Chapter Text
Part 1: The Future
March 20, 1891
Professor Fig’s wake was going to be held today.
It was something she found herself dreading as Hogwarts grounds became prepped with chairs, flowers and a podium that would’ve been better kept in the Great Hall for school announcements instead of one used to prepare eulogies for the departed professor.
For her magical guardian while she was stuck in the past.
Now she was on her own.
She knew how to get back to the future.
She just needed to leave.
Today.
And miss her adoptive dad’s funeral to be able to go home.
She stabbed her breaded chicken breast as if it held the heart of the dragon form of Ranrok.
“Now what did that poor schnitzel do to you to deserve to be stabbed?” Sebastian joked next to her.
Iñaki sighed as she shrugged, not even bothering to reply to Sebastian. Instead, she started cutting the breaded chicken breast and began eating.
“At least you’re eating. That’s a good thing.” Sebastian said with a sigh before he began eating his dish as well. “Iñaki, I know today is going to be a difficult day, but you’ll get through it. Like how you get through everything…just know that I’m here if you want to speak. About anything. Please.”
This time Iñaki glanced at him, her preternatural lighting blue eyes meeting his warm doe light brown eyes. While most would be unnerved by her unnatural blue eyes –its coloration a lingering effect from being around major ancient magical hot spots that her own ancient magic interacted with– Sebastian was one of the few who wasn’t fazed by it.
Instead, his own magic always seems to seek to challenge it as he met her eyes with steadfast resolution, care and concern.
Not that she blamed him.
She didn’t mean to slowly go mute these past few days as preparations for Professor Fig’s wake came closer like the invertible sunset.
There were too many thoughts in her head. Too many calculations. Too many emotions.
Her thoughts, always on the journal she swiped from his desk a few hours before the battle thinking she had time later to ask him about his theory of being able use Ancient Magica to jump through time. He was used to her taking it to write her own notes on what she gathered before she would return it to him so he could add his own.
She wanted to add the location of the spot where she woke up in the past. It was the last thing that help solidify Professor’s Fig plan he had written for her in his journal that not only summarized his theory of Ancient Magical Time Travel but also had his summary of everything they knew so far about her sudden arrival to the past in the summer of 1890 after he found her during his research on ancient magic.
And it also had a picture of the two of them on her second day of school.
The old man was damned excited to be her magical guardian.
He was like her dad while she was stuck in the past.
Was her adopted dad while she was here.
Now he was dead.
She sniffed, refusing to acknowledge the tears building up behind her eyes.
“Iñaki...” Sebastian said as he grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I’m here for you. Whenever you’re ready to talk.”
If she was being honest, she couldn’t really recall the last time she sat down to talk to someone about the battle besides the Ministry officials who stormed into the hospital wing to see her resting on a cot.
Iñaki had tried to convince Sebastian that she’ll be alright since Prof. Weasley would be with her as her temporary guardian while she spoke with the “useless Ministry’s aurors”.
Sebastian’s words, not hers.
And he said it while glaring at the Aurors who waited at the foot of her bed as if they were vultures ready to peak at her battered body.
Prof. Weasley was the one who managed to get him to leave by stating that she would take his privileges away from seeing Iñaki during her stay in the hospital if he didn’t leave. NOW.
Sebastian nodded but he didn’t leave peacefully as far as the other aurors or Prof. Weasley knew.
While he walked away with both hands formed to fist, Iñaki was the only one who was able to spot how both hands had his thumb between his index and middle finger. A rude gesture from her mother’s home country she accidentally taught him once he figured out that she was insulting him during their lapse of friendship that she often referred to as The Break.
It wasn’t until after The Kintsugi, when the two finally went on to repair their friendship did Iñaki actually explained what that hand gesture meant along with the term Kintsugi.
He was essentially giving her the middle finger with that hand gesture. And if she wanted to stretch the hand gesture’s rudeness even further, he was essentially calling her a cunt.
Sebastian laughed when he learned that before quickly apologizing to her for using it against her. While he may have been angry, he stated his father taught him to be better.
His usage of rude hand gestures was definitely something Solomon taught him along with his distrust of aurors as Sebastian stomped away. To her surprise, after the meeting, Sebastian never bothered to ask her about what happened in the battle. Iñaki thought he would ask.
He was always curious, more of a Ravenclaw than a Slytherin at times.
It was his best and worst trait that he had.
Yet…
He never pushed her to say anything about that night.
For that she was grateful for.
She wanted it buried.
Tossed into the Hudson River with concrete shoes so that those memories can remain in the past, unable to surface.
Iñaki squeezed his hand back.
Sebastian gave a small smile.
Her heart skipped.
Like it has been doing these past few days since things had calmed down.
Sebastian never left her side.
Always attentive.
Always caring.
Always there.
Apparently almost dying caused him to stick to her side like a static balloon to a wall.
The sad guilty depressed boy that remained after Sebastian killed his uncle had vanished after the Battle of Hogwarts (as people called it). In his place, stood a different boy.
A determined boy.
A worried boy.
A caring boy.
A boy, she for once, didn’t have to worry about getting in trouble since he was doing all the worry for her since that bloody night.
Always attentive
Always caring.
Always there.
