Chapter Text
Harry had a strong intuition and had always been quick to react to it. It was his defining feature, and maybe the only one that mattered in the long run. It kept him alive to fight the next battle (and there was always another battle). Sometimes it caused the next battle (he really needed to learn to stop reacting to Malfoy. It would be in his best interest, but the twit knew exactly how to trample Harry’s every last nerve). His reaction time was what had allowed him his spot as Seeker, but it was also what had caused nearly everybody in second year to turn on him (thanks Parseltongue). It was what had saved his life against Quirrell and what had allowed him to kill the shade of Tom Riddle. His reaction time had been what saved Mr. Weasley, but it had also killed Sirius (his chest burned at the memory—if only he had waited). The common ground was that Harry was quick and (usually) right to follow his intuition.
With all of that in mind, Harry had no clue how to react to this situation.
He stared down at the girl who’d barged into his room. He’d honestly been expecting Dudley, who’d been outright strange in the last couple of weeks since he’d returned to the Dursleys, watching him with a confused furrow to his brows and an odd tilt to his mouth (at first Harry thought his cousin was constipated, but it had been some time and he was still doing it).
So he had maybe been harsher slamming open the door than he should have been (as it would have bounced off his behemoth cousin), and the girl had tumbled to the ground.
“Erm…Hermione?”His question was belated, but he couldn’t help it. He stared at his best friend, whose face was pale and wan, lips pulled tight and eyes fever-bright.
He knew he should be asking her a security question or something—it was highly suspicious that she’d appeared at the Dursleys’ after all—but he was weak to tears (and the threat of them), so he kneeled down instead.
“Hey, Hermione. You okay?” She obviously wasn’t, but Harry wasn’t sure what else to say.
She nodded, shoulders trembling and lips pulled so tight they were hitting nonexistent. Harry reached out his hand. “Come on, Hermione. There we go,” he said soothingly, like he was talking to Buckbeak in a snit. He pulled her into the room and shut the door—no need to have the Dursleys worked up over another freak in their house.
He settled her on his bed and darted toward his trunk—he still had some Honeyduke’s Finest left, he was sure. He pulled it out and stuffed it into her hand.
“A wise man once told me that chocolate helps everything,” he told her, trying to elicit some response.
She gave him a weak smile that was near-hidden by the dark shadows under her eyes. “Professor Lupin knows best,” she agreed quietly, nibbling at the edge. Hermione was—not meant to be subdued. She was meant to be a blazing wildfire, devouring everything in her path and leaving room to grow in her ashes.
What happened?
Also, he was fairly sure this was Hermione at this point, because she and Harry were the only ones who still hadn’t managed to leave ‘Professor’ off Lupin’s name. Good to know she (probably) wasn’t a Polyjuiced stalker or anything like that.
Harry settled next to her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder without hesitating. He did his best not to jerk his shoulder back in response, but he was sure she’d still felt the twitch. She didn’t mention it, though—Hermione was good for that. This was also unusual. Hermione was definitely his most tactile friend (Ron was fairly touchy too, actually, but his were more shoulder-claps or rib-nudges. He’d grown up with about a hundred siblings, after all), but this was still unusual.
Who did he have to kill this time?
“You okay?” He asked again, awkwardly patting her hair with his free hand.
She let out a wet laugh. She still hadn’t actually cried, but she was still on the verge. Harry didn’t know what to do. If he were Mrs. Weasley he’d be offering her tea, but this was the Dursleys’ house. If he used their kitchen for himself, for his guest—well. The consequences would be far from pleasant.
“I am now,” she said, bone-deep weariness gentling her usually crisp tone.
Harry allowed her to stay attached to his shoulder as he considered her reactions. She had been surprised to see him, despite coming to the room she knew he lived in during the summer. She had been slow to react—and Hermione was usually quick on the uptake, so long as she wasn’t living in her head. Which meant she probably was at the moment. Which meant something bad had happened—the last time he’d seen her like this, she’d been fighting a losing battle trying to help him in the face of immolated death via dragon.
“What happened?” He asked after enough time had passed that his shoulder started burning something awful. He wasn’t—used to? Allowed?—touch like this, and it was—it was a lot. He could deal with it for Hermione’s sake, if that was what she needed, but…
She lifted her head, giving him a small, wry smile that didn’t touch her eyes. “Too much and not enough,” she admitted. “This is hardly the place to talk about it, though.”
She stood up gracefully as ever, but to Harry it looked forced. “Are you ready to leave?” She asked, turning to him with tired eyes and a tired smile that was the most honest it had been since she’d arrived.
“Erm. Go where?” He wondered. He didn’t exactly have a standing invitation to her house (actually, he didn’t know much about her parents at all, other than that they had allowed her to stay at Grimmauld Place all summer without much fuss and taken her to France at least once).
Hermione’s smile turned a bit brighter. There was an edge of mischief there that usually only popped up when she was about to blame Harry for dragging her into a mess that she’d thrown herself into headfirst (strangely, she never blamed Ron…).
“To Grimmauld, of course,” she stated evenly, eyes fever-bright in an entirely different way from earlier. Manic instead of downtrodden. Harry was a bit nervous. The last time he’d seen her like this, she’d confessed to kidnapping a reporter and keeping her locked up for months. No. Wait. It had been when she’d voluntold Harry that he would be leading a Defense club. Yet everybody thought Harry was the crazy one…
“What?”
