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Chapter Text

Being a seer, Sybill Trelawney discovered very early in her life, was more trouble than it was worth. People had such high expectations when you were the great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated Cassandra Trelawney. And Trelawney, like her ancestor, was as true a seer as they came. In fact, she was much better than Cassandra. She was, in reality, the best seer who ever lived. She could look at people and see the paths their destiny would take them on in vivid detail. She could look at them and see the various lines connecting their fates with other destinies.

But the biggest problem with being a seer was that people really didn’t want to know the future. They thought they did, of course. But really, they sought out soothsayers for the same reason they sought out religion, for the same reason they sought out conspiracies, for the same reason they sought out extreme political movements: they wanted assurances that things were going to go well. And when they inevitably did not, they were looking for something to blame, because heaven forfend it was their own fault, or even more inconceivably, no one’s fault at all.

Trelawney quickly found that people did not, in fact, appreciate it when she informed them that they’d die a pathetic drunk or not get that promotion or that their wife or husband would leave them. What they wanted was to be told they were right.

So that was precisely what she gave them. She told people what they wanted to hear, and they paid her, and it was a wonderful life. But it wasn’t enough for her. She was sick and tired of operating out of a tent in Diagon Alley. She wanted to teach at Hogwarts, the most prestigious magical school in Britain. The problem was that Hogwarts wasn’t hiring new staff because…well, there was the tiny problem of Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters running around.

Trelawney was never a woman who did things in half measures, so she hatched a cunning plan that would both end the war and secure her a permanent, tenured position in the school. After pulling all the strings she could think of to get an interview with Headmaster Dumbledore, she made a fake prophecy, with tons of melodrama and pomp, but one that would lead to an inescapable conclusion: that Neville Longbottom would be the target of the Dark Lord. And to top it all off, she made sure to do so in earshot of a known Death Eater, Severus Snape.

At this point, the next stage of her plan was supposed to come into effect. Alice had come up with the scheme alongside her, and together with her husband Frank, she turned her house into a deathtrap for Lord Voldemort. Not only did she use all manner of magical traps, she had several of Frank’s Auror friends guarding the house, and on top of that, she also asked several Squibs of her acquaintance in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces to guard the house with a plethora of Muggle weaponry. And worse case scenario, she’d blow the house sky high with Muggle explosives. (Naturally, Neville himself was sent to New Zealand to stay with distant relatives for a few days; Alice wasn’t dumb enough to just leave him there with a crazed Dark Lord on his trail.)

The plan was genius, and if Voldemort had attacked the house, it would have worked entirely. But he didn’t. Instead, he attacked the Potters. The idea that Voldemort would go after the Potters never even occurred to Trelawney when she’d made the fake prophecy. The parameters for the prophecy child were so narrow she didn’t think of considering if they applied to anyone else. It is unlikely she would have changed her plans even if she had, however. After all, Voldemort was a champion of blood supremacy – how was she supposed to know he was actually a half-blood?

There are many answers to be had for those who look into the future, but the only way to acquire them is to ask the right questions.

We all know, of course, what happened next. Trelawney’s gambit half-succeeded. Voldemort was reduced to a wraith; she got, functionally speaking, tenure at Hogwarts; the Potter parents died; and Harry was shipped off to the Dursleys. Her victory felt extraordinarily hollow. While she knew casualties were possible with the plan, she had expected them to fall upon people who had chosen to stand and fight, knowing the risks. She did not expect innocents to be harmed. And after Alice was driven to madness, Trelawney blamed herself and lost herself in drink.

Her alcoholism and self-loathing both conspired to make her a very ineffective teacher, but it did not make her any less of an effective seer. Her talents were eagerly put to used by the administration, including in the addressing of Hogwarts letters to students who were difficult to contact. Such as one Harry Potter. Most of the other adults may not have cared about the fact that Harry’s letter was addressed to the cupboard under the stairs, but Trelawney did.

So, when her Inner Eye informed her Hagrid was taking Harry to Diagon Alley, she decided to be there to at least get a look at the boy. Perhaps sneak a peek at his destiny. It was sure to be an interesting one, if only because of the role people were expecting their savior to play in society.

Sybill Trelawney was there in the Leaky Cauldron when Harry first arrived. And she quite disapproved of the way people were treating him; he was an eleven-year-old boy, not the bloody Mona Lisa. But she soon had other things to think about, because when she just walked in the same room as him…something quite extraordinary happened. Something that, to the best of her knowledge, had never ever happened to any other seer beforehand.

If she was going to give a simplified explanation – which she never would, for she’d never even attempt to describe what she experienced to another living soul, not that she’d succeed even if she tried – she would say that she saw every single possibility that could ever happen to him simultaneously. It was more than enough to break a single human mind, and Trelawney could never quite explain why it never broke hers. The best theory she’d eventually come up with was that she was left so broken by it that her mind circled all the way around again back to sanity.

The futures she saw were so confusing and contradictory and they were all written. That was very strange. Even stranger was the fact that some of the futures simply could not be. They presupposed events that simply did not occur or were physically impossible. There was no such thing, for example, as a magical core or a creature inheritance. The Potters did not have a manor; they were not lords of the Wizengamot. (There were, in fact, no lords of the Wizengamot, which was an elective body.)

The futures that could be were quite contradictory as well. In some of them, Dumbledore was the kind but powerful (if rather stingy in the raise department) headmaster she had come to know and be mildly annoyed at. In others, he was a comically evil, mustache twirling villain. In some futures, Voldemort returned and laid waste to the wizarding world; in others, he was thwarted; in still others, he was the good guy for some strange, very unfathomable reason.

Trelawney knew that certain figures would be important in Harry’s life, such as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. But again, the futures were quite contradictory about these people. In some, they were true and loyal friends; in others, they were selfish and entitled bastards only out to screw Harry over. Who was going to be coming to Hogwarts? Who would affect Harry’s life and, perforce, the future of the wizarding world? For one thing was certain: Harry had a special destiny ahead. Probably, given all these futures that presented themselves to Trelawney, one of the most special in existence.

It took several weeks of meditation, but Trelawney finally figured out what was going on with these futures: they weren’t real. Somehow, Harry’s story had made its way into another universe where he was a fictional character, and the futures she was seeing were all fanfiction, like in those Star Trek slash zines Trelawney adored reading. (Professor Trelawney was a fervent Kirk/Spock shipper, not that the term actually existed in 1991.) This presented her with a very big problem: How would she be able to determine the true course of events that would occur to Harry? Lives hung in the balance, yet if she made the wrong move, she could destroy everything.

As she sifted through some of the futures – some of the fanfics – in her head, she happened upon a term that would change everything.

Self-insert.

*****

“So, what is a self-insert fic, you may ask?” Trelawney said rhetorically.

“Actually, Sybill, no one asked that at all, let alone has a clue what that means,” Minerva McGonagall said in a gentler tone than she’d usually use whenever someone said such ridiculous things. Yet another staff meeting having to deal with Trelawney’s lunacy had left her just tired of it all, really.

Trelawney had been acting even stranger than usual over the last month or so. It was hard to say, however, whether her behavior had gotten better or worse though. On the one hand, she was no longer drinking and she was quite lucid 90% of the time, which was good news for her students, to say the least. Minerva suspected divination OWL scores were going to take a sharp uprise this year. And this was all good. Very good, in fact!

