Chapter Text
I might have to retire soon, mused Galatea Merrythought as she gave a long weary sigh. It wasn’t an unhappy thought, though it was certainly a reluctant one. This trip to Albania was proving that, though her knowledge was still as keen as ever, her body was struggling to keep up. It didn’t help that that stupid tree root down her favorite path seemed to grow insultingly larger every other time she decided to return to this old forest in Yugoslavia, taunting her aching knees and tormenting her ankles.
She was an old hand at field mediwizardry, but really, how many more times must she practice such skills on her old bones?
She squinted at the rocks before her, pondering the safest place to plant her feet so she could inspect the crevice for freshly spawned boggarts. The crevice looked promising: a slim crack in a rocky cliffside covered in the shade of the leafy canopy overhead, a small trickling brook nearby providing some humidity. No signs of bird nests nearby, or animal droppings, just barren, grey rocks.
If this forest wasn’t such a reliable spawning ground for all sorts of dark creatures, she would long have stopped coming, regardless of her aging body’s complaints.
She was struggling to keep up with her students, too. A few years ago she’d finally caved and started using more creatures and simulcra for practical lessons, rather than dueling her students herself. One humiliating fall from the dueling platform and a cracked tibia (and unbearable lecture from that whipper-snapper of a matron) was the nail in the coffin of her career as one of the most active teachers in Hogwarts.
As a result, she’d started visiting this forest and others like it every summer to replenish her stock, instead of once every two or three years. A month of leisurely exploration across various forests and she was well-prepared for a year’s worth of practical lessons.
It was such a shame, because while dark creatures provided plenty of practice in defense against unpredictable, wild things, they hardly taught the same lessons in cunning and reflexive responses that a human wielding an arsenal of spells did. She had such promising students, and these were such dark times; by failing to provide a human opponent, she felt as though she was failing to prepare her students with everything they needed to survive whatever was coming.
She had privately mulled over retiring so as to yield the position to someone better able to keep up, but the reality was new teachers struggled in general their first year to figure out how to teach, and she simply didn’t think there was time for fumbling about while students were graduating every year into a world that whispered ever more of a man named Grindelwald and his deranged ambitions.
Defense Against the Dark Arts was always intended to provide training to keep young wizards and witches safe from those who used magic to ill ends. Knowing how to clear a house of doxxies safely was not the same thing as knowing how to stay alive long enough to escape dangerous people.
And if she were honest, even without some dark wizard looming large over Europe, most people had more practical use for a basic disarming charm or shield than an anti-boggart Riddikulus. She’d never had children, but she would bet every last galleon that many of her students over the years had used an Expelliarmus or Protego in relation to a sibling or, more likely, offspring. Toddlers did so love to put everything in their mouths, no matter how ill-suited…
And if they hadn’t put the more pragmatic of the spells she taught to good use, well. Some students were very poor learners, and no amount of effort she put in had any bearing on the outcome.
She tested a few of the rocks gingerly, running through her mental index of spells that wouldn’t spook or trigger any potential boggarts that might solidify or hold the rocks in place. Newborn boggarts were desperately hungry but also frightfully fragile, and had a keen sense of magic that drew them like moths to a flame.
And then.
There was.
A
Pop
And a concussive wave of magic sent Galatea to her knees; she couldn’t help the grunt of pain that escaped her lips as the sharp, hard rocks slammed against her knees through her skirt. The fabric of the skirt could only do so much for thin skin and bone.
There was a shriek from the crevice, then a soft, deflated gasp as the boggart within expired, a dark mist flowing out of the crack and dissipating into the afternoon air. Well, damn, she thought irritably.
She got to her feet carefully, knowing from experience the pain was a simple bone bruise and not a cracked kneecap. That wave of magic had been powerful, but also tinged with a sharp edge of darkness that had her keen to investigate.
She was getting on in years, but she still was one of the best DADA teachers Hogwarts had ever seen. It would be remiss to ignore whatever had just happened without even trying to gather information.
Adrenaline pumped through her as she made her way between the trees, her agility and energy returning in a temporary fashion she knew she’d pay for later. Her pace only faltered when she began to hear the familiar sounds of fast, furious spells in multiple voices.
There was some sort of battle going on ahead of her, and she gripped her wand tighter and cleared her mind; expectations impeded reactions, and she had to go in preprared for anything.
Just a quick glimpse, she promised herself bitterly as she cast a disillusionment charm. Nothing more than a quick observation and then escape; she couldn’t trust her ability to take part in whatever fight was happening, not anymore. She still had students to teach, and to report whatever was happening to whoever needed to know: she couldn’t afford to die here fruitlessly.
She crept toward the sounds of battle, and what met her eyes astonished her.
