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Chapter Text

No one had told her that watching the Third Task would be boring .  

This was the last part of the mythical Triwizard tournament, how could it be this inexplicable, illogical puzzling experience of incommensurate stress and unfathomable boredom ? 

The First Task had been so terrifying to watch. She had thought she was going to pass out. 

It was one thing to picture it in her mind when she had helped Harry master the summoning charm and one diametrically opposite to witness it. 

Nothing could compare to the experience of seeing a boy she loved like a brother, that scrawny little kid who had jumped a troll for her, whose smiles were a rare and precious resource (except on a broom), looking fearless going head to toe against a damn Hungarian Horntail . 

Fifty foot length of pure powered muscles and intelligence, rage made flesh entirely focused on the ridiculously brave teenager riding a … a twig ! She had been crying. 

Wood and tiny human against a fire elemental being. Bummer.

When she had been asked to, well more like, requested to let herself be spelled asleep for the second Task like in a fairy tale, and for Krum nonetheless, she had been nonplussed.  

She had wondered if Harry would know who to pick as Ron had been sitting next to her with a look of mixed fury and worry on his face and woken up, cold and drenched, getting out of the icy waters dragged by ‘her champion’ and so completely confused, having missed twelve hours of her life. 

Ginny had tried to recount her point of view, how tense and yes, boring it had been to witness, once the champions had plunged underneath the surface of the lake. 

The public had stared for what seemed like hours, she said, at the black lake, enduring the not knowing , for almost one hour just waiting and shivering in the cold wind. 

This time, sitting together in the stands, it was at least warm, she joked, slurping at her ice mouse. 

The crowd was watching the Quidditch pitch turned to maze and everybody was talking, eating sweets, still gambling on the potential results and they could at least see brief flashes of spell works, hear some of noises, the grumbles of whatever dark and dangerous creatures had been released in the maze by the tournament organisers. 

Madness. Pure madness.

Hermione felt the stress and the pressure and anxiety skyrocketing in her heart as she kept repeating the list of Defense charms and transfiguration spells that she had helped Harry practice in the last three months, in alphabetic order, as if it would conjure a protego around her best friend, the brother of her inner heart, and shield him from the danger. From afar.  

Ron was not looking much better at her side though he tried to make some joke, their hands firmly joined together though their eyes were fixed on the greenery. 

Red sparks in the sky appeared and some spectators screamed looking at it and pointing as if it changed anything. 

Hermione bit her lips nervously. Harry was alright. He had to be. 

She was so focused on her worry, she didn’t feel the first pull. 

The second one was harder, tugging at her core and her eyes widened and she gasped, one hand gripping toward her chest. 

“Ron,” she tried to speak, getting on her feet and trying to flee but then came the third wave and from one moment to the next, all Hermione Jean Granger knew was. Pain.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Her ears were ringing. 

It was worse than during her mishap with the polyjuice potion in second year. It had been so painful, her skin covered in thick fur that itched, unnatural and made her nerve system go haywire, hands and feets transfigured into paws that didn’t work at all with her brain pattern. 

Her digestive system had been the worst, in an hybrid state that had taken weeks to stabilise, not that she had told the truth to her boys. 

And just when she had gotten better, she had been petrified. People thought it was like being in a coma, but it had been more like being trapped into a state of suspension just before your last breath. Her mind had imploded and fragmented, trapped in the one instant of two huge yellow eyes as she had felt that for days without end. And she had been the lucky one, the last victim. 

In the end, they had all had to be put under an altered obliviation spell by a specialist or they would have probably gone mad once the mandrake draught had been administered. She remembered but it had been pinpointed instead of that stretched eternity it had really felt like. Her mind shied away from that truth, always.  

Horror flooded her system at the familiar sensation. Utter terror at the idea of being trapped again, that her own body could once again become her own prison turned her stomach over. Bile surged in her mouth. 

She tried to scream but she had no voice. Though she was terrified, there was something that smelt like the fluttery wings of snitch and treacle tart in the force that was surrounding her. 

A question was asked. Remembered. Demanding. 

Her terror for herself is nothing in that moment because she can still taste it, the terror for him .  

Help him. Help him. She must help him. No one else does. Help HIM. HEEEELP. Harry. She can. She can do it. 

She just has to let go. She does. It’s like a vortex. A maëlstrom.

Voice. Voices. Screams. Asking. Begging. Bargaining. Granting. Ripping her apart.

The in-between is opening. 

A fifteen year old girl was seizing, mouth frosting amidst a crowd to the horror of her red haired friend and his family. A black dog is barking, fur raising. For a time, an instant that was an eternity, her heart stopped beating. 

The in-between has opened. 

Miles away to the south-west, in Little Hangleton, HJ G. Potter-Black, Battlemage Healer, Augurey Team of the United Magical Realms, dedicated to Heka and oath-sworn to Menfra coalesced into existence near the deceased body of seventeen year old Cedric Diggory, co-winner of the 94 TriWizard tournament in full combat gear under her family heirloom cloak of invisibility.

The in-between has closed.

Chapter Text

“What now ?,” barked Poppy Pomphrey without looking up as she was performing the most complex spell Ronald Weasley had ever seen above the unconscious body of the french champion Fleur Delacour. Her wand arm was performing arabesk upon arabesk though she wasn’t saying any incantation he could hear. 

Professor McGonagall levitated Hermione Granger unconscious body on one of the infirmary beds. She had finally stopped seizing. 

“Weasley,” his Head of house said tersely, “tell us. What happened ?”

Ron's eyes widened and he swallowed nervously. “I…,” he blew through his nose, focus Ronald, he admonished himself, “I… we were watching the task, and Mi was getting stressed. I could feel it because,” he blushed and forged on,” we were holding hands and she kept gripping it harder. And then they were the red sparks and her hands became all hot and sweaty and she let go of me and stood up and… she was… like… all panicky and… she gripped her heart like it hurts,” the boy looked close to bursting into tears. 

One of his older twin brothers, who had followed, intervened and said, “Like someone was ripping it out of her, Professor and she couldn’t speak, she tried and then she started shaking and fell and it kept going and that’s when we called for you.”

Pomphrey said, looking grim but still not looking up and ordered,“Minerva, call for Severus please. And sorry boys, but I have to ask you to please leave the ward,” she added in a tone that was non-negotiable. “I need all my concentration.”

The trio of redheads just nodded and after one last look at the brown skin girl,  left like kicked puppies. 

When the door had closed behind them, she asked. “Is she stable ?” continuing to work on her current patient who had acute nerve damage due to Cruciato exposure. 

For someone with such a strong veela heritage, this could have extreme reactions and she was building an isolation bubble with condense regenerative magical properties around the young woman. 

This was complicated work she almost never had to do except in the refreshing courses she followed during the summer and she could feel the drain on her core. Fuck it. Fuck the Ministry and fuck Albus fucking Dumbledore! Fuck wizards and they glory hounding !  

Minerva didn’t wait to obey and reached for the wards, sending the command as the Deputy Headmistress, knowing it would reach through Severus as Head of House Slytherin. She felt the tingle that told her the command had been taken into account.

Last she had seen him, Severus had been posted near the entrance of the maze in replacement of Poppy when she had retrieved Delacour and Krum. Only Potter and Diggory remained in that madness and its end would never come too soon, she thought, gritting her teeth.

She cast the only diagnostic charm she knew and read the results and said haltingly, “She is breathing but her heart is arrhythmic.” Minerva gulped as she kept reading the results, not comprehending them. “She apparently had three cardiac arrest episodes.” 

What the fuck ? She is fifteen !

Pomphrey straightened her back, still focusing on her current spellwork. She couldn’t stop and she estimated she had at least seven minutes to finish it or it would unravel. 

If the girl had another episode, this could be dramatic. She said “I see. Do you know the monitoring charms ? ” 

“No,” confessed Minerva, trying to not question all her life choices that had brought her here, in that infirmary with one of her favourite students, not that she had ever told her that and with the disgusting taste of helplessness in her mouth, because while she was one of the magical world expert in transfiguration, had been a spy in her earlier adult years and a master duellist, she was no healer and had never been. 

You may change a cup into a dagger but people are who they are , echoed a voice in her head that she missed dearly, a man whose soul had been the shape of a cup, able to care for the all kind of beings when she had been a sword and a fighter and he had probably the better part of her soul. 

Thankfully, the door opened before she could get too maudlin and an ever more bitter soul than hers came through, black robes billowing, looking as stern and displeased as ever.

She sighed in relief.

Chapter Text

Severus was having the worst day of the worst year.

He didn’t know what he had done in his previous lives to deserve such misery in this life, though he knew he had raked the karma in this one too. He would try to make amends before dying. And then… 

Please let me die and be done with it. Please let me rest. Please let me obliviate myself and be like that moron in the Janus Thickey Ward, oblivious and happy eating pureed fruits and looking at poppies. 

He sneered and winced at his own faults. 

Ignoring the increasing noise of the crowd, he frowned as Poppy left with both the Beauxbâtons and Durmstrang towards the infirmary, while the crowds screamed. Everywhere, kids were laughing and singing in joy, because whichever boy arrived with the cup, it would be Hogwarts, the home school, that would be the victor. Unbelievable. 

While Delacour was obviously the most powerful of the lot, the girl had put a fucking dragon to sleep for Merlin sake!, he had put his money on Krum as the most cutthroat and thus, the most potential winner. Obviously, he had lost his bet. 

Following Albus' command, he obeyed as he was tasked to replace Poppy near the entrance in case of another incident . 

His left arm started to lance, like it had kept lancing, more and more, all year. He glanced at it, his stomach twisting and memories, despised, unacceptable, most unpalatable memories, kept knocking against his occlumency walls. 

And then it was burning . Acid bile flooed his mouth as he swallowed it back. He searched Albus, still at the judges table and sitting next to him, Karkaroff. 

The man looked like a dead man and in a way, he already was as the two men looked at each other. The Durmstrang Headmaster looked ready to bolt. 

When the burning finally eased, he peered at the maze uneasily. He clenched his fists, nails biting the inside of his hands when he felt the wards of Hogwarts pinging him, in a red alert to the infirmary. Fuck .

He turned immediately, knowing he wouldn’t be summoned if it wasn’t indeed urgent. Was one or both of the invited champions wounded so much that Poppy was overwhelmed ? 

If that was the case, it would be an international catastrophe. More horrifying than when nine-year old Gabrielle Delacour had been fished out of the lake, suffering from hypothermia due to her immature magical core and veela blood. 

The little girl had developed an aggressive form of pneumonia following her way too prolonged immersion and incorrectly cast warming charms which hadn’t lasted the almost one hour and a half she had spent under the icy waters. 

They had to regrow her a new set of lungs due to the severity of the infection. Negligence. Ignorance. Stupidity. 

For an entertainment that was not even entertaining. He walked faster.  

“You called,” he said when entering the infirmary and was surprised to find Minerva looking… unraveled. 

The last time you saw her like this… Don’t. Think. About. It. 

“Granger had an episode with seizure and cardiac arrest. Poppy is otherwise engaged with Delcour.” said Minerva, looking very, very tired. 

Severus open his mouth, in denial and then closed it without saying a word and turned to the girl who, he knew, had been holding the golden fucking boy for the best of the year because a fucking magical contract he hadn’t chosen magically made it impossible for its teachers to help him. 

Hagrid had been a way to bypass some of the security, thank Merlin, because despite teaching Care, the man was not a teacher. The man didn’t have his OWLs. But that was all. And all the academia couldn’t get involved directly OR indirectly under pain of breaking the contract. 

He knew that the other school had cheated. He didn’t know if they realized the true cost when the magical backlash would happen at the end of the tournament. Karkaroff was a dead man walking in more than one way, not that he cared. 

He recast the diagnosis spell, going more in depth, thinking furiously.

“Minerva,” he said, while peering at the results that were inexplicable but also, worrying. “Something happened, someone else summoned me,” he grimaced, “an old acquaintance, a… very demanding one.” 

Minerva winced and paled at his implication. 

“I fear the girl may be a distraction and it would be prudent that you go back near Albus and inform him while I will do my best with Poppy. Be on your guard please.”

“I…,” Minerva took a breath. “Yes. Thank you, Severus.”

“Status, please, Severus,” said Pomphrey. 

“Her magic seemed to be currently coiling around her core and dispersing itself into her magical pathways, thus provoking micro-seizure and causing arrhythmia and atypical brain activity. This is probably the same cause of the seizures that had been observed previously,” he said in bland voice as he continued to analyse the monitoring readings.  

“They are currently still ongoing, but on a much smaller scale. There is a very light rupture on her left ventricle that is already healing but could leave a scar due to the three arrests,” 

He paused, then added. 

“I think we could heal it with Elupra Elixir if we can stabilize her,” his voice trailed off in bewilderment. “But I have never heard or seen anything like this. We should refer her to St Mungo.” 

He took a breath and finished implementing permanent monitoring charms for her heart, brain, input of oxygen and then added one to count the seizure per minute and the magical rate dispersion and her magical core exhaustion, just in case.  

“She doesn’t seem to be in mortal danger though, and I would prefer to wait before tampering with her current chemical and magical balance or imbalance. ”

Pomphrey sighed as she finally let her arms down, the dome around the french veela young woman a work of art and turned to Severus. 

“You think she was targeted voluntarily ?”

Severus frowned, still perplexed. “Maybe. They are more usual curses than this, whatever it is.” His black eyes flashed expressively. “On this other side, she’s one of Potter’s lackeys.” 

The mediwitch glared at him at his poor choice of wording. 

“Right,” she rubbed her face tiredly, “can you please then add a protective ward based on intent then, just in case ?”

Severus nodded and complied then he went to the potion cabinet and retrieved one pepper up and one core replenisher core 2. 

“Here you go,” and Pomphrey grimaced at him but took them and swallowed them, making a weird face as the CR went down. 

“Jesus,” she swore, “those are really disgusting.”

He laughed. “Thank you. I do try. Revenge for the years you inflicted potions on me, I supposed.”

She sighed as the pressure under her diaphragm was relieved. “That’s better. Will you help me with Krum ?”

Severus looked at her questioningly. “Why ? What is wrong with him ?”

