn't wanted him to come at all, but he'd insisted. "I'd rather just get to business," she said to Tom, trying to avoid Remus' scrutinizing stare, "if that's okay with you."

Tom's mouth twitched. "By all means. Whatever makes you comfortable."

The platter beside her delicately sprouted wings, fluttering away. Somehow, it made her even angrier that Tom Riddle's magic was so beautiful; particularly in the rare instance that it was not being made to murder her and everyone she knew.

"I need to find something," Hermione said in a low voice. "Something once belonging to my family."

"Mm," Tom said. It must have been something he heard a lot. "Some sort of heirloom?"

"A stone," Hermione supplied. "I, um, lost it." She carefully cast a gaze at her hands, speaking quietly to her fingers. "I had an unfortunate stroke of poor luck."

Gamblers never admit to gambling, Theo had advised her, just as addicts never admit their addictions. Only someone ready to be fixed can put the problem in words, and you have to be far from fixable.

"I see," Tom said. "What sort of stone?"

"Well, it, um." She swallowed. "It gave something like visions to the bearer. Visions of people from their pasts."

Don't act like you believe in it, Harry had advised. We can't give him a reason to want it more than you do. Pretend you don't know what it actually does.

"I need it for sentimental reasons," she continued. "It belonged to my mother, who just passed." She dropped her gaze to her hands again. This was her own personal addition. Tom Riddle hated his father; perhaps he would sympathize with a dead mother—if he were at all capable of sympathy. "I need it back as soon as possible," she said, taking a deep breath and looking up, "and—"

She trailed off, something catching in the light as Tom folded his hands beneath his chin.

"Yes?" he prompted, and Draco turned, glancing at her with something like concern, but she couldn't speak.

Tom Riddle was something of an ornamental man. The pocket watch, the chain, the style of dress; he garnished himself appropriately as the collector of rare antiquities he purported himself to be. He wore a watch, and possibly a necklace. But most importantly, on his right hand, he bore a single ostentatious ring on his pinky: a signet ring of black and gold.

A ring, in fact, that Harry had once described to her in great detail.

Immediately, her mind began to buzz.

Hermione had always wondered what could have possessed Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of his age, to put on a ring he'd known perfectly well to be cursed. He'd known it was a horcrux, and that it had been altered by Voldemort, and yet he'd tried it on anyway. She'd wondered through all her sleepless nights on the run why anyone would have done so, consumed by the inexhaustible pricking in her logical brain that no reasonable person would ever dream of putting such a thing on their finger. It had belonged to a man whose expertise seemed to be largely in death. The ring itself was the symbol of mortality, in as much as it was a tool for immortality. There was a death attached to it; it was a tragedy by virtue of existence. Why would anyone put such a thing on?

Only if it had another use, her mind whispered.

Like, say, a deathly use.

A hallowed use.

"No," she breathed out, her stomach twisting itself in knots, and Draco glanced at her as she sat paralyzed, wondering what to do next.

Unless Hermione was very much mistaken, Tom Riddle had already found the resurrection stone.

a/n: Dedicated to Colubrina, a brilliant pal for whom I coincidentally wrote one of the stories in my new anthology, Midsummer Night Dreams. It's now available on my website (olivieblake dot com) if you have any interest—which I do recommend having, if only to witness the beauty of Little Chmura's illustrations.

9. Impractical Magics

Chapter 9: Impractical Magics

Grindelverse

"You were saying?" Tom prompted, and Hermione blinked forcefully back to cognizance.

"Right," she said, swallowing, as across from her, Remus made a somewhat pursed expression of impatience. "Right, so, the thing I need. It's—" Her mind whirled. "It's very important. I need you to find it for me, and—"

"You're English," Tom interrupted. A statement of fact; an observation, but certainly not a question. She frowned, and then nodded.

"Yes, I'm from—"

"And you're young, too," Tom noted, tilting his head slightly. "Aren't you?"

"I—" She paused. "Sorry, what?"

"What are you getting at?" Draco cautioned sharply, leaning forward. In the same motion, Remus pointedly cracked his knuckles, giving Draco a glance that would have warned him to stay back without any help from the rest of his less-than-covert motions.

Tom, meanwhile, held up a hand for silence, not taking his eyes from Hermione's.

"You can leave," he said.

"I'm not leaving," Remus growled.

"I was talking to the disruptive blond," Tom informed him coolly, "but if you're going to be so primitive, Remus, perhaps it'd be better if you simply escorted him out."

"I'm not going anywhere," Draco said, lifting his chin, and internally, Hermione sighed. Even if Draco were to try to use an alias, it was still painfully clear he was valuable; who other than a consummate pureblood would be so defiant in a place like this? "If you have something to say to her," Draco insisted unhelpfully, "you can say it to me."

"Wrong," Tom said, unmoving. "Remus?"

Remus rose to his feet, rolling his eyes, and came around the sofa to grab Draco by the collar. Draco let out a yelp of opposition, drilling an elbow into Remus' side (the werewolf, of course, didn't flinch) and reaching for his wand, but Tom held up a single finger, slowly fixing him with an eerily impassive glance.

"Ten minutes," Tom said. "Ten minutes alone, and I give you my word: she will be in precisely the condition you left her."

Draco gritted his teeth, glancing at Hermione, who grimaced. Clearly there was something Tom wanted to say to her in private; as much as she didn't want to be alone with him, it was obvious nothing was going to be said at all if his conditions for privacy remained unmet. Slowly, she permitted a brief nod, and Draco's mouth tightened, but he relented.

"Tell your lackey to get his hands off me, then," he informed Tom, with a requisite curtness borne from years of entitlement. "I can walk myself."

Tom permitted a careless flutter of his fingers in acknowledgement. "You heard him," he said to Remus, who sighed, evidently disappointed. He released Draco, half-tossing him back to the ground, and then gruffly gestured forward with his chin.

"Walk, then," instructed Remus.

"Into what?" Draco demanded, gesturing to the solid wall of tapestries. "A coma?"

Tom waved a hand. Instantly, the wall shimmered, becoming a gauzy curtain he drew aside from afar like a gossamer wing, revealing a corridor with a set of winding stairs behind it. Remus gave a loud, unsubtle throat cough and Draco stepped forward with a glare at each of them, softening only marginally to give Hermione a look that said something along the lines of I'll be right here.

She doubted he could be much help either way. The wall sealed back into solid form the moment he'd disappeared through it, Remus trailing at his heels with a last fleeting 'this is very irritating, you know, and I'm quite frankly not thrilled' glance at his ostensible employer.

The moment they were gone, Tom turned to Hermione with a curious glance, more thoughtfully scrutinizing than threatening. Still, it was enough to send a discomfiting shiver up her spine.

"I know the stone you're looking for," Tom said simply. "It's not for sale."

She arched a brow. "You sent them away just to tell me I can't have it?"

"I said it's not for sale," Tom clarified. "However, I'm willing to trade." He leaned back in the chair, drawing a hand thoughtfully to his mouth. "How badly do you want it?"

She grimaced. "How much are you wanting to trade?"

For a moment, he stared at her; she felt a tap-tap-tapping in her brain and blinked once, twice, and glared.

"If you have things you want to know, just ask," she said impatiently, wishing now she'd thought to make Harry teach her occlumency. He wouldn't have managed it himself, of course, but still, she hardly required much help to learn. "I thought you had a thing for trust."

Tom shrugged. "Very well. How well do you know the layout of Hogwarts?"

She blinked, startled, then hesitated. "I, um—"

"I won't ask you how you know what you know," he assured her, waving a hand. "I hardly care how anyone comes by their information. I'm an ends-justify-the-means type," he clarified, smiling grimly. "My concern is outcomes, not methods."

Fine. "Then I know the castle very well."

"Very well?" he echoed doubtfully, passing a hand over his chin. "How well do you know the seventh floor?"

She suffered a jolt of recognition. "You're talking about the Room of Requirement?"

"I'm not talking about anything," he reminded her. "I'm merely asking questions."

"What is it you want, exactly?" she said, shifting in her seat. "Why does it matter how well I know Hogwarts?"

Tom opened his mouth, considering his options, then closed it.

"I need something there," he eventually said, "but it's very difficult to get into the castle. Remus certainly isn't allowed," he remarked with a laugh, gesturing to where the werewolf had been, "and more importantly, I need someone who knows the layout well enough to follow instructions. It's a tricky place. There are obstacles there someone unfamiliar with the castle's oddities wouldn't be able to navigate."

Like ghosts and trick stairwells, Hermione thought, and in the same moment, Tom smiled. She realized with a lurch that they had both gone to the same school; had probably both loved it, in some similar but vastly different way, and both felt attached to the castle and everything inside it. It was enough to give her a squirming sense of displeasure, even as she felt oddly soothed by the prospect of going back. At least it would be something familiar.

"Why doesn't Remus know the layout?" Hermione asked.

It may have been a slip. Tom's brow creased slightly.

"Remus did not attend Hogwarts," he said, and she realized the error had been in not already guessing as much. "Creatures are not permitted magical educations. I found him, wandering by himself, when he was a boy. Trained him."

"The runes on his fingers," Hermione registered slowly. "Yours?"

"Ancient runes, hardly my invention. But my design, yes," Tom confirmed. "They're to ease the pain when he turns. And to control his impulses between full moons."

It was difficult to not be a little impressed, and a little infuriated. If only the Tom Riddle in her universe had put his ingenuity to use for something other than genocide.

"You talk about Remus like he's your pet," she noted with displeasure, and Tom smiled thinly.

"Better to have a pet than to be one," he said, letting his attention flick to where Draco had been.

I'm not a pet, she wanted to argue, but doubted anything she said would help the situation. Instead she sat a little straighter, channeling a bit of Draco's absurdly-present certainty to fix Tom with the firmest glare she could muster.

"So what are you offering?" she asked.

"You can have the stone you're looking for," he said, "if you retrieve something for me first."

"How do I know you actually have the stone?" she said; a challenge.

In answer, he drew a hand up to his chin; dragged his right pinky with painfully marked deliberation across his mouth, permitting his smile to broaden. Even in the dimness of the room, the signet ring flashed from the light of the fire beside him, and it was impossible to mistake the motion for anything less than wholly purposeful.

Of course, all he actually said was, "I suppose you'll just have to trust me," while looking blissfully amused.

Clearly there was no out-guiling him. She opted not to bother trying. "What do I have to get?"

At that, Tom Riddle shifted forward, reaching into his pocket. He conjured a narrow slip of nothing, withdrawing it from his jacket, and transfigured a voluminous quill from thin air before twisting his fingers, alighting the implement in the air between them. The quill scribbled something unintelligible, golden shapes mixing and rearranging to create something thoroughly illegible from her vantage point, and then condensed, melting slightly and smoothing over into a flatter, oval shape.

The words, whatever they had been, gradually transformed themselves into a faceless pendant, a chain sprouting free like a pair of dragonfly wings before dropping suddenly to land (much to Hermione's dismay) in her hastily-outstretched palm.

She looked down at the pendant, breathless and confused. It was stunningly impressive magic, both too-real and thoroughly impossible; thin and delicate, like some sort of fairy-gold. She looked over it, contemplating the retrieval of its contents, when she realized that although there was a small hinge, the pendant lacked a crevice by which to pry it open.

"Get into the castle," Tom explained, watching her attention linger curiously over the edge of it. "Once you're inside, it will open, and you'll receive the rest of my instructions."

Her hand tightened around the pendant. "And what am I supposed to do if I get caught?"

"That's not my problem," he told her smoothly, pairing apathy with an evasive shrug. "If you want the stone, I'll need the payment in question delivered to me. I will accept no other price, so my advice would be to simply—" He waved a hand, half-smiling. "Not make mistakes."

An immensely helpful response.

"Well, if you're willing to part with the stone," Hermione postured carefully, the pendant still gleaming in her palm, "I doubt it's worth all this effort."

"It may have little value to me," Tom said, sounding as if he disapproved of her conclusion, "but it obviously holds great value to you. I recognize treasure when I see it."

To that, she fought a shiver.

"Fine," she said eventually, conceding to tuck the pendant away. "I'll get you what you want, then, even if it does seem like a hugely unequal trade."

"Well, there's also the value of a secret," Tom reminded her. "In addition to the stone, I will helpfully keep it to myself that a witch who shouldn't be a witch came into my shop with the Malfoy heir," he mused, delivering her to yet another grimace, "which is certainly valuable enough for me to set any price I wish."

"Do you know who I am?" she asked, caught somewhere between curiosity and dread.

"No," Tom said, "but I do know when a thing does not belong."

She opened her mouth, about to ask more questions, when there was a loud slam against the wall. Tom sighed, rolling his eyes, and waved a hand, pulling back the gossamer curtain again as Draco stumbled into the room, nearly falling onto his hands and knees from where he'd been leaning against the wall.

"Ten minutes," he said in explanation, his grey gaze immediately surveying Hermione for signs of damage as he straightened.

"Ah," said Tom. "Well, a deal is a deal."

"It certainly is," Draco said gruffly, dusting himself off.

Remus, meanwhile, sauntered in behind Draco, pausing just after the wall had resumed its existence as a wall.

"Well?" was Remus' impatient opening as Draco strode to Hermione's side, briefly taking hold of the tips of her fingers. She permitted his touch, nodding to him, even as the pendant in her pocket seemed to burn a hole through her robes. I'm fine, she thought, but also, something terrible has happened, and I haven't the slightest idea what it is.

"Miss Clearwater and I came to an agreement," Tom informed Remus, rising to his feet. "I expect we'll both be satisfied, assuming all expectations are met."

"Oh," Remus said, looking disappointed again. "So you don't need me for anything?"

"Actually, I'm sure you can be of some use, Remus," Tom assured him. "I expect our friends Sir Anonymous and Lady Lies will need something of an escort to Hogwarts. Don't you think?"

"Hogwarts?" Draco echoed, turning abruptly to glance at Hermione. "What?"

She shook her head. Not now, she warned, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he ultimately nodded slowly, turning back to Tom.

"Fine. But I hardly think we need some sort of grouchy werewolf escort," Draco informed him. "Whatever it is you need from us, I'm sure we can manage on our own."

"Grouchy, really?" Tom echoed, arching a brow at Remus. "And here I specifically asked for the height of cordiality when dealing with clients."

"I tried," Remus drawled, and Hermione took hold of Draco's arm, pulling him to his feet.

"We'll be back with… the item," she said to Tom, and then frowned, suddenly registering an entirely new sense of unease. "It is an item, isn't it?"

He gave something of an airy shrug in answer.

"Fine," Hermione growled, fingers tightening again around the locket. "Come on," she said to Draco, pulling him towards the door, but just before she reached the knob, Tom paused her with the subtle sound of a low, almost indiscernible cough.

"For next time," he suggested as she stopped, fingers rigid on the door handle. "If you'd like to continue the use of an alias. Might I suggest Lily?"

Both Hermione and Draco froze, turning slowly to look at him.

"I like the name," Tom said, shrugging, as Remus made a face, apparently uninterested in his employer's requests.

"Right," Hermione said, with a slow, cautious nod.

Then she took Draco's arm and dragged him to the door, not stopping until it had closed firmly behind them.

"We have to go to Hogwarts," she said the moment they were outside, leading him well away from the snake-and-skull door knocker. "That ring he's got on? It has the resurrection stone in it. I'm sure of it."

Draco balked. "What? But what does that have to do with Hogwarts?"

"It's tit-for-tat, Draco," she told him, and he grimaced. "There's something he wants. I don't know what it is," she admitted, "but he definitely knows what the stone is, and probably what it does. I assume he simply has no use for it, seeing as I doubt he has any interest in speaking to the dead, and I suppose he must not know it's one of the Hallows—"

"Or," Draco postured slowly, "maybe he simply thinks he can get it back when we've brought him whatever it is he wants."

Hermione remembered, then, just who she was dealing with. This was a version of Draco Malfoy who knew what it was to consider the possibility of double-crossing. This was a Draco Malfoy who had killed a man before, and was certainly ready and willing to kill at least one other.

She shivered.

"Maybe," was all she could manage.

He tilted her chin up; sparing her something of a reassuring glance, or something which aimed to be. "I won't let him, of course," he told her. "We won't."

She let her gaze cut to the floor. "It doesn't matter. If you want it—"

"Me?" he echoed, catching the avoidance in her tone. "Are you no longer willing to be part of this?"

"I—" She didn't, of course. She never had. But on the other hand, if the stone existed—which Dumbledore surely thought it had—then maybe the Hallows were real, and if they were… that was quite another consideration. "I don't know."

He seemed to find this unsatisfying, letting out a small sigh and pulling her closer.

"Tell me," he murmured to her, lips brushing briefly over the bone of her cheek, "since you know him so well—what could he have asked you to find that's so precious to him?"

"I don't know," she replied, and she didn't. "The only thing he cares about aside from immortality is Hogwarts, really; it's why he—"

She broke off, running through the familiar stories from Harry and recounting the details of the memories he'd seen in her head. Slytherin's locket. Hufflepuff's cup. There's something there, she thought. There was something at Hogwarts, and if Tom Riddle wanted it, then anyone who wanted Tom Riddle dead would likely want it, too.

"We have to go to Hogwarts," she determined after a moment, looking up at him. "Hogwarts to get the Hallows, and then Grindelwald. That's the deal. If you want my help," she exhaled in clarification, "then that's the deal."

Draco hummed thoughtfully. "Well, Harry won't like it."

At that, Hermione pulled away, irritated. "Look, if you want to get the stone, then—"

"Harry won't like it," he amended, pulling her back into his arms and holding her against his chest, "but I don't give a damn." He lifted her chin again, meeting her eye. "You say Hogwarts, Hermione Granger," he murmured, "and I say 'when'?"

She swallowed.

The sooner she could be away from him, the better. Being in his arms seemed to do fuzzy, inhospitable things to her brain.

"Tomorrow," Hermione said decisively.

Draco's lips curled into a shallow arch of temptation; ripe with promise, syrupy-slow.

"Yes, dear," he murmured, bending his head down to hers.

Potterverse

By the time they reached Hogsmeade, it was fairly clear Hermione did not care for brooms. Some things, it seemed, carried through all universes, and Ron was extremely sympathetic, checking in regularly in a way that suggested he'd known as much already. For a moment, Draco thought about the Hermione Granger he had known—and whom Ron had clearly had something with—and felt a pang of guilt, wondering what she was doing in some universe parallel to his.

Not that he had much time to worry about it.

"There's a caterwauling charm," Theo was calling to Harry from where they'd paused in the clouds, and Draco suffered a momentary wave of nausea worse than Hermione's, having nearly forgotten about the extra protections in Hogsmeade. "Sets off an alarm when people are in the street after curfew."

"Hardly curfew, isn't it?" Harry said, shielding his eyes from the sun overhead.

Theo shrugged. "I don't know exactly how it works. I just know there's some sort of surveillance."

"Is it only against apparation?" Ron asked apprehensively. "Or brooms, too?"

"Again," Theo said impatiently, "I don't know how it works, having not been the person to personally enchant it—"

"Well, we can't get directly to the castle," Harry cut in. "The wards prevent anyone from flying in."

"How far do those wards extend?" Ron asked.

"Pretty far," Draco supplied, knowing that much for certain. His father had been a school governor, after all; Draco had seen more maps of the enchantments than he cared to list, and had listened to Lucius drone on about the politics involved in changing them at constant intervals throughout his schooling. "Not a lot of vacancies in them, either."

"Does the map show them?" Ron asked, which seemed an idiotic question to Draco, but Harry shook his head.

"I doubt the Marauders thought to consider protective enchantments," he replied.

Hermione, who was still woozily floating beside Draco, nudged him. "What's that?" she asked at a murmur, pointing, and Draco turned.

"The lake," he said under his breath.

She arched a brow.

Abruptly, his stomach sank. "No."

She arched both brows.

"No," he growled, decisively.

"Okay, but," she began, as Harry turned around, watching them argue in mutters, "what about yes?"

"There's creatures," Draco hissed through his teeth. "Things that live in the lake."

"And?" was her inane response.

"What've you got, Hermione?" Harry asked her loudly.

"Nothing," Draco insisted, but it was too late. Hermione kicked herself forward, sidling unsteadily beside Harry.

"We could land in the lake," she suggested, pointing. "I mean sure, creatures and whatever, but nobody would know we were there, right? I mean, after all," she added, turning over her shoulder to offer Draco a horrifyingly taunting smirk, "who would be mad enough to fly directly into a giant lake?"

"I don't know about that idea," Ron said, looking squirmily pale.

"Oh, I hate it," Theo replied. "But, that being said, it could technically work."

"It wouldn't set off any charms?" Harry asked, glancing between Theo and Draco.

"Well—" Draco hesitated. He'd never heard of anyone trying to get into Hogwarts via the lake, that much was true. It was cold, firstly, and rarely anyone ventured into it to begin with. If someone were to try to swim to the castle, they could very well get pneumonia and die before they ever arrived.

He withered internally. Was that sort of death better or worse than one by Death Eater?

"The Hogsmeade caterwauling charm wouldn't apply," Theo inserted in Draco's pause, and Draco shook his head in agreement. "There might be wards, but I don't think they extend that far."

"They don't," Draco confirmed. "They cover the physical castle and all of the entrances. But that does mean we'd still have to get inside," he reminded them brusquely, "which we won't be able to do from the lake—"

"Or," Harry interrupted, "could we?"

Draco waited for him to make sense.

And waited.

And waited.

"Potter, you monstrous fucking buffoon," Theo growled eventually, "what the fuck does that mean?"

"The Slytherin dorms are below the lake," Harry said. "Aren't they?"

Draco shook his head, groaning. "You're not supposed to know that."

"And yet, here we are," Harry replied drily. "It's just glass, isn't it? Below the lake?"

"Wait a minute," Ron cut in, frowning as he registered Harry's intent. "Are you suggesting—"

"Jesus fuck," Theo said. "Jesus H. Salazar Fuck."

"Well, we already blew up a train station," was Harry's abominable reply, and to everyone's immense alarm, Hermione giggled, and then laughed, and before long both she and Harry were positively silly with peals of madness, the remaining three exchanging worried glances in advance of their inevitable deaths.

"Now you want to blow up the Slytherin common room?" Draco asked them, disbelieving. "But—but what if there's—"

"Students? There aren't," Harry reminded him, as Hermione nodded, still swiping at streaming tears from their joint venture into hysteria. "The castle's basically empty except for staff, and we'll be able to see if there's anyone inside—"

"But still," Theo barked. "You can't just explode the base of a castle! Do you not understand how architecture works?"

Harry gave a shrug that seemed to say we'll figure it out when we get there, which was wholly unacceptable in Draco's view. "Castle's designed to survive, isn't it? Seems like we should be able to sort it out," he said, and Theo frowned in thought. "Besides, what other option is there?"

"Potter, what sort of hellscape do you think this is?" Draco demanded. "What is this, intellectual anarchy? A free-flowing nightmare descent into every bad idea that pops into your insipid little brain? You can let some of them go, you know—"

"Well, but hold on," Theo said, abruptly startling Draco. It seemed he, quite unhelpfully, had been successfully swayed by little more than a scar-headed lunatic's baseless confidence. "I mean, granted, this isn't exactly the dystopia I signed up for—"

"Good to know," muttered Ron.

"—but obviously it hasn't been doing us any good to let things like rules of physics and/or magic get in the way, so why not simply let chaos reign?" Theo shrugged. "At the very least, nobody will see it coming."

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," Hermione contributed, ducking her head with a cheeky grin as Draco glared at her. "Our chief weapon is surprise," she added innocently, "and ruthless efficiency. Also, I want to get off this broom."

"Ron?" Harry asked him, as Ron blinked vacuously in response, startled by being addressed. "I mean, Hermione's in," Harry pointed out, which was, yet again, a truly meritless claim, and Draco waited (perhaps too optimistically) for Ron to disagree.

Unfortunately, that wasn't to be. "I—" Ron said, and faltered. He was clearly unaccustomed to being the voice of reason, being ostensibly uninformed about useful phrases like 'no' or 'don't be stupid' or 'it could get us killed,' or perhaps simply lacked proficiency with any conceivable words. "Well, um. I mean—"

"Nobody has any better ideas," Theo pointed out again, as Draco realized with a clang of alarm he was now the only person taking a defensive stance in the war on insanity.

"SURELY someone has a better idea," Draco said desperately. "Anyone?"

They stared blankly at him.

"Jesus H. Salazar Fuck," he registered glumly, as Harry grinned, turning his broom towards the lake and beckoning the others after him.

"We'll need to use a bubble-head charm, or else transfiguration," Harry was saying, consulting Hermione on the matter as they shot out towards the water. "Right? I mean, who knows how long it's going to take to actually swim up under the castle—"

"Bubble-head charm," Theo supplied quickly, pulling up on Harry's left. "Ebublio, right?" he added loudly for Hermione's benefit. "Incantation's easy enough," he mused, mimicking the shape of a bubble in front of his face. "Lower risk than Weasley mucking up transfiguration, eh?"

Draco exhaled, grateful now he'd chosen to tell Theo the truth despite Ron's obvious distaste for the comment.

"There's still going to be swimming involved, Nott," Ron muttered to him. "Sure you can manage it with those scrawny limbs?"

"Scrawny? Weasley, I'm aerodynamic," Theo replied, as Hermione slowed, pausing beside Draco.

"Can you swim?" she asked him quietly.

"Of course I can," he scoffed, and for some terrible reason, she softened.

"It's not hard," she assured him. "The breathing is the hardest part, really, and that's covered by this bubble spell, isn't it?"

"I said I can," Draco snapped, bristling, and she shook her head.

"I don't see the point in lying," she pointed out, as he conceded with a disgruntled groan.

"I can," he said again, "I just—I don't like to. I don't have much practice." He stiffened. "Open water is invasive. And usually filthy."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, if you're going to be such a snot about it—"

"I just—" He grimaced. "In my defense, a death-defying crash into a creature-infested lake is extremely not a situation I hoped to find myself in, aquatic affinities or not—"

She reached out, brushing his hand with hers.

"It'll be okay," she assured him quietly, which was both an outrageous thing to say and a relatively tender one, given that she was the one so far out of her element. "I'll be right here," she said soothingly, "I promise, so just—"

But Draco caught the motion of Ron turning over his shoulder and snatched his hand back, giving her a warning glare.

"I'm fine," he said pointedly, and Ron frowned, obviously suspicious, but turned back to follow Harry, who was beginning a broad sweep across the lake. Draco glanced again at Hermione, who gave him a brief roll of her eyes. "What? You know we can't—"

"Just don't drown, Draco Malfoy," she suggested, half-smiling, and then sped up, catching up to Harry as he picked a spot to hover above the lake.

"Okay, so we jump," Harry said, "swim to the Slytherin common room, which is—" He shielded his eyes, pointing. "There? Approximately?"

"What exactly were you doing in our common room?" Theo drawled. "Is Gryffindor really that subpar?"

For a moment, Harry said nothing, merely shrugging and conjuring the bubble-head charm around his mouth. "Certainly no competition when we're done," he said, the sound muffled by the charm, and then, without warning, he rolled sideways from his broom, diving without hesitation into the water below.

"What a theatrical idiot," Theo said, securing his own charm before grunting his disapproval and diving in after Harry. Beside him, Ron heaved a great sigh, conjuring his own charm and flinging one leg over the broom. He collected his limbs into something of a loose cannonball and then dropped into the water below.

Hermione frowned, aiming her wand at her face. "Ebublio," she said, and jumped slightly as the charm fit itself to her mouth. "Oh, look," she warbled excitedly, gesturing to it, and as Draco forced a nod in approval, she prepared to jump, shifting on the broom just as the others began to break through the surface one by one.

"Wait—" Draco said, one hand desperately shooting out, and she paused, turning to look at him. He swallowed hard, staring down at the water below. "I don't—I'm not sure I can—"

She turned towards him, stroking her thumb across his cheek, and aimed her wand at his face. "Ebublio," she said again, a veritable expert by her second try. As the charm settled over his mouth, Draco inhaled deeply, exhaling with a shaky lack of certainty he rather wished nobody would have been able to witness; especially not her.

Still, he was grateful when she offered him her hand. "Come on," she said, and despite the humiliation, despite the fear and the surely disgusting crash that awaited them below, he put his hand in hers, letting the other loosen gradually from the broom.

She smiled, and gave his arm a tug—

And then he was falling, the air in his lungs rising up to catch in his throat and expelling from his teeth in something of a muffled scream, legs kicking out underneath him. One arm flailed mid-air as the other clung steadily to Hermione's hand, and they hit the water (the face of which had luckily been disrupted by Harry, Theo, and Ron before them) with a crash only to be parted by the impact, her hand slipping from his and leaving him to glance around with dismay, submerged well beneath the surface.

For a moment (a few moments), he was caught up in panic. The lake water was murky and difficult to see through, and even with the oxygen supplied by the bubble-head charm, Draco was close to hyperventilation, unable to see much in front of him and absolutely certain at any given moment he'd be swallowed up by the giant squid, or get his legs stolen by some sort of crafty mermaid thief. He felt a hand on his shoulder and stifled a scream, but found himself being steadily pulled along by Hermione, who was pointing ahead to where Harry, Ron, and Theo were already swimming towards the castle.

Draco nodded, following her lead with relief, and managed to get himself moving, still glancing apprehensively around the contents of the lake. He couldn't see beneath him; could barely see above him, either, and forced himself to keep his attention on Theo in front of him, who glanced over his shoulder, sparing Draco something of a reassuring nod. Eventually, Draco and Hermione caught up to the others, and after his eyes adjusted to the lack of light beneath the lake, the base of the castle beginning to loom in the distance from where they'd dropped.

It was several minutes of uninterrupted swimming. Every now and then Draco caught glimpses of something, little shadows that darted around like fish or other scale-covered nightmares, but in general it was eerily quiet, all of them falling into the rhythm of blindly forging ahead. Eventually, Draco breathed a sigh of relief as the glass of the Slytherin common room came into view; it flashed with warmth, even underwater, and from where they were, he recognized the familiar flickering of the fireplace, beckoning them forward.

Abruptly, though, Harry came to a halt, shoving a hand out and smacking it into Theo's abdomen as they all reared up in pause, blocked by something.

It was a mermaid, Draco realized, his hand shooting out for Hermione's, who in turn gripped his fingers tightly. He'd never encountered one in person; this one had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. A large spear was gripped tightly in its hands, broken teeth bared warningly as it aimed the edge directly at Harry's chest.

Slowly, more began to emerge; their flashing tails made them effortless swimmers, of course, and before Draco or the others could move, several merfolk had emerged to surround them, all aiming dangerously sharp-tipped spears and daring them to try anything.

"Wait," Theo was appearing to say, as Draco held his breath, inching away from the one on his right as Hermione's iron grip tightened painfully on his fingers, "this is him, this is Harry Potter, the Chosen One—"

The chief mermaid frowned; suspicious, but not disinterested.

"We have to get to the castle. We're trying to kill him," Theo continued, the sound muffled frothily by the motion of the water. "Him. You know, him?" He gestured upwards. "I'm going to guess you lot don't really want him for an overlord, either."

At that, the mermaid glanced at the others, apparently in agreement.

"Let us go," Theo offered, "and we'll kill him for you. For all of us. Pinky promise." He held up a pinky, and Draco sighed internally, shaking his head. "Sound good?"

The mermaid eyed Theo's finger, contemplating it, and then took hold of it, giving it a small shake.

"Close enough," Theo said spiritedly, as the mermaids on either side of them slowly lowered their spears. "So you'll let us pass?"

The mermaid who appeared to be the chief nodded, slowly falling with the motion of the lake. Gradually, the other mermaids permitted themselves to plummet out of sight as well, disappearing into the shadows of the depths.

"Well," Theo said, glancing triumphantly at the others. "Shall we?"

Hermione exhaled, releasing Draco's pained fingers, and urged him forward. He went, obviously, hurrying in her wake; it wasn't as if he needed a reason to hang back, in case the mermaids changed their mind.

Harry was the first to reach the common room's windows. He withdrew his wand from where he'd secured it in what looked like his belt loop, aiming it at the glass. "Confringo," he said.

They waited.

Nothing.

"Expulso," Theo attempted.

Harry and Ron, in a show of obvious habit, turned to Hermione.

"Confringo," she said, clearly hoping it would have the same effect as her efforts on the train.

Nothing.

"Shit," Harry exhaled. "I really thought that would work."

Theo aimed another blasting curse; another.

"The glass must be protected," he said, and Draco sighed, feeling Hermione reach for his hand again.

"It's fine," he said, turning to assure her, and then jumped, startled to find the thing in his hand was not Hermione (was not even not-Hermione), and was, in fact, the careful brush of a very large, very insistent tentacle, which was gradually rising to wrap itself around his calf. "Oh, fuck—"

"Oh, an actual giant squid," Hermione said faintly, as Draco launched into full panic, trying to squirm out of reach as the squid's tentacle slid up to his thigh, giving him a tug down towards it.

"SHIT SHIT SHIT," said Draco, hurrying to aim a stunning spell at the tentacle, but that seemed to do little more than annoy it. Its great eyes, as wide as the windows in the Great Hall, gave him something of a moodily irritated stare, reaching up for him again. "Ah, fuck fuck fuck—"

"Wand," Theo said, as Draco kicked the squid away, wondering what the fuck he was talking about. "WAND, DRACO—"

"I'm obviously using my w-" He froze, registering the pointed look on Theo's face. "Ah, damn."

Theo held up his hands; What choice do we have?

Draco let out a growl, turning to swap his wand for the Elder Wand, and promptly aimed it at the window of the Slytherin common room just as Theo shot another Stupefy at the squid's lurking tentacle.

"Expulso," Draco shouted, bracing himself for nothing (or everything), and with a crash, the glass promptly shattered. The loss of the barrier between lake and castle sucked them in with a vast, unavoidable swallow, landing them with a hard impact against the furniture. Theo and Ron both let out loud swears in opposition, catapulted somewhere near the doused fireplace as Hermione cried out in pain, her back smacking hard into the stiff Victorian sofa.

Immediately, the tentacle began to loom, reaching for them again; unsurprisingly, the room was rapidly filling with water, and Draco struggled to raise his wand arm.

"Reparo," he shouted, and there was the sound of loud, squishing slice; something of a primal shriek, and then, with a tearing sound of suction, the tip of a giant tentacle fell rigid against the floor as the glass repaired itself, becoming solid once more.

Beside Draco, Ron rolled onto his knees, struggling through about two feet of sediment and lake water and waving away his bubble-head charm. "Bloody hell—"

Behind them, Theo was helping Hermione to her feet. "Well, that went well. Whose idea was that again?"

"Let's just get out of here," Hermione muttered, shivering, as she gingerly tested the swelling at her back. "That was terrible—"

"This way," Theo offered, leading them towards the dorms, "assuming you don't already know that from your venture into all-consuming envy for our superior house—"

Ron rolled his eyes, catching up to Hermione. "Oh, shut up, Nott—"

"Wait."

Draco stumbled as Harry's hand closed painfully around his arm, dragging him backwards in the same moment the others disappeared into the boys' dorm. He turned, about to argue that he didn't appreciate being grabbed, thank you, and could Potter please learn to keep his attempts at snatchery to something of a minimum?—when he realized that Harry's eyes were cold and angry, as sharply unrelenting as the bite of his grip had been.

"The wand," Harry said, teeth gritted, and Draco tried to pull from his reach.

"If this is how you say thank you, Potter, I'm sorry to say you're doing it wr-"

"Show me the wand you used to break that glass," Harry countered, "now. Show it to me."

Draco hesitated. "You know, there's such a thing as asking nicel-"

"I've seen it before, Malfoy." At that, Draco froze, and Harry's mouth tightened. "I've seen it, I know what it looks like, and no other wand could have done it, so—"

"So what?" Draco demanded, and Harry's gaze flicked up, ascertaining the others had gone.

"Where the fuck," Harry breathed warningly, "did you get the fucking Elder Wand?"

a/n: Dedicated to Relent1ess! Hope I can keep you entertained as you recover.

10. Clandestine Operations

Chapter 10: Clandestine Operations

Potterverse

Draco, like most aristocrats, primarily used his teeth as instruments of gritting, i.e. for purposes of lying through them. His first instinct upon suspicion of wrongdoing was to forcefully deny, deny, deny.

"What Elder Wand?" he persisted boldly, aiming for bewilderment with a touch of disbelief, and Harry, probably rightfully, punched him swiftly in the face.

"Fuck," Draco swore, stumbling back slightly as Harry released him, shaking out his fist and muttering with disapproval. Draco drew a hand to his mouth, glaring, and in response, Harry gave an outrageous lamenting sigh, as if he had been the one artlessly wronged. "What the honest to god fuck is your problem, Potter?"

"I don't like lies," Harry said stubbornly, "and I don't like liars."

"Well, brutality is hardly the answer," Draco mumbled, wondering if a return throw would be worth the effort. Probably not. He'd likely break his nimble pureblooded fingers on Harry Potter's thick morally-righteous skull.

"Let's skip the part where you say you don't know what I'm talking about, and I tell you I absolutely do," Harry suggested drily, "and just cut to the chase. You have the Elder Wand, which is supposed to be with You Know Who." He paused, grimacing. "Well, more accurately, it's supposed to be with Dumbledore, but—"

"Even if I allegedly had some sort of Elder Wand," Draco cut in brusquely, "what difference would it be to you? It's not like it's," he began, and then faltered, frowning. "The wand isn't what you've been looking for all year, is it?"

"No," Harry said, and Draco, who was equally fluent in snobbish conceit and baldly flagrant lies, permitted a theatrical roll of his eyes. "Fine," Harry muttered. "Tell me how you got the wand and I'll tell you how I know about it."

"No," said Draco.

"Fair," Harry replied, having apparently realized it was a stupid bargain. "I could always ask Hermione," he determined, abruptly changing tactics, and Draco froze. "After all, you had to have taken that wand somehow while we were at Malfoy Manor. I saw him, you know," Harry accused, challenging Draco to question him. "I saw You Know Who figure out where the wand was right before we got taken to your house, and then when I woke up, he was furious. Doesn't take a genius to put it together, Malfoy, and seeing that something happened to get Hermione to trust you—"

"I—" Draco hesitated, not wanting to draw attention to the topic of Hermione. "Maybe it does take a genius, Potter," he sniffed, opting to simply fall back on old habits, "which is why you're still aimlessly flailing around—"

"Fine. I'll go ask her myself," Harry said, turning towards the dorms, and Draco shot a hand out, grabbing his arm. It was only when Harry turned, a half-smile playing across his face, that Draco realized he'd been well and truly played for a fool, caught in yet another of Harry Potter's ill-conceived and stupidly effective gambles. "Ah," Harry noted, grinning widely. "I take it you'd rather tell me how you got the wand than what happened between you and Hermione, then?"

Draco grimaced. "I took it," he said slowly, "because the wand is rightfully mine. I'm the one who disarmed Dumbledore. Therefore the wand answers to me."

"Cool," Harry acknowledged disinterestedly, "and who told you that?"

"I—" Draco faltered. "I figured it out."

"No, you didn't," Harry said, crossly folding his arms over his chest.

"Fine," Draco grumbled, exasperated. "Someone told me. I thought we weren't getting into specifics?" he snapped, and Harry shrugged. "I have the Elder Wand, yes—fine. I took it from the Dark Lord, and that's why I can't go back. That's why I'm dead if he finds me."

"But you aren't," Harry pointed out, "are you? I mean, you have an unbeatable wand."

"I—" Oh. It seemed revelations would never cease. "Well, obviously it's not actually unbeatable," Draco countered gruffly. "Dumbledore's dead, isn't he?"

Harry flinched but persisted, lifting his chin. "Yeah. Wonder how that happened?" he prompted in something of a lashing taunt, and Draco grimaced.

"I obviously can't do anything about that now," he informed Harry, though he wasn't quite able to meet his eye. "And look, I'm just trying to survive, okay? I hardly need to be reminded what I've done. I've gone along with all your harebrained plots, haven't I?"

Harry considered this a moment, fingers drumming against his thigh. "True." He paused, grimacing. "Well, fuck," he exhaled, abruptly dragging his attention to Draco's furrowed glare. "If that's the case, then we're going to have to work together."

"On what?" Draco demanded. "Your suicidal tendencies? Thanks ever so, Potter, but I hereby decline—"

"Look, I've got a plan, but Ron's not going to like it," Harry pressed. "Nobody's going to like it, actually, because it involves a lot of directly disobeying instructions. And possibly death," he added as an apparent afterthought.

"Well, I hate it already," Draco said vehemently, and paused. "What do you mean Weasley's not going to like it?"

Harry opened his mouth, hesitating, and then sighed. "Something's clearly happened to Hermione," he said in a low voice. "Whatever happened, the two of you did something, and…" He broke off again, his fingers now brutally percussive against his thigh. "She is Hermione," he asked slowly, "isn't she?"

Draco silently offered praise to the inequities of semantics.

"Of course she's Granger," he insisted. "Who else would she be?"

"Well, I thought polyjuice at first," Harry said, as Draco's intestines shot up somewhere towards his throat, "but she seems… mostly herself, so then I thought maybe she'd been tampered with, somehow? I thought you might have modified her memory, actually," he admitted, leveling a gaze at Draco. "She trusts you more than she used to. But if she was somehow involved with you getting that wand—"

"She was," Draco said quickly. "She was there, when you were—" He hesitated again. "You were unconscious for quite a few hours. We went through a, um. Something of a traumatic experience together."

That, at least, was true enough. Even if she mostly was the traumatic experience.

"I haven't said anything to Ron," Harry warned, "but I will, and once I do—"

He trailed off, glancing pointedly at Draco. He didn't need to finish the sentence. Draco had seen Ron Weasley's penchant for stubbornness and immovability many times before.

"I have something I need to do," Harry continued after a moment, eyeing his hands with something of a rigid tension once Draco had registered his intent. "Whatever happened between you and Hermione, she's very, very helpful right now. More amenable than she was, and I admit, it's working for me." He glanced sharply at Draco again. "You swear it's her?"

"I swear it's her," Draco said firmly, thankful again for the delicate art of phrasing. "She's Hermione Granger, through and through. I'd swear it on Veritaserum if you want," he offered, "or make me take the Vow, whatever. I swear that's Hermione Granger."

"Huh." Harry glanced down at his hands again, frowning. "Well, whatever happened between you two, you can keep it to yourselves, if—" His gaze flicked up. "If you help me find the rest of the Deathly Hallows."

Well, Jesus H. Salazar Fuck, Draco thought.

"Why?" fell out of his mouth. "Shouldn't you have some horrifying plot to escape death by the skin of your teeth ready to go by now without needing to acquire a veritable bouquet of impossible objects?"

"You'd be surprised just how severely the answer to that question is no," Harry replied, smiling grimly before pressing on, "The thing is, You Know Who can't die. He can't actually be killed, not as he is. But he can be…" He paused, and Draco frowned, sensing trouble. "Temporarily halted."

"What?" Draco demanded.

"Well, he was gone for what, fourteen years?" Harry reminded him, as if Draco could have been anything short of acutely aware. "We could buy ourselves that much time. Maybe less, but even then, I doubt we'd need it. Presumably it wouldn't take too long to find the resurrection stone," he murmured, his damned twitchy fingers moving faster now. "How hard can it be, right?"

"That's assuming it even exists," Draco reminded him, growling in disapproval. "Your life has been too fucking charmed, Potter. People don't just go stumbling on mythical fonts of death-defying magic every damned Tuesday, and furthermore, there are three Hallows—"

"I have one," Harry cut in. "You have one. Simple maths, Malfoy."

"You have o-" Draco sighed heavily. "You fucker. You have the cloak?" It explained everything in a way, of course; Harry fucking Potter and his unending parade of lucky breaks. "Never mind," he grumbled under his breath, "of course you do."

"Right, well, look," Harry continued, ruthlessly unfazed, "once we have the Hallows, then we'll be able to—"

"Hang on," Draco said, appropriately alarmed by the presumptive use of we. "If I'm going to agree to this—this nonsense," he spat in the most derogatory tone he could manage, "then I want to know what the fuck you're talking about. All of it," he warned, when Harry's mouth opened in a way that promised something short of useful information. "You're saying he can't be killed. Why the fuck not?"

Harry started to speak, then broke off with a grimace. "I can't tell you."

"Well, great," Draco ruled, spinning crisply on his heel. "Bye then, I'll just be taking my supremely valuable wand back to the merpeople and the giant squid to see if they're up for a little clandestine plotting—"

"For fuck's sake," Harry said, lunging forward to grab his arm. "It's—look, I haven't told anyone, Malfoy," he hissed, "and this is—it's—"

"What?" Draco prompted, pivoting impatiently. "It's a secret? Well color me shocked. A secret, like stealing an unbeatable wand, or seeking out mastery of death, or having visions nobody else can see? Or no, wait, tell me—Is it dangerous, Potter?" he prompted irritably. "Is it perhaps as dangerous as being chased down by a madman who apparently can't die? Because I don't know about you," he snapped, yanking his arm free, "but I don't particularly feel up for being part of something where I'm not told what I'm actually getting into—especially not when it involves me risking my life."

Draco was babbling, he knew—reducing gradually to a rambling tirade of panic—but whatever he'd managed to say coherently, it clearly hit home. In fact, it seemed to trigger something of a temporary paralysis in Harry, who gaped at him for a moment; several moments. And then—

"You Know Who has horcruxes that keep him from dying," Harry said flatly, and Draco blinked. "Objects, mostly, which hold pieces of his soul. They're taking longer to destroy than I thought they would, though…" He glanced idly over his shoulder, frowning into space. "I wonder if he kept any at Hogwarts—"

"So what are you saying, then?" Draco demanded, dragging him back to the point. "If you kill the Dark Lord, he can come back?"

"Yes," Harry confirmed; without nearly enough chagrin, in Draco's opinion. "Haven't quite gotten around to destroying all the horcruxes yet."

Of course he hadn't. Draco had certainly seen him procrastinate often enough. Who had possibly been stupid enough to put Harry Potter in charge of rescuing the wizarding world? Dumbledore, obviously, who must have been even more incompetent than Draco had suspected.

"What," Draco exhaled furiously, "is your plan, then?"

"Kill him," Harry said with a shrug. "His current form, anyway, since he's almost certainly coming to Hogwarts. We set a bit of a trail for him, didn't we?" he remarked, as Draco realized with a jolt that against all odds, perhaps exploding the Hogwarts Express had not, in fact, been a salient idea. "He's looking for you now, Malfoy. Which you can't exactly get around," he added slyly, "seeing as he has reason to believe you're with me."

Draco curled a fist, beyond irritated. "And?"

"And," Harry continued emphatically, "obviously it's going to take me longer to find the horcruxes than it would for you to use your little unbeatable wand and stop him right here, right now."

"Here?" Draco echoed. "Now?—WAIT," he realized, and half-shrieked it: "ME?!"

Harry shrugged. "Well, You Know Who's probably going to—oh, I don't know. Kill Snape first?" he guessed, tilting his head. "He's a little peeved, as far as I can tell. Not too happy with everything that's going on. Lucky thing about him, actually. He's always got time for a little murder expedition before just getting on with it—"

"This," Draco yelped, "is NOT. HELPING."

"—but then yes, he'll be coming here," Harry concluded, "to us. And since you very much possess a way to be rid of him…"

Someone should really murder Harry Potter, Draco thought firmly. Just to improve the state of the world.

"Look, I'm going to lose the race against the clock, Malfoy," Harry said, looking strangely vulnerable as he confessed it. "I'm not going to find the horcruxes in time; not before he gets here. But if you kill him now, we not only have time to destroy the other horcruxes, but we can find the second Hallow, too. We can have all three Deathly Hallows." At that, his green eyes were stupidly sincere. "We could make ourselves ready to face him, Malfoy. We could be invincible, and end all of this before he even has a chance to come back."

Draco gaped at him. "But—but that's—"

He broke off, and abruptly, he could see why Harry had not pushed the issue of Hermione's change in behavior. There was no way the Hermione Granger currently floating around in a parallel universe would have approved of this particular plan. However, so long as she supported Harry's negligent ideas—and as long as Harry continued to believe Draco's insistence that she was who she claimed to be—then the one currently upstairs with Theo was far more useful.

She was also the one Draco was fairly certain he was going to need if he planned to make it out of this alive. But even if Draco were capable of killing the Dark Lord, how long before Harry sorted out the truth?

And, in a new and frightening addition to his concerns: Just how invincible did Harry Potter ultimately plan to be?

"Don't tell Theo," Draco determined eventually, and Harry made a face. "Not yet."

"What's the deal with you?" Harry demanded. "I thought you were friends."

"I thought you and Weasley were friends," Draco pointed out, and Harry grimaced.

"We are. But things happen," Harry said, not quite looking at him. "Circumstances shift."

"They certainly fucking do," Draco agreed under his breath, which was probably how he'd gotten here to begin with, making an absolutely idiotic deal with a reckless bespectacled maniac. "But still, I—"

"Oi," Theo interrupted, popping his head down from the stairs to the boys' dorm. "Thought I heard shouting. You two killed each other yet or what?"

Irony of ironies, Draco thought grimly.

"Not yet," Harry replied, taking the stairs to the dorms and glancing pointedly over his shoulder at Draco, warning him unnecessarily to silence. "Hermione up here?" he asked Theo.

"Yeah," Theo said, gesturing. "Drying off." His gaze flicked to Draco and then back to Harry. "Draco looks a bit worse for wear," he noted, fixing Harry with a sharply questioning glance. "You hit him?"

"Only a little," Harry said, as Draco rolled his eyes.

"Well, my gratitude for the service to mankind," Theo drawled.

Harry shrugged. "No problem," he said, and continued up the stairs as Theo met Draco's eye, arching a brow.

"What's going on?" Theo asked under his breath, pausing Draco before he passed.

"Nothing," Draco said. "Everything's fine."

Everything was not fine, seeing as the Dark Lord would be arriving in the castle at any given moment, but if Theo had more questions, he didn't press the issue. A habit, Draco assumed, bred into the two of them from birth.

"Well," Theo began, "in that case—"

"DRACO MALFOY," came an eerily incorporeal whisper-shriek that scraped against Draco's inner ears, "WHERE ARE YOU HIDING?"

"Oh, good," Theo said, watching Draco double over in pain and clapping him on the shoulder. "And here I almost suspected you of telling the truth."

Grindelverse

"No," Harry said flatly.

"Oh, I don't know," Theo murmured, pausing behind Harry's chair to rest his chin on Harry's shoulder, brushing his lips with coaxing ease against the side of Harry's neck. "Maybe yes? It's a delicate balance, really, between the getting of the thing we want and the doing of something vaguely despicable to get it. Both equally appealing," he clarified, with a sly grin at Hermione. "Truth be told, there's a certain flair for theatrics involved that I'd really hate to pass up."

"You can't just say no," Draco added to Harry. "You're the one who wants the stone. It's this or nothing."

"Is it?" Harry countered doubtfully. "Because I dislike being made to run someone else's errands to get it. Last I checked you weren't a fan either, Draco, and frankly, I wouldn't rule out the possibility Hermione has her own agenda."

His gaze traveled indiscreetly to hers, and Hermione tightened a fist, irritated.

"Either you trust me or you don't," she said flatly. "If you don't, there's certainly no need for me to risk my life helping you with this."

"There's no need for you to risk your life either way," Harry pointed out. "When you got here, you wanted nothing to do with Tom Riddle. Now you're fine with letting him send you blindly into one of the most well-protected locations in the world?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," Hermione said flatly, and beside her, Draco's gaze cut curiously to hers, something like approval mixing with intrigue and alighting on his brow. "And besides," she countered, "you want the Hallows? This is how you get them."

"Or," Harry said, "we just kill Tom Riddle. Take the ring off his finger." He shrugged. "Easy, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily," Hermione said. "Not if he—"

Not if he has horcruxes, she wanted to say, though that wasn't exactly her problem, was it? If they wanted to kill Tom Riddle and risk being on the receiving end of his wrath later, so be it. She didn't know them. She didn't even know them.

Experimentally, though, she pictured Harry's green eyes looking glassily up at her from the floor and found herself pained in forceful opposition.

"This is easier," she eventually sighed, gritting her teeth and determining she couldn't let him do it. No version of Harry Potter would suffer under her watch, no matter how unsavory his attitude was. "I know the castle. It's not a death trap," she insisted. "For one thing, nobody's looking for me there, so I just need reinforcements. A way in and out."

"So you want us to come?" Theo asked, perking up slightly. "I'm in."

"You're bored," Harry corrected, permitting a sidelong glance at him.

"Yes, and—?" Theo prompted. "You know how irresponsibility compels me. I simply can't be trusted to refuse."

"You need to be managed," Harry sighed.

"Yes, badly," Theo agreed, "which is why you'll have to come along, won't you?"

Harry gave something of a wordless, irritated groan.

"That's the spirit," Theo said cheerfully. "So, how are we getting in?"

"Well," Hermione began, "there's some defensive wards, but—"

"Just who the hell are you?" came a voice outside the door, and Harry leaned forward, frowning. "You can't simply waltz into my house!"

"This isn't a waltz," came a return voice, which was unfortunately very familiar by then. "Shouldn't a little rich boy like you know the difference between what is obviously a saunter and… I don't know. A banal ceremonial meandering?"

"Did you just—"

"What's going on?" another voice said, and Harry rose to his feet with a sigh, beckoning the others behind him as they made their way to the living room of James Potter's manor house. Hermione was displeased (and a little startled) to confirm this universe's Remus Lupin had just entered through the Floo, standing combatively near the fireplace as James glared at him. Sirius, who must have just walked in, looked as though he'd swallowed his entire tongue.

"I," Sirius began, and immediately faltered, staring at Remus. "You—you can't—"

"What he's trying to say," James cut in, flashing Sirius a look of unfiltered irritation, "is that you need to leave."

"Well, shan't," Remus replied, shrugging. "Sorry."

It was immensely strange, Hermione thought again, to see the differences between Remus and Sirius in this universe; not only in comparison the one she'd met them in, but in comparison to each other, as well. The Remus Lupin she'd known had been ragged and lean and tired; this one, not so much. He was clad, as he had been earlier that day, in leather and tattooed runes—almost more similar to the version of Sirius Black that Hermione had known, or at least seen in pictures. By contrast, this Sirius was practically a pureblood dandy.

"Oh, you're here," said Remus, noticing Hermione and Draco as they made their way into the room. "Good. Let's go, then."

"They're not going anywhere," James protested, looking at once paternally concerned and helplessly annoyed. "Certainly not with you."

Remus spared him a wolfish look of interest.

"Going to stop me?" he prompted, doubtfully amused.

"As a matter of fact, yes," James said, reaching for his wand, and Remus curled his sharpened claws up in reply, leading Draco to step forward with a groan.

"James, Remus," Draco said, "Remus, James. Remus is leaving," he added, staring pointedly at Remus, "as he was very much not invited."

"Sorry," Remus said insincerely. "Blame my lack of silver spoon."

"How did you even find us?" Hermione asked, and Remus' gaze, which to that point hadn't dropped from James' expression of fury, fell to hers.

"The pendant Tom gave you," he said, as Hermione's hand fell instinctively to her pocket. "It has tracking properties."

James pivoted in frustration, finding Harry in the room. "What did I tell you ab-"

"Don't look at me," Harry said brusquely, scowling. "For the record, I'm supremely against this."

"I'm just the chaperone," Remus informed James. "Your opposition is noted," he added, lips curling up slightly, "but wholly irrelevant. I'm simply doing my job."

"Just doing your—" James rounded on Harry. "What the fuck have you done?" he demanded.

"Again," Harry insisted, "I've done nothing. I'm a paragon of good behavior."

"Harry," Sirius groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Honestly, Harry, we're not mad, we're just disappointed," said Theo.

"We don't need a chaperone," Draco cut in, glaring at Remus. "Hermione and I are just… taking a trip. Running an errand," he amended, as James and Sirius turned their heads slowly to look at him. "It hardly requires any sort of supplemental thuggery."

Sirius and James exchanged a glance.

"Is it your turn to speak to Lucius," James sighed, "or mine?"

"Either way, I'm certainly not doing it," Sirius replied. "Last time I spoke to Lucius I wanted to gouge out both of my eyes. This time I might actually do it."

"Well, it's not exactly a walk in the park for me either," James protested. "What about my eyes?"

"Better not chance it," Remus advised, as James and Sirius both paused to look at him. "What? I'm not an animal," he said, ironically eyeing his claws as he spoke. "I, like all reasonable men, hate to see a pretty face disturbed."

"I—what?" James asked, bewildered.

"Listen, clearly neither of you is going to speak to my father, and candidly, I support that," Draco ruled, shaking his head. "It's hardly any cause for concern. We're just going to pay a visit to Hogwarts for the afternoon, and then—"

"Oh, no you don't," Sirius snapped. "Hogwarts? Is that some sort of joke? Because—"

"Because it isn't funny," Theo supplied, sniffing disapprovingly. "Now, off to your rooms, the lot of you—"

"NOTT," James bellowed.

"Ah, that's better," Theo said, and shrugged as Hermione spared him a questioning glance. "I hardly know what to do with myself when nobody's admonishing me," he told her, sighing. "Drives me straight into an identity crisis I can neither abide nor afford."

"First of all," Sirius announced, fixing his attention on Remus, "you have to leave. Immediately, if not sooner."

"Can't," Remus said. "Sort of contractually obligated."

"We never signed a contract," Hermione pointed out.

"Offer and acceptance," Remus countered. "Legally speaking, doll, a contract was very clearly made."

"But this would be a new contract," Hermione insisted, as Draco flashed her another one of those glances; somewhere between admiring and… something she wasn't sure she wanted to think about at the moment, at the risk of losing her concentration. "New terms, new offer, new acceptance."

"Ah, so you accept," Remus said, and she grimaced.

"I never said—"

"Secondly," Sirius continued, "no. Just—no," he clarified, waving a hand over everyone who stood in the living room. "Right?" he added, glancing over his shoulder at James, who to Hermione's surprise looked intensely contemplative.

"Actually," James said, and Sirius withered.

"Oh no—"

"If Harry is going to continue insisting on risking his life, so be it," James said, shrugging.

"What?" asked Harry and Sirius in unison.

"If Harry can't be stopped," James repeated, "then Harry's going to have oversight."

"Great," said Remus, cracking his knuckles. "Which one's Harry?"

"I didn't mean you," James said impatiently, glaring at him. "I meant me. I'm coming."

"Oh, fun," Remus said, as Harry's eyes widened.

"You absolutely are not—"

"I'm coming or you're not going," James said. "End of discussion."

"Well, if you're going, I'm going to have to go," Sirius groaned, "which I do not want to do—"

"How did this happen?" Harry demanded. "I wanted none of this!"

"This isn't even my fault," Theo said, aghast. "Honestly, how dare the lot of you—"

"Actually, it's not a bad idea," Draco said, tilting his head. "Couldn't you both conceivably schedule a meeting with the headmaster to—I don't know. Offer funding of some sort?"

"Why?" Sirius demanded. "We went to Durmstrang, not Hogwarts."

"Well, sure, but local philanthropy and all that," Draco suggested. "It's not exactly outside the realm of possibility, is it?"

"That," Hermione realized abruptly, "is an extremely reasonable way in."

Draco's gaze cut to hers again, this time unquestionably amused. "High praise," he murmured under his breath, and for whatever terrible reason, she was forced to clear her throat, sparing a wordless nod in response.

"Done," James said, nodding at Harry. "I'll owl the headmaster now and we'll go in the morning."

"I wish you wouldn't," Harry grumbled.

"Well, then we're on the same page," James said curtly. "You can leave now," he added to Remus, who shrugged.

"See you tomorrow," he said, and James' eyes widened.

"No, wait, hold on a minute—"

But Remus had already disappeared through the Floo.

"Damn," lamented James.

"He called you pretty," Theo pointed out. "I'm not sure what you're so upset about."

"Oddly, I don't consider it a compliment when it comes from people who arrive in my home unannounced," James muttered.

"Look, context is nothing," Theo said. "Frankly, you're all free to tell me I'm pretty anytime."

"Please leave," James said.

"I live here," Theo pointed out.

"Well, fine. Then no Harry," James said.

"What, just because I said you were pretty?" Theo demanded. "James. That's just unreasonable."

"No, because Harry is going home," James said, turning to Sirius. "Isn't he?"

"Harry, we're going home," Sirius announced immediately.

"You know I can apparate, right?" Harry said.

"I keep telling you to stop reminding me," Sirius growled in disapproval, gripping Harry's shoulder and disapparating on the spot.

"Great," James sighed, glancing at Draco and Hermione. "As for you two—"

"Yes, yes, we're going," Draco said, leaning over. She waited for him to take her shoulder—her hand, her arm, her sleeve; anything else but what he did, which was to offer something of an impossibly soft kiss—and in the moment his lips brushed her cheek, he'd disapparated them both back into his house, their feet landing lightly on the carpet of his bedroom.

From the moment they arrived, it was all softness, airiness, warmth; Draco shifted, placing his hands on the slopes of her waist, and then his touch was delicate, idyllic, peaceful. Of everything in the room—everything in the universe, for that matter—he was by far the most familiar, the most welcoming, the closest thing to home, and as he drew her against his chest, she leaned back, closing her eyes, until she suddenly realized what she was doing.

She was permitting herself to get comfortable.

"Why does Theo live with James?" she asked abruptly, easing out of Draco's arms and turning to face him, and he shrugged.

"No parents," he said, leaning towards her. "James said he couldn't allow Theo to live in his house alone."

"That's—" Hermione swallowed, trying to ignore the sudden proximity of his mouth. "That's kind of him."

"Mm." Draco took her left hand in his, easing his thumb over the M carved into her wrist. "I suppose, though I'd rather not talk about James Potter at the moment, if you don't mind."

She swallowed heavily, reacting far more than she wished to as he slid his fingers between hers, lacing them together.

"I, um," she began, as he leaned forward, brushing her lips with his before angling his head down, kissing her neck. "About the, uh. About the Hallows, I was just—"

"We'll have them soon enough," Draco murmured to her, his grip tightening on her hips. "Or do you really want to spend every waking moment thinking about them?"

No. No, she decidedly did not.

Still, was this really the wisest alternative?

"Draco," she attempted, as his fingertips trailed along the side of her thigh, drawing the hem of her skirt up her leg. "If I'm not… if I'm not going to be here for long, then maybe we, um. Maybe we shouldn't—"

She gasped as his fingers shifted course, sliding under the fabric of her knickers.

"Sorry," he said, stroking a slow circle, "you were saying?"

"Maybeweshouldntgetinvolved," she exhaled in a sigh, her eyes closing as he maneuvered her back against the post of his bed. "Maybe," she attempted again, "it would be better if we just—" A swallow as he lowered himself to his knees, brushing his lips against the inside of her knee. "If we just—"

A thin slip of a breath fell from her lips in surprise as he slid her leg over his shoulder, pulling her hips towards him. She felt the heat of his breath against her, languid and measured, and for a moment—for one tiny speck of a moment—she thought she stood a chance; but then, to her heightened dismay and terrible, fervent devastation, his tongue slid out between his lips and—and, and, and—

"Weshouldprobablykeepourdistance," she blurted in a gasp, half-panting, and he glanced up, smiling his terribly persuasive smile.

"Would you like me to stop?" he asked.

His incisors scraped against her thigh and elsewhere in oblivion, she captured a breath between the trappings of her jaw, burying a gasp somewhere near the back of her throat. She bit down on a thousand wiser answers as his smile broadened, blithely carnivorous; both of them reduced to a study in teeth.

"Not really," she whispered.

"Good," he said; in a word, hopelessly convincing.

a/n: Dedicated to amr56, who always provides the most interesting reflections (but no pressure!).

11. Secret Rooms

Chapter 11: Secret Rooms

Grindelverse

"Mr Potter, Mr Black," said a young woman Hermione didn't recognize (Hogwarts was noticeably lacking Hagrid, who had probably actually been expelled in this universe, and Filch, who was a Squib), "the Headmistress will see you now."

It had been easy enough to simply walk into Hogwarts, even with a tenuously behaving werewolf and a handful of school-aged teenagers who probably shouldn't have been freely roaming around. Clearly, extravagant wealth was what Hermione had been missing during her horcrux hunt with Harry and Ron. The promise of money was far more compelling than the fact that they didn't belong, and the extenuating circumstances of their presence was easily overlooked in favor of a hefty donation.

"Headmistress?" Sirius echoed, brightening. "Well, that's progressive of them," he remarked, sparing a salacious adjustment to the buttons of his shirt before rising to his feet.

"Don't," James warned at a murmur, backhanding Sirius briefly in the abdomen as he moved to join him, and Hermione grimaced her agreement. "This is not the time to draw attention to yourself, Sirius. We're just trying to get in, keep her distracted, and get out."

"Oh, relax, Jamesy-boy," Sirius told him airily, letting the female staff member lead them towards the Headmistress' Office gargoyle. "Wasn't the entire purpose of our coming here to keep the mistress of the house occupied whilst the children irresponsibly hunt for treasure?"

"Still," James muttered as they walked, "I somehow doubt Headmistress McGonagall is interested in seeing the inside of your bedchambers—"

"McGonagall?" Hermione echoed, alarmed, just as Remus tapped her pointedly on the shoulder.

"Are you planning on going or not?" he prompted impatiently, tapping his wrist where another man might have worn a watch. He, however, merely tapped the face of what looked to be a tattooed gauntlet, having been something of a paranoid grump all morning when he wasn't audaciously hitting on James. "Is the pendant open?"

The moment James and Sirius disappeared into the office, Hermione dug hastily into her pocket, pulling it out. "No," she realized, frowning, and turned questioningly to Draco, who shrugged.

"Maybe you're supposed to be wearing it," Draco suggested, holding out a hand for it. "Here," he offered, as she let it slide from her palm to his, his waiting fingers curling up to brush against hers as he gave her a furtive smile. "Allow me," he murmured, and reached gently across her shoulders, clasping it around her neck until it settled delicately against her chest.

"There," he determined, brushing his fingers over it. He looked up, grey gaze finding Hermione's as she held her breath, grateful only she (and perhaps Draco) could feel the way her heart was pounding beneath his touch.

Another night together had, as she'd anticipated, done a touch more harm than good in terms of finding her footing in this world. It wasn't as if she hadn't been objectively curious about Draco Malfoy before, but somewhere between his small-minded dismissal of everything she loved and his outrageous showboating for the benefit of his insipid gang of followers, she'd never had much interest in letting her imagination get the better of her. Now, though (with a version of him who looked so intensely at her) it was something of an impossibility to ignore.

"Yes, marvelous, that's all well and good," Theo commented loudly, snorting his disapproval (or more likely, his boredom) as Harry rolled his eyes, "but it still hasn't—"

Abruptly, the pendant cracked, a line sprouting along the mirrored edge and then splitting apart, a flower blooming from a bud to reveal a revolving compass that whirred once, spun the opposite direction, and then jerked to a halt abruptly, pointing somewhere behind them.

"—opened," Theo finished dully, as Harry promptly reached forward, taking hold of the pendant with approximately none of Draco's attentive care.

"That way," Harry pronounced briskly, glancing over his shoulder, "and…" He frowned. "Up? Upstairs, maybe? Where are we now?"

"Third floor," Hermione said, a bit thankful it wasn't suggesting they go down. She'd been more than a little concerned Tom wanted them to somehow procure the basilisk. "Alright, well, while James and Sirius are—"

"Excuse me," came a voice. "Were you the ones wanting a tour?"

Hermione looked up, eyes widening as she registered the familiar voice.

"Ron," she exhaled, and he glanced down at her, frowning.

"Yes?" he asked, looking puzzled. "Do I know you?"

Ron, for the first time that Hermione had ever seen him, looked positively immaculate. No smudge of dirt on his nose, no wrinkled shirt; no dark circles from being up all night discussing whatever he and Harry discussed instead of sleeping a manageable eight hours for maximum achievable mental performance, like she did. This Ron looked clean and forcefully pressed, and although she could still see signs of ill-fitted clothing (and noted immediately the book tucked under his arm was secondhand), she also found her attention drawn to the shiny Head Boy badge pinned to his chest.

"No, sorry," Hermione offered quickly. "I just, um." She bit her lip. "I thought you were someone else."

"One of my brothers, I assume," Ron said with a wry grin, glancing from her to the others as she gave a hesitant nod in confirmation, trying very hard not to stare. "I was told there were a group of prospective donors wanting a tour of the castle," he explained, as behind her, Hermione was sure Draco, Harry, and Theo were exchanging equally doubtful looks of disdain. "I suppose you'll be curious to see what you're investing in?"

"No, thank you," Remus said firmly.

"Oh," Ron said, frowning. "Well, I can't imagine you all just want to sit here, do you?"

"We'll take the tour," Hermione said quickly, rising to her feet. "Just one moment, please—distract him," she whispered, rounding on Harry and Theo as she turned away from a bemused Ron. "You two keep him busy and Draco and I—"

"And me," Remus cut in, arching a brow.

"—fine, you too, whatever—we'll follow the compass," Hermione said, pointedly tucking it under her blouse as Ron peered into their circle, frowning. "Quicker that way. Okay? Just, um. Talk about chess," she suggested, "or quidditch. And whatever you do, do not talk about his brothers, he has five of them and they're all different versions of unbearable—"

Harry flashed a glare at Draco. "You'd better be quick about this."

"Well, I'd say I promise, but I hate to rush a climax," Draco replied smoothly, as Harry made a face.

"Ugh, don't. Come on," he muttered to Theo, who strode forward with Harry in a show of perfectly smug synchronicity, the two of them joining Ron on either side. "So, Ron, was it?"

"Yes, Ron, tell us more about your deficiencies in comparison to your siblings," Theo suggested idly, as Ron blanched, alarmed, and Hermione stifled a groan. "Is your father the root of it all, do you think? Or is this perhaps some kind of delightful Oedipal situation wherein an oracle or your mother is at fault—"

"My relationship with my father is fine," Ron rushed out, glancing apprehensively between them.

"Trust me," Harry said drily, "in my experience, it probably isn't."

Ron hesitated. "Well, he is rather distracted from time to time," he lamented, just as Remus took hold of Hermione's shoulder, dragging her away.

"Come on," Remus growled as Harry and Theo began leading Ron around the corner. "It's not as if we have time to waste—"

"Fine," Hermione sighed impatiently, tearing her gaze from Ron's back to glance down at where the compass was whirring spiritedly, pointing her up the stairs. "I suppose it's that way, then."

Potterverse

"What was that?" Hermione asked, barreling with Harry and Ron down the stairs in time to watch Draco struggle to straighten, a shooting pain dragging from his Mark to something that manifested as a sharp pin-prick in his head.

"He's here," Harry said grimly, which was a statement so obvious Draco half-wanted to stab him for it, or would have, if not for the pain of whatever the Dark Lord had so artfully applied for the benefit of crippling him. If Draco had any misgivings about trying to kill Lord Voldemort before, they were certainly impossible to dismiss now; this was a wizard who could inflict pain from a distance. How close would he have to get to be killed, even with an unbeatable wand, and more importantly, what would happen to Draco before he managed to get there?

"What," Draco seethed in Harry's direction, "is your plan—"

"Well, mostly it begins and ends with facing him," Harry said, as Ron turned to him, questioning.

"Now?" Ron asked, disbelieving. "But we should be trying to get out, Harry!"

"No," Harry said flatly, and had Draco not heard everything Harry intended beforehand, he was fairly certain he would have flashed something identical to Ron's disbelieving glare himself. "We're not running. Not this time. We're not giving him another chance to turn the castle into his own personal prison."

"We'll have to fight him," Hermione agreed, which silenced Ron for a moment, but only temporarily.

"But then how are we going to—"

"There's five of us," Theo pointed out, "but he only really wants two. If we split up Potter and Draco, we give him two separate things to chase, don't we?"

"We could trap him," Hermione realized. "Use one of you as a decoy," she clarified, as Theo nodded his agreement, instantly approving. "But which one of you does he want more?"

"Harry," Ron said instantly, just as Harry said, "Malfoy."

"What?" Ron demanded, rounding on Harry. "But why would he—"

"Malfoy has something You Know Who wants," Harry said simply, as Theo glanced questioningly at Draco, obviously registering less the significance of the Elder Wand and more the indication that Harry had been informed about it. "He wants it more than he wants me, at least for the moment. I'm sure he plans to kill Malfoy first and then come after me."

"Perfect," Theo ruled.

"That can't possibly be the word you meant," Draco seethed, tilting his head with gritted teeth to glare up at Theo, who shrugged.

"Potter's the decoy," Theo determined. "It'll give you a chance to set a trap for him, and then Potter can lead him to wherever you'll be."

"Which is where, exact-" Draco broke off, freezing temporarily. "The room," he realized, and glanced up as Hermione's brow (and Theo's) furrowed with confusion. "The room, on the seventh floor, the one that becomes whatever you want it to be—"

"Yes, that," Harry approved quickly. "The Room of Requirement, perfect, he'll think he's the only one who knows how to work it—"

"But how are you going to get there?" Ron demanded. "You don't actually think you can outrun him long enough to wander in front of it and wish it to appear? He could kill you, Harry, while you stand there waiting—"

"I'll go with you," Theo cut in, turning to Harry, who blinked. "He won't be expecting me. It makes sense."

"You? You're practically suicidal," Ron said.

"So is he," Theo replied without hesitation, exchanging a challenging glance with Harry, and to Draco's dismay, after a moment of pause they'd both permitted twin sets of worrisome smiles to flit across their mouths, leading him to force himself upright.

"You both," Draco growled, "are going to get yourselves killed."

"Then we die like men," Theo replied spiritedly, and withered as Hermione raised a brow. "Or, you know. Women. But either way," he pressed, "it makes more sense for me to go with Potter. He won't be expecting it, and then you three can get to wherever you're going in time to make sure he doesn't get out. Better to lose me than any members of the golden brain trust," he joked, and to that, Draco's pain was no longer localized to his Mark.

"Theo," he said under his breath, "I need you. You already made me promise—"

"Relax, Malfoy, I'm not going anywhere," Theo said, lifting his chin as he straightened, nodding at Harry. "Have to keep this idiot alive, don't I? Just make sure you kill him," he added to Draco, "because contrary to popular belief, I don't actually have any great desire to inflict significant damage to my pretty face."

"Pretty?" Harry echoed, and Theo's gaze slid to his.

"Are you saying I'm not?" he prompted.