There was a young man, no older than one of her students — no, that was inaccurate, the young man was as short as many of her fifth years, but the pinched look in his green eyes and practiced movements of both his body and spellwork said this was an adult with years of experience. To have such beautiful accuracy while fearlessly wearing standard muggle spectacles! They kept shifting on his face in a way that appalled her sensibilities; where was a good sticking charm? What nerve! What bravado!
Even more absurdly, the young man stuck to spells right out of a fifth year curriculum or even younger — he seemed to favor Expelliarmus above all else, but nothing more deadly than a Stupefy or Flippendo. Meanwhile the man attacking him was using increasingly deadly spells as it became apparent that his target wasn’t doling it out in equal measure.
The sheer power the young man had was enthralling as a deflected spell meant to knock the attacker off his feet knocked a tree sideways. Galatea had to admit, the brown haired man with deepset frownlines set in a perpetual scowl seemed very skilled in his aggressive attack on the young man.
Because from where Galatea was standing, it became apparent that the young man with the green eyes was the victim. He fought purely defensively, and finally shouted from behind a tree, “Look, I’ve had a really bad day. I don’t know what’s crawled up your ass and died, and I don’t care. Let’s just call it a wash and go our separate ways, yeah?”
“So says the spy who attacked me!” hissed the man in a German accent.
“I didn’t attack you, I fell on you! Spell gone bad — accidental Apparition, I think — no idea where I am, and I’d like to go home now, if you would just stop attacking me I’ll be out of your hair forever!”
“Yes, you will be,” the man said darkly, preparing a series of wand movements that had Galatea shoot a spell of her own at him intended to knock him out.
He seemed to sense her magic and dodged her spell quickly. He scanned the treeline quickly, seeking her out, but her disillusionment was intact. He weighed his options, cursed under his breath, and apparated away with a crack.
The young man poked his head around a tree, looking around the seemingly empty area with confusion. “Er, thank you?”
She dispelled her charm with a sigh. “You’re welcome, young man.”
“I don’t suppose you could tell me where I am?” He said sheepishly as he stepped out from behind the tree.
“The Balkan forests in Yugoslavia, more or less.”
“Oh, the Balkans? That’s quite a distance —wait. Did you say Yugoslavia?” He blinked at her, then his face melted into that oddly gentle look some young folks had started giving her a couple decades ago, as her body began to catch up with her age. “Do you mean Serbia or Croatia or Kosovo or…I can’t remember the others.”
Even his tone of voice was that insulting, offensively gentle coddling tone.
“No,” she snapped, irritated by his rudeness. “The Kingdom of Serbia is defunct, as you would know if you paid any heed to current events.”
His face went through a rather satisfying series of expressions as he realized his rude ignorance, much to Galatea’s satisfaction, and she softened. She could afford to be generous of spirit to this rather talented duelist; clearly he spent more time in battle than in books.
His face was pale as he started to apologize. “Ma’am, if I may ask, what year is it?”
That was no apology, and Galatea found herself rather wrongfooted by the direction of the conversation. “It’s 1942, of course.”
The young man swayed on his feet, and suddenly Galatea felt quite guilty. There had been fighting before she’d even arrived; perhaps his wits had been addled by a spell. She transfigured a pebble into a chair. “Have a seat, lad, I’ll look you over for any spell damage. I’m not a mediwizard by trade but I’m quite a deft hand.”
“I’m, uh, fine, I don’t think he got me-”
Such typical male bravado, fleeing from any hint of weakness. “Hush, let me check.” She manhandled him onto the chair, and his body went obediently even as his mouth flapped.
“No, ma’am-”
“The name’s Galatea Merrythought,” she said as she cast a basic spell that would highlight any foreign magics on the young man’s body. Aha, there was some trace magic on his forehead, she knew it. She cast a more in-depth examination spell on his head.
“Ms. Merrythought-”
“Professor Merrythought, thank you very much,” she corrected automatically. Strangely, the spell seemed to indicate that whatever magic was affecting his head was focused on that scar, and was very old and mostly gone.
“Professor? Where do you teach?” he asked, still dazed.
“I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she said, keeping the amount of pride in her voice to a publically acceptable level. The competition for the job had been fierce, especially for a woman.
“Professor,” he said, taking her hand in his in a most inappropriate fashion. Why, if she were any younger, and he weren’t so clearly spellshocked, those green eyes wide with confusion and panic, she’d slap him for the gall. “Professor, I’m in trouble. I don’t know how I got here, but I’m from England. In 2003.”
Well. That was a new one. “I’m sure you think that, lad, but you’re just spell-addled. Strange, though, that man must have used an unusual curse because I don’t see any traces of it using the normal diagnostic spells.” She tried to pull her hand from his tightened grip.