“He was exposed to the imperius,” she said. “I don’t practice mind magic and it is better if someone intervenes in the twenty-four hours post trauma for involuntary exposure.”

The foreboding he had felt earlier went back to power of ten. 

“Who was stationed at the maze with you ?” asked Severus, the feeling of wrongness and  not right intensified. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that a Veela , a Diggory Hufflepuff and a Gryffindor Potter were not going to use the imperius on their adversary in a fucking game. 

The first because she had the allure which was a much effective and natural weapon and the other two because it was ingrained and nurtured behavior. Diggory would not cheat and that Potter had not been raised by his godfather, thank Merlin. 

“Alastor, why ?” answered the mediwitch, looking in bewilderment at the man rushing through the door. “Severus ?”

Chapter Text

HJ knew she had inherited the Potter luck which ran from astonishing to very bad and  counterbalanced the Black inner sense of balance.  

She had had more than three decades to come to terms with it. That was an inherent part of her heritage, the impact of her blood adoption, which had reinforced, twice, not because she was ashamed of her initial roots but because of the importance of preserving Harry’s. 

She had become all that was left of him after all. While they had trampled his sacrifice and let it all go to waste. 

Too late . 

She had always thought Harry seek trouble and he always had looked at her with his too green eyes and laughed roughly that it was Trouble that usually found him. Merlin, but he had been right. 

She had always wondered how it had looked, that day in the graveyard, when the first crack had happened in her brother’s too big heart. 

He had been so brave, and for so fucking long. Endured the Dursleys. Check. Endured the wizarding shit of being the Boy-Who-Fucking-Lived, double check. How hard it was, she hadn’t really realized until she had been in his shoes, after the Battle of Hogwarts. Survived-the-Deathly-Year-Threat. Triple Check. Kill someone at eleven ? Quadruple Check. 

But seeing a boy die ? Hearing him being call a fucking spare ? Getting tortured by a madman while a dozen adults watched and laughed and mocked ? 

That had been what had created the first crack in him. 

She stood, unseen as it unfolded and all these motherfuckers got called and whipped by the snake. Well. It was god fucking awful. She looked at the body. She was too late for Diggory Junior. 

The Hufflepuff boy’s death, like the embodiment of Riddle, was a point in time that was and would not be undone. 

The rest was up to her and the little one, if she lived. If she survived. Aria had to make it. She couldn’t be the only one, please Heka. The principessa was necessary.  

Fuck, she barely remembered what happened in the in-between. That place had been… HJ occluded.

She had barely slept in forty hours before going airborne while performing battle healing on the girl and getting hit in the crossfire that had resulted in that mess. 

She had just. What ? Died. K… Remade herself. 

Her mind shied away from the thought at the remembered pain in her chest. 

Fucking fuck of Potter luck and Black curse. She needed to grab the Potter kid and leave and go somewhere safe and rest and think . 

She had no intention, nor need to preserve the initial timeline. Her vows and bounds would prevent her to do so anyways so they were no point in trying. Even if the United Realms of Magics (URM) hadn’t been implemented (yet) in this time and place, she could feel her vows and bonds pulsing and binding her, her magic pushing her to heal and right the wrongs, fight and protect, free and unite. 

She was oathsworn to the tenets of the Realms she had helped build the foundations in her timeline and even if by a weird quirk of Potter luck, she was now displaced, even if her oaths had been, Heka and Mnerfa forbid, nullified, she would have promptly still followed them. 

Still hidden under the cloak that was covering her from head to toes, moulding her form, she checked her gear, just to be sure everything had traveled through the in-between with her as it should. 

It had. 

Taking out one of her potions pouch, she retrieved one of the red vials and swallowed a reinforced pepper up that she would regret in five hours, the timer immediately starting on her wrist. It would alert her at different intervals as she neared the end of the potion effect when she would crash but for now her fatigue vanished as if it had never existed. 

Her primary wand was gone, but like all battlefield soldier-healers, she wore three other wands tuned to her core. 

As a battlemage healer, she had also been gifted two goblin armbands that she always wore on each arm that she could use as foci if disarmed, and though they, of course, worked better for the healing arts, some could always be used in offensive ways in a pinch. Goblins.

She also had her one modified gun that projected three types of spells for concealment, subjugation and terminations and her pixie darts.  

To sum-up, even if she missed her teammates like she had been amputated, she could still feel the bounds, muted, dormant, and wasn’t that a dangerous thing, as she killed the thought to study for later.

She centered and focused and analysed the situation and her objectives.

She was still one of the most dangerously trained warriors of the next century and she was battle ready.

She kept an eye on the monologuing Dark Lord, realising she had never seen him in action before, except for that brief moment at the Battle of Hogwarts before his ultimate demise. That had been… short.

Having participated in the termination of six others Dark Dork and Dorkette and countless wannabes since 98, she must say she wasn’t impressed as he outed his minions, calling them by name.

Useful. Really. What was the point of them wearing masks, she wondered ?

As she kept watching though, she recognized the show for what it was, a show. Heka, was she slow right now. Even with the potion, she was working on her last fumes. 

For a man just reborn, Riddle was probably… peaky. 

As a Healer, she would put him to bed asap and perform a shit ton of tests because she was pretty sure there was more than just his soul state that was messed up right now. So. He was probably performing damage control.

She needed to deescalate then, not pour oil on fire. 

Per URM law, he was on his own turf, with his own slaves. And could have all the fun he wanted. Every moron he had branded were his as in his properties. Brand slaves were exactly that. Slaves. These brands only took  if taken willingly after all.

He hadn’t done anything directly to Harry yet since stepping out of that cauldron. 

If she retrieved the boy before it happened, she could even have ground to negotiate out of a blood feud, which would be… advantageous. For Harry’s future and potentially for the URM, if it went into existence. 

It would, it had too. 

Her eyes lit with recognition as they rested on the only man who wasn’t currently in the circle of convoked villains, cradling a silver hand. That moron Pettigrew didn’t have to obey him before he re-embodied himself, so the kid's death was on the rat’s soul in her book. 

HJ felt a feral smile as the beginning of a two-folded plan started to emerge in her head. 

She had no intention to let Harry go back to Hogwarts to the tender mercies of Dumbledore. The summer of 94 had been one of the worst of his life in her original timeline and she remembered how angry he had been. 

She was Lady Potter or had been and would be (again) ohhh this time travel shit was so headache inducing. But Harry was hers now, wasn't he ? Yep. 

So nope. She was definitely kidnapping the boy. 

And…  she had disliked the idea of leaving Diggory behind. 

You don’t sacrifice the living for the dead. That was pure pragmatism. 

But if you can, you respect the dead for the living. That was dignity.

For the Portkey to activate, she needed it to be touched by a magical being, someone alive. No one ever said it had been someone willing, or even conscious though.  

Smirking, she penned a much too long note. She loved poetry, she was just bad at writing it. She grimaced at the result, shrugged and cast the charm that would make it easy to pin it on one Rat Animagus for delivery.  

Occlumency was handy this way. Information was just available with it when you knew where to look for it. Even forty-five years later.

She hoped Harry would like the gift of sending Cedric with his murderer to face justice.

Chapter Text

Harry’s head was pounding. He had spent what seemed like hours in the maze and never had to use his wand that often in his life or that repeatedly in such a short time. He had been bitten by a venomous spider, had seen Krum attack Fleur and when they had finally reached the end, when it was finally over. 

Shit. Why did I think the nightmare was over ? It was just beginning. Cedric. Cedric is. He is. Fuck. 

He had hurt his leg when the spider got to him. His head was still pounding from where Voldemort touched him. His arm where Pettigrew cut him was still fucking bleeding. 

And he was so fucking tired. And there were so many of these weirdos now. 

The only positive thing was that Voldemort seemed to be almost as angry with them as he was with him. 

Then he felt something brushing against him, and he looked around in surprise, seeing nothing,  as a voice that sounded familiar spoke in his head. It fucking whispered to him. It was official. He was going crazy.

Please put your two hands firmly on the book that I will put in your lap as soon as they are free and say Sanctuary. The portkey will bring you somewhere safe. I will join as soon as I can. 

Looking down, he saw a worn copy of Hogwarts a History being slid on his lap and couldn’t help but think about Hermione. 

So he was hallucinating too ? and when he almost turned around the voice snapped Do it, now ! and he complied despite himself. 

“ Sanctuary ”, he mumbled and the nauseating sensation of being hooked by his navel surrounded him. 

Harry crashed in a heap next to the book on the canopy. 

He looked around him but he was in the middle of nowhere, in what appeared to be a forest. Exhausted, he let himself fall against one tree, cradling an old book against his chest and not even having the energy to try to climb one to hide just in case, he let himself sag and waited. 

For a voice.

Chapter Text

It was exhilarating. 

He had a body. It was wrong though . Nonetheless. He could breathe again. Use his magic again. At last .

A decade lost. All his power base. Destroyed. Vanished. What had he done ? 

He could feel the heart pumping blood, the pure physicality of his embodiment. It was simultaneously comforting and distracting. 

And wrong . Just wrong.

The way the air was processed. The absence of nose, the form of his nostrils. The sensation of his conjured robes on his skin. Like scales instead of skin. 

Wrong . 

What had Pettigrew done ? How had he messed up so badly ?

And he felt so weak while he needed to look strong or he would lose them. 

Anger, rage , as he despised weakness , in others but in himself even more so. 

He had to show them off. The idea was disgusting but he had to play on their fears. 

He wasn’t strong enough and he didn’t trust them enough so he made a show out of it, hoping to distract them. 

Instead, he failed to notice the intruder . 

“Sanctuary,” he heard behind him and he turned, his eyes widening with understanding as he saw the boy, the symbol of his defeat disappearing. 

Fuck , he thought. 

“What,” he snarled aloud. 

$$Master , hissed Nagini, I smelled an intruder$$

“Who” he spoke with a calm and deadly voice, “is here ?” 

Thinking furiously, he whispered, “Sirius Black ?” because, except for the escaped auror, he didn’t know any wizard with the skill to pull such a thing and with an invested interest in the boy. 

There was a chuckle. 

Then an unknown disguised voice said “Mr Riddle. For information, from the moment you stepped out of that cauldron, you got a clean slate.”

His eyes rose. 

What the fuck ? A clean slate ? 

“Have your minion check the book. I would suggest you think about it before breaking any laws.”

“Who,” he hissed, “are you ?”

He immediately sent a curse in the direction of the voice but there was an Avis to intercept it as birds were crushed in a flurry of wings. It was followed by a slight pop and a deep dark cloud of smoke appeared blackening the area. 

Even if the person had been visible before, the whole graveyard was soon plunged in complete darkness. 

Then he heard in quick successions. 

“Deleo Rattus Norvegicus Animagus”,

There was a scream of pain and sorrow and then sobs as Pettigrew started sobbing  “No, noo, please, no, Master !” from Pettigrew.

Followed by “Stupefy”, “Accio Goblet of Fire” . 

In the blackness and sudden silence, the voice rose again. 

“I would stay, Mr Riddle, but I have another appointment. Mr Pettigrew, unfortunately, doesn’t have such a clean slate. Au revoir ” said the voice. 

He digested the information while the voice added “Sanctuary”.

When the dark smoke dissipated, the dead boy, the trophy cup and Pettigrew were gone. 

And so was the intruder. 

He hissed, his brow furrowed and his mouth pressed in a fine line. He was upset . Though not as much as he thought he would be. 

Whoever this unknown opponent was, he was competent, smart and had an agenda. One that obviously included opening a line of communications.

Interesting.

He smiled, looking particularly vicious and turned to his incompetent circle which shivered at his expression.  

“Ah, where was I,” he said, voice calm again and they gulped. 

His smile widened. It was so easy. 

Nagini coiled and circled next to him.

Chapter Text

The waiting had been simultaneously intolerable and sweet as he dispatched the other champion as swiftly as he could, though he hadn’t expected the Krum boy to use Crucio on the french girl. 

Merlin but did he hated the imperius curse and using it made him want to shower and scrub and scourge himself. After the awful teaching class Dumblefuck had required him to give even. 

He should have put a tighter leash instead of just  instructing the boy to use whatever means necessary which in Durmstrang and under Karkaroff dubious tutelage apparently meant an Unforgivable. 

Foolish child. He gritted his teeth in dismay. 

Still at the last moment, he had thought he would have to use the same curse on the Diggory boy too as he listened to the two Hogwarts kids dithered about not touching the damn cup. Rowena preserved him from Puffs and Gryff. 

Really ? After all his work to ensure the golden puppet was first ? 

He sighed in relief as they finally disappeared though he did bite his lips in dismay. Diggory wasn’t supposed to be there . Well, what was done was done. 

He rushed to join Poppy as she retrieved the other kids to send them to the infirmary.  

He went back outside and waited, trying to keep his excitement under control. This was it. This was it! 

Months of polyjuice and the pain of his bones restructuring and fighting every hour against the unnaturalness of the old retired Auror’s body. A body that had a fucking stump and several dark scars. Fuck but did it hurt and it was exhausting.

Oh. How he longed to be there, to assist this moment of greatness, and better yet, to be the one to participate in the ritual. His lips pinched in disgust, thinking about the rat being offered this honour. 

His mark pulsed, and he knew, he knew it was beginning, still linked to his master by his soul despite the brand being masked by the potion and he wanted to moan in excitement when finally it burned . 

He smirked as he glared at Igor, that fucking traitor. 

HE would kill that bastard who had sold him out, send him to Azkaban and in a way, condemned him to worse, that fucking decade of hell under the Imperio, under his father’s wand. His fault. His. 

But now his Lord and Master was back and he had been the one to make it happen. 

He looked in surprise when he saw Snape leaving his post hurriedly. 

Was the man really going to answer their master’s call ? Under the Headmaster watch ? He still was unclear where Severus was except, most probably on his own side, toying the line of survival between two masters and being nothing more than a glorified messenger boy between the two giants. At least, that was what he had been before the end of the war. 

Now though… There was no point denying the tight leash Albus kept on him had transformed Snape into a very bitter man. The man was a fucking Potion master prodigy and Dark Arts spellcrafter genius and he was wasted on teaching children how to brew doxycide. What a joke. 

Speaking of the man, he reappeared,coming to him hurriedly. So no, he hadn’t answered the call. 