"Wouldn't dare," Harry replied, blithely half-smiling, as Draco doubled over with another loud slew of expletives, pain searing through his head. "Alright, alright," Harry offered hastily, "let's go, then—"

"Wait," Hermione said, taking hold of Harry's hand to pause him and then glancing at Theo, eyes wide. "Just—be careful," she said, suddenly throwing her arms around them both, leaving them to look at her (and then each other) with surprise. "Don't you dare get yourselves killed," she threatened tearily, "or I'll murder you both with my bare hands."

"Er, likewise," Harry said fondly, patting her on the back, but it was clear his mind was elsewhere; by then, adrenaline or idiocy had already kicked in. "Alright, you just get to the seventh floor," he said to Ron and Draco, who were (for presumably different reasons) incapable of speaking. "We'll find him and bring him there."

"How?" Ron demanded.

"Probably just whatever combination of luck and cheap shots presents itself," Theo said, heading for the corridor with Harry as Hermione grabbed at Draco's arm, pulling him along.

"Alright, hands in, on three—'Don't die,'" Theo suggested, and Ron groaned. "What, no one? Fine. See you on the other side, then," he said with a wink, following an already half-sprinting Harry.

"I'M COMING FOR YOU, TOM!" Harry bellowed, as Hermione and Ron looked at Draco, both of them vaguely colorless and expectant.

"Now what?" Hermione asked. She still hadn't released him; if Ron noticed, he wasn't saying so, and Draco found he was supremely grateful. He wasn't sure he was capable of motion without her steady hand around his pulse.

"DRACO MALFOY, YOU CAN'T HIDE FOREVER—"

"Now? We run," Draco said, and took off in the opposite direction from Harry and Theo, hurrying for the stairs.

Grindelverse

"You know him," Draco mused in her ear, his voice something like a playful tap on her shoulder as she stared down at the compass, nearly tripping over the stairs in the midst of their highly unwelcome conversation. "Ron. You're involved with him in your universe, aren't you?"

"I'm not," she muttered, nudging Remus as he nearly stepped into her path. "It's this way—"

"Well," Draco continued, "you're not a very good liar, you know. And listen, I'm not upset," he added, which certainly sounded true enough. "I knew perfectly well I stole you," he clarified as she paused, his fingers brushing the small of her back, "I just didn't know to what degree."

She paused to glare at him, and he smiled broadly.

"I know a valuable thing when I see one," he remarked, shrugging.

"Well, as a reminder, silence is golden," Remus cut in, growling his irritation and giving Hermione's shoulder a shove as she sighed, conceding to follow him up the stairs to the seventh floor.

The staircase shifted beneath their feet the moment they stepped onto it. Remus, alarmed, clung to one of the banisters, leaning unsteadily over the edge; Draco, by contrast, let out a weary sigh.

"This is what happens when you let a castle's enchantments do as they wish without discipline," Draco commented, plucking at some invisible lint near his shoulder. "Recalcitrant sentience can be so tiresome."

"You're unbelievable," Hermione told him, shaking her head as she glanced back down, watching the compass change as they moved.

"Mm," said Draco, his laughing gaze cutting to hers, "so you've already implied, if I remember correctly."

"Gross," Remus said, still half-hanging over the banister with something resembling seasickness, and as the arrow on the compass began to steady itself, Hermione realized precisely where they were going.

"Oh no," she exhaled, finding it paralyzingly obvious now as the arrow angled itself towards the blank wall concealing the Room of Requirement. "I should have known, honestly, it's just so obvious, and I never thought—"

She broke off as the compass around her neck began to glow, lifting slightly to hover out in front of her. After a moment, a floating silhouette of something bloomed out from the face of it, taking the shape of a glowing tiara.

No, she thought with an internal sigh, not a tiara.

"A diadem?" Remus asked, stepping gladly onto the landing and then squinting at the charmed image. "Well, he certainly likes pretty things, but I never really saw Tom as the diadem type, personally."

"It's Ravenclaw's diadem," Hermione said, grimacing. "It's supposed to bring wisdom to the wearer—" though that's not why he wants it, she realized with a sinking sensation, as Draco leaned towards her, catching the look of apprehension on her face.

"What's wrong?" he murmured, and she sighed, rubbing her temple.

"Nothing," she said. Nothing except that Tom Riddle almost certainly had horcruxes here, too, and therefore every single one of them was in far more trouble than they realized.

"You're a terrible liar," Draco reminded her, as below them, noise began to erupt from the castle; classes were ending, she knew, and students were about to swarm the corridors.

"Just—come on," she growled impatiently, and pulled him towards the wall. "Stand there," she instructed, beginning to walk in front of the room while concentrating on the diadem floating above the locket. "And be patient," she added to Remus, who had folded his arms over his chest in the very portrait of sullen detest for waiting, lips pursed. "It'll take a minute."

"Fine," Remus said, inspecting his claws. "You can have one minute. But if this wall continues to be a wall—"

Abruptly, a door sprouted into being.

"I said if," Remus conceded, and Hermione rolled her eyes, pulling the door open and yanking them both inside.

"Stop complaining and pay attention, both of you," she warned, glaring at them both before turning around, preparing herself to face the room. "So listen, what we're looking for is a—"

But instead she broke off, stunned.

"Hey," a voice said, "how did you get th-"

He stopped.

She stopped.

"Oh, shit," whispered Draco Malfoy.

Potterverse

For once, the castle seemed to understand Draco's urgency in a way it resolutely had not for the past seven years. The staircases were even helpful for once, leading them directly to the seventh floor, and while Draco was more than a little concerned Peeves the Poltergeist was going to pick a particularly bad time to show up, he was both relieved and a little suspicious when the only disruptions on their way to the room of hidden things were primal shouts from Harry followed by what could only have been yet another set of blasting spells.

"I need the room with all the stuff," Draco muttered, pacing in front of the wall as Hermione watched with confusion, glancing at Ron to confirm that he, at least, seemed to understand what was happening. "I need the room with—with the cabinet, and the—"

Nothing.

He stared at the wall of apathetic stone, disbelieving, as another crash came from somewhere down below, reminding him just how little time he really had.

"I don't… I don't understand what's happening," he said, swallowing hard as he placed a hand against the wall, wanting feverishly to collapse against it. "It—it usually opens, it always did last year—"

Abruptly, Ron let out a small noise of recognition. "Unless someone else is inside it."

"What?" Draco asked, as Ron looked to Hermione for approval, and she gave him a practiced (and utterly meaningless) nod. "Who would be inside it?"

"Did anyone go missing this year?" Ron prompted, nudging Draco aside and beginning his own series of pacing in front of the wall as he glanced up, waiting for Draco to answer. "I know you generally exist with your head up your own arse, Malfoy, but think—"

"Longbottom," Draco said, blinking as he realized. "Finnegan. Some—some first years, I think, I'm not sure—"

"I need to get into the room," Ron said, half to himself and half to the castle itself. "I'm not going to hurt anyone, they'll be safe, but I need to see where Neville is hiding, and Seamus—"

On the third round of pacing, the door appeared.

"Wait here," Ron commanded wildly, shoving a hand through his hair and hurriedly stepping into the room.

The moment he was gone, Hermione finally permitted her confusion to display itself on her face. "What the—"

"The room only appears to people who know exactly what they're looking for," Draco said to her, and gradually exhaled a strangled sigh of relief. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank god for Weasley, I would never have thought about it. I forgot they all used to use this room—"

"They?" Hermione echoed doubtfully.

"They, yes. You. Potter's little posse of ill-fated rebels and chaotic do-gooders," Draco grumbled under his breath, before catching Hermione's arched brow. "Yes, yes, I see the irony—"

"YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER—"

Every few minutes, more of the same, and still he couldn't help but flinch. Hermione caught the motion, stepping forward to catch his fingers in her hand.

"Are you afraid?" she asked him, glancing up to fix him with her too-wide eyes. "You're going to be okay, you know. You have that wand, first of all, and really, he's not so terrifying. He's just a man, isn't he? A bad one. The bad guys always die," she assured him, tightening her grip on his fingers as he winced. "They always lose, Draco, I promise—"

"You don't understand," he cut in, swallowing as he dragged a hand to the pain behind his temple. "I'm a bad guy. I've done terrible things, and who's to say," he began, and faltered, suddenly both pained and miserable. "If that's true," he attempted again, "then who's to say I won't be the one to lose? Or that I even deserve to win? If I can't do this, if I can't—" A ragged breath. "Then you, you should at least—you and Potter and Weasley, and Theo, too, you should all just—"

He fidgeted beneath her touch and she placed another hand delicately atop his, not quite looking at him.

"You have me, you know," she said, and then let her gaze flutter upwards, finding his. "I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't think you were capable. Or deserving."

"You don't actually know me," he reminded her warily, and she shook her head.

"I don't know your history," she corrected him, "but I know you. I know you," she said again, pressing her hand to his chest this time, "and you can do this, Draco. I promise, I'll be here. I'll be right here."

It was comforting, he thought. Too comforting, to the point of being tempting, because she couldn't stay, could she? It couldn't last—but the last time he was told to kill a man, he'd been alone. He'd cried to a ghost, for fuck's sake, and now, for whatever reason, there was someone standing beside him, holding him, promising him he was worthy, and there was something—something aching in him, something clumsily taking flight, and maybe it wasn't bravery, but maybe it was… maybe it was something just enough. Just enough to make him step forward, to take her in his arms, to promise her with the pressure of his touch he would stand firm in a way he hadn't before. That he would stand for her, for him, for them, and he wouldn't flinch; he pulled her close to him and swore on a breath that no, he hadn't been good enough until that moment, but with each passing pulse he would be, he would be, he would be—

"He wants you dead," Draco realized hoarsely, "and everyone like you."

She reached out; brushed her fingertips across his lips. "And what do you say to that, Draco Malfoy?" she whispered, as he gathered the tiny reserves of his strength from her touch.

"I say he'll have to go through me," he said, and she smiled beatifically, and she rose up on her toes and he slid his arms around her ribs, euphoric and brave, brave, brave and god, wasn't she flawless, wasn't she the only fucking valor in his veins, and wasn't she every motherfucking good thing he'd ever held between his two worthless hands, and—

"Done," Ron declared, re-emerging from the door as Draco and Hermione jumped apart. "Try again," he suggested to Draco, eyes bright with triumph as he rushed into the corridor. "Just got them all safely into Hogsmeade. The room is empty now."

"Oh, Ron, well done," Hermione said breathlessly, cheeks still flushed, and Ron preened a little at her praise as Draco forced himself to focus, reminding himself Harry and Theo would be headed their way any moment.

"The room with the cabinet," he said under his breath, "the room with the vanishing cabinet, with all the hidden things—"

The door appeared, and with relief, Draco flung it open, pulling Ron and Hermione inside after him. "Okay, you two hide somewhere," he told them, pointing arbitrarily as they glanced around, taking in the landscape of the room's mountainous piles of shitty treasures. "Go, uh… I don't know. You go that way," he told Ron, pointing left, "and Granger, you go right."

She nodded, giving his arm a brief, firm squeeze before following his instructions, and he spun, peering through the room; trying to see it as a battlefield rather than the hoarder's death trap it probably was. "We just have to be concealed from the door," he said, "but then after that, I assume it'll be an unrepentant mess, so—"

He turned back to face Hermione, who for whatever reason was back where she'd been, only now staring at him with surprise. "Hey," he said, frowning. "How did you get th-"

He broke off, realizing.

"Oh, shit," he said, his entire mental fortitude crashing to a halt.

"That sounds about right," remarked Hermione Granger—only not at all the one he'd been expecting to find.

Grindelverse

"What are you doing here?" they asked in unison, and then glanced over their respective shoulders.

"I came in here with… with you," the Draco from her universe said with confusion, "and with Weasley—"

"I'm here with you," Hermione said, "and—well," she amended, grimacing at the thought of explaining Remus. "It's kind of a long story."

"I don't see anyone else," Draco said tentatively, and she shook her head.

"Neither do I," she admitted, taking a cautious step forward. "Can we—is this like a mirror?" she asked, reaching a hand out, "or are you really—are we actually—"

His fingers twitched at his side, hesitant, and then he reached out, matching her motions.

They both let out reflexive exhalations of recognition mixed with tenuous dismay as their fingers touched some invisible plane of glass; the air warped between them to prove they were not, in fact, in the same room, even if perhaps they were.

"What are you doing in this room?" Hermione asked, just as he said, "Are you okay?"

She grimaced. "I'm fine. I'm—" She hesitated. "Well, I'm mostly fine."

"I didn't know it wasn't you, Granger, and I'm so sorry," he told her hastily, immediately confirming her suspicions about what had transpired upon his return. "The portkey… it's gone, or I would have come back for you. But I'm trying to get you home," he offered, and she stifled a little groan of skepticism. He really wasn't as good at lying as the Draco she was here with, though she wasn't sure that was necessarily a bad thing.

"It's not like it's all that possible," she assured him. It was what she'd expected, after all, even if she wasn't excessively thrilled about it. The small, optimistic piece of her which had hoped there was still a way back was finally silenced, even if the logical parts of her brain had already ruled it out. "And you have bigger problems, I assume."

"Oh, I've got problems," Draco confirmed grimly. "We're baiting the Dark Lord right now. Leading him into the trap to, uh. To stop him."

His gaze cut away sheepishly and Hermione frowned.

"But you can't," she said bluntly. "I can't tell you why, but Harry would know. Wait, Harry," she realized, panicking, but Draco cut her off with a quick shake of his head.

"The horcruxes, right, I know," Draco said. "Potter told me. He, um—" He hesitated. "He has a different plan in mind."

"What?" Hermione asked, bewildered. "But—but Dumbledore said—"

Harry wouldn't really have defied Dumbledore's instructions. Would he?

"We're just trying to survive," Draco told her, and then frowned. "But you. Why are you here? I thought the other me went to Durmstrang."

"He does," Hermione assured him. "But we're trying to find something."

She was battling with whether to trust him. Harry had, though, hadn't he? There was no way Draco could have known about the horcruxes otherwise. And there were things Harry needed to know about, too; if Draco was the only one she could speak to from this universe, then—

"The ring," she said. "Tell Harry it has the stone. And tell him the diadem is here. Here," she said emphatically, waving a hand to reference the room they were standing in. "It's in this room somewhere—"

"The resurrection stone?" Draco asked, blinking, and then frowned. "Wait. What ring? Diadem?"

"Ravenclaw's diadem. And as for the ring, Harry will know," she assured him. "Just tell him what I said."

"But what about you?" Draco asked her, stepping forward before being blocked again by whatever multiverse rules kept them separate. "Do you have any idea what to do to come back? Should I—should I try to find a way through this room," he offered helplessly, "or, um—is there someone you want me to tell, or—"

"I—" She hesitated. Harry was about to fight Voldemort, that was obvious. She hated not being by his side while he was risking his life yet again. Still, she'd just discovered something here, hadn't she? What if the Harry and Draco of this universe defeated Grindelwald only to pave the way for Tom Riddle to take over as Voldemort somewhere else? Could she really permit the diadem being brought to him now, knowing what she knew? And if she didn't know how to break through the barrier between the universes—and if Draco didn't know, either—then what good did it really do either of them knowing they could still communicate?

It was only a clue, she thought, deflating slightly, but nothing more than that. A clue to finding her way home once she'd taken care of Tom Riddle.

"You're sure they're okay?" Hermione asked him. "Harry and Ron. They're okay?"

"As okay as I am," Draco grumbled. "I do have the Elder Wand."

"That's true," Hermione registered, and exhaled. "Hey, you don't think—"

She paused. She'd been about to suggest he try to break down the barrier between them with the wand, only the moment it had occurred to her, she found herself faltering. She couldn't leave yet, could she? Not while Tom Riddle's horcruxes spanned more universes than one. Could she really in good conscience leave another world to suffer the destruction she'd witnessed in her own?

Not yet.

Not yet.

But soon.

Somehow.

"Nevermind," she said hurriedly, swallowing hard. "Just—just get back to Harry. Keep him safe, okay? And Ron," she added, as Draco nodded solemnly. "Keep them safe, Malfoy. Don't do anything stupid. Or dangerous."

"I'm really not the one you have to worry about in that particular arena," he said unhappily, "but you have my word, Granger. I'm on their side."

She nodded, throat suddenly tight with dismay. The first time she'd wound up in this universe, she'd been taken; the second time, she'd been tricked; this time, for a variety of reasons she wasn't sure she could enumerate, she was choosing not to go.

Though, maybe it wasn't quite so simple. She was really choosing between the possibility of driving herself mad trying to get back to where she'd been and opting to stay and fight until she finished what she came for, wasn't she? Just until she had her own version of the Elder Wand, and she could very well do what she wished without either Draco Malfoys' help. But still—what did it mean, exactly, that something was compelling her to stay?

She tried not to think about that. Or about where she'd spent the late hours of last night, or with whom.

"I have to go," Hermione said neutrally, and Draco blinked.

Then he was gone, and just as suddenly, the Draco standing beside her glanced down, frowning.

"Lost you for a minute there," he noted, brow furrowed with concern. "Did you… see something? Did something happen?"

Her heart was pounding. Elsewhere, though, Remus arose from a pile of rubbish with the diadem held aloft, leaping down lightly to pad towards them with a sly, toothy grin.

"Shall we?" he prompted, gesturing to the door, and Hermione stared at the diadem in his hands, wondering if he had any idea what it contained.

"Yes," she exhaled, letting her eyes fall shut and wondering if this universe had driven her mad, or if she'd always secretly been halfway to insanity. "Yeah. Let's go."

Potterverse

For a second, Draco thought she was going to ask him to use the Elder Wand. He'd been certain of it. He'd seen the look in her eyes; caught the signs of recognition dawning. It could break through Hogwarts' wards, so why not through some barrier between transferable universes? He'd been certain she would say it, and for a moment, his stomach had contorted with dread.

Because if Hermione Granger came back, everything was going straight to hell (more to hell, which was a surprising thing to still be able to quantify). Forget Harry and Ron; that alliance would be out the window the moment they knew what he'd done. And what would happen to the version of Hermione who existed here? It was, needless to say, a highly inconvenient time for any sort of Hermione Granger revival, but there was no refusing if she asked, so his fingers had tightened around the Elder Wand, waiting.

She didn't ask. Was it possible it never occurred to her?

No, he thought, impossible. He'd seen the look on her face; knew how to read her at least that well.

Was it possible she didn't want to come back?

I have to go, she said.

Where exactly was she going?

Why the fuck did they need a diadem?

What ring?

"What are you doing?" Draco heard, and blinked, Harry's face suddenly swimming into being directly in front of his. "I said to set a trap, Malfoy," Harry panted, "not be a sitting duck—"

He was on a broomstick, Draco realized. He must have conjured one at some point. That was one way to lure someone, he supposed, though he wondered where he'd gotten it. Summoning charm? Most likely.

Wait.

Had time continued passing while he'd been somewhere… between universes?

"For fuck's sake," Harry growled, and yanked Draco by the collar of his shirt. "Now's a pretty inconvenient time to go catatonic, Malfoy," Harry remarked, dragging Draco backwards so the heels of his shoes scraped against the floor, the rest of him nearly bobbing in the air. "Nott's going to show up any second, and when he does—"

"INCOMING," Theo shouted, ducking his head to pass through the open doorway as the walls behind him were hit with what must have been a blasting charm; possibly more than one. Draco blinked once, twice, dragging himself to some wretched form of cognition, and then—

"DRACO MALFOY, HOW LONG DO YOU PLAN TO HIDE FROM ME?"

Draco raised the wand blindly, blinking through disintegrating ash and rubble; the structure of the castle behind Theo's racing form reducing to shards as he passed. Almost immediately, Draco could feel the proximity of the Dark Lord getting closer, the pain in his head searing down to the ache of his Mark as Lord Voldemort levitated himself into the room, a gruesome smile alighting on his inhuman face.

"Ah, so you do have it, then," the Dark Lord said with a mirthless laugh, and behind him, Draco was certain more were approaching. He could see the flutter of black cloaks, silver masks; as if there was any point to hiding now. As if he wouldn't know precisely who counted among them. "Well, easy enough—"

He lifted a hand—a finger, holy hell, dispatching Draco was going to be like swatting a fly, how did Harry Potter keep surviving this?—and the ground beneath Draco's feet sparked and exploded, clawing up towards him as he launched himself unsteadily onto a table, leaping from one elevated surface to another as each spot he'd been went up in a burst of flame. He turned over his shoulder, aiming something—at least one blasting charm seemed to have landed, as he caught the sound of a yelp being abruptly muffled by an impact the wand had intended on Draco's behalf—and struggling to get higher, to reach higher ground, to turn and face the Dark Lord as he stumbled, sprinted, scrambled from one place to another—somewhere between have to get out alive and holy fuck if I die like this, if I die with a spell lodged in my back, it will be because I spent my whole life running—until finally he had launched himself as high as he could get, one foot lodged in the splintered glass of an old grandfather clock.

Harry aimed a curse at Lord Voldemort from somewhere out of sight and the Dark Lord dissipated it with ease, looking impatient.

"I'll deal with you, Harry Potter, when I have what's mine," he said, and turned his slitted red eyes to Draco. "When I dispatch you, Draco Malfoy—as I should have done the first time you failed me."

Draco lifted his wand, fighting the pain and the bleariness in his eyes, and tried to conjure the words that had caught hopelessly in his throat the last time he'd been in this position.

Avada Kedavra, he thought firmly. Just say it.

Avada Kedavra. Do it to survive.

Avada Kedavra. Do it to save everyone in this room.

Avada Kedavra. Do it for her.

He opened his mouth; started to speak, and the moment he did, his vision caught on something; something swimming through the air.

He thought it was a hallucination, a glimmer from a dream, before he realized what it was.

The glinting edge of a silver knife.

a/n: For orangepine, who can follow my wild train of thought through all the universes.

12. Narrow Escapes

Chapter 12: Narrow Escapes

Potterverse

Draco had seen death before. He had seen it in a variety of ways, in fact. Certainly more ways than he'd ever wished to. Not once had he thought to himself I'd like to see what it looks like when a man bleeds out and yet, for so many months, that very thing had been as uncommon as Sunday breakfast. Draco had seen death by killing curse. Death by snake. Death by torture. Death by strangulation at least once or twice. They all looked slightly different, the deaths, but were ultimately the same in terms of symptoms. There was something of a dullness at the eyes, and it was a wonder he had never thought to consider even Lord Voldemort could make death look so frighteningly mundane.

The moment Hermione's knife had struck the Dark Lord square in the chest, he had staggered and dropped, and for whatever reason, Draco's brain thought it an apt time to flood him with recollections of Lucius, and specifically the way he had looked while recounting Lord Voldemort's resurrection. Lucius had been colorless and wide-eyed at the time, relaying the story to Draco in something like haunted wonder; the recounting of a gruesome, aberrant fairytale Draco couldn't stop listening to and Lucius couldn't stop telling. It had been a cemetery, Lucius had said, and the body seemed to have changed completely even as they stood there, watching the Dark Lord speak with precisely the same voice; the same terrifying presence none of them had forgotten. 'The body,' Lucius had repeated in an awestruck whisper; not his body, but the body, as if it were separate somehow from the man himself.

Perhaps that was why Lord Voldemort looked like a corpse even before he fell.

Draco leapt down from his makeshift crow's nest, stumbling forward to where the Dark Lord had fallen. He was breathing still, weakly, and Draco, half in a daze, reached forward and gripped the handle of the knife. Hogwarts hadn't covered anatomy all that thoroughly, but still, it was clear the edge of it had been buried in a lung; the Dark Lord was struggling to breathe, gurgling with a revolting, half-drowning sound as his arm reached out, struggling for his wand.

Draco wrenched the knife out of his chest, watching Lord Voldemort's eyes widen with a gasp, and then he slammed it back down, straight into the sternum. The Dark Lord reached up, his clawed hands aiming now for Draco's face, and in a panic, Draco tore the knife free and slammed it down again, panting now as the hand he'd pressed to the Dark Lord's chest began to saturate itself in mortality. Blood was never poetic in death, Draco knew. It was never red, never crimson, never scarlet. When death was waiting on the other side, it was in rivulets dark as mud, caked in Draco's nailbeds and masking the color of his skin.

"The carotid," he heard in his ear. "Would be quicker. Easier. If you want it to stop."

He struggled to glance up behind him, finding Hermione's hand on his shoulder, and she tilted the line of her neck with an appropriately grave solemnity, revealing the spot on her throat where he'd pressed his lips so reverently before.

"Here," she said, flicking a nail across it, and he glanced down, watching the Dark Lord choke on malfunctioning breaths. Somewhere above him, Draco catalogued hazily that Harry and Theo had come to a stop; in front of him, Death Eaters were raging, aiming curses; other faculty had joined in—perhaps even people who had not been there to start—but all he could hear was Hermione's voice, and the tiny motion of her finger against her neck.

He placed her knife against Lord Voldemort's throat; closed his eyes.

"Do it," came a voice above him, and Draco looked up, catching Harry's hardened glare. It was a callousness not directed at him, Draco knew, but at the man who was dying beneath him. Who would die, clearly—who could not possibly survive three stab wounds to the chest—but who wasn't gone yet. Who wasn't quite gone.

Draco jerked the knife, sliced it, and threw it down with a clatter, not wanting to watch. Immediately, he stumbled backwards into Hermione, her hand pressing firmly between the blades of his shoulders.

"Thank you," slipped from his tongue, tumbling headlong between his lips, because could he have done it, honestly? Could he have finished what she started, had she not begun it on his behalf? "Thank you, Hermione—"

"You wizards," she murmured in his ear, "are always forgetting there are so many other ways to bring a man to his knees."

Draco's stomach turned, lurched; his blood ran cold, then stilled. Numbness washed over him and in the same motion, Harry landed beside him, footsteps quaking and ricocheting through the unsteady matter of Draco's rigid mind.

"Snape's dead," Harry said, and nudged him. "Wand up," he advised, and then hesitated, cutting his gaze to Hermione before fixing back on Draco. "Not that wand," he amended, and hurriedly reached around, grabbing Draco's wand from where he'd shoved it into his back pocket. "This one," Harry said, slapping it firmly in Draco's palm. "Don't let anyone else see the other one."

"The Dark Lord killed Snape?" Draco mumbled, muscle wading thickly through the motions of swapping wands. Harry was right to hide the Elder Wand, obviously, but Draco wasn't quite in the position to see things clearly. His Mark still tingled; he doubted the Dark Lord had any continuing control over his pain sensors, but still, there was no looking at his own left hand.

"No," Theo supplied, landing on his other side. "McGonagall did. Said something about him fucking up her school and just nailed him."

"Good for her," Draco said, swaying slightly, and as Harry prodded him upright, Ron finally joined them, looking aghast.

"What are we going to do about this?" he asked.

"Give him to the merpeople," Theo suggested, kicking at Lord Voldemort's unmoving foot. "Toss him in the lake?"

"Not him," Ron said urgently, pointing upwards. "Them."

In the midst of his relatively unplanned murder, Draco had failed to notice the swarms of Death Eaters had been met by a guerilla task force of Order members and older students—Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnegan, and a number of disappeared seventh years included. He realized with a sickening lurch that Bellatrix was falling limply through the air, the target of a spell coming from somewhere near the ground; beside him, Hermione went rigid at the sight of her, about to step forward until Harry reached around, grabbing her wrist and dragging her back.

"We should go," he said, to her and to the others. "They'll be fine without us now, and we should leave."

"Why?" Ron asked, his gaze snagging overhead on what was probably one of his brothers (Draco caught a glimmer of red hair and made a probably-accurate presumption), but Harry's jaw was gnashed together, his gaze flicking down to where Lord Voldemort's body lay still on the ground.

They were going to call Harry a hero. Draco understood implicitly that was precisely what Harry was trying to avoid, his hands curling and uncurling apprehensively at his side. They were going to say they were heroes, when Draco and Harry—and a Hermione who wasn't here, but whom Draco still felt unwilling to disappoint—knew the truth: that the job wasn't finished. Not yet. The job was only half-done. Only one of countless versions had been put to rest, his head lolling lifelike on the floor, while more of him remained.

In the same moment he realized it, a flash of silver caught Draco's hazy glance.

"Diadem," Draco said, recalling suddenly the message Hermione had told him to relay. "Is that—" He grabbed Harry, forcefully turning him. "Is this a diadem?"

"It's—" Harry blinked, reaching for it, and snatched his hand back, frowning. "Fuck, of course. Who has a diadem?" he asked, squinting at it. "Not Hufflepuff or Slytherin. Ravenclaw?"

"Yes," Draco said, hazily recalling his assigned reading from Hogwarts, A History and hoping the other two wouldn't notice that Hermione, who practically regarded the book as a religious text, hadn't been the first to say so. Luckily, Ron was too busy staring up at the ceiling, searching for a glimpse of someone familiar, and Harry was distracted by something else, his brow furrowed as he took the diadem in both hands.

"Come on," Harry said, turning to Hermione. "We have to go, we have to leave—"

"Harry, are you serious?" Ron demanded, launching himself in Harry's path. "Bloody hell, mate, this isn't over! They're still fighting—"

"I know that," Harry spat, looking torn, even to Draco. "I know, but we can do more elsewhere. We can get to the Chamber," he suggested wildly. "Basilisk venom. We can do that now—"

"Let's go, then," Theo said instantly, falling in step with Harry. "How do we get there?"

"It's—second floor, we have to get downstairs—"

Ron gritted his teeth, not budging from where he stood. "But Harry—"

"Stay if you want to stay," Harry told him flatly. "It wouldn't be the first time, would it?"

Even Draco could see that was a shot Ron hadn't been expecting.

"You can't keep holding that against me," Ron insisted, mouth tightening as above them, spells mixed with broken slabs of stone, and rubble continued to fall. "You can't hold it against me, Harry, that I was worried about my family, that I had doubts—"

"Do you have doubts?" Harry posed brusquely to Theo. "Or you?" he asked, rounding on Hermione. "Do you want to follow me—to trust me," he said, finally fixing a glance at Draco, "or do you want to stay behind?"

"HARRY!" came a voice across the room, and just as abruptly, Harry's entire posture went rigid with obvious recognition.

At the entrance to the room, more of the students who'd disappeared from school were scrambling in from elsewhere in the castle. From afar, Draco could see the shout had come from Ginny Weasley, her gaze falling magnetically on Harry from where she stood, a mix of adoration and relief on her face.

"Harry," she called again, taking a step towards him, and Harry took a hasty step back, glancing at Ron again.

"We have to go," Harry said hoarsely. "We have things we still need to do, Ron. We have unfinished business."

Theo, Draco knew, wasn't in a position to know what he was talking about, and yet his hand fell staunchly on Harry's shoulder.

"If you want to go, then fucking go," Theo growled, throwing up an Arresto Momentum to slow the falling bits of ceiling. "But either we go or we fight. This little pep talk between the two of you is going to have to end," he advised, challenging Ron with a look, "and soon."

"We're going," Harry said firmly. "We can do more good destroying horcruxes than we can here. Only we can really end him. Are you coming or not?" he asked Ron, who glanced at Ginny. She had clearly caught the signs of Harry's impending departure and paused, frozen, evidence of dismay obvious even from across the room as her lips paused around the shape of Harry's name.

"I'm not done," Harry told Ron again, tearing his gaze away from her. "I can't go back. I'm not finished."

Theo and Hermione stood on either side of him. Of the four of them, two had chosen a side, standing firm on one side of Harry's invisibly-drawn line. Draco glanced down, eyeing the blood pooling on the floor, and took a carefully measured step towards Harry, leaving Ron to stand alone and stock-still, hands spread helplessly at his side.

"If you want to stay, stay," Harry told Ron, voice hard. "Protect them. I'm not alone. I'll be fine."

Come on, Draco thought. If you take a step back, it's over—

"I found you before," Ron said, swallowing decisively. "I can do it again."

At that, Harry turned without a word, spinning in place and walking away. Theo, the most loyal person Draco had ever known, gave Ron a rigid stare, and Hermione only faltered for a moment before following.

"Hermione," Ron called after her, pained. "You understand, don't you?"

She shook her head, wordless, and gave Draco a nudge before turning after Harry.

"I—" Draco started to say, and then grimaced. "Sorry," he finished with a final glance at Ron, not entirely certain what he was apologizing for, and then he turned to follow Harry, Hermione, and Theo, suddenly acutely conscious of the wreckage they had left behind.

Grindelverse

Only one thing was obvious to Hermione, which was extremely disappointing. Usually a number of things were obvious to her (considering she was highly logical and therefore able to discard extraneous detail that clouded other people's concentrations) but in this instance, she was only able to think about the diadem tucked into Remus' pocket; worse, she could draw only one conclusion. She could not, under any circumstances, permit the diadem to be transported back to Tom Riddle—particularly if it was what she thought it was.

Could Remus have any idea? It seemed unlikely. He hadn't expressed anything in particular after having procured it, though the satisfaction of having completed an errand seemed to leave him in slightly higher spirits. He stepped onto the staircase without any particular look of illness this time, and as he seemed more than willing to take the lead, Hermione leaned over to speak to Draco, keeping her voice low.

"Where did things change in this universe?" she whispered to Draco, who frowned with confusion. "I mean what exactly was the linchpin change from my universe to yours? I know you know what it is," she added warningly, and his mouth twitched with amusement. "You know everything else, don't you? There's no possible way you didn't try to figure it out."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence," he said, sparing her a vaguely smug look of satisfaction, "and yes, I do know. It's the duel," he supplied. "Between Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. In my universe, Grindelwald won and Dumbledore was killed. In yours…"

He trailed off, making a vague gesture to her universe's particular breed of devastation.

"What year was that?" Hermione asked, frowning. "1945?"

Draco nodded curtly.

"So Tom Riddle was…" She quickly sorted through what Harry had told her of his life. "He was in his seventh year at Hogwarts when Dumbledore was killed. That's after he learned how to make a—" She hesitated, dropping her voice even lower and tugging him closer. "Do you know what a horcrux is?"

"Yes," Draco said. "Of course."

She blinked, startled. "What?"

"It's part of standard Durmstrang curriculum. I think we covered them in, I don't know. Third year?" he mused, brow furrowed. "Third or fourth year of Mortal Arts, I would say."

"You mean 'defense against' them?" she asked optimistically, and he turned his head to give her another of his terrible laughing glances.

"Sure," he said, as the staircase finally delivered them back to the third floor. "Something wrong?" he prompted.

In response, Hermione gestured vaguely to where Remus was sauntering ahead of them.

"Ah," said Draco, making a face as he made the connection. "So that thing's a horcrux? Well, that's stupid."

"What?" she hissed. "That's hardly a reasonable response, is it?"

"Well, part of the benefit to learning about the dark arts is learning the pitfalls of using them," he remarked, which struck Hermione as surprisingly salient commentary. "Horcruxes cost far more than they provide. It's a grueling, perverse bit of magic to make one, and the so-called 'immortality' you gain after making one is hardly the same as living."

It was an excellent point, considering what she'd seen of Voldemort; he didn't look human anymore, and how long had that been the case? If anything, the stage he'd lived in between 'death' and resurrection had seemed particularly bad, too. What if nobody had ever brought him back? Would he have existed as less than a ghost forever?

Hermione shivered at the prospect. That would be no life at all.

"Only a sadist would make a horcrux," Draco said darkly, echoing her thoughts, "and only a psychopath would want to use it."

"Well, welcome to my universe's Tom Riddle in a nutshell," she murmured as Remus turned over his shoulder, eyeing them with something between contempt and suspicion.

"What are you two conspiring about?" he demanded.

"If I want to speak privately to Hermione, that's really none of your concern," Draco replied coolly, pointedly reaching out to tuck an errant curl behind Hermione's ear. He let the backs of his fingers linger against her cheek, his thumb brushing just below the shape of her mouth, and though she knew it was an excellent cover for what they had been discussing, she fought a shiver anyway, pulling delicately out of his reach just as Harry and Theo turned the corner with Ron.

"—and it's like, okay, so I'm Head Boy," Ron was saying, "but so was Percy, right? And so was Bill, so it's nothing new—"

"You know what you should do," Theo suggested gravely. "You should kill someone. That would set you apart."

"He's joking," Harry assured Ron, not even batting an eye. "Ignore him."

"No, actually, I'm serious," Theo corrected, which seemed to be a surprise to both parties. "Don't just kill anyone, though, I mean. Be selective, at least. For example, have you ever tried to kill—oh, I don't know. Some sort of militaristic dictator?" he mused aloud, as Ron's face paled.

"Are you," Ron began, and stammered to a halt. "Are you talking about an assassination?"

"Oh no," Draco exhaled under his breath, shaking his head as Theo grinned broadly.

"Of course not," Theo said. "That's crazy."

"You just winked," Ron noted slowly, "so I'm genuinely not sure what's happening."

"Did I?" Theo prompted.

"It would set you apart from the rest of your family," Harry noted, his tone artfully uninterested. "Then again, so would a great number of things. You could simply color your hair, for example, if that sounds easier."

"I don't understand," Ron said slowly. "Are you—are you two trying to kill Grindelw-"

"—yes, thank you so much," James was saying, striding out from the Headmistress' office. "I very much look forward to parting with such a totally undesirable percentage of my family fortune," he muttered through gritted teeth, flashing a glare at Harry before raising his voice again, "so thank you so much for the opportunity!"

"And may I say, you look delightful, considering," Sirius said, stepping jauntily out after him. "What are you, thirty? Thirty-five?"

The door slammed in his face.

"I think she liked me," Sirius ruled smugly, smoothing down his robes before turning to the others. "Well, shall we, children? You're not one of ours," he noted, frowning slightly at a still-bemused Ron. "Are you? I don't know anymore. I can't keep track."

"Me? No," Ron said hastily. "I'm just—I was just leaving—"

"Well, owl us if you change your mind," Theo said, eyeing his fingernails. "Or if you get bored and want to experiment sexually."

"That he's joking about," Harry told Ron firmly, flashing Theo a silencing look of warning.

"I'm easing the tension," Theo assured him. "Though you have to admit, that's just another thing on the list, isn't it?"

"I have to go," Ron said, awkwardly hurrying away as Draco gleefully waved after him, cutting a doubtful glance of disapproval at Hermione as he went.

"Oh, just drop it," she whispered to him. "I told you, he and I aren't a thing."

"Mm, well, I'm not afraid to work a little harder, you know," he murmured back. "If you still have doubts?"

His gaze swept pointedly over her before refocusing beneath a suggestively arched brow.

"Stop," she managed to exhale, swallowing, and Remus cleared his throat.

"Well, I have what I needed, and while it's been a delight to get to know all of you horrible people," he said, "I now very much wish to leave. So, if that's all—"

"Wait," Hermione blurted unexpectedly, hand shooting out as she launched herself between Remus and the exit. "You—you can't leave yet. He can't leave," she said emphatically, whirling around to face Draco while frantically trying to pantomime the diadem. "Right? Because, um…"

Recognition (thankfully) registered, and Draco straightened. "You can't leave, Remus, because James told me he wanted to get a drink before we left. Didn't you?" he asked James, who looked consummately horrified.

"I did?" James asked weakly, motioning for Draco to immediately desist. "Because I really feel that I did not."

"Come to think of it, I heard you say that, too," Harry remarked, leaning against Theo's shoulder with a look of rebellious smuggery. "I think he likes you," Harry added to Remus, who turned to James with a prompting glance.

"Well," James began, and withered. "I mean, I suppose I could have one drink, if everyone else wants to join—"

"So, let me get this straight," Remus noted doubtfully to James. "You want me to get a drink with you, your platonic life partner, and all of these teenagers—none of which are technically yours."

"Ah," James said, exchanging a glance with Sirius. "Well—"

"I'm coming," Sirius said with a hint of challenge, "and I'm apparently responsible for all of these children, so yes. Correct."

"We can go to the Three Broomsticks," Hermione suggested, as Theo nodded along, obviously sensing mischief afoot and immediately leaping to further its progression. "It's just, um—just this way, in Hogsmeade—"

She tugged Draco along after her, beckoning for Harry and Theo to catch up as behind her, James made noncommittal noises that were met equally with low drawls from Remus and indignant huffs from Sirius.

"We have to get the thing from Remus," she whispered to Harry, who had materialized firmly on her right the moment he suspected a brewing plot. "It's a horcrux. I think."

"Stupid," Harry said, glancing across Hermione to Draco, who haughtily nodded his agreement. "But yeah, sure, okay. Why, again?"

"Because," Hermione sighed with exasperation, "do you really want to have a Lord Voldemort to deal with after you've gotten rid of Grindelwald?"

"How do you know Tom Riddle would do the same thing?" Harry asked her. "He's gotten older here. Maybe he, I don't know. Fucking learned something." As he said it, he grimaced, and held up a hand even before Theo opened his mouth. "No, you're right. Nevermind."

"How do you want to get it, then?" Theo asked Hermione, neutrally traipsing beside Harry down the main stairs to the front double-doors. "Brute strength isn't really my department, but I'm always up for trying something new and inadvisable."

"I—" Hermione began, and paused. "Just out of curiosity, what would brute strength look like?"

"Headlock," Theo said, ticking it off on his finger, "followed by, I don't know. Left hook. That's a thing, isn't it?"

"The man's a fucking werewolf," Harry reminded him.

"Right, so, I'll keep an eye on his teeth," Theo said with a shrug, as Hermione sighed, beckoning them through the creaking doors and onto the path to Hogsmeade.

"Let's rule that out," Hermione suggested. "Anyone else?"

"I nominate James for a seduce and destroy mission," Harry said instantly.

"Rejected," Draco told him from Hermione's left, "on the basis of he won't."

"So I happen to be glorying in my father's discomfort," Harry replied with a mocking drawl, moodily dropping his voice as he spoke. "Is that a crime?"

"It's not great," Theo said grimly, "and that's coming from me."

"Actually, I'm surprised Remus seems interested in James at all," Hermione remarked, glancing over her shoulder to see the three men following at varying degrees of willingness behind them. "I mean, I never knew for sure, but in my universe I always thought he was sort of in love with—"

She broke off, hesitating, as Harry, Theo, and Draco all turned expectantly towards her.

She gestured wordlessly over her shoulder, and their eyes widened.

"No," Draco exhaled. "Sirius? Really?"

"But Sirius is so…" Theo cocked his head, frowning. "Invested in tits, I always thought."

"You know, speaking of—well, not tits," Hermione amended quickly, as Draco stifled a laugh. "I've been meaning to ask—who's your mother supposed to be?" Hermione asked Harry, and he paused, considering it.

"He told me she died," he said simply. "I didn't ask too many questions, actually. Dad does have a lot of women around from time to time," he mused, tilting his head in thought, "but it never bothered me because James was always there. I've always had—"

"Two parents," Theo cut in quietly, and for once, Harry looked something close to sheepish.

"Sorry," Harry said, his hand slipping down to brush the tips of his fingers against Theo's.

"Don't say sorry to me. Be sorry you tried to throw James to the literal wolves," Theo advised drily, lifting his chin. "But none of this helps, does it? Unless Sirius is the one you want to charm the pants off Remus—"

"I told you, it was just a guess," Hermione reminded them hurriedly. "Nobody is charming the pants off anyone. The point is," she continued, leading them to the entrance to the Three Broomsticks, "we just need to make sure Remus doesn't take that diadem back to Tom, so we can't let him leave until—"

"Holy fucking shit," came a voice behind her, and she turned, startled, to find James Potter with his jaw halfway to the ground, staring at something inside the tavern. "Is that—am I—is anyone else seeing this, or—?"

"I'm seeing it, mate," Sirius whispered hoarsely.

Hermione spun, bewildered, to find that a pretty woman with a long red plait tossed over one shoulder was shuffling between tables, pausing to wipe sweat from her brow before her gaze snagged on where they stood in the doorway.

"Just a sec-" she began, and then her eyes widened, "-ond. James?" she choked out, dismayed, and James stepped forward, nudging Hermione aside to step closer, as if that might have helped him to be sure.

"Lily?" James asked her, his entire body rigid, and beside Hermione, Harry blinked, his brow furrowing with disbelief as Theo's hand clapped instantly on his shoulder.

"Fuck," said Lily Evans.

Then she turned and sprinted out the back.

a/n: For beviant, who is always the Most Enthusiastic. Meet back here Monday? Also, some things: new WIP (The Commoner's Guide to Bedding a Royal) just posted chapter 2, new one-shot coming this weekend in Amortentia, and exclusively on AO3, Aurora's birthday gift of five stories for a surprise fandom will also begin posting Monday.

13. Joint Revelations

Chapter 13: Joint Revelations

Potterverse

"What happened here?" Hermione whispered to Draco, shivering a little as they made their way through the caved-in passage which supposedly led to the Chamber of Secrets. The space, which must have at one point been a tunnel, was partially collapsed, and where the ceiling hadn't lowered to the ground, the ground had risen like sharpened teeth up towards the ceiling. Harry had explained this, sort of, in something of a mumbled tone of nonsense, but neither Draco nor Theo had any interest in asking further questions after hearing the name 'Gilderoy Lockhart' while Hermione continued her diligent charade at already knowing the answer.

"Also," Hermione continued, "why did Harry know how to get into it from inside the girl's bathroom? That seems—" she broke off, swallowing. "Oh. I probably found it somehow, didn't I?"

Draco wished he could have given her an answer, but seeing as he couldn't, he simply shook his head, reminding her to silence as they followed behind Harry and Theo. The tunnel (and its preceding mountain of rubble, which each of them at one point or another had to crawl through) gradually gave way in a serpentine manner to a supremely foul and dimly lit chamber. The entirety of the room ('room' being a poor choice of words; 'apocalyptic realm of disaster' probably better) followed a linear design, flanked by pillars that led to a nightmarishly large statue of Salazar Slytherin Draco felt certain would haunt his dreams for eternity.

"Well," Theo said, shuddering. "Cozy."

"Over here," Harry muttered, more to himself than to any of them. "The, uh—"

Hermione let out a loud squeak as she noticed what Harry was pointing to, launching herself closer to Draco as they collectively spotted the now exceedingly unmissable corpse of the basilisk, one of its fangs laying out on the sodden cement floor. Harry crouched down, reaching for it, but before he took hold of it, he paused for a moment, his head dropping slightly to fix on the diadem he held in his hands. For a moment, Harry simply stared at it (or at nothing; difficult to tell) and behind him the others exchanged a hesitant glance, uncertain.

After a moment of shared bewilderment (and some silent motions about who should do what), Theo gingerly bent down beside Harry. "So," Theo said, gesturing to the snake. "This is why Slytherin didn't win the House Cup second year like we should have, then?"

Harry nodded numbly.

"Well, good to know it wasn't exclusively because Granger gets her fucking hand in the air first every time," Theo remarked, and Hermione opened her mouth to argue but then shrugged, apparently ruling that assessment accurate enough.

"You want to tell me what that is you're holding?" Theo pressed Harry, who hadn't yet moved his gaze from the diadem in his hand. "I suppose I could guess, if you want. Could be fun. Is it a hat? Would make a lovely hat," he mused facetiously. "Maybe something you need for the next Yule Ba-"

"It's a horcrux," Harry cut in hoarsely. "Contains a piece of Voldemort's soul." He glanced up, eyeing the chamber with ruthless distaste. "Guess I can say that now, can't I?" he asked the empty air. "Voldemort. Stupid name. His name is Tom," he muttered brusquely to Theo. "His name is Tom, and he's just a man. Just a fucking normal man, only he can't die."

Hermione took half a step towards him, hearing the strain in his voice, but Draco held her back. He figured they should probably leave the comforting to Theo, who (for whatever reason) was gradually making headway, and besides—she almost certainly didn't know what Harry was talking about, so it was probably better she didn't speak.

"But he's dead," Theo said, glancing over his shoulder at Draco, who abruptly recalled Theo had followed Harry down here without once asking why. "The Dark Lord's gone, Potter, he's dead—"

"No," Harry said flatly. "No, he's not. Because he has more of these." He lofted the diadem up briefly, holding it out for Theo's bemused scrutiny. "He has at least two more, and I don't have any idea what they are. Or where they are. And he can come back." He glanced down at the diadem in his hands, withering again. "So long as this one and the others aren't destroyed, he can still come back."

There was a pause as Hermione glanced questioningly at Draco, and he gave her a tentative shrug. She frowned, thinking, and Theo cleared his throat, shifting to his knees from where he'd positioned himself at Harry's side.

"Well," Theo began gingerly, "clearly you're going through some shit here, Potter, but I'm sort of a doer, you understand? Seems like the thing to do is destroy it, if that's what we came down here for." He glanced at the basilisk and inhaled sharply. "Ah, I see. Basilisk venom. Must be one of the things that destroys it, I take it?"

"Yes," Harry said. "One of the only things. The only thing I really know of, in fact."

Beside him, Draco could see Hermione's mind whirling, tucking all that information away.

"Right," Theo said, clearing his throat. "Well, then I suppose if you want to just go ahead and—"

"It's not easy," Harry interrupted, frustrated. "Destroying a horcrux. It doesn't like to die, you know? It fights back. It takes something from you, and I—" He paused, obviously struggling. "I'm just not ready for what it might make me see at the moment. This moment. Right now."

His chin dropped, and Theo blinked.

Then, slowly, Theo reached out, about to take hold of the fang on the ground himself when Harry's hand shot out, pausing him.

"I don't want you to do it either," Harry growled, glancing up at Theo with his hand still wrapped around Theo's wrist. "It makes you live through the worst of what you've seen. The worst pain people have caused you. Do you understand?"

Theo stared at him.

"It's still fresh," Harry told Theo, clarifying his point in a low voice. "You don't need to go through it again. Not now. Not until you know things can be different. Okay?"

For a moment, Theo stood stock still, somewhere in the realm of paralysis.

Then he nodded slowly, gradually returning to his position beside Harry and settling himself there. Clearly, Theo was intent on staying put until Harry decided otherwise, but Draco—who had been momentarily distracted by the devolution of the Chosen One and the strange sympathy he had for Draco's one-time best friend—abruptly recalled the impossible item in his pocket.

He stepped forward, holding a hand out for the diadem. "May I?"

Harry turned, glowering at him. "Did you not just hear me? I'll do it, but I need a min-"

"Potter," Draco growled. "Do you trust me or not?"

Harry blinked. Theo blinked. Hermione's lips curled up, gradually taking the form of a cleverly satisfied smile, and after a moment of hesitation, Harry held out the diadem for Draco, who took a few steps back to place it on the ground.

"Seems like an unbeatable wand should be good for something," Draco mused from a distance, "shouldn't it?"

Harry seemed intently curious, leaning forward to watch, though his posture held evidence of doubt, hesitation snagging on a sharpened breath.

"Dumbledore wasn't able to," Harry said slowly, looking marginally more optimistic than he sounded. "At least, I assume he couldn't, since it was his first."

Draco paused, considering it. It did seem odd that someone in possession of the Elder Wand would have any trouble with its functions. But it had already done impossible things for him, hadn't it? So if it wasn't the wand, then—

"Maybe Dumbledore wasn't a very worthy owner," Hermione said, and they all turned to look at her, Draco immediately launching into a series of sharp gestures for her to stop talking at once. "What? I mean, he was great and all," she assured Harry, who looked predictably wounded by the suggestion his personal hero might have been anything shy of godlike, "but Draco still disarmed him, right? So maybe the wand's strength depends on the person using it. Or at least on their convictions."

Harry frowned, considering it. "It's hard to believe Dumbledore would be somehow… unworthy," he said uncertainly, eyeing it in Draco's hand. "But I guess it's possible."

"Well, if he wasn't good enough to use it," Draco scoffed, "then I'm certainly not—"

"No," Hermione cut in flatly. "That's not true."

Draco balked, surprised, and beside Harry, Theo looked up to catch his eye, slowly shaking his head. "It's not true," Theo agreed, voice measured and low, and Draco turned questioningly to Harry, who shrugged.

"Well, might as well try it," Harry said. "Stupid not to, isn't it?"

"Certainly not after we've established such a rewarding pattern of trying everything once," Theo agreed, "lake-diving and train-exploding included."

Draco nodded tentatively, unsure, but reminded himself of his initial theory. It was an unbeatable wand, wasn't it? So why shouldn't it do this, when he was asking it to; when he needed it most?

Gradually, Draco held out the Elder Wand, aiming it at the diadem, and took a deep breath.

"Reducto," he said, his voice as clear and unwavering as he could make it.

At once, the diadem shattered, igniting in flames as shards of it shot out, the rest of them ducking with a variety of yelps behind a shield spell Theo hastily cast. For a moment, a large, glittering snake burst forth from the remains of what had been the Dark Lord's horcrux, aiming itself at them as if to strike, but just as suddenly, it stopped short, its power abruptly extinguished.

Theo dissipated his Protego, releasing Harry slowly, and once their ears had stopped ringing from the impact, Draco turned to face them.

"One down," he exhaled, a little surprised and exceedingly relieved. "How many more?"

"I—" Harry looked stunned. It occurred to Draco that if this had been his task for an entire year, then blowing it up so easily was probably something of an anticlimactic moment; particularly if it had meant Draco could now do something Dumbledore had not.

"Two. I think. He thought," Harry clarified, clearing his throat. "Dumbledore, I mean."

There was a distinctive note of questioning to his voice; where once Dumbledore's word would have been final, there were now fractures in the foundations of Harry's beliefs. Draco wondered if that meant they'd be better off, or abjectly worse. He hated to think how reckless Harry Potter might become if he didn't have the basic bone structure of a (presumably) reasonable person's plan to follow.

"What were the others?" Theo asked Harry.

"A locket," Harry replied. "A diary. A ring—"

"Oh fuck, a ring," Draco said, blinking suddenly as he recalled what the other Hermione Granger had told him in the room of hidden things: as for the ring, Harry will know. "What ring?"

"I don't know—a signet ring," Harry said tiredly, shrugging. "Marvolo Gaunt had it."

Supremely unhelpful information, Draco thought without a trace of surprise, and was about to press Harry for something more useful when Theo suddenly interrupted.

"Gaunt," Theo echoed, and frowned curiously up at Draco. "Like the Sacred Twenty-Eight line?"

"Gone now," Harry pointed out, shrugging, as Draco realized Theo was correct, if not entirely focused on the task at hand. "The line died out with Morfin. Well, actually, it died out with Tom," he clarified wearily, gesturing upstairs, "or will soon, if we ever find the others—"

"Fucking—shit," Theo erupted suddenly, scrambling to his feet and startling both Harry and Hermione as he leapt towards Draco. "Draco, the fucking Gaunts, they're—they've got that whole thing, don't they? The fucking—fuck, what are they called—"

Draco stared at him, totally bewildered. "Are you having a stroke?"

"The book," Theo said, pacing back and forth beside Draco as he tapped frustratedly against his temple. "There's nothing to do at my house," he flung at Harry in explanation, ostensibly as part of some sort of tangent, and Harry frowned at him, waiting. "There's nothing to do there, right? Except hide from my dad, and my father's got this library, this… archive. It's full of—of names, genealogy, pureblood propaganda—I've read all of it and it's all rubbish, basically—"

"Okay," Harry said slowly, clearly not following, but not particularly wishing to interrupt. "And the Gaunts are…?"

"They claim they're related to that family," Theo said, frustratedly slicing a hand through the air. "The brothers, the three fucking brothers! What the fuck is the name—"

"Peverell," Draco and Harry realized in unison, and glanced at each other.

"The Peverell brothers," Draco supplied as Theo snapped his fingers, pointing animatedly at Draco in confirmation. "They're rumored to have been the ones who—"

"—who made the Deathly Hallows," Harry finished with a look at Hermione, who nodded with excitement, having finally recognized a topic of conversation.

"The Gaunts are descended from the second brother, " Theo pointed out, and Draco nodded slowly. "Right? The one who killed himself."

"Right," Harry confirmed, his own nod suddenly vigorous, "which means that if the Gaunts really are descended from the Peverells, then the Gaunt ring—"

"—MIGHT CONTAIN THE FUCKING RESURRECTION STONE," Theo said, pumping a fist in the air just before Harry glared at him. "Oh, sorry. Did you want to be the one to say that?"

"Well, I was—nevermind," Harry muttered, before turning to Draco with something just shy of suspicion. "Wait a second. How did you know that just by me saying the word 'ring'?" he demanded, and Draco froze momentarily; his attention flitted briefly to Hermione, who seemed to have registered what his hesitation must have meant.

"Does it matter?" Hermione asked Harry, leaping to Draco's rescue.

Harry stopped for a moment, considering it, and then his smile broadened.

"No, it doesn't," he said firmly, "because we might have just found the Deathly fucking Hallows, so I really don't care." His gaze cut excitedly to Theo's. "Are you in? To try to find it?"

"Fuck yeah, I'm in," Theo said instantly. "Are you kidding?"

"Hermione," Harry said quickly, turning to her. "I know we said we wouldn't, and I know you don't think they're real, but—"

"The wand is obviously real, Harry," she said, clearly exasperated with her prior self as she gestured to where Draco held it in his hand. "I think the things I used to think are pretty much out the window at this point."

"Right, right, of course—and you," Harry concluded, spinning to face Draco. "You're in this, right?"

His gaze was almost, almost pleading, and Draco realized with an uncanny jolt (having never expected to sympathize with Harry Potter, even in the wildest and most unlikely of his imaginings) that perhaps losing Ron Weasley was even more of a blow for Harry than any of them realized. It must have been, anyway, if it meant Harry was turning to Draco for the assurance that he wouldn't leave. For the first time in his life, Draco considered Harry Potter might have been a great deal lonelier than Draco could have ever expected him to be.

Still, that didn't excuse the fact that Harry Potter was also an unrestricted maniac who was easily distracted, and who badly needed to be contained. "The horcruxes," Draco warned, and Harry's face fell slightly. "We still have to destroy those. Don't forget that."

"Yes, right, of course," Harry said hastily. "But it'll be easy, won't it? Once we have all the Hallows." By then, his smile was infectious. Even Theo was grinning, fingers twitching at his side, and Hermione looked positively iridescent with excitement. "Once we have all the Hallows, Malfoy, Tom Riddle is as good as dead."

It was a compelling point.

Draco felt his own stomach leap with promise.

It was a really fucking compelling point.

"Fine. Then let's find the stone," Draco said, and when Harry reached out a hand, it was like sealing an oath between them, anticipation filling up the chamber with the tension of a spark.

Grindelverse

"WHAT THE FUCK," James shouted the moment Remus had opened the door to Borgin and Burkes, shrugging Sirius off him before coming to a halt in front of Tom. "WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO LILY?"

"Maybe we shouldn't have told Harry about the whole Lily alias thing," Draco murmured to Hermione, who ruefully nodded her agreement.

Needless to say, Lily Evans escaping from under James Potter's nose at the Three Broomsticks had not been an event met by anything short of madness. James had torn after her—half-stumbling over a Flitwick-sized patron and upending a table in his (failed) attempt—but even if he'd been able to reach her, it was clear she was intent on being gone. Lily had disapparated the moment she was out of sight, leaving only the assumption they couldn't have all had the exact same delusion for proof she'd been there to begin with.

Unfortunately, Draco and Hermione had mutually determined it worth informing Harry the strange occurrence of Tom suggesting 'Lily' as an alias for Hermione, which had seemed a previously coincidental (and therefore unremarkable) event. However, in a progression of further misfortune, it appeared they had vastly misread Harry's investment in the situation, in that they had not realized he would immediately and frantically inform James, who was already half out of his mind with disbelief.

"Impossible," James was muttering to himself, to the air, to the many bewildered patrons. "That couldn't have been her, she's dead. Could it have been a ghost?" James had demanded from them, obviously delirious, and Remus had patted him disinterestedly on his shoulder.

"Almost certainly not," Remus said, "but if it makes you feel better, then yes."

"We have to see Tom, don't we?" Harry insisted from James before rounding on Draco and Hermione. "We have to. He obviously knows something, right?" he pressed, aiming his urgency at Hermione in particular. "You said it seemed intentional that he used her name, didn't you?"

She'd hesitated; not unreasonably, or so she'd thought. It hadn't struck her as wise to accost Tom Riddle with anything, much less accusations from a wild-eyed too-rich pureblood who had no business in Knockturn Alley to begin with, but as it turned out, wisdom was rather lacking from the situation as a whole.

"I'd be positively delighted to take you to him," Remus had said to James—to Sirius' intense and flagrant opposition—which had let them to approximately this moment, at which point a hysterical James Potter was facing off against a disinterested Tom Riddle. Beside them, a tensed and uncharacteristically silent Harry stood white-faced and grim next to Theo (who, impressively, had not made any inappropriate comments for close to twenty entire minutes).

"Hello," Tom said pleasantly, glancing over a fuming James' shoulder to glance questioningly at Remus. "I take it you had an exciting trip, then, Remus?"

"Not as rewarding as I would have liked," Remus remarked, falling into an armchair and setting the diadem on the side table between them, "though this particular meltdown has been something of a diverting farcical excursion. Got your tiara," he added lazily, as Tom rolled his eyes.

"Remus, please, it's clearly not a tiara—"

"HELLO?" James shouted.

"Yes, hello," Tom acknowledged, leaning back in his seat. "Tea?"

A silver platter blossomed beside James' face, optimistically nudging at his glasses.

"Are you insane?" James demanded brusquely.

"Not that I know of," Tom replied. "Why don't you sit down?"

A velvet-upholstered clawfoot armchair drew itself up behind him, prompting James to fall into it.

"There," Tom said. "Now." He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. "I presume by the volume at which you've shouted it that you're here to talk about Lily?"

"What do you know about her?" Harry demanded, shoving forward despite Draco's hasty attempt to keep him back, and Tom's gaze shifted from a red-faced James to direct itself curiously up at Harry.

"You have her eyes," Tom remarked softly, and Hermione curled her nails into her palms, suddenly furious on Harry's behalf that something that meant so much to him could be said so nonchalantly, and by a man whose main objective seemed to be causing him pain.

"Do not," Harry seethed, "talk to my about my moth-"

He broke off, catching himself too late, and Tom leaned back, pleasantly satisfied.

"It's so very interesting, isn't it? The secrets we keep," Tom murmured, beckoning a teacup from his floating tray and carefully stirring in a lump of sugar. He paused, setting the spoon down with an infuriating lack of urgency, and took a testing sip before letting his attention fall pointedly on a still-silent Hermione.

She said nothing, and Tom smiled, turning back to James.

"To answer your question, Lily came to find me shortly after your affair ended," Tom explained to James. "Apparently your family paid a hefty sum of money to ensure she would disappear after the birth of… your son," he mused, gaze lingering idly on Harry, "and never return. But, understandably, she couldn't go back to life as a muggle once she'd discovered she was a witch, so—" He waved a hand. "She worked here for about a year until she went on her merry way. But I promise," he added, delicately taking another sip of his tea, "I haven't seen her since. If you've managed to find her, that was certainly not my doing."

Hermione adamantly disagreed. She was willing to bet Tom Riddle had known exactly where Lily Evans was, and probably also knew sending them to the castle made it increasingly likely they'd find her. The question, of course, was why? Hermione doubted very much that Tom Riddle was in the business of reuniting families, and in any case, Lily had run. She clearly had no intention of being found.

James stared at Tom, openly mistrusting. "Lily was killed," he said hoarsely. "By Grindelwald."

"Well, no, she wasn't, obviously. Though to be fair, she would have been," Tom assured him, "if I'd turned her in. Or if your parents had turned her in. If, for example, she had been any less than inclined to acquiesce to their terms."

At that, James swallowed, obviously disturbed. Hermione assumed his elderly parents had passed away years before, as they had in her universe, and doubted he had any way of questioning them about it now.

"How can I find her?" James asked, voice pained, and Tom shrugged.

"You can't, I imagine," he said. "After today, I doubt she'll go back to wherever it was you dug her up, frankly."

Hermione caught Sirius' brow furrowing, falling with helpless sympathy on a stunned and discomfited James. She understood, in a way, what was going through Sirius' mind, having once been in his position herself. James' expression wasn't unlike her Harry's had been when they'd come across his parents' graves in Godric's Hollow—nor was it unlike this Harry, now.

Harry stood stonily while James floundered, struggling to come to grips with what he'd learned. "But—but why would she—"

"It wasn't just money, as I understand it," Tom supplied blithely, "if that makes you feel better. Extortion was certainly part of it, as were threats. One of those 'you'd better disappear or we'll make it happen' sorts of situations. Political climate, you understand." He took another careful sip, leading Hermione to wonder if the tea wasn't simply a theatrical prop. "I'm sure your parents feared the losses your family would inevitably suffer, had Grindelwald discovered the origin of your son. Luckily," he mused, glancing up at Harry, "I am no loyal follower of Grindelwald."

"Or anyone," Hermione murmured under her breath, and Tom's laughing eyes rose to hers, briefly, before falling back on James.

"It is so very terrible being under the thumb of a malignant despot, isn't it?" Tom posed neutrally to James. "You would never have lost her, would you, had things been different? You've been mourning for nearly twenty years, and all because a dogmatic regime told a woman she didn't quite belong to this world even once she'd found her way in." Tom paused, letting the statement settle over all of them; particularly Harry, who, by the look on his face, appeared to echo those precise thoughts. "It's a positively flaming injustice," Tom said eventually, "and really, I sometimes wonder why no one has bothered to simply… snuff it out."

In an instant—in the moment comprehension settled on Harry's stiffened features—Hermione's heart sank, her hand shooting out for Draco's the moment the why of Tom's interference became abundantly, uncomfortably clear.

"He wants Harry to kill Grindelwald," she whispered to Draco as he leaned inconspicuously towards her. "He wants us to kill him—that must be why he's willing to part with the resurrection stone—"

"What are you saying?" James was demanding from Tom across the room, and in response, Tom merely shrugged.

"Oh, nothing. Only that your life has been unfairly burdened, wouldn't you say, James Potter? The love of your life stripped from you, leaving you unable to claim your own son. Leaving you, in fact, to watch him grow up from a distance, loving another man as his father." Another horrible sip of tea, paired with another sparing glance at Harry. "And considering I have something your little friends here seem to want," Tom continued, prompting Hermione to a grimace, "I'd be willing to bet we would all make excellent friends—wouldn't you?"

James was frozen with indecision, and behind him, Harry was rigid with agitation, but Draco and Theo were both clearly piecing together what they were hearing, exchanging a calculating glance before Draco turned discreetly back to Hermione.

"His enemy's enemy is his friend," Draco estimated at a murmur, and then clarified after another shared glance at Theo, "He's saying we'll be allies until we're not."

And then it would be a race to kill each other the moment Grindelwald was dead, Hermione knew with a heavy swallow. Tom clearly wanted Grindelwald gone; he must have suspected they did too, and Hermione understood now why parting with his ring—Hallow or not—must have always seemed an immensely underwhelming cost. After all, once Grindelwald was no longer a threat, an unbeatable wand would be ripe for the taking, and then what did it really matter who had the resurrection stone?

It was painfully obvious. Tom Riddle was plotting his rise, and he was using them to do it.

"We have to get the Elder Wand first," Hermione said, more certain of that now than ever, and Draco turned to look at her, grey gaze fixed on hers.

"Yes," was all he said, and then he turned back to Tom Riddle, his face coolly impassive except for the tiniest curve of promise around his mouth.

a/n: I'm going to Comic-Con on Thursday (in case you didn't know, I write a graphic series called Alpha with Little Chmura, which I try from time to time to convince people to buy) so after Commoner's Guide updates tomorrow, that will likely be it for the week aside from Aurora's birthday gift, Watch the Throne, which you can find exclusively on AO3. This chapter is for cocoartist, who makes me smile every time!

14. Even Trades

Chapter 14: Even Trades

Grindelverse

"I suggest you give us what we came for," Draco said flatly, but Hermione nudged him aside, figuring his unfailing brand of entitlement wasn't going to be particularly well met by Tom's evasive techniques; specifically, his enigmatic beverage consumption. She'd already caught warning signs of Tom raising his teacup to his lips in non-answer yet again.

"We held up our side of the deal," Hermione reminded him, and he paused experimentally, cup floating in the air. "The contract between us was met on our end, Tom."

"And if I have new terms?" he prompted.

"You know better," she warned. His lips quirked up slightly with amusement. "That's not how leverage works. We made a deal. Payment is payment. We're not jumping through hoops."

"Very well," Tom permitted slowly, which was almost certainly too easy; Hermione braced herself for worse, and Tom didn't disappoint. "But the deal was made privately between us, Lady Lies," he reminded her. "Therefore, payment should be no different."

Hermione grimaced at the tell-tale motions of Draco stepping forward in opposition. She gave him a firm shove back towards Theo; the attempt to protect her was admirable, in a sense, but largely fruitless. Tom wanted control, per usual.

"He's not going to do anything to me," she reminded Draco under her breath. "He's just—"

(Setting the terms.)

(Marking his territory.)

(Flexing his authority.)

(Rehearsing for his reign of terror.)

(All of the above.)

She glanced at Theo, who was watching her. "How do you kill a monster?" she murmured to him, and he nodded slowly, tugging Draco back in deference to their previous understanding as Hermione turned her own attention back to Tom.

"Have it your way, then," she said, adding a touch of weariness to her answer. She'd watched Draco enough by then to know how to play her hand; the best lies were rooted in truth, and the truth was that she was tired, even if she wasn't beaten yet. She wasn't nothing, no, and she wasn't resigned, and she hadn't lost—but she was definitely tired, and for once, she let her exhaustion show. "You can leave," she told the rest of their party. "Tom and I will finish up."

Tom smiled, satisfied. "Remus," he beckoned, turning to him as mutiny immediately registered on the other faces in the room. "Escort them out, would you?"

"Wait a minute," Sirius began, but Remus had already risen to his feet, grabbing James by the arm and yanking him none-too-delicately from his chair. "After what you've just said? We aren't just going t-"

"We're going," Harry told him flatly, catching Theo's glance as he nodded.

"You know where to find us," Theo told Hermione, and though Draco was red-faced with frustration, he permitted his own stony nod, making a small motion for her benefit. He drew his hand up, touching his thumb to the inside of his wrist.

M for Malfoy, she heard him murmur in her memory, the ghost of his touch tracing over the mark Bellatrix had carved, and she nodded once in recognition. Then he stormed over to the Floo, disappearing through it, as Remus dragged James along and Sirius argued mutedly with Harry, all of them passing through the flames.

The room, having been emptied of its occupants, was pensively silent. Hermione turned to Tom, fighting a grimace, and resolved to get it over with as quickly as he would let her.

Which, she presumed, would not be nearly quick enough.

"Don't forget to take this back," Hermione told him, removing the compass from around her neck and tossing it to him. He caught it deftly with one hand, lifting a curious brow in her direction. "You'd better not be planning on tracking me anymore."

"I like to keep tabs on things," he supplied in flagrant unapology, tucking it into his pocket with a shrug. "Irresponsible not to, really."

"You have control issues," Hermione muttered. "You think of everything around you as an object to be used." She paused, momentarily considering the value of mysterious silence, but couldn't help adding, "Someday that will be your downfall, you know."

"I'm sure it will," Tom agreed, not looking as if it grieved him in any particular way. "In the meantime, though, thank you for retrieving the lost diadem of Ravenclaw. I presume you know what it is?"

Again, she considered silence.

Unfortunately, that wasn't really her style.

"It's a horcrux," Hermione said flatly, and again, Tom's lips quirked up, amused.

"That," he told her, "would be quite mad, don't you think?"

"Are you saying it isn't?" she said.

"I'm saying it would be mad if it were," Tom countered lazily. "Aren't you listening?"

"What else is there? The ring," she demanded, pointing to where it glinted from his hand. "Is that a horcrux, too?"

"Well, it's your price, isn't it?" Tom asked, pointedly slipping the ring loose from his finger and holding it out for her. "You asked for payment, and here we are. So why don't you tell me what it is, Lady Lies?"

She paused, unsure what to do.

She needed it; that much was obvious.

That, and more importantly, it was part of the deal.

But what would happen to her if she touched it?

She was beginning to think she might have been mistaken about Tom's insistence on getting her alone. What if he killed her now? That would be a plot twist she hadn't predicted. A rather sad way for the so-called brightest witch of her age to go out, now that she thought about it.

"Don't be ridiculous," Tom said, irritably interpreting her reticence. "I didn't keep you here just to harm you. There aren't enough hours in the day for pointless exercises." He fixed her with a long stare—a pursed look of I'm not mad, just disappointed—and then determined, flatly, "Just take it."

She hesitated.

"Fine," she mumbled, and held her hand out.

Irritability hadn't limited his capacity for dramatics. He placed the ring carefully (delicately, and with a sense of withheld breath) directly in the center of her palm.

Then he waited.

She waited.

And gradually, he permitted a flickering half-smile.

"It's a fantasy, you know," he informed her as she stared down at the ring, eyeing the stone set inside it. "You're all children, so I don't expect you to know any better," he added stiffly, "but whatever magic exists inside that stone, it's certainly no different from any other kind."

Hermione was cynical enough by nature that this—Tom's insistence the entire thing was some sort of elaborate hoax—appealed to her longstanding impulse to search for the most logical explanation. For a moment, her entire body wanted to believe him, but she reminded herself that he'd never had the cloak. He'd never held the wand. He couldn't possibly know.

He couldn't know some magics were more than others, but her Harry had taught her that.

"You're a collector," she noted instead, curling her hand around the ring and glancing up at him. Maybe feigning disbelief was an opportunity to discover what else he knew. "Are you telling me you don't want the Elder Wand?"

"I want Grindelwald's power," Tom said simply, shrugging. "Whether that comes from a wand itself or from an empire too afraid to fight back because they've all heard stories about said wand, it makes no difference to me. The end result is the same."

"So you admit it, then," Hermione said. "You want us to kill Grindelwald for you."

"We both want the same thing," Tom corrected with an absurd air of practicality, "which is Grindelwald gone. Who kills him is—" He waved a hand. "A trivial matter."

"Then why haven't you done it already?" Hermione countered.

"Who says I haven't?" Tom asked, shrugging. "I have money. I have time. Better yet, I have patience, and a vast network of people who are loyal only to me. In fact, this is the trouble with regimes that force people to the fringes of society," he added neutrally. "After a while they no longer go quietly, and instead, they come to me. Remus, for example," he said. "Lily. Yourself—and Harry, now, too, I expect."

"I'm not loyal to you," Hermione said fiercely. "I'll never be loyal to you, and neither will Harry."

"Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact is, you came to me," Tom reminded her with a shrug, "and when Grindelwald is dead, you'll realize I did it without ever lifting a finger."

She wanted to gape at him, or strike him. He was smug and narcissistic and terrible, and she was furious he could exist, knowing he deserved far worse than the capitulation he received in either universe she'd known him.

Worse, though, she was angry at herself, because he was right. She'd come to him.

She'd walked right in, and he hadn't lifted more than a teacup.

"I won't let you get away with this," she warned quietly. The ring in her hand was beginning to form itself to her tightly-clenched palm, digging into the flesh of her hand.