But…that remaining ten percent of the time was…well, to put it bluntly, beyond concerning. Every so often Trelawney had taken to making soliloquys at random, thinking that no one could hear her, about things that were quite nonsensical, such as what she thought might have been the shipping forecast (though what harmony or Drarry, whatever that was, had to do with the shipping forecast was beyond Minerva) or ruminating about the role of Gringotts in fanfics, whatever those were. Minerva had advocated that Trelawney get professional help to Albus. (“Albus, for the love of God, get this woman to St. Mungo’s quickly before she decides to kill us all!” were her exact words.) But, of course, he just blissfully ignored everything she said, because that was what he did for fun.

Not that Minerva could blame him for being stressed. The last year or so had been a very stressful time for him, given his prominent role as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. The Soviet Union was on the verge of collapsing and the question of exactly how her magical assets would be distributed was an extremely thorny one. To say nothing of the issue of dark wizards over there attempting to get in on the ground floor of the new upcoming regimes in places like Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, just to name a few, and posing a significant risk to the Statute of Secrecy.

It was for that reason that Minerva felt it was unwise for him to spread his resources so thinly. He’d barely had any time to devote to coming up with the protections for the Philosopher’s Stone, which, for reasons Minerva did not comprehend at all, would be stored at Hogwarts this year. And in her opinion, the protections he came up with were…what was that wonderful Muggle term? Oh, yes. Half-assed.

“What is a self-insert fic?” Trelawney mused, as if she’d not been interrupted by Minerva’s internal musings at all. “Strictly speaking, a self-insert or SI is when an author decides to put themself into a certain universe, in this case, obviously the Harry Potter series.” …Series? What in the hell? “Now this has been broadened to refer to original characters who fulfill roughly the same function. They awaken in the Harry Potter series with all their memories intact and start effecting the plot.”

Trelawney got up from her chair and started pacing around. “Now what is the point of this? There are several schools of thought. The first is that self-insert fics are the exclusive domains of bad writers who want to see their characters destroy all obstacles in their path, no matter how bad a story this makes. Another thought, and the one I subscribe to, is that self-insert fics represent the inherent drive for empathy in humanity. We see characters like Harry suffering, and we want them to be happier and thus we write fics that enable us to reach out and help him.”

“Does anyone understand a word she’s saying?” Charity Burbage whispered.  

“It’s my contention – and I will expound on this later on – that there are no inherently bad tropes, merely a lack of creativity. But we’re getting further afield from the point.”

“There’s a point?” Snape asked incredulously.

Trelawney didn’t appear to be bothered or even notice her colleagues’ bewilderment, alarm, and annoyance. “The point is this: A self-insert fic can help the main characters prosper…but only if the self-inserts are all in agreement as to what their problems are. If not…” She grinned diabolically. “Then chaos ensues.”

She sat back down. “Professor, you were about to discuss prefect assignments?” she said politely to Minerva, who breathed a sigh of relief.

“Yes, indeed. Now for Gryffindor…”

*****

There is always a price to magic. Always. The more involved the magic, the greater the price. Contrary to the belief of many, there is no such thing as light and dark magic. Magic is a force of the natural world, and morality is a human construct. Nature does not care if a family is wiped out by predators. It does not give a damn if animals – including humans – are ripped apart or shot up or killed in a thousand different ways. Nature does not care about unforgivable curses; nature does not have the ability to forgive.

If there is a sliding scale of magic, then it lies not upon the axis of good or evil, but upon the axis of more breaking of scientific laws or less. By coincidence, much of the harm done by magic is more difficult to accomplish, and thus this can be mistaken for an axis of light or dark. The human brain, for example, is an extraordinarily complex organ and subverting its functions with the Imperius Curse is more difficult than, for example, changing the atomic makeup of an object, despite one’s first instinct to the contrary. Shutting down each and every one of the body’s functions simultaneously and immediately is a difficult feat indeed.

So, the harder it is to accomplish a task using magic, the higher the cost that is exacted. This is just basic science, nothing more than that. It has nothing to do with magical cores or any such hogwash. It is the way it is. Nothing is impossible with magic, but some things are just prohibitively expensive that they become functionally impossible, in the same way that it is technically possible to turn lead into gold using particle accelerators, but at a cost of being absurdly, preposterously expensive. It’s just not worth it.

Sybill Trelawney knew this when she cast the ritual that truly set the events of this story into place. But she thought she would be the only one paying this price. She was more than willing to sacrifice her life in order to ensure Harry Potter would be able to fulfill his destiny – or not, if that destiny turned out to be bad news, as it so often was. But it wasn’t her life that Sybill Trelawney sacrificed when she cast the ritual that the Witch of Endor wrote in one of her grimoires, a ritual that was supposed to be able to summon people from other universes according to specific parameters.

It was the lives of three innocent children.

In another universe entirely, three people died.

One of them was a college student studying sociology at Trinity College in Dublin. She’d been a Harry Potter fan all her life, but had recently soured on the series after Rowling’s transphobia had come to light. She was coming back from a pub crawl with her friends when she got hit by a car.

The second was a math teacher living in a small town in New Mexico. He’d recently got into the series, introduced to it by his son, and had started to write fanfiction of it. He’d posted the third chapter of his slow burn Hinny fic the very morning when he’d gotten shot in a school shooting.

And the third? Well, I’ll leave you in suspense about the third. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

These people would have died anyway. Trelawney did not kill them. These are not the innocent children I am saying she accidentally killed. Here’s what happened: After these three people died, instead of their souls moving onto whatever came next, they were instead transferred into the minds of three students who had just gotten their Hogwarts letter. Kevin Entwistle, Megan Jones, and Sally-Anne Perks were gone, obliterated in a single instance. I will not get into the deep theological questions of the consciousness versus the soul here. Functionally speaking, they were dead, and these three visitors from another dimension replaced them.

As one might expect, Kevin, Megan, and Sally-Anne did not find their transition to life in another universe where they wielded magic and were, essentially, redshirts to be an easy one. There was much chaos, mental anguish, and other shenanigans ensuing. Perhaps in a different story, I would have dwelled on it at this point. But for now, I’m going to put a pin in the Self-Insert Cabal.

It’s time to introduce you to the actual protagonist of this story. It’s time to introduce you to the one, the only Hermione Granger.

*****

Hermione Granger was spending her recess the same way she always did: reading a book and wishing she had someone to play with. Her parents often asked her why she never had any friends. As if it was her fault! If Hermione had her way, she’d be friends with every student on the playground. Well, perhaps not every student – that sounded rather exhausting. But no one wanted to be her friend, and friendship was a two-way street. To Hermione, people were puzzling and bewildering, a constant enigma. They said one thing, and they did another.

The universe ran according to scientific laws. (Any evidence to the contrary, such as her seeming occasional ability to telekinetically summon books to her hand, could be safely ignored. It was just a hallucination from lack of sleep, that was all.) Society ran on laws too. These laws were written down. They could be found in books. They were solid and concrete. But people? They had no rhyme or reason to them. None at all.

Hermione had tried her best to become friends with people. She talked about her interests with them and they just walked away. At best. Sometimes, they teased her, calling her a know it all and teacher’s pet. Well, excuse Hermione for wanting to be close to individuals who were her intellectual equal! These morons wouldn’t understand the classical unities if they bit them on the bottom! But the point was, no matter what Hermione did, it drove people away.

Sometimes, it made Hermione wonder if the failure was with her. If she’d been born broken somehow. Sometimes, the stress of it all made her cry. She did not talk about those times with her parents or anyone else. It made her look weak, and Hermione refused to look weak. She had her pride. She had her books and her pride and she did not need anything else. Her bullies would lead an unfulfilling life, whereas she’d become a respected scientist and win Nobel Prizes.