Crouch sent him the usual venomous glare he had amused himself with all year. 

“Snape,” he snarled as the man neared. “What do you want?”

The dark eyes glinted, peering at him, reminding him of the time where he had been foolish enough to fool around with that man and Regulus Black, Evans Rosier and Pandora Ross. 

Crouch pushed it away. No use crying over spilled milk. Time lost and never to be retrieved. Moody had killed Rosier during the arrest. His father had been so gleeful when he had told him, gutting him. It had been hard, at first, not killing Alastor for it, but he had to keep the Auror alive and in as good a bodily condition as he could for the potion. Though after months of taking care of the old bastard, he didn’t really relish the thought of disposing of him. 

Severus just looked at him, making him slightly nervous and he licked his lips. Snape eyes widened in sudden comprehension and Barty hand tightened on his wand but the man didn’t take any stance of combat.

He made a brief nod of acknowledgement and said. 

“Impressive acting skills,” he murmured, “Sadly, due to the timing, your culpability in using the Unforgivable on the Krum boy was deduced in the infirmary.” 

He paused and Barty just looked at him, unamused by the slight criticism, “I would suggest you depart before the judges stop waiting for the champions to return to involve the aurors.” 

Barty couldn’t contain the slight sniff of snigger at the idea any of the boys would return and Snape eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

“You expect me to just follow your orders like that ?” he snapped

“I am not ordering you, it is just good sense. If you don’t want to waste the fact you are alive , you should scamper off before it turns into more of a circus,” the man hissed. 

Just as he said that, there was a slight pressure and they turned toward the entrance, just in time to see the cup rolled in the grass, with two unconscious bodies slumping next to it. 

Severus' eyes narrowed, “That is not Potter with Diggory,” he muttered.

“It’s Pettigrew,” Barty couldn't help but smirked though he was confused. Has his Master wanted to send a message ? This was a bit weird. 

“Leave,” repeated Snape for the second time, “I will report as soon as I can, though I expect this,” he pointed at the dramatic scene,” is going to generate some complications.”

They looked at each other and after one last moment, Barty nodded and hurried away while Snape started to walk toward the cup and was joined by Albus. 

In the background, he could hear the scream of Amos Diggory and he started occluding as he peered down. 

Two bodies. One dead, one alive. Sadly, it wasn’t how he would have preferred it. 

Shit. Shit. Shit.

From the side of his eyes, he saw that Karkaroff was scampering off, the coward. 

Albus turned his blue eyes on him, looking older than usual. 

Pettigrew was out, but someone had pinned a note on him. He looked at it and his eyes widened as he read it. 

“That man was a rat animagus.

That man betrayed so many

The Bones, The McKinnon, The Prewett, The Potter

So many bird of flames that thus joined the cold embrace of earth

In the summer of horror.

That man murdered the many,

And let his brother soul be leached out  

I severed that man's soul. Took his rat out of him. 

That curse is tailored for bad animagus. It hurts, I am told. 

I did it for all of them. The mundane. The forgotten. 

Never thought a mundane murderer deserved a trial did you ?

Fucking wixen.

Thirteen souls joined the greenlands on the day of celebration:

Amber Adams, 15

Emily Appleby, 74

Calvin Hills, 23

Carol Hughes, 7

Jenifer Hughes, 29

Roland Hughes, 5

Stevens Hughes, 5 

Chakad Jagirani, 23

Ziyaad Jagirani, 58

Paul Marlowe, 12

Kathreen Marlowe, 44

Gale Pearson, 43 

Jaime Spencer, 28

Is it so surprising that Laurence Hughes, 39 committing suicide two years later?

And at last but not least, 

The co-winner of the 94 triwizard tournament

Murdered by the coward today 

During the abduction, line theft and subsequent torture of his co-winner

May his name be remembered a thousand years

Fair if not true at the last, Cedric Diggory, 17.”

What the fuck.

Chapter Text

She could barely breathe without her bubble charm, but she had come. 

To encourage him, she had told Amos. To see him, thought Cedric, a little bit worried at the cost for her health. 

To say goodbye, whispered her treacherous soul. 

She knew. 

She knew too that the heat, the noises of the crowd, the stress of moving out of her home, of waiting , would tax her feeble resources and that she would have to pay the bill. And still she came. 

She knew.

She watched as her son walked into the green jaws of the maze entrance. Mist rose. Ominous sounds. Beside her, she could hear the sounds of the Potter family whimpering. She glanced at them. Children, Weasleys, a dog. Is that what an orphan surrounds himself with, she wondered ? 

For Cedric, there is Amos and her. The girl from the ball too who isn’t with them but with her friends. The lie. 

She knew though how coming today was as essential as it was a mistake. 

Her healer had told her so but she had been so frightened, so desperate, since family was allowed. Only for the Third Task, they said. As if the mortal danger wasn't there in the first two.

What if it was the last time on this side ? What if something happened ?

People die in that fucking tournament, Amos !

Her baby. Her beautiful, perfect boy. So desperate, always, to please his father. To fit the picture of a perfect son. 

Dutiful. Beautiful. Hardworking. Sporty. Straight. Ministry material. 

You can’t Cedric. I have tried. It’s like trying to fill a leaky cauldron. You can pour all of your soul and magic, all it will do is empty yourself out. 

Her child, her child, so much more like herself despite his father's looks, so gentle and caring underneath, and so, so like her, so unsure, so filled to the brim of self-doubts, so indecisive , behind the mask of smile and bravado. 

After the Yule Ball, he told her how ashamed he was, about how he had been towards the Potter boy. Letting the bullying go on while the child helped him out. Told him about the first task beforehand. Admitted that, despite Amos ranting, the boy never seemed willing . He seemed terrified , mom. Fourteen mom. He had said, looking so sad. He is just a kid. 

Just a kid. Like you ?

Cedric hadn’t wanted to do it but he would do anything to please his father. Anything. Like putting his name into a goblet for glory and money and a father that will never be satisfied. Ever. And the cup had chosen him. Out of maybe fifty or more eligible students in Hogwarts. 

She was proud of him. She was. She just wished he wasn’t playing his life because his father wanted him to.

Disease had forged her. Amos polished her. Cedric had not yet lived. He had not yet learned.

Adeline Windell Diggory sometimes wondered if her husband had married her because of her illness. Her ingrained visible obvious weakness. Such an awful thought. And after a moment. Such a frequent one to have . 

Amos peering at the pictures in the press of the ball and making crass jokes, though the Chang girl was from a respectable line, overseas. She winced as she noticed the clouds in her son’s eyes and waited until the right time to draw the confession out. 

She knew if she hadn’t been too ill to attend Hogwarts, what her house would have been. Or was it the constant fight against the pain and omnipresent pity of the society that had made her so cunning and ambitious ? If only she wasn’t so tired all the fucking time.

Mom, I loved him, but I shouldn’t. Dad would never allow it. 

Her heart was ripping at the memory of that much pain in his voice. Oh Cedric. 

That was it, maybe. Who are you, Blessed Soul, that is filling my son with life ? At last.

Children should be allowed to love and dream.

He had never told her his name. 

As her husband was hurling himself through the stands to reach the empty shell of their son, her eyes found their target as he was looking at her, devastated. 

Such a gangly boy, with chestnut hair and freckles and beautiful blue eyes but so dull and dead. Like hers, probably. Like all the joy of life and spirit and magic had been sucked out of them. 

She had known, hadn’t she ? That it was coming. A mother’s instinct maybe ? 

She wondered if Lily Potter had known. How had she done it ? How had she thwarted fate ? 

All she had done was knowing and waiting. Tears of rage and impotence pooled at her eyes as she bit her lips and drew blood and tasted iron in her mouth. 

She recognized that boy. Or, more like, she knew now why Cedric never told her, never brought him home, even under the guise of friendship as she had secretly hoped he would. 

Maybe, with her help, Amos would have accepted a boy. Maybe. 

But never that one no, never that one. If ever there should be a blood feud one day with the Diggory, it would probably be between the Diggory House and the Scalamander, she mused distantly. 

Not as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest.  

Creatures lovers and Creatures killers. Like in the famous muggle Shakespearean tragedy. Rolf and Cedric. 

But the boy died too soon.

She wondered if maybe, she would be able to share a tea one day with Mr Scalamander or if that would be too painful. She would like that, though. So very much. 

The play can’t reach its peak and drama, can it ?

Learned who Cedric had been instead of who he had been trying to be, so desperately letting his father pour him into a mould. Into the Diggory ideal. 

Amos was screaming. Red cloaks were holding him back. 

Cedric was gone. 

She would join him soon, she thought, as her body sank and slid down to the ground, in blissful darkness.

Chapter Text

When it started burning, he would have run, if only he wasn’t chained to the chair. But he was stuck between Dumbledore and Maxime, even when his own Champion had been taken out of the maze. 

He had tried excusing himself, on the flimsy excuse of checking on the boy but it wasn’t working. Until the winner came out, he was stuck. 

Igor Karkaroff was a coward. He knew it and had always known it. He craved power and always chose the easiest past to it. He was attracted to it, to those who wielded it and he had a taste for the dark arts. 

Igor Karkaroff was good at what it did. Recognizing power, nurturing it, and bleeding them dry or grooming them in function of his needs. 

On the winning side, Igor was an addict to power. On the losing side, he was a coward, ready to sell any-and-everything to save his own hide. 

Viktor Krum had been his latest boy in a long decade since he had escaped to Bulgaria and carved his path to the position of Durmstrang Headmaster. 

That decade was over. Time to revert to the other side of his coin and make a run. The cup rolled on the grass and he didn’t really wait as he noticed the inert bodies. He wasn’t interested. He scampered. 

Hurriedly, he went to his quarters on the boat and retrieved the bag which was already packed and hidden away, not in his own quarters . Because he wasn’t stupid. He knew it was coming.  

He left the boat. Not through the main entrance under a glamour. Walking fast but not too fast, following the path that would bring him out of the wards perimeter and where he would be able to apparate. 

Just as he was going to step through towards his freedom, a steel hand grasped his wand arm and the wand pointed directly against his carotid. 

He glanced in panic as Alastor Madeye grinned at him malevolently. 

“In a hurry, aren’t you, Igor?,” smirked the man, pushing him forward. 

“I… I…what ?,” he tried to find the words, anything to convince that maniac to let him go but as soon as they stepped through the man’s hold hardened and he said, “Don’t worry about Mad-Eye, Igor. Worry about what our Master will say for today, for it’s a day of Rebirth ,” grinned the man and Karkaroff eyes widened in horror as he felt the hooking sensation of a portkey activating. 

They arrived in the middle of a… graveyard. And so many wands pointed toward them that he almost peed himself. 

Alastor Moody just smiled his horrible smile and to his horror, the Dark Lord was there , restored and smiling back . Not at him but at Moody. And the smile was… indulgent. 

Almost… Almost like Karkaroff himself had with one of his own boys. 

This is a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

“Stand down,” hissed the Dark Lord and the wands wavered, some more hesitantly than others but the Death Eaters obeyed.

“My most faithful,” Voldemort said, to the obvious surprise of the inner circle, “you came back to me earlier than I thought.”

“My Lord,” said Moody, bowing low, looking overjoyed, “I was alerted that my cover was blown by your master of potions just before the impromptu return of Pettigrew and the Diggory boy,” he said. 

Voldemort's eyebrow rose but he didn’t comment. 

“It seemed wiser to leave right then as the judges were no longer chained and I brought you a gift,” he smirked, pushing Igor with his wooden peg. 

“One whose betrayal cut a swath through our ranks in your abstentia .”

The Dark Lord's smile was pure evil as he looked at Karkaroff. The man’s face was ashen. 

“I had to leave… stuff in the castle though,” confessed Moody, looking dejected and the Lord answered “I would rather have you here than dead or captured. You did well and so did he. Interesting.”

Mad-Eye started to shake and his prosthetic eye popped out and he caught it in his hand. Then as he bent over, the wooden leg plopped out and he propped himself on one tombstone, giggling a bit hysterically. 

Igor looked in horror as the stump leg grew itself and the man used his own wand, switching lazily to conjure a new boot and then the right death eater apparel. 

The youthful face of Barthemius Crouch Junior looked at him, still beautiful and stern, but with more than a hint of wildness. 

“Better,” he said, “feels so much better out of that skin,” he smirked at Karkaroff and then looked adoringly at the Dark Lord, ignoring the whispers of “Crouch!”, “impossible!” and “How ?” around him. 

“Silence!” ordered Voldermort, glaring at the others and they shushed themselves. 

“Look,” he ordered. “Look at him! Here is one who was faithful. One who endured captivity and as soon as he freed himself, found me and did his duty, his service.”

Crouch seemed half-embarrassed, half-overjoyed by the Dark Lord recognition. 

“I grant you a boon, my faithful. Ask and I shall deliver.”

Crouch's eyes widened and his eyes fell on Igor and he smiled. 

“Igor,” he said and some of the others, “I spent one year in Azkaban and twelve under my father’s imperius as a puppet ,” he snarled, “Because of your cowardice. And you sold Rosier and Moody killed him instead of putting him in a cell.” His eyes flashed with contempt. 

“You owe me my House, my future and the time lost to restore our Lord.” He nodded and turned to Voldemort. 

“Thirteen days, my Lord. Thirteen days with Karkaroff. I won’t maim him,” he sneered, “permanently though it would please me to be granted his death after the others have their turn as my boon for this year of service.”

Voldemort looked amused at his restraint though Karkaroff was not. He was terrified.

Crouch had been taught by one of the Lestrange, one of their little proteges with Rosier and Bellatrix herself. 

“Please, please,” he begged, not really knowing what or who and finding no pity, as he had sold cousins, friends, partners and allies of the men around him. 

The ones standing here around him were the wealthiest, the more cunning or politically inclined who had survived the purge of 81 but it had all cost them dearly.   

“Granted,” was the answer and Igor couldn’t help but wish it had been Alastor Moody that had grabbed him one hour earlier.

Chapter Text

Swamped under the never ending pile of paperwork, Melia kept her pace. She had blocked this slot and had found her rhythm. 

The first two hours of the afternoon had been spent splitting the parchment mess into neat piles. Done. 

She had already finished the Urgent / Red fire, not that there were that many she had lost in her mess. No comment.   