"I don't expect you to," he said. "In fact, I think I would find myself rather disappointed in you if you didn't at least try to kill me."

Points for self-awareness, she thought grimly. "You could at least lie."

"Why?" Tom asked, which seemed, outrageously, to be a genuine curiosity. "Lies are difficult. Hard to keep track of. And more importantly, I don't particularly need to delude you, considering you'll do precisely what I want you to whether you know what it is or not."

She hated that he was right. He'd trapped her, well and truly. Maybe he'd trapped her long before she even entered the game.

"Is it a horcrux?" Hermione managed to ask through gritted teeth. "The diadem."

He seemed entirely impassive. "Why would you think it's a horcrux?"

"Because I know you," she spat. "I know you better than you think."

"Then tell me what I'm going to do next," Tom invited.

There might have been mystery to silence, she thought. It might have been the wiser choice.

But on the other hand, she was beginning to think wisdom was overrated.

"You're going to wait for us to kill Grindelwald," she answered flatly. "Then you're going to kill us, take the wand, and take back the ring. Take everything. Take England. You're going to take the world, Tom Riddle, and when you're finished taking, you're going to burn it to the ground—except you don't realize yet you'll burn along with it."

She lifted her chin, glaring at him.

"You don't know yet that even you can make mistakes, but you will," she promised him, thinking of his cursed life and the people he would destroy with it; the things he couldn't know, but she did. "You'll live in fear, Tom, and always be in search of something more, even when you have everything. Wait until you see what happens to you, Tom Riddle," she finished bitterly. "Just wait and see."

He stared at her for a moment, considering her, and then sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers at his lips.

"Try it," he suggested.

She blinked. "What?"

"The diadem," he said. "Hold it. Try it."

"I—"

"You seem to think you know me, which is interesting," Tom said, "because it tells me much more about you than it does about me."

He leaned over, picking up the diadem from where Remus had left it, and held it out for her.

"Take it," he said, and for whatever reason, she did. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe the entire thing was simply taking too long. Whatever the reason was, she held the diadem carefully in one hand, eyeing the words engraved around it: Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.

She waited for the same sensation of wearing the locket around her neck. The buzz of unpleasantness. The whispers of her darker thoughts. She waited for something, anything, to prove her suspicions had been correct, but nothing came. When had Tom made the diadem a horcrux? She strained to remember. Maybe she didn't actually know. There were pieces missing from Tom Riddle's life; Harry had said as much, and it had taken Dumbledore decades to collect everything he'd learned, even after he'd had his early suspicions.

If the diadem wasn't a horcrux, Hermione thought with dismay, then maybe she didn't actually know much at all about Tom Riddle. And if she didn't know him—if parallels weren't so parallel after all—did that mean he was better in this universe, or worse?

"Why did you help Lily?" Hermione asked, clearing her throat, and Tom shrugged.

"Because she needed somewhere to go where she wouldn't be found," he said, "and I needed an employee who could keep out of sight. Mutually beneficial."

"And when she wanted to leave—"

"She didn't like the work," Tom supplied neutrally. If he clung to any resentment about it, it didn't show, and Hermione frowned, not entirely sure what she'd been expecting. "The clients in this business are, understandably, unsavory at times. She asked to move on, and I had no opposition."

"She and Remus," Hermione said, thinking. "Do they know each other?"

"No," Tom replied. "I kept Lily's secret. She asked for safety, and I kept her safe."

In Hermione's view, none of this made sense. Tom wasn't a do-the-right-thing sort of person, as far as she knew. "But why?"

"Because it benefited me," he replied easily, "which is also why I haven't pressed you for your name, or for information about where you've come from. Which isn't here," he ruled flatly. "It's very obviously not here."

She opened her mouth; closed it.

"I'll never be stupid enough to trust you," Hermione told him.

"Actually, I'm willing to bet you will be," Tom said. "Desperate people often are."

"Who says I'm desperate?" she demanded.

"You aren't yet," he permitted, "but I strongly suspect you will be."

She stared at him.

"I want to leave," she said.

"Then go," he told her, gesturing to his fireplace. "I didn't keep Lily, and I won't keep you, either. You're always free to leave. You're free to do whatever you wish. So long as our interests remain aligned, you will always have a friend in me. A rather useful one, at that," he added with a thin smile, "if you'll pardon my indulgence in my own proficiency."

"And when our interests aren't aligned?" Hermione asked him.

"You're a clever girl, Lady Lies," he said, impassive. "You tell me what happens."

He held out his hand for the diadem, and she hesitated, but eventually offered it back to him.

"Wit beyond measure," he murmured to himself, shaking his head before meeting her eye. "People put so much stock in intelligence, don't they? But sometimes it's such a dreadful slog being smarter than everyone else."

What if, whispered a quiet voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Draco, you just killed him right now?

A blunt instrument. A wand. The fucking teacup. Even a small shard of it would—

She froze, blinking, and shoved the image of him bleeding out on his floor firmly aside.

Tom smiled, and Hermione said nothing, pushing past him to head for the Floo. She took a handful of emerald powder, the ring still clutched her hand, and passed through to James Potter's house, taking the now-familiar path to Harry's study.

She barged into the room, not saying a word to any of the three boys before slamming the ring down on the desk.

"Here," she said, and Harry leapt to his feet, unable to contain his curiosity as Draco shifted reflexively to her side. "I hope you know you're going to have to kill him."

"Mm," Harry replied, eyeing the ring. "This is the stone? You're sure?"

"I don't know," Hermione said tartly, and turned to Draco. "I can't be here right now. Are you coming?"

"We should talk about how we're going to get to Grindelwald," Harry informed them, not looking up from the ring.

"Well, we can talk tomorrow," Hermione said. "Right now, I'm going."

She pivoted and left, and Draco quickly chased after her, a little breathless as he jogged in her wake.

"Hold on, what about the horcr-"

"It isn't a horcrux," she said dully. "I was wrong."

About that, she thought, and possibly about everything.

About herself, too, which was a realization that only seemed to get worse and worse.

"Well, just because the diadem isn't one doesn't mean he doesn't have others," Draco said. "Or that he just hasn't made one yet—"

"Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't," Hermione snapped, rounding on him, "but either way—"

"Hermione." Draco took her arm and disapparated them, depositing them in his bedroom once again as she lurched through space and stumbled into his chest, letting his arms come around her. "What did he do?"

"He—" Nothing. He did nothing, and that was the worst part. He hadn't touched her, hadn't even risen to his feet, and yet here she was, spinning with doubt. "I don't know."

She did know Tom Riddle was dangerous. She knew that whatever he was, he wasn't good. Horcruxes or not (and Draco was right; just because she'd been wrong about one horcrux didn't mean she was wrong about all of them), he was a problem. And anyway, what was worse—a man with his soul split in seven parts who couldn't die, or a man with an uncanny understanding of his own leverage?

"We have to use him," Hermione said miserably, burying her face in Draco's shirt. "We have to use him, we have to learn his secrets, and we have to kill him. We have to kill him before he kills us."

Draco nodded, resting his chin on top of her head.

"We will," he told her. "I promise. I promised you already, and I mean it again now. You can trust me, Hermione."

"Can I?" Hermione asked, pulling back to look at him. "Honestly, Draco. Can I?"

The words you're not desperate now, but you will be clanged around in her head, and for a moment, Draco's brow flickered with unease, sensing her troubled thoughts. He shifted a hand down, taking her wrist, and brushed his thumb over the M there again for the briefest, quietest moment before turning his attention back to her gaze.

"You said yourself the man is a psychopath," Draco reminded her, tilting her chin up. "Don't let him get in your head, Hermione."

She exhaled slowly, letting her eyes float shut.

"Then get me out of my head," she murmured. "Please."

For a moment, he paused, fingers steady beneath her chin. She waited, heart pounding, and gradually, he slid his hand around to her cheek, pulling her closer.

"Hermione Granger," he murmured to her, his breath skating softly over her lips, "do you have any idea the sins I'd commit for you?"

She shivered, and then his lips brushed hers. He pulled away, dancing out of reach, and as she felt herself lean towards him, she sensed the motion of his smile broadening over her lips, her eyes fluttering open to find his gaze locked on hers.

"I thought about killing him," she confessed, swallowing hard. "Just for a second."

"Mm," Draco murmured, hand slipping down to caress her throat. "And how did it feel?"

"It felt—" She paused, her breath quickening beneath his touch as his fingers slid down her neck, down to the line of her clavicle, and then traced the shape of her neckline, soft and smooth and slow. "It felt… satisfying," she whispered. His hands slid around to the back of her dress, tugging carefully at her zipper. "And I felt—"

"What?" he asked, lips brushing across hers again as he delicately peeled her dress from her shoulders. "What did you feel?" he repeated, and beneath his anchoring grip on her hips, she could feel her skin pebbling with anticipation. She felt her quickening pulse align itself with his, that too-quick leap of something, that sense of just-another-minute, just-one-minute-more dancing on the breath between them as his hands wandered, digging into the curves of her waist.

What did you feel?

"Powerful," she said, and then, as Draco shifted to deepen the kiss, she shoved him back on the bed, taking a moment to look down at where he'd landed before he propped himself up on his elbows, dazed. "We're going to ruin him," she said to the expanse of his skin, reaching to slowly undo the buttons of his shirt. "You and me," she added, certainty filling the gaps in her spine as she looked up, resting her chin on his chest. "We're going to ruin him."

Draco slid his fingers through her hair, eyeing the look on her face.

"So. Are you out of your head, then?" he asked expectantly, lips twisting up in anticipation, and she considered it a moment before leaning forward, touching her lips once—light as air—just above the zipper of his trousers.

"Almost," she said, and he smiled his faultless smile, pulling her with him onto the bed.

Potterverse

"So, there's this shack," Harry had said, which was something of an underwhelming opening. "It's where Dumbledore initially found the ring. It's Marvolo Gaunt's shack," he clarified, "to be specific."

"Well, much as I love a good shack—and I do," Theo assured Harry lazily, "do we really think that's necessary? If the stone is in the ring, I doubt it was just casually left behind when the ring was taken."

"Right," Harry said, pacing the chamber, "but still, it's, you know. More of a technique for how to move forward."

"True," Hermione permitted. "When you lose something, it's always best to go back to the scene of the crime."

"Yes," Harry confirmed, snapping his fingers and pointing at her. "Yes. Hermione's got it."

"Right, quick reminder, though," Draco cut in. "You didn't lose it. And secondly, how are we supposed to find this hallowed shack?"

"I'm sure there's municipal records," Hermione said. "The address has to have been on record, right? I mean, Harry did say a Ministry worker came, so—"

"Yes, well, apparently an additional reminder is required," Draco pointed out, "which is that the Ministry has been run by the Dark Lord's puppet for the last year, and considering that said Dark Lord has been violently deposed, there's something of a chance the Ministry's filing system may not presently be up to par."

"What if," Theo suggested, "we just pretend this is a shack." He gestured around the chamber. "It's morbid and disgusting, and there's a dead snake. Isn't that close enough?"

Harry made a gruff noise of incoherence.

"I'm thinking that's a no," Theo translated for Draco, "though I only speak conversational Chosen One, so there may be idiomatic complexities involved."

"Well, hold on," Hermione sighed, rising to her feet. "Let's think about this logically. There's only so many places the stone could be, right? Go through it again," she suggested, and hastily added, "and, um—pretend I don't know anything. Like you're telling us for the first time," she clarified optimistically, as Theo flashed Draco a laughing glance of acknowledgment.

Harry sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Dumbledore got the ring," he said.

"Right," Hermione agreed. "Dumbledore. Who loves you."

"Yes," Draco and Theo grunted in unison.

"Something like that," Harry said, still pacing. "So, he got the ring. He destroyed it. But," Harry said, and paused, frowning. "He must have tried to use it."

"Which is objectively stupid," Hermione pointed out, "considering everything we know about horcruxes. That they were protected, I mean," she added, glancing at Draco, who nodded discreetly. "By spells and curses designed to kill him. So he must have known it was a Hallow, right? That's the only compelling reason to do something so—" She made a face. "Blatantly idiotic."

"I—" Harry frowned. "I guess it was a little bit stupid, yes."

"Ah, good, confirmation from our resident expert in stupidity," Draco muttered under his breath, and Hermione shot him a warning glance. "Look," Draco sighed, rising to his feet, "if Dumbledore ever had the stone, he wouldn't have just left it behind. He would have given it to someone, right? Kept it somewhere safe."

"I—" Harry blinked. "Oh, Jesus fuck. The snitch, I—"

He let out a loud, startling growl, and Theo tilted his head.

"I'm going to estimate that one is rage," Theo guessed, "though again, I'm hardly fluent—"

"The snitch," Harry said again, reaching for Hermione's beaded bag and aiming his wand into it. "I've been so distracted I forgot about it entirely, but of course, I'm such an idiot—"

"Linguistically, this is all just nonsense," Theo informed Draco, who gave him a silencing shove.

"Would you simply shush—"

"Here," Harry said, and yanked out what was quite literally a golden snitch, the wings slightly bent. "Okay, right, so the stone must be in here, Dumbledore left it for me, only it says…"

He breathed on it, and Draco recalled with a groan that it was the snitch Harry had nearly swallowed. A complete and utter travesty as far as he was concerned, though whether Harry Potter was any conceivably skilled Seeker was (unfortunately) not currently at issue.

"…I open at the close," Harry read, showing it to them. "Which—" He paused. "Okay. I still haven't figured that part out."

"Oof, harsh realities," Theo said, standing up to lean over Harry's shoulder. "Any guesses?"

"I open at the close," Hermione murmured to herself, wandering in a small circle. "Well, it's mostly a riddle, isn't it? It might as well say I begin at the end, right? In terms of syntactical comparatives, that is—"

"Oh," Theo said. "So, death, then."

Harry's entire frame went rigid.

"That would be my guess, but why would Dumbledore want Harry to die?" Hermione asked Theo. "That's ridiculous. He's a teacher. Asking someone to die seems a bit too lofty a request, doesn't it?"

"I'm merely a translator," Theo reminded her. "I'm not here to pick apart the questionable motives of cryptically bearded pedagogues."

"Still, it doesn't make sense—"

As Theo and Hermione continued to discuss the merits of Dumbledore's sanity, Draco watched Harry's hand close around the snitch and frowned, eyeing the blank expression on his face.

"Uh," he said. "Potter, are you—"

"Neither can live while the other survives," Harry said hoarsely.

"Sorry," Theo said. "Come again?"

"So much for a translator," Hermione muttered to him, but Draco stepped closer to Harry.

"Who said that?" he asked.

"Trelawney," Harry said, rubbing his eyes briefly beneath his glasses. "It's what the prophecy contained in the Department of Mysteries. 'Neither can live while the other survives.'"

He glanced up at Draco, who was now recalling his father's imprisonment as a result of retrieving said prophecy. More specifically, Draco was imagining the deadened look on Lucius' face when he had asked what it said, and the fact, Draco recalled, that Lucius had obviously risked his life for something he hadn't even had the privilege of understanding.

"I'm supposed to die," Harry said, spelling it out for them, and for a moment, there was silence.

"No," Theo and Hermione eventually declared in unison.

Hermione spoke first. "No, he couldn't have set you up to die," she argued, storming up to Harry. "That can't be possible! That's—I don't know," she said frantically. "It's unethical, surely! There must be rules against it—"

"Well, I can't speak to Dumbledore's character, largely in that I don't want to," Theo mused, "so mine was more of a generically oppositional outburst."

"No, but it makes sense," Harry said, looking vaguely stunned. "I wondered why he wanted me to destroy all the horcruxes first, but of course. Because he can't die until I've died. Which means—" He shut his eyes. "I don't want to think about what that means."

Gradually, he looked up at Draco, pained.

"But," Harry exhaled, "whether it means something or not, I suppose you'll have to kill me."

Absurdly, Draco glanced over his shoulder, certain Harry had meant someone else.

"Me?" he demanded. "And why do I get the honor of your murder, exactly?"

"It's not murder," Harry exhaled, exasperated, as if Draco was the one being dramatic. "It's—I don't know. Sacrifice. Or something. But obviously Hermione shouldn't have to do it," he clarified with a glance at her wide-eyed look of horror, "and Nott's almost definitely going to give some sort of horrible speech beforehand—"

"Your grasp on my personality is surprisingly proficient," Theo lamented. "Note to self, be more mysterious."

"—so it'll have to be you, Malfoy," Harry finished. "And then, I don't know, maybe if I'm about to die the snitch'll open, and you guys can have all the Hallows and finish off Voldemort once and for all."

He'd said the entire string of nonsense in a rapid, breathless exhalation, and for a moment, all Draco could do was stare blankly at him.

"So, you're just… cool with dying," Draco echoed. "Is that what you're saying, Potter?"

"Well, no," Harry said. "I mean, it's not great. I'd prefer another option. But considering I've basically never had an option about anything for my entire life—"

"Because you were the tool of a selfish old man!" Hermione blurted out, and Harry blinked, glancing at her with confusion.

"Hermione—"

"Listen, Harry, forget what you thought you knew about Dumbledore," she pleaded, walking brusquely to him and taking hold of his shoulders. "Yes, I'm sure he loved you, and yes, he was brilliant, yes to all those things, but—you weren't a person to him," she said sadly, and though Draco thought it perhaps a bit dangerous (knowing, as he did, that their version of Hermione worshipped at the church of Albus Dumbledore), he couldn't help conceding she was probably right about this. "All the things you've told us, all the information he kept from you—he must have known this all along, which is why he never explained what you would have to do—"

"Hermione," Harry said uneasily, "I don't think—"

"What if we try something," Theo determined, snatching Harry's hand up to loft the snitch between his fingers up for general scrutiny. "It's a very complex bit of magic, but I think it's worth experimenting, don't you?"

"What?" Harry asked. "Using the Elder Wand, you mean?"

"Nope," Theo said, propping the snitch in front of Harry's face. "Lying."

"What?" Harry said again, balking. "But—surely that's—that can't possibly—"

"In my experience, a lie well told is a magic all its own," Theo said, glancing up at Draco with a hint of something that wasn't entirely guileless. "Isn't it?"

Draco grimaced. "I wouldn't use those exact terms," he said. "But yeah, fine."

Harry glanced at Hermione, who shrugged. She still seemed a bit infuriated over Dumbledore, but was, at least, quite focused on the task at hand. "If it doesn't work," she said in a huff, "and he was an actual monster who required your death to be imminent in order to be helpful to you—"

"I think she's saying go for it," Draco cut in, flashing her a warning glare as she sniffed her displeasure, folding her arms gruffly over her chest. "Just try it. It can't hurt, right?"

Which was the last thing he said until approximately two minutes before this moment, at which point Harry had brought the snitch to his lips, informed it he was going to die, and then watched as a small black stone fell into the palm of his hand, the four of them gathering close around it and staring down in disbelief.

a/n: I will meet you back here Monday, I promise! Some people had questions about my other work (i.e. Alpha, which I write with Little Chmura), so a quick reminder that you can find everything on olivieblake dot com. Dedicated to thewildeqoute—no regrets!

15. Worthy Possessors

Chapter 15: Worthy Possessors

Potterverse

"Count them again," Theo said, which wasn't strictly necessary, but considering everything, wasn't nearly not.

"One," Draco said, holding up the Elder Wand.

"Two," Harry offered hoarsely, eyeing the Resurrection Stone between his fingers.

"Three," Hermione finished, gripping the Cloak of Invisibility with both hands.

A pause.

"Not especially relevant, but I can't believe we almost went to a shack for this," Theo said eventually, which served to wake Harry from something of a trance, prompting him to leap to consciousness.

"Okay," he said. "So. Nothing's happening."

"Nope," Draco confirmed, glancing at Hermione, who shook her head. "Nothing."

"Right," Harry said, frowning. "But we know the wand works, right?"

"Yes," Draco said slowly. "But the stone…?"

"I don't see anything," Harry admitted with a grimace, though he was quick to add, "which isn't to say it doesn't work, right? I mean, if we stick to our whole 'worthy' hypothesis about the wand, then maybe it's not working because I lied to get it."

He paused to glare pointedly at Theo, who shrugged.

"Well, do you really want to die?" Theo asked, and Harry hesitated.

"I mean, I'm just not sure if—"

"You don't," Theo snapped impatiently, "so stop it. Worst case scenario, we're not worthy to see some dead people, or the Hallows are fake. We do still have all three," he pointed out, "so maybe there's… I don't know. We can read the story again and look for more hints," he suggested. "Or maybe the Hallows won't work until we destroy all the horcruxes."

"I'm pretty sure they're unrelated," Harry said.

"Well, you were also pretty sure we had to go to a shack, so pardon me if your certainty isn't exactly a selling point—"

"Hey," Hermione murmured, taking Draco's arm and nudging him away to speak to him in pseudo-private. "Do you think maybe they won't work because of me?"

"What?" Draco asked, frowning down at her. "Why wouldn't they?"

"Because I'm not who he thinks I am," Hermione whispered nervously, tossing an apprehensive glance over her shoulder at Harry. "Don't you think that's a factor? If the Hallows only work properly for people worthy of possessing them, then—"

"First of all, that's just a guess, and secondly, you absolutely can't tell him," Draco warned in a low voice, shaking his head. "For one thing, he'd want to bring her back, which I don't know how to do. I initially thought the Hallows would be—"

He stumbled to a halt, realizing he'd never shared his intentions with her, and she arched a brow, expectant.

"It's not that I want her instead," he assured her, hesitating. "It's just that, you know, if it were possible to bring her back, I assumed the Hallows would be the only way to do it. But if they're not working, and we can't get her back, then telling him would just be cruel, wouldn't it?"

"He's bound to eventually notice I'm not her," Hermione reminded him. "His life's not in danger anymore, so he's less likely to be distracted by murderous Dark Lords, isn't he? And anyway, your logic is ineffectively cyclical. You're saying we can't tell him the truth because the Hallows don't work," she grumbled irritably, "but that hardly stands to reason if we can't work them because we haven't told him the truth!"

"I know, I know, it's flawed," Draco growled, rubbing frustratedly at his temples. "But how are you expecting him to react to the news that one best friend abandoned him, and the other is trapped in a parallel universe—"

"Is it such a foreign concept to you that maybe he might like me for, I don't know, me?" Hermione demanded. "I know I'm not the real Hermione to you, but I don't know, maybe Harry would—" She inhaled sharply, obviously struggling. "Don't you think he might—I mean, if he knew, if he knew that all I wanted to do was help him—"

Draco glanced over, checking that Harry and Theo were still arguing before pulling Hermione out of sight behind one of the chamber's outrageous pillars, tucking her into his arms.

"I'm sorry," he murmured to her, and she buried her forehead in his chest, torn between frustration and what was obviously a significant degree of hurt. "I never meant that you weren't real. I do think he cares about you, genuinely. Or would care. But what you're asking—" He hesitated. "I'm just not sure. I'm not sure about anything."

Hermione's fingers tightened in his t-shirt as the rest of her wilted, resigned.

Abruptly, Draco remembered for a moment what his life had been like without her, and the consequence of everything that had happened since she arrived. He'd been hopeless before, hadn't he? Friendless. The most alone and the most abandoned he had ever been. Her presence in his life had forced the rigidness of his worthless edges into a more malleable (and perhaps even forgivable) shape. She gave him strength. She gave him courage. She made him into something he wasn't ashamed to know he was.

So how could he stand here and give nothing back to her?

"I'm not sure about anything," Draco repeated slowly, letting it out on a breath, "except for you." He glanced down at her, and she lifted her chin, frowning slightly with bemusement. "I couldn't stand to lose you. Please," he said softly, holding her face in his hands, "please don't make me do anything that might take you away from me."

She swallowed carefully, nodding. "But if it doesn't work because of me," she murmured, "I don't know what I can do."

"Hermione," Draco exhaled, tucking a loose curl behind her ear. "You're worth more than a few little trinkets. If the Hallows don't work, then—"

"Ah," came a voice beside them, and Draco and Hermione both jumped, startled to find Theo and Harry standing expectantly beside them. "So," Harry said. "This is what you've been keeping from me, then? You're…" He glanced between Hermione and Draco. "You," he said uncertainly to Hermione, "and Malfoy?"

"Yes, this is very much a surprise to me also," Theo declared gravely, which everyone (thankfully) ignored.

"I—" Hermione glanced at Draco, who was rifling through shades of panic. "Yeah," she said eventually, painting a doe-eyed look of apology on her face. "I'm so sorry, Harry, I just—I thought you'd be angry, and—"

"Honestly? I'm glad," Harry told her, as Draco blinked, surprised. "I mean, you've both been acting so strangely I thought it was something much worse. This is totally fine," he exhaled, and Draco let out a breath in the same motion, finding himself much more relieved than he probably should have been, considering he knew better. "I mean, I thought you liked Ron, but—"

"Oh, well, um. No," Hermione said, cheeks flushed. "And yes, I suppose I have been acting strangely, haven't I? But I mean, given our history, I'm sure you understand—"

"So listen," Theo cut in, providing Draco a blissful escape, "now that we're all on the same page, let's move on, shall we? For one thing, why don't you try this," he said, offering the stone out to Draco. "It's not working for me or Potter, but that's really not saying much."

"I like how we've just abandoned any pretense this is anything more than an exercise in trial and error," Draco muttered under his breath, taking hold of the stone. "I don't know what you expect me to see. For one thing I don't know anyone who's dead, and for another—"

He broke off, leaping back as a translucent image burst forth from the stone.

"Draco?" asked Hermione, reaching out for him. "Are you okay?"

"Um," he said, staring in confusion. "Can you not see this?"

"See what?" Harry asked, bemused, and the spectral figure before him sighed.

"Oh no," said Hermione Granger. "Not this again."

Grindelverse

"Did we really need to be woken up for this?" Draco grumbled the moment they apparated back into James' house, catching sight of Harry where he sat expectantly on the sofa beside the Floo. "Couldn't it have waited until morning?"

"No," Harry said flatly, rising to his feet. "Grindelwald is on his way to Hogwarts for some sort of recruitment exercise," he remarked without any particular change in tone, glancing between Hermione and Draco. "This could be our chance to take him out. And get the wand."

"That—" Hermione blinked. "That's quite abrupt, isn't it?"

"Well, it seems we have some unexpected allies we didn't know about before," Harry said, opening the door to his study and gesturing inside to where Theo was waiting alongside a rapidly-fidgeting James, a guilty-looking Sirius, and—

"Lily," Hermione said, startled, and Lily Evans looked up from where she sat at Harry's desk. Up close, she was remarkably lovely, and it was startling to see that what everyone had said to Harry was true—he did, in fact, have his mother's eyes.

"Yes," she confirmed, rising to her feet. "You're Hermione?"

Hermione nodded numbly, but it was Draco who managed words.

"This is your source?" he asked Harry, sounding less than impressed.

"In part," Harry said with a shrug, and Draco's grey gaze slid to Lily's.

"Interesting," he said, in much the same scrutinizing tone he'd used upon first meeting Hermione. "You ran," he noted succinctly, "so forgive me if I find your sudden interest in being here rather surprising."

"Oh, good," Lily said. "An accusation from a spoiled child. My favorite."

James choked on something that might have been either opposition or a laugh, and Lily glared at him.

"That wasn't about you," she said, sparing the meanness of the message for James before shifting her attention back to Draco. "I wasn't running away. I was looking for answers. The moment James found me I knew what it might mean, and as soon as I knew I was right, I came here. Tom told me what you're all up to. Irresponsible parenting, for one," she said, with another shot at James and Sirius, "and a whole lot of hubris, for another."

"Hubris?" Draco echoed, loftily doubtful. "Last I checked I wasn't a Roman emperor."

"Well, glad you're aware," Lily noted drily, "but still. Killing Grindelwald isn't going to be as easy as you think. Or, at least, it wasn't going to be," she clarified with a glance at Harry, "but it can be now, if you follow my explicit instructions."

"I'm sorry," Hermione cut in, glancing warily at Draco's furrowed brow, "but… you've been hiding in secret for almost—what, seventeen years? And now you suddenly want to be involved in all of this?"

For a moment, something flashed on Lily's face. She glanced at Harry, considering him, and then turned back to Hermione, having apparently gauged an answer.

"Yes, I do. Because Grindelwald stole my life from me," Lily said firmly, fixing her green eyes on Hermione's face with a look of thunderous certainty. "Because I've wanted him dead for years. Because I've been waiting for the chance to do it, and I'm not the only one. Because it's about time he got what's coming to him. But most importantly," she finished, one hand tightening at her side, "because my son is in danger. So yes, Hermione." She swallowed, lifting her chin. "Suddenly I do very much want to be involved in all of this."

Hermione blinked, surprised. The other statements had clanged with bravado, but the last one had quivered slightly—which meant that most of what Lily had said had been a lie, Hermione was fairly certain, but the last one had been true. Very true. The kind of truth, Hermione knew, that people lived and died for. Lily was genuinely worried about Harry, that much seemed real, but why? Why now?

Hermione tucked it away, not quite certain she was ready to trust Lily Evans.

"All we need is a way into Hogwarts," Theo supplied, glancing at Draco. "And we have one. Well, several," he corrected himself. "I assumed Hermione would get you in, but we can't all burst in in packs, can we? So Harry and I have our own method of entry. A ginger one," he clarified, "specifically. And one with a bit of an inferiority complex, if we're being honest."

"You don't mean—" Draco frowned. "The Weasley, really?"

"Ron?" Hermione echoed, half-squeaking it. "You're getting back into Hogwarts via Ron?"

"We're basically pen pals already," Theo assured her, "so, personally, I'm ready to make the leap to accomplices."

"You just met him—"

"Yes," Harry confirmed, "and during that meeting, he told us at least three ways to get into the castle and the easiest times of day to do it. So we're going in about mid-afternoon," he finished, with a glance at his mother. "And Lily," he said, carefully enunciating her name, "will be there to help make sure Grindelwald's people are distracted."

"How?" Hermione and Draco asked in unison.

"I have friends in the castle," Lily said. "People who oppose Grindelwald as much as I do. There's a fairly considerable following of unrest at Hogwarts."

"You mean McGonagall, don't you?" Hermione asked, and Lily's attention slid back to hers.

"Maybe," she said, and Draco straightened, obviously not convinced.

"You said you talked to Tom," Draco said. "When? He told us he hadn't seen you since you left his employment."

"I didn't go directly to Tom," Lily told him, scoffing a little under her breath at his presumption. "He's not exactly someone you go to when you need answers. He's more of a 'look for answers first, come back later with leverage' sort of person," she clarified, which Hermione found was a deeply relatable sentiment. "I made a point to have words with one of his more public associates."

"Oh, is that what I am now?" asked a voice behind them, and Hermione jumped at finding Remus in the doorway, having evidently made himself what looked to be a highly carnivorous sandwich. "And here I thought the tattoos and marginal lack of humanity made me so mysterious."

"How did you know about Remus?" Hermione asked Lily, frowning. "Tom told me you'd never met."

"And we hadn't," Remus confirmed, shrugging. "She found me."

Lily, meanwhile, fixed Hermione with a supreme look of boredom. "You don't actually think I survived in this world for so long without learning everything there was to know about it, did you?"

Well, Hermione thought. That was certainly a valid point.

"Hold on," Draco said, turning to Harry. "Why didn't you call me sooner?"

"Oh good," Harry sighed impatiently, "so we've progressed from 'couldn't this wait' to 'why didn't you call me sooner'—"

"Harry, we need to speak privately," Draco said flatly, "now."

"Draco, I would think—"

"Actually," James blurted abruptly, "in terms of speaking privately—"

"There's nothing to say," Lily snapped at him, which appeared to be a micro-argument they'd already had before Hermione and Draco's arrival. "What do you want me to do, apologize? I can't, James, and we don't have to pretend you're happy to see me, because that isn't what this is about—"

"Mum, Dad, please," Theo said. "You're upsetting the children."

"Excuse me?" Sirius demanded. "I hardly think—"

"I wasn't talking to you," Theo said. "Obviously Draco and Harry are Mum and Dad."

"Oh," Sirius said, and then frowned. "Wait a minute, does that mean we're the children?"

"You certainly are," Remus informed him, and Sirius scowled.

"I don't even know why you're here—"

"Listen, I hear 'hostile takeover' and I just come running—"

"I don't understand what you're so upset about, Draco. Did you suddenly not want to topple Grindelwald's regime for some reason?"

"That's not the point, Harry, and you know it—"

"LILY, I WILL NOT CALM DOWN, I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

Hermione sighed, suddenly more exhausted than ever, and caught a glimpse of something on Harry's desk. It was the ring, she realized—which she'd forgotten entirely about, and forgotten to even ask about, having been caught up in Tom's bewildering web—and before she quite realized what she was doing, she had leaned over to pick it up, eyeing the facets of it more freely now that she was without Tom's unnerving observation.

Idly, she wondered if Harry had found it yet. She'd lent it some thought by then and determined it was probably what Dumbledore had hidden in the snitch he'd given Harry, though that wasn't particularly helpful if he couldn't get it open. If he had, though, that meant Harry had all three Deathly Hallows, and that meant—

"Um," she heard, and looked up in the midst of the roomful of heated arguments to find Draco Malfoy—not the Draco Malfoy she'd arrived with—was staring vacantly at her. "Can you not see this?"

He wasn't talking to her, she realized.

But he was definitely seeing her.

"Oh no," she sighed, glancing down at the ring in her hand and realizing what must have happened. "Not this again."

Potterverse

"What are you seeing?" Harry pressed, but Draco swallowed hard, shaking his head.

"This is private," he informed Harry hurriedly. "It's… my grandfather," he determined with a glance at Theo, who unhelpfully frowned with bemusement, not quite grasping the message. "He's, uh. I just wasn't expecting to see him, but, Theo," Draco attempted wildly, "do you remember my grandfather? You know, and how he went to… another place?"

"Death?" Theo asked drily.

"Right, yes, funny how death is like another universe, isn't it?" Draco said helplessly, as Hermione registered his intent first, eyes widening. "Anyway, I just need a moment of privacy, things to discuss; parting words, reverent praise, updates in re heirlooms, et cetera—"

He stumbled away, casting a discreet Muffliato and then staring at the image of Hermione, who was rolling her eyes.

"That was subtle," she said.

"Did you die?" he demanded.

"No," she replied. "Did you?"

"No," he said, confused. "So how are you here?"

"Same way we were last time, I expect," she said, frowning, and then added, "Are they listening?"

"No," he said. By then, Theo had gotten the point, managing to successfully distract Harry with something else. "What about on your end?"

"They're all fighting about," she began, and paused. "Well, nothing important. Anyway, I slipped out without much of an issue. I'm alone, if you want to talk."

"Oh. Right. Well," Draco said. "What's new?"

Hermione arched a dubious brow.

"I don't know," he retorted irritably, hissing it through his teeth as she shook her head, loftily derisive. "What am I supposed to say? We had a lovely outing killing the Dark Lord and now we have all three Hallows but they don't fucking work—"

"That seems like a perfectly good place to start," Hermione cut in sharply. "What do you mean they don't work?"

"They just don't," Draco said. "Nothing's happening. Potter can't get the stone to do anything, which is why I have it—"

"Hm," Hermione said, frowning. "Nothing happened when I held it earlier, either. And I guess technically nothing's happening now," she added, pacing slowly through whatever room she was in. "Not how it's supposed to, at least, seeing that we've established neither of us is dead. So unless the stone has some sort of summoning charm that mimics the resurrection of the dead and it's somehow similar to the summoning charm in the Room of Requirement—"

"Can we not get all academic about this right now, please?" Draco asked. His head was already hurting at the thought of her posturing. "Just tell me what's going on there."

"Oh, well, Tom Riddle is pretty much a disaster," Hermione sighed. "We might be able to get rid of Grindelwald, but the moment we do, Tom will be waiting. That's Voldemort, by the way, in case you didn't kn-"

"I know," Draco said impatiently. "What else?"

"Well, once Grindelwald is," she began, and then grimaced. "Dead, I suppose—"

"Yes," Draco confirmed. "That does seem to be the state the other me would prefer."

"—then we'll have all three Hallows, so." She stopped. "Wait. Did you say Voldemort was dead? You killed him?"

"Actually, you did, mostly," Draco informed her. "I mean, I helped, but. You—she—threw the knife."

He watched her mouth the words 'me' and 'knife' in apparent disbelief.

"Oh," she managed eventually. "I take it Harry hasn't noticed she's not me?"

Draco hesitated.

"If it helps, he definitely noticed something," he determined after a moment, finding that to be a positive spin. "But obviously he wasn't going to help me if you weren't you, and now it's kind of a difficult subject to broach. Particularly because you seemed like you had something you were doing over there," he added hastily, and she considered it, lips pursed with barely-suppressed disapproval.

"Well," she said, and gradually sighed. "I guess you have a point."

Draco instantly let out a breath of relief.

"But you do realize you still have horcruxes to destroy," she told him.

"I do realize that, yes," he confirmed. "Unfortunately, Potter's attention is somewhat elsewhere."

"Hm," Hermione said, thinking. "Well, that sounds like him. You'll have to keep him focused."

"I'm trying," Draco grumbled. "It's hard to do, though he's a bit more susceptible to guidance now that Weasley's gone—"

"What?" Hermione demanded. "Ron left again?"

Draco paused. "Again?" he echoed, and Hermione grimaced.

"He left us for a bit," she admitted. "A few months."

"Oh," Draco said, blinking. "I guess that's why Harry's been…" He considered it for a moment, but ultimately came up short. "However he's been."

Unpredictably, Hermione chuckled.

"What?" Draco demanded, balking. He assumed, not unreasonably, that her amusement was some form of mockery, though he guessed it might have had softer edges than that.

"Nothing," she said. "You just called him Harry."

"I—" Fuck. "You must have misheard."

"Mm," Hermione permitted sagely. "Of course I did."

"Get back to the point," Draco insisted, glaring at her. "What are you doing next?"

"Trying not to get killed," she replied, and waffled in thought for a moment. "You, meanwhile, should look for the next horcrux. I suppose you do have more time now, don't you? But still, he could come back if you don't."

"Right, yes, I've heard. Oh," Draco said, remembering. "One more thing. What reason could there be for Potter to have to die?"

Hermione frowned. "What?"

"Potter told us about the prophecy. Taken with the whole 'I open at the close thing,' it's all a little suspicious—"

"Oh." Hermione swallowed. "Yeah. I'd really hoped I was wrong about that."

Draco glared expectantly at her. "Meaning?"

"Well," Hermione began, pained, and stopped. "You know Harry can talk to snakes, right?"

Draco shuddered at the memory of their ill-fated duel second year. "Yes."

"Right. And he can see into Voldemort's mind, which isn't very common," she continued. "I did extensive research, obviously, because I thought the whole thing was really quite disturbing, and he was doing so poorly with occlumency—"

"Get to the point, Granger," Draco sighed, and she nodded hurriedly.

"Right, well, Dumbledore wanted all of the horcruxes destroyed before Voldemort could be defeated," Hermione said slowly. "Which means that if Harry was supposed to be able to open the snitch before then…"

"You think Potter's a horcrux," Draco registered, blinking, and Hermione nodded slowly.

"To be clear, I don't think so," she said. "But I do think Dumbledore thought so."

"So you think Dumbledore really did set Potter up to die," Draco said. "Is that it? We're going to search for the rest of the horcruxes and then he'll just… die?" He blinked, disbelieving. "He'll just… be dead?"

"Well, maybe not," Hermione said, chewing her lip. "You have the Hallows, don't you? Maybe you'll figure out a w-"

She broke off, startled, and fidgeted rapidly with her fingers. Then, in an instant, she'd disappeared, and Draco was staring into nothing.

"Granger?" he asked, staring at the stone. "Are you…"

He paused.

"…there?" he finished.

Nothing.

Well, she probably wasn't dead, he reasoned, so he dissipated the silencing charm and wandered back over to Hermione.

"Hold this," he said, and she held her hand out for the stone, letting him place it in her palm. "See anything?"

She waited for a moment, and then shook her head. "No. What happened?"

"Yes," Harry said, noting Draco's return and bounding over. "What happened?"

"Oh, nothing," Draco said quickly. "Grandfather's doing well. Was just checking on how we were doing, you know. Normal things."

"Oh," Harry said, disappointed, and turned to Hermione. "Well, listen, Nott and I were just talking about where we might find one of the horcruxes, and—"

"Hey," Theo said, catching Draco's arm before he leapt to follow them (worried, as ever, about what Hermione might reveal) and yanking him back. "You talked to her? Is she coming back?"

"Not yet," Draco said, and at Theo's look of skepticism, he wrenched his arm free. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Theo scoffed, "only a tiny, hardly noticeable case of I don't believe you, seeing as in my experience, the things you say aren't necessarily… what's the word? Oh, yes," he determined, flashing Draco a scowl. "True."

"I thought we'd moved past this," Draco muttered, and Theo tutted softly, shaking his head.

"I said I'd help you, and I have," Theo reminded him, "but that doesn't mean I've had a fucking memory modification. I know you're willing to lie to people if it means you can do whatever you want."

"Not telling you my job was to kill Dumbledore was hardly a lie," Draco snapped. "Much less something I wanted—"

"A lie of omission is still a lie, Draco. Look it up," Theo retorted, and Draco clenched a fist.

"This isn't the same thing," Draco warned, and Theo shook his head.

"No, it isn't," he said flatly, "so try not to make the same mistakes."

Then Theo turned and followed Hermione and Harry, leaving Draco behind.

Grindelverse

"You think Potter's a horcrux," Draco had said, and Hermione, lost in thought, wished she had a different answer.

"To be clear, I don't think so," she said. "But I do think Dumbledore thought so."

"So you think Dumbledore really did set Potter up to die," Draco said. "Is that it? We're going to search for the rest of the horcruxes and then he'll just… die?" He blinked, disbelieving. "He'll just… be dead?"

"Well, maybe not," Hermione said, considering it. After all, things were different, weren't they? The world was nothing like she thought it was. There were more than one of them, for one thing, which seemed like plenty to go on, and outside of that, there were still options she would have dismissed had she not seen everything she had. "You have the Hallows, don't you?" she asked him. "Maybe you'll figure out a w-"

She broke off, though, when she caught a flash of red hair that meant she wasn't alone, immediately removing the ring from her finger and letting it fall to the ground as Lily bent, delicately picking it up.

"So," Lily said. "You don't trust me."

Hermione blinked. "I wasn't—I just—"

"You don't," Lily informed her. "Which is good, because I don't trust you either." She straightened, glancing over the ring. "This is Tom's ring," she murmured, and glanced doubtfully at Hermione. "Why do you have it?"

Don't answer. "Maybe Harry should tell you."

"Mm," Lily replied, unsatisfied. "Who were you talking to?"

Do. Not. Answer.

"No one," Hermione replied.

"That," Lily said, "is a fucking lie."

She reached her hand out, smacking the ring back into Hermione's palm.

"Call them again," Lily said, and Hermione hesitated.

"I don't think that's how it works—"

"Call them," Lily said, "again."

Hermione blinked.

Glanced at the ring.

Waited.

"He's gone," she said, and kicked herself. She hadn't intended to essentially limit half the universe's population by providing Draco's gender, but hopefully it wouldn't matter. Hopefully (and she couldn't believed she hoped it, but it was what it was) Lily was less interested in the other half of the connection than she was in Hermione, which seemed to be the case.

"Mm," Lily said, more displeased than doubtful. "Well, listen. I know you're not from here. And you're the same as me, too, if I had to guess," she added, giving Hermione a studious glance. "Which means you definitely don't belong here."

Hermione opened her mouth to retort and thought better of it.

After all, she had other weapons.

"Why did you leave Harry?" she asked instead, watching Lily flinch, which had been her intended effect. The Lily Potter Hermione knew had died rather than leave Harry, and she was willing to guess it wasn't so different here.

Maybe Lily didn't trust Hermione, and maybe Hermione didn't trust her, either, but she was fairly certain Lily wasn't dangerous. Something didn't add up about Lily's past, and whatever it was, Hermione was certain something else must have made Lily leave her only son behind.

"I didn't," Lily said, and then, after a moment of pained indecision, she stepped closer. "Listen to me," she warned, voice low, "because whether you trust me or not, I need you to know this. You can't kill Tom Riddle."

Hermione blinked. "What?"

"You can't kill Tom," Lily repeated, resolute in her insistence. "I know you're going to try. I know you are, and I had to stop you. You can't do it."

"Why not?" Hermione asked, and Lily hesitated for just a moment before letting out a breath, ridding herself of what was almost certainly a terrible secret.

"Because," she confessed flatly. "If you kill Tom Riddle, then—"

She broke off, swallowing, and glanced down at her hands, revealing the stripped-down layer of truth Hermione had noticed in her once before.

"If you kill Tom," Lily said quietly, "Harry will die."

a/n: … annnnndddd happy Monday! Be back Thursday with more. Look out for Commoner's Guide late tomorrow night and a one shot featuring a pairing from the How to Win epilogue in Amortentia soon also, assuming I don't die at a wedding this weekend. This one's for darling draco, because I had the best time watching you read Ride or Die!

16. Inconvenient Truths

Chapter 16: Inconvenient Truths

Grindelverse

"There's something you don't know about Tom Riddle," Lily continued in the wake of Hermione's dumbfounded silence, voicing what was perhaps the grossest understatement Hermione had ever heard.

"Did he lie, then?" were the first words that managed to fall out of Hermione's mouth. "He told me he let you leave when you were done with his employment. Did he trick you into something, or…?"

Lily grimaced. "You have to understand," she said slowly, "when I met James, I—"

She glanced apprehensively over her shoulder, eyeing the room where the others remained before turning back towards Hermione.

"I met James by accident," Lily explained, exhaling it out like a breath she'd been holding for a considerably long time. It was clearly a story she didn't typically share, and Hermione fought to focus on what she was being told rather than her own misgivings; specifically, how little she really trusted the woman she was currently speaking with. "I was—" Lily paused. "Well, the thing is, I have this… perfect older sister. Her name is Petunia. Not that that's really important," she conceded grimly, "but the point is my parents adored her, and they weren't really in the business of paying attention to me. They considered me… unlucky."

Hermione frowned, eyeing Lily's bitter expression of distaste. "Unlucky?"

"Well, strange things would happen around me," Lily clarified, and it dawned on Hermione that having a witch for a daughter would be an extremely strange thing indeed if there were no kindly silver-haired professors popping up to explain what was happening. "Anyway, I wasn't particularly well-behaved as a teenager. I was particularly good at sleight of hand, which I didn't realize was actual magic right away, but—" She broke off again. "I digress. It's a complicated story."

"So you met James… by accident?" Hermione repeated doubtfully.

"Well, I pickpocketed him on purpose," Lily admitted. Hermione, thinking of her alternate self, began to wonder if straying from general morality might have been a common symptom among all young undiagnosed witches. "He's got a real 'look at me and all my money' vibe, as I'm sure you've noticed. But he caught me, obviously, seeing as he's a wizard, and—" Her cheeks flushed slightly, glowing brightly against the auburn of her hair. "I guess it was exciting to him, having something forbidden. He was a good little rich kid, you know? It was Sirius who got into trouble, not James. James was perfectly well-behaved. My opposite in almost all things," she added drily.

Hermione blinked with surprise, though she ultimately opted not to discuss who Lily and James had been in her universe. "And?"

"And," Lily exhaled, "I didn't really think he was going to stick around. We were seventeen, mind you, and he had no idea what he meant to me. He had no concept of understanding he wasn't just a boy to me. He was this… this portal to an entire world. I couldn't lose him." She bit her lip. "So I started looking for someone who could help me."

"Oh, no," Hermione exhaled, thinking of her own recent exchange with Tom. I'll never be stupid enough to trust you, followed by his all-too-knowing response: I'm willing to bet you will be. Desperate people often are. "You didn't trust James?"

Lily shook her head, remorseful. "Call it a mistake. Call it youth. Call it whatever you want, but I didn't exactly enjoy being James Potter's little rebellion. I wasn't willing to stake my entire life on whether a teenage boy could be my entire future. Plus, with Grindelwald hanging over us," she remarked with a knowing grimace, "I knew at some point it would have to end. There was no happily ever after on the horizon; I could have been killed. He could have been killed. So I needed something that would keep me in this world, somehow, even if James couldn't."

Hermione swallowed hard. "So," she attempted, hazarding a guess, "I take it Harry wasn't a happy accident."

Lily shook her head. "No," she admitted. "Not exactly."

"What was Tom's involvement?" Hermione asked, bracing herself for the answer, and Lily glanced apprehensively over her shoulder again.

"You can't tell anyone," she warned. "Especially not Harry. Certainly not Draco." She made a face at the reference to him. "He reminds me of James, actually. They all do," she amended at a mutter, and shook her head, warily disapproving. "They have absolutely no idea the consequences of their actions."

"And you think I do?" Hermione prompted, strangely doubtful. She was, obviously, having had the exact same thought multiple times before, but that was hardly the point. How would Lily possibly know that?

"I think you must," Lily replied flatly. "I of all people certainly know the look of someone who's fallen into something she's not nearly ready for."

Hermione opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.

"So," she said, thinking better of it. "Tom."

"Tom traffics in whispers," Lily supplied, shrugging warily. "I set one foot in Knockturn Alley looking for someone who could help me and he found me right away. I was nineteen, and I told him one thing: I need an anchor. I need a key." She paused. "He gave me a pocket watch."

Hermione blinked, abruptly registering the reference. "The portkey?"

Lily's gaze slid knowingly to hers. "I told you I knew what you were."

Hermione inhaled sharply, stunned. "But—why would Tom just give that to you?"

"He asked me for a favor in return," Lily said, which certainly checked out. "He wanted me to spy on someone for him and then report back. That was all, he said, and then he'd help me if I ever needed it. If I ever needed to escape, he would help me." She opened her mouth, hesitating, and then confessed in a rapid stream, "So I saw my other life. My other self. She was…" A swallow. "She was a witch. A witch who was hopelessly in love with James." Another pause. "And she was also pregnant."

Behind them, voices rose slightly, prompting Lily to lift her chin, obviously opting to discard some of the details in favor of hurrying the story along.

"I told Tom what he wanted to know and then I went back to James. I was pregnant with Harry within weeks, which was obviously not something James was overly thrilled about, but he was sort of sweet about it. Happy, anyway, even though it was dangerous." She paused, lost in momentary reverie, and shook herself firmly. "Anyway, about six months later, Tom came to find me." She cleared her throat. "He'd been tracking me all that time."

Of course he had, Hermione thought grimly.

"He knew, of course. Knew everything. Reminded me that I owed him for keeping my secret, and that he suspected I would need him again sometime soon." Again, Hermione's stomach lurched at how little Tom Riddle had changed in nearly twenty years. "I asked him what it would take to make sure my baby would never be used as leverage. The pregnancy may have been strategic," Lily added, defensively eyeing Hermione as if she might have dared to contradict her, "but Harry has always meant everything to me. I loved him, even then. I wouldn't have let Tom hurt him."

Hermione nodded, her mind already spinning with what might have happened next.

"Tom told me he wouldn't come near Harry for seventeen years. After that, he said, Harry would be of age. Translation? Fair game." At that, Lily grimaced. "Tom also reminded me he was the least of my problems, and he was right. James tried to hide me, but eventually his parents found out. After Harry was born, they told me to leave. Told me they didn't want to do it, of course," she added bitterly, "but pointed out if it came down to a choice between their son and me, they picked him. I guess I can't blame them." She swallowed heavily. "But they took Harry from me, so I went to Tom."

Hermione let out a shaky breath.

"I didn't know what they were going to do with Harry. They'd already threatened to turn me in if I came anywhere near James, so going to him for help was out. I didn't even know whether he knew what they'd done, but I certainly wasn't going to chance it. I tried for weeks to find Harry, but I wasn't proficient enough with magic to know what the Potters had used; a cloaking spell of some sort, or maybe a secret keeper. I thought they might—" She stopped abruptly, eyes glistening. "I thought they might have given him away. Or worse."

Hermione shivered.

"So you asked Tom for help," she prompted gently, and Lily nodded.

"I asked him to keep Harry safe," she said. "To make sure he was taken care of. In return, I'd work for him. I ran errands for him, basically. I was the thief for him I would have been for myself, and in return, he taught me how to use magic. But about a year into working for Tom, I found something. A secret; something I couldn't pretend I hadn't seen. And after I saw it, I couldn't work for him anymore, so—" She stiffened. "I left. And I took a few things with me when I went."

"The portkey," Hermione realized, stunned. "Is that how Draco got it? You gave it to him?"

Lily nodded slowly. "After Harry turned seventeen, I made it easy for Draco to find."

"But why not—"

"Why not just give it to Harry directly?" Lily guessed, shrugging as Hermione nodded slowly. "It would have been too much, I thought. He'd only just found out about James, and…" She trailed off, obviously emotional. "I didn't want to overwhelm him. Besides, Draco was the one more likely to use it."

"How could you know all that?" Hermione asked, frowning, and Lily's green eyes fell with unnerving certainty on hers; it was something of a please, you silly girl, how could you even ask?

"I told you. I love my son," Lily said. "I never left him. I just couldn't stay."

An important distinction, Hermione thought, and felt her thoughts whir in her head, trying to keep up with everything she knew of two separate universes.

"Whatever enchantment the Potters used to keep him from you, it would have faded when Harry turned seventeen," Hermione noted, and Lily's mouth twitched in confirmation. "So you've been watching him since then?" At Lily's nod, she frowned. "Then why run away when you saw James?"

"There's a difference between me simply keeping watch over my son and my ex-boyfriend arbitrarily showing up in a place he was never supposed to be," Lily informed her impatiently. "I realized I had never really gotten away from Tom. He must have still been involved, somehow, and I told you the truth. I'm a thief, not a liar," she reminded Hermione, who blinked, realizing that much seemed to be true. "I looked for Remus, like I said. Everyone knows he's Tom's guard dog, and I… persuaded him to tell me what Tom was up to." Her lips curled up slightly. "It only hurt a little."

Hermione shuddered. "Okay. Fine. But as for Tom's death—"

"Remember I told you I uncovered a secret?" Lily asked, and Hermione nodded. "It was a piece of paper hidden with Tom's things. A death certificate."

"A—what?" Hermione asked. A horcrux she might have expected; some sort of object, cursed or otherwise, would have made perfect sense. But paperwork?

"Are you particularly religious, Hermione?" Lily asked tangentially, and Hermione shook her head slowly, bemused. "Do you know much about Jesus of Nazareth? Historically, I mean. It's really quite an interesting story if you look at it objectively, all worship aside. Really, it's a story about a clever young man, born from a mortal father and a blessed mother. Brighter than all his peers, who stood in opposition to the outdated teachings of existing authorities. Who represented a political change of tide. He starts as a prodigy," she noted impassively, "then mysteriously disappears. When he resurfaces, he can suddenly perform miracles. He gathers a broad spectrum of supporters; amasses a crowd of people willing to die for him. People who are ready to follow him anywhere. Ultimately, he changes the world. But he doesn't really become Jesus, Son of God, until he rises from the dead." She paused, giving Hermione a testing glance. "It's all very… intriguing," she murmured to herself, "don't you think?"

"Lily," Hermione said after a moment, swallowing hard with apprehension, "whose death certificate did you find in Tom's things?"

"His." It was the answer Hermione had anticipated, and once it was said, Lily's mouth was almost a smile. Perhaps irony had bitten into the corners of her lips. "I found a death certificate for Tom Marvolo Riddle, dated 1947."

"But—" Hermione stared at her. "But how is that possible?"

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. I certainly didn't know then. But it occurred to me that if the man I was working for couldn't possibly be the real Tom Riddle, then I didn't want to wait to find out who—or what," she amended with a tiny shudder, "he really was. So I left."

Hermione floundered in temporary silence, aghast. "But—"

"Who is he really?" Lily asked, and shrugged again. "To be honest, I still don't know."

"But where did—"

"What universe did it come from? This one, I'm pretty sure," Lily supplied, correctly anticipating Hermione's next question. "I've been thinking about it for sixteen years, searching for information, but the truth is I still don't know. All I know is that in 1947 here, Tom Riddle died. In the place I suspect you came from, he was missing. Albania is anyone's best guess, but there are no records." She smiled faintly. "A familiar story, as I mentioned. For years Jesus wandered the desert alone. Which is not to say Tom is any sort of religious figure," she clarified, clearing her throat, "but you have to admit, he knows how to play a compelling narrative."

Hermione shivered. Lily's tone sounded almost reverential, and Hermione wasn't totally sure she blamed her. The more she learned about Tom Riddle, the more impossible it was to understand what he was.

"Wait—but who did Tom ask you to spy on?" Hermione pressed, suddenly remembering. "Back in…" She quickly calculated. "1979. Who were you spying on? Was it Lord Voldemort?"

Lily shook her head. "No. Albus Dumbledore."

"But—" The whole thing was dizzying. Why Dumbledore? And who was Tom Riddle, if not Tom Riddle? Was it possible he was a horcrux, or—"But wait," Hermione managed hurriedly, drawn back to the initial point. "How do you know Harry will die if Tom dies?"

"Because," Lily said, smiling thinly. "If I were Tom, that's what I would do. And believe me," she added, the green eyes Hermione knew so thoroughly abruptly going cold, "I know him better than anyone."

Potterverse

They'd known they couldn't stay in the Chamber of Secrets forever. The problem, as ever, was what they didn't know—which in this case was where they were going to go next.

"If I'm right," Harry said, "I think there's a horcrux in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault."

At once, Hermione made a face. "I don't like her."

"No one does," Theo assured her. "It's one of her signature qualities."

"So now you want to break into Gringotts?" Draco asked Harry wearily, stifling a groan. "Sure, why not," he grunted to himself, shaking his head. "We've already broken into Hogwarts. Why stop there? After all, we blew up the Hogwarts Express, and that was supremely fun. Should we leave Gringotts a pile of ash as well, or—"

"I think you've made your point," Harry informed him, flashing him a glare. "This is hardly helpful input."

"Says you," Draco muttered. "I think I'm very helpfully reminding you your last plans have been… how to put it? Catastrophically poor decisions," he determined. "Or no, wait. Expressions of whimsical madness—"

"Title of my memoir," Theo cut in, casually diffusing tension. "And for the record, if we're going to blow up Gringotts, so be it. I just need to get of here before I, too, become the empty shell of a dead murder snake."

"How about London?" Hermione suggested, and Draco blanched.

"What, you mean with muggles?"

"Really?" she prompted scathingly, slicing an impatient glare at him, and he sighed.

"I didn't mean—"

"Where were you before?" Theo asked Harry, smoothly speaking over them. "You were missing for nearly a year, Potter. Can't imagine you never had somewhere specific to go."

Hermione, who'd clearly been ready to launch into an admonishment of Draco until Theo's interruption, paused instead, listening closely to Harry's response.

"Well, we stayed at Grimmauld Place for quite a while," Harry said.

"The Black residence?" Draco asked, surprised, and Harry glanced at him.

"Yeah," he said. "Know it?"

Draco nodded in lieu of an explanation, which would have been enormously irritating to rehash. His mother had never had fond memories of the house, but that certainly hadn't prevented her from being highly displeased to hear that in the wake of her aunt's death, the property had gone to her cousin Sirius, who'd been burned off the family tree. Magical law was an utter travesty, Narcissa had ranted to Draco, if it did nothing to honor the rightful practices of disinheritance. As she'd insisted to him numerous times, the house should have been transferred to the closest living heirs, lacking a direct legal inheritor. Given that Bellatrix was in Azkaban and Andromeda had been equally disinherited, Narcissa firmly believed Grimmauld Place rightfully belonged to her.

Not that Draco particularly cared either way. By all accounts, the house was drafty and unpleasant, and besides—he was no expert in magical estate planning.

"Why not go back there?" Theo was asking Harry.

"Because anyone can get in," Harry said glumly.

"What, like Death Eaters?" Theo asked. "I don't think they're a problem at the moment. They're likely being rounded up for Azkaban, don't you think?"

Draco opened his mouth, half an idea forming in his head, and then closed it. Half an idea wasn't much to go on. He chewed it carefully, hoping it would come to fruition.

"No, not Death Eaters. Order members, actually." Harry's tone was grim. "I'm not quite ready to face them, to tell you the truth."

"They couldn't possibly be angry," Theo scoffed. "You're seventeen fucking years old. And if it helps, I'm happy to tell them you generously offered to die and we, savages that we are, rudely denied you."

"It's not anger I'm worried about," Harry admitted. "They don't even know what I was supposed to have done. I wasn't allowed to tell them."

To that, Draco thought he heard Hermione mutter the words 'manipulative bastard' under her breath, which Harry either didn't hear or opted not to.

"It's just—" Harry continued, or attempted to continue, though the effort was met with a tentative pause. "They're sort of, um. They're…"

"They dote on you," Hermione guessed. Possibly knew, in some other form, but in this one, she was definitely guessing. "For the record, denying yourself comfort is a terrible coping strategy, Harry."

"Well, we have more pressing things to do, like getting into Gringotts," Harry reminded her. "I don't want to cope. I want to finish what I started."

"Ah, he doesn't want to cope," Theo echoed drily, musing it into nothing. "And collectively, we die of shock."

"I just don't know how we're going to get in," Harry pressed, ignoring him. "I mean, Malfoy's not wrong, we can't exactly just jump in and make a mess of things. Not anymore, anyway." He grimaced. "Assuming the wizarding world is no longer a lawless dictatorship, I'm thinking any sort of crash landing is unfortunately not going to work."

"Actually, we'd better hope the wizarding world is no longer a lawless dictatorship," Draco interrupted slowly, "as that would mean magical law would apply—which could be beneficial to us in this singular instance."

Harry and Theo turned towards him, wearing twin frowns.

"What?" Harry demanded.

"Explain yourself," Theo agreed, and Hermione pursed her lips in thought, contemplating the many, many things she couldn't possibly have known.

"Since Bellatrix is dead," Draco clarified slowly, still working through a hunch, "everything in her vault will go to her legal successor. And since she has no children and her husband's family are all criminals, my mother is the closest living relative with a viable right to her property. But if my mother is arrested for, say, harboring a Dark Lord," he determined with a grimace, "then…"

He trailed off pointedly.

"Draco is Bellatrix Lestrange's closest familial heir," Hermione supplied, as Harry seemed to be staring blankly at him, either with confusion or calculation. On Harry Potter, Draco had come to learn the two expressions were unhelpfully similar. "Which means he can legally claim what's in her vault."

"We'd have to do it soon, though," Draco pointed out. "Otherwise the Ministry could seize her assets. She was supposed to be in the Ministry's custody while in Azkaban, so they might have a legal right to it."

"Soon," Harry echoed, as Hermione nodded her agreement. Draco assumed muggle law was similar, if not precisely the same. "Soon like now?"

"Soon like now," Draco agreed. "Like, for example, right fucking now."

Harry blinked, startled, then scrambled to his feet. "Well, let's go, then—"

"Hold on," Theo drawled, reaching out for Harry and yanking him back by the collar of his shirt. "None of us have been out in the real world in a while. We don't know which of us is wanted by the Ministry, if any. I'm missing," he reminded Harry pointedly, "assuming my father reported my absence, which is a big if. Draco could be considered a war criminal by now, for all we know, and hell, Granger could be wanted for murder—or if nobody took back control of the Ministry, then for being muggleborn. We don't know who or what might have taken over in the Dark Lord's absence, and you," he snapped at Harry, "are recognizable whether you're the good guy or the bad guy, so perhaps it's not asking too much to do five minutes of research before we step blithely into the fucking unknown?"

"Oh," Harry said, blinking, "right."

With that, Theo smoothly released him, folding his arms gruffly over his chest. "Yes. Well, then, excellent."

"Could you ask Dobby for help?" Hermione asked Harry, who considered it.

"I could if I knew where to find him, but he's a free elf," Harry mused aloud. "So, technically I can't summon him." He paused tentatively before adding with a knowing grimace, "Though I can summon Kreacher, I suppose."

"Well, do it, then," Draco cut in briskly, noting the lack of recognition on Hermione's face at the name. "Unless you had grand plans to sit around and wait?"

Harry flashed him a look of impatience. "Fine. Kreacher," he sighed, and there was a loud crack, revealing a wrinkled old house elf Draco had seen communicating with his Aunt Bellatrix at least once before. "Er—hi."

Kreacher gave him a solemn, shaky bow. "Master," the elf croaked gravely, offering a severe version of radiant delight upon gradually raising his gaze to Harry's. "Has Master found a new house?"

"What, this?" Harry asked, frowning around the chamber. "No, definitely not. I need a favor, though," he said, looking thoughtful. "Can you help me with something?"

"It would be Kreacher's great honor," the elf proclaimed. Draco had the distinct impression poetry might be recited soon; the so-called Kreacher seemed on the brink of devoted lyricism. Evidently, Harry Potter brought out the sentimentality in elves. "What will Master be needing?"

"Well, um—" Harry glanced at Theo, who gave him a little shrug implying it's your elf, Potter. You decide. "News, actually," Harry determined. "Can you bring us some recent newspapers?"

With a pop, Kreacher was gone.

"Question," Theo said to Draco. "What are you going to do if your mother hasn't been taken into custody?"

Draco hesitated. If Narcissa hadn't been arrested, she'd be the legal heir, and Draco wasn't totally sure she would help him. And if that was the case, was he willing to turn over his own mother to make sure the Dark Lord stayed dead?

Abruptly, Kreacher reappeared, piled under a heavy stack of Daily Prophets.

"Just a thought," Theo murmured to Draco as Harry stepped forward, frowning at the burdensome contents resting on Kreacher's skeletal arms.

"I was thinking just the ones from the past week," Harry said hesitantly, glancing at the oppressive-looking stack. "How many did you bring?"

"These be from the last week, Master," Kreacher croaked in reply, and Harry shook his head, resolving himself to searching.

"Well, split them up, then. Here," he said, tossing the top half of the pile to Hermione before separating the rest, dividing them into three. "Just… keep an eye out for news about us, about the Ministry, about… well, you know what to look for—"

For several hours, the four of them separated into the corners of a small square on the floor and delved into everything they'd missed (or caused) within the last seven days, which ultimately accounted for more newspapers than any of them particularly wanted to read.

With the notable exception of Hermione, that is, who was curled up in apparent contentment as she sped through the text, her pile diminishing the fastest.

"Draco was reported wanted by Voldemort," she said, not looking up as she tossed the paper into the center of the room. "No report on Theo."

Theo sighed theatrically, biting into a piece of bread Kreacher had just recently handed him. "It's almost as if my father hates me and wishes I were dead," he lamented. "Only that can't be true, he's so warm and gentle—"

"My father was taken into custody," Draco noted from his paper, shuddering a little at the use of his father's previous Azkaban picture. "No word on my mother yet."

"Ministry in lockdown," Harry said, his mouth full; Kreacher had brought him a sandwich, which he'd wasted no time shoving shamelessly into his face. "Voldemort's supporters ousted. Shacklebolt appointed emergency Minister with limited powers. Here," he added to Hermione, "you'll understand this better than I will—"

"Let me see it," Draco cut in, reaching for it and frowning as he glanced over the article. "This says Shacklebolt is being granted access to emergency funds…" He skimmed a few lines and clarified, "Infrastructure repairs and such. The Ministry's basically been reduced to martial law."

"Who's it being run by?" Hermione asked, frowning as she slid sideways, reading over his shoulder. "It's not like there's a wizarding military, is there?"

"Kind of," Theo said thoughtfully, frowning into nothing. "Aurors could technically operate a police state on their own, at least temporarily. They have their own system of tribunals when no Minister is available, or when the Wizengamot isn't in session."

"Sounds pretty corrupt," Hermione noted, chewing her lip.

"No more corrupt than the Wizengamot itself," Draco told her. "Especially now. There's no telling which Warlocks were influenced by the Dark Lord."

"What, like magically?" Harry asked, frowning. "Imperiused, you mean?"

"Oh, no, not that. Much worse," Theo said cheerfully. "Financially. Or by extortion."

"How do you two know all this?" Hermione asked, looking curiously between Theo and Draco as they exchanged a glance of their own.

"There's a typical rite of passage in pureblood households," Theo supplied on their collective behalf. "It's 'sit quietly and listen while daddy conspires with other men in power,' which is a less fun game than it sounds."

"Astonishingly," Draco contributed drily. At the reminder of their shared history, Theo spared him half a smile, which for a moment seemed like a momentary truce.

It didn't last.

"All things considered, Draco and I knew precisely what kind of people gained power when the Dark Lord took over," Theo mused, gaze sliding pointedly to Draco's. "Didn't we?"

Draco loosely clenched a fist, biting back a response. Hermione caught the motion, her hand briefly slipping out to brush against his knuckles.

"Well, at least we know none of us would be arrested for appearing in public," she exhaled, putting aside the last of her newspapers. "Though, if I had to guess, we should probably keep a low profile."

"That means no Potter," Draco said, glancing at Hermione. "No you, either."

She scowled, somewhere between disappointed and irritated; he suspected she enjoyed playing the anarchist rebel a bit too much. "I'm rarely referenced in any of these without Harry," she argued, pointing at the newspapers. "And frankly, I don't think I'm all that recognizable on my own. Nothing a haircut and a fake pair of glasses wouldn't fix, anyway," she clarified brightly, but Draco shook his head.

"No. If we want to stay under the radar, it'll have to be me and Theo," he said, glancing up to find Theo already looking expectantly at him. "Assuming you don't mind your father finding out you actually did help me."

He'd meant it as an offering, but Theo clearly took it as a jab.

"I don't give a fuck what my father thinks," Theo said flatly. "I thought you'd know that by now."

"What is your problem?" Draco demanded, brusquely irritated. Enclosed spaces were obviously getting the better of them; that, or the constant running for their lives. "I get it, you're upset. I sided with the monsters, I let you down, but I don't know what you want me to do about it now—"

"Isn't it obvious? I want you to fucking prove you're not a monster, too," Theo shot back as Harry blinked, startled.

"Are you two—"

"We're fine," Theo and Draco snapped in unison.

"We'll go to Gringotts," Theo told Harry gruffly, tearing his gaze from Draco's. "Draco and I can go. Nobody will question it if they see us together."

Hermione glanced at Draco, who let out a strangled breath.

"He's right," Draco grumbled. "Easier that way."

Easy, of course, being entirely a matter of perception.

Harry nodded warily, rising to his feet. To his credit, he wasn't entirely without working instincts; he clapped a hand briefly on Theo's shoulder before beckoning to Hermione, obviously making up some excuse about making a list of supplies for Kreacher in order to pull her away from the other two. It wasn't subtle in the slightest, but for once, Draco wasn't in a hurry to chastise the Chosen One's lack of tact.

"Can you do this?" Draco asked Theo the moment Harry and Hermione were out of earshot, both speaking in low tones to Kreacher a few feet away. "Don't do me any favors."

"I already did you a favor," Theo muttered, not looking up. "That's the fucking point, Draco. I don't hate you. I just don't fucking know you."

It was endlessly frustrating.

Painful, too, though Draco was loath to admit to something so deplorably soft.

"Is this really about Hermione?" he asked under his breath, and Theo looked up, exasperated. "You don't even know her."

"Of course it's not about her," Theo snapped. "Jesus, Draco—"

"We were fine until I used the stone," Draco pointed out, "so what's your problem? That I'm not using it to get her back—which, by the way, isn't even a thing I know how to do?" he demanded. "Or is it that I'm using it at all?"

Even though Draco had been the one to say it, he hadn't actually thought that would be the thing to make Theo's mouth tighten with confirmation.

"Seriously?" Draco hissed, fighting a rush of irritation. "You're angry because, what—because I can use that fucking resurrection stone to do something it's not even supposed to do?"

"Well, it just puts things in perspective, doesn't it?" Theo muttered, sparing him a glare that was, to Draco's immense relief, more apprehensive than angry. "You thought you had power once, didn't you? And look what you did with it."

It was a valid point, albeit unavoidably harsh. The words collapsed the growing mass of Draco's anger like the sharp prick of a pin.

"It's different," Draco said, deflating. "This time, I don't want it." At Theo's look of skepticism, he rolled his eyes. "Seriously, I don't. I learned my lesson a long time ago, Theo, and I'm sorry I didn't come to you then, but I can't do anything about that now."

Gratifyingly, Theo took that reasonably well.

(Specifically, in that he didn't comment on it.)

"So what are you going to do now?" he asked instead, gruffly.

"I don't know," Draco said. And he didn't. "But I know I can do at least this much. So help me," he exhaled. "Or keep helping me, whatever—just please, trust me. Because otherwise, I don't know if I can—"

"What do you mean you're not Hermione?" Harry demanded from afar, his voice abruptly heightened in volume, and Draco froze, hoping he had somehow misheard.

Unfortunately, it seemed he hadn't.

"Huh," Theo noted dully, eyeing Harry's stiffened form from across the room. "Well, looks like you're definitely going to need me now."

a/n: For escapexreality—I hope today will be far less arduous.

17. Fortune's Favors

Chapter 17: Fortune's Favors

Potterverse

There's a specific set of conditions typically used to describe certain kinds of turns of events; not the turns themselves, but the way they happen, and more accurately, what follows as a result. Luck is a perfectly topical example. (Draco Malfoy had always believed luck was mostly coincidence, which was something he felt free to say, having been a supremely lucky person until he was very abruptly not. Oh, how did he get so lucky to be born wealthy and privileged? Not luck, he always said, just good breeding. Just the universe itself wanting to bestow him with favor.) There was luck, there was fortune, there was happenstance; all similar words for a certain arrangement of things in time and place and circumstance which lead to a favorable result.

A note: here, 'favorable' is the operative word. Because of course there was luck, there was fortune, and there was happenstance, and then there was the opposite of that. A series of events preceding and succeeding moments of absolute worst case for each given scenario, resulting in something enormously unlucky—which is to say less about the consequence itself and more about the way in which it happened. Could this have happened if not for this?, et cetera. A study in succession.

For example, if Draco had had parents who'd respected the sanctity of house elves, quite a lot in his life would be different. Which is not to start at the beginning of the list, but rather to visit the most recent consequences; i.e., because Draco had not been raised to appreciate house elves, he did not know or understand or begin to fathom how their magic wasn't precisely the same as his.

Consider now the following words: "You are not Master's friend." Factor into any relevant calculations these words being spoken by a house elf without any particular tone or interest. In the sequence of events currently under consideration, the statement is as unremarkable as any other fact, like 'Draco probably should have told the truth from the beginning,' or alternatively, 'truth does not come easily to Draco, so Theo is welcome to promptly shut up.' Consider now these words: "What do you mean you're not Hermione?" Consider also, as Draco now considered, how these words may not have aligned quite so unluckily if someone (for example, him) had had the foresight to keep the Hermione Granger who wasn't Hermione Granger away from the fucking elf.