“Finnegan’s Wake,” Miss Abernathy said from behind her, causing Hermione to jump. “Interesting choice of reading material. A little advanced for you.”

Hermione stuck her head in the air defiantly. “I can understand it entirely.” It was a lie. The book made no sense whatsoever, but she would die before admitting she didn’t know something to another living soul.

“I see,” Miss Abernathy said knowingly. Darn her and her infuriating way of seeing straight through Hermione’s lies. “Well, don’t you want to join your peers on the playground?”

Hermione scoffed, ignoring the desperate want she had to do just that. But it had been made very clear to her that she was not wanted. “As if I want to have anything to do with those people. Look at them, acting out when they could be advancing their education.”

“You’re only a kid once, Hermione,” Miss Abernathy said gently. “Playing, socializing, and using your imagination are just as important to proper brain development as rote memorization and acquiring knowledge.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Yes, well, I’d rather sit here being cultured than acting like some…some barbarian, running around and screaming.”

“If someone wanted you to run around and scream with them, would you be saying the same thing?” Miss Abernathy said and then she walked away before Hermione could come up with an answer.

The answer, by the way, would have been no.

And thus, yet another recess passed for Hermione Granger, who was counting down the days when she could leave the doldrums of primary school behind and into the more civilized realms of secondary school. (It should be noted at this point that Hermione was, at her core, something of an optimist.) She was certain that once her peers had grown up, they’d become much more manageable and they’d be falling over themselves to befriend the most mature student in their school. All she had to do was wait. And wait. And wait.

It had been an ordinary day, just like any other, and that was why it was so surprising to her when that day, in fact, turned out to be the one where her life changed inextricably and irrevocably. The day when everything she thought she knew was turned on its head. The day that in future years she would both celebrate as the best day of her life and revile as her worst.

When she returned home – her school was close enough that she could walk there – her parents were sitting on the couch of her living room with very shaken expressions on their faces. Something had happened. Hermione was terrible at reading facial expressions; the fact she could read her parents’ like this meant that whatever was happening, it was something big.

Her parents weren’t alone. There was a woman there, dressed in a crisp business suit. It was a bit too crisp, like something out of a movie than something a real-life businesswoman would wear. She had long frizzy hair and thick round glasses that made her eyes seem very large.

“Good afternoon, Miss Granger,” the woman said, extending her hand. Hermione automatically gave her a handshake. “My name is Sybill Trelawney, and I am a professor of divination of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Hermione burst out laughing. “There’s no such thing as magic, Miss Trelawney. The idea is ridiculous!”

Trelawney just smirked, took out a pointed stick, said a phrase in mangled Latin, and her previously grey hair turned green. Hermione blinked. How…how could she have done that? She didn’t have enough time to put on a wig; it had happened instantaneously. Was that a wand she was wielding? “I…I don’t understand…” She hated saying that to herself and saying it out loud was ten thousand times worse.

Mum sighed. “I know it all sounds unbelievable, but, Hermione, the professor is right. She can do magic. And so can you.”

“Me!” Hermione said, her voice high pitched. “But that’s impossible! I can’t be a witch! I…witches, they have green skin and they cackle and they put people into ovens and they’re evil!”

“Indeed?” Professor Trelawney asked, with a twitch of the very much not green skinned hand not holding her wand.

Hermione could feel her face heating up. “I…I’m sorry. This is just all so much to process!”

“Believe me, my dear, many have been in the same boat as you,” Professor Trelawney said kindly. “And please do not worry about having offended me. I have heard much worse. My profession is derided as hogwash even within magical society. But have you not ever done things you can’t explain?”

“There was that one time you ended up on top of the refrigerator as a toddler,” Mum mused. “Or that one time all those flowers suddenly started blooming. I thought I hadn’t been getting enough sleep and was seeing things…”

Hermione gasped. Just like that time when she’d summoned the book to her hand with the power of her mind! “Oh my goodness, I think you’re right…” She put her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry I called you evil!”

“Put the whole matter behind you, Miss Granger,” Professor Trelawney said airily. “This is quite the adjustment for you. I understand entirely.”

Hermione looked over at Dad. “Do you believe her, Dad? Do you think I’m a witch?”

Hermione’s father was silent for a long time. He was a man intensely interested in science, a man who dealt in the realm of logic and reason. It was Hermione’s fondest wish to be like him when she grew up. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as magic,” he said finally. Hermione’s heart sank. “What people like Professor Trelawney call magic is just science as yet unexplained. But, yes, Hermione, I think her power and yours is quite real.”

Hermione suddenly wrapped her father in a hug. Dad was quite surprised and with good reason – Hermione was not a girl who was exuding with physical affection most of the time. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The rest of the meeting wasn’t nearly as exciting, as Professor Trelawney went over the various school supplies she’d need for her time at Hogwarts and gave a basic rundown of magical society, with especial emphasis on the Statute of Secrecy. Hermione was of two minds about the Statute. On the one hand, she could understand quite well that the Muggle world would be a threat to the magical world. Just look at how her bullies treated her for liking books and knowledge. How much worse would it be if they knew she was a witch?

On the other, Hermione couldn’t help but wonder how much magical society was suffering from not having access to Muggle perspectives. From what she’d been able to gather, it was rather insular. What could be accomplished if Muggle scientific knowledge and equipment was applied to the magical world? Hermione had no clue, but she was very excited about finding out.

That weekend, Hermione’s parents took her to Diagon Alley, one of the few all magical communities in Britain. Her parents had adapted to the existence of the magical world with surprising ease, though they were still a little peeved to realize Hermione wasn’t going to follow into the field of dentistry like they had for their parents. (She didn’t bother telling them that she’d dreamed of becoming a particle physicist ever since she knew what the words meant. She hadn’t intended to tell them that until she got to university anyway.)

Other than its entrance being a pub, of all things, (really, was that safe for children?), Hermione was extremely impressed with Diagon Alley. Well, impressed in the sense that it was an interesting place to visit. It was like stepping into a portal into the past. Stylistically, the magical world hadn’t really changed in the past two hundred years or so, it would seem. It was quaint and…dare she say it, fun. She wouldn’t want to live there.

She and her parents got her wand first. The seller, a creepy old man named Olivander, had freaked her out and, even worse, seemed to dismiss her parents as unimportant the moment she learned they were Muggles. But she walked out with her own wand! It was so beautiful. She would cherish it forever. She even used it for her first actual intentional spell – it was okay to use magic until she got to Hogwarts according to Professor Trelawney – to dry off Mum after she stepped into a puddle.

Of course, getting a wand was nothing compared to being able to see an actual magical bookshop. She just said out loud what kind of books she wanted, and the bookshelves’ contents shifted so that they were displaying what she wanted! It was so awesome! She couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of what her peers would say right now. They’d all be so jealous.

Her thoughts were disrupted from a gasp behind her. “O. M. G!” a girl’s voice said and Hermione turned to see three people of her age approaching her. “You’re Hermione Granger. The real Hermione Granger in the flesh! I’d recognize that hair anywhere!” She tilted her head. “You know, you don’t look like Emma Watson…” The boy swatted her on the arm.

Okay, this was officially the weirdest thing she’d seen all day, and she’d spent the entire day surrounded by mages. “Do I…know you?”

There were three of them, Hermione noted. A boy and two girls. The girl who had just spoken was openly in awe, gazing at Hermione as if she was someone as famous as Princess Diana. The boy was harder to read. And the other girl…well, something in her did not like the way the other girl was staring at her. It was like she was looking through Hermione somehow.