“What do I have to do to get you to believe me?” he pleaded. “I’ll take veritaserum!”
She sighed. “Lad, no one would spend a small fortune on that suspicious newfangled concoction, not when a mediwizard could confirm and fix whatever’s addled your mind.”
He then suggested, “You could read my mind? Are you a Legilimens?”
She snorted. “I have better things to do than fritter about in minds.”
“But professor, I — I mean I can’t tell you about the future, because that would change things or cause paradoxes, right? But I could, if…if that would prove it.” He looked so profoundly sad that Galatea began to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t spell-addled after all. “I need to get home to my time, I can’t be here, there’s too much at stake, I can’t be here and change anything and risk making things worse. Not with —not with him around.”
The way he pressed his lips into a flat, thin line gave her pause. “Who?”
“…I can’t tell you. Let’s just say I don’t like Dark Wizards.”
Well, if he was indeed from the future, his caution was commendable. It was dark times indeed. “Come, young man, let’s get you to a mediwizard. We’ll save any discussions of the future for after that.”
~
The wizarding settlement of Drin-Barrel was tucked between the city of Peja and the appropriately named Accursed Mountains. The inn Galatea liked staying in dated back to the Ottoman Empire, and the owners had handed it down through the generations. The nearby hospital had history dating back even further, and it was here that Galatea brought the young man, who informed her that his first name was Harry and refused to provide a surname for fear of altering the future.
She’d scoffed at something so simple as a surname changing the future; unless it was something outrageous like Slytherin, names existed in abundance and could hardly have any impact.
The look in his eyes as he tiredly commented, “Names have power,” made her wonder what exactly he’d been through, because that didn’t look like spell-addlement.
As a matter of fact, he came away from the mediwizard with a clean bill of health. Not a lick of spell remnants that didn’t predate his fight with the man in the forest, and no sign of spell-addlement whatsoever.
She had her knees checked and healed as she struggled to reframe her experience with Harry Noname.
She brought him to her room at the inn, her mind racing rapidly.
“Now will you listen?” he asked plaintively.
“No. You will listen to me.” He looked terribly affronted, and she barreled on heedlessly. “Tell nothing of your travel here to me or anyone else. Bad things happen to wizards who meddle in time, and you seem like a very nice young man who deserves better than that.”
“But I need to get home-”
She exhaled slow and deep, feeling every bit her age. “I don’t want to ask, but I must: how did you come to appear in that forest, Harry? Keep only to the most specific but time-irrelevant details.”
His brow crinkled with thought. “I was on a simple training mission with the Aurors. It was supposed to just be a Dark Artifact check-”
She winced at the unwanted knowledge. In no possible future she could imagine would such a thing happen, much less be so routine that it was a part of training new Aurors. She must have failed as a teacher, somewhere, somehow, for there to be a need to have outsiders check for Dark objects instead of people using their own wands and wits.
“-and I was about to check out this little statue of a hippogriff that had a magic buzz that seemed suspicious, but some surviving- um, terrorists? attacked us. A combination of spells hit me, I saw two different flashes of light, just as I put my hand on the statue to get my balance, and suddenly I was falling through the air onto that guy.” He shrugged helplessly. “I really don’t think any of the spells were meant to send me here, not the way the- terrorists usually operate. Or maybe it was the statue?”
She shook her head. “Doubtful that an object with the power to send someone through time and space would be kept out in the open instead of a vault; no one would want to risk a friend or family member accidentally getting whisked away. One of the spells might have been to forcibly apparate you to a different location, but since you don’t know what the spells were, it’s impossible to say.
“Which is all to say: you have no idea how you got here, Harry. That usually means there’s no way to undo it and no way to get back, not through the same method.”
“But…maybe there’s a different method, to move me forward?”
He looked so hopeful that Galatea knew she had to crush that hope before it took root and rotted him from inside out. “Transportation magic requires a known destination, Harry. Theoretically, time travel backwards is possible because we know what has already happened. Time travel forward is impossible.”
“But I know the future, so shouldn’t moving forward be possible for me?”
She smiled thinly. “Certainly, in a purely theoretical sense, but there’s been efforts to work on traveling backwards for centuries, and rumor has it the Ministry has finally managed two seconds of travel back. You are but one person, and forgive me, Harry, but you do not strike me as the sort of man who can do the theoretical and practical work of dozens of the brightest wizards and witches necessary to single-handedly accomplish the task of traveling forward in time. Not before the time you wish to return to arrives on its own.”
He glanced at his hands quietly. “…I’m stuck here, you mean.”
“Yes,” she said not unkindly. “I know this is hard, but the way you came here is impossible to replicate and reverse, and there is no alternative.”