"Let me get this straight," Harry said stonily, his fingers steepled so tightly against his mouth the bitten crescents of his nails disappeared into white arches of reservation. "You went to a parallel universe. You," he said, shooting a glare at Hermione, "tricked him," here a glare at Draco, "into believing you were the real Hermione Granger long enough to destroy the portkey back and forth. And you," with a glare at Theo, "knew about this and said nothing. And collectively," with a quick lethal scan at all three, "you all lied—to my face—not once, but repeatedly, and you've made no attempts to get Hermione back."

(A reconstructed summary of events: Kreacher the house elf had sniffed something dubious on Hermione, remarking blithely that she wasn't the person he'd last seen; evidently, older house elves have a nose for realm travel, or at least for things that don't belong, like misplaced towels or loose change or women born to other dimensions. Hermione, already tiring of pretense and walking a flimsy line of being caught, resolved to gently ease Harry into the truth. Unfortunately, some truths aren't gently eased. Most of them, in fact, which is why Draco detests the necessity of them; though that's not presently important. Cut back to present.)

"I haven't not made attempts," Draco protested, and Harry held up a hand.

"Do not," he said gruffly, "talk to me."

Draco grimaced. "Well then how am I supposed to—"

Another hand motion.

(This one really more of a finger.)

"It's my fault," Hermione attempted meekly, only for the Chosen Hand to aim itself warningly in her direction.

"I don't even know who you are," Harry said bitterly, "so forgive me if I don't have any particular interest in hearing anything from you at the moment."

Draco caught the flickering of dismay on her face and felt a twisting surge of opposition.

"It's not her fault," Draco said. "It's mine."

"Noted," Harry said darkly.

There was a brief pause, followed by Theo crouching down beside Harry.

"Bearing in mind my crimes are really the most minimal," he began airily, to which Draco immediately flinched, anticipating a thoroughly unhelpful statement from there, "I think you should probably listen to me."

This time, when the Chosen Hand of Silence made a threatening motion to aim itself at Theo, one of Theo's Hands of Chaos shot out, his fingers closing swiftly around Harry's wrist and yanking it down before taking hold of Harry's chin with the other, gruffly angling it towards him.

"Listen to me very closely, as I'm only going to say this once," Theo threatened flatly, and an indignant Harry jerked away while Theo held him still, fingers digging unapologetically into his cheeks. "We all lied to you. Repeatedly. I'm not saying you shouldn't be furious. But," he continued emphatically as Harry shot him a glare, "you would be doing a very stupid thing if you went off on your own right now—which yes, I know you're considering."

An arched brow of you know I'm right had Harry scowling, though it was difficult to tell. Theo had Harry's face in a thoroughly undignified hold that limited the scope of his more threatening expressions.

"You know you can't do this alone, Potter," Theo warned quietly, and then amended with a grimace, "You should not do this alone."

A pause.

Then Theo released Harry's face carefully, removing his hands with steady deliberation and waiting to ensure Harry was listening before continuing, "Everyone here already risked their life for you at least once, Potter. Yes, you were lied to, and yes, it was fucked, but everyone here had the opportunity to walk away and they didn't. So." Theo cleared his throat. "Maybe don't walk away, either. Got it?"

Harry stared at Theo.

And stared.

And stared.

And narrowed his eyes, letting his attention travel slowly to Draco.

"You said you made attempts?" Harry muttered, and Draco shot forward, taking advantage of the window of opportunity Theo had forcefully shoved open.

"Yes. I can talk to her," Draco assured him, trying to make that sound potentially more helpful than it was. "I talked to her once in the room on the seventh floor and I can talk to her with the resurrection stone. She…" he began, and swallowed. "She doesn't want to come back. Not yet," he added hastily, as Harry's eyes narrowed again, mistrustful. "She's with the other you. And the other me. That's how I knew about the stone—she's trying to bring down Tom Riddle in another universe."

In response, Harry merely stared blankly at him, weighing the merit of his response.

"That does sound like her," eventually managed to break through the grim line of his mouth, and Draco nodded quickly, relieved.

"I don't know how to get her back yet, but I will," he said, and beside him, Hermione's chin dropped ever so slightly, inconspicuously shifting in his peripheral. "I have to believe there's a way. That when she's ready, we'll be able to figure it out."

"But then what will happen to you?" Harry asked Hermione, who blinked, looking up with surprise.

"Me?" she echoed hoarsely. "I…" Her gaze slid to Draco's, buried beneath a furrowed brow. "I assumed you'd just send me back to my universe once you had your version of me back in yours."

"That's ridiculous," Harry said flatly, and her expression melted, clearly filled with gratitude. "She isn't replaceable. Neither are you."

Hermione's hands rose to her mouth, obviously overcome with emotion. Draco, who found such things monstrously discomfiting, cleared his throat, turning back to Harry.

"So, listen—"

"What's the other universe like?" Harry interrupted, aiming his question at Hermione. "Why are you here? What happened?"

"Oh, um." Hermione blinked, clearly surprised at being asked. "Well, Grindelwald is in charge there, so I'm not a witch. This is… this is the first time I've used magic on purpose," she clarified, her gaze floating briefly to Draco's. "He taught me when the other version of him wouldn't."

Harry glanced at Draco, arching something of a vacantly surprised brow, and waited for Hermione to continue.

"Harry, you… you're, um." Another pause as Hermione frowned at Harry. "You're different there. Kind of a prat."

Harry frowned. "I am?"

"Well, I don't know. You're sort of going through an identity crisis—it's a whole thing. Also, you two are best friends," she said, waving a hand between Draco and Harry, who each rolled their eyes, equally doubtful. "And you two," she continued, gesturing between Harry and Theo as the latter's shoulders stiffened in apprehension, "are together there. Like, together together," she clarified as Theo then appeared to swallow his tongue.

"That's," Theo began, blinking. "That's… no. I wouldn't… no. No. I don't think so, no—"

"Look at that," Draco murmured drily to Hermione. "You broke him."

"I'm with Nott," Harry agreed, making a face, and then grimaced as Hermione half-smiled in response. "No, I'm not with him, I'm just—I'm just saying I agree, that's a lot of no, and… And hold on," he added brusquely, obviously opting for an abrupt change in topic. "You two are together, right?" he said, referencing Draco and Hermione. "Or was that just a lie to distract me?"

Draco hesitated for a moment, exchanging a glance with Hermione.

"No, that part's real," he said, and she smiled, visibly relieved. "But anyway, listen," Draco exhaled, turning back to Harry. "We have to get moving. If we're going to get to Gringotts and destroy all these horcruxes, we can't just sit around in this chamber. Assuming you still want our help," he conceded, and Harry sighed, glancing briefly at Theo before sparing a nod.

"Fine," he said, rising to his feet. "I'm not happy about this and you're all on thin fucking ice, but—Kreacher," he called, turning over his shoulder to where the elf was tidying up around the dead basilisk and its respective skins, "can you come here please?"

They all jumped as Kreacher materialized in front of them. "Master called for Kreacher?"

"We're going to need some things," Harry said, which was how they had eventually shifted into the next stage of the sequence: the venturing forth from the ruins of the castle to the outside world, and specifically, the broom-flight to Gringotts bank.

Draco had learned by then (his faith in his own luck-that-wasn't-luck long since suspended) that things which seemed fine on the surface were very often part of a precarious balance when viewed with a broader scope. He wasn't surprised when the process of travel, even for a unified goal, wasn't any particular relief; for one thing, the option to use brooms seemed to be in part to punish Hermione, while the silent treatment was Harry's weapon of choice against Theo.

Draco, meanwhile, was subjected to the very thing Harry must have known he wouldn't be able to stand: a demand for explanation.

"So, you lied to me," Harry said, sidling up to Draco. "Why?"

"I told you," Draco replied impatiently, "because you wouldn't have helped me if you didn't think it was her. And then what was I supposed to do? Bake you a cake that said 'surprise, she's not who you thinks she is' and assume you'd be okay with it?"

"Somehow I think there's a few middle steps," Harry shot accusingly, and Draco sighed.

"Look, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're kind of all I've got," Draco said irritably. "If you hadn't let me come with you, I'd be dead by now. I had nowhere to go, the Dark Lord would've killed me, and I was fucking afraid, okay? But listen, I get why you're angry," he said, to which Harry arched a warning brow; a little hint of watch your step, "but you also have to realize that because I lied, you've got Theo on your side now, and that's a good thing. He's loyal, he's smart, and hopefully you've figured out by now he'll do whatever it takes to help you. He already trusts you more than he trusts me," he muttered, trying to make it sound slightly less grim than he felt.

To that, Harry swallowed, the point clearly sinking in.

"And as for Hermione, she positively worships you," Draco continued, an incoherent rant formulating somewhere around his tonsils, or else his conscience. "She wanted to tell you sooner, and this whole thing, it wasn't because we were trying to… I don't know. Betray you. Both of them would probably die for you," Draco pointed out, suddenly finding himself mildly envious, "and that's the fucking truth."

"You're not exactly a reliable source for truth," Harry muttered, and Draco shot him a glare.

"Listen, I may be a liar, but at least I stayed," Draco snapped, and Harry returned with a fiercely wounded scowl. "And hey, maybe I fucked up the most, but you're still the one who didn't notice your best friend wasn't who she said she was—"

"I did notice," Harry said stonily, and for once, a glimmer of reluctance appeared on his features. "I knew. Believe me, I'm furious with myself, too. Not just you. But the truth is," he exhaled, dropping his voice low, "I think I wanted to believe it was her. Before, I was always trying to convince her I knew what I was doing, that my reasons were sound; so when I thought maybe she'd changed, that she agreed with me, that she—" A sigh. "That she trusted me. Trusted my judgment, I thought—"

Harry sucked in a remorseful breath, which Draco graciously didn't interrupt.

"I believed you because I wanted to believe you," Harry finished bitterly, "not because you're some kind of fantastic liar. If I'd gone with my gut I would have pushed you on it, but I didn't," he confessed, pained, "because a very large part of me wanted this to be her."

Draco, who hadn't expected to get through to anything—much less an admission of a moral wrong, which he'd never seen from Harry Potter and had begun to suspect was a myth—clung to silence, unsure what to say.

"You swear," Harry ventured quietly, and slid a depressingly earnest glance towards Draco, "you swear she doesn't want to come back? It's not like…" He swallowed, trailing off. "Did I totally fail her?"

It wasn't entirely outside Draco's scope of comprehension that this, Harry's desperate need for reassurance, was a big moment for both of them. A possible opportunity to regain the moral high ground, in fact—which to be fair, Draco had never really managed to conquer.

Instead, though, he shook his head. "I promise, Potter, the moment Granger wants to come back, I'll do everything I can to make it happen. I'll tell you everything she says from now on, I swear. But right now," he said firmly, "she seems pretty focused on whatever Grindel-war she's fighting over there."

Harry hesitated for a moment, obviously trying to weigh the truth of Draco's response, and then sighed, resigning himself to acceptance. He contemplated the grains of his broom for a moment before turning back to Draco.

"When we land, I want you to hold onto the stone," Harry said, and Draco blinked, surprised. "I want you to wear it. Keep it on you, somehow, in case she tries to contact you. If I can't be there for her," he said fiercely, "then you'll have to be. Understood?"

Draco didn't care for the patronizing tone of the question, but he conceded the point.

"Understood," he agreed, and Harry nodded, the two of them reaching something of a detente.

(Though, consider now the following: "All's well that ends well." Consider, too, that such a statement is not reflexive. That is to say, if all seems well, that does not mean it is the end.)

Grindelverse

Hermione Granger was what some might call a cynic. For example, she didn't believe in pseudosciences (astrology) or pseudomagics (divination) and though she believed Felix Felicis was a highly powerful potion capable of producing extraordinary results, she didn't believe it to be superior to any other mind-altering drug—largely because she didn't believe in luck. Luck is preparation, as she commonly used to say; luck and its other personas (namely, fortune and happenstance) were all simply end results that anyone could conceivably see if they followed an informed, sequential line of thought.

Which is why Hermione told herself she was merely ill-prepared and not unlucky when, after speaking with Lily Evans, she realized she no longer had any idea what to believe.

"Hey," Draco said, finding her in the corridor as she paced in place, trying and failing to locate a central nexus of truth between Tom Riddle and Lily Evans' variations on the same (or similar) stories. "So it seems that little ginger friend of yours is quite useful in this universe. He's gotten us extra Hogwarts uniforms," he clarified when Hermione passed him a questioning—if not a bit admonishing—glance. "Something about having access to a collection of lost items, though I really couldn't care in the least. I presume you'll be able to get us into the castle undetected?"

Were Hermione a more self-indulgent sort of person, she might have replied with a frantic bellow of "CAN'T YOU SEE I HAVE MORE PRESSING THINGS GOING ON AT THE MOMENT?" or something of that ilk, but being that she was who she was, she merely turned to Draco with a sigh, shaking her head.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked him, as he lifted a brow, artfully curious (or, more accurately, with suppressed displeasure). "I mean yes, okay, you're sure about bringing down Grindelwald, fine. But are you sure you don't want to be more prepared?"

"Prepared," he echoed, and to her displeasure, he sounded vaguely amused. "In what way?"

"In any way!" she retorted, bristling. Abruptly, her many frustrations branched out in webs, expelling from her in the lamentably shrill tone of disapproval she was certain Harry had heard many times. "None of this has been planned, Draco! What if something goes wrong? If you fail, Grindelwald could have you killed—"

"Then we'll make a point not to fail," Draco replied blithely, sparing her his usual smile, and Hermione glared at him, exasperated.

"Even if you succeed in killing Grindelwald, what next? Do you and Harry plan to become dictators yourselves?" she demanded, throwing her hands in the air. "And what are you going to do about Tom Riddle?"

"Dictator is a strong word," Draco said, which was not an answer—or if it was, then certainly not a very good one. "And I told you, Hermione, when we're done with Grindelwald, we'll take care of Tom. It's really not very complicated—though I'm starting to see why you've been on the run for nearly a year, if all your plans required such thorough discussions in advance," he mused, which to his credit may have been a playful attempt at soothing tension.

She didn't register it that way. Instead she rounded on him, furious.

"First of all, that was different there," Hermione snapped, entirely ruffled and pinched with nerves, albeit making a concerted effort not to launch into any unnecessary monologuing about the horcrux hunt. "Secondly, surely a man like Tom Riddle is prepared for the possibility of his death. He knows more about you and Harry than you think," she added, not yet wanting to get into Lily's suspicions, "and if this is all part of his twisted games, then—"

"The thing about Tom Riddle," Draco cut in, folding his arms over his chest, "is that he has quite a way of manipulating people who listen to him." He paused before adding, "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your fear of him is at least partially your doing?"

"What?" Hermione asked, balking. "What on earth does that mean?"

"Tom Riddle's made no threats against us," Draco said flatly. "At no point has he put any of us in danger. And yet, somehow, he's convinced you he can hurt you." Draco reached out, taking her hands in his. "He can't touch you, Hermione," he urged, leveling his gaze at her with certainty. "He hasn't even tried, and if he did, he'd still have to go through us. Through me, which I like to think would be difficult enough," he remarked with a wry smile, "even if you were somehow less capable."

"But—" Hermione grimaced. How to explain everything Lily had said? "He is dangerous, Draco—"

"He's only as dangerous as you make him," Draco informed her. "He's exactly as powerful as you give him permission to be. If you spend every step of the way trying to guess what he'll do next and what might go wrong, that's not preparation. It's paranoia."

The assertion was remarkably on the nose. Hermione blinked with surprise, caught off guard, and he slid his fingers across her knuckles.

"Not everything is complicated, Hermione," Draco said. "Some things are just convenient timing. Grindelwald is about to be in the right place at the right time," he pressed, "and perhaps you've forgotten, but Grindelwald isn't merely some ineffectual authority. He's the head of a violent and prejudicial regime, and if we wait until we're comfortably assured we have the perfect plan, more people will die. In fact, most of the people currently in this house would be dead if Grindelwald knew about them—James and Lily are supposed to be dead," Draco pointed out firmly, and Hermione winced, already knowing as much. "Not to mention Harry, too."

"But that's the thing," Hermione urged, frowning. "Tom Riddle knows about Harry. He knows who he is, who Lily and James are, and there's something… off about him. He may not have horcruxes in this universe," she conceded hesitantly, "but if he doesn't, he has something, and until we know what it is—"

"Until we know what it is," Draco interrupted, "there's really no point trying to guess. Is there?"

She said nothing, chewing her lip, and he took hold of her shoulders.

"Is there?" he pressed, and Hermione grimaced, battling her own mistrust and finally conceding to shake her head, resigned. "I told you, we'll take him down, but right now it's Grindelwald we have to focus on. So," he exhaled, fixing his grey gaze on hers, "how are we going to get into Hogwarts?"

She sighed, weighing her options. She could tell him about Tom Riddle apparently having died in 1947, but what good would it do to confess? Lily hadn't had any answers, and Hermione certainly didn't. She could point out Tom Riddle could be anyone—or anything, which was a possibility more and more troubling the further her mind spun out for explanation—but that, too, seemed like a point that wouldn't quite find its footing. The threat to Harry seemed the most likely to register with Draco in terms of securing his interest, but even that was mostly theoretical.

So what could she do, really, aside from continue sorting through it on her own?

"There's a tunnel in Honeydukes," eventually slid from Hermione's lips. Even she could tell her voice lacked something of a compulsory energy, but there was no denying she was resigned, not enthusiastic. "The sweets shop in Hogsmeade. It leads into the castle."

Draco smiled approvingly, running his thumb over the M on her wrist.

"So," he ventured, glancing at her with a slightly carnivorous look of satisfaction, "does that mean you're ready to bring down an evil overlord, Hermione Granger?"

She fervently hoped luck (or something like it) would have it Grindelwald would be the only despot they'd have to worry about that day.

"Yes," she said eventually, shaking her head. "Fine. Let's take him down."

Potterverse

"Draco Malfoy for the Lestrange vault," he repeated impatiently, and the two goblins standing behind the counter exchanged glances.

If it weren't bad enough that an additional goblin had been called in for no apparent reason, the conspiratorial indication of doubtfulness between them would have tipped the scales. Draco fidgeted briefly in place until Theo's elbow clipped him warningly in the ribs; a silent indication to immediately desist. Under other circumstances Draco might have been irritated by the wordless command, but if there was anyone who knew how to be invisible and unthreatening, it was Theo. Draco mimicked Theo's stance obediently and waited, holding himself still.

The resurrection stone, meanwhile—which Harry had put into a small and somewhat disgusting pouch—hung around Draco's neck, settled unceremoniously against his sternum per their less-than-enjoyable agreement.

"You don't have access to the Lestrange vault, Mr Malfoy," one of the goblins noted.

"No," Draco agreed, "but I'm Bellatrix Lestrange's closest legal heir. I'm sure you'll have already been alerted as to her death," he said firmly, which was mostly a guess, though a matching flicker of apprehension on both goblins' faces confirmed it. "Considering I'm her closest family member, I can't imagine it's much of a stretch that I'd want to pay a visit. In the wake of her passing, I mean," he added hastily. "Familial obligations and such."

The two goblins exchanged another glance, silently conferring, and Draco stifled a groan.

"Look, obviously there's nothing keeping you from letting me in," he insisted, which wasn't exactly unthreatening, but there was a time and a place for blending into the scenery, as far as he was concerned. "If the answer was no, you'd have turned me away already instead of putting me through this sad charade, so what exactly is the problem?"

There was a long pause.

"Technically," the more senior goblin began, "you'd be right. It's only that you're the second person today with a legal claim to the Lestrange vault who's arrived to claim its contents."

Draco blinked. "What?"

"The other arrived earlier this morning," the goblin said. "She removed nothing."

"She," Theo echoed, nudging Draco and dropping his voice, angling slightly towards him. "It had to have been your mother."

Draco frowned. "Why would she show up and not take anything?"

"We don't know," the goblin said, catching the undertones of conversation. "But seeing as Narcissa Malfoy has been apprehended since her visit," he clarified, "that does, in fact, make you the legal heir."

"My mother was arrested this morning?" Draco asked, stunned. "For what?"

The goblin shrugged. "Not our business."

(A frustrating turn of events. Another notch in an unfavorable sequence.)

"Then your business ends with you simply letting me into my aunt's vault," Draco reminded them. "Doesn't it?"

Another exchanged glance; concession this time.

"Right this way, then," said the other goblin, tucking a leather bag full of clanking metal into a pouch at his belt and escorting Draco and Theo to the vault passageways, accompanying them to the familiar but vastly unpleasant carts. The Lestrange vault, like the Malfoy and Nott vaults, would be a long way down, and the ride proved precisely as unpleasant as they expected.

"Here we are," said the goblin as Draco and Theo stepped queasily out of the carts, the two of them nearly toppling over upon contact with the cavernous (but blessedly unmoving) ground and skirting too much contact with the impassively snorting dragon. "The Lestrange vault. One moment," the goblin added, pressing his hand to the door, and then it swung open, the innards of the cave glinting with welcome at their entry, illuminated by a sourceless glow.

"Well," Theo said, slowly surveying the contents of the vault: golden coins and goblets. Silver armor. The skins of strange creatures. Potions in jeweled flasks. A skull still wearing a crown. "Pretty standard stuff, I'd say."

Draco nodded grimly. At first glance, the vault could have belonged to anyone; certainly to either of their families.

"Just keep an eye out for that cup," he said, and they wandered inside, tentatively searching. Harry had been fairly certain that if the vault contained anything at all, it would be a golden goblet with two handles, a badger engraved on its side.

It was fortunate that the cave had been lit by their presence, at least; it made the search that much easier. Theo spotted the cup first, gesturing up to where it glinted in the light from one of the shelf-like ridges of the cave. "There," he said, and Draco grimaced.

"Well, give me a boost, would you?" he grunted, and Theo rolled his eyes.

"What do you want me to do, toss you up there?"

"That's not at all what I meant and you know it—"

Theo wordlessly flicked his wand, sending Draco launching upwards to nearly barrel into one of the vault's numerous stalactites. He ducked, just missing a crash from the top of his head, to find himself at eye level with the cup.

"Oops," called Theo, and Draco sighed, taking hold of the cup and flicking his own wand to lower himself gently down.

"You're ridiculous," Draco informed him, dusting himself off upon landing. "What are you cross about now?"

"Oh, nothing. Just the aforementioned items," Theo assured him at a drawl. "Also, it was a little funny."

"Yes. Hilarious," Draco muttered grumpily, though he proceeded to look over the cup, holding it out for Theo's observation. "Gold cup, check," he noted. "Badger, check."

"Eerie feeling? Check plus," Theo remarked with a shudder, removing the beaded handbag from where he'd tucked it into the waistband of his trousers before holding it open for Draco, permitting him to drop the cup inside. "You know, I wonder what happens to a soul when it's been a cup for however many fucking decades," Theo mused. "You think it's like a person being trapped as a cup, or—?"

"Having no experience with metallurgy, soul-splicing, or being contained in an object, Theodore, I'm going to go with I don't fucking know," Draco replied gruffly, gesturing out of the vault. "Shall we?"

"Do we need money?" Theo asked, glancing around. "Aside from what I took from my dad's, I mean."

"Certainly not this money," Draco said with a shudder. "Some of this shit looks cursed."

"Fair," Theo agreed, and they made their way back to the entrance of the vault, pausing beside the patiently waiting Gringotts goblin. "You're sure you can't tell us why Narcissa Malfoy came here?" Theo asked, and the goblin gave him a steady, unflinching glance. "I mean, come on. You've got to be a little curious, right?"

"We Gringotts goblins are sworn to an oath of secrecy," the goblin replied loftily. "Curiosity is not one of our central tenets."

"Well, listen—it's Bogrod, right?" Theo asked, which surprised Draco, who certainly hadn't been remotely listening when the goblin was introduced. "I'm Theo. Nott," he added, clarifying, and Draco, who generally employed the use of his own surname for impressing warnings (i.e., threats), the introduction appeared to be for purposes of familiarizing.

"I know," Bogrod said warily.

"My father's the mean one. Bet you've all got stories about it."

"We would never discuss such things," Bogrod said, though in Draco's view, he seemed to have softened slightly at the reminder. "We are loyal to our patrons, Mr Nott."

"And we, the patrons, are deeply grateful," Theo agreed, "but at least tell me this: Were you the one who took her to this vault this morning?"

Bogrod hesitated a moment before determining the information suitably unremarkable. "Yes, Mr Nott. I accompanied her."

"And did she do something like this?" Theo asked, gesturing to himself and Draco. "You know. Wander around looking for something specific?"

"I'm her son," Draco pointed out to Bogrod, chiming in with what he hoped came off as reassurance when it looked like the goblin might refuse to comment. "It's not like you're betraying any sort of oath by telling me what my own mother's up to."

To that, Bogrod gave something of a grimace. "I truly cannot speak to her behavior. All I can tell you is that nothing was removed. Now, if you're ready, Mr Malfoy?" he beckoned, gesturing to the cart.

Draco and Theo exchanged a glance, sighing.

"To the cart, then," they grumbled in unison, shuffling grudgingly back towards it.

Grindelverse

"This is a terrible idea," hissed Ron the moment Hermione and Draco clambered through the hump on the statue of Gunhilda of Gorsemoor, pausing to dust off the remnants lingering from the tunnel beneath the school. "I didn't even know this was a passageway, and now that I do, I'm going to be bloody expelled—"

"Won't really matter, though, will it?" Theo said cheerily from where he was standing beside Ron. His presence prompted Hermione directly to a jolt, noticing he'd donned Gryffindor colors around his neck while a Slytherin tie was affixed to Harry's. "Seeing as you'll already be a war hero. That, or dead and dismembered," Theo guessed with a shrug, "but I always like a silver lining."

To that, Ron immediately looked queasy, and Theo gave him a brusque pat on the shoulder, no less spirited as a result.

"How'd you two get here first?" Draco asked Harry, who shrugged.

"We came through the Floo in the headmistress' office," he explained, gesturing to Ron. "Weasley here let us in."

"It's only available because McGonagall's been out of her office preparing for Grindelwald's arrival—which I'm supposed to be helping with," Ron muttered, looking as though he'd been sweating through his shirt for most of the morning, "and which is only one of many reasons I'm going to have my badge stripped, and then I'm going to be expelled. Oh, bloody hell, I'm going to be the only one of my brothers to be expelled," he whimpered, "which is hardly the singular achievement I was hoping for—"

"Why are you going along with this if you're so worried?" Hermione asked him, trying not to be too openly amused.

"I really don't know," Ron confessed, pained, and then brightened. "Is it possible I've been Imperiused?"

"Nah," Theo said. "Though you're welcome to tell people that at your criminal trial. I won't take it personally."

"Thanks," whispered Ron, turning slightly green.

"Alright, let's get back to the plan," Draco commanded, glancing at Harry. "We just have to find a place to wait, don't we?"

Harry nodded. "James and Sirius will arrive as soon as Grindelwald does. And Lily," he added, gruffly clearing his throat at the use of his mother's name.

It had been a fairly simple plot, though 'simple' (read: involving little intricacy and even fewer steps) and 'easy' (read: not difficult) were hardly synonyms in the matter of international assassination. The four of them had one plan—arrive at the castle, wait for Grindelwald's presence to be announced, and then find a way to get him alone—while Lily had another; hers being that she would enter the castle when McGonagall (or whoever her 'friend' on the inside was, though Hermione was quite certain it could be no one else) called for her upon Grindelwald's arrival. While Lily had been perfectly happy to work with Remus, who'd cracked his tattooed knuckles with unmistakable euphoria at the thought, she'd been less than pleased to hear James and Sirius were immovable about their intent to come along.

"You," Lily had said through her teeth, "have absolutely no place in this, James—"

But James' retort had been adamant. "MY SON AND MY," James had replied, and immediately floundered. "IF HARRY AND," he attempted again, with another abrupt end, until finally, a roar of, "LISTEN, WOMAN, YOU KNOW I CAN'T LET YOU DO THIS ALONE" erupted with an episode of James Potter storming incoherently out of the room, at which point Lily finally relented, having no apparent choice.

"You look good, by the way, Lils," Sirius had contributed unhelpfully, to which Remus had let out a disbelieving scoff, and certainly by which point Hermione and the others had determined they were probably better off getting a head start.

"You've got the cloak?" Draco asked, and Harry nodded. "And the ring?"

"Got everything," Harry said. "Relax, would you?"

"When's he supposed to get here?" Draco asked Ron, who looked like he was going to be sick at any moment.

"Twenty minutes," Ron said, mumbling it half to himself. "He's supposed to gather everyone in the Great Hall, give a short speech, and then hold recruitment meetings with students in one of the classrooms."

"Well, that's it, then, isn't it?" Draco asked, a little testy with impatience that no one had suggested it first. "We'll just have one of us be a student being recruited." Hermione glanced apprehensively at him, thoroughly relieved he was in Slytherin colors. She wasn't sure she would have been able to see him wearing anything else, though her own Ravenclaw disguise wasn't particular comforting. "Weasley would be the easiest, being an actual student," Draco added, "though that's assuming he's capable of not having dissolving in panic before then."

"I—" Ron winced. "I could, but—"

"Of course you can," Theo told him. "Would I be here bullying you into submission if I didn't think you were useful?"

"Not helping," Harry muttered with a nudge to Theo's ribs, and Theo sighed, evidently exhausted by the effort.

"Look," Theo said to Ron. "Has Grindelwald ever done anything to you? Someone you care about, maybe?"

Ron hesitated. "Of course he has. But—"

"But what?" Theo demanded tartly. "They don't give Head Boy badges in the real world, Weasley. If you want to be something worthy, you can't wait for someone to pin it to your chest."

"But," Ron attempted, and paused; it was obvious his arguments were rapidly losing steam. "He usually has his officers there. It's not as if it'll just be Grindelwald and me sitting down to afternoon tea—"

"Of course not," Harry agreed. "We'll be there."

"For an afternoon murder," Theo contributed, and again, Ron's cheeks paled.

"Not helpful," Harry murmured with a sigh.

"I honestly don't know what you want from me," Theo replied, throwing his hands up in exasperation as Hermione stepped forward, reaching for one of Ron's limply dangling arms.

"We'll help you," she assured him gently. "I promise, you won't be alone."

A single bead of sweat dripped down Ron's forehead, but gradually, he managed a nod.

"Okay," he half-whimpered. "Fine. If I have to."

"That's the spirit," Theo said, passing Hermione a wink. "Lucky we've got such capable accomplices."

It occurred to Hermione to tell Theo she didn't believe in luck, but it looked as though her previous stance on the concept wasn't particularly worth considering. Besides, if it wasn't luck, it was certainly something close to it. It was a succession of coincidences that had leaned overwhelmingly in their favor—even if that series of events did share a nexus of having Tom Riddle send them to the castle to begin with.

For a moment, Hermione shuddered, locating Tom at the inception of yet another string of events in her life before shoving him aside, resolving to move forward.

"Lucky we do," she agreed with Theo, and met Draco's approving glance with something she hoped was marginally surer than Ron's excessive perspiration.

After all, she thought grimly, it certainly wasn't preparation, so it'd definitely have to be luck.

a/n: For TamraPraxidlike, who is consistently an utter joy.

18. High Stakes

Chapter 18: High Stakes

Grindelverse

Grindelwald, unlike Voldemort, was primarily a militaristic dictator. Meaning, of course, that while one had been a fear-mongering psychopath with a band of loyal followers, the other was a fear-mongering psychopath with a band of loyal followers and a rigidly hierarchical chain of command. This, Hermione noted at once, was vastly more helpful than it sounded. Organization was an easy thing to take advantage of when there was a reliable predictability to how everything worked.

"Grindelwald has a lieutenant he keeps at his side," Ron had whispered to them as they made their way through the castle corridors. "His name is… I don't know. Karkaroff, maybe? Something like that."

"Igor Karkaroff," Hermione agreed with a grimace. "That sounds right."

"Right, him. He'll be in the room for sure," Ron continued, nervously fiddling with his Head Boy badge. "The rest of his officers will be outside the door. Usually three or so in the immediate vicinity, because Grindelwald is—"

"Consistent," Draco supplied flatly. "We're familiar."

"He's very committed to efficient queuing," Theo agreed. "In another life, he might have made quite an excellent industrial engineer. It's rather a pity he went for ruthless despot instead, all things considered—"

"Focus," Harry cut in with a sigh, giving Theo a grimly warning glance. "I think two of us should go into Weasley's meeting under the cloak," he suggested, pulling uncomfortably at his Slytherin tie, "and the remaining two can stay outside to make sure the other officers don't go in."

"Cut him off from his resources," Draco synthesized for the group, nodding in agreement. "Yes, I like it. Hermione and I will stay outside," he ruled definitively. "We'll dispatch his other officers while you and Theo take care of Karkaroff."

"Great," Harry confirmed, though Hermione gave Draco a withering glance. She didn't particularly appreciate being volunteered for something she wasn't especially interested in pursuing, depending what he'd meant by 'dispatch.' "Any questions?"

"Just one," Ron said, timidly raising a hand. "Do you happen to have an escape plan?"

"No," Theo said. "Any other questions?"

"Yes!" Ron insisted, dismayed. "If you don't have a plan, then—"

"Sorry, I meant—any other relevant questions?" Theo amended, and Ron, accurately sensing he wasn't in possession of anything particularly persuasive, merely sighed, gesturing them down the corridor and muttering something to himself about one or two more anti-perspiration charms.

The others had been very right about Grindelwald's preference for order. Where Voldemort's regime had been chaotic, to say the least (consisting, as it had, of various lawless zealots), Hermione had rarely seen Hogwarts in such a dignified state as she did on the day of Grindelwald's recruitment visit. As she and Draco fell casually into the orderly line of seventh year students, Hermione found herself remarking internally at how unfamiliar the entire process felt, given the alteration of circumstances. While students had often fallen to murmurs while waiting for Dumbledore to speak, the corridor of prospective Grindelwald recruits was positively deathly with silence. At no point did Peeves the Poltergeist appear overhead, and not once did a Weasley twin (or the equivalent, seeing as they were no longer students) release a dungbomb into the corridor. Everyone stood perfectly still, staring straight ahead, and Hermione and Draco made their way to the end of the queue without drawing much attention from the others who fell in behind them.

Ron, using his privileged position as Head Boy, ducked into the front of the queue with the Head Girl (who Hermione realized with a jolt was Padma Patil) ahead of the seventh year Prefects, awaiting Grindelwald's arrival. Harry and Theo were under the invisibility cloak by then, and Hermione was trying very hard not to look around too closely, fearing that being the only person entertaining any motion would almost certainly look suspicious.

Grindelwald's eventual arrival was arduously ceremonial. At the distance Hermione and Draco were standing (and from what she could see over Draco's shoulders), all she could make out of the infamous wizarding dictator was his highly decorated uniform—and, tellingly, the distance people kept from him, their gazes averting in a mix of respect and fear. He was led by Karkaroff, whom Hermione could see from afar had the same silvery hair and ostentatious beard she remembered from her fourth year, and succeeded by three other uniformed officers, one of which prompted Draco to a low groan.

"Poliakoff," Draco muttered under his breath to her. "Switch places with me."

Hermione nodded once, taking a discreet step forward and whispering to him as he slid covertly behind her. "What's wrong with him?"

"Everything. Nothing." Draco's voice was its loftiest, most irritated tone. "The important thing is he'll know something's up if he sees me."

"Ah." Hermione watched from afar as Grindelwald entered the classroom, followed by Karkaroff. The two unnamed officers took their respective places on either side of the door as Poliakoff, who couldn't have been much older than Draco or Hermione, peered keenly over the line, warning them all with a sharp-eyed glance.

"You know," Hermione murmured, turning her head just enough to lean towards Draco, "it's just occurred to me we might need to empty the castle. In case this turns into something dangerous."

She caught the motion of his brow furrowing. "I suppose."

"Well, you and I certainly can't take three guards ourselves," Hermione reminded him, fleetingly annoyed. "Not with this entire line of people here. What if some of them are sympathizers?"

At that, Draco grimaced. "True."

"Weasley, Ronald," called one of the guards at the door, interrupting them, and at his name being called, Ron lurched forward. As the door was held open for his arrival, Ron took a step and then abruptly fell back, dropping to adjust his shoelaces (or, more likely, to permit a cloaked Harry and Theo to enter first) before he stood, swiping briefly at his brow and walking into the room, the door sealing shut behind him.

"Wait here," Draco said to Hermione the moment the door had closed, ducking rapidly out of the queue and immediately out of sight. Hermione frowned, spinning around to look for him, and accidentally made eye contact with the person behind her.

"Wait a minute," said the student Hermione realized was Parvati Patil. "You're not—"

"Confundo," Hermione whispered apologetically, flicking her wand, and Parvati blinked, frowning into nothing as Hermione returned to face forward, scanning for wherever Draco had gone.

Ultimately, he was impossible to miss.

"Poliakoff." Draco's voice bounded through the corridor as he strode forward in his military uniform, the Deathly Hallows symbol gleaming on his chest the way it had when Hermione had first seen him. He held his chin aloft, practically dripping with authority, and though the two guards at the door exchanged a curious glance at the sight of him, Hermione noted nobody questioned his presence. Instead, Draco merely paused beside Poliakoff, drawing him away from the other two guards and leaning over to speak in his ear.

In reply, Poliakoff frowned. "You're sure?"

"Would I be here if I wasn't?" Draco replied, clipped. "We need this corridor evacuated immediately."

"On whose orders?" Poliakoff asked, and Draco leaned forward, half a smile pulling at his lips as Hermione strained to listen.

"Do you really want to be the person who fucked this up, Alexander," Draco said at a low murmur, "or shall we just move ahead to the part where you listen to your superiors?"

Poliakoff stiffened. "You're not my superior, Malfoy. Shouldn't you be at Durmstrang?"

Hermione reached for her wand, preparing to cast a spell of some sort—what spell, she had no idea—but Draco merely laughed, as if he'd found Poliakoff exceedingly amusing. He leaned forward, saying something unintelligible in Poliakoff's ear, and after another frozen beat of silence, Poliakoff nodded brusquely, tearing himself away.

"Empty the corridor," he said to the Prefects. "Make your way to the Great Hall. We'll reconvene in twenty minutes when the security of the castle has been reassessed."

Hermione frowned, utterly bemused, but ducked her head and followed as the other seventh years made their way back towards the Great Hall. She trudging dutifully alongside them in a similar direction until she had a chance to slip casually into an alcove, waiting for the others to pass before returning to where she'd been.

Once the crowd of students had thinned, Hermione prepared to leave her hiding place. In the little hinge of silence between coming and going, though, she caught a familiar voice from somewhere else in the castle and froze in place, listening intently.

"—what on earth do you mean a mutiny? You can't be serious—"

"I am, Minerva. Quite serious. And if you're going to be difficult—"

"What are you doing? Put that—put that down—"

There was a quiet muffling sound, and then nothing. Hermione paused for a moment, waiting, but after a period of silence during which she began to wonder if she'd possibly just imagined the entire thing, she forced herself back to the classroom containing Ron, recalling he was probably the one in greater need.

Upon arrival, she stopped short with surprise, watching Draco and Poliakoff step back from the limp bodies of the two guards outside the door.

"You're sure about this?" Poliakoff asked Draco, frowning, as Hermione concealed herself again, ducking out of sight and peering around the corner. "They didn't seem to have any idea what you were talking about."

"Of course they didn't," Draco said, reaching around with his wand arm to rest his hand on Poliakoff's shoulder. "When was the last time a traitor confessed their plot upon being asked, Alex? I told you," he said emphatically. "I wouldn't be here otherwise."

Poliakoff didn't look convinced. "Maybe we should confirm with Veritaserum, just in case. Don't you think?"

"An excellent idea," Draco agreed, but before Hermione could say or do anything, he'd put the tip of his wand to Poliakoff's forehead and the officer had dropped, legs collapsing beneath him.

Hermione balked, launching towards him. "What the—"

"Oh good, you're back," Draco noted, nodding to her and nudging Poliakoff's unmoving form aside, positioning him near the bodies of the other two guards. "Corridor evacuated, as requested."

"What did you do?" she demanded, staring down at Poliakoff's expressionless face. "He was cooperating. What if he could have been… I don't know. What if he was helpful, or—?"

"What, Alexander?" Draco asked doubtfully, making a face. "Don't be ridiculous. He's a soldier. He follows orders, that's all."

She swallowed hard. "Is he… dead?"

"No," Draco said, apparently exasperated that she would ask, "but we really shouldn't take up any more time, don't you think? Unless you want to be here when they wake up—"

She shuddered. "No, fine. Go."

Draco nodded crisply, pushing the door to the classroom open and pausing in the threshold, gesturing her inside.

Hermione wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but the man before her certainly wasn't it. She'd been objectively aware Grindelwald was Dumbledore's contemporary but hadn't quite made the connection until she saw the marks of age on his face, which were obvious upon closer inspection. Gellert Grindelwald was clean-shaven and well-groomed, permitting Hermione to see the deep grooves around his mouth and the sunkenness of his cheeks, and she had the strangest impression upon seeing him that he was not only old enough to be her grandfather, but perhaps that twice over.

She also noted that the vastly homicidal Grindelwald—responsible for the deaths of thousands in the wizarding world, if not more—appeared to be doing nothing more than asking a very fidgety Ron some incredibly mundane questions.

"… and Mr Weasley, your interest in the armed services is—ah, Malfoy," Grindelwald noted with surprise, catching Draco's entry and looking up. "Yes? What is it?"

There was no concern on his face, Hermione noted. He didn't perceive Draco as a threat. Beside him, though, Karkaroff seemed to think otherwise, perhaps having put it together that the guards outside the door wouldn't have permitted anyone entry if not for being compromised.

Upon seeing Draco, Karkaroff's brow had furrowed, his entire body twitching forward as if he would take a guarded step, but then, without warning, he fell to the ground. Grindelwald launched to his feet, immediately in a lurch of bewildered panic.

"Karkaroff, what is the meaning of this—"

But Harry and Theo had removed the cloak by then, both wands aimed straight for Grindelwald's forehead, and Ron scrambled to his feet, pitching himself behind them with his fingers wrapped tightly around his wand.

For a moment, there was no motion; no sound.

"Ah," Grindelwald said eventually, his hand twitching for his wand as he looked at Harry. "I see."

Harry said nothing.

"Malfoy," Grindelwald ventured, gaze flicking to Draco, "I take it you've already disarmed my guards, then?"

"Something like that," Draco confirmed, lifting his own wand to aim it at Grindelwald's chest. Hermione, meanwhile, stood beside him with her wand carefully at the ready. Another weapon pointed at him seemed, to Hermione, a bit excessive; she had to admit, unbeatable wand or not, she wasn't sure how Grindelwald was going to get out of this one.

To her surprise, though, Grindelwald's mouth merely twitched with disappointment, his hand rising to press against his mouth as he turned directly to Harry. "Ich habe gesehen, was mich ersetzen wird," he said softly, "und ich fürchte, es wird dir leid tun."

Hermione faltered, unable to translate, and watched Harry hesitate for a moment, his brow creasing with concern. Whatever Grindelwald said, it had clearly struck him enough to give him pause; beside her, Draco looked equally discomfited, his mouth tightening briefly.

"Do it, Harry," Draco said, voice hard, and at the reminder of what they'd come there to accomplish, Harry nodded, steadily aiming his wand.

"Avada—"

He was cut off by the sound of the doors bursting open, someone else suddenly appearing in the room.

"Avada Kedavra," said the voice Hermione had deliriously thought she'd heard earlier, and Grindelwald collapsed in a heap as the slender figure of Severus Snape strode forward, sending both Hermione and Draco flying backwards as he wrenched the Elder Wand from Grindelwald's unmoving hand.

"Don't," Snape warned, disarming Theo and waving away Harry's spell before he could attempt it, leaving Draco and Hermione to struggle to their feet from where they'd been slammed against the wall. "This isn't about you."

"Professor Snape?" Ron asked, gaping dumbly at him, and Theo frowned between them.

"Who the fuck are you?" he demanded, and Snape rounded on him, Elder Wand outstretched.

"Call me a friend of a friend," said Snape, as another figure appeared in the vacant doorway, this one unfortunately quite familiar to all of them.

"You have the wand?" Lily asked, and Snape pointedly held it up, offering it out to her. "Good," she said, taking it from him. "Thank you, Severus."

"Lily," Harry ground out furiously, "what are you—"

"Quiet," Snape said impatiently, flicking his wand to silence Harry, and Lily turned to him with an admonishing glare.

"Dispel that," she commanded, lips pressed thinly. "Now."

Snape grimaced, but obeyed.

"—thought I could trust you, Mum," Harry was gritting through his teeth, and immediately, Snape's face drained of color, looking as if he'd just pieced a fair few things together.

"What are you talking about? Lily, is he…" Snape's expression stiffened, his attention drifting to the ring Harry wore on his finger; the one containing the resurrection stone. "Lily, is this your son?"

"Yes," Lily confirmed, not looking up from the Elder Wand in her hand. "And apologies, Severus, but we're done here. It's not you, it's me. Goodbye."

"Lily, what the—"

There was a flash of green light as Severus dropped to the ground, the latest in a string of unmoving bodies as Hermione rushed towards Lily, not even bothering to threaten her with a wand.

"What are you doing?" Hermione hissed at her, blurting it out in dismay, and in answer, Lily fixed her with the too-familiar green gaze Hermione had seen so many times before.

"Saving my son," Lily pronounced flatly, and with a crack of apparation from the Elder Wand, she was gone, leaving Draco and Harry to stumble after in her wake.

"Fuck," Draco swore, kicking aimlessly at the ground as she disappeared. "Fuck—"

"What did he say?" Ron demanded, pale-faced as he turned to Harry and Theo. "Grindelwald. What did he tell you?"

Harry didn't answer. He seemed too thrown by his mother's appearance to speak, and in the midst of his silence (and the mutterings of a furiously pacing Draco) Hermione and Ron both turned to Theo, who spared them a malcontented grimace.

"He said," Theo began, and stopped. "He said, 'I have seen what replaces me,'" Theo translated for them, "'and I fear you will be sorry.'"

"Ominous," said Ron, shuddering. "I mean, that's bloody chilling, isn't it? And what do we do now?"

Nobody had a good answer.

Draco turned to Harry, his knuckles starkly white.

"We need that wand," Draco said without expression. The implication—Are you as willing to kill your mother as you were to kill Grindelwald, or do we need to reconsider?—hung in the air between them. Even Hermione wasn't sure what to say; it looked as though Harry was too stunned to process anything that had happened. She found she couldn't blame him, nor did she suspect anything she knew would be of any help.

"Let's get out of here," Theo suggested eventually, attention darting to the open door. "Before we get executed for treason."

"Ha," Ron attempted, voice shaky, but in answer, Theo merely shook his head.

"Sorry, Weasley," he said, tone uncharacteristically flat. "That one was unfortunately not a joke."

Potterverse

"Well, that was easy," Draco muttered, sliding into the booth where Harry and Hermione were waiting. They'd agreed prior to the Gringotts visit that meeting up in a muggle cafe was probably the easiest way to avoid drawing attention to themselves, though Draco doubted any group of unaccompanied teenagers could really avoid undue stares.

"A little too easy, if you ask me," Theo said, glancing over his shoulder before dropping into the booth next to Harry. "I mean, either that went suspiciously well or you're just a living disaster at this whole horcrux-hunting thing. Is this mine?" he asked, pointing to Harry's cappuccino, and Harry frowned.

"No, it's obviously mine," Harry said, "and I'm not a disaster." He cut Theo a disgruntled look. "It's not exactly an easy task."

"Actually, it kind of is," Theo corrected, sliding the cup across the table without regard for Harry's opposition and taking a pointed sip. "Jesus, Potter, what's in this?" he muttered, coughing his distaste, and Harry rolled his eyes.

"Anyway," Harry said, reaching over to drag the coffee back from Theo before turning his attention to Draco, "did you get it?"

"Yes," Draco confirmed, leaning back in his seat. To his surprise, Hermione's hand slid over his knee, her thumb brushing tentatively over it. Evidently her time alone with Harry had been successful enough to rid her of much need for secrecy, and Draco wondered if perhaps she'd already been forgiven. Harry Potter seemed like the kind of person who could forgive anything if the story was at least interesting enough.

"You were right," he told Harry, who let out a breath in relief. "It's the Hufflepuff cup."

"How did you know which one it was, by the way?" Hermione asked Harry, who shrugged.

"Well, Dumbledore said there were seven pieces of him," Harry explained. "Himself, and probably one thing from each Hogwarts house, minus Gryffindor. And then a few others for magical significance."

"And how did Dumbledore know this?" Hermione asked, her voice a little too airy to be entirely innocent.

"Uh," said Harry.

Theo and Draco exchanged a look.

"Wait a minute," Theo said on their collective behalf, turning brusquely to Harry. "Are you telling me you based an entire year's worth of aimless questing on a hunch? How do you know there aren't… I don't know. Thirteen, or—" He threw a hand up, hypothesizing. "When's his birthday?"

"What, Voldemort's?" Harry asked, blinking. "I don't know. Why would that matter?"

"People often choose passwords and bank codes based on birthdays or other dates," Hermione supplied, taking a sip of her tea. "About eighty percent of all passcodes in the world, actually, if we're being slightly more exact than… oh, I don't know." She gave a blameless little shrug. "Some old guy's wild guess."

"See? She's got it," Theo agreed, gesturing with approval, and Harry made a lamentable face of injury, obviously bemoaning the disparagement of his patron, Saint Dumbledore. "How do you know the Dark Lord didn't just go right ahead and make a horcrux for every fucking day of the year, Potter?"

"I—" Harry hesitated. "Well, that just seems sort of… excessive, doesn't it?"

"Seven seems excessive," Draco pointed out, before adding impatiently, "Is there any quantifiable basis for any of this, or has the last year just been a thoughtless expedition of total, unintelligible rubbish?"

"Well—"

"You're also forgetting Dumbledore never mentioned you might have been a horcrux," Hermione pointed out to Harry, "which makes it eight total, doesn't it? So he was almost certainly lying, if not operating under an outright misconception," she conceded, clearly under the impression the latter was the more reprehensible crime.

"I," Harry began, and frowned, withering. "I don't like this."

"Well, welcome to the club," Theo informed him, reaching over and hijacking his cappuccino once again. "You know, speaking of clubs, seeing as you've got an entirely new set of conspirators—" He paused, taking a sip, and made a face as it went down. "Honestly, what is this?" he demanded, pulling out of reach as Harry threw an arm out to recover it. "Anyway, as I was saying," Theo continued, shoving Harry's face away, "you should really consider a new plan."

"Like what?" Harry asked warily, swatting impatiently at Theo's hand.

"I don't have one yet," Theo said, nudging him away. "I'm just saying, it's worth looking into."

"Well, if nobody's got any bright ideas," Draco suggested irritably, reaching over to shove them apart as Hermione laughed quietly into her tea, "we should probably just destroy this horcrux, shouldn't we? Get that little errand out of the way—"

"True. Always best to set achievable goals," Theo confirmed, taking another burgled sip of Harry's coffee before making yet another face. "And then," he continued, coughing, "we should probably go find out what happened to Narcissa Malfoy."

"What?" Draco and Harry said in unison, and then, also together, "Why?!"

"For one thing, she went to Bellatrix Lestrange's vault this morning," Theo pointed out. "Seems relevant."

"But she also got arrested today," Draco said, frowning.

"Right, well, that's another reason," Theo agreed. "Probably worth knowing what she got arrested for. Plus she's got a real handle on the dark arts," he added neutrally, speaking into Harry's cup, "so would probably know what to do if we wanted to talk to one of the horcruxes."

"What?" Harry and Draco said again, with a renewed chorus of, "Why?!"

"Just an idea," Theo said. Beside Draco, Hermione was frowning with thought, which was something he'd already learned to be highly suspicious of. "I mean, sure—we could just run around blindly destroying anything we suspect might be occupied by the severed piece of a dark wizard's soul, or we could just…" A shrug. "Ask one of the pieces."

"That's—" Harry blinked. "No. That's crazy. Why would it—he," he amended with an exasperated sigh, "ever tell us the truth?"

"Actually," Hermione chimed in, "most psychopathic serial killers are quite likely to confess their crimes. Recognition is part of the game," she said with what Draco considered to be a rather discomfiting certainty, "so Theo's certainly not wrong."

"I rarely am," Theo assured her, "but thank you for your vote of confidence."

"You're welcome," Hermione permitted, turning back to Harry. "I mean, am I saying it's a good idea? No," she half-laughed. "No. Not at all. Not even remotely, no. But could it work?" She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

"This is ridiculous," Draco said, which wasn't exactly news, but was absolutely a fact that hadn't been adequately remarked upon in a while. "We're not reviving the Dark Lord—we just killed him, for fuck's sake!" At a sidelong glance from an elderly couple a few tables over, Draco lowered his voice, leaning towards the others. "Too many things could go wrong," he hissed to them, hoping that much had struck the others as equally obvious, "so I don't think it's worth it. Besides, if we can't find the horcruxes, then why would anyone else know to look for them? It's not like we have to be in a hurry to destroy the ones we're not even certain exist."

"It's certainly a gamble," Hermione conceded, sipping her tea. "Either way. Don't you think?"

"There's a lot of gambling going on here," Harry agreed uncomfortably. "And I'm not saying I'm not a betting man, but I'm just not quite sure what the payout is for any of this."

"Well," Draco said, determined to make the decision for them, "then I say we just get rid of the cup, and then—"

"Draco," interrupted Hermione, "listen, I need a favor."

"Right, well, hold your horses, Granger," he said impatiently, "because as you can see, I'm speak-"

Draco broke off, realizing Hermione was tapping her foot pointedly on his left, clearly fidgeting with nerves.

And she was also staring at him, totally bewildered, from his right.

"Oh no," he said, slowly turning to face the one standing beside him.

"Yes," Hermione sighed. "Hello. It's me again."

Grindelverse

They'd taken the Floo from Hogwarts with Ron's assistance, avoiding the remaining officers Grindelwald had stationed around the castle and stepping gingerly over the unconscious body of Minerva McGonagall (which presumably accounted for the muffled sound Hermione had heard earlier). They made their way back to James Potter's house to discover James and Sirius had been tied up and gagged, sitting back to back on the floor until Harry rushed forward to untie them.

"THAT WOMAN," James announced the moment he'd been freed, "IS ABSOLUTELY THE BANE OF MY WRETCHED EXISTENCE—"

"Agreed," Sirius muttered bitterly over his shoulder, "and now imagine how much worse it is for me, who hasn't even fu-" He paused, noting Harry's arched brow. "Had the f…ortune, I mean," Sirius amended uncomfortably, "of knowing her intimately. You know, as one does when one is in love. And respectful of one's partners. With consent and all that." Another pause. "I respect her, is what I'm trying to say."

"You do know Harry and I fuck, right?" Theo asked Sirius, who grimaced.

"I wish you would stop reminding me—"

"What happened?" Draco interrupted, folding his arms over his chest. "Where's Remus?"

"Who's Remus?" asked Ron.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," James said, growling at the sight of Ron. "Why is there another one? Are you trying to start a home for wayward children?"

"Remus is a werewolf we picked up once," Theo supplied cheerfully, and Ron's face paled once again.

"Remus is gone," Sirius corrected flatly, struggling to his feet. "He's the one who tied us up. He was not gentle," he added, scowling as he massaged his wrists, "which I will be happy to thank him for with my fists whenever I see him next."

"Well, there's only one reason Lily would do this and let Remus go," Hermione pointed out, as Draco set his jaw, waffling somewhere between irritated and indignant. "Tom clearly had something to do with this."

"For the last time—"

"No," Harry cut in wearily, glancing at Hermione. "She's right. Tom's what Remus and my moth-" He broke off, pausing. "He's what Remus and Lily have in common." He ran a hand through his hair, turning away. "I have to… I just have to go," he mumbled, wandering towards his study, and as he went, Draco and Theo exchanged a practiced glance.

"You go after him," Draco muttered to Theo, moodily watching Harry exit the room. "Hermione and I can talk about—"

"Actually," Theo cut in, glancing idly at Hermione, "I don't think so."

Draco frowned. "What?"

"I'll talk to Hermione," Theo said, nodding to her before turning back to Draco. "You talk to Harry."

"But—"

"Go," Theo said with finality, flicking Draco a careless wave. Then he beckoned for Hermione to follow him elsewhere, which, for some reason, she did. She supposed Theo was a welcome relief from Draco, at least for the moment. She was starting to get the impression that if she said the name 'Tom Riddle' one more time Draco might spontaneously lose his mind, so it was either follow Theo or watch James continue to rant to Sirius about Lily being the death of him (which was unfortunately going to have to be Ron's only option).

"So," Theo said to her when they were alone, traversing the halls of James' house and making their way somewhere he didn't feel the need to share with her. "You clearly know something about Lily."

He seemed to be referencing her parting words to Harry's mother. In retrospect, Hermione thought she might have seen him flash her a curious glance at the time, though she'd been (rightfully) distracted by other things.

"I," Hermione began, and frowned, considering her feet uncertainly as they walked. "I talked to her, yes," she conceded, "though it's becoming increasingly likely she lied to me."

"Well, being quite a magnificent liar myself, I can tell you lies are usually based at least partly in truth," Theo remarked, pushing open a door at the top of the stairs and falling backwards onto the bed inside before propping himself up on his elbows, eyeing her. "Tell me what she said," he suggested, "and maybe we can sort it out."

Hermione fidgeted with indecision, torn on whether to discuss any of it, before realizing where she very likely was.

"Is this your bedroom?" she asked bluntly, glancing around the room. There was a single moving picture in a frame on his desk: Theo with his arms wrapped around Harry and Draco on either side, a wintry-looking wind blowing color into their cheeks. Harry's hand was resting lightly on Theo's stomach, a careless smirk on his face as he looked somewhere out of camera view, and Draco, on the other side, stood with his arm around Theo's waist, giving the camera his unfailing smile.

"Yes," Theo said, sitting upright and patting the spot next to him on the bed. "But don't worry," he assured her, half-smiling. "I've been rather idiotically in love with the same person my entire life, so. Your virtue is safe with me."

Hermione sat beside him, hesitating a moment before admitting, "You know, in my universe you and Harry aren't even friends. I'm not actually sure you've ever spoken."

Theo shrugged. "I'll win him over eventually," he said.

"Pretty sure of yourself," Hermione noted with a laugh, and he turned to her with a strange absence of his usual grin.

"I had to earn him," Theo said. "These things don't happen overnight."

It seemed like he'd meant to tell her something more than precisely what he'd said, but she wasn't sure what. She simply spared him a gradual nod, and after a moment, the smile eased back onto his face.

"So," he ventured. "Lily."

Hermione sighed. "Lily," she agreed, wondering where to start. "She's the one who gave Draco the portkey."

She was relieved to see Theo's expression warp slightly with concern. "I see."

"She's been to my universe at least once," Hermione said, and before long, she was confessing everything, from what Lily had discovered about Tom Riddle to why Lily had made a deal with him to begin with, and more troublingly, what the circumstances had been surrounding Harry's birth. As she spoke, Theo's brow furrowed more and more heavily in thought, and by the time she was finished, he was looking intently into nothing, something unknowable formulating in his mind.

"…and that's it," Hermione exhaled eventually. "That's all I know. That Lily doesn't trust Tom," she clarified, "but she definitely might owe him something."

"Well," Theo said, after a thud of pause at the conclusion of her story, "it's unfortunate we can't ask him."

"Who?" she said, blinking. "Tom? Well," she remarked with a humorless laugh, "seeing as there's no way he'd just tell us—"

"No," Theo interrupted, shaking his head. "Not Tom. Not this Tom, anyway. One of the other Toms—like your Lord Voldemort, for example," he suggested, tilting his head in consideration. "Unless you doubt for some reason that a man like Tom Riddle would try to speak with his counterparts?"

"I—" Hermione stopped, startled. "Wait. What are you saying?"

"Nothing, really." A shrug. "Just that I imagine one version of Tom Riddle might have some idea what the other was up to," Theo said. "Don't you think?"

"Well, yes, I suppose, but—"

"It's unfortunate Draco was so short-sighted with that portkey," Theo added to himself. "If we could communicate with your universe, then maybe—"

"We can." Hermione stopped short just as she said it, alarmed by how the admission had simply fallen out of her mouth uninvited, and Theo turned to her with a solemn look of prompting; i.e., yes, well, surely you know you can't stop there, don't you? "I, um. I can communicate with Malfoy. The other Draco, I mean," she amended, grimacing. "Sometimes. It's hard to explain."

"You clearly hadn't planned on explaining it," Theo pointed out, half-smiling. "Hasn't anyone told you secrets don't make friends, Hermione?"

"Well, I—" She hesitated, unsure whether to tell him the truth, before gradually conceding. "I didn't particularly want Draco to know," she admitted after a moment, glancing sheepishly up at him.

"Fair," Theo agreed. "He did trap you here."

Hermione blinked, entirely thrown. "That's—"

"True. Isn't it?" Theo prompted, but she merely sat very still, having never wondered what Draco's other accomplices might have thought of his decision before. "Just because he's my best friend doesn't mean I don't occasionally disapprove of his harried abductions. He made that decision independently," Theo informed her. "We only agreed he'd procure the Elder Wand, as you might recall, so imagine our dismay when he brought home a stray muggleborn instead."

"Oh," Hermione managed faintly, and Theo grinned.

"I suppose you didn't consider Persephone might have had friends in the Underworld, did you?" he prompted, dizzying her momentarily with the comparison. "Understandable. But my point is, if there's a way to reach your universe," he mused, "then perhaps you should."

"Are you…" She trailed off, apprehensively chewing her lip. "Are you going to tell him?"

"Eh. I like to keep Draco on a need-to-know basis," Theo said. "When he needs to know, I'll tell him. In the meantime…" He trailed off, pointedly waving a hand. "If you want my advice, I say use whatever resources you're given. If you're telling me we have access to information," he clarified, "then I suggest you take it."

"But we can't just bring back Lord Voldemort," Hermione protested. "That's—that would be—"

"Dangerous? Oh, surely," Theo agreed. "Understood. But there's a difference between a Lord Voldemort who wants you dead and one who's your prisoner, isn't there? Metaphorically speaking, of course," he assured her, with a smile that was only marginally disconcerting. "There is quite a lot at stake, though. If Tom Riddle has access to a multiverse, then the absence of Grindelwald may be precisely as bad as he suspected it would be."

I know what comes after me, she recalled, and I fear you will be sorry.

"Are we really going to listen to Grindelwald, though?" Hermione asked skeptically, hesitating.

"Well, it's really the least we can do," Theo remarked, "seeing as we killed him."

She wanted to point out that wasn't technically true—Severus Snape had killed him, just as he'd killed Dumbledore in her universe—but just like then, she couldn't quite figure out why. And what if Theo was right? What if the Tom Riddle in another universe could be the key to this one?

"Where's the ring?" she asked after a moment, slightly pained by the inherent admission in asking, and Theo's mouth quirked slightly.

"I can get it for you," Theo offered. "If you trust me."

I suppose you didn't consider Persephone might have had friends in the Underworld, did you?

She nodded, exhaling slowly in resignation. "I do," she said. "I will. But don't tell anyone," she warned, and Theo nodded his agreement, rising to his feet and slipping out of the room.

Later, when he'd procured the ring for her, shutting his bedroom door softly and handing it to her with muted solemnity, she'd gave momentary homage to every deity she could think of that her universe's Draco Malfoy had thought to keep the stone on him.

"Draco," she said with palpable relief once she saw him, her hand pressed to her chest, and Theo waited beside her, listening with contained curiosity.

"Listen," Hermione exhaled, rising to her feet. "I need a favor."

Potterverse

"Did I hear you say you had the cup?" the Hermione in Grindelwald's universe was saying to him, which was startling, to say the least. The concept that the two Hermiones could simultaneously (but not) be sitting on either side of him was more than a little disconcerting, but Draco nodded in answer, relieved there were at least no further secrets for him to hide.

"Yes," he confirmed. "Theo and I got it out of my Aunt Bellatrix's vault."

Hermione's face contorted at that, and her gaze flicked up briefly, as if she'd been making some sort of muted clarification for the benefit of someone else in the room with her.

"Am I… I mean, is he," Draco amended gruffly, displeased, "in the room with you? Because honestly, Granger, I don't really think you should—"

"It's not him," Hermione said quickly. "Not you, I mean, or—well, look," she continued hurriedly, cutting herself off. "Just… don't destroy the horcrux, okay? Not yet."

"And why not?" Draco demanded.

"What's she saying?" Harry asked him, straining to see.

"Shush," Draco snapped, glaring at him before turning back to the image of Hermione. "What do you mean don't destroy it?"

If Theo's amused smirk from across the table hadn't been irritating enough, the two Hermiones made matters worse by leaning forward, both of them conspiratorially easing into his space (one more physically than the other, but still). "I think we should talk to him," the less corporeally-present Hermione was saying. "Voldemort, I mean. Listen, when Grindelwald died—"

"You killed Grindelwald?" Draco echoed, aghast, and Hermione sighed impatiently.

"Well, Snape did. And then Lily—look, I don't really want to get into it," she said, as Draco frowned to himself, wondering what on earth she was going on about. "Just—can you figure out a way to… I don't know. Revive the horcrux?" she asked him, gaze darting briefly away again. "I mean, obviously there's a way, though I don't know what it is—"

"Have you had a recent head injury?" Draco demanded. "I'm not bringing Lord fucking Voldemort back to life!"

Across the table, however, Theo was smiling his thinly-veiled I knew it smile, taking another sip of Harry's cappuccino before finally slipping his wand from his sleeve, discreetly transfiguring the beverage to something else.

"Hey," said Harry, frowning.

"Have better taste," Theo advised snippily in reply as Hermione continued to press Draco from the stone's projection.

"—I know it isn't a great idea. In fact, it very much isn't, but surely you could figure out a way to do it where you could just… get some answers. I mean, there's a huge possibility he knows about both the universes, Malfoy, so—"

"Hold on," Draco interrupted. "I don't know anything about how to bring someone back from a horcrux. Or anything about horcruxes, even," he corrected himself, throwing his hands up, "so—"

"You know who would?" Theo cut in neutrally, taking an unencumbered sip.

Draco groaned. "Do not say my moth-"

"Your mother," Theo confirmed, smirky with satisfaction, and after a few tensed moments of silent consideration—the entirety of which was spent contemplating Theo's murder—Draco turned back to Hermione, permitting his reply to slip through testily gritted teeth.

"Fine," he conceded, grumbling as she nodded with relief. "We won't destroy it yet. At least not until…" He flinched. "Not until we talk to my mother. Happy?" he demanded from Theo, who was all but radiating with delight.

"Yes. Very," Theo replied with an egregious lack of shame. Then he drained the cup formerly containing Harry's coffee and leaned back with a grin, monstrously satisfied.

a/n: For Tootsie Roll 101, who is wonderful, and who also consistently makes me think about the time I, a so-called "adult woman," got in trouble for digging all the blue tootsie rolls out of a candy jar.

19. Choice Methods

Chapter 19: Choice Methods

Potterverse

There are any number of ways to do any given thing, no matter what anyone tells you. It may occasionally appear as if there is only one route to a given result, but to believe as much would be to fool oneself entirely. In the logical world—wherein the possible means to any end are practically infinite—there are numerous ways to speak to one's mother that do not involve any variety of criminal activity, or burgling of any sort. For example, a casual Floo call. An owl. A visit to her penitentiary. A polite request to speak with the prisoner, should such a thing be permissible. All perfectly suitable options, Draco would have argued, for the same or approximately similar result.

"That may be so, but I just don't see how we're going to manage it otherwise," had been Harry's response when Draco pointed out the logistical pitfalls of his plan, which had been (like most of his plans) to simply arrive unannounced and cause mild-to-moderate property damage. "We're going to be discussing something illegal, Malfoy. I'd rather not have dementors listening in."

"Ah yes, because dementors are notorious gossips," Draco said.

"What are dementors?" asked Hermione, distracting them momentarily. Draco had the distinct impression now that her secret was out she'd likely be asking a number of similar questions. Not unlike a small child, in fact, only hers was something of a rigorously academic tone that served him faintly traumatic flashbacks to certain classes with someone rather like her.

"In an elementary sense? They're soul-sucking monsters," Theo replied smartly. "Basically the embodiment of fear, though the implied corporeality there is arguable at best. Actually, now that I think about it," he added to himself, "I wonder how they reproduce. Sexually?" he asked, hopeful. "Do we think sexually?"

"We don't think about it at all," Harry assured him, looking slightly disturbed.

"Well, fear is theoretically viral, isn't it?" Hermione posed thoughtfully. "Maybe they simply multiply?"

"Let's not do this," Draco sighed, shaking his head. "We were discussing my mother, weren't we?"

"No, we'd already decided," Theo reminded him briskly. "Haven't you been listening? We're breaking her out of Azkaban. Can't wait to tell her about your new girlfriend," he added with a smirk, waving a hand in Hermione's direction. "Think it'll go over well?"

"Which part," Harry chimed in, "the muggleborn bit, or the minor parallel universe detail?"

Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. "It is astounding nobody's murdered you."

"Not successfully, anyway," was Harry's smug reply.

"Should I bring her a gift?" Hermione asked, frowning.

"All things considered, I imagine breaking her out of wizarding prison would be the ideal present," Harry assured her.

"Not that we're doing that," Draco reminded them, "because that's positively mad."

"Sure," Harry permitted idly. "And on a totally unrelated note, do you all know how to cast the Patronus charm?"

They paused, glancing at each other.

"No," Hermione said.

Harry turned expectantly to Theo.

"Theoretically? Yes," Theo supplied.

"And in actuality?" Harry prompted.

"Never been there," Theo assured him.

Harry sighed. "Which is to say…?"

"Nothing," Theo said. "Obviously."

"Right, but—"

"No, Potter, we were never taught the spell, and therefore we don't know," Draco inserted bluntly, already exasperated with the both of them. "Not all of us needed smelling salts at any sight of them third year, so the answer is no."

"Oh," Harry said, ambling away. "Well then, if you don't need my help—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Theo grumbled, lunging after him to take his arm.

That, unfortunately, had been the start of something Draco knew he'd be loath to confess ever took place: the teaching of magical theory by none other than underachieving, Granger-reliant, 'er, well, ghosts are transparent' Harry Potter himself.

"Think of a happy memory," Harry had said, which already made Draco (and by the looks of it, Theo) want to throw something. Preferably Harry himself, though any similar impact would have been acceptable. "Then say the incantation, 'Expecto Patronum'—"

"This is ridiculous," Theo said.

"That's for boggarts," Harry told him.

"What's a boggart?" asked Hermione.

"Well," Theo began, "speaking of fear—"

"Focus," Draco growled again, nudging them both into silence. "Look, I'm not saying we're actually breaking into Azkaban—"

"Though we are," Harry said.

"—but if we are—"

"Which we are," Theo supplied.

"—then I'm certainly not putting my safety in Potter's hands alone," Draco finished, glaring at both of them. "We're all going to learn this. Understood?"

"Sure, Dad," Theo said, before adding slyly, "And what's your happy memory, pray tell?"

Draco opened his mouth. Closed it. Contemplated his life and his choices and his entire state of being, then scowled. Then, suffering an inadvisable and rarely-ventured brush of optimism, he glanced at Hermione. That would be easiest, wouldn't it? She was right there, after all. Still, 'happiness' was something of a loose term, which he didn't care for. For one thing, it was difficult to define. For another, he wasn't totally sure he remembered how to feel it.

Draco recalled, though, that perhaps there was more than one asinine way to accomplish something. Leave it to Harry Potter, paragon of goodness and morality, to decide the only way to produce a given result was to liken it to something simple. Happiness. How perfectly banal. Of all the emotions, happiness was the simplest. The least faceted; the first to flee, and the easiest to fake. To say something as easily falsified as happiness could successfully combat despair under every circumstance was wildly underwhelming. In Draco's experience, even true happiness was fleeting, at best—but that, of course, begged the question: What would be more lasting, then? He lifted a hand to his mouth, frowning into nothing.

Relief, he thought. It wasn't the same temperature as happiness—it was a cool wave, or sometimes a dousing thrill, versus the warmth of contentment—but it was far more tangible. The sensation of being relieved was one he could trust, Draco suspected. Happiness seemed a distant memory for easier times. But relief? That was something far more powerful, and certainly more easily clung to when he felt it.

His mind wandered to the times he'd been relieved. A pleasing grade on a difficult exam. Receiving his father's approval, even on the small things (the only approval he'd ever gotten, come to think of it) like whether his cuffs had been properly pressed. Draco was a worrier, far more neurotic than he strived to appear, and repressing it was a constant battle. Even now, seeing Hermione conjure what looked to be a very sleek wolf was somewhat disarming. Her delight at her success was utterly palpable, and by comparison, Draco's reticence was considerably limiting. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and wondered at the last time he'd felt a wave of something strong enough to rely on.

"Yes, hello. It's me again," sighed a voice in his head, and Draco's eyes snapped open, alarmed. He peered around the vacant park they'd opted to practice in, looking for proof she'd appeared again, but the memory had been just that—a memory. He frowned, glancing down at his wand with a minor sensation of betrayal.

Was it possible he'd somehow made a mental connection between Hermione Granger and his own sensation that everything might be… fine?

"You could try using the Elder Wand if it's not working," Harry pointed out, sidling up next to Draco. A few feet away, Harry's hand on Theo's shoulder appeared to have done the trick; Theo's falcon flapped amiably next to Hermione's wolf, and Theo himself was smiling faintly, looking more than a little satisfied. "I can't imagine you'd have any problems casting it with one of the Hallows."

"No, I just—" Draco cleared his throat. "Hold on."

He paused, taking a moment to center himself and half-hoping the experiment proved fruitless.

Yes, hello. It's me again.

Please, he thought silently, let this be entirely in his imagination.

"Expecto Patronum," he said, expecting the incantation to fail, only it didn't. It hadn't. Something wholly corporeal had shot out of his wand, and he was so torn at first about the source of the spell's power he hadn't bothered to wonder what it was. He merely stood with abject confusion, unsure what it meant that he'd felt something strongly enough to produce anything at all with it.

But then—"Wait a minute," Draco registered, blinking at the translucent specter he'd cast. "Is that some kind of... cat?"

"Of course it's a cat," Theo said, wandering over to him. "Makes perfect sense. You're moody and unpredictable, you detest being unnecessarily touched, and for as long as I've known you, you've avoided large bodies of water."