“No, she doesn’t know us, Megan,” he said reproachfully. “We don’t know this total stranger, remember?” Megan pouted. “I’m Kevin Entwhistle and these are my friends Megan Jones and Sally-Anne Perks.”

“Uh, nice to meet you.” Hermione stuck out her hand and shook hands with both Megan and Kevin. Sally-Anne, by contrast, just continued to look aloof. “How did you know my name?”

“Magic,” Sally-Anne said, her voice amused. “It’ll make sense to you one day.”

Megan gave a huge smile at Hermione. “I have a feeling we’re gonna be great friends!”

Hermione blinked a couple of times. “You want to be…friends with me?”

“Well, yeah,” Megan said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to be friends with you? You’re awesome!”

Red hot anger flared inside of Hermione and a slight wind she’d manifested unconsciously with her magic caused the pages of the books around her to flutter. “Oh, I see. You’re making fun of me.”

“I would never,” Megan swore. “I just have this feeling about you, that’s all…”

Hermione forced herself to calm down. It was not easy, but she achieved it. “Right…sorry. I just…people have said they’d wanna be my friend and…they didn’t mean it. That’s all.”

An awkward silence settled in the room. “What do you think of Albus Dumbledore?” Sally-Anne said suddenly.

“The headmaster?” Hermione said, as if there was another Albus Dumbledore out there. “I don’t know much about him.”

“I do,” Sally-Anne said, her voice dark and sinister. “He may look like a kind grandfather, but he’s pure evil.” Megan and Kevin looked alarmed. “You can’t trust him. Every word he says is a lie. Don’t ever be in the same room as him! Don’t tell him anything! And if he convinces you to spy on Harry, don’t do it!”

Kevin did a face palm. “Hermione…just ignore Sally-Anne. Adjusting to her new…circumstances has left her disoriented. She’s having some…uh, issues.”

“I am perfectly sane,” Sally-Anne said haughtily. “Remember what I tell you. Beware of Dumbledore. And whatever you do, don’t look him in the eyes!”

“We have to go now,” Kevin said firmly and both he and Megan started dragging her away. “Nice to meet you, Hermione!”

Hermione was left quite disoriented by her encounter with the three incoming students. They’d been more confusing than average, and that was a considerable accomplishment considering how confusing she found people. But she was happy! Megan wanted to be her friend! Of course, she didn’t have high hopes, given how even genuine attempts to make friends with her had somehow gone awry in the past, but, heck, she was a witch now. Her luck might be changing!

But was it changing for the better, she wondered as she watched them walk away, or for the worse?

Chapter Text

Being dead, in the opinion of the man now living in Kevin Entwhistle’s body, was not all it was cracked up to be. He really didn’t know what to expect from death, not really. He’d been raised religious, but meandered away from it in recent decades. It wasn’t that he really considered himself an atheist – he’d just…stopped caring. Kevin, as the narrative will call him from now on for purposes of convenience, was in his early fifties; given that his parents were in their nineties and both still alive, he figured he had a good couple more decades of life before he had to give serious thought to what it would be like when it was over.

If he had to take a stab at it, he’d have said that, despite everything, he still believed he would go to heaven. Or his consciousness would be eradicated. One of those two. Kevin certainly didn’t think he’d end up in hell – he’d led a good life, been a good husband, teacher, and father and even if that hadn’t been enough, he’d also died a certified hero.

He certainly didn’t think he’d go from staring down the barrel of a gun to looking at his goddamn Hogwarts letter.

And yet that’s precisely what happened to Kevin. One moment, he’d been fifty-one years old and rushing a man who’d started shooting at his students and the next moment, he’d blinked and he was in a home he didn’t recognize, staring at a very familiar piece of paper.

Pretty much everyone who had read the books would have been overjoyed to get to go to Hogwarts after they died. Kevin was not those people, because he did not want to be dead. He had a family! He had a wife, he had a son! He had a room full of students he was charged with protecting and he might have gotten them killed because he’d just had to charge in like Rambo!

Yeah, you’re definitely going to be a Gryffindor, something said in the back of his head. He thought for a second it was Kevin, the real Kevin, but no, it was just his own thoughts.

“Mr. Entwhistle?” a voice said. “Are you all right?” Kevin looked up to see that, no, he wasn’t alone in the room. A man who looked vaguely like Alan Rickman – Snape? – was looking at him with a surprising amount of concern. Also looking at him with an unsurprising amount of concern were two adults he’d never seen before in his life – the real Kevin’s parents, no doubt.

“I…I don’t…” Normally, Kevin was very quick on his feet, but he’d never died before. “I need some space to process this, please?” His voice came out in a British accent. Neat. That was one less thing to worry about; Kevin had always been rubbish with imitating accents in his last life.

He went upstairs into the room that had to be his based on the decorations that reminded him a lot of the decorations Derek had in his own room, and then he sat on the bed, and he burst out crying. Kevin tried his best to keep his sobs quiet, but it was difficult. He was the one who was dead; why the hell should he be the one forced to mourn, then? He’d never see his son and his wife again…

…and crying wouldn’t change that. So instead, Kevin studied the letter in his hand carefully. It was exactly the same one that Harry had gotten in Sorcerer’s Stone. Right down to the date. He was going to be going to Hogwarts in Harry’s first year! Had there been a Kevin Entwhistle in the books? He couldn’t remember. If there was, he was probably a bit character. Which was good news for him! At least up until the Battle of Hogwarts, no redshirt students had died in the series. That definitely would have made the books. So as long as he kept his head down and hightailed it out of the country before the end of Half-Blood Prince, he was good to go on the mortality front. There certainly weren’t any school shooters at Hogwarts. Possessed professors, a basilisk running around, an appalling lack of any kind of safety measures, and worst of all, Umbridge, but no shooters.

The question then became what to do. He could just keep his head down, learn magic, and let Harry handle everything the way he did in the books. Or he could simply say no to Snape and lead an ordinary life as a Muggle. And yet, that idea was not palatable to Kevin. A part of that was because he’d clearly been sent to this universe for a reason. People did not just reincarnate into fictional universes with all their memories for no reason. But then again, Kevin was not a huge believer in destiny.

No, the reason why he refused to just sit back and keep his head down was the thought of what Derek would say. Derek was an avid Harry Potter fan. It should have been him in these circumstances (minus the being dead part, naturally). He’d know precisely what to do. Derek would be appalled if Kevin just sat back and twiddled his thumbs.

And Kevin’s conscience wouldn’t allow it either. Right now, there was a boy living in a cupboard under the stairs who didn’t have a living soul who loved him and had been told his parents had been drunks who died in a car crash. When he got to Hogwarts, Harry would face bullying, scorn, the weight of high expectations, people celebrating his parents giving up their lives, and so very much more. Kevin was in a child’s body, but he hadn’t stopped being a teacher just because he was in a new life. Harry deserved better.

Kevin wasn’t foolish enough to mess with the main plot too much. He knew very well from mythology that attempting to thwart the will of destiny was unwise at best. But Harry’s destiny was to defeat Voldemort and destroy his horcruxes. It was not to be abused by the Dursleys. It was not to be ridiculed by his peers out of paranoia and jealousy. It was not to have some bitch who didn’t deserve the title of teacher make him carve lines onto his hands.

So Kevin would interfere. Subtly, from behind the scenes. He’d stick up for Harry. He’d stop others from bad mouthing him. He’d support him. He’d be a friend. And maybe that would change the main plot, but, hell, if Derek was here, he’d be cheering him on.