Her current lack of qualified secretary was annoying. She needed someone competent, level-headed in a crisis and more importantly, with the right secrecy oaths level in the ministry. 

To reach those, you had to go through a whole bunch of tests made by the Unspeakables. Not many candidates accepted to even go through these, even for the prestigious position of working under a Head of service. 

Especially as her last secretary had sum-up, the hours were bunkers, the pay was as shitty as the cafeteria salad was tasteless and hell would freeze over considering the opportunity for advancement. (None).

As Head of the DMLE, she lorded over one of the most massive departments of the Ministry of Magic with its sensibility concerning the Statute and ironically, the one the most continuously targeting since the war to budget cuts and corruption. 

Exhausting. 147 employees. 

Nope, she scanned the three demission letters and validated them. Slackers. 144 employees dispatched into eight departments. 

She needed a vacation. She hadn’t had one since… right before Su had started Hogwarts, was it. Damn.  

A small paper bird flew into her study through the closed door. She glared at it. She was sure she had put the anti-spam ward on. It went and started getting red, right in front of her. 

She frowned at it. That was not usual internal ministry message behaviour. Using her wand, she checked it with detection spells but it came off clean.

She opened it. Read it. Twice. Swore and grab her cloak, sending a red alert to Rufus Scrimgeour's office. They were going to Hogwarts right now.  

She showed him the note as they went through the Floo, specifying the Great Hall. This was the closest to reach the pitch as soon as possible. 

As they neared it, the noise was almost deafening and it was indeed a mess. People were starting to panic and riot, rising up and ready to run. This could soon turn into a massive stampede, with kids getting ran over. 

“Lawrence,” barked Scrimgeour, “take control of the left side. Proudfoot, the right.”

“Yes, sir,” said the two Aurors.

Amelia nodded to him and with three of the red cloaked, approached towards the current scene of the crime while Scrimgeour cast a Sonorus Maxima. 

“Attention, Hogwarts Students, Hogwarts Guests. I am Head Auror Scrimgeour of the DMLE of the Magic British Ministry. Please sit down.” 

There was a moment of pause while the crowd waived and then, like a sigh, slowly, people sat back down. Melia sighed in relief. 

That was the Scrimgeour effect. 

The man had the charisma of a pitbull if a pitbull was a Lion the size of a Horntail. Very useful for crowd control. “Thank you. We will proceed for a safe evacuation of the seat in an orderly fashion. If anyone is currently injured, or in distress around you, please produce red sparks.” 

There was immediately a flurry of red sparks in three different spots and the staff of Hogwarts took charge of the people in question and brought them to the infirmary. 

Scrimgeour made a judgement call and required for St Mungo to send reinforcement in case the mediwitch was swamped by performing an emergency spell. 

“Right, first, Prefect of each house please, can you stand up and wait for the first to two years to join you and make a headcount.”

Tuning out Scrimgeour's savvy voice was an artform that she had perfected.

Charismatic he was, but loathed him. The man was a pureblood boar. Over ambitious and intransigent. She just needed to point him in the right direction or he tended to point his horns at her.   

Anyway, all her attention was on one man currently screaming, whose cries were turning from pain to rage and who then reached for his wand. 

Shackelbolt didn’t hesitate as he disarmed Amos Diggory while his partner Dawlish put a light bubble shield around him. She noted and approved of the soft approach as the man, she noticed, had a clear reason for his loss of reason.  

Her lips finned in displeasure as she saw Albus was going to touch the second body. A man thought dead, if it wasn’t polyjuice or transfiguration. 

“Dumbledore,” she snapped, “you are contaminating a crime scene.”

Annoyingly intensive blue eyes turned to her and the hand retreated. Dumbledore and his pet Death Eater both rose from their crouched position and nodded at her. 

“Amelia,” said Dumbledore, “I wasn’t expecting you here.” 

He looked around as he took stock of her Aurors at work then he turned back his attention to her. “Hogwarts is neutral ground. The Aurory has no jurisdiction here,” he chided her, as if she was still a student. As if he hadn’t ignored and almost let the school, his responsibility , turn into a gigantic panic crowd. Imbecile. 

She raised her eyebrows, obviously unimpressed. 

“The tournament in an international event that Hogwarts is hosting on behalf of the British Ministry of Magic,” she reminded him, “and thus, we do, in fact, have legal standing until the last of your guest is safely home on their own school ground, following the accord of 1292, when the first Tournament was implemented.”

He smiled, lightly stilted, as if his lemon drop had turned too sour, “Indeed.”

She pointed at the Pettigrew look alike, reading the note and her nostrils flared at the implication. She cast the spells and ascertained the man was alive and secured and checked the wand the man wore, which indeed had as in the last five spells cast, the killing curse. 

“Please, explain in your own words and from your point of view, what happened ?” she said calmly. 

Albus had the fucking condescension of smiling to her, as if he wasn’t half responsible. She thought of the pinned message and the anonymous note. Similar writing . If that man was Pettigrew, if any of that shite was true, she would tore that man apart. With legal means, of course. 

Stay on the job, Amelia. Be careful. Maybe someone is playing you. 

Albus recounted the events in his annoying way, from the beginning of the task to the return of the cup with the surprising fact that one champion was missing, one was dead and another man was neatly presented as its murderer. Neat. Too much. 

The potions professor was similar except he had been called into the infirmary to help. Because one student had apparently the magical equivalent of a brain aneurysm in the middle of the task. Circe have mercy. 

Albus twitched at that. He hadn’t known. Headmaster my ass. 

Why hadn’t they expected this ? Why weren’t there St Mungos personnel already here in backup of the Hogwarts mediwitch ? Who organised this shite ?

Then it became interesting as it appeared that both non-hogwarts champions had been subjugated by unforgivables . She raised her eyebrows. 

“I have no… ,” Snape looked like he had sucked a lemon, “appreciation for the Potter brat,” an understatement if Amelia understood the rumours she half followed from Su and her bestie Hannah who squatted every holiday, “but I do doubt he has the ability to cast such spells. And I doubt Diggory had the temperament .”

“Right. So, next. Who was posted in the maze for security and transport,” she demanded and Dumbledore answered immediately, “Alastor but,” and turned to search for the man who was nowhere in sight. 

“During the tournament, I felt something I hadn’t in years ,” confessed Snape, “looking sharply at Dumbledore, who did look tired as he showed his left arm where the mark was a vivid dark, instead of the dull red colour she had last seen it on her round in Azkaban on marked prisoners. 

Oh Circe. And the boy-who-lived has disappeared. 

She saw someone approaching and felt her headache come back with a vengeance. 

“Trouble is coming,” she warned tersely. “So. Dumbledore. Let us recap. We have a man we thought dead. A posthumously decorated war hero, but,” she knelt down and checked him. 

He had a strange silver right arm and on the left, the same dark ugly tattoo, “also probably not. Which means my staff may have or not spend more than two years hunting an innocent man.” Her eyes glinted. “That’s a political mess I will have to deal with.” She took a breath. “We may or may not have war coming our way.” 

Albus opened his mouth to speak but she raised her hand. Her boys were doing their jobs. Stalling Fudge. 

“Don’t misunderstand me. We will need to talk. Just not now. Not here. Not with Fudge.” Her eyes were pure steel as she stood up.

“I know you, Dumbledore. You like to steer the cauldron. To spread fear and speak in riddles. Don’t. For the moment. We have no information, no clear insight,” she glanced at Snape and made a slight grimace which was answered by one. 

“All it would do is make it worse.” She clapped her hands. “So. Pettigrew is a madman. He abducted Potter and Diggory, the last who died in the defence of the boy-who-lived. We won’t know where the boy is hidden and we will look for him, if he is alive. That’s the story. Stick to it. Keep your merry band of heroes wannabes on a tight leash and avoid breaking the laws and pouring any oil on fire, right ?”

Dumbledore stared at her.

Remus Lupin was holding off a huge black dog which was half growling, half keening. A huge black dog with silver eyes. They were both staring at the unconscious body of Pettigrew as if they wanted to tear it apart. 

A bulb lit in her head as she remembered two dumbass Auror trainees when she was still a Hitwizard. 

“I will look into the Black case and handle it,” she added, glancing at the dog. 

She returned her attention to Dumbledore. “Now. We need to search the castle for Alastor. Either he is under the imperius himself or you have an impostor loose on the ground if he hadn’t made a run for it yet. In the second case, maybe the man is still alive. A potential accomplice for Pettigrew.”

The dog barked and then left running toward the school, followed at the quieter space by his ‘owner’. Dumbledore smiled at her.

She stopped herself from rolling her eyes and asked him “Am I understood ?”

“Crystal clear, my dear.”

“Dumbledore,” puffed Fudge, “What is going on ?!” 

Chapter Text

Remus had tried, half-heartedly, to dissuade him to come but this time he had been intransigent. His pup needed his support. 

So he had paid for the inn the day before to wash in the intimity of a room and not in the cold water river that run near the cave he had been hiding for months and Remus had ordered serving for two and they had helped themselves to a warm dinner and the next day, the werewolf had gone to Hogwarts, with his dog. 

Why not ? People were allowed their eccentricities afterall. And Harry been so fucking happy to see him, despite his angst and fatigue. 

Sirius would have rather stayed close to the maze but he knew that it would have been pushing it so he kept close to Remus, the Weasleys and the other kids. 

So he felt it, and Remus too, when the girl died. The one he owed.

He had spent more than a decade with dementors. He knew how it felt, to have your soul sucked out of your body. Heck, without Harry, he would have been Kissed for good near the Black Lake.

His fur rose and he growled at the unknown magic but it was bewildering . It felt so familiar . It was sorrowful and desperate and confusing. 

The girl died. He felt it. He knew it. And then, a pause. And the girl lived. 

Padfoot knew something was wrong as the boys left with the seizing girl in a hurry. 

He kept smelling the air as the magic dispersed in the hot wind. Silvery eyes fixed on the maze, waiting for his pup. 

Something else was wrong but it would also be okay. He didn’t know how but he knew. Harry was gonna be alright. 

The cup rolled and with it a scent that made him growled in fury. Remus growled back in answer, eyes flashing yellow. 

They couldn’t move, blocked by the aurors. They had to be smart. It was dangerous. They waited. 

They got close. Someone had caught the rat. The rat was alive. The rat was caught. The rat didn’t smell like a rat anymore. 

Someone had retrieved his pup. Someone, somewhere, deserved a bottle of his best firewhisky.

They listened. 

Bones knew . Wily one. Always smart. Remus grip on his fur was steel though, forcing him to stand down. 

He needed something, something to do. His pup was not here, though he knew, he knew he was alright. Could feel him. The boy was tired. Hurt. But safe. 

Padfoot barked. Bones had given him a hunt ! 

He moved so suddenly and unexpectedly that Moony lost his grip on him. 

The Grim started running. Following the scent. Following the magic. Tongue lolling out.

Hearing Moony cursing behind him, Padfoot felt a burst of simple joy. 

Mischief managed.

Chapter Text

Two dead men got the drop on him. 

Everybody kept saying he was a paranoid son of a bitch and here he was getting stuffed into his own truck by little mousy supposedly dead Pettigrew . Albus, you dumbass, couldn’t you debrief me about that ?

Everybody knew the DADA post was cursed and he was too old, his soul too stained and his body too fragmented to sustain anymore trauma. 

He had been benched by the Aurory. Time for retirement, they had said. Well, Scrimgeour had roared it. He had ignored the man. It had gone one level up until Bones had stared at him. He had trained her. He had trained her brother. Her sister in law. Her fiance. 

She had kept staring, the paperwork laid before them. 

The hours. The incidents . The complaints. Numbers. The hushing money. Retirement or sabbatical if he wanted to call it that. But he was out. 

He should have died on the field. This was graceless . What about his dignity ?

And then Albus had the gall to come knocking and ask for a favour. He should have said no. He had. Twice. And yes the third time. He should have known better. 

He thought it would be over soon but time stretches though he is drugged to the gills and the face thief is strangely caring .

Surely, Albus knows. Albus has known him since forever. But the face thief is smart. 

He has breached him. Him . Veritaserum. Legilimency . Isolation. But the worst is the kindness. No one is kind to him. Ever.

His tongue is loose as the man robs him of everything . His memories. His mannerisms. His pain. 

The face thief knows him better than he knows himself. He knows about the way the stump keeps fighting the pull of the peg, or the complexity of mastering his all seeing eye prosthesis. 

The headaches it provokes and how he endures them because he is a mean fucking paranoid son of bitch. 

A cheat and a liar, who hates dark arts but uses them, fighting fire with fire. He knows about the depth of his loss. About the taste of blood. About the delicate balance he always wavered on as he fought his own demons, his own madness. The endless list of names. The losses. The dead. The ones he killed. The ones he didn’t save. 

The face thief takes better care of him than he does himself, though the captivity takes a toll as weeks become months. He doesn’t become crazy. At least, not more than he already was. 

He doesn’t hate the thief. The man feeds him, bathes him, and talks to him. 

Nobody had talked to him anymore in a very long time. Except Albus, and Albus doesn’t talk, not really. He only asks and demands.

Slowly, as much as the thief knows Alastor, Alastor knows the boy. Alastor never hated a man he thought as he hated Barthemius Crouch.

Senior. 

This boy. This face thief. He could have been anything. So much potential. So much heart. 

He remembered the file. Ravenclaw. Like the mother. The number of OWLs. A record breaker for a mouse-quiet boy. All the ones you could pass in the UK, some in self-study. Top marks, with the breaking scores in runes and arithmancy.

Mother ill since the early years in Hogwarts. Father focused on his career at the Ministry. Dismissive. Controlling. No hint of Death Eater activity at all. Sold by Karkaroff on his trial. 

18. Immediately sentenced to Azkaban for life. The files were meager, but the boy probably had done research, spying and lookout during the Longbottom attack. And got life because his father wanted to make an example. Because his dream of becoming Minister of Magic was over.

A dry list of achievement that doesn’t speak about the deep relationship with his maternal cousin Pandora Ross, who married Xenophilius Lovegood and how she would transfigure his hair into snakes and feathers, his friendly rivalry with Regulus Black developed on Arithmancy enigma on all things under the amuse gaze of Severus Snape or the secret love affair with Evans Rosier. A boy he killed and who Barty still mourned to this day. 