"I think it's some sort of predatory cat, if it helps," Hermione contributed, tilting her head to observe it from several different angles. "I mean, I've certainly never seen a domestic cat this large, though I suppose I haven't been exposed to all that many other kinds."

"All cats are predators," Harry told her, and slid a smirk at Draco. "I think it's cute, Malfoy."

"Shut up," Draco muttered under his breath, and then, frowning, "It's definitely too big to be a normal sort of cat, isn't it?"

"Actually," Theo said, grinning, "I think it's a lioness."

"Impossible," Draco said, and paused. "Wait. Lioness?"

"Sure," Harry said, pointing. "See? No mane."

Draco frowned. "But—"

"Maybe you have an intensely female energy," Theo suggested, and though Draco considered expressing his considerable malcontent with a slew of selectively barbed words, he opted instead for the more time-saving method of simply rolling his eyes.

"Well, whatever it is, it doesn't matter," Draco told them firmly as his cat (or whatever it was) wandered over and plunked itself down at his feet. "We're not going," he said, and as the patronus cast a moodily disapproving look (disconcertingly like his own) over the rest of them, he dispelled it with a sigh, glaring at them in its absence. "We're not going," he said again, "and that's final."

Harry looked at Theo, who looked at Hermione, who shrugged. Then she looked back at Harry, who looked at Draco, who looked desperately between the other three, realizing they'd positioned themselves into something of an immovable triangle.

"You're overruling me," he muttered with a groan. "Aren't you?"

"Yes," Theo offered curtly.

"Fuck," remarked Draco, as Hermione slid an arm around his waist, thoughtfully stifling her laugher.

"Well, now that that's out of the way," Harry said cheerily, "let's get going, shall we?"

Grindelverse

Returning to the entry hall of Malfoy Manor was always something of an uncomfortable experience. Hermione was beginning to suspect the context of even being there was a Pavlovian trigger for an underlying sensation of dread. The whole place seemed to radiate with her own undercurrent of anxiety; of not knowing what could come next. The lingering inclination that perhaps trouble was right around the corner was a sliver of something as finely gilded as the art that sat upon the Manor's walls.

"Something's bothering you," Draco noted beside her, and she glanced at him, gauging him with a look. He had transitioned from prickly and fidgety to solemn and mournful, though she wasn't sure what that meant.

She realized for the first time she really didn't know him that well. She couldn't read him the way she'd learned to read Harry or Ron, or even the way she'd learned the mannerisms of his alternate self. The other Draco, for all his terrible flaws, was a bundle of tells she'd had little choice but to observe since she was eleven. This one, on the other hand, was something of an enigma, and though he paused to take her hand, running his thumb over the M on her wrist, she wasn't entirely sure his concern was for her so much as about her.

Was it sympathy, or was it… disappointment?

"Can you tell me something?" she asked him, and his brow furrowed slightly, recognizing that something unpleasant was probably coming next. Whether she could read him or not, he could certainly pick out her moods well enough.

"I imagine so," he replied, voice dry. "Try me."

"You know a lot about me," she ventured slowly, parsing her words carefully through a haze of indecision about whether to indulge her curiosities. In response, his expression didn't change.

"Is that a question?" he asked.

Yes. No. "I guess I'm just wondering why you were so quick to trade the Elder Wand for me," Hermione said, thinking back to her conversation with Theo. "You didn't have to keep me here," she reminded him. "You could have killed both Malfoy and me, if you wanted to. So why…?" She hesitated. "Why am I not—"

"Dead?" he guessed. "Seems like a fairly straightforward answer. Surely you have some vested interest in being alive?" he prompted idly. "I generally find I have no reason to disagree."

She frowned. "Yes, but—"

"I'm not a murderer," he said. "I understand you find my methods… questionable." He paused. "Perhaps even problematic. But it doesn't mean I would have killed you simply because I wished to possess a wand."

"I didn't mean that," she sighed. "I just meant…"

She grimaced, wondering how to explain (without remotely explaining) that Theo's thoughts on her presence there continued to weigh on her. The knowledge that he and Harry might have disapproved of Draco's choice to keep her in their universe was doing something funny to her perception of everything that was happening. Like the brassy angles of Malfoy Manor, the context of what she now knew placed everything in a different light.

"You clearly want the Elder Wand," she established flatly, deciding it best not to dance around the point. "You could have had it. So why choose me instead?"

"You seem to be looking for things to worry about," Draco observed neutrally, shaking his head, "but if you must know, it crossed my mind you might be more useful than a wand."

"Useful?" she echoed doubtfully, bristling at his choice of words, and he sighed.

"Helpful, then. Beneficial." He shrugged. "Obviously having the wand wouldn't have helped me in this scenario, so—"

"But having me didn't help you, either," Hermione commented, and he took a measured step back, frowning at her.

"You trust me less now than you did this morning," he realized. This, like her own initial statement, wasn't entirely a question. "What happened between then and now?"

Oh, only that I spoke to your best friend and another version of you, she thought, and neither of them seemed to trust you much, either.

"I just…" She trailed off, fidgeting. "I guess I'm just realizing I don't have all the answers, that's all."

"Nobody ever does," Draco reminded her. "I told you, I knew when I met you you're precisely what I was looking for. It's all but impossible to exist in your universe without hearing something about you," he informed her. "Even the people who hate you admire you, grudgingly, because you've put them all to shame. And for me to know that," he said, clearly striving to maintain an overly patient tone with painstaking care, "and then to have you in my grasp—"

"You know I'm a person, don't you?" she prompted. "You know, sometimes you talk about me like I'm the same as that wand—"

"Well, what do you want me to do, Hermione?" Draco asked flatly. "I imagine you're too clever by half to accept a meaningless apology, and truth be told, I'm really not sorry. I never was. I think you'll find I'm not an apologist by nature," he added, stepping towards her. "I consider it pointless and a waste of time to obscure the fact that I want what I want, and I do what it takes to get it."

"You never asked what I wanted," she pointed out.

"Very well, then," he said, voice clipped. "Do you want to go home?"

She cleared her throat, hesitating. "That's not what I'm saying. I'm just trying to—"

"No, it's not what you're saying, because you want to stay, don't you? And why?" he asked, eyeing her carefully. "You find me more appealing than you want to admit, Hermione. Why is that?"

"I don't," she began, and then swallowed. "That's not—I didn't have a choice, so—"

"You like power," he told her, as firmly as if that explained everything, and she blinked, startled. "You're drawn to it. The Draco Malfoy in your universe handles it badly—for someone born to it, he manages only to be overprivileged and weak—but you like how it looks, don't you? How it feels?"

She said nothing.

"You like it on me," Draco told her knowingly. "You even like it on Tom Riddle. No, don't deny it," he warned when she opened her mouth. "I know it'd be positively abhorrent for you to admit, even to yourself, so let me be the one to say it for you. You admire power," he said softly, "and that's not a bad thing, Hermione. Part of you even wants to possess it. In fact, you argue so firmly against it because you know, somewhere deep down, that you would be ill-equipped to handle it. Wouldn't you?"

She stared at him.

And stared.

"Why did you keep me here?" she asked after a few beats of silence, voice far more hoarse than she'd intended, and the corners of his lips quirked up to the expression she'd so quickly learned to regard with a mix of promise and fear.

"Because it doesn't end with a wand," he said. "You already know that, don't you? Somewhere, somehow," he murmured, "you know this isn't about the wand. This only starts with the wand. It starts with the fall of Grindelwald, Hermione, but it doesn't end there."

He slid his hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear, and surely felt her shiver as palpably as if he'd produced it himself—and perhaps in some ways he had. "The things you know are valuable, Hermione. You are valuable. Maybe you think that makes you sound like a weapon," he conceded, "but there are worse things to be, I promise you. I am not a soldier," he reminded her, and she'd always known as much, but the admission on his lips was richly sinful. "I do not simply fall in line."

She knew better than to consider that an undangerous position, but it still seemed unlikely he could possibly mean what he'd implied.

"What are you going to do, Draco Malfoy?" she asked him, disbelieving. "Take over the wizarding world at eighteen years old?"

"Certainly not right away," he permitted, shrugging as if she'd told a joke. "I'm not a megalomaniac, after all. Practicality persists."

"But that's—" She swallowed. "That means you've always intended to keep me longer, doesn't it?"

"Keep you? Hermione," Draco said with a laugh. "Don't pretend you've made any effort to go. You're not a hostage," he informed her. "If you'd wanted a way out, you'd have found one. Wouldn't you?"

She felt dizzied. She felt off-kilter, off-balance, off-track. She felt she'd arrived here so certain of everything only to be shoved out into some murky unknown, where nothing was true and yet everything was true, and now she'd never felt so acutely how very little she belonged.

"Tell me the truth," she managed eventually. "What role do you see for me here?"

He had the decency to consider it a moment before answering. "Ideally, you'd stay," he said. "That's a given. You'd be with me, of course, every step of the way. Everything I'd have, you'd have," he assured her. "Wealth, power, status. All of it would be yours."

"And what if I wanted none of those things?" she demanded. "What if I just wanted…" She grimaced. "What if all I wanted was a quiet life where I didn't have to fight in any more bloody wars?"

"That's not remotely what you want," he said, without a beat of hesitation that time. "Have you genuinely never considered what you would do if you were—ah, what do they have where you're from… Minister?" he recalled abruptly, and Hermione blinked, startled by the suggestion. "Sure, perhaps you aspire to something grandly systemic," Draco conceded wryly, "but I find it difficult to believe your ambition has quite the ceiling you think it does."

"It's not ambition," she countered. That, she thought, was a Slytherin word. A dirty word.

"Righteousness, then," he determined, unfazed. "Morality. Goodness, if you prefer. Whatever you think it is you fight for, you don't exactly plan to stop, with or without me—but on your own, you're lost, Hermione." She stared at him, at a loss for what to say, and he shrugged. "You're brilliant without my help, of course, but you could be so much more with me. You get caught by your own hesitation, don't you?" he guessed. "You hit all sorts of snags on your insecurities, your fears. In fact—why do you love your version of Harry Potter?" he asked. She opened her mouth vacantly, too numb to reply, and he shook his head. "Because he convinced you you were worthy. Because without him, you wouldn't have believed it on your own. So, why should I be any different?"

Unfair, she thought. Unfair.

"You're using me," she told him flatly.

"Not any more than he did," Draco said. "Certainly not any more than Tom Riddle would. Not any more than anyone in your life, in fact, because Hermione," he exhaled, a bit of impatience creeping in, "all a person can be is used, or else use others."

She couldn't decide if she was angry or hurt.

"That," she said, "is a terrible way to view the world."

"Or," Draco countered easily, "it's just a terrible world."

It wasn't her world.

Which wasn't to say it was any better or worse, but if she'd never felt at home in her own universe—cast aside as she'd been for her blood, for who she was, for what she believed—then this one was hardly an improvement.

Exactly how many worlds was she obligated to fix?

"What are you going to do about Tom Riddle?" she asked Draco after a few moments of silence, carefully chewing her thoughts.

"Depends," he replied. "Are you going to make me do it alone?"

She thought about it.

And thought.

And thought.

But by the time she opened her mouth to say something she still hadn't quite decided, there was a low sound of throat-clearing from the threshold, and they both turned.

"Draco," said Narcissa Malfoy, her blonde hair neatly coiffed. "Hello, darling," she said, a slow smile pulling at her scarlet-stained lips. "I'm home."

Potterverse

Harry Potter's elf army—which had broadened its recruitment to include Kreacher, Dobby, and a noticeably sloshed Winky—was a truly remarkable source of information. Draco, whose father had been very well undone by a house elf, made a note to himself that the cost of pride was far too high when it came to disregarding any creature who knew the intimate details of wizarding things. The lofty assumption they wouldn't tell a soul was something of an unreliable practice, and certainly an error Draco resolved firmly never to commit while watching them blithely spill to a politely bespectacled teenager a number of secrets the Ministry must have kept under proverbial lock and key.

"Okay," Harry had said, jogging over to them after his criminal consultation, "so. No apparating, that's a given. Brooms again—"

Hermione made a slightly incoherent sound of displeasure, muffling it delicately in her palm.

"—but outside of that, no guards and barely any enchantments," Harry finished, shrugging. "There's almost nothing keeping people out of Azkaban."

"Yeah, that was pretty much assumed, Potter," Theo drawled. "It's not Saint-Tropez. People aren't clamoring to get in."

"Well," Harry said, "all the easier for us, then."

The elves had relayed from what seemed to be a chain of creature-gossip that without a functioning Ministry to establish any new policies for the prisoners transported to Azkaban, people were simply being delivered there en masse until the Wizengamot could reconvene and determine what to do with them. No one wanted to be responsible for the island prison, which was certainly not unreasonable. Not surprising, either. It was the most difficult trip yet by broom, consisting of a strong wind over a tumultuous sea, and landing was no more comforting once they'd reached one of the rocky ledges of the prison walls, all of them trying not to stare down at the perilous waves that crashed below.

There was an eerie humming noise resonating from the prison, which was a massive fortress occupying the only habitable land on the island and dropping off at the edges into a series of jagged cliffs. From afar the gusts of wind had seemed strangely melodic, but by the time they managed to make it onto Azkaban's ramparts it became more obvious the sound was a disconcerting mix of chattering teeth, low voices, and a series of inconsolable moans.

"Still think it's not necessary to break your mother out of here?" Theo murmured to Draco, who shivered slightly. It was impossible to tell whether the chill had come from the icy arctic breeze or from somewhere in his bones, intestines, or conscience.

"Shut up," managed to weakly escape him before Hermione tugged firmly at his hand, pulling him after Harry and towards the dementor-occupied interior.

Perhaps it wasn't true to original intent that the Elder Wand be used for blasting through walls, but there was no doubt it was rapidly becoming a handy explosive. On one side of the fortress, the walls had already been blown apart; the Dark Lord's work, Draco presumed as they all kept moving. Upon reaching the opposite corner, Draco aimed the Elder Wand, bursting through one of the towers as Harry raised his own wand, expelling the smug, stupid stag Draco had so long loathed and envied in equal measures.

"Come on," Harry beckoned, ducking inside through the jagged hole they'd left for an entrance, and immediately, they were eclipsed in darkness, Theo lighting the tip of his wand to permit a glow against the rocky corridor walls.

"Where would she be?" Draco asked, half-whispering it. A hand shot out from one of the cells beside him and he launched himself sideways with a yelp, colliding with Hermione. "Sorry," he said to her, but she merely looped her arm through his, a frown buried into her features.

"This is terrible," she said with a slow glance around, her voice steady and flat. "It's inhumane."

"It's wizard prison," Theo reminded her drily. "These aren't ordinary criminals."

Draco shuddered, wondering just what all these people had done, and worse—just how close he'd come to being one of them. "Mother?" he called tentatively, glancing sideways at Theo, who shrugged. "Mother," he said again, louder this time. "Are you here?"

"Isn't your father here too?" Hermione asked, nudging him.

"I sincerely hope we don't run into him," he whispered to her, and she frowned, not entirely sure what to do with that information. She opened her mouth to ask—or so he assumed, anyway—when Harry's stag came galloping back from where it had been, gesturing with its antlers further down one of the labyrinthine halls.

"You've got more control over that thing than I expected," Theo noted, and Harry turned, half-smiling at him.

"Impressed, Nott?"

Theo made a face. "Keep it in your trousers, Potter."

"Please. I could say the same to you—"

"Shut up immediately," Draco growled as they turned a corner, spotting a stirring head of pale blonde hair that had spread wide across the floor. He rushed towards it, panicking slightly as one of the cloaked dementors loomed above her, circling overhead. "Mother," he said, gripping the bars and gritting his teeth. "Theo," he called over his shoulder, "help me—"

"Expecto Patronum," Theo said quickly, the falcon bursting from the end of his wand to slip through the bars, flapping its wings in a glittering gale wind to force the dementor away. Draco aimed the Elder Wand, blasting another Confringo, and stumbled forward to reach his mother's side, reaching one hand under her head.

"Mother," he said, watching her eyelids flutter halfway. "Mother, can you hear me?"

"We have to get her out," Harry said, climbing through the rubble and glancing apprehensively over his shoulder. "Quickly, too. I think the dementors know we're here."

"They're definitely on the move," Hermione shouted from the corridor, turning over her shoulder to throw out a spell Draco assumed was a patronus as Harry darted after her, rushing to come to her aid. "They're moving really fast, Draco—"

"Okay, come on, Mother," Draco said coaxingly, struggling more with the awkward angle required to take her in his arms than with the hefting of her weight. He hadn't realized before how fragile she'd gotten while Lord Voldemort had been taking refuge in his house; granted, he'd never tried to lift his mother before, but it certainly seemed far too easy now. "Easy, here we go—"

"Run," came Theo's voice in his ear, a hand gripping his shoulder. "I think I've got us covered, but they're coming fast."

Even while climbing out of Narcissa's cell, Draco could already tell as much. It had been difficult to see in near-darkness to begin with, but the growing sensation of coldness and despair in the air around them was like being encased in a tomb; like being buried alive, without the permission of his mutinous limbs. He strained to take in a breath, gulping at air that felt thick and lifeless, and slowly, like little worms that crept into his ear, his thoughts took on cruel, narrow streams of clarity. Better to rest, his mind suggested as his arms grew weary, lungs held hostage by a wave of misery that crashed down on him from above. Easier, don't you think, just to stop running? To stop breathing? To stop existing?

What legacy will you leave behind anyway, his own voice asked him before morphing into the sound and shape of his father, standing coldly at the end of the darkened corridor and blocking out the promise of the clouded sun. What will your worth be to me? To the world? To anyone?

Stop trying, Harry's voice hissed in his ear. You'll never be me. When all is said and done I'll be forgiven, but you? You'll only end up here—so just take a rest, sit down, stay here, stay where you belong—

Faith is a liar, Theo drawled in Draco's head, the motions of his escape suddenly akin to clawing his way out of mud, pointless and cloistered and stuck. Luck is too, and maybe the whole universe is against you. Didn't you ever think about that? That maybe we're not meant to get out of this? Why shed our perfect blood, why meander through our aimless lives, when we could just stay here, right here, with nowhere else to fall—?

Are you sorry? Hermione's voice asked him. Are you sorry?

Draco blinked, his head spinning. Help, he thought, wanting to let it rest against the grimy stone floor, and out of the fog of his thoughts, he heard a sigh.

Yes, hello, his mind presented him, her foot tapping impatiently beside him.

It's me again.

"Fuck," he said, but the single break in clarity was enough. The little rupture of relief; it was enough. He turned over his shoulder, clinging to the sound of it in his head, and aimed the Elder Wand.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

A burst of white; a flash of teeth. Whatever kind of cat he was, it was an effectively threatening one.

A moment later, a hand wrapped around his arm and yanked.

Draco stumbled through the hole they'd blasted in the prison wall and struggled not to fall, still clutching tightly to his mother's half-limp body. Theo caught her other side, easing her out of Draco's arms as he tumbled forward, bracing himself on the heels of his hands. He gasped, sputtering, as his knees collided with stone, choking out the toxicity of his own conscience.

"Fuck," he said again, spitting out something bitter he felt certain was venom, though it couldn't have been real. "That was—fuck—"

It was terrible was what it was. It was the worst thing he'd ever felt. He understood now why Harry had fallen off his broom every time he'd come into contact with a single dementor—which was itself another little bite of remorse, enough to bear down on him again.

Was there no limit to his regrets?

"Draco," Hermione said, gratifyingly drawing him out of his selfish melancholia and easing him towards his mother. "She's waking up."

He let her help him to his feet, leaning on her shoulder for a moment for balance, and then settled himself at his mother's side.

"Mother," he said, checking her pulse; slow, but steady. "Mother, can you hear me?"

Narcissa's eyes swam half-open, then fluttered shut. Behind him, Theo and Harry stood stiffly in wait, both tensed with concern, or possibly fear.

"Mother," Draco said again, "it's me. It's Draco." He paused, considering what she might have been exposed to inside Azkaban, and leaned closer. "It's really me," he said to her softly, aiming to be both gentle and firm. "Mother. Wake up."

Abruptly, her eyes snapped open.

She launched upright, gasping, and stared blankly at him, her blue eyes wide.

Then she registered who he was, and bolted out of reach.

"You shouldn't be here," she said hastily, scrambling backwards and staring at him like she'd seen a ghost. "Do you hear me?" she demanded, nearly kicking him in the chest as she struggled to get away. "Put me back—"

"Mother, what are you talking about?" Draco asked, reaching out to still her hands. "You could have…" He swallowed hard. "You nearly died in there—"

"I'll die for sure if you take me out," she ground out in aggravation, raising a shaking hand to her mouth. "He's coming for me, Draco. He knows. He knows. He's coming, I know it—"

"Mother," Draco said, frowning, and behind him Theo crouched down, one hand on his shoulder. "Who knows what?" Draco pressed her. "Who's coming?"

Her gaze was wild and unfocused. She met his worried glance with unmistakable fear.

"Don't make me say his name," she whispered.

Then, before he could speak, Narcissa's eyes rolled back in her head and she fell, limp, against the stone of the rampart ground.

Grindelverse

"Hermione Granger," Narcissa Malfoy said, extending a slender hand. "How lovely to meet you."

To that, a variety of responses sprung up in Hermione's throat. A great many of them amounted to something along the lines of we've actually already met and to be honest, it was horrifying every time, but that seemed not especially pertinent to mention.

"Lovely to meet you as well," she managed to say without any sort of traumatic inflection, and then Narcissa had turned back to her son, curving her palm around his cheek with a picturesque sort of reverence. Like a painting, Hermione thought, or several paintings. Narcissa's movements were so smoothly unhindered each individual frame of motion could have stood alone as a piece of art.

"Draco, sweetheart," she said, "did you happen to kill Commander Grindelwald?"

Hermione's stomach lurched at the reminder, but Draco merely spared his mother a grimace. "Not quite," he said, before adding, "Is that why you've returned? His unfortunate demise, I mean," he clarified, and she nodded.

"Yes," Narcissa said. "Your father remained behind, of course. There will be fallout, as you'd expect," she added, removing the pair of travel gloves she'd been wearing, one finger at a time. By the middle finger, she'd mused, "I suggested he secure our foothold among the fray, should any of Grindelwald's would-be lieutenants attempt to fill the void in his absence."

"Clever of you, Mother," Draco said. "Though you don't really expect them to manage it, do you? It's not as if Caesar was so easily replaced."

Narcissa shook her head, looking artfully doubtful. "Certainly not, and Grindelwald was barely clinging to any authority over England as it was," she said, before letting her gaze slide carefully to Hermione's. "You know how difficult it can be, of course, having such a vast empire."

Hermione wondered why this particular remark had been directed at her. "I've never actually had an empire," she said, attempting something like humor, and Narcissa's mouth curled up slightly.

"Don't rule it out," was the older witch's reply, which in turn reduced Hermione to silence for most of the evening, leaving her to ponder what Narcissa might have meant.

If Draco's mother had issues (or even curiosities) about Hermione's unexpected presence, she kept them intensely private. So private, in fact, it was impossible for Hermione to identify even the most fundamental measures of approval. Narcissa said nothing when Draco took Hermione's hand, leading her into his bedroom as he'd done all the many nights before. As far as mothers went, Narcissa seemed either suspiciously progressive or wholly ambivalent, and Hermione doubted it was the latter. Narcissa's eyes seemed to follow her son's every motion with a careful scrutiny, which served to indicate only one thing: he mattered greatly.

"Let me guess," Draco guessed, turning to Hermione after slipping with her into his bed. "You don't trust my mother either?"

She gave him a wary look, and he chuckled.

"You're taking this very lightly considering what we were talking about before she arrived," Hermione grumbled, and he shrugged.

"That you haven't answered my question yet, you mean?" he prompted, and she spared a grimace of confirmation in reply. "Well, my mother being home reminded me of one thing, at least." He reached out, tilting her chin up. "I like my time alone with you," he murmured to her, brushing his lips against hers, and she lamented that she still returned his kiss—even while she contemplated kicking him in the shins.

"You're trying to distract me," she told him grumpily, and he laughed, his hand fitting itself comfortably to her waist.

"I'm successfully distracting you," he corrected, "but if you'd like to talk further, we can." He bit lightly at the side of her mouth, lips broadening in a smile she could feel in the dark as she gave him an irritable shove. "Would you like my cards on the table, Hermione?" he mused, voice husky against the sheets. "My intentions have never been pure, but you can't fault me for knowing what I want. Unlike you," he added with a stroke of his thumb along her neck, "who can occupy three hundred states of being an hour."

She rolled her eyes, letting him twine his legs with hers. "I don't want what you want," she told him, shivering a little as his hands wandered. "And I don't want what you think I want, either."

"Well," he said. "We at least both agree Tom Riddle has to go, don't we?"

"Possibly," she said, "but you don't seem to see him as a threat."

"Mm, no, no. Do I see him as a threat? Yes. But is he something to consume my every waking thought? Hardly. We'll find Lily," Draco informed her, lips traveling to her ear and lower, nipping at her jaw. "We'll get the wand. We'll get rid of Tom. Perhaps not necessarily in that order," he added neutrally. "Just, you know. Whatever opportunity happens to present itself first."

She didn't particularly care to mention the errand she'd sent the other version of him on, or the order she'd specifically intended (i.e., the procurement of the wand before Tom Riddle's demise), so she didn't.

"Draco," she sighed instead, "let's be clear. I'm not going to stay. I don't belong here."

"Mm," he agreed unconvincingly, shifting lower. "Well, fair enough. I'll just—" A shrug, his mouth somewhere near her torso. "Expedite my plans, I suppose, in the unlikely event I don't convince you to… change your mind."

"Your plans?" she asked him, going a bit rigid. Abruptly, she remembered the other version of herself had once worked for him, too. She was fairly sure it had been a different arrangement, but still—that Hermione had some expectation of what he'd planned to do, hadn't she? Which, Hermione suddenly realized, he'd probably never intended to fulfill.

"Oh, you know," he murmured to her. "There's going to be a vacancy now that Grindelwald's gone, so isn't it obvious? England needs a savior." His teeth scraped her thigh and she inhaled sharply, trying to piece together what he was saying.

"Political vacuums are such sensitive things, you know," he continued blithely. "This is my home, but I've never really known it. I didn't go to Hogwarts," he pointed out with his lips to the jut of her hip. "I don't know the details, the little ins and outs, because growing up in Grindelwald's regime always meant I'd know his world, not my own."

A pause, and then he slid up against her, taking a handful of her hair.

"But you know it," he finished quietly, and she kissed him back reflexively, from memory, her mind still sorting through what he'd said.

Was this what it was to lie in bed with a traitor? He seemed to be asking her for something she wouldn't want to give, or worse—wouldn't want to want, but might.

It would be so easy for him to break her troubled heart in one way or another, and if she lay here one moment more, she was going to let him.

"I just need to get something," Hermione whispered when they broke apart, untangling herself from him and sliding back. Briefly, his hand shot out, reaching for her.

"Is everything okay?" he asked, sitting up with concern, and she forced a nod.

"Yes, just… need some water," she said. Or some air. Or a place to think that wasn't contaminated with his touch, his scent, the taste of his kiss. Had there ever been a dangerous man who wasn't also upsettingly tempting? She placed her bare feet against the ground with deliberation, sparing him what she hoped had been a reassuring smile before she slipped out of the room.

She'd been blindly making her way down the corridor, tiptoeing to the stairs to aim for the gardens outside when a voice caught her attention, pausing her in the dark.

"You recall our agreement, I'm sure," she heard a voice say flatly.

It's not you, it's me. Goodbye.

"I do. Where's the wand?"

Hermione Granger, how lovely to meet you.

"You'll have the wand when I have my son safe, Narcissa."

Hermione froze, shrinking back against the shadows as she slid safely out of view from the rails of the staircase.

"Lily," Narcissa sighed, "you're being foolish. I promised he'd be safe, didn't I? And he will be. But the deal is contingent on the wand."

Lily was clearly unconvinced. "It's not your promise I want. You know that."

"I can't undo the vow you made."

"No," Lily said, "but he can. And he listens to you."

A pause. Hermione's pulse raced.

The silence went on a tick too long, and something inside her lurched with a flood of panic.

"You should go," Narcissa said after a moment, voice unchanging. "My son has a houseguest. Perhaps you know her? She's listening in the stairwell right now."

FUCK, shouted Hermione's mind.

There was a quick motion of hurried steps from the floor below and without thinking, Hermione rose to her feet, fleeing through the corridor. She paused, glancing around in a panic (what would they do what would they do what would they do if they found her?) and then she lunged for the door to Draco's study, aiming herself at the Floo.

Calm down, her lungs requested. Take a moment to breathe—

Where will you go? her limbs shrieked.

In the midst of her clanging doubts, something inside her was resolute; she found a clear thread of logic and clung to it, following its path. Only one person could help her. She was beyond sure of that now. There was only one person who'd ever set foot in this universe she knew for certain she could trust.

"James Potter's house," she whispered to the Floo and stepped through it, glancing around the vacant room and heading for the study. Specifically, the desk, and the drawer in the upper lefthand corner, where she'd last placed the ring.

The ring, which contained the stone.

Whatever she'd just heard, someone wasn't going to want it repeated, and she didn't have the luxury of waiting to find out.

She had to talk to Draco Malfoy, now—and not the one she'd just left.

a/n: for Kete-Hlin, who really nails the blow-by-blow.

20. Identity Thefts

Chapter 20: Identity Thefts

Potterverse

They took a half-conscious Narcissa to a small muggle inn just outside Stornoway, which was the closest they could get on brooms before Draco became certain he was going to drown his mother by way of accidentally releasing her into open ocean. Harry, who was at least slightly more careful with other human lives than he was with his own, warily agreed, and Theo and Hermione ventured into the tavern to procure a room while he and Draco waited.

"Who do you think she meant?" Draco asked, not very calmly, and for the seventieth time.

"I still don't know, Malfoy," was Harry's painfully unhelpful reply.

Luckily, Grindelwald resolutely excluding muggles and muggleborns meant that particular version of Hermione's world had developed much like their own. She managed to successfully steal someone's identity (not without help, Draco assumed; Theo was an artful forger, always handy with duplication spells) and was able to use a small plastic card to secure a room. The subsequent process of getting Narcissa up the stairs wasn't the easiest thing, but at least they had the cloak, making it slightly less terrible for them to be smuggling a somewhat controversially-clothed woman up the stairs. By the time they were safely cloistered in the room, she was finally beginning to wake.

"Mother," Draco said, perching at the side of one of the two narrow beds. "Can you hear me?"

She opened one eye.

"No," was her initial judgment of the situation.

"Beautiful," Theo said, applauding her from the other bed. Harry and Hermione were, not surprisingly, not particularly willing to come much closer than the threshold. "I've always admired your command over the subtleties of language."

"Oh, good," Narcissa remarked, shutting her eyes again. "Theo's here."

"Mother," Draco pressed, trying not to sound dire. "Are you alright?"

"No, Draco, sweetheart, I'm not." She didn't move much, though she did angle her head towards him, cracking one eye again. "I told you to put me back."

"Oh good, so no amnesia," Hermione said weakly, and slowly, Narcissa sat up at the sound of her voice, frowning at her.

"You're the muggleborn girl," she said, wisely not employing any less-pleasing monikers, and Hermione hesitated.

"Well, actually—"

"Yes, she is," Draco cut in firmly, not wanting to get into it. "And be nice, Mother."

Narcissa arched a brow, silently reminding him that her preference for situations of public admonishment—and truly, a small tavern room with three teenagers who weren't her son was probably immensely public in her eyes—was somewhere between 'never' and 'when I'm good and dead.'

"What's going on?" she asked instead.

"Well," Harry said, "we've killed Voldemort."

"Yes," Narcissa said. "Astoundingly, I'd managed to puzzle that part out."

"Did you know the Dark Lord couldn't die, Mother?" Draco couldn't resist asking, the question slipping out without much forethought or preamble. She slid him a disapproving look, which he thought was rather silly considering everyone else in the room obviously also knew about it, and proceeded to give him a weary, impassive shake of her head.

"I know more than you think, darling. And he isn't dead," she said, turning back to Harry. "You haven't killed him. You've just stalled him temporarily, and when he does come back—"

"He can't, though," Hermione argued, cutting her off, to which Draco could not prevent a furtive wince. Narcissa wouldn't particularly love being interrupted by anyone, much less any version of Hermione Granger. Not that it mattered, of course, what his mother thought of his… Well, anyway, he reminded himself with an internal shake, it didn't matter.

"He can't just return on his own," Hermione was saying. "Someone would have to bring him back."

"You think there aren't plenty of people who would?" Narcissa asked her sharply. "I don't expect you to understand, given what you are," she determined, fixing Hermione with something that was both disapproval and bitter weaponry, "but believe me, the Dark Lord will not stay dead for long. If he's even dead now."

"He's definitely dead, Mother," Draco said uncomfortably, unsure how to soothe her. Reassurance wasn't traditionally something they did for each other. He was pretty sure that was somewhere in the family crest. Right after Sanctimonia Vincet Semper, he was certain there was something about, 'and also, let's not debase ourselves by over-emoting.' "I killed him myself."

Narcissa hesitated, about to retort with something, then clearly changed her mind.

"You came to find me for a reason, I presume," she deduced correctly, eyeing Draco as she demurred tangentially to what they'd been up to. "What is it?"

"Oh, we popped by Gringotts," Theo supplied before Draco could speak. "We were informed you went into Bellatrix Lestrange's vault."

"Yes," Narcissa said, and did not elaborate. For several seconds, she said nothing, clearly believing herself to have said enough, and then she propped herself against the headboard, pausing to glance at their expectant faces. "What?"

"We, er. Wanted to know why you went," Harry said, to which Narcissa replied her most minute version of displeasure; a little lip twitch of disdain that said, Young man, you cannot imagine the lengths to which you have displeased me, which was something Draco had seen many times during his youth. "They told us you didn't take anything."

"No, I didn't," she confirmed, wincing a little as she adjusted her posture. "I was looking for something." She turned to Draco, disapproval practically welling up from her pores before continuing, "When it wasn't there, I decided the best way to keep you safe was for me to be in Azkaban, so I went."

"What were you looking for?" Hermione asked at the same time Harry said, "Keep him safe from what?"

Narcissa gave Draco a look that said she very much wished he had not accosted her with these flagrantly chatty ingrates. He gave a weak shrug in reply, and she sighed, turning to Hermione first.

"I was looking for a diadem," Narcissa said. "It… does something."

"What does it do?" Hermione asked curiously, but Narcissa had already turned to Harry, having lost interest in her.

"You know precisely what I'm keeping him safe from, Harry Potter," she informed him. "It's the same thing your parents died for. The same thing you've had to protect yourself from your entire life, in fact."

"His name is Voldemort, and he's dead," Harry said staunchly, and the side of Narcissa's jaw twitched.

"That's not his name," she corrected him uneasily, "and more importantly, you only killed his body. That's very easy. Though perhaps you're all too young to understand a man is much more than his limbs."

"So you do know about the horcruxes, then," Harry guessed, and when she gave no indication either way, a loud, cheery laugh from Theo interrupted the silence that had fallen over the room, prompting them to turn towards him.

"Hm? Oh, sorry," he said, still chuckling to himself. "I just love being right."

Narcissa blinked something the equivalent of an eye roll and turned back to Draco. "You're not safe," she told him flatly. "You'd better disappear. All of you," she grudgingly corrected herself, sparing a sweeping glance around the room. "He'll want you dead, of course," she said to Harry, before shifting to Hermione. "And you." She paused before glancing at Theo. "And as for you—"

"Yes," Theo said. "I agree. He may not yet, but he'll want me dead once he gets to know me. It's a common impulse."

Draco expected Narcissa to react with opposition, but not with palpable concern. "Your threats are different, but no less real," she said to Theo, with what Draco was surprised to hear was a hint of gentleness in her voice. "Do not let your father find you, Theodore."

To Draco's further surprise, no remark came from Theo's mouth. Instead his lips closed around something that was probably bitter disappointment, and across the room, Harry's brow furrowed, silently taking stock.

"Disappear," Draco said, clearing his throat and recapturing his mother's attention. "Why?"

"Because the Dark Lord has reason to want me to suffer," she said.

"But he lived in your house and didn't kill you," Harry observed, and against the duvet, Narcissa's knuckles tightened slightly.

"I didn't say he wanted me dead. I said he wanted me to suffer. He needs me," she added darkly. "I know things he needs me alive for, but that doesn't mean he'll hesitate to kill all of you. Draco, sweetheart, listen to me," she said, angling herself towards him with some difficulty, "this is not a war you can win. I thought if I simply lost my mind in Azkaban I could keep you safe; that he might not bother to get to you by going through me. But now, you're in danger once again."

"We have one of the horcruxes," Draco told her, swallowing, and again, Narcissa made no indication of recognition, though she didn't betray any surprise, either. "We… well, they," he corrected himself with a gesture to the others in the room, "want to bring him back to find out how many others there are."

Narcissa blinked once, a show of outrage. "No."

"Mother—"

"You can't bring him back," she said, color rising slightly in her cheeks.

"You said someone would," Harry pointed out. "If it's us, we can… I don't know. Subdue him. Can't we?"

"You're an idiot and a child," she told him succinctly, "and you have no idea what you're dealing with. Draco, listen to me, do not bring him back," she warned him, giving him the glance she typically saved for disciplinary measures. "I forbid you."

"Mother, I'm nearly eighteen," Draco sighed. "You can't forbid me—"

"Watch me," she snapped, which was so far off her normal spectrum of behavior he felt genuinely rattled by the sound. "Unless you've suddenly developed a pressing need to be killed, Draco, you will not do something so wildly stupid."

"I'm afraid you've misjudged the company he keeps now," Theo drawled, having resumed his injections of unwelcome commentary. "Haven't you heard, Narcissa? We all have death wishes here."

Narcissa shook her head. "This is beyond foolish, Draco. Impossibly beyond."

"Maybe you could tell us why?" Hermione said tentatively, stepping forward to suffer the full weight of Narcissa's glare snapping to hers. "I mean, obviously if you don't tell us, we're still going to find a way to do it. But if you just explain, then…"

She trailed off hopefully, and Narcissa's eyes narrowed. As with many things Hermione said, Draco could see it was a bit too logical a point to deny.

"I mean, psychologically speaking," Hermione was about to continue until Narcissa grimaced, holding up a hand to cut her off.

"You already know the man called Voldemort split his soul?" she prompted, and they nodded. "Then you should also know the body you killed does not belong to him. Not to who he was, or who he really is. Tom Riddle," she murmured as an afterthought, her mouth tightening around the name.

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked, frowning. "That it's not really his body, I mean."

"I'm afraid I'm at least partially responsible." Narcissa's jaw was tightly clenched. "There was a time when his magic wasn't quite so cruel. It was… fascinating. He was a uniquely talented man. Is," she corrected herself, and then glanced at Draco. "The body you killed wasn't him, Draco, not really. It was only some other form of him."

"Yes, it couldn't have been his original form, could it?" Harry realized, brow furrowing. "Of course. I saw him get his new body in the graveyard that day he was resurrected, but before that—"

"The body before then was also not him," Narcissa said flatly. "The day your parents died, Harry Potter, that wasn't Tom Riddle, either. It was, like this most recent one, merely a facsimile of him. A version."

Draco was having absolutely no success puzzling this out. Hermione, however, seemed to have hit upon something.

"The diadem," she realized loudly, and to Draco's surprise, Theo shifted with recognition. "You were looking for it to find the real Tom Riddle. Is that it?"

"Yes. And no." Narcissa glanced down. "I only know stories."

"Stories?" Draco echoed, frowning, and Narcissa nodded slowly.

"He always said it was his most valuable possession. He went to find it sometime in the forties, before I was even born." She glanced up, possibly willing Draco not to do the math. "He spent a great amount of time with my family before he really became what he was," she explained. "He needed the support from older wizarding families. My father was enamored with him."

"What exactly does the diadem do?" Hermione asked her.

"I'm not sure," Narcissa said. "But whatever it is, it's something he could come back for. Or come back from. I don't know." She shook her head. "After a while I stopped asking questions."

Her voice was eerily strange, and strangely young, too. It was as if she'd traversed time and space to resume the state she'd mysteriously occupied whenever Tom Riddle originally told her whatever he'd told her all those years ago.

"So why can't we bring him back?" Harry asked.

"Because," Narcissa said, "you will almost certainly fall prey to the version of him that returns. The way he returned in recent times, that was only a shadow of him. But his horcruxes, especially from the early years…" She swallowed. "Tom Riddle is an impossibly talented man, and not only with magic. It's very easy to believe what he tells you. It's also very difficult to know what is a lie, and what is not."

"Seems fairly straightforward," Hermione said, lifting her chin. "He's a bad guy. We keep him under proverbial lock and key, we don't listen to anything he says. Easy."

"Yes," Narcissa facetiously agreed, "of course, so easy. Never mind that none of us thought ourselves murderers until he convinced us that's precisely what we should be. Never mind that we were raised just as you were raised, Miss Granger, to believe in right and wrong. Perhaps you think we're monsters for what we've done to you, and to those like you, and perhaps you're right."

She paused, and in the lull of silence, Draco and Theo exchanged a wordless glance.

"I do not forget what was done to you in my house, and by my sister," Narcissa continued to Hermione after a moment, her voice hard and cold, with palpable edges. "But I assure you, monsters aren't born. They're made, and often, by Tom Riddle."

"So," Harry said, clearing his throat. "How do we kill him, then?"

"I don't know," Narcissa said. "I thought perhaps the diadem would help, but I couldn't find it."

"It was at Hogwarts," Draco said, and then winced. "We destroyed it. I did."

"Oh." Narcissa registered the information, then lifted her chin. "Fine. Hide, then. You killed him once," she said to Draco before turning to Harry, "and you've managed it far more, haven't you? Perhaps you can all simply spend your entire lives killing him over and over until you die and he outlives us all. Doesn't that sound fun?" Her voice was bitterly resentful, though Draco could see the meanness of it wasn't technically for them. "You'd better not try to get your father," she added to Draco. "Tom would play with him purely for sport. He's better off where he is."

Draco thought it best not to ask why.

Eventually, it was Harry who spoke first. "But maybe if we found all the horcruxes—"

"You think all he has are horcruxes?" Narcissa said, glaring at him. "You have no idea what you're dealing with."

"But we can't just give up—"

"Malfoy." The voice was a whisper and Draco started, finding a new body crouched down near his feet. "Malfoy, I need you, it's important."

Yes, hello. Me again.

"Granger?" he asked, and the voices in the room stopped except for hers.

"Malfoy," she said, glancing warily over her shoulder. "I think I've really fucked it this time."

Grindelverse

Hermione was crouching down in the office, whispering to the ring. "Where are you? Can you talk?"

"Yes. We're somewhere near Stornoway," Draco said, somewhat uncomfortably. "We just got my mother out of Azkaban." She watched the hologram of him shift towards her from where he was sitting, though like usual, she could only hear and see him. "What's happened? What's wrong?"

"Your… your mother. And Lily Potter. I mean, Evans. Harry's mum." Draco blinked with surprise, and Hermione glanced again over her shoulder, intently searching the silence in the room. "It's a really long story but Malfoy, I think they're both working with Tom Riddle. I don't think your other self is, but…" She exhaled sharply. "Malfoy, I just have the worst feeling, I don't know what's happening and I don't know what to do now—"

"Okay. Okay, hold on." His face looked drawn, and there were prominent shadows under his eyes. She wondered how long it had been since he'd slept. "Where are you?"

"Safe. For now. But Malfoy…" She swallowed hard. "Please, I need your help. I don't know who I can go to, and if Narcissa Malfoy and Lily Evans have reason to want me dead—"

"What do you want me to do?" he asked. The question was levied without any particular form of mockery; more of a genuine intent. He didn't know how to help, and in reality, Hermione wasn't entirely sure, either. She only knew that she was desperate, and that knowing such a thing was true was more than a little discomfiting. Tom's words rang in her ears: You aren't desperate yet, but I strongly suspect you will be.

She supposed she could simply ask Draco to take her back, take her home. He had the Deathly Hallows, particularly the wand, so surely there was a way he could do it. And what did it matter if Tom Riddle took over this universe? It wasn't hers. She had no obligation to it. She could slip away in the night as she pleased and never look back.

Only… she probably would, she reminded herself grudgingly. She'd almost certainly feel the weight of the guilt in her bones for the rest of her lifetime. But still, how could she continue on here alone when she didn't know what resources she had, or who she could trust?

It was stupid, but she had to try.

Idly, she hoped he wouldn't see precisely where her mind was going.

"I need you to come here," she said very quietly, and Draco's eyes widened.

"Granger, are you mad?" he asked her, his tone gravely serious. "I'm sitting here with my practically dead mother who claims Tom Riddle is going to kill all of us at any given moment, and you want me to just impossibly skip over to some other universe and—no," he said to someone else in the room, "do not let Theo explain this to her, Potter, you do it—"

"Malfoy, you owe me," Hermione hissed, resigning herself to something she'd have normally been much too proud for. "You left me here, remember? You trapped me here, in case you forgot."

He took that about as well as she'd expected. "Oh, very nice, Granger," he growled. "Extortion, that's how you catch bees—"

"You already have the Hallows," she reminded him quickly. "You could figure out a way to get here, and once you were here, we could take care of this easily. You have an unbeatable wand," she reminded him with a growl. "From what it sounds like, Lily's holding this universe's Elder Wand hostage." She raced through the conversation she'd overheard, hastily forming something conceivably actionable. "So if we had yours, we could use it to fool Tom Riddle long enough to get rid of him, and then—"

"You are mad," Draco deduced, looking painfully distressed. "That's not even a plan, Granger!"

"Yes, well, I'm sort of losing my faith in plans," she said grimly. "They don't seem to work as well as I'd like them to."

"Yes, but—hold on." Draco turned, obviously listening to someone else in the room. "What?"

Hermione sighed, clutching tightly to the ring as she waited before glancing over her shoulder once again. There wasn't even a safe place in this universe, much less a safe person. Normally she hated to think of herself as a person dependent on others, but as things were presently going, she could really use a friend.

She shivered slightly and leaned her head back, hoping there was at least one version of Draco Malfoy who wouldn't let her down.

Potterverse

"She needs you," Harry said flatly, "so you're going. End of story."

Draco, who didn't care to reveal to the resurrection stone's projection of Hermione what his end of the conversation was about before the decision had been made, gave him a purposefully muted look of rebellion.

"I don't care if she has a plan or not," Harry said, folding his arms over his chest. "If she just wants to talk about her feelings? You're going. If she wants to come for Tom Riddle with a firing squad? You're going. If she's running off to join the circus and reinventing herself completely and she's asked you to come along, you are going, do you understand me?" Harry was firmly resolute, unbending. "I let her down once and I will not be doing it again. I don't care what it is she wants or what we're dealing with here. We can handle this," he said, waving a hand at Narcissa. "But Hermione asked for your help, and Malfoy, believe me when I say this: You. Are. Going."

"It's not—" Draco gritted his teeth, smacking a hand into Theo's ribs for the writing implement and notepad beside the bed and then snatched at it, scribbling onto it: It's not that I don't want to help her, but I can't just LEAVE

Harry squinted over his shoulder at the writing, scowling. "Yes, you can," he said.

Draco shook his head, furiously writing. POTTER DO YOU NOT SEE MY DISTRESSED MOTHER OR ARE YOU HAVING SOME KIND OF STROKE OF IDIOCY

"Go," Narcissa advised quietly, placing a hand on his arm, and Draco froze, glancing up at her. "This is another universe you'd be going to?" she asked carefully, and Draco gave a hesitant nod. "Yes. Good, then go. What better way to hide? Go and stay there, even." She seemed to be serious, though he couldn't imagine why. "It's the one place he won't look for you, Draco. Folded somewhere between worlds."

He bent down to the notepad. But mother I can't just leave you and I can't leave theo he's still fucking cross with me and THESE TWO (scribbled out with some arrows) are total lunatics and I don't even know if I can go and what the honest to bloody fuck am I supposed to do

"Language," Narcissa said, as Theo let out a scoff.

"I'm not cross, Draco, I'm not a child," Theo remarked from where he was reading over Draco's shoulder, rolling his eyes. "If anything, this is your opportunity to undo several of your more recent wrongs, don't you think?"

Draco's gaze flicked to the spectral Hermione who was clutching something in the corner, waiting for his response. She looked…

He grimaced. She looked lonely. Uncertain. And mildly paranoid.

And fuck if those weren't things he could relate to supremely.

He turned to the other Hermione, who was standing across from him with a pained expression. You? he mouthed to her. Will you be okay?

She looked a bit troubled, but nodded. "You should go," she agreed, glancing down at her feet. "She needs you. But, um." She paused, and Draco wondered briefly if she were going to say something sentimental until she surprised them all with, "You should also take the cup with you."

"What?" they all asked, blurting it out at once. The Hermione in the corner looked up, frowning expectantly at Draco's outburst, and he gave her a little gesture to wait.

"Don't tell her," warned the more corporeal Hermione Granger in reference to her parallel self. "But listen, it's too dangerous to bring this Tom Riddle guy back in this universe, right? So do it there. Consider it an exchange," she suggested. "You help her, she'll help us. She's the one who wanted to ask him questions, wasn't she?" she reminded him, and Draco nodded slowly, realizing that was true. "So, fine. Great. Bring Tom Riddle back in my universe, then. It's your safest option."

Draco shifted his glance to Harry, waiting for him to weigh in, and he grimaced, but permitted a nod.

"She's right," Harry said slowly. "It would be better than bringing him back here, where people are still likely to rally behind Voldemort. Right?"

Harry glanced at Theo, who nodded. "Things are much less stable here," Theo agreed, looking surprisingly solemn. "The trouble with bringing him back here is exponential, but there? Not so much."

Draco blinked, turning to his mother, who was staring carefully into nothing.

"You could do it," she said, lips pressed thin. "I don't advise it. But I sense you're all going to do something much more stupid if it remains here, so I'm afraid I have to agree." She turned to him, fixing him with the astonishing blue gaze he'd known his entire lifetime and never quite understood. "Go there and take the cup with you."

Draco brought both hands to his face, rubbing his temples.

"Malfoy?" the spectral Hermione asked him tentatively. "Please."

It was madness. No, beyond madness. It was stupidity to the highest degree.

But still, Draco had known the moment Hermione Granger asked for his help he had no choice but to give it. After all, he had relied on her in his own moment of need, while she'd been none the wiser. He'd just hoped someone might have talked him out of it… but that clearly wasn't to be.

"Okay," he said to the absent Hermione, fixing his attention on her. "Okay. I'll use the Elder Wand and see what I can do. Wait there," he added, and she gave him a helplessly irritated look like what else am I supposed to do, which he ignored in favor of standing. "Um, hold on."

He glanced at his mother. "Any ideas how to travel between worlds?"

"I imagine it's rather like apparition," Narcissa said without inflection. At that, Draco abruptly recalled the panicked owl he'd sent her about how he was going to be the last to take his exam, when he'd been intensely fearing the possibility he would fail and be left behind. She'd merely told him there was no way he would fail, and perhaps because she was his mother, he'd simply gone ahead and believed her.

"Destination, determination, deliberation," she reminded him now, with a wry half-smile. "Fix your mind on the universe you're going and will yourself into it."

He nodded, swallowing a lifetime of nerves and reaching for the Elder Wand, clutching it tightly in his hand. "Well, alright. I guess… bye, then," he said to the others, unsure when he would see them again, and Hermione, who'd been apprehensively chewing her thumbnail, threw herself into him, wrapping her arms around his ribs and holding him tightly. He bent his head, brushing his lips against her forehead (he'd have liked to do more but he was, after all, in full view of his mother) before glancing up at Theo, who grudgingly also came over to pull them both into an embrace.

"Don't die," Theo advised stiffly.

"Er, yes, I agree," Harry said, and then blinked. "Oh, and, um—" He rummaged in the beaded bag, which he'd made a habit of shoving down his sock. "Here," he said, withdrawing the silvery invisibility cloak. "Take this, too. And this, obviously," he added, handling the cup for about a second before dropping it back in. "Actually, no, just take the whole bag—"

"What?" Draco asked, balking. "Don't be stupid. You might need that!"

Harry shook his head. "You take it." He held the bag and the bundled cloak out for Draco firmly. "Keep her safe," he warned, as Draco tentatively disentangled himself from Hermione and Theo to reach for the proffered items, gripping them in his free hand. "Tell her I'm sorry if I've let her down."

"Potter, you haven't," Draco began, but withered, shaking his head. "Well, fine. Just… let me do this, would you? No point wasting the effort if it isn't even going to work." He inhaled shakily, Hermione's eyes bright with restrained emotion, and gave Theo and his mother one more smile-resembling grimace before raising the Elder Wand, closing his eyes.

"Oh, er, wait," Draco said, cracking one to look at the hazily-present Hermione where she'd risen to her feet. "Where are you again?"

"James Potter's house," she said. "In the study."

"Right, James Potter's house," Draco agreed, shutting his eyes again.

"What?" asked Harry in half a whisper, and it occurred to Draco for a moment that perhaps that had been a particularly careless slip he should remedy, but then he heard Theo's footsteps traversing the room and thought otherwise, figuring the three of them collectively were in far more capable hands than he was about to be.

He inhaled, exhaled.

James Potter's house.

Inhale.

In Grindelwald's universe.

Exhale.

Where she is.

He pictured Hermione Granger's anxious face and concentrated on being there with her; on what it would be like to look at her, to place a hand on her shoulder and tell her it would be fine—which was not something he should promise, practically speaking, but would likely do anyway. It seemed a thing people did for each other from time to time.

He flicked the wand, inhaling again. There was something in the way for a moment, like a flat-planed barricade, but he cocked his head, feeling mentally for a latch, a crack, a handle. Determination, he thought, tightening his fingers around the Elder Wand. I am determined to get there, he thought, feeling at what must have been the edges of reality. He felt a bit of glass shattering, tinkling slightly like bells in the distance, and then nothing. A fire crackled somewhere near him as he waited, unsure what to expect, and then opened his eyes slowly, one lid at a time.

"You did it," Hermione breathed out, her fingers pressed to her lips, and he stared at her for a moment, not quite sure it was real.

"Did I?" he asked, doubtful, and she reached out, her fingers unfurling to touch his face.

"Yes," she said matter-of-factly, as if she couldn't really believe it either. She eyed him from a variety of angles, frowning with calculation. "Funny," she determined, resting her fingertips briefly on his cheekbone before stepping back, looking almost slightly irritated. "I really thought this sort of thing would be impossible. Makes you wonder if anything's actually impossible, doesn't it?"

"It certainly does," came a voice to Draco's left, and abruptly, he and Hermione froze.

"Well, shit," said Draco, gaze sliding to the door. He tightened his hands around the cloak, the Elder Wand, the beaded bag, hastily cataloguing his materials.

"Yes," replied his other self. "My sentiments exactly."

Grindelverse

Hermione had obviously been the one to tell Draco to come, but still, even she had only moderately believed it was possible. It was such a jarring materialization—from a hazy, half-present image of him riddled with magical warps to him now, physically in front of her, looking precisely as thin and tired and ragged as she'd suspected from speaking to him with the stone—that perhaps her reflexes were a bit slower than they should have been when realizing both Draco Malfoys were now in Harry Potter's study with her.

"My mother told me you'd run off," the other Draco remarked to her neutrally, leaning against the doorframe with his fingers curled loosely around his wand. "Didn't take much to sort out you must have gone here, considering it was either this or Tom Riddle—though this is a surprise," he noted, gesturing to where she stood with her universe's version of Draco Malfoy. "What are you up to, Hermione?"

She blinked, reaching for her wand, and was surprised to find Draco (her Draco, or was he Harry's Draco?—god, she thought, this was going to be confusing) had thrown something over the two of them, leaving the other Draco to scowl slightly.

"Revelio," he said, aiming his wand, and the moment the spell failed to land, Hermione registered it was Harry's invisibility cloak her universe's Malfoy had thrown over her.

"Where'd you get this?" she hissed at him.

He replied with a shrug that poked into her back as he eased her backwards, moving them towards the door. "Potter gave it to me," he said in a low voice. "Any ideas here? Or should we just die?"

She wanted to elbow him into silence but figured that was unwise.

"So, you've brought your version of the cloak, then," the other Draco was monologuing to the empty room. "I imagine you must have also used your Elder Wand? Well, excellent. I'm rather in need of one, and truth be told, I don't particularly need to see you to find you." He blindly shot a stunning spell through the air, which only barely missed the arm belonging to the Draco beside her as Hermione yanked him out of the way. "I'm not your enemy, Hermione. Don't make me one."

"Your mother's working with Tom Riddle," she told him, and he pivoted sharply, following her voice. "Something's wrong, Draco. Something's much worse than you think it is."

"Yes, it is, isn't it," he agreed, slinging another spell as she ducked, tugging the cloaked Draco Malfoy down with her. "I've never been betrayed quite so flagrantly before, and yet here we are, aren't we?"

"I'm not betraying you," she growled impatiently, though the moment she said it, she sighed, realizing she likely had no other options but to proceed along those lines. "Not yet, anyway," she amended, and then flung a stunning spell in his direction.

He collapsed with a thud and fell to the ground, stiff.

"Well, rats," Hermione growled, removing the cloak and wandering over to the now-stunned version of Draco, eyeing his placidly unconscious face as it lolled against the carpet. "This is messier than I'd have liked."

"Surely it must have occurred to you that me coming here would be at least mildly unwelcome," the conscious Draco remarked unhelpfully, slipping the cloak from his shoulders and pausing beside her. "Did you really have no semblance of a plan?"

She considered him. Considered the him on the floor. Then considered him again.

"I didn't," she admitted, "but now I do."

She aimed her wand. "Incarcerous," she said, and as ropes bound themselves around the wrists and ankles of one Draco Malfoy, the other was left to stare at her with wide-eyed disbelief, balking as she turned to him. "What?" she asked, sighing. "Can't just let him go, obviously. I mean, you heard." She waved a hand. "He doesn't handle rejection well."

"Weren't you in a relationship with him?" Draco demanded, and she shrugged.

"It's complicated," she said, nudging floor-Draco's foot.

"Well, what are we supposed to do now?" upright-Draco said, throwing his hands up before resting them irritably on his hips. "And here I thought you were the sane one, Granger, but Jesus H. Salazar Fuck, clearly nobody's immune to the Potter School of Mayhem and Mania—"

"Well, you're Draco Malfoy, aren't you?" she asked him, and he turned his attention back to her stiffly, expression carefully blank as she spoke. "This universe really only needs one, so…"

She trailed off pointedly, gesturing to the one on the floor, and the one on his feet stared at her, looking equally pale.

"You can't be serious," he said, voice a touch hoarse, and she grimaced.

"Unfortunately," she replied tightly, "I'm afraid I rather am."

a/n: Did you guys know I have a vlog series now because my hands get tired from typing but I still want to answer the questions I get about writing and fanfic and life? It's called Olivie Blake is Not Writing and week 3 just went up on youtube. Just throwing that out there. Also, this chapter is for kyonomiko, who is such a magnificent dose of consistency in a world of utter chaos.

21. Old Friends

Chapter 21: Old Friends

Grindelverse

"Granger, I cannot and will not impersonate this version of myself," Draco said firmly, and with something he hoped was a version of his other self's unpalatable certainty, though the fact that he hoped it at all instead of implicitly knowing it was indicative enough to prove his point. "I don't know this world, I don't know his friends, and the only reason your other self got away with it for so long was because we were running for our lives and Potter is massively easy to fool—"

"Well, this Harry won't be," Hermione said, apparently (and rightfully) not bothering to dispute Draco's assertion about their universe's version of Harry Potter. "And you certainly can't fool his mother."

"Right, so—wait," Draco said, startled. "His mother?"

"But you can probably fool Tom Riddle," Hermione continued, opting to ponder under her breath rather than answer, "or maybe he'll be distracted by the Elder Wand, or—"

"Speaking of Tom Riddle," Draco groaned, abruptly remembering the cup floating around in her beaded bag, "that's the other thing I need to tell you about. Because I—unlike you," he tossed out irritably, "plan to be somewhat reasonable about my asinine plots, and will thus reveal them to you as they happen, rather than painfully and in retrospect."

Hermione gave him an irreverent look of impatience. "Fine. What is it?"

In response, Draco fumbled with the beaded bag in his hand. He dragged out the Hufflepuff cup and offered it to her, observing her slowly widening eyes as she registered what it was.

"If you really want to bring him back," he said, determining it was best to just come out with it, "then we'll have to do it here."

He wasn't sure what he'd expected her reaction to be, but he'd come to consider it most efficient to anticipate nothing and simply take things as they came. "That's quite a good idea, actually," Hermione said, eyeing the cup and absurdly bringing it to her ear to listen for a moment, as if it had been a seashell. "Particularly seeing as the information about how to use them seems to be broadly distributed. At least according to that Draco, anyway," she clarified, gaze falling down to the version of him that remained tied-up on the floor.

Draco wondered, not for the first time, what had happened between them. He suppressed a little surge of something objectionable at the idea she'd seen some version of him naked, perhaps even several times, and then forcefully attempted not to consider the possibility she might have liked what she saw.

Or, more intriguingly, what she'd touched.

He repelled the thought, shoving it brusquely aside.

"Well, you could wake him, if you thought he might be even marginally reasonable," Draco said, though personally, he had his doubts. "We'd need someone with his knowledge if we wanted to get away with this, anyway. Surely even a fragment of Tom Riddle's soul isn't a complete idiot."

Hermione paused for a moment.

Then blinked, apparently having a disconcerting revelation.

"Someone with his knowledge," Hermione agreed with a glance at floor-Draco, "but not necessarily him."

"What does that mean?" Draco demanded, but she was partly smiling to herself, having already stubbornly resolved to make his life difficult.

"Wait here," was the last thing she said before leaving a flustered Draco behind, returning a few minutes later.

"Okay, just to be clear," drawled a voice behind her as she re-entered the room, "when I said you had friends in the Underworld, I didn't technically mean you should abduct Hades."

Draco gaped a little at the lanky, dark-haired figure behind her, who in turn glanced at him with an extremely familiar look of disinterest.

"Oh, yes, you're right," this universe's Theo Nott remarked to Hermione. "I would've known immediately that wasn't him. Very unsettling, actually." He took a few long strides in, squinting at Draco's face. "There's some things missing. There should be a scar here from a quidditch mishap he had with Harry when we were younger," he said, flicking the side of Draco's temple, right near his hairline. "Draco makes a point to hide it."

After an uncomfortably long searching glance, Theo abruptly straightened. "Also, the expression isn't right. You look nervous," he informed Draco. "Do you spend a lot of time fearing for your life?"

"Astoundingly, yes," Draco replied irritably.

"Yeah," Theo confirmed with a shrug, turning back to Hermione. "This wouldn't have fooled me, and it certainly won't fool Harry. Also, I can't technically let you leave my best friend tied up and stunned on the floor," he added, folding his arms over his chest. "Just to be clear, this is what some might call a conflict of interest."

"I'm not going to leave him like that," Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "I just need your help getting a few answers, and then Malfoy and I can, you know. Leave you to it."

"Well, that's not helpful either. Draco doesn't have much experience with being dumped," Theo remarked idly. "Or any experience, actually. Just a hunch," he mused, "but I have my doubts he'll care for the sensation."

"What are you saying?" Hermione asked, frowning. "You think he'd come after me?"

"Uh, yes," Draco pointed out before Theo could reply, rolling his eyes at the naivety of her disbelief. "If he was willing to kidnap you, Granger, somehow I suspect seeking vengeance is perfectly in character."

"That's also the least of your problems," Theo told her. "I mean, I don't know if you've noticed, but the world's a mess. You can't just scamper off into it."

"All the worlds are a mess," Draco grumbled under his breath, and Theo glanced warily at him. "What? They are," he insisted, and Theo shrugged his acknowledgement before turning back to Hermione.

"What made you do this?" he asked her.

"Narcissa Malfoy," Hermione said flatly. "She's working with Lily to some degree. And possibly Tom. And I just…" She trailed off. "I needed someone I could trust."

Theo turned a skeptical glance to Draco, then back to Hermione.

"Interesting choice," he commented tonelessly, and she sighed.

"Look, I just need you to help us with the horcrux," she said. "You know how to use it, don't you?"

"Well, theoretically, yes," Theo said. "Though I'm not sure I have all the required materials for a full resurrection."

"What do you need?" Hermione asked.

"A living person you're comfortable with killing," Theo replied in an uncomfortably cheery tone, and Draco sighed heavily, wondering now if it wouldn't be worth it to simply join the other Draco on the floor.

"Well, that's problematic," Hermione remarked in a new and terrible understatement. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Theo confirmed. "You know the basic principles, don't you? Magic can't create corporeality," he said, which Draco had to grudgingly acknowledge was probably an accurate assessment. "The only thing that can sustain one human life is another. Certainly to sustain a body."

"What if we don't need him to have a body?" Hermione posed thoughtfully. "All we really need is a seance of sorts."

"Sure, only he's not a ghost, Granger," Draco cut in, shaking his head. "He's going to try to manipulate you into giving him what he wants."

Theo nodded his agreement. "If you want the truth, you have to give him a reason to tell you," he advised. "Otherwise, I doubt you can trust anything he says."

"Hm." Hermione frowned, a familiar expression filling the space between her brows as she considered something new and idiotic. "Well," she said slowly, turning her attention to Theo, "how do you kill a monster?"

Theo registered the remark with a blink.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and Draco balked.

"Sure about what?" he demanded, glancing between them. "What are you talking about?"

"We could do it now," Hermione suggested to Theo, ignoring Draco entirely. It seemed to be a skill she'd picked up during her time in this universe. "Once we have answers, we'll leave."

"Assuming you get answers," Theo said. "And assuming nothing catastrophic occurs."

"It won't," Hermione said, fixing him with a solemn glance. "I can trust you, can't I?"

"Hello?" Draco asked, waving a hand between them. "Is anyone going to explain to me what's going on, or am I just going to have to continue shouting?"

"You can trust me all you like, but that doesn't make this any less dangerous," Theo told her. "There's not a lot I can do if something goes wrong."

"OKAY," Draco erupted firmly, "THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS—"

"You are definitely not Draco," Theo interrupted with a scrutinizing glance at him, and then shrugged. "I kind of like it, though. Refreshing," he said approvingly. "You're quite a spectacular mess."

"Could you not—"

"You kill a monster," Hermione interrupted with an impatient sigh, "by letting it believe you're nothing. I'm suggesting I permit the horcrux to believe it can possess me," she explained curtly, "and then stop it before it does."

"How?" Draco demanded.

She shrugged. "That's on you to figure out," she told him. "Just don't let me die, Malfoy. That seems relatively within your skillset, doesn't it? You managed to keep me from death by torture last time we saw each other," she pointed out, and he grimaced.

"You," he said brusquely, "have gotten really entitled, do you know that?"

She gave him half a smile.

"I know you won't let me die," she said again, "and I also know I can trick him."

"How?" Draco pressed. An endless refrain, it seemed. "How can you be so sure?"

"He's not Tom Riddle," Theo clarified for the both of them. "Not really. Horcruxes split your soul, yes, but not in half each time. It's just a sliver of what he was, operating within the constraints of metal," he said in the same dry voice Draco was so accustomed to being used to point out the obvious. "She'll have a few minutes to talk to him while he drains her of most of her energy, and then we just have to destroy the object keeping the soul-shard alive."

"We?" Draco echoed, dismayed.

"We," Theo confirmed. "The more human the horcrux becomes, the harder it'll be to fend off. One of us can distract the shard while the other destroys its host."

"But I—" Draco glanced at Hermione, who was thoughtfully waiting for his response. "Are you sure?" he asked with painful hesitation. "Are you very sure about this? Because if something happens to you, I—"

He broke off, and she lifted a brow.

"Fucking Potter would never forgive me," Draco said, withering a little, and the corners of her mouth quirked slightly, pleased.

"He really wouldn't," she agreed, wavering somewhere between amused and unsurprised. "Better take care to do it right, then, don't you think?"

Draco sighed. "This universe did something very strange to you," he commented gruffly, and again, she shrugged.

"You don't really know me that well," she reminded him, and as she said it, it struck him as entirely true. They'd been inadvisably convinced to trust each other despite having nothing but rivalry and academic performance to go on, and now their relationship seemed to amount to repeatedly saving each other's lives.

Still, he wasn't planning to let her down. He owed a debt to every version of her.

"Well," he sighed. "I guess we should just do this, then."

The roles were fairly straightforward. Hermione would be the one to ask questions; Draco, concealed under the invisibility cloak, would be the one to destroy the horcrux before it took too much from her; Theo would be the distraction factor, or at the very least, the only other visible person in the room.

That, and the person to sort out how the horcrux even worked.

"What do I do?" Hermione asked him, eyeing the cup. It sent an eerie chill through her to hold it, and her skin crawled in waves of discomfort. "Is there an incantation, or…"

"Well, it's not a lamp," Theo said. "You certainly don't rub it and make three wishes."

"Unhelpful," came Draco's incorporeal voice. He hadn't been particularly thrilled with any of the events taking place; unsurprising, in Hermione's view. In fairness to him, he was currently under the cloak with the unconscious version of himself, which even Hermione had to assume was an unnerving task.

"Maybe we have to activate it somehow," Hermione said nervously, frowning a little. How had Harry opened the locket? Parseltongue, she recalled from being told the story by Harry and Ron, but the diary hadn't required anything. He'd just had to use it. "Maybe I have to drink from it," she said uncomfortably, and Theo shrugged.

"As good an idea as any," he said, and slid open one of the desk drawers, pulling out a bottle of Ogden's. "Here," he said, holding it out, and Hermione lifted the cup with a growing sense of anxiety, letting Theo pour a little liquid inside it before removing a normal glass for himself.

"Cheers," he offered, clinking his glass against her cup, and she grimaced.

She'd never been a fan of alcohol (and her entire being opposed whisky consumption from this particular receptacle) but she managed to nearly drain the cup, swiping excess liquid from her lips as it burned its way down her throat. "Nothing," she managed when she could speak, and Theo poured a little more.

"Try again," he said. Another clink. Another round of salutation.

She made the mistake of inhaling before she drank this time, the spice of the whisky burning oppressively at her eyes and nose. She coughed, suffering the sting of a misbehaved swallow, and shook her head.

"Nothing," she said.

Nothing? asked a voice in her head, and she froze.

"Hello?" she said.

Theo frowned.

Hello, said something hazy.

"More," Hermione said urgently, holding the cup out, and Theo shook his head with unease but consented to pour, letting a thin trail of whisky collect in a pool at the base of the cup. "Thanks," she said, and downed it. Her head was spinning already, just slightly. She'd never been one for drinking and something this potent was surely going to affect her with immediacy, but still. She'd already started. Why chance switching to something less effective?

"Can you hear me?" she coughed up, half-choking.

Yes.

"Where are you?" she asked.

Wrong question.

She weighed the answer. "What do you need?"

Have a little more.

She held the cup out to Theo again and he narrowed his eyes, but poured. This time, before she could bring it to her lips, a little of the liquid in the cup's basin dropped, drained of some of its contents.

She shivered, then downed the rest.

"Interesting," said a voice, and Hermione whipped around, but there was no one in the room. Theo eased closer to her, looking equally discomfited, which she assumed meant he could now hear it, too. "Have more."

Theo frowned. "Maybe I should—"

Hermione shook her head. "Just pour," she said, her voice a little raspy now from the alcohol that lined her throat. "A couple more should do it."

He gave her a look that suggested it was a bad idea, but it wasn't as if she could stop now. She certainly couldn't share, as that would be to chance making Theo just as susceptible to Tom Riddle's clutches. Who would save her then?

Draco, she remembered, and breathed a little easier.

Then she shook herself of the sensation, recalling that shard of him or not, Tom Riddle would likely have no problem reading the facets of her mind. Better to clear it of anything vulnerable—like, say, evidence of the invisible person in the room.

Theo poured more into the cup and she watched it drop again, something hazy beginning to form beside her. She took a sip, waiting, and another inch or so disappeared. She was starting to see the shape of something; shoulders, she imagined. The line of a neck. A little blurry shift of movements.

Abruptly, it hit her: she was sharing a glass of whisky with Tom Riddle.

She swallowed hard and drained the cup, holding it out for Theo, and he emptied the bottle. This time, a sense of solidity manifested around the cup, lightly brushing Hermione's fingers. She jolted, the cup about to drop in mid-air, but precisely as she stumbled, blinking back an unsteady shift in equilibrium, a hand closed around it.

A slim forearm, with long, slender fingers. A watch. A neatly folded cuff. A white shirt, the sleeve of which led up to a narrow chest and a long torso. A linear chin, sharpened cheekbones. A set of intently-focused blue eyes.

"Who are you?" asked Tom Riddle neutrally, taking a sip from the Hufflepuff cup, and Hermione opened her mouth to answer.

Then she stumbled, Theo's arm coming around her waist to loft her upright.

"Hermione," she managed to mumble, and Tom nodded approvingly, his gaze flicking gradually over her.

"I see," he said, emptying the cup of its contents and discarding it over his shoulder only to warp slightly, like a badly conjured projection. "Ah," he determined, shifting quickly to watch himself come in and out of view. "You're not quite giving me everything."

It was giving her a headache not to. Hermione rubbed at her temple, leaning steadily against Theo.

"That's not the deal," she said, and Tom smiled. He looked to be somewhere in his twenties, though she noted he had a slightly starved look to him. The older version of Tom Riddle she'd previously met was certainly on the thinner side, but at this point in his life, he must not have been eating well. She remembered he was an orphan; she wondered if he'd had stomach problems. Likely he wouldn't have eaten well as a child, which would have affected his development later in life. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

She watched Tom's eyes narrow in response, translating her silence.

"You know who I am," he noted.

"Yes," she confirmed. "Though I'd like to know more."

"I'm sure you would," Tom replied. He definitely wasn't entirely present; she realized now what Harry had meant about the time Tom had nearly been brought to life in the Chamber of Secrets. He was more corporeal than a ghost, but not entirely there. Most significantly, Hermione couldn't feel any pulses of magic around him. He had the sensation of being magic, but not the usual solidity of being able to alter it.

His gaze searched her, probably for a wand.

"I want an agreement," she told him, dragging his attention back to her. "If you want more from me, then I want something, too."

"I can already take just fine," Tom said, gesturing to himself.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I gave you that." And she had, somehow. She could feel the warps of magic she didn't quite understand. One of these days, she thought, she'd manage to learn not everything was the elegance of conjugated Latin or the waving of a wand. Some things were just a primitively simple matter of give and take. "If you want more, you'll have to work with me, Tom."