There was a knock on the door. “Mr. Entwhistle? May I come in?” Much to Kevin’s surprise, the words hadn’t been said by his “parents,” but by Snape.

Kevin opened the door. “I…I’m sorry, professor,” he said, wiping his eyes. They were still stained with tears.

“I understand how you’re feeling,” Snape said, more gently and softly than Kevin thought he was capable of. Which made a little bit of sense; he was only seen from Harry’s perspective when all was said and done. “It can be quite disorienting to learn that everything you know was wrong. When I first heard I was a wizard…” When Harry’s mom told him, Kevin remembered. “…I thought there was something wrong with me. That I was not a real human.”

“The people at my church say magic is evil, sir,” Kevin said. He had no clue whether or not the Entwhistles were churchgoers, but it was more likely than not. “The Bible says suffer not a witch to live.”

Snape stiffened a little. “Your parents have said this?”

Ah. Yes, in retrospect of course that would come across as making him look like he was at risk. “No, no, it’s just…what I’ve heard,” he hastened to assure Snape. “I’m sure my parents are fine with it.”

Snape studied him carefully. Kevin really hoped he wouldn’t try to use Legilimancy on him, because he didn’t know a damn thing about Occlumency, and he really, really did not want Snape knowing his future. If there was one thing he could do to get the plot really off the rails, it would most definitely be that. “Well, if you have any concerns, you need only send us an owl,” Snape said finally.

Kevin nodded. It was time for him to give Snape a little nudge. Just a tiny one, aimed at convincing him to treat Harry a bit more reasonably. He had no idea if it would work at all. Kevin wasn’t exactly a master of psychological warfare. “The school’s a good one? I don’t like my current school.”

“I would hardly deign to teach at a substandard institute of magic,” Snape said, arrogance reverberating throughout his voice. “What about your current school do you not like?”

“It’s the teachers,” Kevin lied. “They’re mean. They put us down a lot, call us names. The teachers at Hogwarts are better?”

Snape was silent for a few seconds. Kevin wasn’t surprised to not be able to read his facial expression; after all, if he’d been able to keep his feelings secret from Voldemort, he’d be able to do it from some random kid. “Of course they are. You may set your fears aside, Mr. Entwhistle. No harm will come to you at Hogwarts. Certainly not from your teachers.”

It was all Kevin could do to not burst out laughing. A large majority of the harm Harry had endured had come from the teachers! Three defense teachers had tried to kill him, two on purpose, a fourth defense teacher had tortured him, and a fifth had tried to wipe his mind!

“Thank you, professor,” he said softly.

“No, thank you, Mr. Entwhistle,” Snape said, “for being so candid with your concerns.” Had he gotten through to Snape a little? Kevin hoped so. Then again, even if he’d gotten through to Snape now, it might mean nothing when he walked into the classroom and saw Harry for the first time. “I am not supposed to advocate for any house during these meetings, especially my own, but I daresay you’d make an excellent Slytherin.”

Kevin couldn’t help but crack a little grin, the first time he’d felt like smiling since he died. After Snape left and he’d made excuses to his “parents,” he was faced with some of the worst weeks of his life. He not only had to deal with a best friend in his primary school he’d never met before, he had to tell said friend he was leaving in just a few months. And deal with a bunch of bullies that he suddenly didn’t have the slightest amount of authority to put into their places, a sharp contrast to the last years of his life.

And the kids…no matter where he went, no matter who he talked to, something reminded him of Derek. Derek wasn’t even born yet, but kids were the same at any time of history, really. People didn’t change fundamentally, no matter whether they were Muggle or magical or had access to Instagram or not. (One thing Kevin did not miss one iota was social media.)

There was another fly in the ointment, though, and that was that the real him existed here. A twenty year old boy was going to college at the University of New Mexico, studying to become a teacher and unaware that in a few months, he’d go to a party and meet a beautiful blond by the name of Chloe, who he would love for the rest of his life and into the next one. So was he in his own universe and had simply time traveled and Rowling had published Harry’s story as if it was fiction when it was reality? Or was he in an alternate universe where everything was the same except for the events of the story?

Kevin eventually decided that for the sake of his sanity, he’d make the other him and Chloe a later problem. There was no need to burden either of them with the knowledge he would be cut down in the prime of his life, not yet anyway. After everything came full circle and the other him died, maybe he would reach out to Chloe. He’d be around forty then. After an appropriate period of mourning, Chloe could take Derek to live with her in England, she’d have a “run in” with a dashing Brit ten years her junior – that wasn’t too scandalous of an age difference by that point – and they’d get married again. Or maybe he could claim to be a “distant cousin” of himself? Or an old pen pal?

He was getting distracted, and that couldn’t happen. Lives literally hung in the balance.

Kevin had a mission in this new life, and it wasn’t to be a part of a family that didn’t even exist yet. It was to help Harry in any way he could. And no matter what or who stood in his way, he’d make sure the Boy Who Lived had the best school experience possible. He’d fight Voldemort himself if it came down to that.

*****

The woman who was in Megan Jones’s body let out a huge grin. SHE HAD A HOGWARTS LETTER! She’d literally had dreams about this. Maybe she was dreaming now. Her memories of the last few minutes were fuzzy, but she was pretty sure she’d staggered out into the road and gotten hit by a car. Maybe she was in a coma. Maybe she was just sleeping off medication. Or maybe she was dead.

Either way, it didn’t matter, because she was going to Hogwarts! She was going to be a goddamn witch. And screw Rowling’s TERFish ways: if Hogwarts wasn’t accommodating to trans people, she’d damn well drag their asses into the twenty-first century! Okay, sure, she was currently in the twentieth, but they were mages. If anyone was capable of having their asses dragged into a future century, it was them.

“This is the happiest moment of my life!” she said, tears running down her cheek as she hugged the nearest person – Megan’s dad. Nah, her dad now. Her parents had been assholes, always fighting and drinking and sometimes both. They’d never hit her, but they hadn’t really loved her either. So she was totally claiming Mr. Jones as her dad. “I’ve always wanted this.”

“You’ve always wanted…this?” Mum asked, sounding very puzzled. Right, yes, of course. There was no way she should have known about magic beforehand.

“Well, not this specifically,” Megan said hurriedly. “But I’ve always dreamed of something extraordinary happening to me.”

Dad nodded, not looking at all surprised. “She’s a very big fan of Lord of the Rings,” she said to a stern looking woman. OH MY GOSH, WAS THIS MCGONAGALL? She was one of Megan’s all time favorite characters! “It unscrews the other way” – classic!

McGonagall chuckled. “I have been told our headmaster resembles Gandalf quite a bit.” She looked much more relaxed than Megan was expecting. Maybe the summers were less stressful for her than the school year. Certainly they were going to be less stressful than the coming years, what with Harry and his friends running around, getting into trouble and/or saving the day.

Megan tuned out most of the rest of the meeting, nodding and smiling at appropriate moments. She was too excited about all the possibilities. What house would she be in? What forms of magic would she specialize in? What pranks would she play on Umbridge in a few years?

Life was brilliant for Megan now. She wasn’t sad about being dead at all. Her old life had really offered her very little. Her parents didn’t love her, she didn’t really have too many close friends, all of her attempts to date had crashed and burned. This was a chance to start anew. With loving parents! (Granted, loving parents she’d only see one season of the year from now on, but, heck, it was sure better than before!) And magic!

“…and our annual social for Muggleborns and their parents will be on August 27,” McGonagall said and Megan came out of her thoughts at those words. “The Longbottom family has generously given use of their home for the event.” A social? That sounded so cool! She could meet Hermione! And Neville! Maybe Ron and some of the other characters as well.