Alastor does too, not because that kid took his eye, but because he was just that, a kid.    

The truck opened up and instead of the thief, a scared face appeared. Alastor blinked then gruffed. “Tis about time,” looking up at the man.

Remus Lupin asked. “You alright down there ?”

“He took my peg,” he said, “the little bastard took my peg and my eye and stole my face and stuffed me there.”

Chapter Text

Her body was hurting. 

Has the last training session been that intense ? She didn’t remember. 

Confusing thoughts shimmered into her mind as her magic sank through, making roots and new connections.

Who am I ?   

Remember your training. She tried to center. To breathe. 

She had been… coming out of her body combat training session in Marseilles. It had been intense. She had thought she was fit. But Merlin, weres and goblins cheated with their anatomy. And she was other too and had a better margin than pure wixen and all her muscles had been screaming. 

She had been going to the spa for a soak. And then. Nothing. And pain. Voices. Blood. 

Familiar grey steely eyes and a vial flashing near her and pouring down her throat. Auntie. 

Was I dying ? Did something happen ? 

And the cold. And then something exploded. 

Voices. So many voices. 

What am I ?

Principessa. Sacrifice. A linchpin. Necessary. Find It. 

The blood of Nim’radur must reopened the gates  

What ?

The Fountain will tarry. 

She saw. So many things. Great walls. Apu Dei Heka Mor ! The children of Magi fighting against the titans as earth swallowed lava and water submerged them all. 

A woman stood in the midst of the defeated crowd, wearing a robe of stars, speaking.

Nim’radur ! This is madness !

I will keep the Gates open until the last of us is through , smile the woman, her lips twisted in a bitter but serene smile.

You will not be alone, child of fire and ice. The third reborn will be with you. 

And pain

Life costs . Do you agree ?

The blood of Nim’radur must reopen the gates .

Aria gasped as if she had been drowning, her eyes fluttering open. She could feel the vibration of healing magic around her and an unfamiliar woman said, “Miss Granger ? I am Healer Wren from St Mungo.”

Aria felt her stomach twist at the name. Heka and Circe. What was happening ? St Mungo ? 

Wasn’t that the old hospital that had been destroyed in the bombing of 23 ? And Granger. That was…  Auntie's former name, wasn’t it ? 

The Healer kept speaking. “You are in the infirmary ward at Hogwarts. Two days ago, you had a magical brain storm during a stressful event. Do you remember what happened ?”

She blinked, trying to unpack. 

When in doubt… she fibbed. “Ma…” she started in French and then switched to English. Rookie mistake.  “My memory… is fuzzy,” she mumbled.

Such a rookie mistake.

“Alright. Do you feel any pain ?”

She took stock and nodded and pointed to her chest “I feel compressed here and… I feel like I have been run over by something.”

The Healer chuckled “Right. In a way, you have,” and the bitch proceeded to detail what happened to her…hum… current body.

Aria listened but she was also mesmerized by her hands. 

It wasn’t her hands . 

This is the weirdest reincarnation ever, she thought, I have been, what, re-souled into my Aunt fifteen year old body, peering at the pianist fingers. 

I wonder if I can play now. That would be so cool.

I lost two years of age. I had finally reached the age of majority. That sucks.

If the other choice was being dead, should I really cry over spill brew ?

“What is the date,” she asked and then she heard the answer. And her eyebrows twitched nervously as she revised some of her history lessons because if the body was fifteen, then the year was 94. She made some assumptions about the event.

“The triwizard tournament ?,” she said. 

“Huh, yes, ” said the Healer nervously. 

“Where is… Harry,” she asked,  sending excuses in the ether for her casual familiarity for the Boy-Who-Sacrificed-All.

The Healer winced and Aria frowned. She had never liked history but this story she knew. He should be back. Not in the best of moods she supposed. But here.  One champion died and the other brought him back.  

That’s not what happened. Her healer was a terrible gossip. She told her all the rumors flying wide as she treated her. 

First making her swallow three awful potions in quick succession, then babbling about the number of people that had just left the ward. She was the only one left, but the Hogwarts mediwitch had been so swamped she had been sent for backup. The other school students were going to leave in a couple of hours, she was gonna miss it, had she met any of them ? That Krum fellow seemed to be awfully worried about her.

Then as she was massaging her limbs with a paste that smelled way too much of camphor and kept switching from hot to cold, she spoke how they had finally moved poor Mrs Diggory back late the previous evening. The poor woman had a fascinating degenerative disease, very rare, very painful. 

“Unusual for someone to have a child and survive past her thirties. She fainted when her boy came back. Her healer shouldn’t have let her come,” she tutted and kept babbling about how her husband had not been here even once, because he had made such a scene, when it first happened and the next day right at the Ministry, bursting in the Aurory trying to get into the cells where they kept the guy they thought who did it. 

“Grief makes people mad,” she said. 

Aria wanted her to shut up. 

She barely remembered her mom. Nonna had come after and raised her. 

She remembered being hungry and thirsty all the time until she was so used to it she didn’t notice anymore while the woman who had birthed her was just staring at nothing. Looking for mon chéri . 

Like she wasn’t there. 

And after a while, the anger. The slaps. S’il-te-plaît, Maman . 

And then, the alcohol, the men, the drugs. 

Lyra, bruised and thin, her pale skin almost translucent, suffocating in a pool of her own vomit.

She knew once, her maman had loved her but when her heart finally gave out under the pressure of the poisons she poured daily into her veins to forget that her soul had been ripped apart like her Papa’s body had been torn to pieces, it was long overdue.

Don’t mate a Darӕthi. 

Aria hadn’t been enough. She had never been enough.

Aria , la mia bambina, not your fault . 

Would say and repeat Nonna. Not your fault that despite being a squib, her core disconnected and magical pathways atrophied, Lyra Blanche had survived a broken Darӕthi bondmate. Never happened before. Not her fault Nonna hadn’t known about her granddaughter. Not her fault Narcissa Black had never told her son he had a sister fostered in France and saved her from a Malfoy squib purge. 

Not her fault, that Lyra had lied and told her godfather Theodore Nott that she had died with Blaise in the bombing. 

None had been her fault. 

Families, at nine years old. Nonna, her uncle Draco and her godfather Theo and his wife Gin and by association, HJ G Potter-Black. All pitching in.

“Shut up,” she said, voice rough, hands clenching the bed sheets of the hospital beds and the healer, who had just finished her care and was scourgifying her hands suddenly seemed to realize how inappropriate she was.

She looked at the girl whose face looked shattered and stopped speaking.

“Sorry,” she squeaked, “I…,” she hesitated, “apologies.”

A redheaded boy burst through the door and said “Hermione, you are awake,” his freckles and blue eyes lit his face with relief as he looked at her running at her side and her eyes widened, slightly panicked. 

“Mister Wealsey,” snapped the Healer, back on the right track, “You shouldn’t be here.” 

The boy turned pleading eyes to her and she relented. “Five minutes and then you leave her to rest.” and she left them alone. 

Weasley. She looked at him in slight horror. General Ronald B. Weasley, The Chessmaster ? Nonna hated the man. Auntie… didn’t speak of him. 

She had only seen him once. At Auntie Gin's funeral. Years had definitely not been good to him. 

She swallowed. This. This was confirmation . 

She was either nuts or really there. In the fucking past. Damn. 

“Mione,” he said, “are you alright? I was so worried. You went all weird in the middle of the task ! And Harry has disappeared. And Diggory is dead and they got Pettigrew. And you were all shaking!”

Whooo. She took the only new information of that splurt of nerves. Pettigrew. Who was that ? Wait! Wasn’t the guy who resuscitated Dark Lord Riddle ? Everything was so different from the history books. 

“Huh, I am… having… memory issues,” she said faintly. 

“Whaaat ?” the boy screamed in her ear. 

She winced. Oh man. Had Auntie HG really dated him ? Aunt Gin had told her that once as a warning tale. Trauma bonding right. Not always a good idea. But still. 

“I am sorry, Ronald is it ?”

The blue eyes widened and the skin went very pale under the freckles. 

Despite herself, the small, vindictive part of her inner soul started enjoying itself, as she was playing the future wixen war leader of the UMR, a man compared to the late Dumbledore and that she knew mostly from her Nonna and uncle cursing as their main political opponents in the Parliament. 

She was released in time for the dinner in the Great Hall and looked around her in curiosity. She had refused adamantly to attend Hogwarts and had gone to Beauxbâtons, but the school was strangely familiar as she sat herself on the bench. 

Though it was noisy, like any cafeteria she had known, it was subdued. Obviously, the departure of the others schools, the death of Diggory and the disappearance of Potter were wearing on all minds. 

The school year would finish in two days and she was gonna be sent to mundane suburbs. She didn’t know much about HG biological parents, except she had performed an illegal charm on them to protect them during her child soldier days. The protection part had worked though the charm had been half botched. Her parents had never recovered, neither their relationship, their sense of identity, their relationship between them or their daughter. 

Thinking of them as she looked with no appetite at the overabundance of food in front of her, she had flashes of an ivory skinned woman and a white man in white blouses, the smell of artificial strawberry. She blinked. She kept having these since she woke up and she knew these were her body memories. 

Somehow, her soul retained her sense of self. She knew who she was. Magic hold her. But. Too. Somehow, like the mundane hypothesis, the body must store information in the physical and she seemed to access it. It was both practical and worrisome. Her sense of pragmatism couldn’t deny that having access to her current body memories would help blend in more easily while she feared she would lose her sense of sense of self. 

“Hermione,” said a girl in front of her, “do you want some Sheppard pie ?” She looked up and blinked in disbelief as her eyes met a pair of blue ones, a nose peppered with freckles and auburn wavy held in a cub. 

“A small bit, yeah, thanks,” Aria mumbled, looking at the much younger face of her dead godmother. Her heart  squeezed in panic. 

She hadn’t seen Gin Weasley-Nott in six years and it took all her skill in occlumency, all her training as the principessa to not burst into tears. 

Something obvious she hadn’t anticipated nor realized suddenly occurred to her and she looked despite herself to the table in green. 

It was like a magnet, finding the signature icy blond air of a Malfoy, her uncle, looking so young and immature and in front of him, stern and quiet, already so like himself ,  Theo and next to him… 

Aria turned down her gaze in a hurry, as she felt her Other self surge. 

Like call to like . 

Her magical pathways groaned and shivered. Her new body was still adjusting to the arrival of her soul, the soul of a wixen who was also a Darӕthi . 

Sweat trickled down her spine. 

Occlude. Aria.  

She took a bite of her meal. Swallowed. 

She wanted to vomit. 

Black eyes flashed through her eyes, brown skin not so dissimilar to the one she occupied now, darker that the honeyed color her initial body had been, and perfect, almost symmetrical features. 

A beautiful boy. A gorgeous boy. Just a boy. A breathing, heart beating boy. 

Like call to like . 

“I am sorry,” she said, putting her fork down, “I am still tired. I am going back to the infirmary.”

Ron looked at her in worry and said “Do you want me to accompany you,” glancing mournfully at his still full plate. 

“No, it’s alright, I will tell Madame Pomphrey it was obviously a bit premature.”

He frowned but nodded as she got up and left the Hall. She walked slowly, her hand trailing against the stones, letting the memories of Hermione Granger anchoring her, dissipating the echoes of the consumption . 

She should feel ashamed but didn’t, not really. She hadn’t lost control in four years, but she had never been thrown into such an absurd situation either, she mused. 

As she neared the ward, the gorgeous boy burst through a passageway and pushed her against a wall. 

He looked at her, half in awe and confusion and demanded. 

“ Who the fuck are you ? ”

Chapter Text

When they had been ordered to vacate the stands in an orderly fashion by Aurors and finally reached the safety of their House, the tension lines had been obvious. Pureblood faction, Grey faction, kiddies already huddle in one corner. 

He sighed. Despite this obvious line, if he had learned anything in the last four years in the prestigious British school, it was that nothing was what it seemed. 

When he had asked his mother why she was sending him there , considering the poor ranking, she had smiled and answered him to learn . He had frowned, incredulous. What could he learn, in one of the less well-ranked schools of Europe ?

While Hogwarts had some of the most exceptional minds on staff of the century, like Potion and Defense Master Severus Snape, Charms and Duellist Master Filius Flitwick, Runes Master Bathsheda Babbling, Transfiguration Master McGonagall, Alchemy and Transfiguration Master Dumbledore, the poor administration had made it one of the worst in terms of post NEWTs results and employability. The lack of mundane education was a major minus too. 

Three of the Masters were also drained by support posts like Head of Houses and in the case of Professor McGonagall by an administrative one as the Deputy Headmistress. It was a huge mess. 

Dumbledore didn’t teach at all . Worse, the man had two other public functions, as Chief of the British Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump, both draining his time, and not discounting his illegal activities as the probable head of a vigilante group against the Dark Lord and his minions. 

Blaise was not stupid. Two third of his years were Heirs of the British Nobility and potential Lords of the next century and maybe sooner than later, especially if the war, which had gone dormant, reawakened. 

He understood his position here. He was here to observe as a neutral party.

Neither side of the so-called Dark or Light had anything worthy for the Others except “let us use you as cannon folders” and we may not kill you. Very endearing. 

The tournament had been a perfect example of this, as the first Task had shown a wix hurting a Mother Dragon, a Warder of Treasury for sport.  

His fury had been boundless. 

The Second Task, they had sent a Veela child into Mermaid territory. Right. 

During the Third Task, from the stands, he could feel them. The Sphinx. The Acromantula. The Hippogriff. The newly hybrid bred screwt from the gatekeeper that had made him so angry at the beginning of the year. 

The half-giant should be rained in and trained instead of unleashed on children. His instincts were not wrong and he could be a great Maker . New Others were to be cherished, replenishing the pools of the Fountain in the end. 

He had no business making here though, in a place of rearing. 

Now, two champions had ended in the infirmary, one was dead and the golden boy was gone. Malfoy for once, was not strutting. The disappearance of his so called nemesis was clearly unnerving the boy. The blond was fascinated by the gryffindor and couldn’t resist challenging him, always poking at him, until the other boy snap back. 