He flinched at the use of his name. This was a prouder, haughtier version of him; I get that, she wanted to say. Youth is stupid.

He stared at her, concentrating, and she felt something like a tap on her shoulder, which she brusquely shoved away. He shook himself, frustrated.

"Fine," he said, which she determined with a tiny sense of victory was a sign she'd successfully prevented him from draining her of anything further. "What do you want?"

"Answers." Her mouth was dry. She was incredibly thirsty, but she didn't have much time. Theo's hand was tight around her elbow, nudging her to get on with it. "Where did you go in 1947?"

"Ah, what a question." Tom glanced around. "Where are we?"

"Focus." But she was the one struggling to focus. She had no doubt he was still trying to take from her, though she couldn't identify where or how. She just felt edges of him prodding at the lines of her, tapping at all the places she couldn't see or explain. "1947. What did you do? What did you find?"

His lips quirked up in a smile. "You've found it too, haven't you?"

She swallowed. Again. Her throat was uncomfortably dry. "Found what?"

"The world. The other world."

She blinked, dizzied. "You can travel between worlds."

The words slurred slightly, her voice as fuzzily inaccessible as her thoughts.

"Of course I can. I defied death, didn't I? I have no limitations." He glanced around the room again. "Have I met Narcissa yet?"

"What?" She could feel Theo shifting his grip on her. She must have been leaning more heavily against him. "Narcissa Malfoy?"

"Narcissa Black. Is she born yet?" Tom asked, tilting his head. "No, I think not."

"I—" Her throat was so dry. It was nearly all she could think about. That, and repeatedly keeping Tom's magic at arm's length, clumsily now. She was like a tired boxer, aiming jabs that barely landed. Time was limited. "How do you know her if she's not born?"

"I keep myself informed," he said drily. "Are you a friend of hers?"

Without hesitation, Hermione mumbled, "Yes."

"Liar." Tom's lips curled triumphantly in a smile. "Narcissa doesn't have friends."

"1947," Hermione said again. This time, when something reached for her, she didn't react fast enough. It curled around her like a vine, a thin tentacle of something taking root. She shifted, but it held fast. "You traveled to another universe. You—" She blinked. He was getting more solid. She, by contrast, felt she was sinking into the floor. "You killed the other version of yourself," she guessed. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Why not? He was nothing." He pivoted, admiring the office. "I'm there, aren't I? Good." He eyed his watch. "I expect it must be time, then."

"Time for…" She swallowed hard. "Time for what?"

"Are you familiar with history, Hermione?" She managed a nod. "Colonization," he said crisply, and if she could have summoned even the capacity for reflex, she might have shuddered. "Right of conquest. Imagine not only conquering death, but conquering worlds. I cannot die. I cannot be stopped." He spared her a laughing glance of feigned sympathy. "You look tired. Perhaps you should rest?"

"Where did you go?" she forced out. "The real you. The original version."

"Ah, but you know the answer already, don't you?" Tom asked. "You've met me. I can tell."

In the moment, she had the absurd thought of not Tom Riddle himself, but his teacup. Its exact dimensions, its precise design, the delicate painted pattern and the way it had risen to his smugly curled-up lips. It floated into her mind without permission and Tom reached forward, stopping just before he touched her forehead. Just before he might have brushed his fingertips between her eyes.

"Don't," Theo warned, and Tom shifted his clever smile to him.

"I'll take care of you in a minute," Tom said, before glancing back at Hermione. "I'm almost done with her."

Then he withdrew his hand, curling it briefly around something small, something she could tell was delicate even before she saw it, and then Tom offered it out to her with the same deliberation he might have handed her a baby bird.

A porcelain teacup rested in the unfurled expanse of his palm.

Hermione blinked, stunned.

"Draco," she whispered.

Then she collapsed to the ground, limbs numbed to bonelessness as she fell.

The mention of his mother had startled Draco immensely. What exactly had been her involvement with Voldemort? Or with Tom Riddle, who seemed to be worse? Suddenly, the Dark Lord seemed cartoonish in retrospect. What a stupid villain, Draco thought, all claws and red eyes and inhumanity grown from blood and bone, when the version right in front of him was clearly much more dangerous. He was draining Hermione of everything, growing more solid by the second, and the moment he'd conjured something in his hand—without a wand, without transfiguration, just pure inexplicable conjuring, as if he had control of time and space itself—Draco was certain the experiment would have to end.

He'd already taken the cloak with him and crept around to the cup, trying to move towards it without garnering Tom Riddle's attention It had been discarded behind the upsettingly large desk, and Draco aimed his wand just as Hermione dropped to the floor, whispering his name.

In the same moment, Tom spun.

"Who else is here?" Tom demanded, and his hand shot out to close around Theo's neck. He took hold of Theo gruffly and turned him to face the unconscious Draco, who had (by necessity) been left uncovered on the floor. "Who is that?"

Theo struggled to answer, Tom's nails digging into his throat, and Draco hastily aimed the Elder Wand at the cup.

"Confringo," he said firmly, and the wand, apparently quite enamored with blasting things to shards by now, happily complied.

Tom Riddle let out a horrible yell as the cup burst into slivers and fragments, Theo falling to his knees as the floor beneath them quaked. Draco stumbled, a piece of the golden cup embedding itself near his eye, and crawled over to Hermione. She was lying still at the feet of what had only just been a man but was now something of a disintegrating image, pieces of him falling like ash on a gust of conjured wind. Draco curled around her, keeping her from the disintegrating rubble, but just as quickly, Tom was gone.

The cup itself was gone, scorched floorboards left in its place.

In the lull of shock that followed, nobody moved. But in the subsequent moment, as if regaining their breath in the same instant, Theo struggled to rear up on his knees as Draco pressed his fingers to Hermione's neck, checking her pulse.

"She's alive," Draco exhaled with relief, "but she's not—"

"Shut up immediately," Theo said, rising to his feet and dragging Draco (who clung to a limply unconscious Hermione) by the collar to shove him into the corner by his unconscious self, throwing the cloak over all three of them. "Don't move, don't speak, do you understand me? Just don't—"

The door burst open and Theo rapidly wheeled backwards, positioning himself to lean casually against the desk.

"Yes?" he asked innocently.

"Nott, is that a joke?" asked someone who looked astonishingly like Harry Potter. "Did you kill someone?"

"James, we discussed this, didn't we?" Theo said in the irreverent tone Draco was so intimately familiar with. "You said not to make a habit of it, I said you really shouldn't be so limiting, you seemed to disagree—"

"Theodore, I am exhausted," said the person Draco was piecing together must have been James Potter, who was presently wearing a t-shirt and underwear and looked very much as if he'd been sleeplessly wandering the house (Draco knew the attire for such activities quite well). "If you have plans to continue destroying property at these hours, I'd really appreciate it if you could at least keep it down."

"James, as I keep telling you, I can't plan my spontaneous property dama-"

"What's going on?" asked a sleepy voice that Draco was alarmed to find belonged to Ron Weasley, his feet shuffling against the floor. "I thought I heard screams."

"Are you sure that wasn't you?" Theo asked him.

"To be honest, there's no ruling it out," Ron said morosely, and then another figure burst in, shoving Ron aside and glancing briefly at James with confusion before making his way to Theo.

"Why are you all here?" demanded a very different (but still obnoxious) version of Harry Potter, who—unlike the others—was formally dressed in a pair of slacks and a collared shirt, his attention drifting suspiciously to the others in the room.

"Why are you here?" barked James, whose identity Draco was now rather uncertain of. Was he Harry's father? They were practically identical minus minor signs of aging, but in Draco's experience, this was not how fathers spoke to their sons. "I specifically told your dad to keep you from doing anything stupid."

"Oh please, like he could stop me," Harry said, delivering Draco to a bewildering moment of both confusion and agreement as he attempted and failed to follow the exchange. "Can I have some privacy, please? I need to talk to Theo—"

"Fine, but keep him from any further destruction," James advised, "and be respectful of the time, would you? HE'S WAKING THE WHOLE HOUSE."

"Noted," Harry said gruffly, and then James reached out to grab Ron blindly by the shoulder, hauling him from the room and shutting the door behind him. In his absence, Theo gave Draco a firmly silencing glance, turning attentively toward Harry once the others had gone.

"Listen," Harry said, sounding anxious, and in Draco's arms, Hermione stirred. Her eyes snapped open, panic clearly eminent, and he, with a painstakingly apologetic glance, quickly closed a hand over her mouth, silently shaking his head in warning. She nodded, relaxing just enough to breathe unsteadily into the curled expanse of his palm.

"I need your help with something," Harry was saying.

"Understandable," Theo said. "Did you have a particular position in mind?"

"Not that," Harry sighed, wearily shaking his head as Draco glanced questioningly at Hermione, who gave a resigned shrug in response. "I… I need you to keep something between us."

"Well, I keep quite a lot of things between us," Theo said, reaching out to loop his finger around Harry's belt. "So you might say I'm well rehearsed for this mysterious request."

"Theo, can you—" Harry exhaled, rubbing his temple. "Can you not?"

Immediately, Theo softened. From afar, Draco marveled.

"What is it?" Theo murmured, and Harry scrubbed tiredly at his eyes. Now that Draco was looking closer, he could see that Harry, too, had been doing some late-night house-wandering, even if he was considerably better dressed.

"I want to find Lily." Harry was chewing the inside of his cheek. "I know that's crazy, I know we have no reason to trust her, but…"

He trailed off, bending his head, and in response, Theo pulled him closer, cupping a hand around the back of his neck.

"I don't think she'd hurt me," Harry said, his voice muffled into Theo's shoulder. "I know Draco's going to disagree—I know he's going to tell me this is fucking stupid, and it is—but I started this thing because I thought my mother had been killed. I thought my father—" He swallowed hard. "I wanted Grindelwald brought down because he took my family from me. But now they're here, somewhere, even if they're flawed, and…"

He trailed off again, and Theo waited.

"I don't need to rule the world," Harry gradually exhaled, his fingers tightening in Theo's shirt as Hermione's expression abruptly filled with gladness, her hand rising to curl with relief around Draco's wrist. "Theo, I just want my family."

Theo paused for a moment, considering this.

Then, his voice so quiet Draco strained to hear him, Theo said, "I know, Harry."

Draco blinked as Harry leaned back and pulled Theo flush against him, kissing him firmly, roughly, and Theo responded with his hands tight around Harry's jaw, his thumb scraping over Harry's cheekbone. Draco glanced down at Hermione, stunned, and she gave a small shrug; sort of a yeah, I know, I was surprised, too that left him both speechless and, after a few moment's escalation, extremely unsure what to do about their unexpected voyeurism.

Eventually, once Harry's hands tugged insistently at Theo's trousers, Theo seemed to recall there were other people in the room and pulled away, half-laughing.

"I have a bed, you know," Theo said. "Granted, I know we don't use it very often but a little exploration is good for a relationship—"

"I don't know how to find her," Harry croaked, as Draco registered he'd gone back to talking about his mother. "Will you help me?"

To that, Theo chuckled.

"Ah, Lord Black." Theo slid a finger under Harry's chin, shaking his head fondly. "Harry Potter." A light kiss. "Whoever the fuck you are, whatever the hell you want to call yourself—Henry, I'm on your side."

"Even if it means we keep it from Draco?" Harry asked, and added hastily, "For now. Just for now."

"Well, I suspect Draco is otherwise occupied," Theo said, as Draco glanced questioningly at the one currently unconscious beside him. "Shouldn't be a problem. Though, I imagine more people than simply the two of us are looking for Lily Evans right now."

"That's true." Harry bent his head ruefully. "I could try to contact her, maybe?"

"But someone could be expecting you to do that," Theo pointed out. "That someone being Tom Riddle, I imagine."

Harry made a face. "You really think he's dangerous?"

"Yes." Theo's expression was grim. "Certainly to your mother, if any of what she's said is true, which some of it must be. But what if we sent someone else after her?" he mused neutrally. "Someone we could trust?"

"Well, sure, but who can we trust?" Harry asked.

"Depends. Do you," Theo began, and coughed slightly. "Do you trust me?"

"Never," Harry said, a wry smile twitching at his lips. "Your ideas are always the worst."

What irony, Draco thought, and yet, what incontrovertible truth.

"Well," Theo said, clearing his throat, and then stepping in Draco's direction to make his heart flag unsteadily in his chest, "prepare yourself for another truly terrible one."

Hermione winced a little as the cloak was pulled from over them, Draco's hand still lightly cupping her mouth. She'd wrapped her fingers around his wrist, comforted by the feel of his pulse. They'd done it. They'd brought Tom Riddle back and gotten answers without being killed.

Sure, it had been close, but she wasn't dead, so it was really the end result that mattered.

"What," Harry began, staring between her and the two Dracos, and then frowned. "How," he attempted, and then faltered again.

"Sorry," Hermione murmured, and struggled to sit up, Draco backing away from her slightly to permit it. "It's just, um. I actually had a bit of an encounter with your mother. And then I, uh—"

"You knew about this?" Harry asked, pivoting to Theo, who gave a single guilty nod. "What did my mother say?" he demanded from Hermione, who winced.

"She's hiding the Elder Wand from Tom Riddle," she said, and then added quickly, "who I'm pretty sure is the original Tom from my universe. He is dangerous," she said. "Really, he is, and Draco is, um." She glanced at his unconscious face, his restrained hands. "Well—"

Harry gave her a weary glance. "You stunned my best friend?"

"I… it wasn't on purpose!" she insisted.

"You accidentally stunned him?" he pressed doubtfully.

"Well, no—"

"Look," the conscious-Draco interrupted, "I think we can all agree he's a bit of a massive dick. Right?"

Harry rounded on him. "Obviously I don't have to ask who you are."

"No," Draco loftily agreed, "so let's not."

Hermione grimaced. "Look—"

"They can help us," Theo pointed out, nudging Harry. "Nobody's looking for them—certainly not for her, anyway. That's why we hired her in the first place. The first one, I mean," he explained to Hermione, who nodded. "She could go places we couldn't, and that's what we need, isn't it? We need someone who can find Lily without attracting attention."

Harry frowned. "But Draco's unconscious."

"Well, true," Theo said. "But that's probably best, don't you think? Temporarily."

"But he's our best friend," Harry pointed out.

"Yes," Theo agreed, "but also, he's going to want to kill your mother when he finds her."

"True," Harry sighed, and glanced at conscious-Draco. "How'd you get here?"

"Portkey," Draco said, and Hermione internally flooded with relief. She wasn't sure she wanted to discuss the Hallows yet. "Granger figured out how to contact me with the resurrection stone and I came here to help her."

"Where's the portkey now?" Harry asked.

"Safe," said Draco, and Harry frowned, noting the avoidance.

"The point is," Hermione interrupted, drawing Harry's attention back to her, "Theo's right. Malfoy and I can find Lily. Then we can all figure out some way to get rid of Tom Riddle, and we'll go right back to my universe. Your Draco won't even have to know what happened."

"What are you planning to do with him until then?" Harry demanded, and the Draco beside her looked at her curiously, obviously having wondered the same thing.

"We'll have to take him with us, I suppose," she said, and Draco balked. "I mean, his mother knows he went after me."

Harry frowned. "I can't just let you cart him around like this. And if you think you can Imperius him—"

"No, no," Hermione said hastily, glancing at Draco. "We'll, um…" She trailed off, then brightened, an idea occurring to her. "We'll get someone to watch him."

"Who?" Harry demanded, and behind them, the door opened.

"Oh, hi," said Ron, sticking his head into the room. "I was just wondering, is there any chance you have any herbal…" He trailed off, eyes widening as he spotted the two Dracos on the floor. "Tea," he finished, and immediately, Theo's expression went worryingly radiant with delight.

"How about we make that tea and a job?" Theo asked Ron. "Are you any good at chaperoning?"

"Uh oh," said Ron, and Hermione pointedly arched a brow at Harry.

"So, here's my offer," she said, rising to her feet and dusting herself off. "We find your mother, work together to solve this Tom Riddle mess, and then Malfoy and I leave and we don't come back. Deal?"

Behind her, Draco said nothing, most likely too unsurprised by anything at this point to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. Harry, meanwhile, considered her proffered hand a moment, glancing at the Draco on the floor with conflict before returning his attention to her expectant glance.

"Deal," he eventually agreed, meeting his hand with hers.

a/n: Thanks to aurorarsinistra for literally endless alpha reading. You are a gentleman and a scholar.

22. Game Theories

Chapter 22: Game Theories

Piecing things together was one of Hermione's favorite activities. There was an art to synthesis which took something fairly uncomplicated (the simple possession of knowledge, for example) and made it something complex, which she supposed was closer to actual intelligence. To know something was only one thing; children, after all, could easily recite facts. To merely collect all the things one knew into some sort of receptacle was no better than a hobby like stamp collecting or scrapbooking. But to take everything one knew and begin to put it in order, paced out from first to last and then considered in the context of but what does this actually mean?—that was the science of it, and the art, too.

Art, because interpretation required craftsmanship, which was where Hermione usually excelled.

"It's not that complicated," she was telling Draco, who seemed to not be listening. She vaguely recalled that to be a spectacularly annoying habit of his: his expert ability to tune people out. He'd certainly possessed it while they were still taking classes together, and she'd used to marvel at how he seemed to have halfway decent grades despite almost never paying attention.

Still, the math was elegantly simple, whether Draco Malfoy was listening or not.

"The Tom Riddle I've met in this universe must be the one from our universe," Hermione determined, having by then compiled and analyzed all necessary facts. "Though," she mused, frowning to herself, "I will say I'm not sure why that frightened Lily enough to run."

"Well, it certainly explains what my mother was saying," Draco replied, and Hermione blinked, having been certain by then his mind was clearly elsewhere. Maybe he wasn't very good at attentive listening, which in her view required the mirroring of facial expressions. Maybe he was just terribly unsocialized, which was surely an ironic thing for Hermione Granger to think, but seemed to be an inarguable point. "She kept talking about 'the real Tom Riddle,' which sounded a bit nonsensical at the time, but makes sense if what the horcrux said is true."

"I wonder why he'd choose this universe rather than his own?" Hermione thought aloud, frowning. "Your other self was fairly convinced Tom was nothing important until we met him. Even afterwards, in fact," she conceded, recalling the many arguments they'd had. "So why would Tom choose to exist in a universe where he didn't have any power, rather than the one where he had an entire following?"

"Maybe being a homicidal overlord is a lot of work," Draco suggested, with a half-smile that Hermione realized meant he was likely joking. Imagine that, she thought. Draco Malfoy and I are in on a joke. "Maybe he preferred not to deal with the logistics. I imagine being an off-the-grid smuggler has advantages of its own, particularly if he merely wanted to develop his magical abilities without interruption."

"Can you imagine taking over an entire world and then deciding it wasn't enough?" Hermione asked, remembering what the horcrux had said: Colonization. "How long do you think Tom planned to master multiple universes?"

"Long enough to get pretty damn good at it, I expect," Draco said, and paused. "Actually, I can see how it would appeal to someone like him. It's not that fun to win, you know, when winning is easy. Maybe he enjoyed the plotting more." He raised his tankard of butterbeer to his lips. "Seems like something you might understand, actually."

"What?" Hermione asked, frowning at him. "In what world would I understand Tom Riddle?"

"At least one of them," Draco pointed out, sparing her his usual smirk. "You clearly enjoy the intellectual game he set up for you, whether you want to admit it or not. Are you really telling me you wouldn't find some sort of perverse pleasure in creating one of your own?"

She gaped at him. Why were all the Draco Malfoys so insistent she shared any qualities with Tom Riddle? "I'm not like him—"

"I'm not saying you are," he cut in, rolling his eyes. Evidently he tired of her continued opposition as quickly as she did of being compared to a genocidal madman in the first place. "I'm just saying, at a certain level of intelligence—or skill, I guess, if you want to call it that—it's really not enough to simply win at someone else's game. You have to design the entire game yourself, and then round up some unwilling participants." He took a sip, then glanced around. "Or willing ones, seeing as I suppose that's what we technically are, thanks to you."

He sounded lightly mocking, though not particularly spiteful. "It's not as if we can just let him get away with it. There's no Ministry laws about paradoxes—he could face absolutely no consequences," Hermione reminded him, suddenly a bit irritated, both that anyone would think to do it and that no one, herself included, had ever considered the possibility that Tom Riddle could. "If we don't fix this, who will?"

"Actually," Draco said thoughtfully, and she braced herself for another annoying answer. "Maybe there's something to that. They say the Dark Lord was only ever afraid of one wizard, right?" he prompted, and she nodded warily, unsure where he was going with that, though it at least wasn't a suggestion they make it someone else's problem. "So doesn't it make sense he would choose to locate himself in the universe where Albus Dumbledore wouldn't be able to stop him?"

"An interesting theory," Hermione said, and it was, she supposed. Not a helpful one in the immediate scheme of things, but it certainly shed some light on who Tom was if that were true. After all, it had been Dumbledore he'd asked this universe's Lily to spy on all those years ago. "You know, maybe we should consider the players," she said, brightening. "In Tom's game, I mean."

Draco tilted his head. "Well, there's my mother, for one."

"Oh yes, definitely," Hermione said. "And Harry's mother. One version of her, at least. Though I wonder why he'd choose them?"

Again, Draco appeared to not be listening. His fingers were drumming idly against the table and he was scanning the room, not looking at anything in particular. She nearly gave up on receiving an answer until Draco began speaking, not looking at her.

"He likes outsiders," he noted. "Both versions of him. If you think about it, that's why he was able to take over our world so easily—it wasn't the purebloods," he realized, frowning to himself. "That's a relatively small number, anyway. It was because he won over the creatures, the fringe players. The werewolves, the giants, the inferi, the dementors…" He trailed off, blinking. "I think I'm just now realizing he hardly needed the purebloods at all."

"Not true," Hermione pointed out. "He needed money. Resources."

"Oh good, so he used us," Draco said drily, "and we let him." He was silent for a moment. "We were really that arrogant, weren't we?" he murmured to himself. "We were so stupid we didn't even notice he was taking our money and our hate and using it up, draining us of everything for his own use. It wasn't even to our benefit at all, was it?"

"I—" Hermione wasn't quite sure what to say. "Well, no, Malfoy, it wasn't," she eventually concluded, figuring honesty might have been most helpful. He seemed to be in a synthesizing place of his own, which she could certainly relate to. "In all likelihood you'd have remained… well, virtually his prisoner, really. For as long as he was in power."

Draco shuddered a little. "Yes," he said. He cleared his throat. "Well," he determined gruffly, evidently ready to discard that particular discussion. "What a wonderful episode of self-reflection that was."

"At least you did something about it," Hermione reminded him. "Right? You're here now, doing something about it."

"Well, Granger, at the risk of losing what minimal optimism you have in me, you should know I had very little to do with that," he told her drily. "Your other self was something of an inciting factor. I can't very well claim to have had some sort of epiphany on my own."

She toyed a little with the prospect of bringing that up, discarding it and picking it back up every few seconds until finally, she went for it. "You like her," Hermione guessed.

Draco gave her a skeptical glance. "Are we really doing this?"

"Well, kind of, yes," Hermione said, a little stung that he'd treat it so lightly. "You brought up… you know. Your other self." Who, speaking of, was currently still stunned at James Potter's house where she'd left him. She found it strange to be without him, having been a constant fixture at his side, but was a little relieved he wasn't here now. He seemed to regularly force her to reexamine herself in unfavorable lights, which she wasn't sure she had any willingness to do at the moment—at least not any further than she already had. "Seems only fair I get to bring it up now."

"Fine." Draco slid his tongue lightly over his lips, pressing them thin. "Yes. I like her."

"Why?" Hermione asked, unable to prevent it. "You hate me. Or hated, I suppose, if I'm giving myself the benefit of the doubt."

Draco shrugged. "When I met you I was eleven. Context matters, Granger. Doesn't it?" he posed to her. "Otherwise you wouldn't have considered any version of me, either."

I hate all versions of you, she'd once said to the other Draco. Aptly, the little M on her wrist stung for a moment. "You're right," she permitted. "It's different. I guess I just never thought you'd, um." She cleared her throat, unsure how to express what she was thinking. "I mean, she looks identical to me."

"Yes." He was fidgeting. "As does he."

"Does that mean that you, um." She tilted her head. Why was she having this conversation? Granted, they'd known they were going to be sitting here for some time, but surely there was something else to talk about. Like, for example, anything on earth. What had she done? She wasn't the most gifted at conversation, sure, but this—

"Did you ever think of me that way?" fell out of her mouth, which she regretted immediately, seeing as his face blanched slightly the moment she asked. For a second, despite how well things had been going between them, she was reminded of the boy who'd called her a mudblood so many times and recalled sharply how little he'd ever appeared to care for her. Of course he hadn't thought of her that way, or in any way, at that. She felt sheepish and embarrassed and slightly sick that she'd stupidly thought to venture it.

Strangely, though, the answer he chose to give her was, "Yes, I did," which struck her as incredibly puzzling, seeing as he looked… disgusted. Repulsed. Opposed, at the very least. "What?" he asked, lifting a brow at what must have been her visible confusion. "Obviously you thought of me that way, too, or neither of us would be here, would we?"

A logical point. She was relieved reason was still without reach. "Yes. True. Sorry," she muttered, glancing down at the butterbeer she'd barely touched. "It's just that you looked very… well, you looked very like the old you for a second. The usual you."

And he had. He wore an unforgettable arrangement of his features when he was looking at her like she repelled him in some way. It made him very him, and very not his other self, which in this particular moment wasn't especially comforting.

"Well, only because it's an uncomfortable question," he said defensively. "You make me uncomfortable in a way your other self doesn't. Probably because she doesn't know me very well," he admitted, and because it was such an odd mirror of her thoughts, Hermione blinked.

"You like her because she has no opposition to you," she realized, and Draco frowned.

"I imagine there's more to it than that," he said warily.

"Maybe, but not really," Hermione said, nearly laughing. What an outrageous thought, and yet she was quite certain it was true. "Is it really that simple?" she asked him, shaking her head. "Was I really able to fall for another version of you purely because he didn't hate me like you did?"

"You fell for him?" Draco echoed, which was not at all the point she'd been trying to make, but was evidently where his inattentive listening had taken him.

"Obviously," she sighed, and then grimaced. "And if this is about me doing anything sexual with him, you should know it's perfectly healthy for a girl to want to—"

"I know that," he said, exasperated. "I'm not—it's not that, it's just…" He trailed off, toying with the handle of his tankard. "It's strange, that's all. There's a universe where you're in love with me," he said, remarking it blithely to himself, and at the words, something lurched in her chest. "It's just a little difficult to wrap my mind around."

"Are you saying you don't have feelings for me?" she asked him, and quickly corrected herself. "The other version of me, I mean."

"Well." He chewed his lip, considering it. "Yes. Yes, I suppose."

She arched a brow. "Convincing."

"Well, it's just—I have… feelings, yes." He looked supremely uncomfortable. "I just don't know what kind of feelings those are, not having had a reason to consider them before."

"How haven't you considered it?" Hermione prompted, disbelieving. "You let her take my place, didn't you?"

"Ouch, Granger." He was drawing idle shapes on the table now, not looking up. "I didn't think you were upset about that."

"I'm not." I am, she realized, though she hadn't been until that moment. Somehow, it became retroactively personal that he'd apparently been perfectly satisfied with someone else who wasn't her. "I just don't know how you can say you don't know how you felt when clearly, you must have felt something—"

"Fine," he said, sitting back crossly. "Fine, you really want to hear this? Let's do it, then. I have very strong feelings about her, but I suspect they're a mix of complicated things I haven't wanted to think about because for one thing, I was wasting away at the Dark Lord's hands. I might have loved anything that gave me an escape, and she was that. Does that mean she doesn't also fascinate me? No," he said irritably, "because she does. Because she is fascinating. She's brave and confident and fearless, and fuck, it's a marvel," he exhaled, wearily resting his face in his hands. "She makes me stronger, makes me better, and does that give me some sort of feeling? Yes."

He paused. "But was I attracted to her before she ever walked into my life? Yes, of course I was, because she looks like—"

Hermione held her breath, and Draco fixed her with an uncomfortably direct glance.

"Because she fucking looks like you, Granger, what do you want from me?" he demanded, and she shook her head quickly, a little unable to believe he'd actually said the words out loud but certainly not wanting to dwell on it.

"Sorry, I wasn't—I wasn't trying to pry," she said, though she obviously was, and they both knew it. Because as curious she was about the end of his little rant, she was more curious about the middle bits. Specifically, about why he could love a version of her that wasn't her, and she listened to the words brave and confident and fearless and thought sadly, of course.

Who wouldn't love someone like that? Those were all things she wanted to be, but wasn't. Not really.

"You must have had feelings for the other me for a reason," he pointed out, jolting her from her somewhat depressing train of thought. "What were yours?"

"What? Well, it's not like I had a choice. Or much of one. You made me seduce him, remember?" she told Draco, who scowled.

"Don't make excuses, Granger, it's your turn," he said flatly. "I showed you mine," he added with a darkened laugh, and she wished she'd thought this through before bringing it up.

Hadn't there been literally anything else she could have tried to talk about?

"I suppose he… valued me." She paused, carefully trying to articulate her point. "He wanted me for what I was, for who I was. Sometimes he made me feel like I was something better, something bigger. He was—is," she corrected herself, seeing as he wasn't exactly dead, "compelling. Attentive. Capable of… of awe." She could feel herself blushing, and hated that Draco wasn't looking away. Wasn't now the perfect time to stop listening? She loathed him for staring at her. "I suppose I just like that he knows what he wants," she finished, and Draco considered her for a long moment.

Several moments.

"Unfortunate that we're nothing like them," he said eventually, picking up his butterbeer again and letting his attention wander away from her.

She strongly wished she'd said nothing. "Yeah. True."

"Trouble in paradise, lovebirds?" came a voice to her left, and she jumped, forgetting entirely what they'd been waiting for until it arrived. "And here I was so convinced you two would make it."

Hermione sighed, turning to their most recent visitor and giving Draco a warning look, reminding him to play along.

"Hi, Remus," she said, and he pulled up a chair, falling into it to prop his feet up on the booth beside her.

"Hello," he replied spiritedly. "Now, tell me straight away, would you, because I don't think I can stand the wait." He grinned, folding his arms over his chest. "What stupid thing have the two of you done now?"

The man Draco had only known as Professor Lupin did not look at all like himself. This version of him looked vastly younger, unburdened, and had hands with ink scrawled over them, tattooed on most of his visible skin where it emerged from his worn leather sleeves or from beneath his dingy t-shirt. Where their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had been quiet, patient, slow to react, this one looked, in some way Draco didn't know how to explain, like a candle flame that was seconds away from a wildfire.

"We were told we might find you here," Hermione told him. They'd already agreed she'd do most of the talking, seeing as Draco was busy impersonating some other version of himself. Try to not-talk in a very specific way, too, she'd advised him, sort of like you're too good for present company, but also like you're actively trying not to curse everyone around you.

Amazing that had been the more appealing version of him, he thought grumpily, and then remembered she'd specifically told him not to sulk.

He doesn't do that, she'd said. He's much too self-assured to bemoan much of anything for long.

Well, then he could just jump off a bridge, Draco lamented.

"Who told you where to find me?" Remus asked her, and then seemed to think better of it. "Never mind. It's not as if I make a business of being difficult to find. That, I think, is necessary for an entirely different skill set."

"We need to find Lily," Hermione said. "Have you heard from her?"

"Of course not," Remus said, scoffing a little. He slid a glance at Draco, who suspected that whatever interaction Remus had previously had with the other version of him, it hadn't been pleasant for either one of them. "I have to imagine she's smarter than that. After all, you're not the only ones looking for her."

"Tom can't find her?" Hermione asked, either surprised or feigning surprised, and Remus shrugged.

"I think he knows she'll find him eventually," he said. "He's not too fussed about it."

That, Draco thought to himself, was probably one of the hazards of putting in place a plot half a century in the making. It must eventually become difficult to fuss about much of anything, given the scope of time.

Alarmingly, as if Remus could smell the mutiny coming from Draco's direction, the other man turned his head. "You're unusually quiet," Remus noted.

"I find present company distasteful," Draco said, finding it sadly quite easy to imitate his other self. Scorn had always come extremely naturally, as had wrath and irritation. The accessible expressions. "Is there something you wish me to say?"

Remus looked over his shoulder. "Not here. Walk with me," he suggested, and Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"We're not going to see Tom," she warned him, and he shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," he said. "I don't like to discuss business in places like this. Scum everywhere," he noted with a glare at someone in the corner who looked suspiciously like a thief Draco recognized from their own universe. "Whatever it is you want, you won't get it from me here."

Hermione glanced at Draco, who gave a small shrug. "Fine," she conceded, rising to her feet. Draco followed last in succession, letting her be the one to handle whatever it was she felt she could get from him. Hermione had insisted Remus Lupin was an important key to all of this, but Draco, who couldn't see the connectivity of the web as clearly as she seemed to, thought he was better off less involved.

Remus held the door for both of them, bumping Draco's shoulder in a calculated show of alpha masculinity as he passed, and then they stepped out of the pub, which was located at the hinge between Diagon and Knockturn Alley. Remus seemed a man who liked to have an eye on both sides, which was perhaps why Hermione saw value, though Draco merely saw a threat.

"How's business, by the way?" Hermione asked Remus, who shrugged. He was looking warily around as he wove them into Diagon, following a path that seemed aimless, but probably wasn't. "Since Grindelwald's gone, I mean."

"It's not good," Remus said under his breath. "People who are used to being under someone's thumb only become more dangerous when they're set free. They're looking for order, and nobody else in Grindelwald's hierarchy is actually fit to lead. He didn't prepare adequately for his death."

"Does anyone?" Hermione asked innocently, and Remus shot her a knowingly impatient look.

"What do you want?" he asked, pointedly not answering the question.

"The wand," Hermione said. "Same as Tom. Same as you, I expect. The difference is I'm much more likely to get it from Lily than he is."

"Doubt that." Remus was weaving through narrow passages, checking over his shoulder as he went. "You're talking about a woman who hid for nearly twenty years, if not more. She can hide for a lifetime if she wants to."

"I thought you'd just met?" Hermione asked.

"We had," Remus said. "But a long time in my particular niche of professionalism teaches me to recognize what kind of creature I'm dealing with when I see one. Some people run, some kick and scratch and crawl, some bite, some hide. She's a shadow." He looked briefly at Draco. "She can hide forever, if she wants."

Something was off about Remus, Draco thought with a frown. He thought about the shops they'd passed, trying to make sense of the path he was taking, and stopped short as he registered a pattern, taking Hermione's arm and yanking her into him.

"He's leaving a message for someone," he breathed in her ear, and she frowned. Ahead of them, Remus paused, sparing them a suspicious glance as Draco bent his head, trying to conceal the motion of his lips. "He's weaving around shops, but I think he's taking us on this route on purpose. The first place he turned was was Lilith's," he explained in a low voice, cupping his hand around her jaw to make it look like affection, "then Ivander's House of Oddities, then Lysander's Produce and Herbs, and—"

"Kiss me," she said, blinking, and he frowned.

"What are y-"

"Just do it," she said, and pulled him into her, drawing his chin down to hers as her hands slipped into his robes. He gave her a perfunctory kiss, as requested, only momentarily distracted by the feel of her lips against his, warm and soft and a mix of foreign and familiar. It was just enough to taste the little hint of butterbeer that remained there, though oddly, they had barely even touched before she was yanking him adamantly against her, running her hands over his chest, his hips, and then his—fucking Christ, did she just—

"Jesus H Salazar fuck," he muttered into her mouth, "Granger, we're in public—"

"Found it," was all she said, and he tried not to scowl, taking hold of her hair to angle her gaze up towards him.

"Of course you found it," he hissed. "It's not exactly a secret it's there, is it?"

"Not that," she said, exasperated. She leaned on her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing herself against him. Between the very intimate contact and the persisting heat of her—every inch of which he was keenly aware of, unable to prevent mapping her out in his mind—Draco was quickly losing track of what was happening. Remus, who'd already been tapping his foot impatiently from afar, was heading back towards them, having grown tired of waiting. "He's tracking you," Hermione whispered, "he's done it to me before, he must have put something in your pock-"

"You two have gotten even more repulsive than usual," Remus remarked, jolting them apart as he gave them a grim look of disapproval. "Couldn't this wait?"

"No, it couldn't," Draco said loftily. "Particularly as you were being so vastly unhelpful—"

"Unhelpful?" Remus echoed. "I doubt it. That doesn't sound like me at all."

"No, it really doesn't," came another voice, and then, "I personally find you very helpful, Remus."

"Ah, my pleasure," Remus replied, and before Draco could speak, Hermione's fingers tightened in his in the same moment a blindfold conjured itself over his eyes, the whole world swallowing him up and going dark.

Hermione's vision swam, blurred from being stunned and transported as the flickering bulb of a dimly-lit room came into view, refracting against the glow of a familiar face.

"You could have run, Hermione. I know you had time to sort it out. Why didn't you?"

Lilith's Robery and Wardrobe.

Ivander's House of Oddities.

Lysander's Produce and Herbs.

Yesteryear's Antiques.

Hermione had known who Remus was leaving the message for and why they were being tracked, and it was precisely the person she'd wanted to find.

"Hello again, Lily," Hermione said, struggling to sit up. She noticed Draco had come to before she had, but he'd had his hands bound behind his back, feet strapped to the chair he'd been placed in. Hermione, by contrast, was merely lying on a small cot. Her wand was gone; she could tell that without checking for it. Lily might not have found her a threat, but she still wasn't an idiot. "I take it you're the reason Remus was having us tracked?"

"Yes," Lily said, glancing over her shoulder at Remus, who was eyeing Draco. "Sorry. That's an old trick of Tom's I still use, but I assume you understand the need for secrecy. Remus can't exactly discuss me in the open."

"Fair enough," Hermione said groggily, rubbing her forehead. She caught sight of the beaded bag sitting on a small table beside the bed. "Oh," she remarked. "I see you took care of my purse."

She hoped it sounded innocent. The last thing she needed was for Remus and Lily to know it contained the Elder Wand and the invisibility cloak, and she breathed an internal sigh of relief that at least Draco wore the second Hallow around his neck, which was likely a place they wouldn't feel necessary to check.

"You keep a lot of books in there," Lily said drily, gesturing to the bag. "Girl like you should really have a library card. Easier."

"Just a bit of light reading," Hermione said. "Sentimental value."

She scanned both Lily and Remus, noting neither of them seemed to show signs of having found anything else of interest inside it. That was a relief.

"So," Lily said. "You wanted to find me, did you? What do you want?"

"Harry's looking for you," Hermione told her, and Lily blinked, evidently not having expected that. "Says he just wants to know his family. Of course, I'd like to stop Tom Riddle, personally," she said, "so I figured you and I might be able to find common ground on this one."

"I told you," Lily said, looking impatient. "You can't kill him."

"Why, because you made some sort of deal with him and Harry's collateral?" Hermione asked her. "Surely there's a way around that."

"Well, you're right and you're wrong," Lily said, "but either way, I'm holding onto my leverage. You can't have the wand, and neither can he. Not until all the pieces are in place."

"What pieces?" Hermione asked, and Lily glanced at Remus, who shrugged.

"You could tell her," he said. "It's not as if it'll do any harm. Or any good either, really."

"Untrue. It means she'll ask more questions," Lily said, "which I detest."

"I thought you two didn't know each other," Hermione said.

"We don't," they replied in unison, not bothering to look at her as they continued to silently argue.

In the absence of their attention, Hermione glanced at Draco, mouthing a small I'm sorry.

He gave what looked to be an uncomfortable shrug, which she took to mean Could be worse.

"There's not one deal," Lily eventually decided to explain, turning back to Hermione. "It's not one vow, and it's certainly not a matter of a single agreement between me and Tom. Like all things when it comes to him, it's not that simple."

Abruptly, Hermione was reminded of something Draco had suggested to her earlier: It's really not enough to simply win at someone else's game. You have to design the entire game yourself, and then round up some unwilling participants.

"Okay, so there's other people involved," Hermione determined slowly, considering it. "Obviously Narcissa is one. You're both part of it. Am I?"

"We think so," Remus said gruffly. "The diadem you transported for Tom was the fulfillment of a contract."

"Right." She'd been afraid of that. "So who else?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Lily said. "In order to make sure Harry's safe I need to know who else is involved. Also, as a general rule, it's always good to be aware of pressure points, I find." She gave Hermione a wary glance before letting her attention flick to Draco. "I have a guess as to one of yours."

Hermione felt it best to neither confirm nor deny anything. "You don't need to use him against me, Lily. I'm already on your side, aren't I?"

"This is really more about us than it is about you," Remus informed her with a haughty sniff in Draco's direction. "Needless to say, his royal highness over here is hardly undeserving of some discomfort."

In response, Draco rolled his eyes, which Hermione knew Remus had no way of knowing was probably a gesture made in agreement.

"Why do the other players matter?" Hermione asked, turning to Lily. "So there's a network of people involved. So what?"

"Do you know much about vows between wizards?" Lily asked, not particularly kindly.

"I understand unbreakable vows, yes," Hermione said with a similar lack of patience. "Fairly straightforward concept. When you break one, you die."

"Anyone can make a vow like that," Lily said disapprovingly. "Not everything is so black and white. For example, some vows can be made with someone else's life at stake. All that's necessary, in some cases, is," she began, and paused for a moment. "Blood."

Hermione frowned. "Blood?"

"Yes. Mortal arts, dark arts, whatever you call it, it's all very delightfully morbid." Lily's tone was flat and resigned. "The point is, the subject of an unbreakable vow—if you want to call it that," she amended, "though a magical contract is probably just as good a term—doesn't have to be the two parties involved. It doesn't even have to be someone who's present." She paused again, clearing her throat. "A contract can bind itself to anything. To a person, to a life. To a bloodline."

"Yours," Hermione guessed quietly, and Lily nodded once.

"Mine," she confirmed. "If anyone lets anything happen to Tom, everyone linked to his network will suffer for it, including Harry. But," she added, mouth tightening, "equally problematic, in my view, is that the contract I made which puts Harry at risk isn't in my hands. I can't control it directly."

"So who does?" Hermione asked, glancing at Remus. "You?"

"Yes," Remus said. "Unfortunately."

"How?" Hermione asked, frowning. "If you'd never met before, then—?"

"The basic structure of Tom's network is, as you already know, dependent on the fulfillment of a favor," Lily said. "One agreement creates an open-ended vow, and each favor completed down the line closes a previous loop. Before Remus, I was the last person who'd made a deal with Tom," she explained, "which means my consequences are linked to Remus' actions."

"If I fail to hold up my end of the contract," Remus clarified, "Lily—and Harry, it seems—are the ones who will suffer for it."

"How do you know that?" Hermione asked, and in answer, Remus gave a stunningly incongruous laugh.

"Tom told me, of course," he said, quieting to a grimace. "When he took me in, he informed me that if I ever failed him, somewhere down the line it might eventually cost the life of someone I'd never known, and would likely never meet." The line of his mouth hardened. "I had no idea it was a mother and child. Or that I would, in fact, one day meet them."

"He must have some control over when the various consequences get triggered," Hermione said, turning to Lily with a frown. "Didn't Tom tell you he wouldn't touch Harry until he came of age?"

"Yes," Lily said. "And I suspect you're right. Though, it is rather in character for Tom Riddle to have control, isn't it?" she posed neutrally, and Hermione grimaced.

"But what about you, then?" she said. "Do your actions trigger… Narcissa's consequences?"

"No," Lily said, glancing at Draco. "Unfortunately, I don't think they do. For one thing, I've broken a deal by taking the Elder Wand, which is surely putting someone else's contract with Tom at risk," she pointed out, and Hermione frowned in agreement. "If it were Narcissa's, she'd have done something about it by now, being rather incentivized to protect her end of the contract."

"What about me?" Hermione asked, blinking. "If I closed someone else's loop—"

"You must have," Remus said. "I'm not sure he even needed the diadem he sent you off to fetch. More importantly, I think," he said slowly, exchanging a glance with Lily, "he must have needed to properly endanger someone else by making sure their consequences were tied to your actions."

"But—" She inhaled sharply. "But that means if he asks me to do something and I refuse, someone I don't know could die?"

"Yes," Lily said.

"And if you don't give him the wand," Hermione said slowly, "someone else…?"

"Also dead," Remus confirmed, eyeing his sharpened claws. "Clock is ticking, obviously. He's not concerned with me at the moment," he said, clearing his throat, "but as soon as he sorts out how he can use me, I'm going to have to do whatever he asks to make sure Harry remains unharmed."

"Quite a favor for someone you don't know," Hermione remarked, glancing between him and Lily.

Remus shrugged. "I'm a werewolf, not a monster," he said, and Lily rolled her eyes but seemed vaguely appreciative, at least in some non-obvious way.

"Well, it really is a game, then," Hermione said to herself, shaking her head before looking up at Lily. "And the only way you can win is if he dissolves the vow you made, which seems fairly unlikely—or… what? All the players find a way to turn on him?"

"Yes," Lily said. "Essentially. And you're right," she added with a grimace. "Narcissa's made it clear he's perfectly willing to continue endangering Harry with or without the wand, so it'll have to be the second option. Which, of course, I can't guarantee is even a possibility," she clarified, "unless I know who all the players are."

"Or at least which ones are disposable," Remus said with an unnerving smile, winking at Draco, who looked rightfully perturbed.

"You really think Narcissa will give you that information?" Hermione asked doubtfully, and Lily and Remus exchanged another loaded glance.

"Well," Lily said, clearing her throat. "I didn't exactly say I'd ask nicely."

"Oh, no," Hermione with a sinking feeling, glancing askance.

There must have always been a reason she was sitting idly on a bed, however scratchy the sheets might have been, while Draco was tied to chair. It wasn't because he was more dangerous, or more annoying. It was because he was worth more to them.

They hadn't actually needed Hermione, even if they'd done her the favor of giving her some answers. It was Draco they'd come for, and Lily shrugged, confirming Hermione's suspicions.

"Yes, Hermione," she said. "Narcissa already knows I have her son."

Draco had seen this coming sooner than Hermione had, given that he knew more about his mother's involvement in their universe than she did. Unfortunately, while bondage was not the worst thing that had ever happened to him, it did mean he was unable to point this out with any conceivable quickness. By the time they all turned at the sound of stiletto-heeled footsteps, Remus quickly vanishing from sight, Draco wished he could have been given the advantage of speaking.

They didn't have a plan for this, and if there was one person he trusted to outsmart everyone else in the room, it certainly wasn't Lord Voldemort. It wasn't even Tom Riddle.

It was, however, his mother.

Narcissa Malfoy was very different here, though not really. She was very like she'd been while Draco had been younger, dressed with meticulous care and poised to perfection rather than the shell of herself she'd been since the Dark Lord had occupied their house.

"Lily," Narcissa said, sparing her a loathing glance as Lily lifted her wand, wordlessly threatening. "I really thought we might get along without stooping to such unsavory measures. Do you have the Elder Wand?"

"Nope," Lily said, which didn't seem to surprise Narcissa in the slightest. "I do have something else, though," she said, gesturing to where Draco sat in the corner.

Narcissa didn't speak a word to Hermione, merely letting her gaze skip disinterestedly over her, though she took a few steps towards Draco, lowering to look at him.

Her blue eyes met his, and—

Nothing. No sense of concern, no trace of worry. Worse, a smile twitched at her lips.

She knows, he thought with a sinking feeling. She knows I'm not hers.

"Well," Narcissa said, straightening. "You can't really expect me to be thrilled you've kidnapped my son."

"It's really more of an abduction," Lily said, her wand aimed lazily at Narcissa's head.

Fuck, Draco thought, trying to signal to Hermione that Narcissa was clearly planning to use him as leverage of her own. There was a reason she hadn't insisted the restraints be removed, and it was clearly because she didn't want him to reveal he wasn't actually valuable to her. Granger, he thought urgently, watching her gaze follow Narcissa with suspicion, are you seeing this?

"Well," Narcissa said, her tone flat and disinterested. "I told you, I can't do anything about the vow you made, Lily. And I certainly don't know what I'm supposed to do about you," she muttered to Hermione, pursing her lips. "You're a little menace, aren't you? Well. At least I know you won't let anything happen to my son." She turned back to Lily, considering her for a second. "What's this about?"

"I told you. I want the names of the other people in Tom's game," Lily said. "If you can't convince him to undo the vow I made, then I want the whole thing brought down. I'll bring it down myself."

"Ha," Narcissa said succinctly. "Well, lovely thought, Lily, but I'm not going to tell you anything. Certainly not without the wand."

"Not even to save your son?" Lily asked, lifting a brow. "I hate to critique your parenting, Narcissa, but I really don't care for him. He's much more costly to my sensibilities unharmed, in my view."

Draco, who'd only ever had his own enemies before, deeply resented his other half for ostensibly doubling the number.

"Please. You wouldn't touch him," Narcissa said impatiently, sparing a bored glance at Lily. "You're much softer than you think, and even if you weren't, I'd have no answers for you. Tom has his secrets, even from me," she reminded Lily. "I have no idea who else is involved."

"Even if you don't have answers now, we both know you could get them," Lily said flatly. "And I'm not returning Draco until you do."

"Mm. Well." Narcissa gave Draco a thorough glance, apparently weighing his value. "May I at least embrace my own son?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Lily, who shrugged, apparently willing to permit it.

"Don't try anything," Lily warned, twisting her wand pointedly in the air between them.

"Lily," Narcissa sighed, shaking her head. "You really underestimate my sense of fair play."

"Never heard of it," Lily replied.

"Clearly," Narcissa agreed, and turned away.

Draco, who had never wanted to be touched less by anyone in his life, stiffened slightly as this universe's Narcissa Malfoy leaned towards him, resting her hands briefly on his shoulders before turning her head to kiss his cheek.

"I don't know who you are or how you're doing this," Narcissa murmured in his ear, "but if you do anything to harm my son, I will personally remove each of your organs while you watch. Oh, and the person they're looking for?" she said, her lips stretching into a smile against his cheek. "You're not going to find them, because they're not here."

Draco shuddered, and she pulled away, taking a step back.

"Don't worry, darling," she told Draco soothingly, giving him an unnerving smile. "Mother will find you."

Then, with a last venomous look at Lily, Narcissa disappeared with a crack.

a/n: FYI, in answer to what I had hoped would be more obvious: We can't cover the events of the Potterverse because neither of the story's narrators are presently in the Potterverse. We'll be revisiting it, of course. Dedicated to fullyvisible!

23. Gut Feelings

Chapter 23: Gut Feelings

Grindelverse

Magic had a tendency to feel more like instinct than anything else. This was how Hermione had always considered it, likening the concept of it during her early years of untrained (and unintentional) use to incorporeal sensations; 'gut feelings' or déjà vu rather than the purposeful flex of a muscle. It was bothersome to her, a girl who relied on what she could see and touch and commit to practical use, that from time to time, magic slipping out of her bones was as insubstantial as an uneasy feeling.

It felt then, as she felt now, like little more than the bubbling of something coming; something unusual, perhaps even something wrong, tapping its way up her spine and resolving with an unpleasant shudder across the back of her neck.

"Shit," for example, was what Hermione whisper-sighed once Narcissa disappeared, sparing a glance at Draco. "She knows," she clarified to him under her breath, hoping Lily hadn't noticed. She wasn't sure yet if it would be more of a hindrance or a benefit for Lily to be aware the Malfoy heir she was using as a bargaining tool wasn't actually the one who could compel Narcissa to act. Was it better to be presumed useful, or useless? Hermione worried mightily what Lily Evans did with things—or people—who no longer served her purpose.

Draco's return glance seemed to want to shout I KNOW SHE KNOWS, but mostly he looked relieved, as if he'd been hoping she'd catch it. Either way, Hermione figured there was no time to waste thinking about Narcissa at that precise moment. After all, she and Draco had at least three problems they hadn't had this morning, and two of them were still sitting in this room.

"Well," Lily said, Remus flickering back into view with a grimace. "That was less fruitful than I'd hoped. She'll be finding a way to come for me soon, I expect."

"I suppose I could try to track her and find out where she goes next," Remus remarked, sniffing idly at the air. "Though I'd be surprised if it was anywhere other than directly to Tom."

Lily shook her head. "I don't think so. I think she'll be doing something on her own."

Privately, Hermione thought Lily was probably right. Tom seemed to make a point of using people with a certain degree of pliability and desperation, but Hermione wasn't entirely certain this version of Narcissa had ever been desperate in her life. She certainly wasn't now.

"Worth a look, I suppose." Remus glanced between Draco's tied-up form and Hermione. "Will you be alright here, then?"

"Oh, you mean am I frightened of the two disarmed teenagers?" Lily asked disinterestedly. "Well, you won't believe this, Remus, but I did somehow manage to survive without you for, oh, the entirety of my life before you arrived—so yes, I think I'm fine."

"No need to be a dick," Remus sniffed, disapparating and leaving Hermione to continue the difficult task of both looking for and avoiding looking at any possible items for escape, of which the sparse room contained almost none. She couldn't get to the beaded bag before Lily could stop her, and she certainly couldn't free Draco in less than that time. There were no other weapons in the room, either, which meant a wandless escape was unlikely. That, and she had no idea where they were presently being kept.

"What is this?" Hermione asked, gesturing around the room and hoping her voice merely sounded casually half-interested. "Can't imagine you'd take us to your house, would you?"

Lily flicked her a disinterested glance. "Nice try," she said, and did not elaborate.

"Do you plan to keep us indefinitely?" Hermione pressed. "Surely you can't think sitting here and waiting for Narcissa to choose whether to act for you or against you is a particularly good idea."

"I have her son," Lily pointed out with a jab of her chin towards Draco. "If I have to let her tire herself out before she inevitably fails and settles for the obvious, so be it. I, for one, am perfectly comfortable here," she said, leaning back in her chair with a wary half-shrug to prove it.

Hermione sighed. Unhelpful. In returning to her less-than-productive mental exercise of searching for some way out, she glanced at Draco, wondering if they could somehow get instantly more adept at nonverbal communication. Narcissa would obviously try to look for her actual son, Hermione thought, and seeing as there was no telling whether the others would successfully manage to keep her from him, that meant the two of them (three, if Hermione was worried about Lily, which she wasn't necessarily not) were likely to face some unsavory consequences rather soon. Unfortunately, Draco didn't look as if he had any other ideas.

"You know, Harry's looking for you," Hermione said to Lily, wondering if perhaps discussing her obvious weakness might do something to provoke a subsequent lapse of judgment. If she and Draco could just get away, Hermione thought, that would be one thing to check off their growing list of unfortunate circumstances, and Lily could surely fend for herself. "If you let us go, then—"

"You're not going anywhere," Lily cut in, sounding bored. "I can't have you and your tiresome moral crusades killing Tom before all the pieces are in play."

"It's not like I want Harry to die," Hermione insisted, bristling. "I wouldn't let it happen either, Lily, but if you let me go, then—"

"No," Lily said flatly. "Better to have you here, under my watch. And anyway—"

"Lily?" came perhaps the one voice Hermione had not been expecting to hear, Lily's expression promptly going tight with annoyance as footsteps echoed up a semi-distant set of stairs. Lily gave Hermione a warning glance, flashing her wand pointedly in Hermione's direction, and they waited as the shadows of expensive leather shoes appeared at the base of the door.

"Lily." A pause, a test of the doorway, and a sigh. "If you're in here, I swear—"

Lily flicked her wand over her shoulder with a roll of her eyes, using a spell to block entry to the door that Hermione didn't recognize as any typical lock or ward she learned at Hogwarts. Must have been some skullduggery of Tom's, Hermione assumed, only it was quickly dispelled with the pressure and crash of a blasting charm, followed by the sound of a loud, almost incoherent yell.

"LILY EVANS, I TAUGHT YOU THAT KEEP-AWAY SPELL—"

James Potter broke off, the words appearing to fall helplessly from his mouth as he took stock of the various people in the room, the door falling shut behind him.

"Lily," James growled, infuriated, "you cannot go around kidnapping children—"

"They're not children, James," Lily said, directing her wand from her conveniently seated height to somewhere around his groin as he scowled at her with disapproval, eyes narrowed. "They're the same age we were when we met. Older, even."

"That's not the point," James snapped, shaking his head with obvious dismay. "Lily, this is our son's best friend!" he said with a wave of his hand towards Draco. "Have you lost your entire mind?"

"James, you really have no business here," Lily sighed, and to that, he rounded on her with fury, looking positively astounded she'd had the audacity to suggest it.

"You took them to the one place you should have known I'd try to look for you," he accused her. His wand rested uneasily at his side and in answer, Lily whipped hers into his face, angling it at his forehead with a distinct look of warning. "This was our place, Lily," James said, jaw set with a look Hermione recognized as Harry's chief expression of agitation; the one he used when he was both frustrated and in emotional distress. "This was where we used to meet, and I—" He broke off. "I still come here, you know, every Halloween. Just… to be near you. Near us," James forced out. "What we used to be."

For once, Lily seemed to momentarily falter, blinking with surprise at James' admission until he grimaced, agitated all over again.

"Is that really so surprising? I never stopped missing you," James said through gritted teeth, "you MONSTROUS SIREN—"

"James," Lily sighed, her moment of sympathy by then well and fully discarded, "you were wasting your time on me then, and you're certainly wasting it now." She rose to her feet, her wand still aimed firmly at his head. "Harry's best friend or not, Draco Malfoy is the only son of the woman whose help I need, and I'm not letting go of my leverage."

"Wh- Narcissa, really?" James demanded, looking intensely doubtful. "Do you know how many times I've nearly died of boredom while being held hostage at that woman's house? She's a society witch through and through, and I really don't think she's involved in some sort of—of—" He faltered, choosing an odd moment to abruptly recall Hermione's presence in the room. "Okay, and seriously," he ventured impatiently in her direction, "who are you?"

"No one," Hermione assured him, trying to simultaneously calculate how long James would need to keep Lily distracted for her to get to her beaded bag. "I'm really just trying to help Harry, so if I could just, you know. Be on my way, then—"

"No," Lily said grumpily. "You're not going anywhere. And you need to leave," she added, jabbing her wand back in James' direction. "You're just making a mess of things, Potter, like always."

"What?" James barked. "You do realize I had a perfectly fine life before you ever entered it, don't you? A perfectly normal life with nothing remarkable about it whatsoever aside from my stupid money and my stupid name—and then you gave me a son, Lily!" he burst out in a surprising twist, startling both Lily and Hermione and perhaps even a still-restrained Draco with the admission. "You gave me a clever, funny, fantastic little dickhead who constantly talks back that I didn't even get the privilege of raising, and—"

He broke off, swallowing his frustration.

"And you," he informed Lily venomously, "you let me believe you were dead for years, and all this time, all of it, I've spent a fucking lifetime being robbed of the things I love most—so excuse me," he snarled at her, "if I don't really have it in me to leave you right now!"

He was panting, red-faced, and Lily, by contrast, was pale and stunned. "James," she said, momentarily uncertain, but it seemed after an admission of that magnitude, he'd made at least one decision.

"You can't do this," James ruled at a mutter, turning to Draco. Lily, who hadn't lowered her wand, made a small throat-clearing sound of warning, pairing it with a testing jab, but James merely glanced at her.

"Are you going to kill me, Lily?" he asked bluntly. "Would it really be that easy?"

Hermione thought of the last time she'd seen Lily threaten someone, which had ended with an Avada that took barely a second of time and even less hesitation to cast. Hermione figured it was, as a general rule, that easy for Lily Evans—only perhaps in this case, James Potter was something… else. Perhaps something no one else in her life had ever been.

He wasn't just a boy to me, Lily had once told her.

It was certainly a gamble on James' part, but Hermione had a feeling it was going to pay off.

Lily's lips were pressed thin with warning, but James shook his head, resigned. "This is our son's best friend," he pressed her, gesturing to Draco. "You missed it, Lily. You missed them growing up together, but I didn't. Sure, he's a little arsehole just like ours, but I can't let you do this."

"I need him," Lily warned, fingers still tight around her wand, but James merely took it like an unsuccessful blow, letting it glance inconsequentially off his cheek.

"I taught them to fly, you know," James informed her, and Hermione watched Lily's mouth soften just a little as she registered that information. "Sirius only flies long enough to get his hair all windswept, you know that. Lucius certainly wasn't going to do it, and fucking Theodore Nott wouldn't spend one second with his kid without cursing the shit out of him, so I taught all of them. This one, he's a total menace," James said with a fondly irritated glance at Draco. "Knocked Theo off his broom the first time he ever flew and would've done the same to Harry, only our kid? He's fucking magic," James said with obvious pride, and Hermione watched Lily blink back what might have been tears at the words, probably recounting the empty archives of everything she'd missed about Harry's youth. "Your son, Lily, he's a natural. He's like you, quick, instinctive, reckless and so, so brave. He took to it so fast, and I thought my god, Lily would be so proud, he's just like her."

James swallowed hard. "I saw so many little pieces of you in him, Lils," he said quietly, "and I couldn't tell him any of it, and I couldn't tell you, either. I couldn't tell anyone."

"James," Lily said again, softer now, and he shook his head.

"This kid would die for our kid," he said, gesturing to Draco again, who by then looked oddly somber. Hermione wondered if James' portrait of a life with a better father figure and truer friends might have struck a fairly significant chord in quite another universe's Draco Malfoy. "I can't let you tie him up like this—like he's nothing. I just can't."

James lifted his wand, giving Lily fair warning of his intent, and she said nothing.

Then James turned to Draco, wordlessly removing the restraints, and Lily didn't move. Certainly didn't curse him. Draco took a breath, slowly unwinding his jaw, and eased what must have been pain around his wrists, glancing up at James.

"Thanks," he said quietly, which Hermione suspected was about something more than simply having his restraints cut.

In return, James nodded gruffly. "But don't fuck with me, Malfoy, because I haven't the time," he warned sharply, and Draco grimaced in reply as James turned back to Lily. "Now, what's all this about?" he demanded from her. "Because if you're doing this for Harry, then let me help you, please. He's my son," he reminded her, looking pained. "Harry's my son, and he wasn't just taken from you. They took him from me, too, so if you think this is worth doing for him, then I'll do the same. Just…" He trailed off, looking helpless. "Just let me be his father, please, Lily. For once."

He'd won her over. Hermione could see that, even if Lily couldn't.

Eventually, though, even Lily conceded to nod, glancing momentarily at Hermione before resigning herself to admitting the truth. "It's Tom Riddle," she said, shaking her head. "I made a deal with him a long time ago. I thought I was saving Harry's life, but—"

She trailed off and James nodded, grasping the point. "What else?" He glanced at Hermione, still eyeing her with suspicion. "What's this about?"

Despite being arguably the more complicated issue, Lily answered that question without much fuss. "There's another universe, James," Lily told him. "One that's parallel to this one. I've been there myself, I know it's real." She jutted her chin out to Hermione. "She's from the other one."

"What?" James asked, blinking. "Another universe? But that's—that's impossible."

Lily shook her head. "It isn't, actually."

"But—" James frowned to himself, struggling to make that make sense. Based on his general demeanor, though, Hermione guessed this wasn't the first time a magicless, pickpocketing thief called Lily Evans had told him something he hadn't believed until that moment.

He wrestled with his suspension of disbelief for a brief period of silence, but then, to Hermione's dismay, he turned back to Draco, eyes narrowed.

"Wait a minute."

He looked in the same spot Theo had once referenced a scar, where of course there was nothing. In fact, there was a mark on this Draco's face Hermione hadn't bothered paying attention to before, thinking it would have faded by now; it was a crescent moon shaped curve around the bottom of his eye socket that must have occurred during the horcrux resurrection, blending into the shadows beneath his wary grey eyes to settle violently into the landscape of his skin.

While the other Draco had worn his scar so it blended into a curated facade of concealment, this Draco's latest distinguishing figure looked ghastly and out of place, his too-long hair and too-resigned posture combining for an overall impression of being generally unkempt. There were some, like Harry, Hermione thought, for whom looking careless seemed a natural state. On Draco, there was a slight air of gradual deterioration, something irrepressibly requiring comfort, and Hermione made the strange, distinctly baseless estimation that the tip of her index finger would curve perfectly into the scar. She grimaced slightly at her unhelpful train of thought, waiting for James' inevitable conclusion, and after a brief inspection he turned slowly back to Lily, confirming Hermione's precise fears.

"Tie him back up again," James said flatly. "You've got the wrong Draco Malfoy, Lils."

Lily's jaw tightened, fingers wrapped threateningly around her wand again, but Draco hurried to address her before she could move, leaping deftly from his chair to where Hermione sat on the cot. "Wait," he attempted, hands out, professing innocence. "It's not what you think—"

"Oh, really? Because what I think is that Narcissa knows bloody well this isn't her son, and neither of you had any plans to mention it," Lily snapped with a glance between Draco and Hermione, hazarding a guess that was, to Hermione's dismay, highly accurate. "How did you even get here? No, never mind," she answered herself as Draco's mouth flew open and promptly shut, James' expression beside her now equally plagued with untrusting disinterest. "It doesn't matter. If you're not him, you're useless to me."

"Not true," Draco assured her quickly. "We can still help you. Sure, maybe you don't have the leverage you thought you did," he conceded, and Hermione, who wasn't totally sure what his plan was, frowned with confusion while he obviously attempted to coax the other two into listening, "but we have resources, too. I got here, didn't I? Which means I can go back. My mother," he suggested, which appeared to have occurred to him out of the blue, "she might know something—"

"What?" Lily asked, and appeared to kick herself internally. "Of course. Of course," she repeated to herself, shaking her head. "There's another Narcissa Malfoy, we could just ask her—"

"But she might not know anything," Hermione said with a frown. "We could always just go get the other Draco, if that's really what you want," she added, thinking that was at least another way out, but Draco's hand pointedly (and furtively) shot out, gripping her arm to get her to stop talking.

"You won't get any answers staying here," Draco warned Lily, who set her jaw, obviously already half-convinced. "That, and this version of my mother's probably going to come for you. But we can take you there, get you out of her way, and if you can find answers while we're there, then—"

"I'm coming with you," James said, and Lily rounded on him.

"James, for the last time—"

"No. Don't argue, I'm coming." This time, Hermione noted, his voice was stubborn without being juvenile. This, his presence—and his service to her—was simply a matter of stating facts. "That's final, Lily. We're doing this for Harry, which means I'm coming, and that's that."

"Hang on," Hermione hissed to Draco, tugging his shoulder back. "Malfoy, are you serious? We can't leave now, there's too many unanswered questi-"

"She said they're there," he muttered, leaning in to speak in her ear as James and Lily continued their argument about whether or not his presence was welcome on what he seemed to be unhelpfully referring to as her 'militant vendetta.' "Whoever else Tom Riddle made a deal with," Draco clarified, "my moth- Narcissa said we wouldn't find them here. And if they're not here—"

"They're there," Hermione finished for him with an inward groan, understanding now what he'd meant. "But still, Malfoy, we can't go back there now. We don't have time right now for some sort of wild chase through universes!"

"Are you joking? We obviously can't stay here, and besides, we have to warn them," Draco said, and Hermione stiffened as she realized he was right. "Potter, Theo… her. We have to tell them, they have to know." He paused, and Hermione registered with a dull thud the 'her' he'd meant had been the other version of herself. "If someone is working for Tom Riddle over there, they have to know now, Granger, before they get themselves into more trouble. My mother was right," he added under his breath, shaking his head. "She probably does know something he wants, and whatever it is—"

"It's her." It crept into her like a tendril of fear, bubbling under her skin. "Draco, it must be her."

"What?" He blinked at her. "Who?"

Hermione was breathless. "Her, me, it must be. Right?" she asked, turning urgently towards him. "And if it is, we can't let her find out what we know, so—"

"It's not her," Draco said flatly, shaking his head. "No way. You just don't like her," he said, which was an accusation that struck Hermione far more upsettingly than she was expecting.

"That's—" She swallowed a little burst of temper. "That's ridiculous. Malfoy, think," she half-pleaded with him, "of course it has to be her. Who else snuck their way into our universe recently?"

"You're jumping to conclusions," he said, looking impatient now. "First of all, you don't know that it happened recently. Maybe it didn't—you saw how long Tom's plans have been in motion," he reminded her, which was true, though not entirely persuasive, in her view. "He could have easily planted someone there ages ago—and besides, you don't know her, okay?" he added brusquely. "You don't know her, but I do, and it isn't her. She didn't even know who Tom Riddle was."

"She could have been lying!" Hermione told him, exasperated. "She's certainly lied plenty before, hasn't she?"

"Yes, but she wasn't lying about this." He was stone-faced and certain. "She might have told a lot of lies to get where she is now, but she hasn't lied to me since, Granger. I'm fucking sure of it."

"You're taking her side," Hermione realized, stung, and he slid his grey gaze to hers. With or without the addition of the crescent-shaped scar, his eyes were different from his counterpart's. There was no incongruous humor here, no unbending arrogance. Only exhaustion, tiredness and ache, and where Hermione had often wondered where the other Draco Malfoy had stood only to find no clarity in meeting his eye, this was unambiguous.

"There aren't sides," Draco said. "For once—for fucking once," he spat, and Lily and James paused their argument, catching the tension in his voice, "this isn't about my side or yours. This isn't a war, not this time, and I'm just—I'm not doing this again." He shook his head. "If you don't want to trust her yet, fine. But I'm not doing this a second time—not to her, not to you."

Hermione swallowed uncomfortably. "Malfoy—"

"We have to warn Potter," he reminded her, successfully finding their common ground. "The one thing that seems to always be true is people wanting him dead in every universe, and much as I can hardly blame them, he probably deserves to know. He thinks he's safe," Draco told Hermione firmly. "People make mistakes when they think they can't be touched. I'm proof of that, aren't I?"

"I—" She blinked. "Yes. Yes, okay, fine." She cleared her throat; their previous argument would have to settle for an impasse. "Okay, we'll… we'll find a way to reach him, then. Your mother probably does know something, anyway," she added, sparing a convincing (hopefully) glance at Lily. "If we can find them, we can warn them quickly and come back to sort out this mess. Is the Elder Wand somewhere safe?" she asked Lily, who rolled her eyes.

"Yes," she said, unsurprisingly opting not to explain herself any further, and Hermione nodded.

"Okay," she said. "Well, then—"

"I'm coming," James informed them loudly.

"Yes," Lily sighed irritably, sliding a glare at him, "they know."

It appeared that compromises were being made on all sides, though there were still arguments to be made, in Hermione's mind. She might have attempted reasoning to Draco that it was a mistake to bring two dead people along. She might have pointed out to him that paradoxes, like their own, were clearly not meant to converge. She could have hit upon several different pressure points and considered every single one, but given the look of certainty on Draco's face, it didn't seem worth it.

She wasn't sure what was bothering her, not entirely. She could pinpoint the moment the feeling had struck, but couldn't quite identify the cause. After all, why did it feel so terrible that Draco was giving her—only not her, but still, her—the benefit of the doubt? Wasn't that what she'd once hoped he'd do for her, and for so many years? And wasn't that girl he was worried about still the person—herself, but still not—who'd once convinced him to come to her rescue, not so long ago?

Hermione rubbed a thumb slowly over the carved M on her wrist, shaking her head. She'd expected to feel dread, but instead she only felt a strange sense of yearning that was unrelated to the sequence of events; as if she were being pulled, twisted and contorted, in a direction she hadn't been prepared to go.

"Let's go," she told Draco, and he nodded, turning to Lily.

"We'll need the beaded bag," he told her, and she frowned, obviously not quite ready to trust them.

"Why?" she asked. "What does it do?"

Draco seemed familiar with calls for good faith. He beckoned for James to put a hand on his shoulder, then for Hermione to do the same, and then held a hand out for Lily.

"It's our turn to tell you a secret," he told her, and glanced at Hermione, the ghost of a darkened laugh playing fleetingly across his lips.

Potterverse

Draco couldn't remember a time he hadn't known he was a wizard. For him, magic was as omnipresent as gravity, and he'd sought it out even before he had any proof what it actually was. In childhood, everything was magic. Fire, that was magic. Rain, that had to be magic, too. Flowers grew, the earth moved, food was cooked and pain, even the bad ones, eventually went away.

He bruised himself once when he was very young, knocking carelessly into something. He pressed two fingers to it every day, and eventually, it began to fade. "Look, Mother," he'd said, proudly showing Narcissa the now-yellowing skin, "I fixed it."

Look, Mother. Magic.

She'd smiled, not bothering to correct him. "Yes," she said, "you did," and if he hadn't already known perfectly well he was special, he might have believed it then.

Later he would come to learn there was something mundane about magic, and about being magic. At times, magic would feel less like something he could do and more like something that trapped him. That day, magic felt a little like a crutch, or perhaps a cane. He leaned on it, repeating a sequence that felt like the early stages of muscle memory, to land the four of them back where he'd last seen the others, just outside the tavern they'd taken Narcissa only a matter of days ago.

Hermione had seemed the slightest bit doubtful while it was happening, digging her fingers into Draco's arm with pressure he suspected she hadn't noticed she was applying. Still, the process of transference felt the same, if not even easier the second time through. Whatever passage he'd broken through to pass from world to world, it hadn't yet been repaired.

Their feet landed softly on the ground and James looked around, scrutinizing the view.

"Looks the same," he ruled flatly.

Lily rolled her eyes. "What did you expect, different colors?"

"I hadn't ruled it out," he said defensively, which Draco ignored in favor of turning to Hermione.

"I'll check for Potter inside," he said, specifically referencing Harry alone, and she nodded. "You wait out here."

He wasn't sure what to think of their little micro-argument. He supposed it was natural for her to suspect her other version of wrongdoing; after all, his other self wasn't exactly reliable. Or trustworthy. Or even moderately tolerable. Still, Draco felt he'd come to know the other universe's Hermione Granger, and he doubted she'd made any sorts of deals outside of the one contracted with his other self. Why bother with multiple self-interested wizards when one was probably more than sufficient? Besides, she probably would have punched Tom Riddle in the face for trying to bully her into something. That, or she might have simply stabbed him.

The thought made Draco smile as he made his way up the stairs. He was relieved to be heading back for something familiar—almost pleased with the idea of seeing Harry, in fact—until he knocked on the door of their room, finding himself face to face instead with a cheery, definitely muggle Scot.

"Canna' help ye?" the man asked, and Draco shook his head, backing away with a crushing blow of dismay as the man shrugged, returning to the shirt he'd been ironing by hand.

They must have kept moving, Draco realized as he turned around. Not that surprising, he supposed, though the inevitable follow-up question was troubling.

If they'd left, where exactly were they now?

"They're gone," he told Hermione in a low voice, beckoning her away from Lily and James. "I'm not sure where to find them."