“Oh, can we go?” Megan said, giving her most adorable expression at her parents. It worked much better on them than the last parents she’d had, apparently, because her parents immediately agreed.

The next few days were absolutely marvelous. She reveled in the love her new parents had for her. It was so amazing having parents who actually cared about her welfare instead of seeing looking after her as a chore. It wasn’t as if her last parents had put her in a cupboard, but Megan had gotten very used to doing things for herself. That in itself would have been more than enough, but then she got to go to Diagon Alley and get a wand.

Megan cast her first spell that very afternoon. The feel of casting magic was almost indescribable. It was like a warm current of energy coursing through her body, into her wand, and then into the plate she’d accidentally broken.

“That’s sure something,” Mum said with a wistful grin. “I wish I could do that. I wonder why you got this power and I didn’t.”

Megan had been wondering that herself. Why had she ended up in this life? And the conclusion she was coming to, as self-centered as it sounded, was that she was most likely in heaven. Being able to do magic and having loving parents had been her two most fervent desires in life, and now that she was dead, she had both of them. It sounded pretty heavenly to her.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Megan said with a shrug. “You know I’d give it to you if I could.” It was true. Megan would give Mum the world; she just loved her so much. It was amazing how quickly she’d come to love her parents. Maybe it was an echo of the real Megan. Or maybe there never had been a real Megan and this was all a mental construct. Either way, it didn’t matter.

Much to Megan’s disappointment, Hermione wasn’t at the social. Her father was sick. In retrospect, that was probably not a surprise. Hermione probably would have mentioned it if she had been there. And the fact she didn’t attend could have contributed in part to the social isolation she faced at Hogwarts.

Nor was Neville’s house a particularly impressive building. It certainly wasn’t the manor fanon said it was. Megan tried her best to bond with the Muggleborn students, but her exuberance seemed to scare people a little. Much to her dismay, it certainly scared away Neville.

A boy she didn’t recognize – well, she didn’t recognize anyone technically, but she’d found most of the characters vaguely resembled their movie counterparts – walked up to her. “You like riddles?”

Megan narrowed her eyes. Was this a trick question? Was this boy recruiting for the Death Eaters? For Tom Riddle? No, surely not. Not at a Muggleborn social. She was overcomplicating things once more.

“Cause I heard a good one,” the boy went on, looking a little nervous. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to…?”

Megan rolled her eyes. “That’s a terrible riddle. That’s just Yoda’s line from Episode I. Hate leads to suffering, everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, everyone will know that. In 1999. When Episode I comes out. But it’s 1991 now.” Ah, shit. Blowing her cover at the first post. Well done, Megan.

“I…am a seer?” she offered, knowing it was hopeless.

The boy laughed. “Yes, you are! We both are, in a way. I’m Kevin Entwhistle. Well, that’s the name this body was born with, anyway. So how’d you die?”

Megan’s cheeks flushed. Her death was embarrassing. It was not exactly on the top ten list of ways she’d wanted to go out. “That’s private.”

“I’m sorry,” Kevin said, sounding genuinely sorry. “I should have known better. So we’re both self-inserts, it would seem.”

“I know!” Megan said, practically squeeing with happiness. “It’s so cool! Did you get your wand yet?” Kevin nodded. “Oh gosh, I’m so excited! I get to go to Hogwarts, learn magic! I’ve always wanted this!”

Kevin sighed. “It’s not all fun and games, Megan. There’s a dark lord problem to worry about. Did you forget?”

“Uh, hello, do I look like I’ve got protagonist written on me?” Megan said, rolling her eyes. “That’s Harry’s problem. That’s why the books are called Harry Potter, not Megan Jones!”

Kevin looked disappointed. “Really? You were just dropped here and you’re not going to use your knowledge to make things better?”

Megan was starting to not like Kevin very much. He was being very judgmental. Megan was supposed to be in heaven. She was supposed to be having fun. “Look, I just wanna be a background character, okay? I’m dead. You’re dead. Let me enjoy my afterlife in peace.”

“Megan, you are not in the afterlife,” Kevin said. “You reincarnated! Pre-incarnated, really. Right now…how old are you?”

“Eleven,” Megan said. “Same as you.”

“No, I mean, how old are you really? I’m fifty-one.”

Megan’s mouth dropped open. “Fifty-one? Oh, wow. You lost forty years. I’m nineteen.” She narrowed her eyes. “Look, Kevin, you can do what you want. Me, I’m staying out of it. I mean, look, this year, there isn’t much for us to do anyway, right? Harry saves the Stone. The only one who dies is Quirrell and he’s a bad guy, so I’m not exactly planning on going out of my way to save him.”

Kevin pursed his lips a little. “I can see where you’re coming from there, even if I don’t entirely like it. But don’t you think we should do something about the Dursleys?”

“How?” Megan challenged him. “Kevin, I know you’re used to being an adult, but you’re a kid again now. You have no power. People will laugh you off, because no one takes kids seriously. Look at how McGonagall reacted when Harry warned her about the Stone getting stolen!” 

Kevin sat down in a chair. “I lost my family. My son, my wife…maybe it’s different for you. But I believe I was sent here for a reason. There has to be one. Reincarnation is not a natural phenomenon…”

“Neither is magic.”

Kevin was silent for a few seconds. “Touché. So…I’m sorry if I come across as touchy at times. I look at you and I see one of my students, but you’re right. I’m a kid again, and I need to get used to that.”

“Want some help?” Megan asked. “Come over to my house, we can have a playdate. Or whatever. Not sure if that’s a thing people do when they’re eleven. Probably not. But you can hang out anyway.”

“Your parents won’t get suspicious?”

Megan laughed. “Kev, you’re overthinking this. This is a social. Making new friends is the point. And we’re not close to the time of our lives when it’s weird for a boy and a girl to be hanging out together.”

Kevin’s face flushed scarlet. “I am not looking forward to going through puberty again.” Neither was Megan. At least she still had some time left before she started getting her periods again. She’d enjoy the respite while it lasted.

As Megan had predicted, her parents were overjoyed she’d made a new friend. Actually, the real Megan had been something of a wallflower, so Megan’s new outgoing nature was a welcome change of pace to them. They didn’t seem the least bit suspicious; people’s personalities shifted all the time at that age, especially with something as enormous as learning one was a witch as a catalyst. (She was a witch now. So cool!)

It took a lot of cajoling, but Megan really felt like she was making progress with Kevin. Kevin was a pretty good friend when he wasn’t lecturing people and acting like a dad. True, he was likely a very good father – Megan would have killed to be his daughter back in her old life – but that wasn’t his role anymore. Megan wasn’t his daughter, and Harry wasn’t going to be his son or his student, but his peer and maybe, if Kevin played his cards right, his friend. But that wouldn’t happen if Kevin acted like an adult all the time.

They played all sorts of games, they sprayed each other with sprinklers, they did races, hopscotch, all sorts of fun stuff. And Kevin was enjoying himself, Megan could tell. He probably hadn’t had so much fun in years.

Megan hadn’t been sure if there were any other self-inserts out there. No one else at the social had responded to Kevin’s “riddle.” But then again, not every Muggleborn was at the social, and there was no reason they couldn’t be a pureblood or half-blood. Not to mention not everyone was familiar with Star Wars. Or maybe they came from another country where the English variation of the phrase wouldn’t be known to them. Or maybe they just had a good poker face.