It had been funny to watch from afar, though the rants in the common room had been boring. Blaise glanced at Theo who glanced back. 

Unlike him, Theo didn’t have the luxury of neutrality. His father was in jail, his grandfather was a first generation follower who had avoided the purge of 81. He would be expected to follow in their steps, despite the fact that behind his blank face, Blaise knew Theodore Nott was one of the grayest souls here. 

Just like he knew that for all the posturing and pettiness, Draco was a child but also probably one of the lightest in Slytherin. He just hadn’t looked in the mirror yet. 

The way the boy sat, shoulders slightly hunched, face blank but for a very slight pout on his lips, was telling.

Blaise wondered if it was the day Draco Malfoy was realising he couldn’t say it. That he couldn’t stamp his foot on the floor and say “My father will,” because his father, in fact, would not. 

If the Boy-Who-Lived had been taken by the Death Eaters or by the Dark Lord himself, no one could save the boy for Draco. 

Blaise looked in fascination at the face of a child finally confronted with the necessity to grow up. The fact they had more or less the same age had always confused him. 

But not as much as two days later, at dinner in the Great Hall, when his eyes met Granger by accident and he felt his Other self getting pulled out of him so strongly he almost fell off his chair. 

What the fuck was that ?     

“Zabini, are you listening to what I said,” snapped Malfoy. 

And he nodded distractedly until he saw the girl and without thinking he stood up, said something inane and left in a hurry. 

The Gryffindor, he knew from the rumors mill had apparently had a cardiac arrest and had been in the infirmary since the Third Task and wasn’t that interesting. 

Granger had awoken with memory issues.

Granger, he knew, was a muggleborn. 

Granger had never, ever, pulled on him.

As he ran to intercept her, he saw in his mind how she had risen from her seat. The inner grace. The way she moved. He knew it. He recognized it. That…that was pureblood bred grace. 

He saw her, grabbed her, push her to the wall, and asked 

“Chi cazzo sei?”

Her eyes widened in sorrow and grief and “Papa,” she answered.

He let her go as if she had punched him in the stomach. 

He could feel her Darӕthi rose again and she groaned as if in pain and instinctively he reached  for her, letting his own meet hers. 

There was nothing sexual to it. None of the fire there would be present if she was food or mate but tender light. It was like with his madre . Comfort and soft and she just folded, starting to sob as her head fell on his shoulders. 

“Papa, t’es là, papa, tu respires, papa, ton cœur bat…”

He just hugged her. 

He had no idea what was going on. He didn't know who she was. How she had fallen here .

He just knew she was his.

Chapter Text

Albus felt his years as never before. 

He looked at his staff, seeing the exhaustion, grief, pain, anger, confusion around in various degrees. For once, he didn’t know what to do. What to say. He had to find the right words though. 

The children were safely on the Hogwarts Express and this was the usual end of the year staff meeting. 

He cleared his throat, trying to find the words, but as he was gonna begin, Pomona spoke. 

“You lied,” she said, in a quiet, deadly voice. 

Everyone looked at the Head of Hufflepuff House and then at Albus.  

“Pomona, my dear,” he said sadly, understanding of her grief filling his heart. 

“Don’t, don’t interrupt me. Don’t dismiss what I am going to say because you are older, because you are the Headmaster, the Chief Warlock, the Supreme Mugwump, the man who vanquished Grindelwald.”

She looked, not at him, but at all of them. “I said no. Minerva said no. Filius didn’t say anything, which was telling. Severus said… something impolite. Everybody around this table said no.” 

She stared at him. “And you agreed. Ignoring the combined wisdom and knowledge of all of the Hogwarts members, as if our advice meant nothing.”

She took a deep breath. “I have thought, you know, in the last week. How much time you spend at the school. How much time you spend, with the children, with us outside of the dinner hall, being, effectively, a teacher, or a Headmaster.”

Albus felt a sense of foreboding. Of panic. 

“And it’s easy enough to check,” she smiled, though it was deeply unhappy and sad, “or to compare with the previous Headmasters. Hogwarts keeps traces of a lot you know, when you know where to look or to ask.”

All the staff listened in shocked silence. Her brown eyes looked into Albus blue. “What do you think the answer is, Albus ?”

“Pomona,” he whispered, his heart clenching, “what do you want me to say ?”

She looked furious and then, with pure force of will, calm again. “I don’t want you to say anything. I want this school to have a Headmaster. Someone whose first and main goal is the care and education of the children .”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “I am not brave,” she said, glancing at Minerva, “and so I didn’t confronted you two years ago, demanding to know you why I was nurturing Manticore to maturity for months when we could ask the Board, some of the richest people in Britain to unlock the funds to buy mature ones and revive the children under our care as soon as possible.” 

She saw  shocked expressions on some of the staff who hadn’t thought about it. “Or smart like a Ravenclaw, so I don’t know why you didn’t allow the Aurory entry on the grounds to investigate the matter instead of letting it go on.” 

She paused. “Maybe I lack the cunning of a Slytherin to understand why last year, you didn’t pull on any of your own political power to stop the school from being surrounded by dementors. The impact on the development of our charges had been tremendous. Depression, suicidal ideation. Poppy and Severus were swamped.  Once again, you failed in your role. What is the point of culminating so many roles if it doesn’t help any ?” 

Her lips curled in distaste. Albus' face was crumbling. 

“I have been working here for almost twenty-years and been a Head of House for eighteen.” She looked around the table. “I have had abused children in my House, lost ones, angry ones. I do what I can with the meagre  resources at my dispositions. I am overstretched as it is. I never have the energy or time to look outside for the children not in my House in the same capacity, I confess.”

She looked at her hands, as if she didn’t understand. “I am a teacher. A herbologist. I have never lost a kid before. It is not the first time I had to do grief counselling. I remember the war, of course. But not all my House. The little ones were traumatised.”

She looked with contempt at the Headmaster. 

“You let this tournament in the school. You failed in the security. You let Potter participate when the boy was underage,” she shook her head dismissively. 

“This school is dying. Bullying is rampant.The infirmary is constantly overwhelmed. Minerva’s House is a mess because she is culminating in your job, the deputy job and cannot do the job of Head of House properly.”

Minerva looked stung for a moment before looking reflexive and then her shoulders sagged.

Pomona kept going. “This makes the rivalry between the Lions and the Snakes the most toxic. The epicentre of the problems at the school. And you, Albus, is the one responsible by your blatant favouritism to the Lions, that keeps pouring oil to the fire.”

Albus opened his mouth to protest but Pomona waved her wand and a flurry of papers was dispatched between all the members of the staff. “That is a comparative of the points, detention, cup results under the last Headmasters, with diagrams . I thank Sinistra for her input on mundane statistics, it was helpful.”

Sinistra smiled drily and sipped her tea. Everybody looked at the papers and pretty diagrams. It was not pretty. Albus didn’t want to look. He did. He felt sick. 

“Prejudice,” said Pomona, “often goes both ways.”

Severus looked white. Probably at the pick in the diagram in the seventies that was clearly him . Being bullied. And discriminated against. By the headmaster. Though the names were not written, Minerva knew, Poppy did, Hagrid, Filius, Albus. He took a deep breath. 

He had gone and met the resurrected Dark Lord two days ago to resume his role as a double spy, so could he be confronted with a statistical truth of his teenage hellish years while Pomona eviscerated Albus ? Yes. 

Albus looked devastated. “Tell me what you want, please”

Pomona looked as if it was obvious and then said it. “Choose, Albus.”

He looked at her, not comprehending. 

“Either you are the Headmaster of Hogwarts, really, truly and serve her. Dedicated and following the Charter of the founders, forgoing your political shenanigans and focusing on one thing only. Protecting the children in your care. ” Pomona smiled. “All of them. Even the snakes. Even the children of Death Eaters,” she said, making some people gasp. 

She glared at them. “Children,” she said, “are not their parents. They are here to learn and grow and make their own choices and mistakes. We are here to teach them. I have looked it over. You know this was never just a school, this has always been a sanctuary. A place for the ones who had nowhere else to go.”  

Albus crumbled and his phoenix let out a sad thrill. 

“Our kids, all of them, have been shaken to their core. They have been confronted with the reality of kidnapping, death and murder. All of our school, all of the children in our care, have been under that trauma. We have a duty to do better .”

Pomona smiled. “If you can not or won’t, then desist.” 

The staff meeting had not gone much longer. Albus promised to give his answer by the end of the summer. He had indeed much to pounder. 

Minerva stayed behind in the staff room as the others left one by one. 

“She didn’t hold any punches, did she ?”

“No, I feel quite frail, I must confess,” Albus admitted “I had never imagined Pomona had that much in her, but trials of life do reveal these things from us. She is right, isn’t she ?”

Minerva looked torn between her loyalty and her brutal honesty. “Albus…”

“Hmm… I will have to review the budget, whatever my decision is,” he mumbled.

“Albus.”

“You deserve some respite, Minerva. The least I can do is to listen to good sense. I am not the only one who needs to think. Which of your too many posts do you want to relinquish and I need to find a replacement for ? Head of House Gryffindor ? Deputy Headmistress ? I would never insult you by suggesting you stop teaching.”

She smiled drily. “Thank you,” she answered. She sighed heavily. “Obviously the one I haven’t been doing in years. Head of House Gryffindor.”

Albus looked at her and nodded. “What would you suggest in replacement ?”

Minerva peered at him, a bit malevolently. “Would you really take my advice ?”

Albus looked stung, then sheepish and then… “Yes. Yes I would.” 

“Head of Houses are traditionally core studies,” said Minerva, “as I have no intention to leave transfiguration and Defence is cursed, I would suggest you either find a curse breaker OR finally let Binns teach an empty class and hire a competent history teacher. Maxime had been mocking us all year about the quality of our history curriculum and she is right. And if you can, try to hire a Gryffindor alumni for it or ask Aldywn, he may have a hunch.”

Albus sagged but nodded. “This would at least please the goblins,” he mused, making Minerva smile despite herself. “Next to Grimmauld ?”

He showed her the parchment and she read the line and felt the Fidelius. She grimaced but nodded. She took a pinched off Floo powder, intoned the address and stepped through. Albus followed. 

The old Black townhouse was in a disastrous condition.  He walked through the durst and cobwebs toward the kitchen in the basement, which they had cleaned the day before and would serve as their meeting rooms. 

“Afternoon,” he greeted them looking around him at the familiar faces. Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Hestia Jones, Emmeline Vance, Mundungus Fletcher, Severus Snape, Minerva McGonagall, Elphias Dodge, Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Alastor Moody. 

“I will be brief, then I will ask you to share what you know quickly. Please, do not interrupt while one of you is speaking.To our knowledge, Crouch Jr was disguised as Alastor and had changed the Cup portkey coordinates. Instead of the arrival, it went to an unknown location. Obviously, both Hogwarts champions touched the cup and were transported there. Cedric Diggory was killed by Peter Pettigrew as confirmed by Madam Bones. Severus ?”

Every look turned toward the Potion professor slash spy. 

“I have confirmed the Dark Lord has been resuscitated, though Pettigrew made mistakes and he is displeased with the current results.  I have been tasked with resuming both of my previous roles.” He paused. “Spying,” he sniffed “and Potions. First I shall try to correct the mistake made by Pettigrew. Apparently, just after the ritual, someone unknown , the Dark Lord thought maybe Black, though I did intimate I highly doubted that, absconded with the Boy-Who-Live. That someone also implied to the Dark Lord that his resuscitation gave him a clean slate.”

Silence. Then there was an explosion of noise and people speaking.  Sirius said “Surely, this is a jest, right.” Severus ignored him. Sirius insisted. “You are joking ?”

Albus cleared his throat and when it didn't work he barked “Quiet !” They shushed. 

“Elphias ?” he asked, who had a law degree and was potentially the one who would know.

Dodge was looking white and stunned. He swallowed looking uneasily around him. 

“Well, If the Dark Lord doesn’t break the law again , he is in fact, a new person, you see. A newly born. That is the 1312 law on resuscitation that I would have to check, because it is not often applied. Maybe only six times in history and none in the two hundred years but, well…” his voice trailed off as many looks of horror turned to him. 

“Can you check it ? Its criteria of eligibility and ineligibility please ?” asked Albus. “Just in case.” Dodge nodded. Albus looked at the others and sighed. “We must know.”

“But… but why would the Dark Lord want to go public and legal ?” muttered Jones. “Didn’t they kidnap Karkaroff ?”

Severus nodded grimly. 

Elphias winced, glancing at Severus. “Ah, well. Technically, but Igor Karkaroff is not a free man, you see. From a point of law, the dark mark is, huh, a serf brand.” Severus was white as chalk. “They can only be taken willingly and with complete subjugation of self to one’s master. So, the person becomes, hum, property. So the Dark Lord can do what he wants to his property, if he doesn’t use the unforgivable, there is no breach of the law.”

Albus felt sick. He feared he would have to silence Sirius but thankfully it seemed the man was not in the mood for one of his inopportune infantile behaviour. 

“It is not to be confused with slavery though or enslavement. The person keeps its own free will and all crimes performed are their own choices. They can refuse. But everything they own and produce, is the ownership of their master.” 

“Do the Death Eaters know that ? That their legacy has been passed to their Lord ?”

Dodge blinked, surprised. “I… I would hope so. I mean… They took the mark. That would be… They took it. They would not,” he turned to Severus who was looking close to vomit. “Master Snape ?”

“I cannot say for others, but no. I do not think so. I was not aware before today. I am suddenly grateful I have never ever published one potion under my own name apart from those that granted me my mastery,” he said sardonically, glancing strangely at Remus Lupin.

“Well, the Dark Lord seemed to have tweaked it, maybe it was not his purpose, but the Dark Mark is a serf brand, is it not ?” said Dodge, looking perplexed.

“I have no idea,” answered Severus, looking bland. 

“Right, back to the main topic. Sirius ?”

The man rubbed his face. “As some of you may not know, I took a godfather oath and I have a bond with Harry. I did feel him quite strongly during the task and it is generally accurate. I know he was hurt, tired and safe. I also know he was healed afterwards. I am not worried for the moment, he feels something like excitement so all is good. I am more worried about the girl, if I must confess.”

Albus eyebrows rose.

“The girl ?”