"Anywhere they might have gone?" she asked hopefully, and Draco shook his head.

"Not my house, certainly not Theo's. Where would Potter go?"

She considered it. "I have a guess, but I'm not sure," she said, and Draco abruptly recalled what Harry had said about the house at Grimmauld Place. "There was Sirius' house—"

"Sirius?" James asked, catching the name from afar and brightening. "Is there a version of him here?"

"Ah, um." Hermione fidgeted, sparing a vacant smile. "Well, there… was," she said slowly, and James, who must have caught the implications, stiffened with dismay. "Anyway, I suppose we could try going there," she said to Draco, withering slightly at her less than satisfactory handling of the situation. "It wasn't safe while there were Death Eaters around, but I suppose it might be now."

"Potter did safely contact Kreacher," Draco permitted, and Hermione nodded thoughtfully.

"Maybe they went there, then," she said, and turned to Lily. "I need to apparate us in," she said, and Lily's eyes narrowed, registering the implication that Hermione needed her wand, which would make her something a little more armed than a proper hostage likely should have been. "Really, I do. I'd have Malfoy do it if he could," Hermione assured her, "but he can't. I think it still has to be someone in the Order."

"The what?" James asked.

"Uhhhhhh," Hermione said distractedly, and Draco stifled a laugh.

"You'll just have to trust us," Draco said. "We don't really have much to lose by taking off at this point. Neither of us is particularly safe in this world," he pointed out, "and really, you two aren't either."

"Why not?" James asked, frowning. "What are we like in this world?"

Hermione's voice in answer was abnormally high. "It's really best you don't ask," she told James, as Lily sighed, shaking her head and removing Hermione's wand from somewhere that was either magical concealment or extremely impressive tailoring.

"Fine," Lily said, holding it just out of reach, "but just so you know, I will find you and kill you if you betray me in any way."

"Oh, sure, noted," Hermione agreed weakly, forcing a laugh, and Lily handed the wand over, placing an expectant hand on Hermione's arm in the same motion. "So, um. Ready?"

Draco rested a hand on her shoulder with a nod, feeling the usual compression of apparition before they landed in the living room of an old and drafty house.

"Harry?" Hermione called, immediately setting off in search of him as James and Lily frowned around at the room, skeptically eyeing the antiquated furniture and the fraying tapestries on the walls. The house was morbidly terrifying, precisely as Narcissa had always said it was, and on top of that, it had a distinct lack of care. "Are you here?"

There was nothing but a flattened and almost eerie silence in answer. Draco, an only child and a pureblood at that, was accustomed to vacant, quiet houses. His parents were quiet people, preferring books and solitude to any sort of play. This, however, was a different kind of quiet, and it wasn't until Draco caught a ring of condensation on one of the wooden tables that he realized the particular brand of silence he was hearing was better classified as danger.

"Granger, get back here, now," he barked, and she ran back into the room just as a wand pressed itself to his forehead.

"Hermione," came a surprised voice that was both oddly familiar and entirely unexpected, "did you want me to—"

The voice trailed off and Draco frowned, trying unsuccessfully to turn over his shoulder and confirm his suspicions about who might have just appeared in the same moment that James heaved a massively dramatic groan.

"Not you again," James said, glowering at whoever had revealed themselves. "Honestly, are you ever not a total inconvenience? It's as if you live to torment me—"

"Oh dear," Hermione breathed softly, giving Draco a slightly panicked glance. "Oh, Professor Lupin," she offered hesitantly, "I, um. I'm going to need you to put the wand down, please, and—"

"James," croaked Remus Lupin, whom Draco might have quite forgotten existed in this universe if he hadn't seen the leather-clad, tattooed version of him just hours before. "James, and—and Lily, is this… are you…"

James glanced questioningly at Lily beside him, who tilted her head, frowning. "We're friends here, I think," she explained to James, looking as if she was straining to remember. "I've seen him before, only he wasn't quite so… old."

"Could you kindly release me, please?" Draco asked, twisting to look at Remus over his shoulder. "No offense, but I imagine I'm sort of the least of your problems."

"What do you mean we're friends?" James asked Lily, and then, bright with curiosity, "Wait, is Sirius also my friend here?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," Lily told him with a nod. "Sounds like he's dead, though."

"Right," James recalled, wilting. "That's no good."

Draco slid out of Remus' grasp, which by that time was hardly at all restricting. Their former Defense Against the Dark Arts professor looked even more haggard than usual, the lines of his face carved starkly white as he stared, haunted, at two people who'd been dead and gone for nearly eighteen years.

"Sirius," Remus echoed. "Is he—" He glanced at Hermione, pained. "Is this a dream?"

"No, Professor," she said softly to him. "I'm afraid it's… a bit more complicated than that."

"Oh sure, just 'a bit' more," Draco muttered to nobody in particular, and Remus blinked, dragging himself out of whatever pondering he might have been unsuccessfully wading through.

"What's going on?" he asked Hermione, more suspicious this time. "Is this—did someone—is this polyjuice, or—"

"I'm looking for Harry," Hermione cut in quickly. "Have you seen him, Professor?"

"No, he's been missing for weeks," Remus mumbled to himself. "Haven't seen him since Hogwarts, and—are you really here?" he demanded sharply from James. "Prongs, is that really you?"

James opened his mouth, then closed it. "I mean, I feel like… I should say no?" he guessed, glancing again at Lily, who shrugged. "But also the answer is very much yes. So wait, is Sirius really dead?" he asked, and Remus flinched so viscerally Draco could feel the echo of it from where he was standing. "Oh, sorry," James said, looking flustered. "I didn't, um—did you know him, or—?"

"Did I…" Remus' voice died out, becoming small and thin. "Are you really asking me if I knew Sirius Black?"

"Okay, I think it's about time we interfere," Draco announced, stepping between Remus and James and giving Hermione a look he hoped was successfully final. "Listen, don't talk to each other any more," he informed James and Remus, glancing between them. "Okay? I recognize you probably have no interest in listening to me, but—"

"I need to find Narcissa Malfoy," Lily announced to a startled Remus. "Do you know her?"

"Oh, Jesus fuck, okay—just don't go anywhere," Draco said to them with a growl, taking Hermione's arm and guiding her into the next room to angle them in sight from the doorway, still keeping an eye on the most incredibly awkward reunion he'd ever had the displeasure to witness. "Okay, I did not think this through," he muttered, shaking his head. "Potter is not going to take this well, but anyway—look, how are we going to find them?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, frowning to herself at Remus' increasingly catatonic look of shock. "You're the one who lost them, Malfoy," she added, sparing a disapproving glance at him. "Didn't you make some sort of plan to find them when you came back?"

He bristled. "You know, it's almost like this isn't the first time one of us happened to not make plans," he informed her briskly, and she glared at him, scowling. "The point is, we have to find them before these two," he grumbled, directing a gesture at Lily and James (who appeared to be quizzing Remus about the harrowing details of his various tragedies) before offering a return scowl at Hermione, "ruin everything, which is also going to be incredibly difficult if you're not prepared to tell…" He hesitated, both unsure what to diplomatically call the other Hermione Granger and immensely frustrated he even had to try, "You know—"

"How do you know you can trust her?" Hermione demanded, and Draco blinked, caught off guard by the sharpness in her tone. "Seriously, Malfoy, tell me how."

"She's—" The word fell out of his mouth. "Honest."

"Seriously?" Hermione hissed, unimpressed. "You, really. You, of all people, are going to tell me that she's honest, so you just believe her? Not even their version of Harry trusted her," she said with a flung-out gesture to James and Lily, "but suddenly you do—"

"I told you," Draco sighed, exasperated, "she'd never heard of Tom, she knew nothing about Dumbledore, she'd barely even seen magic. I really think she was just caught up in all of this and—"

"Don't be an idiot," Hermione snapped, glaring at him. "I know you're not this naive, Malfoy."

An outrageous claim, particularly from her. He could feel irritation coiling up in his muscles and pounding its way through his veins.

"Oh, so we're going to fight now, is that it?" Draco demanded from her, folding his arms over his chest. "We were getting on perfectly well but now, sure, let's fight, we don't have anything else going on, why not—"

"I'm just saying," Hermione gritted out, "you don't have any proof, and—"

"I had no proof your blood was any less than mine and I still believed that shit for years," Draco hurled at her, "so if anything, this should really count as some sort of drastic improvement—"

"Stop it," Hermione said. "Stop, stop this immediately, you can't just learn your lesson and decide now that you're all morally righteous you can just decide she's trustworthy and that's that—"

"Oh, of course not, I can't change at all, whereas you," he said stiffly, "are apparently perfectly allowed to come back vengeful and paranoid, I take it—"

"The other you wouldn't trust her," Hermione cut in flatly, sparking a new burst of temper he hardly knew what to do with.

"That's because the other me is an arsehole with a fucking agenda," Draco snapped. "He was going to use her, and probably use you, too—"

"He wasn't going to use me," Hermione insisted staunchly. "I wasn't going to let him."

"Well, isn't that just wonderful for you, Granger," Draco said, only mildly aware that a step in reverse might have been a wiser choice than the one he took forward, bringing them within inches of each other. "I'm very glad your relationship with the other me was beneficial to your development but it's almost like right now, I simply do not care—"

"Stop trying to intimidate me," she warned him, lifting her chin to heighten the effect of her warning glare. "It's not going to work."

"I'm not threatening you," he retorted. "Maybe you're used to some other version of me," he added snidely, "but I'm not him, Granger. I'm something else entirely."

"And I'm not her," Hermione snapped, which Draco had already known perfectly well and registered again with a pointed glance, wondering with an inward laugh how one could have ever been mistaken for the other. He knew the shape of Hermione Granger's mouth by then and this one, upon forcefully close inspection, was markedly different. The little bow of her lips was the same, the angle of it precisely as he'd seen and touched before, but there was something else, too. Something quintessentially belonging to this version of her. It was a little hint of something he might have mistakenly called defiance at first glance, but upon closer inspection was nearer to insecurity, more a question than an answer. It was determined, but with a little curve at the end; I'm right, but also, aren't I?

"Stop it," she said, and he looked up with a jolt, yanked back to the argument. "Stop," she said again, half a whisper that time, and he swallowed.

"Stop what?"

"Stop looking at… at me. Like that."

He held his breath. "Why?"

"Because." She was breathing hard, caught somewhere between anger and fear and glaring at him, as if he stood between her and escape. "Just—because. Just don't."

Don't say it, don't say it, don't say it—

"Because he looks at you like that?" Draco asked her.

Damn it.

Her brown eyes rose to his.

"Because he doesn't," she said, her voice half a whisper, and whatever snare she was caught in, he had the sudden sensation she wasn't alone.

They stood there for a count of three. Five. Seven.

"This isn't going to work," she said eventually, and he nodded.

Of course it wouldn't.

"We need to find Potter and Theo and get out of here," he said, and she nodded.

Yes, they very much did.

An inch forward, he realized, and he'd be touching her. A few degrees of change to the angle of his head and he could—if he wanted, which he didn't; which he positively couldn't—find out if that little questioning curve of her lips tasted new or familiar, which he was surprised to find he had a sudden craving to know. Hadn't he kissed her just recently? But… no, it's different, his mind told him, it's different now. That was business. This was… well, it wasn't, but if it were, then it would be an experiment. The testing of a hypothesis. Putting a theory to work.

Thankfully a pop of apparition saved them, echoing through the room.

"Lupin, I just wanted to check if you want- oh."

Hermione and Draco leapt guiltily apart to find Ron Weasley standing there, confusion mingling with surprise to furrow deeply into his brow.

"Oh," he said again, a little resigned this time as he translated the distance between them, and Hermione swallowed hard.

"Ron," she said, looking extremely flushed and highly guilty. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"No, obviously not," he agreed, voice dry and humorless, and then caught sight of the next room, frowning with surprise. "Is that…" He trailed off. "Is that… Harry's mum and dad? No, can't be, stupid question," he answered himself at a mumble, rightfully disbelieving, and Draco, suddenly recalling that it both was and most certainly was not, was dragged forcefully back to the concerns of the present.

"We need to find Potter," Draco said. "Have you seen him?"

"No," Ron said, the expression on his face mutating from displeasure to heightening concern. "I thought he was with you two."

"Well, fuck," Draco determined succinctly, pivoting away to return to the more (less?) volatile problem of James and Lily, but Hermione had merely tilted her head in thought, turning intently to Ron.

"Could you find him?" she asked slowly, and Draco paused mid-stride, suddenly remembering what Ron had said to Harry before he left: I found you before. I can do it again. "I know you don't owe me any favors, Ron, but—"

"Yeah. No, I mean—of course." Ron cleared his throat, and Draco turned slowly, meeting his eye with something that was and wasn't the apology he probably deserved. "Yeah, I'll help you," Ron said, and Hermione let out a sigh of relief.

"Good," she exhaled, "because right about now, we could really use some help."

a/n: For everyone who trusted me. You guys are the best.

24. Illuminating Concepts

Chapter 24: Illuminating Concepts

Potterverse

"Oh, you again," said James Potter.

"You're going to have to stop doing that," Draco pointed out, grumbling it under his breath as Ron frowned at him, obviously bewildered and probably noting the many, many ways the man before him looked like an older copy of Harry Potter, from the thin face to the wild hair to the general air of being on the brink of recklessness (though the last bit may have been more from Draco's personal experience than actual physicality).

"Look," Draco informed James, "I'm just going to say it. You're dead in this universe."

Hermione shot him a silencing glare, but he figured saying something inelegantly was better than not at all. It wasn't as if gentle delivery was going to make anything much better, and besides, James Potter had no connection to his alternate life. Draco certainly wouldn't be all that upset about finding out his other self had died, and unlike James, Draco had actually met him.

(Though he did have some reservations about what was going on with his alternate mother, so it wasn't an exact science.)

"I'm dead?" James echoed, and glanced at Lily. "Are you dead?"

"I imagine so," she said, shrugging. See? Draco wanted to say to Hermione. Not everything requires finesse. "We were in the middle of a war, I think, last time I was here. So, I suppose that must be how we died?"

"Sorry," Remus said faintly, "what is… happening?"

"I'd like to know also," Ron said, "if that's something that's permitted to happen."

There was a grumpy undertone to his voice that Draco found exceedingly familiar. It was the voice of someone for whom things had gone quite wrong recently, and Draco was very, very familiar with the concept.

"I'd preface this by saying it's hard to believe, but as we don't have much time, you're just going to have to just take our word for it," Draco said, and gestured to James and Lily. "These two are from a parallel universe where Grindelwald won against Dumbledore," he informed them succinctly, "but now Tom Riddle is taking over, so they're here to help us find a way to stop him. Or we're helping them." He shrugged. "It's kind of a mutual arrangement."

"Oh," Remus said, frowning, and then fell silent for a moment. "Oh."

"We're so sorry we didn't, um, make things clear," Hermione offered kindly, and then, choosing an odd time to suddenly remember her manners, "So, um." She turned to Ron. "What's been going on with you?"

"Tried yoga," Ron said drily. "Didn't care for it."

Hermione's mouth twitched. "I meant—"

Ron shook his head. "I know what you meant."

His voice was a little harsh, Draco thought, going so far as to contemplate telling him not to speak to her that way until he remembered that was 1) probably not helpful, as Ron was clearly working through something on a level of emotion Draco did not care to address, and 2) was precisely the sort of thing other people would find generally detestable, which Draco had not cared about much before and apparently now found himself burdened with considering.

He also had to remind himself forcefully that Hermione Granger was not his to protect.

"It's not as if there's much to say," Ron continued, drawing Draco back to the point as he shook himself from his unhelpful thoughts. "You already know most of it."

"Well—" Hermione glanced at Draco, obviously wondering if she should get into it, and he shrugged. "Tell us anyway, for fun," she suggested wryly to Ron, "and as if we know absolutely nothing."

It was Remus, however, who spoke for both of them. "We've lost some people." He hesitated, then added, "People have been looking for Harry, but no one's seen him."

"Why are they looking for Harry?" Hermione asked, frowning. "I mean, besides because we care about him, of course."

"Well, last thing anyone saw of him, he'd murdered Voldemort and scurried off, hadn't he?" Ron said irritably. "There's nothing to rally around right now. The Death Eaters are still a problem, the Ministry's in bloody shambles, the Wizengamot are all receiving death threats and half the Order's dead—"

"Oh," Hermione said faintly, glancing at Remus. "Did you, um—"

He nodded with a glazed-over look. "Dora… she's…"

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Hermione said instantly, one hand rising sadly to curl around her mouth, and James frowned.

"Who is that?" he asked Remus. "Sorry, I suppose when you said you came here on the anniversary of Sirius' death, I just assumed he was your—"

"She's my wife," Remus cut him off with a glare. "She is—was—my wife."

"Oh," James said, having ostensibly sorted out the trivial minutiae and/or fundamental core of bisexuality as a result of Lily's wordless (and yet, somehow, still unspeakably insulting) silencing glance. "Right, yes, carry on—"

"Why haven't you tried to find him?" Hermione asked Ron, who seemed to stumble intellectually over the nuances of the question.

"I—well, I wasn't—I wasn't sure, when he didn't, um—"

"It was something of a strained parting," Draco cut in for him, pointedly arching a brow for the benefit of Hermione's hopefully improved ability to take a hint. "Remember, Granger?"

She blinked.

"Oh, yes, right," she said hastily, and Ron grimaced.

"The point is, I didn't think any of you would be too happy to see me." He glanced warily at Draco. "You I still have doubts about, for the record."

"Understandable," Draco said curtly, by which he meant, sounds like a you problem, "but the point is, we should go. We don't have much time."

"It's Narcissa we need to find," Lily reminded him, frowning. She seemed to not enjoy her lack of control over the situation, which Draco found highly relatable, though inconvenient to address at present. "What does Harry have to do with it?"

"Well, last I saw, Potter was with my mother," Draco clarified, and Lily's eyes widened, alarmed by this information. "She's not like she is in your universe," he assured her quickly. "She's, um. Well, she's—"

"You left my son with your mother?" Lily demanded, and then caught herself, evidently remembering this was not her son, and was in fact the son of someone else entirely, and someone who had long been dead, and also, this was hardly the time to lose her temper. "Never mind. He's right, we can't waste a moment," she said, turning to Ron. "What is it you can do?"

"Well, I have this… thing," Ron said, pulling a slim silver object from his pocket. "I don't really know how to explain it, but it led me back to Harry and Hermione last time that I—" He coughed, clearing his throat. "Anyway, I don't know how it'll work again. It was your voice that led me back last time," he mumbled to Hermione, likely reminding her of several things in the span of a single line, and she swallowed hard.

"Right, um, well." She looked uneasy. It's fine, Draco wanted to tell her, we're fucking teenagers, we can want something one day and want something else entirely the next, but again, it didn't seem like the time or place to point it out. "Can you try using it now?"

"I," he said, and grimaced. "Well, I only barely understand how I used it the first time," he admitted. "I'd heard your voice, and then I clicked it, and then there was this ball of light—"

"Rarely a good idea to go towards balls of light," James said, at which point he was promptly (and rightfully) elbowed by Lily.

"The point is, I don't know that I can make it work," Ron finished, shrugging. "I just know it worked once before."

"Well, when I asked if you could, I sort of expected a true answer," Hermione said. She was clearly irritated, which was moderately hilarious to Draco, but again, it wasn't the time to focus on unhelpful details, however amusing they were.

"Maybe if someone other than you holds it?" Draco asked Ron. "Try giving it to Granger."

He didn't seem to enjoy Draco telling him what to do, but wasn't that just life? Ron handed it somewhat unwillingly to Hermione, who raised it to her ear.

"Nothing," she said after a moment, giving it to Draco. "You try."

He took the little silver thing from her, eyeing it. "What exactly is it?"

"A Deluminator," Hermione said. "Dumbledore designed it."

Lily frowned. "Dumbledore?" she asked, and Hermione turned to face her.

"Yes," Hermione confirmed warily. "Why?"

Lily was still considering something when Draco heard the oddest thing; the faintest sound. His own name, he realized, and raised the Deluminator—as it was apparently called—to his ear, listening closely.

It wasn't Harry.

"Leave Draco alone," his mother's voice was saying, cold and mechanical. "Don't touch him. Don't touch any of them. This isn't about them—"

"Do you hear something?" Hermione asked, suddenly materializing very close to his side, straining to hear the sound coming from the Deluminator and only realizing she had her entire chest molded to the side of Draco's arm when he frowned down at her, flicking his gaze to the conspicuous lack of distance between them. "Oh, sorry, I just—"

"If you hear something, click it," Ron said, gesturing to the item in Draco's hand and looking pointedly away from their encounter.

While Draco might have preferred to simply continue eavesdropping, instead he obliged, all the light in the horrible Black townhouse vanishing from its various containers and collecting into a pulsing, floating ball of illumination, hovering in the air before them.

"Well," Ron said, looking deeply unhappy either that it had worked for someone who wasn't him or specifically that it had worked for Draco (the distinction there being unclear), "there you go, then. I suppose you don't need me."

"Oh, do shut up," Draco said, bristling. "You're not getting out of this, Weasley."

That time, Ron's face was an unreadable hovering between gratitude and annoyance. "Don't be a dickhead, Malfoy."

"Look, we're all going," Hermione said, then paused, turning to Remus. "Unless…?"

Remus rose to his feet, shaking his head. "No, I'll—" He cleared his throat. "I'll stay. In case you need me," he clarified to Ron, then to Hermione, both of whom nodded with understanding. "If you need me, just… come back here. I'll be here."

He glanced at James, pausing a moment, and then forcefully shook his head, taking a few strides to gruffly take him in his arms. "Sorry," Remus muttered, gripping at James' shirt as James went rigid at first, and then gradually relaxed to something of an awkward acquiescence. "I know you don't know me, I know this is stupid, but I just… I didn't think I'd have a chance to do this again. I always hated that I never got to see James grow up, that he never got to get older the way I did, and I just—" He swallowed, leaning away, and James gave him a sympathetic sort of nod. "He deserved it more," Remus said softly, glancing at Lily and reaching out to grip her shoulder, silently wishing her well. "They all did."

"I don't think that's true," James said hesitantly. "Maybe you're just the only one left because you're… not done yet," he offered, and though it walked a fine line of pain and near-unbearable truth, Draco suspected James Potter might have managed to unknowingly ease the pain of what could have easily been Remus Lupin's lifelong torment.

Remus nodded, forcing himself a step back.

"Well," Draco said, gesturing to the ball of light—which was glowing bluish, like a portkey, and seemed simple enough to figure out. "Shall we?"

Draco Malfoy had always had an authoritative air about him. It had been the thing Hermione had loathed most about him; that he had a quality she could neither touch nor perfect nor ever manage to learn in a book. True, he'd never used it for anything purposeful, preferring instead to spend his time being a close-minded sackful of rotten, but if there was one thing Draco Malfoy had always possessed, it was the ability to stir in others some stupid desire to please him. Who else could be the leader of a gang of thugs and bullies? Who else could have convinced the entire school to wear badges (which were not even tastefully crafted, unlike her knitting) that flashed 'POTTER SUCKS,' or to mock Ron for his quidditch abilities in song form? Who else but Draco Malfoy could have managed to be a disciplinary liability his entire school career and yet somehow manage to be named Prefect, even under Dumbledore's watch?

Hermione had loathed it and admired it and then doubly loathed the admiring. She was many superior things, after all, but even so, she would always lack his innate sense of persuasion. She'd been pleased to watch him decay during their sixth year, privately. While Harry had been paranoid, truth be told, she'd been quietly satisfied, thinking Draco had finally gotten a taste of his own medicine somehow.

She hadn't realized until that moment—his face expectant as he gestured them all ahead—that what she'd liked about the other Draco Malfoy had been precisely the same thing she'd hated about this one, probably because this one had used it against her so often. Draco's authority, his unquestioned sense of self—perhaps it was all something internal, something true in every version of him (traumatic events notwithstanding), and perhaps when it wasn't being used to undermine her very existence, it was something almost admirable. Strange to think that upon noticing that nameless quality was back, she felt, as she had with his other self, a surge of both annoyance and…

She cleared her throat.

"Yes, let's go," she said firmly, and Draco gave her an arched look of yes, I said that, didn't I? which she ignored (along with Ron's observing look of unamusement) to step forward, removing her wand from her pocket and angling it out, at the ready just in case. "Better hold on," she advised, and felt a series of hands—Draco's and Ron's strictly avoiding each other, each on an opposite arm, with James' and Lily's briefly struggling for the same spot on her shoulder—before she reached out, touching it.

It drew her forth precisely like a portkey and deposited all of them somewhere else in the snap of a finger, in the blink of an eye; with a strange magnetic pull through time and space to land them unceremoniously on a hard marble floor. Hermione tumbled forward onto her knees, taking the rest of them down with her, and when she looked up, registering their new surroundings, she glanced around with confusion.

It had not been what she was expecting.

They were inside of some sort of elaborate manor house, that much was clear. The floors were clearly expensive and the furniture looked to be made of rare woods and metals, though all of it had a distinctly medieval feel. Almost as Hogwarts would look, if it had been decorated by someone with intensely Scandinavian interests. There was nothing directly related to severed heads, and yet Hermione was surprised not to see any on the walls. Every single inch of the space—from the dark furniture choices to the weaponry which was mounted on either side of the door—screamed that whoever had chosen this aesthetic was… well, he was a he, firstly (not to be too terribly heteronormative) and whoever he was, he wasn't particularly interested in making sure his guests were comfortable.

"Harry's… here?" she asked Draco doubtfully, and he gave a hesitant, avoidant sort of swallow.

"About that," he said carefully, but before he could continue, James let out a loud scoff.

"This is somewhere I decidedly do not want to be," he informed them. "And don't tell me Theodore Nott is my friend in this universe because I refuse to believe it. The one person I'd be glad to find dead," he concluded at a mutter, which Draco hurried to interrupt.

"He's not dead," Draco gritted out, "and also, shut. Up."

He stumbled to the door, pressing his ear to it.

"Where are we?" Hermione asked James, who grimaced.

"A wide-awake nightmare," he grumbled to her, "commonly known as Nott Manor."

"Don't you recognize it?" Ron asked her quietly, and she frowned, shaking her head slowly.

"I mean, I just don't… what room are we in?" she asked James, hoping that would sound like a reasonable rephrasing of the question. She figured she would need to explain to Ron what had happened in her absence, but there were so many layers of difficulty—that she had fallen for someone else and, also, the person in her place had done the same—that it selfishly seemed worth putting off. "Why are we here?"

"We're here," Draco said to her, still listening at the door, "because my mother is here. Or she was here."

"Also, this is the room Nott keeps all his repulsive treasures," James muttered in an aside to Hermione, "in case you were still wondering about that."

"She wasn't," Lily said impatiently.

"Lily, for fuck's sake—"

"Where is Narcissa?" Lily asked, ignoring him in favor of rising to her feet and joining Draco at the door. "Do you hear her now?"

Draco shook his head. "And I don't know why she'd be here, either. She hates Theo's father, everyone does, and—"

He broke off, eyes widening, and gave Lily a shove away from the door just moments before voices echoed from somewhere down the corridor, clearly approaching the room. Hermione fumbled in the beaded bag for the cloak, throwing it over herself, Ron, and James as Lily cast a disillusionment charm over Draco, the two of them concealed on the opposite side of the room.

"—not the point, Narcissa," a man's voice was saying. "Your son has nothing to be concerned about unless he interrupts any of the Dark Lord's plans—"

"Stop calling him that," Narcissa snapped, following the man who must have been Theodore Nott, Sr into the room. She looked exhausted, Hermione noted, the shadows under her eyes stark and violent. "He's not a lord, he never was, and he's certainly not anymore. I want your word on this, Nott." Her mouth was tight and lined with defiance. "If you really know as much as you say you do—"

"I was one of his chosen few, Narcissa, of course I do," Nott said, obviously annoyed. "You and Lucius may have defied him, but I was—"

"You have no idea what he was to me," Narcissa spat. "None."

To that, Nott flashed her an impatient glance. "What exactly is it that you want?"

"I want your assurance. I want to be sure, Nott, that you won't touch them. They're children," she reminded him. "One of them is your child—and by the way," she ground out quietly, "if you think Aria wouldn't curse you right where you stand for what you've done to Theo since her death—"

"My son is none of your business," Nott cut in, slyly adding, "unless you know where he is." He angled himself towards her, his fingers twitching slightly, and Hermione held her breath, certain he was considering reaching for his wand. "If you're hiding him from me, Narcissa, you should know—"

"I'm not hiding anyone," Narcissa said flatly. "I haven't seen my own son since he disappeared, much less yours." If Hermione hadn't known it was patently untrue, she would have believed her; Narcissa Malfoy was clearly a gifted liar. "But I know what you're planning, Nott, and I know he left you instructions. I just want to be sure those instructions don't include any harm coming to my son."

"If he's with Harry Potter, I certainly can't promise anything," Nott said, and beside Hermione, James went stiff. It occurred to her that the name 'Harry Potter' wasn't the one he'd been permitted to bestow to his own son, and the threat against his (sort of) progeny registered with another nuanced level of fury, his knuckles white beneath the cloak. "And you, Narcissa, should think twice before crossing me in my own house. Isn't Lucius in Azkaban?" Nott asked knowingly, taking a prowling step forward. "I hate to think there's no one to protect you."

James' mouth tightened, and at the same time, Hermione caught the motion of the rug across the room—as if, say, a disillusioned person had stepped forward, and someone else had pulled them back.

Narcissa gave Nott a hard glance. "I've been threatened before," she said, impassive. "And as you can see, I'm still standing."

Nott looked unamused. "Just make sure your son doesn't get in my way," he advised, and Narcissa, wisely determining she no longer had time for him, disapparated from the room without another word.

Nott, meanwhile, let his mouth curl up in a smile that was markedly different from Theo's, heading towards an eerie looking glass case which seemed to contain, upon some squinting on Hermione's part, a series of antique wands. He glanced around, apparently looking for something, and for reasons Hermione couldn't begin to fathom, Ron's hand shot out, digging his fingers into her thigh. She passed him a questioning glance but he was busy watching Nott, a thin sheen of sweat appearing on his forehead as the older man slowly narrowed his eyes and turned without warning, gaze snagging on the upturned edge of the rug.

Nott drew his wand with surprising speed, more agile than a man his age should have been, and aimed it at where Draco and Lily had just been, casting a wordless curse. There was a faint sound of footsteps, a little flit of color or light as the disillusionment warped, and then Nott aimed again, his eyes trained on the small evidences of movement.

Hermione fumbled for her wand but stopped, frozen, as someone grabbed her arm.

"Hold on," came Draco's voice, firm and resolute.

It didn't occur to her to ask where they were going or how he planned to get there. I trust you, she thought faintly, and then, I trust you, dear god, when did that happen? and grabbed onto Ron and James, letting herself be yanked backwards with Draco's hand held steady on her shoulder.

Lily had of course wanted to kill Nott where he stood, apparently needing no further evidence he deserved to die outside of the glimpses she'd seen. Despite Draco firmly agreeing with her assessment he'd yanked her back and sprinted to Hermione, the Elder Wand tight in his hand. She hadn't asked where they were going—which was probably best, considering he didn't actually know.

Theo, Draco thought simply, wondering if it were even possible to travel to a person rather than a place. If it didn't work they'd all be splinched and yet here he was, trying it anyway, having apparently caught some of either (or both) Hermione's infectious recklessness. Theo, with as much deliberation as he could conjure, thinking that was destination enough. How could he possibly think of anything else—or any place else—while he was here in this place, with all its misery in the walls and hopelessness covering the floors?

And how could he not hear the sound of Theo's voice, of I hate him, I hate him and everyone like him, how could you have taken his Mark, taken his side, after everything, Draco, how could you stand with him, how could you how could you how could you—?

Theo rung through his head, relentless, and somehow, they landed somewhere with a thud. There was a rustle of something, a muted gasp, and after ascertaining that Hermione's shoulder remained beneath his hand and that he had successfully managed to transport all five of them, Draco processed that he was looking at—

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said James, throwing his hands up. "In this world, too?"

Draco watched with wordless bemusement as Theo and Harry stumbled apart, having been caught in something of a precarious position; specifically, with one of Harry's hands curled around the back of Theo's neck as Theo's fingers clung to the faded cotton of Harry's t-shirt. When they turned, Theo's cheeks were flushed, and Harry's face, more defiant than ever, was lined with all the makings of a fight until it suddenly drained of color, his attention snagging on two specific people who had just entered the room.

In terms of interruptions, it was probably more innocent than it could have been. It must have been a kiss; perhaps even a first kiss, Draco judged, noticing the way Theo was staring at his feet. He was contemplating the grains of the floor, furiously not looking up, and true, if Draco had not seen the versions of Theo and Harry in the other universe his first thoughts would have been a collection of 'when' and 'how' and 'what in the utter fuck,' but at the moment, all he could think was… good.

Good for him.

"Sorry," Draco said, and Theo looked up, brow twitching slightly, as if he'd heard what Draco meant, which was less sorry for the intrusion and more sorry, this must have been Great and Meaningful and perhaps even Life Altering and I ruined it, and I'm sorry. He gave Draco a long look in return, gauging his intent, but said nothing.

"What do you mean 'too'?" Ron asked James.

"Ah, I caught them like this when they were fifteen," James replied, waving a hand to where Harry and Theo had broken apart, "and I doubt it was the first time, but I really didn't need to know the details of however long they'd managed some miraculous degree of subtlety for the first time in their irreverent lives. Happens when you grow up together, I suppose," he added, shrugging, to which Ron scoffed.

"Uh, no it doesn't," Ron said, "and also, they hate each other."

"Well, I hate James, and yet here we are," said Lily, to which Harry made a small noise of disbelief as Theo cleared his throat, taking ownership of the situation.

"I see you've returned," Theo said, glancing briefly at Lily and James with a single arched brow before turning back to Draco. "How'd you find us?"

"It's—" Draco glanced with a small amount of concern at a still-stunned Harry and opted to summarize with maximum brevity. "Elder Wand," he said simply, and then cleared his throat. "Anyway, listen, Potter, this is—"

"Mum," Harry said hoarsely, his gaze fixed on Lily before turning to James. "Dad."

Draco had been mildly concerned they wouldn't necessarily treat this introduction with its share of gravity—given, of course, that they had no knowledge of who this boy was, and in turn could not have known or even guessed his fixation with them—but they seemed equally as affected, as if neither had ever been called 'mum and dad' before in their lives. It only occurred to Draco after a delayed pulse of recognition that perhaps they hadn't, and further, that perhaps this meeting meant something to them, too.

"Harry," Lily said gently, and hesitated. "You do know that we," she began, pausing again. "You know we aren't, um. We aren't them, but—"

She finally gave up on a losing battle, taking a long, hungry look at him in silence instead, but in her moment of vulnerability, James took a careful first step. He said nothing at first, much to Draco's surprise, merely placing his hands carefully on Harry's shoulders and surveying his face with slow deliberation.

"You look," James said, clearing his throat, and then, "precisely like I did when I was your age." He turned over his shoulder, beckoning for Lily, who still stood slightly frozen. "He's got your eyes, Lils."

Draco realized that James, who already knew perfectly well what his son looked like, was providing Harry something marvelous and impossible: the gift of meeting his father for the first time. He had done a similar thing to Draco unknowingly, providing him some comfort in asserting—for the first time in a long time—that Draco mattered, circuitously, because he mattered. Not because he served the Dark Lord or because he had done what was expected, but merely because he existed, and that, somehow, was enough.

It occurred to Draco that perhaps James Potter was a natural father—the sort of father Lucius Malfoy and Theodore Nott hadn't been—and for the first time, Draco understood how cruel he must have been to mock the absence of Harry's parents. He felt the usual stab of shame and took a step back, determining the best thing he could do for any of them in the situation was to simply not be present.

"My mother," Draco said to Theo, turning away as James and Lily cautiously embraced the son who was not their son and yet whom they seemed happy to pretend for, even if it was entirely an act. "Is she here?"

"Yes, she arrived not long ago from somewhere," Theo confirmed, dragging his attention away from Harry. "She's with Herm-" He broke off, appearing to realize that Hermione was, in fact, in the room. "Oh, hey Granger," he said to her, and she, also voiceless at Harry's emotional reunion with his not-parents, took a hasty step forward at being addressed.

"Um, hi," she said. "It's, er. Nice to see you, I suppose?"

Theo arched a brow at Draco, who gave him a warning glance.

"Sure," Theo said, turning to Ron. "Weasley," he said, which in two syllables managed to contain one of the most unconcealed and bitter accusations Draco had ever heard.

Ron nodded stiffly. "Nott."

A pause.

"Good god, this is uncomfortable," Theo said, turning to Draco, who rolled his eyes.

"Where are we?" Draco said.

"Some country house Narcissa inherited ages ago," Theo said, and Draco nodded, realizing why it had felt familiar. He couldn't have been there more than once, but he knew his mother had access to multiple Black properties; perhaps wanting Grimmauld Place had been a simple enough matter of collecting the full set. "She wanted someplace to hide and it was empty. I wasn't sure we'd be seeing you any time soon," Theo added, gaze flicking to Hermione's again, "but I suppose they'll both want to see you now."

"I'm coming with you," Hermione told Draco before he could reply to Theo, addressing him with resolute primness. "You shouldn't see her alone, just in case she finds out you know. And especially if she's," she began, and pursed her lips. "You know."

Draco opened his mouth to argue, but Theo cut him off.

"What's that mean?" Theo asked Hermione.

"The Tom Riddle in the other universe is the one from this universe," Hermione explained, and Theo blinked, but slowly nodded, processing that information. "Voldemort was just one of his horcruxes that was brought to life and operating in his place. But someone here works for the one there," she said emphatically, "which means—"

"You think it's the other you working for him?" Theo asked her, lifting a brow. "I doubt that."

Hermione's lips pressed together thinly. "Just because you two seem to prefer her to me—"

"Okay, let me stop you before you take that to its inevitably misinformed conclusion," Theo drawled, and Hermione narrowed her eyes with a brush of annoyance but conceded to wait for his reply. "I have other evidence, you know. The wand, for example," he said with a glance at Draco, and Hermione frowned.

"What wand?" she asked him.

"Wait a minute. Was that—" Draco jumped, having forgotten Ron was present, much less listening. "Was that not you?" Ron asked Hermione, voice hushed with incredulity. "That's—bloody hell, I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea—"

Draco watched Hermione's jaw set with irritation. "Yes, Ronald. That's very clear."

His freckled cheeks turned scarlet. "Well, hang on—"

"Yes, yes, who would have ever believed a parallel universe existed, we've got it," Theo cut in, dismissing that with another glance at Harry, who seemed to be animatedly asking Lily and James questions they seemed perfectly content to answer, relaxed enough not to bicker with each other for once. "Anyway, the wand I'm talking about, Granger, is the one your other self has been using. It's one of my father's antique ones, a laurel wand."

"Laurel," Hermione echoed faintly, and Theo nodded.

"Yes, laurel, which if you're the swot we all know you are, you'll recall can't perform a dishonorable act," Theo said, and Draco, who'd forgotten they'd already been told as much, kicked himself for not having had that evidence at the ready. "Ollivander confirmed it himself when she picked it out, and besides, she's been more loyal to Potter by the day. I think she'd die for him if he asked, or at least stab someone for him. Either way, I highly doubt she'd betray him." He paused, glancing with a surprising resentment at Ron, "Unlike some people we know."

Ron bristled. "That's not fair, Nott."

"Sure it isn't," Theo replied lazily. "Anyway," he continued, turning back to Draco, "you can go see your mother now if you want, I think she's in the study with Hermione. I'll stay here with the rest of this—" He broke off, frowning over his shoulder at Harry, James, and Lily, and shrugged. "Whatever this is. Oh, and seriously," he added tangentially, "how did you manage to find us? Narcissa said the place was untraceable."

"I—" It didn't seem like something he could put into words, so Draco merely shrugged. "Not sure."

"Fine, don't tell me," Theo sniffed, turning to head towards Harry. Ron followed at a careful distance, sparing a wary glance at Hermione as he went.

Draco opened his mouth, about to say something, but he figured it could wait. It wasn't like Theo was going to forgive him fully any time soon, and anyway, he wasn't sure he deserved Theo's forgiveness. Not yet. Seeing Nott Sr had been enough to remind Draco he'd done a lot worse to Theo than he'd done to anyone else by taking the Dark Lord's Mark—and truly, he couldn't think of a single person he hadn't harmed in taking it, so that was no small realization.

He probably should have known, though, that Hermione would ask. "How did you take us here?" Hermione murmured to him as they made their way towards the study, traversing the corridors of a fairly typical manor house.

Draco sighed. "Don't tell him I said this," he muttered, "but I know Theo Nott better than any place I've ever been. Once it occurred to me to try, I don't think I ever really doubted I would find him." He slid her a sidelong glance. "I imagine that sounds stupid. Or at least a bit reckless."

"I like a little bit of reckless," she murmured to him as they walked, smiling a little at her hands. The motion stretched languidly across her lips and he looked away, swallowing slightly, before rolling his eyes.

"Of course you do," he agreed crisply, finding the door of the study and knocking once. "Mother?" he called, grateful for the distraction. "I'm back."

There was no reply, though he thought he heard something from inside.

"Mother," he said, pushing the door open, "is everything alright? I just wanted to see if—"

He trailed off.

The study was mostly empty, as the rest of the house had been, though there was a heavy desk, a few sparsely populated bookshelves, and two decoratively clawed chairs, one of which was occupied by the other Hermione. She sat very still, her expression forced and face pale, and Draco—who had, by now, learned the particulars of Hermione Granger twice over—registered with a brush of alarm that whatever was going on, it wasn't good. She was tense and possibly afraid, his mother's hands resting on her shoulders.

"Oh, Draco," said Narcissa, her smile warm. "You're home."

He froze in place, a tendril of panic creeping its way up his spine, and it took less than a glance to know without a trace of doubt.

The woman with her hands on Hermione's shoulders was definitely not his mother.

The other version of herself sat stiffly in the chair, and Hermione, who had until then associated her other self with a brash, irritating sort of confidence rather than this coiled uneasiness, felt a rush of uncertainty, wondering if something wasn't quite right. She glanced at Draco, noticing that he, too, had gone rigid for some reason, and by the time she caught the motion of him reaching slowly for the Elder Wand he'd tucked into the band of his trousers, she was certain something must not have been right.

She looked up at Narcissa, cataloguing her, and wondered what exactly was off about the scene. Narcissa was as regal as ever, her hands resting on the other Hermione's shoulders as if they'd been sitting for some sort of royal portrait. They gleamed, in fact, perhaps from the way light was streaming in, and Hermione felt a small brush of envy at the sight of them. Had this version of her managed to receive Narcissa's approval even in spite of famously despising her blood? Narcissa looked proud, almost, perhaps even smug, and—

Hermione stopped, noting that part of what felt off was what she had first noticed about Narcissa Malfoy the first time they'd ever met: her gleam of health, and her reprehensible air of smuggery. When she'd seen Narcissa Malfoy not long ago, though, she'd noticed shadows under her eyes, exhaustion and weary frustration. Hermione's concept of the scene shifted with alarming clarity, realizing this was not the Narcissa Malfoy she'd first assumed it to be.

Draco's fingers closed subtly around his wand and Narcissa gave a weighty sigh.

"Let me stop you there," she said flatly, summoning both the Elder Wand and Hermione's wand, which had been loosely in her pocket, with a wordless twist of her fingers. She caught both, plucking them out of the air and eyeing them. "Ah, interesting," Narcissa said, smiling down at the Elder Wand. "Well, be sure to tell Lily I no longer need her services. Nor yours," she added to Draco, and then glanced down at the other Hermione, "and certainly not yours."

The light from the window was distracting. Despite her increasingly agitated urge to find a way out, Hermione's attention was caught by a glint from under the desk, only realizing with a sudden halted breath that it was a knife. Her other self had carried a knife, hadn't she? There must have been a struggle. Her mind whirred, racing to sort out an escape. Could her other self be of any help? If Narcissa was willing to be rid of her, then maybe Draco had been right—maybe the other Hermione Granger wasn't working with Tom Riddle.

Just as she thought it, a mad prospect occurred to her. Seeing no other avenue—and having no time for a better idea before Narcissa could raise the wand, aiming it at the other version of herself—Hermione forced out a loud, careless laugh.

"You idiot," she said, hoping to accomplish her other self's gift for strutting around (minus the tight jeans) as she took a step forward. "You can't touch her, Narcissa. She belongs here," Hermione said, and when Draco shot a confused glance at her, she reached around to take hold of his face.

"Sweetheart," she whispered to him, loud enough for Narcissa to hear, "you're so fucking easy to trick."

He blinked, brow twitching with confusion, and then his eyes widened.

"You lied to me," he croaked, and she smiled.

They were finally getting better at this reading each other thing.

"Of course I bloody lied to you," Hermione said, pivoting to face her other self with as much panache as she could muster. It would have been a fun exercise, almost, if it weren't incredibly dangerous and probably very stupid. "Do you really think I care what happens to either of you? But you can't touch her," she said with a laughing glance at Narcissa, whose eyes narrowed.

"You think I'm going to buy this?" Narcissa asked drily. "I'm not a fool, Miss Granger. I know which one I have, and I know which one you are."

"You obviously don't, but that's on you," Hermione said, perfectly aware she was treading a fine line between reckless reaching and inevitable error. "You can't hurt her, Narcissa. She did Tom a favor, remember? She brought him the diadem, and that means she's part of his network. If something happens to her," she warned, driving in the most important piece—the crux of everything she knew about Narcissa Malfoy, hoping that would be enough—"it'll be your son who suffers."

Hermione caught the motion of Narcissa registering this with a blink, revealing nothing else.

Damn, Hermione thought, she was good.

"You can't harm someone in Tom's network, clearly, or you'd have killed Lily already," Hermione continued, half-aware it was probably dangerous to hypothesize on the spot, but she'd have to disarm Narcissa somehow. She walked over to the desk, dramatizing her monologue, and gestured to Draco behind her back: Look down.

His eyes flicked to the knife and then quickly away, and she felt a surge of confidence; a little unable to believe this was working, but not entirely without a sense of optimism she might actually pull it off.

"If you harm the Hermione Granger from this universe," Hermione went on, "then you break the contract you have with Tom."

Narcissa was quietly repressing fury. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, I don't, that's true," Hermione permitted, "but I do know you're not willing to risk it. You'd do anything to save Draco, wouldn't you?" she posed neutrally, eyeing her fingernails. All of this was an act, but she hoped—she fucking prayed—it was a good one. "Lily would do the same, but her hands are tied, aren't they? She can't harm someone in Tom's network, so neither can you."

Narcissa leveled the Elder Wand at Hermione. "I could harm you."

"You could," Hermione agreed sweetly, catching Draco's slow progression towards the desk, "but you'd have to know which one I was first, wouldn't you?"

Narcissa blinked.

"You cunning little bitch," she said, with something Hermione might have called approval if she hadn't known better, and then she flicked her own wand, dispelling what must have been a silencing charm on the other Hermione. "A little Veritaserum will clear this up, and if that can't be procured, then there's certainly other ways of making you talk—"

"Like a discus," the other Hermione blurted the moment she could speak, and Hermione dropped to the ground as Draco, who'd managed to pick up the knife in the wake of Narcissa's distraction, let the handle fly from his hand, a glint of silver flashing in the light as the blade buried itself sideways in Narcissa's waist. She gasped, the wands falling from her hand, and stumbled forward, catching herself on the arm of the other Hermione's chair.

Hermione scrambled to her feet, snatching the Elder Wand. "Stupefy," she managed before Narcissa could reach for her own, and Narcissa Malfoy dropped back with a dull thud, blood slowly seeping from the wound at her waist to saturate her robes.

"Heal her," not-Hermione said immediately, her eyes wild as she jumped to her feet and Draco flew down to where not-his-mother had fallen, obviously horrified with himself. "I don't—I don't know the spell," the other Hermione said to Draco, her voice slightly faint, "but we have to get her to talk, she knows things—"

She was looking at Draco with relief, Hermione thought.

No, not just relief.

There was that, of course—but also, it was possession.

As if he was hers.

"Get Harry," Hermione said to her instantly, and her other self nodded without hesitation, hurrying to her feet.

In her absence, Hermione bent beside Draco, handing him the Elder Wand as he carefully removed the knife from Narcissa's torso, murmuring healing spells under his breath.

The wound closed easily; he wasn't untalented, which she'd always known. "Are you okay?" she asked him, resting a hand on his shoulder. He had his jaw set with tension, the little crescent moon starkly visible under his eye.

"Fine." He cleared his throat. "You're… thank you, you're—" He half-laughed. "Fuck, that was… that was incredible," he said, giving her a long, grateful look. "Thank god for you, honestly, I really thought we were done for—"

"Draco." She cut him off, glancing over her shoulder. She didn't hear footsteps yet; maybe they'd moved to somewhere in the house. Maybe it would take a few minutes for the other version of her to find them. When Hermione turned back to him he was waiting expectantly, a question buried in his brow. "Can I ask you something?"

His eyes were what made him, she thought as he nodded his wordless assent. She used to find that grey gaze colorless and mean, but now it fell on hers with contemplation, following the shape of her nose and cheeks and mouth with curiosity and awe.

"Do you like her," she said quietly, "because she takes what she wants?"

He was looking at her again the way he had before, when Ron had interrupted. When she'd thought he was going to kiss her and she'd been foolishly unsure why she hadn't stopped him; hadn't known then why she hadn't pulled away. A complicated time, really—a matter of hours, possibly minutes, when she hadn't figured out yet what was upsetting her—only it was actually so simple, wasn't it? Hadn't some part of her wanted him to close the distance? No—not wanted him to. Hadn't she wanted it for herself? She thought of how it had felt to patronizingly call him 'sweetheart,' to curl her lips around the word 'fuck,' to be confident and certain and sure. It was a rare experience being everything she wasn't, only hadn't that felt almost easy—very nearly innate?

Maybe she wasn't so different from her other self after all.

"Well, I—" Draco cleared his throat. "Yes," he eventually said. "Yes, if I'm being honest. Yes."

Maybe what Hermione so terribly detested was the idea that any version of Draco Malfoy could belong to someone who wasn't her.

I wanted you, she heard the other Draco's voice murmur, so I took you.

"I can take, too," Hermione said, and when she leaned forward, the little carved M on her wrist was the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes, her lips finding his.

a/n: For danielap. And for any woman who suffered today. Please register to vote. Also, look out for a nottpott I am determined to put in Amortentia this weekend as a gift for Colubrina.

25. Rightful Places

a/n: The next four chapters contain a multitude of plot revelations. Please be considerate to other readers and DO NOT INCLUDE SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS.

Chapter 25: Rightful Places

Potterverse

There are smaller magics in life which are not strictly magic at all. The length of a minute, for example, is a magic belonging to time, which can vary from a minute of watching a pot of water boil (approx. ten years) to the minute before class starts when one is running late (somewhere around four seconds). Some magics belong to place, like the way a familiar song can transport a person temporarily elsewhere, resuming their sensation of existence in a prior form. Some magics belong specifically to fortune. Of these, some are mundane and benevolent (the discovery of spare change in one's pocket precisely when one is in need of it) while some are mundane and malignant (the glove which invariably goes missing from its pair).

Much of this is chance, probability, and the endless possibilities in which some small sliver of a percentage lead to circumstances so immensely unlikely they appear to have occurred outside of nature. The truth is, of course, that one could run a simulation of any situation endless times into eternity, and some perfect cohesion of circumstance would inevitably result at least once. Perhaps twice.

The magic of a kiss is something very specific. There is much to be gleaned from a kiss, and although it is the magic of hormones (and therefore not magic at all but mostly science; specifically biology, which is mystifying enough on its own) there is something which feels very much like the sensation of performing magic. It manifests from somewhere in one's blood or internal organs or somewhere else anatomically unknowable, pulsing with something that will, in some way, change the course of one's life.

Some kisses are like doors. A kiss goodbye is a door closing, which both participants can typically feel. That's another thing about a kiss: it is a generally faultless method of communication. Very infrequently are things misrepresented with a kiss. A door which is opening is typically felt by both parties, viscerally and with the sensation of a collision, like apparition and being transported through time and place; like transfiguration and being reconstructed down to the elements, made new in some other form; like potions, bubbling up with chemistry; like alchemy, turning common glitters into gold.

For Draco Malfoy, the particular kiss he was experiencing with Hermione Granger (whom he had kissed before but also not kissed and really, honestly, there was no need to delve into these details again) was a door being opened, and it was not unlike the incomprehensible door to the inexplicable room on the impossible castle's sentient seventh floor. For one thing, it had not appeared with any convenient sort of timing. He hadn't precisely walked in front of her three times thinking very intently about what he wanted to discover, but… hadn't he, in a way? And inside the door was a collection of madness, of wonder and disarray, of what is this and seriously, what the actual fuck is this—but also this is treasure, isn't it? This is the discovery of splendor. This is affluence piled up in labyrinths of luxury. This is a blaze of solid richness. This is a sumptuousness that required years to build.

If his first kiss with her other self had been the turning of a handle, then this, with the version of her he had always (and yet never truly) known, was the destruction of a hinge. She'd caught him completely by surprise, flinging the door open with artless haste, and he'd let it smack him in the face, dumbfounded and frozen for perhaps ten years too long, or possibly merely a single second. Time was magic that way, and so was this. So was she, and when he melted into it—when he finally said yes, fine, come in, I should have known this door was here, I've always wondered what it led to—it washed over him in waves; swarmed at him in droves; draped over him in swaths of resolution.

Oh, he thought, feeling the scattered pieces of his life shift into alignment. Oh.

I have been broken so I could find a new shape. Oh.

I have suffered so as to one day be worthy of something. Oh.

I have learned to doubt so that someday, I might recognize faith when I uncovered it. Oh.

I have been humbled so that when it happened, I would know what it took to grow. Oh.

It didn't have an identifiable taste, but neither did gratitude, nor fascination, nor curiosity. It didn't make any sort of sound, but he suspected collisions with this volume of quietude rarely did. Her lips were as soft as he'd imagined, the little hint of uncertainty even better up close—that piece of her which remained daunted, which retained its fragility, was as vulnerable and wistful as he so often felt—and it was not at all like kissing some other version of her.

Either that, he thought, or he was now some other, unidentifiable version of himself from where he'd started.

He slid his fingers around her wrist and noticed the M carved in place there, and when they broke apart (one second or ten years later) he brushed his thumb over it with contemplation, studying the feel of it beneath his touch. He wasn't the type to look for signs, certainly not anymore, so it wasn't that.

But it also wasn't nothing.

"Well?" she asked him, clearing her throat.

"Um," he said, because he was still mostly a teenage boy without the diction necessary to describe the magnitude of everything he had just experienced. "Are you—"

"Sure?" she guessed for him, and grimaced. "Yes."

He blinked.

"I'm not," he began. "She's… I don't know, um. If—"

"Right," she said, appearing largely unbothered, which didn't surprise him. He hadn't expected her to wither, and she didn't. She simply glanced down, startling him with, "Is it working for you?"—which, given his level of distraction, was a difficult question, seeing as he wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about.

His first guess was… well, his first guess was impossible, so he stopped just shy of thunderstruck for the pulse of a second before blinking again, orienting himself in reality.

"Oh, right, yes," he said, shaking himself. She'd meant the Elder Wand, of course, which he'd just been using to heal the person who was not his mother. "Why?"

"Well, she disarmed you," Hermione pointed out in her meticulously studied way. It seemed she, unlike him, required very little to resume a general state of normality, returning immediately to the business at hand. "And then you technically disarmed her, I suppose, but seeing as I picked it up—"

"I have to imagine there's some degree of intent," Draco managed to say, eyeing the wand; it certainly felt no different in his hands than it had before. "You intended me to use it, therefore it must still work for me."

"I don't think," Hermione said slowly, "that's how wandlore is supposed to work."

Yes, well, other worlds aren't supposed to exist, he wanted to remind her. Resurrection stones were never supposed to connect us, and yes, fine, people don't normally share ownership of a wand, he thought to point out, but normally, people don't find each other through the barricades of separate universes, either.

"Granger," Draco said, "some things just are," which was, in a way, the same thing as saying: When it comes to you and me, do you really think something as trifling as the laws of nature are supposed to somehow apply?

Her brown eyes rose to meet his with careful, incredulous deliberation, as if she'd somehow managed to hear his thoughts.

"Did you," she began tentatively, then stopped. "When we," she attempted again. Another stop. "That kiss… did you feel, um—?"

"Oh, yes," he said, clearing his throat. "Yes, definitely."

The corners of her lips twitched slightly.

"Okay," she said softly.

Behind them, footsteps resounded from the corridor and they jumped apart, Draco hurrying to resume his position bent over his mother (who was also not his mother) while Hermione made some very questionable choices about how to position herself in a semi-innocent manner, and within seconds, the other Hermione had burst into the room, Theo and Harry (and, it seemed, James and Lily and Ron) following doggedly after her.

"Found them," said the other Hermione, breathless.

Draco wasn't sure what he'd thought she might have noticed upon arrival. He'd considered, on the one hand, that perhaps it would be quite easy to see—was, perhaps, enormous and monumental and would forever project from the walls as The Place Where It Happened—but on the other hand, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes since she'd run off, and besides, it was possible two human beings had kissed before without the earth careening from its axis. She seemed to be fixated on the woman who had kidnapped her instead, which a swift mental kick (gifted from Draco to himself) sufficiently reminded him was more pressing than his potentially problematic romantic foibles.

"What happened?" Harry asked them, hurrying forward to crouch beside Hermione. He gave her a long look upon arrival, as if realizing he hadn't said a sufficient enough hello (having been, understandably, distracted by the resurrection of his not-dead not-parents) and she smiled faintly back at him, nodding in return.

"Well, you can… sort of see, can't you?" Hermione said, gesturing vaguely to Narcissa, and Theo meandered over after them, peering down from behind Draco.

"Should search her," Theo suggested after a moment. "Might help us figure out how she got here."

Harry shifted forward, about to reach into the pocket of Narcissa's robes, but stopped just short of touching her, glancing at Draco instead. "You should probably do it," he suggested, hesitant.

"Potter," Draco growled, "do you honestly think I have any interest in conducting a search on my mother?"

"Well, it's not as if I can," Harry grumbled. "So if anyone's going to—"

"Oh, hush, both of you," Lily said, venturing forward. "Even you, Harry," she amended comfortingly to him, who beamed, permitting himself to be briskly nudged aside as Lily put herself to work, patting down Narcissa's robes with the light-fingered expertise of someone who'd performed a similar exercise many times before.

At one point, Lily's forearm disappeared from view, her brow furrowing as she dug around in the cavernous pocket. "Ah, extension charm. Of course." She dug around for a moment, brows furrowing as she appeared to locate something of importance, drawing it out slowly. "What's this?"

"Where'd you get that?" came a voice from the threshold, and they looked up to find the actual (in Draco's view) Narcissa standing there, frowning down at the gleaming silver object in Lily's hand. "I thought you'd destroyed it," she said, and then, as an apparent afterthought, "Hello, sweetheart. What happened to your eye?"

It took a moment for Draco to register she was speaking to him. He raised a hand to where he'd been struck, frowning a little at how to synthesize the little mishap with the sliver of Tom Riddle's soul. It wasn't as if he'd had time to consult a mirror to view the damage, but however his eye happened to look, he doubted it was worth explaining.

"Nothing," he managed belatedly, and then, "What?"

"I thought you said you'd destroyed the diadem," Narcissa repeated, venturing further into the room. She didn't appear to be overly concerned with the fact that they'd all crowded around an unconscious body until she happened to notice whose body it was, leaping back and stung by recognition the moment she looked closer.

"This," Narcissa said, backstepping in alarm, "is not good."

For some reason, she glanced around the room, as if she half-expected someone else to be present.

"Where were you?" Theo asked her.

"Out," she said succinctly, still frowning down at the alternate version of herself.

"You're this universe's Narcissa?" Lily asked, and Narcissa shifted a glance to her, indulging an imperceptibly swift double-take upon impact that anyone but Draco would likely have missed.

"You're," Narcissa began, and paused. "Dead."

"Yes," Lily said. "I've heard."

"Were you our friend also?" James asked Narcissa optimistically, and she slid him a disinterested glance.

"No," she said, and Lily rose to her feet, fingers still curled around the diadem.

"Does it do something?" she asked, and then, apparently remembering what she'd come there to uncover, she leapt into something of an incoherent burst of thoughts. "And Tom's network, do you know who else is in it? I have to find a way to disable it, somehow, so that I can save my—"

"What happened here?" Narcissa demanded, staring back down at the mirror image of herself before looking up at Draco with a palpable sense of concern. "What did she want?"

"I don't know," Draco said, shaking his head. "I didn't seem to be the thing she had any interest in, Mother."

"That's because you weren't."

The other Hermione's voice was resolute as ever, her chin just as high, and they all swiveled to look at her as she glanced between the two Narcissas, the look on her face a very particular cocktail of both scrutiny and contemplation. Draco registered it as the same look both Hermiones made use of quite frequently; it was the 'piecing together of information' look, which gave him an odd, misaligned sense of satisfaction at having recognized.

"Oh good. Now there's two of you," Narcissa remarked.

"I could say the same," the other Hermione pointed out. "But to answer your question, she was looking for you."

"Damn," Narcissa said, followed by, to Draco's complete disbelief, "So she's real, then."

"What?" asked Draco, Theo, both Hermiones, and Ron.

"I thought she was," Narcissa began, and then paused. "Well, I thought she was a delusion, to be honest. I thought I was having dreams, I suppose." She cleared her throat stiffly. "She's what I went to Azkaban to avoid."

"I thought you said it was Tom who'd come looking for you," the other Hermione said, and Narcissa hesitated.

"Well, it was, yes." Her fingers were balled tightly at her sides. "I have dreams, or so I thought, where he was passing me messages. I thought it was myself I was seeing," she clarified stiffly. "I thought I was telling myself things about the future, but they always involved him, and I kept—she kept," she repeated, quite visibly trying to bury the new information in her brain, "telling me he was coming back for me. Asking me to do things for him." She looked intensely uncomfortable. "Usually just… information. Messages. Things like that."

"But the diadem isn't a portkey," Hermione said, their attention swiveling back to her. "And besides, I just went to get it. So how was she getting here, then, during all that time?"

"Is that really what's important?" the other Hermione countered, and Theo made a low sound of agreement.

"Obviously it's not that difficult to travel between universes or we wouldn't all be here," he pointed out drily, fixing his gaze on Draco. "Besides, so Narcissa Malfoy is wily in all universes," he said, sparing her a wry smirk. "We could have predicted that. Isn't the more important issue what she came here to find?"

"The issue," Lily countered firmly, "is that we have to get rid of Tom, and we have to do it now. So, we have to sort out who else is in the network, destabilize it, and then—"

"How exactly are we supposed to do that?" asked Hermione, looking frustrated by the prospect of so many answerless questions. "It's his magic, isn't it? How are we supposed to dismantle a bomb we didn't build without even knowing how the parts work—including how and why Narcissa got here?"

"Where did you go?" Harry asked Narcissa privately, the words somewhat muted amid the rest of the conversation.

This time, she seemed to consider the question significant enough to answer. "Nott Manor," she said, and Theo blinked, reeling on impact.

"Is my father involved in this?" he asked her.

Narcissa grimaced. "Perhaps," she replied, though the two Hermiones were, by then, engaged in some sort of escalating argument.

"—just saying, if we can't make sense of the pieces—"

"—what does it matter what the pieces are if the whole doesn't make any sense?"

"Hermione," Harry attempted, and both Hermiones rounded on him.

"What is it?" they asked in precisely the same agitated voice, and he blinked.

"Oh, um, I was just. Well, I—I mean, this Hermione," he said, gesturing to the one on his right, who was coincidentally the one Draco had just kissed, "certainly has a point, but then, um, you," he said to the other, "are, well—"

"Maybe codenames are in order," Theo said smoothly. "Perhaps Blade Granger and Books Granger, if you will?"

"Just call me my middle name," the other Hermione said, looking as if the prospect of this conversation, too, had driven her to considerable annoyance. "It's Jane—which," she added offhandedly, "for the record, I loathe."

"Jane?" echoed the Hermione beside Harry, frowning. "It's not Jean?"

The other Hermione frowned. "Why on earth would it be Jean? Jane is my grandmother's name."

"Yes," Hermione said slowly, "but the nurse who was there when I was born was called Jean, so my parents changed their mind."

"Well, then I suppose not everything is inevitable," the other Hermione replied. Draco, who was beginning to think of the whole conversation as a particularly reflexive quidditch match, frowned with the makings of understanding, something of potential use beginning to cement itself in his brain. "Parts of who we are must come down to circumstance," that Hermione continued to theorize, which prompted Draco to something very near a revelation.

"Circumstance," he echoed, and both Hermiones glanced up, catching the sound of comprehension in his voice. "If the circumstances of how Tom Riddle is behaving belong to the Tom Riddle from this universe," he said slowly, "then that's one less mystery, isn't it? Perhaps we're forgetting we already know the foundations of his life."

"Correction," Theo cut in, "we know what Dumbledore's told us about his life."

"Why would Dumbledore lie?" Harry asked him, and Hermione nodded her fervent agreement. "I don't see why he'd take such care to give us information only for it to be false. Do you?"

"Well, why not?" Theo asked, shrugging. "Perhaps he thought it was fun."

"Fun?" Harry echoed, caught somewhere between dismayed and doubtful.

"I don't know about you, Potter, but I simply don't see why he'd take an interest in you otherwise," Theo assured him, sniffing loftily.

Draco, of course, wasn't listening. He hadn't meant to watch the expression on the other Hermione's face (Hermione Jane Granger, as it were), but by the time it became clear she was piecing things together more rapidly than the others, he found it considerably difficult to look away. There was something highly mesmerizing about it, and the moment she looked up, locking eyes with him, he was certain she'd uncovered something.

"Dumbledore," she said.

He blinked. "Come again?"

In lieu of answering, she rounded on Harry and Theo. "You said Dumbledore was the only wizard Tom Riddle was ever afraid of, right?"

"Yes," said Harry firmly, at the same moment Theo said, "Fear is a debatable term, I imagine, but proceed."

"Why," Hermione Jane said slowly, "would Tom Riddle—a person who compulsively seeks power, by all accounts—fail to take over my universe? Why not kill Grindelwald himself?" she asked, turning her attention to Draco and imploring him to see whatever labyrinthine concept she was inexplicably seeing. "This network," she pressed him. "What exactly is it?"

"It's a network of favors," Lily supplied for the room. "The reason Tom can't be killed. Everyone who does him a favor becomes part of his network, and the consequences of defying him mean inevitable harm to someone else."

"Right," Hermione Jane said, triumphant, and the others—including her alternate self—stared at her with confusion until she paused, recognizing no one else had registered whatever unlikely conclusion she'd come to. "Doesn't that sound familiar?" she asked them.

For a moment, no one spoke.

"I hate to be that person," James said, raising a hand, "but what the utter fuck are you talking about?"

"This isn't about a network," sighed the other Hermione, rolling her eyes. "Don't you see it? This is a game," she said, and Draco blinked, exchanging a rapid glance with the Hermione at his side. "Not only is it a game," Hermione Jane continued, "it's also a game you've all been part of without even realizing it. Who else has asked for inexplicable favors?" she demanded, turning urgently to Harry. "Who else has given you pieces of a puzzle without ever revealing the whole thing?"

Theo caught hold of her line of thought first, jerking to cognizance. "You think Dumbledore has a network as well?"

"I think he must," the other Hermione said, still imploring Harry to see it. "He did to you precisely what Tom's been doing in my universe. Don't you see? He never lifted a finger to destroy Voldemort because…" She blinked. "Because he couldn't."

"I," James began, and then stopped. "No, never mind. Carry on, I'll catch up—"

"Game theory," said the other Hermione, and immediately, her other self stiffened.

"No," Hermione said flatly. "No. You can't really think—"

"Oh, I definitely do," said Hermione Jane, defiant this time, and all at once, it occurred to Draco with a sweeping wave of delayed reaction.

"A game," Draco said. "You think Tom Riddle is playing an actual game, not just a theoretical one?"

"Yes," the other Hermione said, turning to him with obvious relief. "It's simple game theory, Draco," she said, and while he didn't entirely grasp the reference, he was beginning to see what she meant. Hadn't he said precisely the same thing himself? It's really not enough to simply win at someone else's game, he'd said to Hermione. You have to design the entire game yourself.

"Explain," Narcissa said, and the other Hermione nodded eagerly—as if she'd waited her entire life for someone, anyone, to ask.

"Game theory isn't just about the outcomes of the game you're playing, it's about how you're playing the game you're playing," she explained. "It's two people making moves dependent on their understanding of the behavior of the other player. This is a cooperative, zero-sum game in which Tom was mimicking the behaviors of someone else—in a way that seems much more like blindly following rules than it does following any rational line of thought," she said, emphatically adding, "Why didn't he kill Grindelwald? Why send others to spy for him, but never leave himself?" she demanded, and the others glanced at each other, uncertain of the answer. "Perhaps because it wasn't allowed," she suggested. "Perhaps, even, it was because if he did, he would lose—which is the one thing he couldn't abide."

"That assumes someone else is also playing," Hermione said accusingly, and the other Hermione turned to her with a slow, subtle smile; the same smile, Draco thought with a jolt of recognition, that she had given him in the precise moment she'd noticed she had him fooled.

Abruptly, Draco remembered something else he himself had once said: Doesn't it make sense that Tom would choose to locate himself in the universe where Albus Dumbledore wouldn't be able to stop him?

"I may not be a witch, but I'm still a fucking genius," said a matter-of-fact Hermione Jane Granger, "and while you lot were learning magic, I was learning what people are really like. Tell me honestly," she beckoned to Harry, turning to face him again. "Put your fondness for Dumbledore aside for a moment—assume for a moment you're an orphan, a child, unloved and uncared for, and an adult is kind enough to you to tell you you're special," she said with her particularly brutal lack of finesse, prompting Harry to swallow hard, stung. "And now tell me this: Did Dumbledore ever ask you to carry out any favors on his behalf?"

"Countless," said Ron.

Everyone in the room jumped back slightly, startled to remember his presence, but Ron took a cautious step forward, locking eyes with Harry as James and Lily exchanged furrowed glances beside him, looking quietly dismayed.

"Where to start, even?" Ron said directly to Harry, his voice quiet and solemn. It was, as far as Draco could tell, an overdue intimation of friendship between them, and a necessary reminder of everything Harry had been through with Ron at his side. "Everything he ever asked from you was a favor, wasn't it?"

In response, Harry said nothing. Beside him, Theo reached out a hand to rest it with a pulse of pressure on his shoulder.

"Yes," the other Hermione confirmed, still fairly clinical in her analysis. "And didn't he ask favors of others, too?"

"I hate to say it," Hermione said, glancing tentatively at Harry, "but she is making sense—and as for you," she said, turning to Lily, "didn't you say Tom asked you to spy on Dumbledore?"

"Yes," Lily said warily, "he did."

This was confirmation neither Hermione nor Draco had needed. "Tom could have ruled your universe," Hermione pointed out to Lily, starting to pace slightly as she thought it over. "He could have done so at any time, with or without the Elder Wand. Why did he need it?"

"Let me guess," the other Hermione said, half-laughing. "Dumbledore had one?"

"Jesus H Salazar fuck," Draco exhaled under his breath, and Theo lightly scoffed his agreement.

"Narcissa?" he drawled, and Draco looked up, abruptly registering his mother's now-conspicuous lack of commentary. "Anything you'd like to share?"

Silence fell over the room for a moment, and Narcissa cleared her throat.

"Dumbledore once asked me to keep a secret," she said, "though I didn't understand it at the time."

They waited, and she grimaced.

"It was a favor to him," she finished with a weighty sense of resignation, and the other Hermione smiled again, darkly this time.

"He must have known Tom would try to reach you," she said to Narcissa, looking even surer and more insistent now. "There's a reason all the same players are involved on either side. This," she said, gesturing around to everyone in the room, "must not be a coincidence. Tom must have sought out the same people Dumbledore sought out; possibly even vice versa. And perhaps Dumbledore was losing," she added, with a pointed glance at James and Lily. "He was losing players, losing pawns—but luckily Tom made a mistake too, didn't he? His horcrux self, Voldemort, accidentally created a loophole."

She glanced at Harry, softening just slightly.

"Don't you see?" she asked him, apparently beckoning for him to question his entire existence, and predictably, he winced. "Tom must have had to do something in order to come back. He can't win my universe—he has to win yours," she said firmly, "but some other version of him made a mistake, and Dumbledore must have always known it was a trap. The game goes on, then, even without Dumbledore."

"The secret," their universe's Hermione ventured to Narcissa. "The one Dumbledore asked you to keep. Is it…" She hesitated, glancing at Harry, but seemed to gather a bit of conviction herself, pulling her shoulders back and lifting her chin as she made what was almost certainly an accurate guess. "It's about how to win this game between them, isn't it?"

Narcissa nodded slowly.

"It was after Draco had taken the Mark," she said, giving him a steady glance. "Dumbledore told me he knew what Draco had been instructed to do. Then he told me, as I already knew, that one day the real Tom Riddle would come to find me." She swallowed heavily, glancing at Harry with apology. "He told me he'd done something to make sure that if Tom harmed Harry, Tom himself would die, but also," she clarified, "if anyone ever tried to kill Tom Riddle, then Harry would die, too. It must be a similar concept as Tom's network," she said with a glance at Lily, "if not precisely the same thing. The two of them must be connected somehow."

Hermione reached out for Harry, who remained silent.

"Neither can live while the other survives," she said, giving him a long, apologetic look.

Then, with weary finality, Harry filled in the blanks for them.

"So it is a trap, then. Worse," he said bitterly, "it's some sort of… stalemate."

The truth seemed to crash down on all of them with a palpable heaviness, cloaking itself over their shoulders and dragging them to their proverbial knees as the reality of the situation became clear. If this had all been a game, then in the face of Tom Riddle's loophole, Dumbledore had successfully initiated a cruelly impossible détente.

"How do we win, then?" Theo asked, grimacing.

"I think," the other Hermione said slowly, "we don't. I think we lose."

Tom would have to win; at best, they could try to keep him in the wrong universe, though he'd already made certain no one on either side could touch him if he remained. It seemed that was their only plausible option, short of Harry finding himself inconveniently dead.

"We could contain him," Hermione suggested gently. "Now we know what it takes for him to come back, don't we? The wand, for one thing—so we keep him in check. We keep him there. We try to neutralize the network incrementally," she said, gesturing to Lily, "to make sure things are safe, but…"

She trailed off.