“Grimmauld,” she repeated evenly, like they’d discussed this beforehand. “Harry James Potter. This is a kidnapping, and I’m taking you away from this forsaken place. So. Are you ready?” There was something about her tone—this went deeper than where he was spending his summer.
In the end, there was only one answer. “Give me five minutes to pack,” he said, already starting to throw what few belongings he’d used since coming into his trunk.
She nodded and watched him scurry. He grabbed Hedwig’s cage—who was off hunting at the moment, but she’d find him. She always did—in one hand and his now stuffed trunk in the other. Hermione grinned at him and tugged him toward the door.
Only…
“The Dursleys—we can’t draw attention,” Harry hissed at her.
Hermione nodded, “And that’s why I sent them false tickets to a resort in Portsmouth.” Sometimes Harry forgot just how terrifying she could be. And then she’d pull a stunt like this.
Well. If they wouldn’t catch him…
He followed Hermione to the taxi she had waiting a few doors down “just in case.” How she could afford it…
The ride was eerily silent and mostly filled with the sound of the driver puffing away at his cigar. It was uncomfortable in a way that being together with Hermione so rarely was. Something had happened. Something terrible.
Hermione had never once tried to take him from the Dursleys in the past. That she was doing so now, after she’d all but ignored him summer of last year…Harry needed to know and he dreaded to know.
As the drive continued, Harry was surprised to find Hermione’s head on his shoulder—again. He ignored the small sparks that sent burning pain flooding through his nerves and focused on the head of bushy hair, instead. Hermione was off today, to say the least.
He settled back, looking out the window. There wasn’t much to see, not that he’d expected there to be. The sky was nice and bright—perfect weather for flying, not that Harry had been able to do any since term had ended. He considered Hermione. Her actions, her behavior, her expressions.
Her eyes.
There was something about her eyes. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but…there was a depth to them that he couldn’t remember from before.
They arrived and Harry carefully stepped out, lightly patting Hermione’s shoulder to wake her. She blearily paid the cabbie and followed him as he dragged his trunk to the front of Grimmauld.
“Oh. So this is a bit of a gamble,” she said in sleep-slow, honeyed words. Harry froze, fingers almost touching the door knob.
“What type of gamble?” With Hermione, it could be anything.
“Well. Sirius—he’s gone, right?” Hermione winced at whatever look crossed Harry’s face. He wasn’t sure himself what his expression was doing, but Hermione didn’t seem to appreciate it. “So I—well. I believe that he would pass the house to you, if he was capable. But since it’s a Black matter…”
“The house might not accept me,” Harry agreed, staring at the door. “Merlin, Hermione. If I get eaten by a house, after everything…”
“No!” She snapped, the most vehement she’d been all evening. The most herself. “I won’t—you’re not allowed!”
Harry valiantly refrained from pointing out she was the one who’d brought him here—the shattered glass in her eyes said she already knew. He ignored whatever she was saying and gripped the knob. A sharp spike like lightning ran through him, burning and hissing its way through his fingers and up his arms (less painful than basilisk venom, and less deadly, too).
The door shifted open slowly, catching on the floor a bit like it was begrudging its own acceptance of his claim. Harry stepped in, Hermione close on his heels.
“That was—so stupid,” she snapped at him, bristling in a very Hermione way. “I can’t—I had a plan, Harry James Potter!”
The door snapped shut behind them, encasing them in sudden, absolute darkness.
Harry raised his wand—
“Lumos!” Hermione called, light spreading through the room. Her eyes turned wide as they met the end of Harry’s wand.
“So. Who are you, exactly?” Harry demanded, sharp and angry. He could feel it gather behind his skull, rage and false rage and all of those other messy human emotions spinning back and forth in a feedback loop from hell.
He’d have a migraine after this, no doubt.
The Hermione-doppelgänger swallowed a bit but looked Harry straight in the eyes.
“I am Hermione Granger,” she emphasized, an earnest cast to her wide eyes. She stood unflinching, not even trying to draw her own wand.
“Are you?” Harry asked, the cold that had frozen over his heart bleeding into his words, icicles forming from his lips and shattering with each syllable. “Only, Hermione has never once considered taking me from my relatives. Dumbledore said I needed to stay, you see.”
And Hermione had always listened to Dumbledore. It was strange—this girl had all of Hermione’s habits—she curled her hair around her finger the same way, furrowed her brow the same way, bit at her lip, at the inside of her cheek the same way. She tapped her fingers on her thigh in the same pattern.
But Hermione knew better than to mention Sirius that haphazardly, and she would have never shown up uninvited.
The girl took a deep breath and looked at Harry steadily. She wasn’t afraid of him. Wary, yes, she clearly wasn’t stupid as she kept her eyes on him—but not on his wand, or his feet, or his hands. Rather, she stared into his eyes.
He could only see despair echoed back at him from the depths of hers. Because that was what he’d seen earlier—this girl, whoever she was, was mourning. He would know. He saw that same darkness in his own eyes every time he brushed his teeth (he’d long since given up on his hair).
Not-Hermione’s lips tightened (to prevent him from seeing them quiver?), and her eyes became glassy. But she still made no move to fight back. Her hands were loose, fingers trembling, wand tucked away.
“Have you ever heard of alternate dimensions?” She asked quietly.
Harry fumbled his wand.