“Hermione Granger,” said Remus.

“She went back to her parents' home. Severus had her on monitoring charms. She suffers from light amnesia, which seems normal after what happened.”

“Huh, who is she ? What happened ?,” asked Vance, looking lost.

“She is one of Potter’s best friends and suffered an inexplicable cardiac arrest in the middle of the Task,” said Minerva, looking older than her age.

“Three,” said Severus. “Three cardiac arrests. At fifteen.”

“She died,” said Sirius and Severus looked at him. “Her soul was tucked out of her body by an external magic that felt familiar, like…” he paused, suddenly grim, “like Black magic. Family magic,”and then she lived again.”

Albus shivered. He hadn’t taken the time to see the girl. There had been too many worries. He thought about what Pomona had said. She was right. He was failing in his duties. 

Molly had tears in her eyes and said “She almost didn’t recognize her own parents, she looked very lost, the poor girl.”

“What are we saying here ?” asked Arthur, looking uncomfortable. 

Remus frowned. “Her scent changed.”

Albus nodded. “I think we should maybe visit the Grangers. Remus?”

Remus looked at him, surprised. “Me ? Why ? Wouldn’t Minerva be the logical choice?”

Albus shook his head. “You were there when she had her seizure. You felt it with your senses. And you have also been one of her teachers.”

The werewolf looked uncomfortable and nodded his agreement. He had also attacked her during one full moon. Twice. And though he had apologized, he was in no hurry to meet the girl’s parents. 

“Right. Next point. Madame Bones has opened an inquiry.”

Sirius looked up. 

“It seems Mr Black may have a chance of a retrial.”

“How could they have missed it ?”

“There were up to six trials a day, at the time,” said Dodge, looking tired, “The chamber was exhausted. I remembered Sirius’. It was a shit show. Him saying “I did it” to every single question, without even listening, not even requesting a lawyer and no one wondering if he was sound of mind. Which in retrospect, he obviously wasn’t.”

Sirius looked sick. He didn’t remember any of it. He thought he never had a trial. It appeared he had had one. 

“Good,” said Remus.

Chapter Text

It was her day off. 

She didn’t work on Fridays and Mark on Mondays. It was their day for themselves. 

Lawrence, their third and youngest partner, worked on a five day rotation, but he was young, single and still had his education credit to pay back. 

She, in contrast, had come from ill-gained money, but had been angry and determined to change the world and had spent the first ten years of her career working for Médecins sans frontières and that’s how she had met Mark, working her ass off to help where she could. 

Until the camp had been bombed and had woken up in that hospital bed, with an unknown nurse telling her that everybody she had known and worked with was dead, the kids, the others, but four survivors and they would be shipped back to Germany as soon as possible. 

And that she was pregnant. 

“A fighter, that one.” commented the nurse. 

She hadn’t even known. Would have probably taken a pill or abort it like the previous three, because the job was more important. 

They had kept that small foetus to its maturation and as she and Mark had welcomed little Hermione into their new life in the UK, because she couldn’t imagine Mark learning French.  

They had opened the cabinet and became used to the monotonous life of managing a clinic dentistry and a not so monotonous one of dealing with their too brilliant and ever growing little wonder. 

Who made books float. And bubble shapeshift. And little blue flames. Amazing.

They adapted. 

Then arrived the Professor and the School. And the world changed again. 

They adapted. 

Hermione was too fast, too hungry for her age and most of the other children resented her, isolating her, bullying her and leaving behind a socially inept child with a heart of gold and a mind of mercury.

Emilie worried what boarding school would do to her, without the bubble of love and of playful intellectual challenges they surrounded their gifted child, especially since communication would apparently be difficult. 

It was worse. 

A troll. Hermione tried to say it was a joke. She was a dreadful liar. Mark read her book on creatures and found the description and almost lost his temper. 

Then there was the two-month magical coma, no visit possible, no rational explanation, nothing. What was this ?

They had wanted to pull her out, looking into the other options. Private tutoring was apparently not done, or at least, not for children in the non-magical world. So it was the French school. Hermione was fluent after all. 

That had been their first ever true dispute. They had relented. And her reason had been, Harry. They frowned. 

Who is Harry ? 

A friend. My best friend. He needs me. 

They had read the books. Harry was Harry Potter. A child turned to myth. An orphan considered a boy hero. And, apparently, their daughter’s best friend. And possibly, neglected. Possibly even abused. Emilie didn’t like that at all. 

A child too, at the center of a lot of political danger. With her daughter right next to him. 

She sighed and looked at the newspapers. Since they couldn’t trust their daughter anymore to speak the truth, as she had the misguided notion she had to protect them from the magical world, Emilie and her husband had to make their own inquiries. 

Reading books they had purchased in Britain but also in France, they were getting more and more knowledgeable with the magical world for non magical people. 

They had also subscribed to three magical newspapers. 

First came, The Daily Prophet, the main British newspaper, that always seemed to toe the line of the Ministry. Front page was always guaranteed to be pure propaganda. 

The real news though was usually hidden between the third page and fifth if you knew where to look for it. 

Then, there was L’Hibou Futé, a Sunday weekly from France, that catered to international news and thus, included also the UK, had been their choice to have a counter point of view. They had the most fascinating things to say about the current tournament at the School for example. 

The discrepancy of coverage between both papers and Hermione’s letters had been telling. 

And last, Mark had taken a liking to the monthly The Quibbler. Though it looked like pure rambling on mythical creatures that even most wizards didn’t believe in and conspiracy theories, there was a pattern of symbols recurring  hidden in some of the articles that her husband had cracked and peering at Hermione runes book, it looked like a decoding key. So, other news and messages were probably hidden inside. 

Mark was quite impatient for his daughter to come home so he could ask her to put a bit of ‘her sparks’ in it so he could reread twelve months of back issues. 

Emilie thought it was hilarious. 

She took the papers and lost her train of thought. 

What was that ? 

The Daily Prophet -  June, 25th - Front Page

Death at Hogwarts. Boy-Who-Lived Still Missing. 

During the Third Task, Cedric Diggory, 17, Hogwarts Champion was … 

She read, her heart beating faster, but there was almost no concrete information, only speculations. She groaned and went looking at page 3.

The Daily Prophet -  June, 25th - Front Page 3

Order of Merlin rescinded. Gilderoy Lockart no longer has the Order of Merlin !

Following a review of the conditions to receive the honorific distinction, the order of Merlin which is only given in case of extreme service to the community of wixen and Magic, must follow the following conditions [...] 

After reviewing the cases, it had been estimated that four individuals had been erroneously afforded the order  J. Crey, C. Holwyn, G. Lockart, P. Pettigrew. They will not be asked to reimburse the funds made available to them but they will no longer be receiving the rents nor be allowed to use the distinction in any public forum or even in private discussion.

Sirius Black Kiss Order on sight revoked by Head DMLE : explanations. 

Quote : “ Following a new lead that has come up on another case, the Aurory had been made aware that Mr Black is no longer to be considered a danger for the public and has thus suspended the kiss on sight order. A current review of his initial trial is ongoing.” 

In the last two years since his famous escape, the fugitive has indeed not made the news. The rumours of his involvement in the unrest at the Quidditch Cup has not been proven and it seems our law enforcement forces have decided to refocus their resources elsewhere. 

Previous to his arrest, Mr Black was himself an Auror and a well-known founding member of the biking league the Juggors, now dismembered. He had himself participated in the arrest of more than a dozen of the terrorists during the war between 1978  with his then partner James Potter…

Emilie rubbed her head. Black had made the news, she remembered, last year as most dangerous and armed. And just the day after the death of a boy, his case was under reviewed. In parallel, a famous distinction was revoked from four wixen. 

Annoyed that Hermione had somehow, inherited that beautiful memory of hers from her , dad’s genes , she got up and went into her daughters room and looked for the history book and yep, Rise of a dark lord and leafed through the last pages and there, the small part about Black. Pettigrew. She knew she had seen the name before. Her lips pursed in disgust. 

Then she smirked despite herself. Page 3 always delivered. She went back to finish her tea. She thought about the boy, and hoped he was okay. Hermione must be frantic.

Her daughter would be home in three days. What the fuck happened. 

She had an impromptu visit. Madame Pomphrey was… unexpected, to say the least. She came with, not a file but a parchment roll. Still, they were both healers. They understood each other. 

Though in this instance, Emilie was a mother and a panicked one. She killed it, that instinct. To hurl and scream and demand. Let me see my daughter this instant . 

Cardiac arrest. Three times. Three. Times.

She hated magic. It’s not true . She hated magic. 

The meditwitch transformed her fireplace into a Floo one; she has been authorised by the Ministry because of Hermione's health. Her daughter would thus be able to go to St Mungo for weekly check up and then Madame Pomphrey gave her two pendants for her and her husbands, so they could go with her. 

She could cry in relief. She doesn’t. She kills the mother in her and keeps asking intelligent questions and absorbing everything. Amnesia. Hermione has amnesia. Couldn’t remember most of her friends. The teachers. Some form of tactile, sensory recognition. Maybe smell too. 

Jesus. 

There are the reports and the mediwitch notes. Potions. Lots of them. For the heart, that has scars. 

There are some ointments, for her muscles, because has muscle pains and needs to be massaged with them, twice daily. 

“I can touch these ? I can do this for her ?,” ask Emilie, just to be sure. 

“Yes, you can,” said Poppy Pomphrey, eyes full of understanding and that’s when she cracks and cries and the woman let her grip her hand.

Her baby girl, her miracle, fighter, unexpected, foetus, too brilliant to be true, shaping bubble  that survived a bomb before being born, had almost died yesterday and she had not known. 

She had not known.

She sleeps until Mark comes home and she has to tell him and they hug, listening to their favourite song in loop until she is awakened by an owl, a beautiful snowy one she had seen before and it has a letter for her. Her eyes widened in shock. 

It’s Monday morning, she should be at work, but she wasn’t. The day before, the issue of l’Hibou Futé was enlightening. She kept rereading it. 

L’Hibou Futé -  Sem du 19-25 Juin 94 - Page 2

Bilan du tournoi des trois sorciers : un désastre. Dossier. Recap. 

Eng Vers.

The tri-wizard tournament had been reenacted on the impulsion of the British Ministry by the Department of International Magical Cooperation with the proclaimed ambition of “propelling a new era of European cooperation for the twenty-first century in the next generation,” and thus despite the fact that said tournament had initially been discontinued due its heavily death toll and negative impact, even degenerating into several blood feuds bypassing frontiers. 

First , the selection of the school champion was unequal, as both guest schools had been mandated to restrain themselves to a pool of only fifty candidates, while the host school Hogwarts was able to a pool of 78 participants, which was deemed unfair, brewing disquiet in east and mediterranean countries. 

Second , on the day of selection, an incident occured, which hasn’t been investigated nor elucidated to this day by the British authorities nor the tri-wizard organisers : Mr B. Crouch (Head of IMC) and Mr L. Bagman (Head of MGS). 

The Cup, considered the ultimate impartial authority in the matter, selected a fourth champion, Mr H.J. Potter, 14, known as the ‘Boy-Who-Lived, (see article p6 for portrait) in complete breach of the rules negotiated between the three schools and ministries and the year prior that, among other things, stated that all participants must be of age, which Mr Potter certainly is not. 

The Cup, a goblin-made artefact older than eight hundred years old, hadn’t been adjusted to the new set of rules. But no report of the post analysis of the artefact had been obtainable by our team to explain why the object, after so many iterations of the deadly tournaments (see article p5 for historical listing of winners, death tolls and accomplishments post tournaments) selecting only three candidates would suddenly select suddenly select a fourth. 

Third , the first task opposed each champion against nesting dragons to retrieve a golden egg. This was in complete breach of the decree with the Dragons preservation treaty of 1527 and the amendment of 1728 (see art. p7) and a heavy fine has been filed to the British Ministry.

We also learned that the jury would always be composed of each Headmaster and the two organisers which meant NONE of them would be IMPARTIAL qualifiers, with three British members. (Please see art.  & diagrams in p4 for the analysis and portrait of the partiality of the Jury, winner Headmaster I. Karkaroff, followed by Headmaster A. Dumbledore, with statistical proof and arguments.) 

Fourth . The second task was held in the famous Black Lake of Hogwarts (hypothesis to be the Lake of Nimue, see art. p10) in February. The trial consisted for each champion to retrieve a hostage, held captive, charmed unconscious under the icy waters and under the guard of the mermaid community of the Black Lake. 

Due to the context of the task, French champion F. Delacours 18, had much more difficulty than the other contestants (see art. p10 comparative data on mermaid and veela community and their historic feud)

The Veela community of France has filed two complaints on behalf of the child, one through the ICW for child endangerment and second one  for specism   through the European Magical Association speared by The Contessa Vittoria Zabini, as the picked hostage for Delacours, a minor child was submerged for one hour and a half with inappropriate warming charms without the consent of its legal guardians and suffered severe traumatism with lasting consequences, potentially damaging the magical core and its physical development. 

Fifth. The Third Task was a farce. Bulgarian champion and Quidditch world Seeker V. Krum, 18 was apparently compelled by one of the Hogwarts staff members and subsequently tortured French champion F. Delacours. Both champions were subdued by Hogwarts champion C. Diggory and H. Potter. 

Krum has been banned from playing officially or leaving British soil until the inquiry by the British Ministry is over,  due to the excessive brutality of the spells used. 

Delacours declined to file a complaint, judging there were ‘mitigating circumstances’. 

Six. In a shocking turn of event, C. Diggory, 17, had returned dead from the maze with the cup and an unidentified man who was immediately apprehended by the British Aurory.  H. Potter, 14, remains missing since the task. 

Last witness, F. Delacours, testified. “Mr Potter saved me in the maze and was the one generating the red sparks for both Mr Krum and me. I have no doubt he is one of the injured parties in this situation and hope he will return safely. This child should never have been in the tournament.”

Seven. The Cup noted the winner of the 94' triwizard tournament, and for the first time ever, there were two names. “Cedric Diggory - Harry Potter”  (see article p4 for a portrait of C. Diggory and our respect to the Diggory House, family and friends)

She had the letter and was waiting and then she heard the quick ring. She got up, opened the door. And there was the boy. 

