Chapter Text
Hermione Granger often reflected, with a certain satisfaction, that the war had not broken her life after all. It had simply delayed it.
Everything had fallen into place in such wondrous order that she could hardly stop marvelling at it.
She had been reunited with her parents and had spent two days in tears of relief and happiness. By the time she was twenty-four, her career had taken flight — she had been promoted to head of the Department of Magical Creatures and Their Rights, having turned down a similar offer from the neighboring Department of Magical Research. Ronald had proposed, but she had refused him, as he wanted a large family and she had plans of her own. They remained friends. Both eventually met people whose lives aligned better with their own. The birth of James Sirius Potter had brought them all immense joy. She was booked to go north on the Centaurs case—the last of the 2004 expeditions—and return in time for her godson's first birthday.
As it often does, life took an unexpected and drastic turn.
The centaurs had chosen their refuge with an intelligence Hermione could not help but respect.
Whinlatter was not ancient woodland, such as that found in the south. It was younger, a spruce and larch plantation, grown in lines along the mountain spine, separating the valleys. It looked, to the eyes of humans, as though it had been carefully managed.
In truth, it concealed more than it revealed.
The centaurs had not chosen an area that was accessible, near the paths that humans took. They had chosen an area that was out of the way, in a fold of land that humans rarely penetrated. There was a ravine, a small valley, that ran down the mountain, and in it, a fast and icy stream ran even in summer. It was not an area that humans, either on foot or in machines, wanted to tackle.
The spruce trees grew thickly around the clearing, close together, branches interwoven in the leafy canopy above. There was little light in the forest. Moss grew thickly, covering branches that had fallen. Resin and damp earth filled the air.
It looked, from the outside, like nothing more than another dark block of plantation wood. Inside, the forest opened. The wind had knocked down several trees decades ago, and the clearing had never been replanted. There was grass and low ferns, and the canopy of the forest parted enough to give a wide window of sky over the ravine. Hermione understood, immediately, why they had chosen to come here. The plantation would hide their movement, the ravine would hide the sound, and the clearing would give them the sky.
The centaurs moved along narrow animal tracks Hermione could barely see, dipping into the ravine where the rushing water muffled the sound of hooves.
Hidden in plain sight.
The forest behind Hermione quickly absorbed the trail as she entered the clearing. The spruce trees closed ranks again, and with them, any sense of Hermione's connection to the real world.
She stood there, surrounded by the uneasy feeling that she had been measured from the moment she arrived. The centaurs stood off to one side, a ring of sorts, their silhouettes dark against the trees. They stood motionless, not hostile, but close to it.
At last, the eldest among them stepped forward, his gaze steady and unblinking.
“You have come from the Ministry,” he said. “Again.”
Hermione inclined her head slightly. “Yes.”
“And again you will speak of protection,” another voice added from somewhere behind her. “Of regulation. Of oversight.”
Hermione did not turn.
“No,” she said calmly. “I will not.”
That, at least, earned a reaction. A few ears flicked. One shifted his weight against the earth.
The grey centaur studied her.
“Then you have walked a very long way north for no purpose.”
“I came,” Hermione said, “to offer an option.”
Silence stretched again. The wind stirred the spruce branches overhead.
“We do not bargain with wizards,” the elder replied.
“I know.”
“Nor do we ask for your help.”
“I know that as well. But some of you,” she said slowly, “observe the skies. You chart them. You interpret them.”
Several of them looked at her directly now. Hermione met their gaze without flinching.
“The Department of Magical Creatures maintains observatories,” she continued. “Not for wizards — for records. Long-term ones. Celestial patterns, magical fluctuations, atmospheric phenomena. Data collected over decades.”
A younger centaur gave a dismissive snort.
“You think we lack sky.”
“I think,” Hermione said evenly, “that you lack instruments capable of measuring what cannot be seen with the naked eye.”
The grey centaur’s expression did not change, but his tail flicked once against the grass.
“We have read the heavens for longer than your Ministry has existed.”
“I’m sure you have,” Hermione said. “And I’m not suggesting otherwise.”
She paused, choosing her next words carefully.
“I’m suggesting access.”
No one interrupted her now.
“A small number of observers,” she said, “if they wished it — only if they wished it — could use the observatory facilities. No registration or interference with your people here. The Ministry would record nothing about those involved.”