"Maybe this universe is just terrible," she said, sliding a wry smile to her other self. "Maybe this is just… the dark one, the bad one, where no matter what, we simply lose. Maybe the best we can make of this world is to use it to rebuild something worthwhile, and maybe that's good enough." Her gaze slid to Draco, half a thought lingering on the tip of her tongue. "Isn't it?"

It sounded very much like something he might have said, he thought. After all, he was so very gifted with cynicism by then. He'd gone through enough of a life with poor decisions to know that some things, particularly spirals of misfortune and circumstance, could not be easily redeemed. How could any of this be reversed? It might have begun nearly half a century before, and if their suspicions were right, then the only person they could ask to reverse it was already long gone.

They were all pawns, as it turned out. Pawns caught on the boards of not one, but potentially two psychopaths. What agreement might have taken place between Tom Riddle and Albus Dumbledore, Draco wondered? Was it possible that was why neither ever stood to challenge the other, at least not directly? Had it truly been some sort of maniacal gentleman's agreement that meant every life each man touched—every allegiance each one gained—was part of some incomprehensibly larger web? Perhaps one man had done more good with his life, but did it really matter, in the end?

Did any of them matter, or was it all just some cruel, cosmic game?

"No," Draco said, and the others looked at him, startled. "No," he repeated, shaking his head. "I refuse to lose. I refuse to give up, not like this. So we take a whole lifetime," he said firmly, glancing up at his mother. "So what? So what if we run forever, or if we have to hide, or if we have to do whatever it takes to stay alive so long as we can make things right? So what," he spat, "if this is the losing universe? I don't accept that," he said firmly, turning to Hermione. "I won't live like that, not again. We're taking him down. I swear, however long it takes, however fucking… weird it gets—"

He glanced down at not-his mother on the floor and scowled.

"I'm not done," he said, and looked fiercely up at Harry. "Are you?"

Harry's mouth twitched, the corners flickering with the makings of satisfaction, or else possibly defiance. "No."

"What about you?" Draco demanded from Theo. "I chose the wrong side once. I promise you," he swore, "I won't do it again. So, are you done fighting?"

In the moment, he could have sworn he saw Theo finally forgive him.

As it was, though, Theo merely shook his head. "Not fucking likely, Draco."

"Good," Draco said roughly. "And you, Weasley?" he asked Ron, who shook his head, "and—"

He stopped, his gaze falling on Hermione, who was watching him with a glorious, breathless look of triumph; different than her counterpart, he realized, because this was relief, and it was joy, and it was more than the satisfaction of solving something.

This, he thought, was the satisfaction of having been right all along.

"I hoped you'd say that," she exhaled, and for a moment, he nearly crossed the room; nearly took her in his arms, nearly held her close, nearly whispered to her he'd let her down for the last time and would never, not ever, do the same thing again.

He didn't, though. Not yet. Not while so much was still to be done.

"So," Harry said. "Where do we start?"

To their surprise, it was Narcissa who spoke first, lowering elegantly to give her other self a cold, impassive glance.

"Oh, I have an idea about that," she murmured.

Hermione Jean Granger had never liked an unanswered question. There were many in the room, though, and she was more than happy to let Narcissa deal with the ones pertaining to her alternate self. She had a similar sensation, as things were, and once the rest of them had filed out—minus Lily, who expressed some degree of enjoyment at the prospect of questioning the alternate Narcissa Malfoy—Hermione turned her attention to the other possibilities she'd been pondering since the theory of Dumbledore's game had floated in the room.

"I'm going back," she said, prompting the others to blink with surprise. "Tom Riddle and I have unfinished business."

She felt Draco stiffen beside her and glanced at him, wondering if he'd say anything. Before he could, though, Harry had leapt in with concern.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked, amusing her with the prospect of opposing recklessness which, astoundingly, did not belong to him. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, I have an idea," she said, flicking her gaze to her other self, "though it will, of course, depend on what we want to do about the other Narcissa. In the meantime, I think we should talk about fixing this universe." She turned to Ron. "What do you think?"

He looked surprised. "Me?"

"Yes, you," she said. "You've been here, haven't you? What needs to be done here?"

"I—" He looked astonished at being asked, which she supposed was partly her fault. Perhaps not being the smartest person in the room had finally taught her something, Hermione thought grimly, avoiding a glance at her other self. "Well, the Death Eaters are definitely a problem," Ron said. "They're mostly just a small militant group right now, but that's just how it bloody starts, isn't it?"

"I know how to get rid of at least one," Theo said darkly, "assuming he isn't under Tom Riddle's protection."

To that, Draco nodded. "I'm coming with you," he said firmly. "Even if he is, we'll figure it out."

Hermione paused, surprised. She supposed she'd gotten used to a Draco Malfoy who insisted on being present any time she did anything, but she had expected him to join her in the other universe. "You're staying here?"

"You don't need me," he assured her, shrugging, "but Theo does." He slid a look at Theo, who said nothing. "This time," Draco said, "I pick Theo."

"Well, I hate to do this now in front of everyone, but I'm afraid I'm just not interested in you that way," Theo drawled, and Draco rolled his eyes.

"Not like that, you fucker. I just meant—"

"I know what you meant." Theo smiled thinly. "And frankly, I think it's about time."

Maybe in some other other universe, Hermione thought with an internal sigh, that was some sort of apology and acceptance. In this one, it was just boys being stupid, and she turned to her other self, beckoning her aside.

"Can we talk?" she asked her other self, who nodded, walking with her down one of the long corridors in the Black family house. "So, listen," Hermione said when they were alone, the others at a sufficient distance away, "I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Draco?" her other self guessed, looking unimpressed by the prospect. "A little too predictable, I'm afraid."

"Not that," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Actually, I have an idea about how to take down Tom, but…" She cleared her throat. "I wanted your thoughts on it. You know," she added, half-laughing, "to see if it makes sense."

Her other self blinked with surprise, then nodded. "Okay. Tell me."

Hermione leaned forward, murmuring it in her other self's ear. It was a risky concept, magically-speaking, but she was fairly certain her logic was sound, and besides—magic was not always bound by rules. There was intent there, too, wasn't there? How else would people manage to find each other through universes; through time and space; through this world, or any other? Perhaps there were other magics which did not come in textbooks or classes or exams. Perhaps there were larger magics, like loyalty, or friendship or love or sacrifice. Maybe those were the magics which did not require things to be done the same way twice, or perhaps there were no rules at all.

Her other self leaned away, contemplating it with a low, thoughtful hum. "Sounds dangerous."

"Well, of course," Hermione said. "Nothing worth doing is ever safe, is it?"

She'd suspected her other self would find that a reasonable answer, and she was right. "You're sure about the theories involved?" she asked, and Hermione nodded.

"Maybe you're a genius, but I," she said, indulging the smile pulling at her lips, "am fucking magic."

"Well," her other self said, biting down on approval, "then I suppose we'll just have to convince everyone else to be on board, won't we? Though, as far as I can tell, it won't be difficult." She glanced over her shoulder at the others, contemplating them from afar. "Most people here are loyal to you, aren't they? They trust you."

"Sort of has something to do with me not tricking them into things," Hermione said, and her other self gave something of a colorless laugh.

"Well, I hardly claimed to be perfect," she said. "I like to leave a little room for improvement, assuming I have time left."

Hermione hesitated, wanting to ask just what her other self intended to do when it came to time and universes, but also not entirely sure she was ready to attempt it. What could she have said, really? But before she could attempt it, Draco was walking over to them, only the faintest tinge of color in his cheeks at speaking to both of them serving as evidence he'd had any reservations.

"Here," he said, holding out the Elder Wand to Hermione, "you'll need this."

She frowned, dismissing her romantic concerns in favor of strategy. "You're sure? You could certainly still use it."

He shrugged. "You need it more. Can't exactly get there without it."

"Right," she said, and reached out, pausing just before she might have closed her fingers around it. Across from her, her other self watched with an almost palpable longing; Hermione supposed the promise of an unbeatable wand never did get less desirable. "Well, be sure to keep the stone," she told Draco. "In case I—"

In case I need you.

He heard it, his fingers brushing hers as he passed her the wand, and nodded carefully, a swallow nudging at his throat.

"Of course," he said, and released the wand, his touch falling away from hers.

She tried not to shiver, catching her other self's glance between them and hurriedly clearing her throat.

"You should stay," she said to the other Hermione. "Go with Theo and Draco, I mean. You know, until I come back."

She did her best to make it sound like a promise.

I'll be back, she thought, in my rightful place.

Her other self nodded. "Of course," she said, and in the same moment, the door to the room containing the two Narcissa Malfoys had opened.

And just like that, a game was, without question, afoot.

26. Monstrous Wagers

a/n: Please be considerate to other readers and DO NOT INCLUDE SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS.

Chapter 26: Monstrous Wagers

Grindelverse

"Ah," said Tom Riddle, sipping quietly at his tea from inside his impossible safehouse. "I see you've found your way back, Lady Lies."

Draco had coached her through the process of returning. It would be the same as normal apparition, he'd said, only she'd have to feel around for something he'd left open; like shattered glass, between here and there. He'd said it would feel like being lost, at least for a moment; there would be a second, according to him, where she would feel she was suspended in space, existing in nothing, but if she just kept moving—kept going—if she simply ignored her sense of weightless incorporeality and stuck to her deliberation—she would eventually pass through it, and land on her feet.

Then he'd opened his mouth, as if maybe he'd wanted to say something else, and hesitantly opted not to.

"I'll see you soon," Draco ultimately told her, which had been a gift in itself. It was as close to come back to me as she thought either of them were ready for, and she'd stepped away, ready to finish what she'd started; ready to go back to the universe she could have spent a lifetime never understanding could be real.

She shook herself of the memory, refocusing on the task at hand.

"Yes, I'm back," she said to Tom Riddle, "and I brought some friends, too."

Behind her, Lily took a step forward. On her left, Harry and Theo, who had been waiting for her in James Potter's study at precisely the moment she'd come back, stood with their arms folded in their lofty, aristocratic way.

"You left one behind, I see," Tom noted, chuckling to himself as he scanned the expectant faces beside hers. "Where is Mr Malfoy?"

They'd left Draco behind with Ron, who was finding himself with a newfound liking for being in control of a situation. When this universe's Draco had launched to his feet at the sight of her—demanding to know where she'd been and also, how she'd dared to leave him like this—Ron had casually stunned him again, nodding to her in greeting. ("Glad you made it back! Everything is fine," he said cheerfully, and Hermione had agreed that it was, much to her surprise.)

"Draco is otherwise occupied," Hermione told Tom smoothly, "unless you object to handling this between us? Which I doubt."

"Handling what, exactly?" Tom countered, one leg crossed lazily over the other from where he sat. "As far as I know, Lady Lies, our business is long concluded, so unless someone," he said, fixing a pointed glance at Lily, "would like to give me what I'm owed—"

"You and I both know the wand means nothing to you," Hermione cut in, drawing his attention back to her, and in response, Tom arched a brow, amused.

"You think I have no use for an unbeatable wand?" he asked, doubtful. "It's possible you misunderstand the word 'unbeatable,' then, I'm afraid."

"Oh, I'm sure you want it," Hermione permitted, "but we both know you don't need it. You could have taken it from Grindelwald at any time, couldn't you?" she asked him, and he gave no response, merely taking a long, measured sip of tea. "You could have taken over this universe just as easily as your horcruxes took over that one," she said, waiting to see if he would register surprise or recognition (he did not) before continuing, "but you didn't. You could have threatened Lily, enacted your network, forced her to give you the wand—but you didn't. You've been so very careful here, haven't you, and why, exactly?" she asked, to which he glanced up at her, half-smiling.

"I can see you're working up to a point," he said. "Care to make it?"

"Yes," she said flatly. "I think you made a deal with Dumbledore. I'm guessing it happened around 1947, when you disappeared from our universe and died in this one."

This had been Theo's contribution. Upon her return to their universe, he'd mentioned to her they'd discovered a few things about the Tom Riddle who had actually been born here, including the fact that his death certificate would only have been magically issued in the event of a natural death. This universe, then, was down one Tom Riddle for some period of time, which must have made the vacancy a compelling opening.

"I think," Hermione said, "after you met with Dumbledore—after he denied you a job," she clarified, "and then he accused you of beginning to make horcruxes—he offered you the one thing you've never been able to resist."

"Which is?" Tom asked languidly.

"A challenge," Hermione said, as Tom's smile twitched again, ostensibly pleased. "He told you about the universes, didn't he?" she guessed, and this, too, he seemed perfectly content and completely unsurprised to hear. "He did it to prove to you he was smarter than you were yet again, so when he offered you a very simple game—colonization," she clarified, at which point his shoulders stiffened slightly, "you took it, obviously. The concept that you might beat him at anything was compelling enough, but the idea of mastering multiple universes as well as death itself… surely it was undeniable," she finished expectantly.

"Isn't it just?" Tom agreed.

"Mm," Hermione said, before shifting to the crux of the issue. "But he gave you a caveat, didn't he?"

It was this universe's Harry who'd come up with the finer details involved in this. In this universe, he'd reminded them, Tom Riddle wasn't known for violence. In fact, he hadn't killed anyone the entire time he'd been there, operating instead as a harmless profiteer Grindelwald couldn't touch for lack of any traceable crimes. What, then, might have curbed the violence he'd possessed ostensibly from birth? Only the worst possible consequence, Harry had said darkly, which, for him, must have been losing.

"You weren't allowed to kill anyone to win," Hermione said, and Tom blinked, registering it with the stiffening of his shoulders. "If you did, Dumbledore won by default, didn't he? Which you got around, of course. You revived one of your horcruxes; essentially, you cloned yourself, so that you could still win even while breaking the rules. It must have soothed you quite a bit, didn't it?" she asked him innocently. "Knowing you were still a thorn in Dumbledore's side in his universe, but he couldn't touch you in yours."

"Quite a presumption," Tom said, glancing past her to Harry and Theo. "What makes the two of you so sure a man who has so long been dead here merits any significance to me in another?"

"I'm so glad you asked," Theo sniffed. "Normally people simply continue on as if I'm not here."

Tom arched a brow.

"Oh, no, that's all," Theo said, shrugging. "I appreciate being asked, but I think she's got this handled."

"My 'presumption,' as you put it, is sound," Hermione supplied, drawing Tom's attention back to her. "And you play with all of us based on your 'presumptions,' don't you? That's what this is, after all. All this game is, in fact, is you manipulating the people around you based on what you presume matters to them," she pointed out. "With Lily, it was desperation. It was fear. With Remus, it was protection; you were the alpha when he had no one to follow, and with Narcissa, it was boredom, wasn't it?" she asked him, and his mouth twitched again, with laughter this time.

"I suppose," he said drily, "among other things."

"You certainly had me sorted," Hermione told him, grudgingly trading the small victory of admitting she'd been fooled once for the sanctity of knowing she wouldn't be again. "You knew I didn't trust you, so you did the one thing that would unnerve me most: you proved yourself competent," she said, and caught the signs of him laughing silently in reply. "You proved you were reliable. You made me question everyone around me, and you got into my head—which you must have known was the most vulnerable place for me to be," she said, and to that, he chuckled aloud.

"And why Dumbledore, then?" he asked her. "Surely Dumbledore, whom you apparently admire so deeply, would have know better than to make such a foolish deal with someone like me?"

"See, this is the reason I know he made this deal," Hermione said simply, "because what's most important to Dumbledore?"

Tom's teeth slid out against his lip, mocking. "Love, I take it?"

"No. The greater good," Hermione said, shaking her head. "Dumbledore thought if he could neutralize you as a threat, you'd both be better off—he'd stop you from killing, you'd be gone and have no way to beat him, and perhaps it would end there. Luckily he was smart enough to make it difficult for you to come back, even if his imagination wasn't quite sinister enough to predict what you'd do before you left."

"You forgot one other thing," Tom pointed out, leaning back in his chair with a lofty sense of finality. "Dumbledore is dead now. Thus, were I playing any such game, the resolution is quite obvious, isn't it? He lost."

"Maybe so, but you still haven't won," Hermione said, watching Tom's fingers tighten around the handle of his teacup. "You still don't have an Elder Wand, and you still haven't made your way back. And," she said, toying with the words, "you also need a new opponent, don't you?"

For the first time, Tom's face betrayed an element of surprise, his brow furrowing just enough to know she'd guessed correctly. "What makes you think I require an opponent?"

"Well, what exactly is the point of going home without one?" Hermione asked neutrally. "So you get to come back—so what? Dumbledore isn't there," she reminded him. "You'd have no one to lord your victory over."

"I suppose you may be new to despotism," he said wryly, "but as a reminder, I'd have an entire universe to rule."

"You already have one of those," Hermione said, referencing the one they were currently standing in. "It doesn't interest you, Tom. Not really. What you actually love," she murmured, pointedly dropping her voice to a near-whisper, "is the game, and now that Dumbledore is gone and his network diminished to almost nothing, you have no one left to play."

He blinked, then smiled slowly.

"Is that an offer?" Tom asked slyly, and this time, Hermione permitted herself a hearty laugh.

"Oh, even if I were that stupid, no, of course not," she assured him. "For one thing, I've already done you a favor. I'm in your network, and the last thing someone can be in a game like this is connected to the person they're playing, isn't it? For example, imagine," she mused, "if you'd once done Albus Dumbledore a favor, and then he had some sort of control over you. What would that mean, Tom?" she asked him softly, taking a step forward. "If you defied him, what would happen to you?"

For the first time, she'd made a threat, and he registered it. "You think you know something, Lady Lies," he said slowly. "Yet you continue to forget Albus Dumbledore is dead."

"Just as you continue to forget Albus Dumbledore would have been prepared for that," she told him. "Remember? Dumbledore loves the greater good. He can see beyond himself, but that was always your flaw, wasn't it? That you can't possibly believe anything is bigger than you."

"If there's something I'm missing, by all means, enlighten me," Tom invited her, with all the solemnity of someone who very much doubted it. "I may have waited half a century to outmaneuver Dumbledore once, but I find there's a certain pressing value on my time now."

"Oh, there is a piece missing," Hermione assured him. "A very important one, in fact."

"And it is?" Tom asked expectantly.

"Me," said Harry, stepping forward to stand beside Hermione. "I'm the piece you never got, Tom. Dumbledore had the other version of me in your universe," he said, referencing Hermione with a nod, "but my mother kept you from me in this one, didn't she?"

"Harry," Lily said softly, pained, but Harry brushed her off in favor of addressing Tom.

"You need a new opponent," Harry said to Tom. "Make it me."

Tom's brow furrowed and relaxed so quickly Hermione nearly missed it.

"Why?"

"Because Dumbledore valued the other version of me above everyone else," Harry pointed out. "That version of me, for whatever reason, meant everything to Dumbledore—he was Dumbledore's favorite pawn, wasn't he? Which makes me your natural successor."

Tom's gaze slid to Lily. "You approve of this?"

"She has nothing to do with this," Harry said, cutting his mother off before she could speak. "I'm the one who wanted Grindelwald's position of power, and I had it within my grasp. Without my mother in the way, I'm precisely what you need. She can't act against you," Harry pointed out, glancing darkly at her, "not without killing me, and we both know she'd never harm me. So play me, Tom Riddle," he said, passing him a smile laden with danger. The Harry Potters were not so different; his, of course, was the recklessness of being born into privilege, as Hermione had known it would be. "Go back to your broken universe and pick up the pieces of the mess you've made," Harry said with a laugh, "and then let's see which one of us can outlast the other."

"What reason do I have to agree?" Tom asked, though Hermione had already seen traces of the greedy spark in his eye that meant he was teetering perilously on concession. "Why should I have any interest in creating an enemy out of a harmless teenager?"

Harry smiled grimly. "You know I'm not harmless, Tom. But if that offer's not sweet enough, then how's this?" he offered, holding up the Elder Wand for Tom's observation. "Take it with you, if you want. It was Dumbledore's, and now it could be yours."

Tom's eyes narrowed, flicking between Harry's face and the wand in his hands. "You really think I'd trust something so easily won?"

Harry shrugged. "I didn't say it would be easy. I said I could give it to you. If," he mused, taking another step forward, "you make a new deal with me. Agree to leave me this world," he suggested, offering the wand out to Tom, "and in return, you can have the wand and make a new one."

Tom, rightfully, remained unconvinced. "Where's Narcissa?"

"Elsewhere," Harry said without hesitation. "Though, I'm sure you'd be able to find her with ease," he mused, gesturing pointedly to the wand again, "if you were to give me what I want."

Hermione could see Tom's hands, always drawn to a shiny thing, fidgeting with anticipation.

"And what exactly do you want?" Tom asked, setting his tea down on the side table, forgotten.

"There will be a vacancy when you're gone," Harry said, shrugging. "There is one already, in Grindelwald's absence, and without you as a threat, I'm free to occupy it. Did you honestly think I wanted otherwise?" he asked drily. "Surely you didn't think I planned to be rid of Grindelwald purely for the thrill of it."

Tom's attention shot to Hermione. "What do you get out of this?"

She shrugged. "You already know I'm with Draco," she told him flatly. "It's not as if I have anything to lose by his gaining power, even by proximity to Harry."

Tom's mouth thinned tightly.

"Draco," he echoed, locking eyes with hers.

Go ahead, read my mind, Hermione thought with half a laugh. All you'll see is him.

Tom looked at Harry again, considering him for a long moment before rising to his feet.

"Do you really think," Tom said slowly, "that when Dumbledore made that deal with me, he chose wisely? I outlived him. I outgamed him." His attention flicked to Hermione, then to Theo, then to Lily, contemplating each of the people in the room. "Do you really think I would willingly choose to create my own enemy?"

"Yes," Harry said staunchly, and Hermione bristled, the air gone warningly stiff with tension now that Tom had begun prowling around, sleekly weighing their requisite threats. "I understand you, Tom," Harry told him. "We're the same."

Tom gave a dry laugh. "No one is the same as me," he said, and then, without change in tone, he made a small motion with his fingers, like plucking a harp string to the sound of, "Remus."

In answer, Remus lurched into being beside him. "Yes?"

Tom's mouth twitched. "I need a moment with Mr Black. The others can't touch me," he noted, glancing between Hermione and Lily with a look of satisfaction, the two of them having been minimized as threats long ago, "but I will need you to restrain Mr Nott."

It happened impossibly quickly. Theo was yanked backwards with a strangled cry of fury, his wand ripped from his hands by Remus, while Harry was left to stand alone in the center of the room, Tom circling him slowly.

"They can't touch me," he noted, gesturing to Lily and Hermione before referencing a struggling, maniacally outraged Theo, "and do you understand why that is?"

Harry gritted his teeth, nodding. "They're part of your little network of favors. They can't harm you, or anyone else who's ever carried out a favor on your behalf."

"Correct. And do you know how that wand in your hand is typically won?" he asked Harry, whose posture grew rigid as Remus, behind him, was avoiding Lily's furious glare, staring immovably at his feet. "It isn't given, Mr Black. Or should I say Mr Potter?" Tom mused, shaking his head. "Whoever you believe yourself to be," he said softly, leaning towards him, "this is not the way games are played."

"You can't kill me," Harry warned, swallowing hard. Beside Hermione, Theo's muscle spasmed from trying to rip himself free, the strength of Remus' spell holding him silently in place. "You haven't killed anyone, Tom," Harry said, mouth tightening, "in nearly fifty years. Dumbledore's rules prevent it."

To that, Tom permitted a slow, measured smile, dawning on his face like the start of a new era; like the cruel rays of the sun itself.

"Funny thing about that," Tom said, leaning close to Harry, "Dumbledore's already dead, isn't he?"

Potterverse

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Draco had asked, and in answer, Theo had given him a mangled slip of a wry smile.

"Nope," he'd said, but they'd both understood what he'd meant.

They'd been talking about a number of things. Firstly about The Plan, though it was so complex (and involving so little from them) they scarcely needed to go over it in detail again, which had lead them instead to what inexplicable events may or may not have transpired while they'd been apart.

"Potter?" Draco ventured, which Theo had clearly known was coming. He'd responded with a shrug, though it was clearly more defiance than impassivity.

"I didn't plan on it," Theo said.

Draco could hear the undertones Theo had perfected; the communication they'd long since abandoned needing to entertain aloud. I didn't plan on it, but he understands me, had been what Theo was trying to say, along with, Because I am who I am and he is who he is, it was always inevitable. It felt like I had always been waiting here for him, and now, how can I refuse?

"Is it—"

"Serious?" Theo guessed, shrugging again as Draco gave a muted indication of a nod. "Maybe. Maybe not. He has, you know. A war to fight." A little twitch of hesitancy. "A world to save."

"And you?" Draco asked, letting a few moments of consideration pulse between them, and Theo shook his head, glancing down at his hands.

"I have some wrongs to make right," he said slowly, "and then I think I'll fight for whatever he wants me to."

"Same," Draco said, which was the first thing he'd ventured so far to prompt Theo to surprise, his dark brow furrowing slightly. "What?" Draco asked, and then grimaced. "I mean, not like you, obviously," he amended quickly, "but look, I get it. There's a lot to fix." He shrugged. "Besides, can't let him do it alone. Potter?" Draco scoffed. "He's a human blasting curse. His primary skill is making a mess," he said firmly, "and left to his own devices, he'll fuck it all up."

Theo rolled his eyes. "Yeah."

A pause, and then Theo added, "You didn't seem surprised."

Draco figured it was best not to mention he'd already seen more than he needed to about what might happen between Harry Potter and Theo Nott. He'd certainly been in the room to witness enough from one version of them, and it was an experience that had at least one unintended effect of limiting whatever shock Draco had left to feel about it.

"I think it makes sense," Draco said slowly, recalling the stricken look on Harry's face at seeing Theo's pain once before. "What he's been through, what you've been through… it makes sense, honestly. You both have pasts that line up, somehow," he said, frowning a little with how to explain it. "Gives you something you've been missing, I suppose. Something undeniable."

"Not all pasts are a benefit," Theo pointed out. "Look at you and Granger."

Speaking of undeniable, Draco thought. "It's not that the past is worth clinging to," he clarified, "but that it's… what we are. It's about seeing all the pieces, good and bad." He paused, thinking about it. "I guess all we are right now is future pasts, aren't we? What we are together is, I don't know. The sum of what we were apart."

"Sounds like the delirious ranting of a man who's seen too many universes," Theo remarked.

"I—" I changed. She changed. And because I know so clearly what we once were, I can see what we could be. "I guess you're right."

"Which Granger are you talking about, by the way?" Theo asked, his gaze sliding pointedly to where one of the Hermiones stood.

There was no doubt in his mind, but it didn't seem the time to bring it up.

"Ah," Theo had said, "I see."

That had been the start of it; of reconciliation and change. Now, of course, they were taking care of Theo's other problem, Draco and Theo standing shoulder to shoulder with Hermione Jane angled slightly beside them, idly fingering the handle of her knife.

"Theodore," said Theodore Nott Sr, a smile of satisfaction curling at the corners of his mouth as he looked at his son. "I thought I might see you soon. Have you finally come to your senses, then?"

"Well, that depends," Theo drawled in reply, eyeing his fingernails. "Exactly how privileged were you, Father? In the Dark Lord's esteem, that is," he said, waving a hand around the house, "as I have some concept about other matters."

Nott's smile faltered slightly at Theo's obvious irreverence, his gaze flicking briefly to Draco before returning to his son. "I know everything there is to know," Nott said, voice hard and firm. "His Lordship entrusted me with the deepest of his secrets, of which you could scarcely imag-"

"Right, yeah, to clarify—what I'm saying is do you know about the other universe?" Theo cut in flatly, and Nott blinked, obviously taken aback. "You know," Theo added, shrugging, "the one he's currently in, for example?"

"How did you know that?" Nott demanded, dismayed. "Narcissa, the… the other Narcissa, she said—"

"What, that it was a secret? I mean, sure," Theo said, "but, you know. I have sources of my own."

Nott's eyes narrowed, sliding to Hermione. "I take it you mean Harry Potter?" he asked, lips thinning distastefully. "Otherwise I can't imagine why you'd bring the mudblood to my house."

"For the record, it's not a great house," Hermione assured him, gaze flicking up from the edge of her knife. She really did have excellent showmanship, Draco acknowledged, half-expecting her to check her teeth in the blade's reflection. "I'd be happy to leave, only we have some unfinished business—right, Theo?"

"Oh, a bit," Theo agreed, folding his arms over his chest. "Don't we, Dad?"

Nott's glance slid impatiently to his son. "Theodore, the Dark Lord will return," he said gravely, "and when he does, I will be rewarded for my loyalty. Either you stand with me," he warned, "or—"

"Or what?" Theo prompted, doubtful. "You'll kill me? Is that it?"

Hermione's hand stilled around the edge of her knife, Draco's hand twitching to his wand, and Nott gave all three of them a scathing look of disbelief.

"You can't honestly think any of you could stand against me," Nott said, scoffing. "You're children, Theodore, and you'd do well to remember who you're siding with. I am favored by the Dark Lord, untouchable for being in his protection," he cautioned darkly, "and Harry Potter is bound to fall. He is young, powerless—and by contrast, the Dark Lord has mastered multiple universes. Choose carefully," Nott said, tongue slicing between his lips to moisten them with anticipation. "You know I don't want to see you get hurt."

"Oh, really?" Theo asked, amused. "No offense, but that sounds a lot like a lie."

To that, Nott rose sharply to his feet, taking hold of Theo's collar and yanking him upright. Draco took a hard step forward, clenching a fist, but was promptly dragged back by Hermione, her warning low in his ear.

"Not yet," she said quietly, and Draco stiffened, fidgeting in place as Theo smiled grimly up at his father.

"I'll never take your side," Theo was saying to Nott in a low voice. "Never. I'd rather die first."

"And I'd rather kill you myself than see you take Harry Potter's side," Nott hissed back to him, the two eye to eye with Theo's mouth twisted up in a laughing, mocking grimace. "Where is he, Theodore?" Nott demanded, knuckles white as he reached down, one hand making his way to where his wand was surely concealed in his robes. "Tell me where he is, and maybe it won't have to end this way."

"Funny story," Theo said with a laugh, "but I'd also rather die than give him up. Ironic, isn't it? Be sure to tell your Dark Lord what kind of son you raised," he mused, grunting in stifled discomfort as his father's grip tightened on his neck. "Should be a fun conversation, actually, and I'd hate for you to miss it—"

"Where is he?" Nott demanded, his wand snapping up to place itself against Theo's temple, and Hermione's nails dug into Draco's arm, warning him not to move. "Theodore," Nott spat, gritting his teeth as Theo gave a tiny, choked out chuckle, "you worthless sack of—where is Harry Potter?"

To that, Theo cracked a grim smile, looking his father in the eye.

"You won't find him," he said, the imprint of his teeth left behind as he spoke, his voice so quiet Draco strained to hear.

"Why not?" Nott snapped, and when Theo only laughed in answer—a little chuckle of something manic, more unhinged than it was mirthful—a spark slipped out from Nott's wand, sending a shudder through Theo's spine. "I said WHY NOT—"

He threw his son aside, wand slashing with impossible speed as he went, and Theo flinched, stung, as a line carved itself into his cheek, a slender trail of blood sliding down to his stubborn mouth as he dragged his gaze up from his knees.

"Because," Theo said, looking up in triumph, lips cracking from a smile. "He isn't. Here."

Grindelverse

"Aren't you going to fight me?" Tom said quietly in Harry's ear, and in answer, Harry only laughed.

"Would Dumbledore have fought you?" Harry asked, and Tom scowled. "I doubt he needed to. You underestimated him, just as you'll underestimate me. You'll suffer, Tom, I promise you," Harry swore, shaking his head as his gaze flicked down to the wand in Tom's hand. "You'll regret this," he warned, "and someday, you'll remember that I stood here and let you destroy yourself."

"Big words for someone who's already lost," Tom mused, "don't you think?"

"Yes," Harry said, glancing sideways at him. "I lost. Dumbledore died. Remember those things in that order, Tom, when you replay them in your head."

For a moment, Tom seemed to hesitate, something doubtful burying itself in his brow.

His attention slid to Hermione, who made a point to struggle. No, no, no, she thought, planting her opposition there and waiting for it to take hold. She took all her seeds of desperation and let them grow, permitting the impact of it fester until she felt certain Tom could feel the echoes of all of it; of helplessness, of miscalculation, all of it radiating in panic at the thought he might destroy her, destroy them, destroy everything.

How do you kill a monster?

We let him think we're nothing, she knew, and then we prove him wrong.

"The game is over," Tom said, leaning forward to speak in Harry's ear, "when I say it's over."

Harry went stiff, and then collapsed. There was no green light, no motion of a wand. Tom Riddle had spent too much time here waiting, anticipating, improving his magic and refining his craft in the equivalent of boredom, lounging in his spider's web for the time it took to cast a perfect killing curse. Not a word, not a sound, not an impact. One moment there was air in Harry Potter's lungs and the next it was gone, his heart stopped, and Hermione, despite knowing there was a plan in motion, felt her own breath go with it, escaping out in a silent, muted gasp.

"Well," Tom said, bending to take the Elder Wand from Harry's lifeless hand, "I think it's time to go home, then. Remus, I'll send you instructions," he said, fingering the wand with a smile, "and in the meantime—" He waved a hand at the others. "They can't harm each other or me, fortunately, so do whatever you like. They can stand as trophies on my mantle for all I care."

"And this?" Remus asked, wandering over to Harry and crouching down to look at him. "What should I do with this?"

"I don't care, Remus. Do whatever you'd like." Tom looked up, glancing at Hermione again, who managed, somehow, to stand perfectly still. "Well, this has been fun," Tom said with a shrug, "but even for having mastered the art of patience, I will admit it does get tiresome. Better luck next time," he said blithely, turning to apparate away, but Lily took a step forward, hands rigid at her side.

"Tom," Lily called after him, "you missed something."

Tom lifted his wand, eyeing her. "Did I, Lily? Well, do tell me—was it love?" he mocked doubtfully. "Is that the lesson I'm meant to have learned from Albus Dumbledore, hm? You'll forgive me, I imagine, if I opt not to learn anything further from a dead man."

"No, no, not something so trivial," Lily said, shaking her head, and bent down to Harry, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. "But you did miss something," she murmured, glancing over her shoulder as Tom made to disapparate, flicking the wand.

In the motion—in the single millisecond before the apparition's magic did its work—Hermione saw Harry's scar reveal itself at Lily's touch. Tom's eyes widened, half a heartbeat's pause, before disappearing into the span of the air, removing him from the universe with a notable rip of circumstance.

The moment he was gone, Hermione turned expectantly to the spectral image of a woman who'd been sitting just outside her periphery.

"Narcissa?" she said. "He's coming."

They'd always known who Tom would go to first; He's coming for me had been Narcissa's first words when Draco and the others had taken her from Azkaban, and she'd clearly been right. The hazy image of her from a universe away didn't reply, her gaze landing instead on something at eye level before dropping, falling to what—or more specifically, who—had just collapsed to the floor at her feet.

"Well," Narcissa said, bending to speak to what must have been a failing Tom Riddle, "I'm sorry to tell you, Tom, this is where the game ends."

She stopped, tilting her head. "No, Tom. You don't win," she said, her voice a mocking, soothing tone to what could only have been a dying man. "You were the first person in Albus Dumbledore's game, weren't you? And Harry Potter was the last; Dumbledore made sure of it," she said with a darkened laugh, "so this, now, it's the closing of a loop, Tom. This is inevitability. This is you suffering as you finally deserve," she told him spitefully, "because there is no such thing as escaping one's destiny. You may have outlived him, but you made a mistake. He didn't."

She leaned forward, catching the whisper of something, and appeared to go temporarily rigid before blinking, staring down at the floor and leaving Hermione to glance desperately at a still-unmoving Harry.

"Narcissa?" Hermione asked the stone, hesitant. "Did it work? Is he gone?"

After a moment, Narcissa nodded stiffly.

"He's gone," she said, her voice hollow.

Then, beside Hermione, Harry Potter took a sudden, gasping breath.

Potterverse

"What do you mean he's not here?" Nott demanded from his son, striding heavily over to him with fraying, fractured evidence of disapproval. "What does that fucking mean—"

"You know, it's a long story," Theo said, struggling to rise to his feet, "but essentially, this whole network thing Tom created to keep himself safe from his enemies? Yeah, it uh, backfired massively," he said with a harsh, gritty laugh. "Turns out he was actually in Dumbledore's network, and so was Potter—and seeing how Tom's almost certainly going to kill Potter, if our calculations are correct—"

"What are you saying?" Nott spat, and Draco glanced down at his watch.

"This is getting tiresome to watch," he murmured to Hermione. "Do we think it's been long enough?"

"I mean yeah, probably," she said, shrugging, glancing over her shoulder. "James?

James Potter, in what Draco had quickly come to suspect was typical dramatic fashion, threw off the invisibility cloak which had once belonged to his alternate self to reveal where he stood with a magically-restrained Narcissa Malfoy, prompting Nott to spin towards him, furious.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, blinking unsteadily with confusion, and James smiled grimly, flicking his wand to permit the other Narcissa a strangled gasp.

"Tell him," James suggested, giving Narcissa a nudge forward. "He threatened the other you, you know. I'm sure we can both agree he could really use a day ruiner."

Narcissa gave James a ruthless glare. "He's not in it," she muttered brusquely.

"Sorry?" James said, nudging her as Nott stood still, obviously dumbfounded with bemusement. "Might want to clarify that," he said spiritedly, "seeing as he still thinks he's safe."

"He's not in it," Narcissa repeated darkly, giving Nott a stiffly impatient glance. "He was always meant to be a decoy, but he never actually did anything for Tom."

"That's impossible," Nott said, the blood rapidly draining from his face as Theo laughed, heartily and without restraint. "I've served the Dark Lord well and loyally," Nott said, dismay rising in his voice, "he shared with me his secrets—"

"You served Voldemort, yes. You never did anything for Tom," Narcissa said impatiently. "He never considered you useful enough."

Behind them, Theo had dragged himself upright, resting his hands on his knees with doubled-over bursts of laughter. "Oh, man," he managed, struggling to speak, "you should… you should see your face right now, it's—really, it's hilarious," he said, swiping at his eyes. "One day, when you're dead, you'll look back on this and realize how funny this is—for me, obviously," Theo amended, sighing out facetious lament, "not for you—"

"Theodore," Nott growled. "You wouldn't—"

"Oh, I would, actually," Theo said, shifting so subtly for his wand his father didn't even have time to flinch before his own wand had been torn from his hand, fingers belatedly stretching out after it. "Turns out you're the one who's worthless, aren't you?"

Nott lunged for the wand, moving with his usual surprising quickness, but Hermione was far quicker, her knife skating so close to Nott's throat she might have nicked a few hairs with the motion.

"Don't," she warned him softly, and Nott looked up grimly as Theo raised his wand.

"Anything you'd like to say?" Theo asked his father, head tilting with the invitation, and Nott's mouth tightened.

"You're nothing, Theodore," Nott spat. "You were nothing before and you'll be less than nothing now—"

"Thought so," Theo sighed, and raised his wand to the center of his father's forehead. "Thanks for making this easy, Dad," he said, but before he could cast a spell—before any of them saw it coming, to Draco's immense surprise—James Potter had taken three steps to yank Theo back, taking his place.

"I don't even know these idiots," James muttered to Nott Sr, "and still, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, because you're not cut out to be a father," he said, impassive, "and for that, you will not touch him again. You will not touch anyone," James said firmly, "again."

Nott's eyes widened, something vitriolic and spiteful building on his tongue, but to Draco's immense relief, the rest of them would never get to hear it.

Instead, there was an expulsion of green light from James' wand, and then the elder Theodore Nott dropped, lifeless, to the floor.

27. Inevitable Endings

a/n: Please be considerate to other readers and DO NOT INCLUDE SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS.

Chapter 27: Inevitable Endings

Potterverse

There was a low hum of silence, none of them quite certain what to say until it was Theo who'd cleared his throat, blinking himself out of a trance and looking up from the unmoving body of his father.

"Thanks, I think," he managed, glancing up at James.

"Eh, I thought you were probably still young enough to successfully learn killing is wrong," James said, and then hastily added, "Do as I say, not as I do. Am I clear?"

"Noted," Theo said, turning to Narcissa. "Though I suppose it's worth asking what exactly we're supposed to do now, isn't it?"

"You could let me go, for one," Narcissa sniffed. "I have a son to locate," she added, glaring pointedly at Draco, "in case that escaped your attention."

"I told you, he's fine," Draco reminded her, rolling his eyes. "You could have raised less of a villain, you know."

"Tell your mother she could have raised less of a helpless idiot," she informed him.

"Oh, she already knows," Theo said. He was avoiding looking at his father, Draco knew, but even so, he already looked as though a weight he'd been carrying around for a lifetime had been lifted. "In any case, we should probably get people back to their respective universes. Particularly you," Theo said to James, "seeing as you will probably be a murder suspect somewhat shortly."

"Hm, true. I wonder what Lily's going to say," James mused, glancing down at Nott and permitting a final glance of repulsion before turning towards the floo.

"Knowing her? 'Congratulations,' I expect," Hermione murmured.

She, Draco noted, was hovering at his side, not quite coming or going, and the moment they passed through to the Black house he pulled her aside, hanging back while the others (including Theo, who gave Draco something of a 'good luck' grimace) ventured ahead, looking for the other Narcissa.

"Hey," Draco said quietly, "so, listen—"

"I'm going back," Hermione cut in before he could continue, and Draco stopped, frowning slightly. "I mean, I'm not stupid," she told him, her gaze cutting away for a moment. "I know what you want, and I've always know I'm… a stand-in. And even if I weren't," she added hastily, pausing him when he opened his mouth, "because believe me, I have no particular interest in hearing you're choosing me over, you know, me—even if I weren't that," she exhaled, "I still don't belong here. Paradoxes, you know." She shrugged. "They really are unnatural, if any of this was proof of anything. They're certainly not meant to last."

Her smile turned a little sad, lips softened by a rare form of vulnerability he hadn't known this version of her possessed.

"I figure it's okay to let you fend for yourself now, seeing as your knife throwing has improved so much in such a short time," she joked. "I hate to leave Harry, of course. Though he has Theo," she murmured, "who I think will take care of him just fine."

She reached up, brushing her thumb over his cheek.

"I hope I helped you," she said softly.

"You did," Draco promised her, without a trace of doubt. "Without you I'd be, I don't know." He shrugged. "Nothing, I suspect. I certainly wouldn't have killed a Dark Lord," he pointed out. "Wouldn't have been anything worth remarking."

"That's true," she loftily agreed, and when he made a face, she laughed, letting the sound of it settle gradually to a low sigh of resignation between them. "I will miss you, though," she told him, half-smiling. "I think perhaps I'll wonder from time to time what my life might have been like. You know," she said, shrugging, "in some parallel universe where you and I might have had something relatively simple. Something good, even."

It wasn't a difficult thing to imagine, even with how Draco had come to feel. He suspected he would consider himself forever changed for what this version of her had been to him, even if it had never been exactly right. The two of them would have always had an itch somewhere, he suspected; some concept of a hitch between universes that hadn't perfectly aligned.

Paradoxes, he recalled. They simply weren't meant to converge.

"Well, we should probably go find your mother to make sure everything went well," Hermione said, gesturing ahead, and Draco nodded his agreement. "Oh, but—" She chewed her lip slightly, holding him back. "Can I keep this wand, do you think?" she said, removing it from her pocket and looking down at it. "Do you think Theo will let me?"

Draco gave her half a smile, pulling her into his arms. "I think he will," he said, resting his chin gently atop her head.

In reality, though, he had quite another idea in mind.

Grindelverse

"I cannot believe," the other Draco snapped, "you actually left me here, tied up and watched over like some sort of—"

"Hostage?" Hermione guessed, and then, "I hate to tell you this, but you very much were, Draco."

"Well, I personally had a great time," said the other Harry from where he was languoring on the chair opposite Draco. He was presently tangled up with Theo, who was steadfastly refusing to part from his side. ("I saw you die and it was terrible," Theo had announced upon arrival, "and I'll never forgive you." "It wasn't even me," Harry had protested, which was, of course, followed by Theo's bark of, "STILL.")

"Ron here kept us highly entertained," the other Harry—Henry, Hermione supposed, if she really wanted to make a distinction—added, gesturing to where the two versions of Ron Weasley sat across the room.

"Well, if there's one thing I'm known for, it is my infallible sense of humor," said one Ron, which was the one Hermione had brought with her. I'm not letting you two go without me this time, he'd said to Harry, which Hermione had been pleased to see was the long-overdue bridging of a gap between them. The other Ron, who had newly enjoyed a taste of being in charge, seemed to have gained huge amounts of glee at knowing there was some version of him who'd accomplished very little and still miraculously ended up the envy of his siblings.

"I'm glad to see you both made it back," Ron added, and Hermione glanced at the Harry beside her, who was newly resurrected from the dead.

"Still can't believe it worked. Or that he even fell for it," Harry murmured, shaking his head. She was more pleased than she knew how to express that the familiar bolt of lightning was present once again, stark on his forehead once his hair had been permitted to return to its usual state of jet-black anarchy. "I was so sure he'd sort me out immediately."

"Well, he wanted to go home," Hermione said, shrugging. "I guess I can understand that."

"You don't want to stay, do you?" Theo asked her version of Harry, earning him an eye roll from the Harry he was sitting with. "I mean, we could do some really weird stuff," he said, glancing between them. "Just a thought."

"Oddly, I have my own version of you to get back to," Harry assured him, "though it's worth noting he's disconcertingly similar to you."

Theo's mouth quirked. "Does he do the tongue thing?"

"Er, I—" Harry's cheeks flushed. "I don't know."

"Well," the other Harry said, grinning. "If he can, you are certainly in for a treat, my friend."

"You two," Draco said irritably, "are disgusting."

"In case it escaped your attention, we had to physically prevent you from interfering with our uncharacteristically noble plans," Theo reminded him with a lazy sidelong glance, "so really, I'm not sure you have a leg to stand on here, Malfoy."

"Marvelous," Draco said drily, glancing at Hermione. "And I take it you're leaving too, then?"

"Yes," she said.

Draco's gaze slid over her face, then down to what she knew was the M on her wrist, skating back up to her mouth again.

"Not right away, I hope," he murmured, and Ron gave a loud, hacking cough in opposition as Harry jolted to cognizance, hurriedly rushing forward.

"Well, come on, come on," he said, taking hold of Ron's arm. "We should, um. Find Remus—"

"I think he's with Sirius," Theo said, and the other Harry turned to him with surprise. "Hm? Oh, just a guess. In my experience, there's a super thin line between love and hate." He shrugged. "Or at least between hate and hate-fucking."

"Well, then we should go find Lily," Harry attempted, and grimaced. "Unless she's also…?"

"No, I think she's just eating," Theo said.

"Oh, good," Harry exhaled, before attempting to drag Ron out of the room again. "Come on, let's go—"

"We dated her, really?" the other Ron asked spiritedly, giving Hermione a highly unsubtle once-over. "Seems so unlikely, doesn't it?"

"We really have to work on your self-esteem," Ron said with a shake of his head, wandering out of the room. Theo and Harry left at his heels, the two of them surely off to do something horrifyingly inappropriate, while Draco and Hermione were left alone in the room, eyeing each other pseudo-combatively.

"You fucked me over big time," Draco said.

"Kinda, yeah," Hermione agreed.

Slowly, humor tugged at his lips, his omnipresent smile returning.

"Good for you," he said, and she blinked.

"What?"

"Means you learned something," he said, shrugging, and patted the spot on the bed next to him, gesturing for her to join him. She moved to comply, a little warily, but as she settled herself against the headboard he threw an arm over her shoulders, leaning back. "You know, in the end, I think you're a little too morally constricting for me. I'd have liked to take over the world with you," he added with a sidelong glance she resolutely ignored, "but I suspect you're strangely uninterested."

"Nobody smart wants to rule the world," she said.

"Mm, never said I was smart," he told her. "Just said I was better, didn't I?"

"You're—" More certain, she thought. Certainly more vengeful. More protective. No, not more protective, she corrected herself, though more possessive, certainly. Slightly more difficult to deny, she lamented, wistfully aware how close he was to her, though she managed to shake it off.

"You're different," she determined. "Very different."

"You want the other version of me," he noted.

She'd learned enough from him to find it not worth lying. "Yes."

"Badly?"

She rolled her eyes. "Badly enough."

He passed her another sidelong smile, a little twist to his mouth she half wanted to slap while the other half fought the urge to taste it. "You don't know what you want, Hermione."

"I know what I can trust," she said, elbowing him sharply in the ribs, "and it certainly isn't you."

"You know, for someone who was exceedingly quick to turn on me, you take a lot of liberties with the concept of trust," Draco informed her. "Maybe you're not quite the good girl you think you are."

Considering she'd just successfully lied to a man who might have destroyed multiple universes if she'd been anything short of convincing, she figured he was probably right.

"Maybe not," she agreed, pulling away from him, but he held her back a moment, his fingers sliding down the inside of her arm to brush coolly against the scar on her wrist, contemplating it.

"Still think this doesn't mean anything?" he asked her, drawing his fingertips smoothly over the shape of the letter M.

Does it mean anything, she thought, that I traveled through worlds to find you, only to find my way back to him?

"It's just a scar, Draco," she said.

His mouth quirked again, only this time, rather than the usual degree of interest alighting in her chest at the sight of it, it made her miss the other version of him. It made her long for that little carved-out moon beside his eye, and a tug at her heart at the thought of him swept over her from head to foot, breaking like the rise of a new tide.

"There's things here," Draco reminded her. "Things you could have. Things you could do," he added, and then amended, "Things we could do."

She nodded. "I know."

"And you're giving them up," he said slowly, "for what, exactly?"

She considered it.

For her friends, of course.

For her life.

For the possibility of a future which, for once, belonged to her alone.

For fixing the mess she'd been born into.

For finding her way to the boy she'd spent so long hating, only to miss him when he was gone.

"For fun," she finally said, shrugging, and Draco Malfoy gave a low rumble of a laugh.

"You're different, you know," he said. "You're not who you were when you started."

She wanted to tell him she was prouder of that than anything, but figured he wouldn't understand.

"Yeah," she said instead, satisfied. "I know."

Potterverse

It was strange to see the real Tom Riddle lying on the floor, looking older in death than Draco had thought he would, but also intensely more human. This was no slant-eyed, noseless Voldemort; this was a man, even perhaps a handsome one, and it was difficult to reconcile this version of him with Draco's conception of monsters.

His mother was sitting quietly at a distance from Tom, contemplating him. She, like Draco, seemed as if she'd been struggling to comprehend what she was seeing; the other Narcissa had collapsed beside Tom, staring solemnly at his unmoving face, but Draco's actual mother—the real Narcissa, as far as he was concerned—was sitting silently in the corner at a distance, unmoving. Draco walked over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, and she brushed her fingers lightly over his knuckles.

For a moment they simply steeped in silence, the others lingering at a safe distance.

"He said something to me before he died," she said quietly.

Draco, who hadn't expected her to say anything, wasn't entirely sure at first he hadn't imagined it. "What?" he asked her, startled, but by then the others had crowded around and his mother turned away, suddenly unable to look at the body on the ground.

Theo was fidgeting in Draco's periphery, distracting him for a moment from his mother's odd behavior. "Just come back soon, would you?" Theo muttered to Draco, lingering uncomfortably off to the side. "I'll stay here with Narcissa."

"Are you sure?" Draco asked him, frowning, and Theo nodded.

"I don't need to set foot in the universe he died in," he said simply. "You know, if he—"

If Hermione had been wrong, Draco knew. If by some terrible flaw in their enormous gamble Harry had died, horcrux and all.

"Yeah," Draco cut in quickly. "Yeah, okay," he exhaled, suddenly eager now to have everything done with, and helpfully, his mother held out the Elder Wand and the resurrection stone for him. "Will this even work?" he asked her, taking both objects from her hands. "I mean, nobody technically won the wand from him—"

"I think Harry did, if we're following the rules of ownership," the other Hermione said, materializing at his side with a frown, "but surely the Hallows would work now, wouldn't they?"

"Try it," James suggested, offering him the invisibility cloak, and Draco frowned.

"Why me?" he said, and Theo shrugged.

"If not you, then who?" he asked.

Draco, who had a pretty good idea of who, gathered up the three Hallows in his hands, holding them out for Hermione. "Feel up for learning apparition before you go?" he asked her, and she looked a bit stunned for a moment.

"Is it hard?" she asked.

"Not for you," he assured her, and in response, a bit of pride tugged at her lips.

"Thank you," she said, slowly accepting the items from him, and though part of him still wondered (yet again) whether a collection of arbitrary items that didn't seem to do at all what they were supposed to could actually result in anything particularly interesting, he'd seen enough 'unlikely' by then to try and find out.

"So," Hermione said, glancing up at him, "what exactly do I do?"

"Think about where you're going," he said. "Focus on it, on being where you want to go, and then—" He shrugged. "Wave a wand, cast a spell. You know," he added wryly, "magic."

Her mouth twitched slightly. "Oh, is that all?"

"Well, you have it, don't you?" he asked her knowingly, and after a long glance around the room—saying goodbye, he suspected, to the universe that had proved her right—she nodded, her fingers tightening around the Elder Wand.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I definitely do."

Grindelverse

Hermione and Draco had just joined the others in James Potter's living room when the air around them seemed to warp slightly, four people materializing into vacant space.

Harry leapt to his feet. "Nott?"

"Just us," said their universe's Draco, releasing his hold on the other version of herself, whom Hermione was momentarily startled to discover holding all three of their universe's Deathly Hallows.

"Oh," Harry said, faltering slightly, and to Hermione's surprise, Draco didn't laugh, nor did he spare any mockery for Harry. He didn't seem to miss the opportunity, either, to acknowledge that Harry was alive—something that had always been uncertain. A willing recklessness, for once, made from Hermione's faith her magical theories would ultimately win out.

"He's waiting for you," Draco said, resting a hand on Harry's shoulder, and a little flush of warmth crept over the bones of Harry's cheeks.

"Right, of course," Harry said, clearing his throat. "So, um—"

"How'd you get that?" said the person Hermione was again beginning to think of as not-Draco, gesturing to the Elder Wand in her not-self's hand. "Oh, hi Mother," he added, as the other Narcissa rolled her eyes.

"I need a drink," she said, wandering away, and James chuckled as she went.

"I wish I'd known sooner she was, you know, marginally evil," he remarked idly, falling into one of his chairs. "Would have really increased my enjoyment of those terrible Malfoy dinner parties."

"Why?" demanded Lily, and James promptly rocketed forward in his seat, startled to find her there.

"Uh," he said.

"Is it because you only like women who are capable of committing crimes?" she accused him, and he grimaced.

"Lils, I hardly think—"

"No, no, answer the question," Remus agreed, folding his arms lazily over his chest. "Specifically the 'woman' part, because I think we can all agree the criminal aspect is a very low bar, given the room."

"I wasn't," James began, and scowled. "Listen, I was just—"

"What is it with you and James anyway?" Sirius demanded from Remus. Harry, Hermione was amused to see, was observing these interactions with intense fascination, looking on with a mix of disbelief and jubilance. "You're not honestly telling me this is your taste, are you?"

"That," James protested, "is extremely offensive—"

"So you do want Remus, then?" Lily asked him, rigid with annoyance. "Or is it Narcissa you're going after now?"

"What?" barked James, as Remus turned to Sirius.

"What is it you're suggesting?" Remus asked, and Sirius scoffed.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sirius and Lily said in unison.

"You clearly like her," Lily accused, "which is so like you, James Potter—"

"In what possible way is that 'like me'?" James demanded.

"I'm right here," Sirius told Remus.

"I see that," Remus agreed, half-laughing, and Lily rounded on James.

"You wanted me because I was trouble," she told him, bristling. "And now that I'm not the most trouble in the room, you're off and onto someone else—"

"Have you lost your entire mind?" James barked, launching to his feet.

"I'm very handsome," Sirius told Remus.

"You know, if you have to say it, it really undermines it," Remus replied.

"Shut up," Lily and Sirius said at once.

"Excuse me?" said James and Remus.

"I hate you," Lily informed James.

"Yes, I know," he replied irritably. "WHICH IS RIDICULOUS," he added, "seeing as I've loved you for TWO DECADES, and unfortunately, my feelings, UNLIKE YOU, DON'T APPEAR TO BE VANISHING ANYTIME SOON."

"WHY WOULD I LEAVE NOW?" Lily demanded. "MY SON IS FINALLY SAFE!"

"HE'S MY SON, TOO," retorted James.

Sirius, who'd been glowering at Remus, glanced briefly at James. "He's also my son, in case anyone cares."

"I don't," Remus said.

"GOD DAMN IT," Sirius shouted at him.

"I'd love to make this worse," Theo said slowly, "but I'm genuinely not sure how."

"Hush," advised his Harry, doing them all a favor and kissing him silent.

"Listen," Remus said, turning back to Sirius, "it's very simple. If you want me—"

"Then just tell me!" Lily and Remus said in bristled unison.

"Haven't you been listening?" James and Sirius said at once.

"It would be much easier to hate you, considering how terrible you are," Sirius said to Remus.

"—but I obviously have no choice in the matter!" James growled, his hand darting out for Lily's as he tugged her into his chest, one arm snaking inescapably around her waist. "You're the absolute worst person I've ever met—"

"And for whatever reason, I'm clearly going to want you," Sirius snapped at Remus, "whether I want to or not!"

Hermione watched Harry's face warm with delight as his not-father bent to kiss his not-mother, her expression of total distaste melting rapidly to blissful, long-awaited contentment as Remus' lips curled to a wolfish grin, his gaze alighting on Sirius' with something of a blatant promise.

"Hey," Draco said, startling Hermione with his sudden appearance at her elbow. "Where'd the other us go?"

She blinked, looking around to find they were, indeed, missing. After sparing a moment for panicked concern, she tugged Draco discreetly toward the corridor, seeking out the sound of their unmistakably similar voices.

"—different this time," her own voice was saying in hushed tones of warning. "You don't get to control me, Malfoy, do you understand?"

"Threatening me is hardly going to help," came the other Draco's voice, its owner obviously bristling with opposition. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"

"I need someone on my side, Malfoy," she said. "I want someone I can trust. Someone loyal to me, and only me. And if that isn't you," she said quietly, the sound of a stifled gasp from the other Draco that Hermione suspected could have come equally from a knife to his throat or a wand to his head, "then we're going to have to come to some sort of less pleasing agreement, as I really don't think you're going to like my offer."

For a moment, all Draco and Hermione heard was muffled breathing, the two of them exchanging surprised glances from out of sight.

"Were you always like this?" the other Draco said gruffly.

"Probably," the other Hermione replied. "I just don't need you anymore."

"You still have a lot to learn."

"True. But without Grindelwald, I don't actually need you for that, do I?"

Another pause.

A few exchanges of breaths.

"I think," Draco's voice said, the sound of it now intimately low, "we can probably come to some kind of agreement, Granger."

At that—what was inevitably either an escalation or a détente, neither of which Hermione felt necessary to become privy to—she nudged Draco backwards, leading him away and pausing before they re-entered the living room to toy with something she hadn't quite decided on her tongue.

"So," she said. "Um. Now that Tom Riddle's gone—oh wait, he is gone, right?" she interrupted herself, recalling she'd merely assumed it, and Draco nodded quickly.

"Yes, definitely," he assured her, and then, with his usual smirk, "Do go on."

"Right," she exhaled. "So, anyway. Um, now that we're sort of, you know. Done, I guess, for now—"

"For now," he agreed, nodding.

"—I was just, um. I was thinking that," she attempted, and faltered again, looking up at him. "Well, I just." She cleared her throat. "You and me," she ventured, but ultimately trailed off, catching the look on his face and suspecting nothing she could have said would quite manage to match it.

"Granger," Draco said, his grey gaze falling solemnly on hers as he reached out, his fingers curling around the M on her wrist. "I came a long way to find you."

A universe away, true; but somehow, she was pretty sure that wasn't what he meant.

His hands slid up the lines of her arms, rising patiently to curl around her face; his thumbs brushed contemplatively over the bones of her cheeks and then dropped, carefully, to her lips, tracing over them with the practiced solemnity of having memorized them, accustomed now to their shape. Hermione, meanwhile, leaned into his touch, feeling the pieces of herself—and all the versions of herself she was, had ever been, or ever would be—align for the singular delicacy of the moment, resting in the implausible hinge between inevitability and choice she wouldn't have believed existed if she hadn't seen it for herself.

She drew up on her toes as he leaned his chin down, and there—where fate and change could be suitably met—she touched her lips to his and promised, with her newly undeniable gift of certainty, that they would find themselves here again; that it would be like this, each time; each world; each universe.

"Let me take you home," Draco told her softly, and she felt a rush of it all at once; that they were a paradox, just as she'd always thought.

A contradiction and an impossibility, just as they'd always been.

"We have a world to save," she agreed, letting his fingers wind with hers.

28. Certain Tomorrows

a/n: Please be considerate to other readers and DO NOT INCLUDE SPOILERS IN YOUR REVIEWS.

Chapter 28: Certain Tomorrows

Potterverse

Eventually, they made their way back to Hogwarts to sit for their N.E.W.T.s—Draco and Hermione, that is. The others considered themselves somewhat above the concept of exams, considering that while Ron was already busy working with the Order, Harry was… rather uninterested in exams (as he had always been) and Theo had recently inherited the entire of his mysteriously deceased father's wealth (an unsolvable mystery, ruled the Aurors—almost as if the person who'd committed the crime had simply disappeared from the face of the earth).

There were some in-between bits, of course, including leaving the universe they'd temporarily occupied. Their return to their own reality came courtesy of a not-entirely-sober other Narcissa, who'd gleaned significant bits of Tom's understanding of magic during her service to him.

"Doesn't matter which wand does it," she scoffed into her near-empty glass, which had once contained a dirty martini she'd inexplicably known how to locate in James Potter's house. "The entire point of apparition is it requires destination, doesn't it? That's the only problem. Knowing there is another universe is valuable enough information to get you there," she sniffed at Draco, "and besides, I simply went through the hole you left."

"Should probably close that up," Hermione murmured to Draco, who fervently nodded his agreement.

They'd taken one set of the Hallows with them, though by then they'd nearly lost track of which was which. It had taken Lily grudgingly confessing where she'd hid their universe's version of the Elder Wand (as a thief, she evidently had a number of truly successful hiding spots, none of which she would permit them to see) before distributing their universes items one by one: the wand to Draco, the stone to Hermione, and the cloak to Harry.

It was James who gave back the cloak, resting a hand on Harry's shoulder.

"I don't know your dad," James said carefully, "but I'm sure he was great."

"Unlikely," Lily said, shrugging. "In my experience, he was probably a too-rich arrogant toadstool."

"True," James agreed, "but I can promise he loved you."

"Yes," Lily said, nodding firmly. "That we can definitely promise you."

Harry managed a smile. "Thanks," he told them, before flashing a stern look at his other self. "Be grateful you have them."

"I hardly need you telling me what to do," said the other Harry, "but yeah, fine." He cleared his throat gruffly, glancing with what was obviously unmistakable relief between his reunited parents. "I suppose I'm rather relieved."

They'd left the other universe in good hands, or so they hoped, saying their goodbyes and repairing the shattering between worlds after passing back through to their own.

"What are you all going to do with those?" Ron asked, glancing between the wand Draco was holding and the stone in Hermione's hand. The stone in particular was no longer producing any noticeable results, which was somewhat (read: immensely) frustrating to all of them, particularly Hermione. They'd never worked out what made any of the Hallows work, and there was certainly little to no explanation now that they'd returned.

Perhaps, they'd finally settled to reason, some things simply had no explanation.

"We could… share them?" Draco asked, glancing at Harry. "Minus the cloak, I suppose. That's yours."

"Well, not necessarily," he said.

"Shut up," Draco advised succinctly, and Harry grinned. "It was your dad's, so it's yours."

"Fine, I accept," Harry said, shrugging, "in which case, you can have the wand. Provided we can collectively use its singular proclivity for property damage when necessary."

"And this?" Hermione asked, holding up the stone. "I suppose I could just… hold onto it," she said, not particularly interested in confessing she'd actually attached some degree of sentimentality to it.

After all, it had brought her Draco precisely when she'd needed him.

"Yes, do that," Harry agreed. "Besides, we'll all still be working together anyway, won't we?"

"Only if you ask nicely," came a drawl from behind them, and Harry spun, turning to find Theo leaning casually against the doorframe of the drawing room in the old Black house.

"You're remarkably not dead," Theo commented to Harry. "Unless you're… undead?"

"Are you asking me if I'm a vampire, Nott?" Harry said.

"If anyone's a vampire, it's obviously Draco," Theo said, kicking his foot out aimlessly and taking a step towards them. "You look your usual idiotic self, Potter."

Harry's mouth quirked. "Miss me, did you?"

"Sorry, were you gone?" Theo mused. "Must've missed it."

"Oh, bloody hell," Ron grumbled, glancing at Draco. "Are they always like this?"

"Worse," Draco assured him, but by then Harry had already crossed the room, taking hold of Theo's face with one hand.

"Did you take care of your dad?" Harry asked.

"A bit, yeah," Theo said. "Murder your nemesis?"

"Murder? Never," Harry said. "Though he is vanquished, no thanks to you."

"You're honestly," Theo sighed, "the least tolerable hero I've ever met."

"I know," Harry assured him, and kissed him.

Some things, it seemed, never quite varied world to world.

The period in between returning to their universe, setting everything back in its place (as much as possible, anyway), and sitting for their exams consisted largely of studying. There were reprieves, naturally—moments when Draco would suddenly crave detailed knowledge about a birthmark Hermione had (on her upper thigh, just under her skirt) or Hermione would wonder, academically speaking, whether perhaps Draco might taste better between her lips in the library than he would in her bed (ultimately a wash, though always worth the study)—but mostly it was a time of finding their footing as the rest of the world did the same, slowly recovering from the damage Tom Riddle had caused.

If people were surprised to see Draco and Hermione together, no one remarked on it. Draco had the Elder Wand concealed during his exams ("It's cheating to use an unbeatable wand," Hermione had scolded them when Ron, always the most inclined to locate loopholes, had suggested it) while a seat away, Hermione had fiddled with the stone around her neck, having made that her new nervous habit (an improvement on fidgeting with her hair, which according to Narcissa was a particularly unimpressive tell).

In fact, no one said anything to them at all, really, minus Luna Lovegood, who bumped into them on their way back after their exams.

"Oh, hi Draco," she said airily, "and Hermione, I see you've come back. That's nice."

"What?" Hermione asked, stunned, but by the time they'd registered her remark, she'd skipped down the hall, humming to herself and leaving them to make their way out of the castle.

It had been Hermione's idea to stop by the lake. They'd paused to take one last look out onto the parts of the castle that hadn't been ruined as they prepared to make their departure, headed away from Hogwarts for what would soon (optimistically speaking) be the remainder of their lives.

"You know," Hermione murmured, leaning her head back against Draco's chest, "I wonder if there's a universe out there where we've always loved each other."

"Where we were never enemies, you mean?" he asked, and she nodded.

"Yeah. Maybe there's a version of us who managed to just… put all that aside." She shrugged. "Maybe, somewhere, we've just been together forever."

"Maybe," Draco permitted, brushing his lips against her forehead, "though I wouldn't trade it, I don't think."

"You wouldn't?" she asked, turning to smile up at him.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "If I had to go through hell just to be worthy of you, I'd do it again. In a heartbeat," he promised her. "Everything it took to find you, I'd do it again, Granger, and it'd be worth it every time."

In lieu of telling him she knew precisely what he meant, she arched a brow.

"That," she said, "was very romantic."

"I know, I heard it," he lamented, tightening his arms around her. "Too romantic, do you think?"

"Almost," she grimly agreed. "Should probably ruin it somehow."

"Well, easy," he assured her. "From what I can tell, your last answer on the Transfiguration N.E.W.T. was unnecessarily wordy."

She turned to face him, scoffing. "It wasn't wordy, that's ridiculous—"

"It was," he said, "and furthermore, I have doubts about your History of Magic answers, too."

"Okay, that's just ludicrous," she said, and in answer, he smiled, tugging her closer.

"It's okay," he murmured to her, his lips brushing her ear and then sliding down, slowly, to the line of her neck. "We'll find out in August, won't we? When I get a better score, that is," he mused, hands bunching at her skirt as she fumbled with his zipper, rolling her eyes.

"Shut up," she said, pulling him into her and backing against one of the trees that overlooked the lake, sliding a hand into his trousers. "We both know I've already beaten you, Malfoy—"

He slid an arm around her waist, propping her up and letting his free hand drift up her thigh, toying with the thin cotton of her knickers. "Hardly, Granger."

She gasped, his fingers busying themselves between her legs. "Hurry up," she whispered to him, digging her nails into the back of his neck, "or someone's going to see."

"Frankly, I'm surprised you've gotten so reckless," he told her, positioning her legs around his hips and chuckling into her neck as she whimpered softly in his ear. "And to think, somewhere there's certainly a version of you who would never condone this sort of behavior—"

"And a version of you who knows better than to keep theorizing," she warned, successfully kissing him into silence, tasting the familiar sweetness that had yet to wear away. He smiled against her lips, satisfied, and in the space between racing pulses, both of them locked eyes for a moment; just long enough to make the same promises they always made.

Specifically, that whatever version of them they could have been, this one was solidly their favorite.

Dumbleverse

"Oh, god," Hermione exhaled, letting her head fall back as Draco's groan fell, muffled, into the side of her neck, both of them still breathing hard. "Draco, that was—"

"Impressive? Yes," he rasped with a laugh, lips pressed into her shoulder, "I agree."

Hermione rolled her eyes, trying to disentangle herself from him and stopping as she realized his Head Boy badge had locked itself unhelpfully in place with her Head Girl pin, the two of them momentarily stuck in place as she fumbled to release them. This was not an uncommon occurrence; nor was the lakeside fuck, really, which had been something of a traditional practice since they'd lost their virginities to each other after having snuck out of Professor Binns' class in fifth year. They'd been dating since the fourth year Yule Ball, of course. He'd asked, she'd said yes. There was never any question he'd been attracted to her, and she to him. Some things, they'd always reasoned, were clearly inevitable, if not simply meant to be.

"Help me," she said, nudging him. "We're going to be late."

He leaned as far back as he could to get a look at the pins. "Did you bring the diadem?" he asked, carefully dislodging the corner of his badge from where it had dug into the wool of her cardigan.

"Yes, of course," she said impatiently, exhaling with relief as he finally managed to extricate them. She'd have to repair the inevitable stretch in the material, but that was hardly a sacrifice, all things considered. "So interesting, isn't it? The way it's basically a walkie-talkie between worlds? Though," she amended thoughtfully, still fussing with the wool, "I suppose if it's supposed to provide wisdom, then of course that must include wisdom from all the worlds—"

"What's a walkie-talkie again?" Draco asked.

"Oh, sorry," she said, catching a smudge of her lipstick on his collar and fumbling for her wand, waving it away. "It's a communication device. Sort of like, um… radios?" she asked, and he nodded, grasping the concept. "But, you know. Directly sourced."

"Interesting. I love all your little muggleisms," Draco said, kissing her quickly, then again, lingering a little. "So fascinating."

"Well, it's not ancient house of Malfoy, but it's helpful enough," she agreed, shoving him away to fix his tie and then brushing some loose tree bark from her skirt before kissing his cheek, swiping at the remnants of makeup with her thumb. "Let's go, shall we?"

He nodded, gesturing for her to walk ahead, and they made their way back to the Headmaster's office, delivering the password ("Fizzing Whizbees") to the gargoyle before finding Dumbledore waiting expectantly for them, beckoning them to their usual seats.

"Well?" he said without preamble, and Hermione reached into her bag for the diadem, sliding it across the table to him.

"Everything went precisely as planned, sir," she told him. "We can confirm Tom Riddle is dead, and so is Grindelwald."

"Ah, excellent," Dumbledore said, looking pleased. "Thank you, Miss Granger. You two have been an invaluable resource."

"Well, we do expect to be compensated," Draco reminded him drily, glancing at Hermione. "Now that we've finished with school, Headmaster, we're going to need jobs."

"Oh, you'll have them," Dumbledore assured them, and they exchanged smugly pleased glances, Draco pointedly nudging Hermione's knee with his and pairing it with a subtle wink in satisfaction. "Oh," Dumbledore said, remembering. "Did they manage to sort out the Deathly Hallows?"

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head. "They never sorted out Grindelwald's warning, either."

"Mm, pity. No version of Gellert is ever very good at this," Dumbledore sighed, shaking his head. "Did Tom's Narcissa tell them why she had the diadem?"

"No," Draco said. "And the other one didn't tell them, either."

"Ah, she can always be counted on for secrecy, whatever form she takes," Dumbledore said with a chuckle, pausing a moment in thought before adding, "Well, no matter. The game continues, as it usually does."

"What's next?" Draco said, glancing at Hermione before they both returned their attention to Dumbledore. "Are we going there now, or…?"

He trailed off, expectant, and Dumbledore sat back in his chair, considering it.

"No," he said after a moment, shaking his head. "No, I think we should let them rebuild, first," he mused, giving his beard a contemplative tug. "Give them some time to recover, I think."

"Why?" Hermione asked, frowning. "Won't it be easier to go now, while things are still damaged?"

Dumbledore shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Either way," he said, absently fingering the edges of the diadem sitting on his desk, "let's let them have this one, shall we?"

Draco drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair. "For now, right?"

Dumbledore smiled, glancing between Draco and Hermione before nodding slowly, leaning back to close his eyes. They'd need to learn patience, he thought, though he was fairly confident they would. They would learn his patience, in fact, which had outlasted all the others.

"Yes," he said, beatifically certain. "For now."

For him, there would always be tomorrow.

FIN

a/n: A million thanks for reading; not every story is to everyone's taste, this one being no exception, but I'm glad it found its audience with those of you who've given it (and me) your love.

Should you wish to continue following my work, my other long WIP, The Commoner's Guide to Bedding a Royal, is very much ongoing, and I would expect to see some new one shots in Amortentia very soon. I'll definitely be doing a Dramione WIP for the holidays starting December 1, so... you know where to find me. Also, check out the playlist for this story on spotify—it's definitely a specific mood, but a weirdly satisfying one.

My next book, Lovely Tangled Vices, will be released on October 31, 2018 and is currently available for ebook preorder, should you have any interest. You can find a link to that and my other original work on olivieblake dot com.

As ever, it has been an honor to put down these words for you, and I hope you've enjoyed the story.

xx Olivie