Either way, it was important that she found out more. So she placed an ad in the classified section of the Daily Prophet with the “riddle” and a phone number to call if they knew the answer, Megan’s own. And the next day, she got the right response from a Muggleborn named Sally-Anne Perks. Megan remembered that name from some fanfics she’d read; she certainly was better known than the real Megan had been.

It wasn’t all that hard to persuade her parents to take her over to Sally-Anne’s house. She just said they’d met at the social (though she wasn’t sure if Sally-Anne had been there); her parents hadn’t exactly gotten everyone’s names and were once more elated to see Megan being more social.

The door was opened by a befuddled looking man who stepped aside without another word. A girl who looked a lot like the daughter from the Addams Family movies, with long black hair flowing down her back, walked into the hall as Kevin and Megan entered. “It’s nice to meet you, dears. I’m Sally-Anne Perks. Or this body is anyway.”

Megan cast a panicked look over at Mr. Perks. “Oh, don’t mind him,” Sally-Anne said with a disturbingly airy tone. “I had to put him under the Imperius Curse.”

The bottom dropped out of Sally-Anne’s stomach. “That’s illegal…”

“Yes, it was illegal when Harry used it in Deathly Hallows, but it was still necessary. And I’m only in trouble if I get caught.” She twitched her wand and the door closed and locked behind them. “Relax. I’m not going to bite. I had to do it, you see. They were very upset when I got my Hogwarts letter. Professor Flitwick barely managed to calm them down. But their behavior continued to deteriorate. They called me a spawn of Satan, a child of the devil. I feared for my life.”

As plausible as Sally-Anne’s story sounded, Megan was not sure she believed it. She sounded rather blasé about the whole matter and the fact that she’d leapt straight to using an Unforgivable didn’t exactly speak well of her.

“So…” Kevin said, and trailed off. He didn’t seem to know what to say either. “Wanna tell us a little about yourself?”

“No,” Sally-Anne said coolly. “My past is irrelevant. The future is what matters. And what we’re going to do about the true villain of the series: Dumbledore.”

*****

If you worked in King’s Cross during the fall, there were certain things you were supposed to pretend you didn’t notice. It was rarely spoken of. Those who spoke of those things too much quickly found themselves in other jobs, with no memories of their old position. But the knowledge found its way to employees of the station nonetheless. People dressed in strange clothing, a plethora of owls, kids entering the station but seemingly never departing, this was all part of life at King’s Cross. Most accepted it with a surprising amount of chill. It’s astonishing what people can get used to, especially if employment is on the line.

Of course, there were also benefits to just casually accepting this, such as the strange but definitely golden coins that these strange visitors paid in. It could be very profitable to be working in King’s Cross during what was called – more accurately than anyone realized – the Witching Season.

Eric Schaffer had worked at the fish and chips shop for three years and had become immune to the strangeness of the Witching Season. Or so he had thought. But he had to admit, the strange frizzy haired woman who had come into the store and started giving a soliloquy to seemingly thin air, unaware that everyone in the shop was staring at her, left the baseline weirdness of the Witching Season behind.

“The more you read Harry Potter fanfic, the more you notice certain patterns reoccur over and over again,” the woman said. “One of these patterns is a type of fic known as an Independent Harry story or Indy Harry for short. Alas, Indy Harry stories do not involve him being a globetrotting archeologist, though the contrast between Indiana Jones being afraid of snakes and Harry being able to speak to snakes would make that interesting to read.”

Eric nodded, not even realizing he was doing it. It did sound interesting.

“Indy Harry stories, in theory, involve Harry breaking free of the control of wizarding society, especially Dumbledore. Frequently, Dumbledore is reviled in these fics, with him being portrayed as an outright villain, using mind control or other sinister things to get Harry under his thumb so that he may sacrifice himself for the ‘greater good.’”

The woman stood up and started pacing around the room. Everyone watched her, fascinated despite themselves. “Traditionally, these fics involve Harry learning of his true status in wizarding society, often involving lordships and a tremendous amount of power hidden from him, from the goblins. They also tend to bash, or vilify, Ron and Ginny and sometimes Hermione unless it is a Harry/Hermione shipping fic.”

The woman held up a finger. “Now let me be very clear. I am not saying these fics are unreadable. In fact, they are a guilty pleasure of mine. Sometimes, you just want justice to prevail and for the villains to receive their just desserts, especially in a society where justice is so often denied. But in my opinion, they often lack creativity and their characterization is flawed.”

Eric wasn’t quite sure what to make of all this, really. A part of him wanted to flag down a bobby to get this woman out of his shop. But another part of him was curious about where this monologue was going.

“Humanity is hardwired to see patterns in a random universe,” the woman pontificated. “Indy Harry fics are a prime example of this. Instead of Harry just getting a raw deal, it has to be Dumbledore’s fault. Instead of Mrs. Weasley just being indiscreet and making a mistake when talking about Muggles in the middle of the station, it was all a sinister plot to align Harry with a light-sided family.”

“What’s a Muggle?” Eric couldn’t help but ask.

“Never you mind,” the woman said brusquely. “In my opinion, making conspiracy theories out of fiction and putting them in fanfiction is, in fact, a very healthy outlet for conspiratorial impulses that could otherwise have real world, and sometimes very deadly, consequences. But that’s as long as they stay fiction…”

The woman sidled up to the counter. “I’ll have your classic special and a Coke, if you please.”

*****

If Megan had been alarmed back when Sally-Anne had casually revealed she had put her parents under the Imperius curse, it was nothing compared to how alarmed she was now. Sally-Anne was absolutely certain that Dumbledore was a criminal mastermind even worse than Voldemort, actively facilitating the abuse Harry experienced, planning on having the Weasleys use love potions to ensorcell Harry to Ginny’s will, and knowingly keeping Sirius in Azkaban without a trial, among many, many other things.

It was all bunk in Megan’s opinion. Her rhetoric sounded uncomfortably similar to conspiracy theorists who believed things like vaccines causing autism or 9/11 being an inside job. This was bad enough on its own, but they now had a conspiracy theorist on their hands with magic and no compunction about using the darkest curses imaginable.

“Uh, you mind giving us a few minutes to think over these…interesting revelations?” Megan said with a nervous laugh.

Sally-Anne waved a hand lazily, mirth sparkling in her eyes. She clearly wasn’t bothered by Kevin and Megan’s clear disbelief in her theories very much. For now. Megan dragged Kevin upstairs. “She’s out of her mind!” she said without preamble.

“Yes, clearly,” Kevin said. “The question is, what should we do?”

“I say we turn her in. The Unforgivable Curses are unforgivable for a reason, you know.”

Kevin bit his lip. “I mean…she’s a kid…what if they throw her in Azkaban?” He sighed. “I don’t know, Megan. She’s clearly dangerous, but…maybe we should pretend we’re on her side so we can find out what she’s planning?”

“I am not going to be able to say I’m into these theories of hers with a straight face,” Megan warned. “I should have known this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park, right? On the bright side, I can’t really see Harry buying into this stuff.” He was a good judge of character, in Megan’s opinion. He’d taken one look at Draco and saw that he was just a bully like Dudley, only posher.

The two of them went downstairs where Sally-Anne looked at them with an unnerving stare. She made constant eye contact. Megan wondered if she was trying to use Legilimancy on them. If so, it probably wasn’t working, since she didn’t feel anything. “We decided that we need more proof than your word,” Kevin said. “Give us real proof, something solid, and we’ll act.”

That was a good compromise, in Megan’s opinion. Worst case scenario, it would at least keep Sally-Anne busy for a while. Best case scenario, maybe she’d realize her theories were hogwash.