One of the centaurs stepped closer.
“And what would you gain from this generosity, human?”
Hermione shrugged faintly.
“Better data,” she said. “You’ve been reading the sky for centuries. We’ve been measuring magical disturbances for barely a hundred years. Frankly, it would be foolish not to compare notes.”
The bluntness seemed to amuse someone; a soft rumble passed through the group.
“But hear this clearly,” she added. “It’s not a program. Simply… a door. Open, should any of you ever choose to walk through it.”
The elder regarded her for a long moment.
“You offer knowledge,” he said at last, “without demanding obedience.”
“Yes.”
“And you would accept refusal.”
“Of course.”
Another long silence followed. The centaurs shifted among themselves, exchanging murmurs Hermione could not quite catch.
Finally, the grey centaur exhaled through his nose.
“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “one or two among us might find such instruments… interesting.”
Hermione allowed herself the smallest hint of a smile.
“That’s all I’m offering.”
The elder inclined his head. Not quite approval, but something hopefully similar.
“Very well, Hermione Granger,” he said. “The door may remain open.”
“Good,” she replied lightly.
Hermione left the clearing just before dusk. One of them — the younger chestnut she had noticed earlier — walked with her for part of the way, guiding her. When the faint trace of a forester’s path appeared ahead, he stopped.
“This is where your kind prefers to walk,” he said.
Hermione brushed damp needles from her sleeve and nodded.
“Thank you.”
He did not answer. By the time she glanced back, he had already vanished into the dark lattice of spruce.
The forest closed around her again.
Even on the path, Whinlatter had grown dim. The dense plantation swallowed the remaining daylight. Hermione checked her watch.
Plenty of time.
She was expected farther north by evening — a Ministry contact point outside the forest. Apparating directly from the centaurs’ clearing would have been rude at best and suspicious at worst, so she had walked out the ordinary way.
Professional courtesy.
She followed the path downhill.
For a while, there was nothing unusual — only the creak of branches in the wind.
Then something shifted. The absence of the sound. She slowed.
The forest had gone too still.
Behind her, a twig snapped.
Hermione turned.
At first, she saw nothing but shadow and the pale lines of spruce trunks. Then something moved — fast and alarmingly wrong.
A figure stepped out from the darkness.
Too pale. Eyes catching the last grey light with a dull, hungry sheen.
Hermione’s stomach dropped.
Vampire.
Another shape slipped between the trees to her left.
Two of them.
They moved with quiet, predatory confidence, circling slowly.
Hermione’s wand was in her hand before the first one lunged.
“Stupefy!”
The spell struck the nearer vampire squarely in the chest, throwing him into a tree. The second moved faster than she expected — faster than a human could — closing the distance in a blur.
Hermione ducked as fingers clawed past her shoulder. She stumbled back, boots sliding on wet needles.
“Impedimenta!”
The hex slowed him, but did not stop him. Vampires were notoriously resistant to conventional spells — something the Department had mentioned in a report she now regretted skimming.
The first one was already moving again.
Brilliant.
Hermione forced herself to breathe.
The forest path was too narrow to run. Apparition required focus, and right now, she had two very fast problems preventing that.
The nearer vampire advanced another step.
Hermione raised her wand.
“Stupe—”
He hit her before the spell left her mouth.
The impact drove the breath from her lungs and slammed her sideways against a tree. The back of her head struck the bark, sparks bursting across her vision.
Cold fingers locked around her arm.
Then pain.
Sharp teeth breaking the skin just below her collarbone.
Hermione gasped. Instinct took over. Her wand jerked upward between them.
“Lumos Maxima!”
White light exploded through the darkness like a small sun.
The vampire recoiled with a hiss, releasing her. Hermione staggered back, one hand clamped over the bite.
Her head spun.
The second vampire had already retreated into the trees, both of them momentarily blinded by the flare of light.
That moment was all she had.
Hermione forced herself to focus.
Destination. Distance. Concentration.
She turned sharply on the path.
Crack.
Hermione reappeared in a small clearing beyond the northern edge of Whinlatter, where two Ministry officials waited beside a weather-beaten field tent.
She took one unsteady step toward them.
“Granger—?”
The ground lurched upward.
Hermione collapsed before either of them could reach her. The last thing she heard was someone shouting for a healer as darkness closed in.