His face crumpled and he wept openly, and she left the room to him with a hasty comment about seeing to dinner. For her very young students, she could spare a clumsy effort at comfort, but she usually snagged a prefect or any other older student to do a better job.
For a grown man who was all but a stranger to her, this was the kindest courtesy she could offer.
After a suitable interval, she brought dinner up to her room for the both of them, and they ate quietly. “Thank you for dinner,” he said, then he glanced around the room with red-rimmed eyes. “I guess I need somewhere to stay. And money.”
“If you’re after a job that comes with room and board, I’ve got an offer for you,” she said, trying to hide her eagerness. “I’m in need of an assistant for my classes. I’m getting on in years, and the students need more practical experience than I can offer, myself, anymore.”
He stared at her. “You don’t even know me,” he said weakly.
“I know you move fast and cast well. I also know you aren’t someone who’s given to violence and brutality, even when others cross the line.” She nodded to herself. “That ability to maintain your ethical sensibility under pressure will do you well with young men and women who can be rather…tempestuous.”
He cracked a wry smile at that. “Teenage hormones and DADA can be an iffy mix.”
“…We’ll need to work on your speech,” she pointed out absently. “Some of the students respond very poorly to those they perceive as coming from a less genteel background.”
“Yeah, I know, Hogwarts in this time was pretty ba-” He paused, and his face went a strange shade of pale. “I can’t be your assistant, that risks changing the future too much.”
She huffed with exasperation. “Harry, your future is gone. Forget about it.”
“But if the future changes, I might not even be born! Which means I wouldn’t be here, changing things!” he argued.
It was such a strange notion that she couldn’t help but gawp at him. “Harry, where you are, right now,” she said slowly, “is the future as it is being written. What you remember might happen, and it might never happen. You are an anomaly, certainly, and one some might want to study in great detail, but you are just one person. Whatever actions you take have no more or less impact on the potential future than mine or that of the innkeeper downstairs. You might make history, you might exist as a ghost in the footnotes; it has no bearing on whatever you fear might happen. You exist here already, written into our present; you cannot be unwritten. Magic doesn’t work in such a convoluted, constrained fashion.”
“But I’ve seen movies-”
“Movies? You can’t mean those muggle diversions?” She started laughing. “Harry, you’re a wizard. Muggle flights of fancy on the subject of magical time travel have about as much relevance as a dog on the subject of transfiguration!”
He stared at her, and muttered under his breath, “Oh yeah, this is the 1940s all right.” She pretended not to hear him, and he continued, in a louder voice, “But my friend- she- Time travel backward is possible, right? And she did it, and there were all these rules to keep her from interfering from her own past self.”
She shrugged off the additional information that time travel became more commonplace in the future; it was possible she might need to craft a Vow to keep Harry from scattering hints of the unclear future in front of those who would obsess over such things. “Do not tell me how far she traveled, but do tell me: did she travel as far back as you?”
His laughter was tinged with hysteria. “Not in the least, nowhere as far.”
“Then perhaps in the future you have figured out the limits of the same magical signature existing in the same time. Another question: when your timeline catches up to whatever version of yourself you left behind, will that version of you recognize yourself?”
“I doubt it,” he said honestly.
“And would your friend’s past self have recognized her?”
“Oh, one hundred percent!”
She nodded. “Then the rules are sensible. Seeing one’s own doppleganger is a deadly curse, after all. Let us speak of this no more; you are far removed from yourself: even if time moves as the muggles think, the distance you have traveled is so significant that any ripples would be smoothed out naturally, and so your actions here are free from conflict. Magic has a way of setting things in balance.” She could feel the laughter bubbling up at the thought of muggle theory resembling magical reality, and chose to refocus instead on reassuring the young man who would be a boon to her classroom. “The future you know is a theoretical construct in your own mind, now. It is as real as a vision or prophecy, and both of those can be circumvented with little harm.
“Be my assistant, Harry,” she implored. “Don’t let your fears impede you. You have real talent and skill, and I would greatly appreciate your assistance in teaching my students. If you must, consider it something to while away the days in the short term as you consider what to make of your life here.
“And if you find the future is changing, let us try to make it one worth the changes.” She added not unkindly. History had a rhythm, and magical history all the moreso. The cycle he was from was both too distant to matter and too close to make a difference in the grand scheme of the world.
He gazed at her thoughtfully. Then he gave a small, resigned sigh, and he nodded in acceptance. He reached out to shake her hand; it seemed he’d picked up many strange behaviors from muggle exposure. “For the record, if this all goes pear shaped and I accidentally destroy the universe by breaking the space-time continuum, I’m blaming you.”
Such impertinence! She took his hand and shook it. “If it is such that you shall blame me if your fears prove right, will you thank me if your fears prove wrong?”
His smile widened into something both genuine and cheeky. “Deal.”