Which became a problem as she read Professor Fig’s journal in the middle of the night in her bed with the curtains closed around her as she tried to remember the details she needed as if she was studying for the O.W.L.s.
Iñaki wanted to go home.
She long overstayed her welcome.
Yet the days, instead of crawling by slowly, start running. That day she dreaded was coming closer like a dragon closing in on its prey.
She tried to run. Hide. Isolate. The student body murmuring details about who was coming, who was going to be there and who was going to deliver the eulogy still managed to reach her ears.
Everyone was surprised that apparently Eleanor Fig had a daughter.
An adopted daughter.
Professor Hecate had notified her that as his daughter, it would be best for her to give the speech to send him off while the two had tea reviewing the time travel plan Professor Fig had left her.
Thankfully nobody knew yet that she was his adopted daughter besides Professor Hecate and Professor Weasley. And thankfully, only Professor Hecate knew that she was from the future.
Dinah Hecate was once an Unspeakable. She understood.
She also understood how Iñaki didn’t want to be the one to deliver the eulogy.
Professor Fig’s wake would be today on the Spring equinox.
Equinoxes were powerful days when she could test out his theory and see if it would work.
And it would be the most likely date it would work without relying solely on her Ancient Magic.
All she needed to do was leave while no one was noticing -not with his wake being the star of the show- and test his theory to go home. No one would notice she would vanish. Professor Hecate would cover for her if she decided to go through with the plan.
All she needed to do was miss Professor Eleazar Fig’s wake-
Doc is dead. Her mind stated as took her hand back. She picked up the fork and she stabbed another piece of breaded chicken before putting it in her mouth to eat it.
“Iñaki talk to me.” Sebastian said as she turned to face him. “I miss hearing your voice.”
She was going home.
Nobody can know.
It would break the rules as Professor Dinah told her.
It was getting harder to keep the truth from Sebastian.
And as her date to go home came closer and closer…
“Please.” His warm brown eyes begged her as he stared into her eye, as if he was trying to read her mind as he held her hand with the fork.
…she found that it was getting harder and harder to be completely open with Sebastain as Professor Fig’s wake came.
It was as if the words got caught in her throat as she met the eyes of her best friend.
Who wouldn’t exist in the world she was going to.
Who would also be dead in her time.
He took the fork out of her hold before holding both of her hands in his.
“Iñaki…I’m here for you.”
She immediately threw up the occlumency shield Professor Dinah taught her at the start of the year as she took in a deep breath and opened her mouth to say…
I’m sorry Sebastian. I’m just upset that my mentor and guardian who’s one of the two people who knew that I’m an accidental time traveler stuck in the past and was the closest thing I have to a parent here -while mine aren’t even born yet- is dead. His wake is on the day I need to leave to go home…I need to leave you…and I can’t even tell you why I’m leaving because I would be breaking the rules.
Instead, she sighed as she closed her mouth before her heart could betray her and take over her lips.
She turned around back to the table and took a sip of water from a goblet as the reality of her own internal words struck her.
Water always helped when she was upset and wanted to cry like there was no tomorrow.
Maybe she can sneak away during the ruckus of dinner, before the ceremony would begin and try the ritual and see if shego back to the future and finally, at last, go HOME and pretend this whole thing was just a nightmar-
“Iñaki.” Sebastian stated, his voice cracked despite how soft and tender it was as if he was speaking to an injured cat he found wandering around Hogwarts. She looked at him to find that he was handing her a handkerchief with worry filled in his eyes. She must’ve given him a look as he continued explaining, “For your tears. Would you like a hug-”
She hid her face in his chest as his arms wrapped around her back as the dam broke and all she could mumble was:
“He’s dead. Eleazar Fig is dead.”
It was the first time she cried since she arrived in the past.
The first friend she made in this time period, her mentor, her magical guardian and adoptive father who found her lost in the woods was.
GONE.
A sudden downpour fell over Hogwarts as lightning and thunder filled the sky outside, matching her mood on the inside as she broke apart. Sebastian’s steady hug was the only reason why she was able to sit up as she wept into his chest.
…
She wasn’t able to sneak away.
Her heart wouldn’t let her.
Not with how this would be the last time she could say goodbye to her mentor.
Her father-figure.
Her friend.
Instead, she went to the wake and was the one to give the eulogy as the last person who spoke to him…before he died.
Professor Hecate gave her a tearful smile, hugging her as she left the stage.
“Just know your adoptive father would be proud of you. As am I. There’s always tomorrow. Your magic should be strong enough to take you home without the equinox by now. Just rest for now Iñaki. Let me know before you leave.” Dinah whispered into her ears.
The rest of the day was spent with Sebastian never leaving her side. After the ceremony, the two walked around the Great Lake until they collapsed in the Undercroft where she cried into his chest until the two fell asleep on the couch in each other’s arm.
Iñaki Carmen Martinez Cariaga didn’t go back home that night.
Nor the next day.
Or next week.
Or the next full moon.
As each potential homecoming date passed, Iñaki found that she wasn’t ready to leave just yet.
Especially with how Sebastian followed her like a loyal guard hound.
Her personal human patronus, fighting against the depression demons of her mind.
And like how she once protected and helped him at his lowest.
So did he.
They were friends after all.
Even if her heart called her a liar.
While it also yearned to go home.
To the future.