He looked okay. Tired. Sad. Blue marks under his eyes, which were indeed very green. 

“Harry,” she blurted, “please come in”. She should have called him Mr Potter, shouldn’t she ? She was intimidated by a fourteen year old boy. He looked small and she just wanted to feed him. 

“Morning, Mrs Granger,” he said in a soft, almost too quiet voice and followed her inside.

“You don’t mind me calling you Harry,” she asked nervously and he shook his head and she smiled. “You can call me Emilie,” she answered and his eyes grew bigger. 

Damn, she thought, he must make all the girls and boys mad at schools and he looked so clueless. 

“Oh no, I couldn’t”

“Well, she said, I was raised French, I don’t know if Mi told you and I don’t hold on to this nonsense about names and what’s not.”

He blushed. 

“Come. Do you want some tea ?”

He nodded, looking around, curious, attentive. 

“Please, sit.”

He did, played with his spoon. His eyes widened as he saw the newspaper. “Oh. I… I didn’t know you read wixen newspapers,” he looked at her. 

She shrugged. “It's the only way to follow Mi. She thinks she can protect us. By lying or hiding things from us. We are her parents. She is a child. It doesn’t work that way.”

Harry looked weird. She frowned. “The Daily Prophet is shit. Except p3. But the French paper is better, except it is only once a week.”

He didn’t comment. “So. Why are you here ? Everyone thinks you are missing.”

He looked at his tea, took a sip, maybe for courage. She was really getting the jeebies. Maybe she should have asked Mark to stay but they had switched. Because of the letter. 

“I…, I wanted to say thank you. For Hermione. She is my best friend, you know,” he was blushing, “and she saved my life,” she didn’t have the feeling it was a way of speech, “all year, she helped me survive this…,” he pointed at the paper, “madness.” 

His eyes were really bright. He kept twirling the spoon. She had the feeling this was a boy who couldn’t stay put, who always needed to move his body. “She helped me research, never let me down, helped me learn the spells and charms, helped when I was freaking out…, “ he made this weird little sound between laugh and sob.

“Harry,” she exhaled, “did you hear about what happened to Hermione at Hogwarts,” she hesitated, “while you were…away ?”

He inhaled abruptly. Shook his head. “She was… sick. She had a seizure ? During the task. Something with her heart, Poppy Pomphrey told me. She is coming home this afternoon but. She has sequels. Muscle pains and amnesia ?”

Harry shuddered. His eyes were bright with tears. “She saved me,” he said again. 

Emily shook her head, confused. “You said that.”

“No, I mean,” he rubbed his eyes, tiredly, “I am gonna tell you a story. What happened to me, to Cedric and to Hermione and I just… Please listen to me until the end before saying anything.”

She looked at him. This boy. He was frightened. She knew… he had been… bashed. By the papers. Probably the whole school. Probably failed by the adults around him, his relatives obviously neglected him from what she had gleaned from her daughters in the years since she had met him. Though he was well dressed today, everything he wore was new. 

And that’s when she realised he didn’t wear glasses. 

“Alright. I’m listening.”

He gave her a small, tiny smile. And she knew that, that expression, that trust, was something rare and precious. 

Harry started recounting what happened to him. What wasn’t in the paper. It was awful. Horrifying. 

He told her about sharing the victory and her heart broke. He told her about a cold, misty place and a voice saying “Kill the spare” and a bright flash of green. A dead boy. A betrayer. A ritual out of a horror movie. A dead dark lord coming back to life. And an invisible voice offering a book and sanctuary.  He smiled. “I thought I had finally become crazy.”

“What was the book ?” she asked, curious. 

He smirked. “Hogwarts : a history,” he said and though she chuckled, she couldn’t help the sense of foreboding. 

Falling asleep in a forest. Waking up in a magical tent. Talking to a portrait. Waiting. Then meeting HJ. HJ G. Potter-Black, 62. Thrice adopted into the Potter and Black family. Warrior Healer and accidental time traveller. 

Emilie was biting her lips and squeezing her hands very hard. She believed. Harry did. Obviously. HJ. Hermione Jean. Harry James. There was beautiful poetry to it, she thought. 

“What…,” she croaked, “How… ?”

The boy shrugged helplessly. “I have no idea.”

Emilie blinked, wiped her tears and said, “Right. So. Why are you here ?”

Harry bit his own chapped lips and said. “She told some of the things that happened in her time, because she, as she said, will do anything to make sure it won’t in this time.”

He shook his head, looking amazed. “She is really amazing. I mean, she’s… huh… well,” he rubbed his left ear, blushing, “she has always kind of been mothering a bit, you know ? And in her timeline, at some point, we became family, like, brother and sister, with our magic. So now she is here, the magic is here, and she is family and with her current age, well, for a wix, that’s like a…,” 

Emily's smile grew because it was cute and heartbreaking all at once even as her mind tried to shied away from the concept that her daughter, her daughter, was older than her. Though, maybe they were more or less the same age, if you applied some proportionality with wixen age expectancy. 

“Mother.” she finished in his place. The boy nodded, beet red. 

“So I’m…,” she trailed off… curious what he came up with. 

His eyes widened and he reached and obviously threw granny out of the window, thank god and said “Aunt ?”

She grinned. “I can be an Aunt. I was an only child. Mark too. But I wouldn’t mind.”

His smile is hesitant. “I… don’t have much luck with aunts,” he confessed and she vaguely remembers Hermione screaming about an incident involving accidental magic. Something she now knows happens when a child has a lot of volatile emotion, such as being very angry or threatened.

“Maybe I can reconcile you with the concept then,” she said simply and he nodded. 

“So…,” she encouraged him to start back his story. 

“Right. So in her timeline, I had no family, that’s why Mione became my sister you see ? Because I needed a family ? And after what happened this week, which was worse, because I had to save myself instead of having a kickass adoptive mom from the future falling out of nowhere, things became huh bad and badder. And Hermione, she huh did something. She did not tell me. The portrait did.”

“The portrait,” asked Emilie, curious. She knew about those. When a person was alive, they moved like the picture of the newspaper in a loop. Then, when a person died, if it had been implemented, a specific spell in the painting activated. Some of the essence of a person, with his memories and personality, like an echo. It was as fascinating as it was creepy. 

“Dorea Potter,” answered Harry. “Born a Black, married a Potter in the thirties. Was the little sister of Arcturus Black, the last Lord Black, Sirius Black grand-father who is my godfather. And her husband, Charlus, was my grand-father Fleamont little brother,” Harry debited very fast. 

She blinked. He took a sip of his tea. 

“I didn’t know any of that, so it was a lot to get out. Huh, well Dory told me, that Hermione panicked at the end of our sixth year. Dumbledore died and the war became really bad and muggleborn were sent to Azkaban and with her being my best friend she was really worried for you and she had no one who would or could protect you.”

Emilie was sick. She could see it, Hermione spiralling. 

“She didn’t speak to us, did she ?”

Harry shook his head, looking guilty. 

“Because… because we would have wanted to protect her and she would have wanted to protect you and there was no way you would leave. Because,” her eyes grew in sudden comprehension as the piece of the puzzle slotted together, “because you have been groomed to be a child soldier, a martyr or whatever and with the death of the ‘Leader of the Light’, you would have been unyielding. Her too, I presume.” 

Harry looked at her, half in awe, half in horror. “Oh my, she got it from you !”

Emilie blinked and then laughed at him. “Puzzle solving ? Probably. I can’t leave one. It’s compulsive.” She shook her head. “So… what did she do to us ? Magicked us ? Compelled us ?”

Harry grimaced. “Yeah. She obliviated you.”

Emilie frowned. “I don’t know that one.”

“It’s a memory charm. She made you. Huh. Forget her. And compelled you to go to Australia.”

Her heart fell to her stomach. Sixteen. Civil war. Brainwashed. Desperate. She couldn’t ground her now for that could she ? 

“And… after the war ? Do you know ?”

Harry nodded. “Well, I huh… apparently died saving everyone,” he said looking nonplussed and her heart ached for him. “In 98. With fifty other people. Huge battle at the school. Took three years to rebuild, even with magic. After a thousand had died before that battle though.”

Jesus.

“Dory said HJ is really good at her job. She is a great Healer and a Battlemage and was a chief of state before she got fed up with the politicking and she and her team has managed six Dark Lord since then which only happened because Riddle was left so unchecked. Like he inspired them, that’s why so many popped up all at once ? She knows a lot. She even thinks she can heal him or something before the war restarts. ”

Emilie opened her mouth, closed it. Made a go on gesture with her left hand and sipped her tea. It was cold. She didn’t care. 

“So, huh. She found you. But, with the memory charms, it’s very complicated. And the more you take, the more it’s dangerous. So, she huh. You were not a couple anymore. With huh, her Dad. And you were not her parents anymore. You had new lives. With grief, inexplicable. So the mind builds its own explanation.”

Oh. “I… I missed her. But I didn’t know her ? And I couldn’t have her.”

The boy nodded. “Yeah, like the worst case of amnesia, where you can’t recognize the person you love and you hate them for it.”

Emilie swallowed. It hurt. It would not happen. It already has . Her daughter’s past. But not her own future. Time travel. So confusing. 

Her hands were trembling. She stared at them.

“She wasn’t coming here, was she ?” she realised aloud. “What. Wait. Who is in her body ? The fifteen year old Hermione ?”  She looked at Harry. The boy who was telling her the most improbable story she was believing one hundred percent.  

“Well, I don’t understand it. From what they told me, HJ and Dory, I mean, she was on a job. Rescue mission. And there was a girl who was being sacrificed by a bunch of bad guys in a ritual,” he looked him and obviously could totally relate, “And then, there was an explosion and HJ said there were a lot of confusing things she has difficulties sharing or remembering,” he swallowed,  “But she knows, there was a some kind of choice between dying or coming here. And other things in the balance,” he looked a bit unsure, “And you can’t mess with time, normally or, it is dangerous. And you can’t, like see yourself. Or you became mad. But HJ, she has changed. She was blood adopted three times , that’s huge. And magically, it is significant. And so, the girl. That’s who lives now. In Hermione’s body. She thinks. Hopes”

He swallowed. Emile unpacked. 

“So… My daughter, her soul, because it was this huge magical thingy and there could only be one soul of her here, it left her fifteen body because sixty year one came here ?”

Harry nodded. 

“And instead of dying, her fifteen year old body was immediately snatched by another soul, who you think is ?”

“Aria. Aria Zabini. Which is very weird. Because her dad is in my year. And she would have been born in 2024.”

Emilie exhaled. “Right. Which is why she can be here. Because. There is only one of her.”

Harry nodded. “Yup. And. HJ wasn’t clear about that but huh, Aria, she’s like mega important. Politically, magically. Well, she was in 2041 I guess. But I don't think it changes anything for her even today. And she was also family.”

Emilie breathed slowly through her nostrils.  “How ?”

“Huh, well. Her dad is Blaise Zabini, but her mother was Lyra Blanche, a French Squib,” he paused. “Do you know what a Squib is ?”

“Yes.”

“Right, so Lyra’s parents are in fact Narcissa Malfoy born Black and Lucius Malfoy, an asshole, and so Aria’s uncle is Draco who is currently still a jerk but gets much better if I believe HJ.

“Isn’t that the boy Hermione punched?,” she interjected.

Harry laughed “Oh yeah, it was glorious!”

“I bet ! So family. The Black connection ? Yes. Because. HJ, well I adopted her. And my dad was blood-brother with Sirius Black ? So that’s one Black connection. And, I am not right now, but in her timeline, Sirius had blood adopted me, so that had added a layer. Then in her timeline, because the Ministry didn’t want a muggleborn to be Lady Black, she was blood adopted by Andromeda Tonks, who was born Black who is Narcissa's sister and Aria’s grand-aunt.”

He took a breath. “Then, apparently, there was a terrorist attack in 2017 and she was injured and they used some ritual and that’s when she was blood adopted for the third time. I don’t really understand who dead people can adopt someone, but Dory and Charlus apparently gave consent and blood or something and she has legally two sets of parents, a blood adopted godmother which is like a… third mother too. Lots of parents. Black and Potter. ”

Emile could barely breathe and regretted not taking notes .

 “Yes. And also because this gets complicated, Aria’s godfather is Theodore Nott. He’s also in my year but he is really quiet so I don’t know him though Hermione has option classes with him. Nott weds Ginny Weasley. And Ginny Weasley is part of HJ’s Battle team. From what I understood, a battle team is also magically bounded.”

“So… it’s like a family unit ?”

“Sort of ?” 

“Hum.”

“So. This afternoon, I have to pick up Aria ?”

Harry nodded. 

“And you will convince HJ to come join us ?

He smiled. 

“Where does she think you are ?

“I told Dory where I was going while HJ was busy. I took the Knight bus to come here but I have a portkey to go back to her.”

“Good. You have an inside woman.”

“She’s great. She, like, knew everybody from both sides of my family too, because she had portraits in both properties. When my dad was not in Hogwarts, he used to ask her to pass messages to Sirius. It’s so funny.”

“Harry, can I hug you ?”

The boy froze but then nodded. He was stiff in her arms at first and then he melted. “You hug like Hermione,” he mumbled. She chuckled. “I am pretty sure I taught her the art of hugging though her dad would contest that.” They parted. 

“I will see you tonight ?,” she asked. “Yeah. We have this great magical tent. We can put it in your garden maybe ? Though HJ is wary, she is probably gonna ward the place to the gills. ”

Glancing at the papers, Emilie thought she probably wouldn’t mind. She closed the door behind the boy. She had one afternoon. She had to call Mark. They would grieve their child. They wouldn’t see her grow into this wonderful, terrifying, woman that she had become. 

Instead, they would adapt. Their little family had grown unexpectedly in one day, with a daughter turned sister?, a new child and a nephew. 

It was a lot. Many would break. 

She remembered the smell of carbonized flesh, the fleeting look in Mark's eyes. They had made it. They had survived.  

It could have been us , as they left MSF. 

Hermione could have died. Her body could have died. Instead, she had been given the gift of two daughters, in all its strangeness. And a strange boy who loved her daughter as much as her daughter loved him. A gift. His visit was a gift. 

She would take it. She would embrace it. She would fight for it. 

She would not let anyone take her memories of her little wonder ever again.