Yeah. Probably not.

*****

Hermione had never been more excited in her life. She had an answer to the mysterious events that often occurred around her, which had always bugged her, even if only on a subconscious level. She was going to leave her dumb peers behind in favor of a group of students dedicated to their studies, because who would slack off when learning something as fascinating as magic? And she was going to become a witch.

But not just any witch. Oh, no. Hermione had plans. She was going to learn everything there was to know about magic, and then she’d come up with a grand unifying field theory of magic. She’d expand magical knowledge by tenfold. No, a hundredfold! Her highest ambition was to learn what caused magic in the first place and figure out how to expand that so that it covered all mankind. If anyone could do it, she could, she knew.

Of course, that could take decades to achieve. She had to start small, alas. She’d memorized all the textbooks, because that was the responsible thing to do, and she’d even managed to do some small spells at home. Her parents were extremely impressed with her. Hermione really wished she could show these spells to her peers so that they might understand that bullying a powerful witch was really not the best-conceived idea. But, unfortunately, that would have been against the law. Besides, living well was the best revenge.

“Oh, I’m going to miss you so much,” Mum said, planting a kiss on Hermione’s forehead. “Don’t forget to write every week at the very least, sweetie. I want to know what this magic school of yours is like.”

“I will, mum,” Hermione promised.

“I’m proud of you, Hermione,” Dad said, and Hermione practically preened. “It takes courage to walk into the unknown. Remember to help others when they need it and don’t eat any candy. Nothing worse than candy for the teeth.”

“Yes, dad,” Hermione intoned, and Dad gave Hermione an awkward hug.

Hermione looked at the wall between Platforms 9 and 10. (If the platform was between those two, then why wasn’t it Platform 9 1/2?) She took a deep breath, steeled herself, closed her eyes, and charged forward. She was mildly surprised that she didn’t end up splattering her brains all over the brick. Instead, she went through it as if it wasn’t even there and she found herself on a platform. Mages were everywhere! As far as the eye could see! Oh, it was amazing. For the first time, it really felt real.

“HERMIONE!” a voice called out and before Hermione could protest in the slightest, the exuberant girl from the bookshop – Megan, Hermione recalled – pounced on her with a hug.

Hermione struggled to keep the discomfort off her face. She wasn’t a fan of being touched in any way, especially unexpectedly and without her approval. And no one other than her parents had hugged her before in her life. “Hi, Megan, could you maybe give me some space?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Megan said, looking as ashamed as if she had offended the queen. “Oh, I’m really fu – dging this up.” She laughed nervously.

“A surprisingly apt save there,” Kevin said with a smirk. “Nice to see you again, Hermione.”

Hermione tried to summon a smile. “Uh, nice to see you too, I suppose.” She looked at her feet nervously. This was perhaps the most civil conversation she’d had with someone in her own age in ages, maybe ever. “Do you mind if I sit with you two on the train? I don’t know anyone else, you see.”

The two of them looked at each other nervously. Hermione’s heart sank. Of course they didn’t want to sit with the know-it-all. Kevin and Megan whispered among themselves for a while. Hermione only caught a few phrases, including the sentence, “She didn’t actually sit with them; that was just her introduction,” whatever that meant.

“Sure!” Megan said eventually. “I’d really love to sit with you.”

Hermione felt like an invisible weight had been lifted from her. Megan was a bit too excitable for her taste, and she had the distinct feeling she was hiding something, but she wanted to be friends with Hermione, and that was not something Hermione was willing to discard lightly. Hopefully, she wouldn’t prove to be as boorish as most people their age. And Kevin seemed nice enough. At least that weird Sally-Anne wasn’t with them. She’d given Hermione a bad feeling.

Hermione followed them to a free compartment, a feeling of excitement running through her. People were actually going to like her at Hogwarts! Everything was coming up Hermione.

“So have you given any thought as to what house you’d like to be in?” Hermione asked. “I mean, from what I’ve seen, Gryffindors appear to be favored by society. Dumbledore was one and so are several prominent heads of departments at the Ministry of Magic. But I imagine Ravenclaw is the most intellectually stimulating out of all of them.”

“Oh, I’m gonna be a Gryffindor,” Megan said without a shadow of a doubt in her voice. “I mean, I always charge ahead without thinking, classic Gryffindor traits, am I right?”

“Derek always thought I’d be a good Hufflepuff,” Kevin mused.

“Who’s Derek?” Hermione asked.

Kevin blinked repeatedly and looked embarrassed for some reason. “Uh, my…brother. My younger brother. Yeah. Uh, but I don’t know. I think I’ll just go with the flow. Also a good Hufflepuff trait, now that I think about it. But honestly, I have a hunch I’ll end up in Gryffindor too.” He put his arm around Megan’s shoulder. “Someone’s gotta watch over this one, right?”

Megan stuck out her tongue at Kevin. “I’m not your kid, you know.”  

Hermione sighed. The two of them were acting as if they’d been friends for years. Maybe they had. How would she ever fit in anywhere? “Hey, what’s got you down in the dumps?” Megan asked.

“I just…I’m scared,” Hermione admitted. “What if no one likes me?”

“Impossible,” Megan declared. “I like you, so it’s not possible for no one to like you.”

“You do?” Hermione said, somewhat incredulously.

Megan looked bewildered. “Of course I like you. How could I not? I mean, when you –” Kevin abruptly nudged her and she stopped talking, looking sheepish. “Anyway, we are now officially friends, Hermione Jean Granger. I mean…if you want to?”

Hermione nodded so eagerly she was worried her head might fall off. “YES! Yes, please! I would be most honored to be your friend.” She gave a delighted laugh, then looked over at Kevin. “Can I be your friend too?”

Kevin looked taken aback for a few seconds. Hermione smacked herself on the head for being so forward. Of course he didn’t want to be her friend. He had just met her! “No, no, of course we can be friends,” he hastened to assure her. “I was just caught off guard.”

“I’ve never had real friends before,” Hermione admitted. Both of them looked furious. Furious on her behalf! Oh, goodness, having friends was all it was cracked up to be thus far! “I never seemed to have the knack.”

“Let me give you some advice,” Kevin said.

“Be gentle,” Megan stage whispered.

Kevin nodded at her. “Maybe…part of the problem is that you dominate the conversation too much? And you’re very…opinionated, which is good in moderation, but it can be…overwhelming sometimes. And also, you have a tendency to always try to prove yourself right.”

“That’s being gentle?” Megan complained.

Hermione was indignant. True, it wasn’t as if he was entirely wrong, but if someone was saying something wrong, it was her duty to correct them. How else would they learn? “If I am right and someone else is wrong, then I have a responsibility to tell them.”

Kevin gave a so-so gesture. “I mean, not everything is black and white. There are shades of grey. If someone says the world is flat, then that’s pretty clearly wrong. But there are a lot of things where what you have is a difference of opinion. And if you keep on trying to press your opinion, you’ll alienate people.”

Hermione pursed her lips. “But people should be happy I’m correcting them. They’ll humiliate themselves if they repeat their mistaken beliefs to others. I’m sparing them embarrassment.”

“Then that’s their problem, not yours,” Kevin pointed out. “Hermione, look, I’m not here to tell you what to do. It’s just a suggestion, that’s all.”

“Sometimes, you have to meet people halfway and pick your battles,” Megan said. “It sucks, but that’s the way it is. Making friends is about compromise. If you meet them halfway, if they’re good friends, they’ll meet you halfway too. And if they don’t, that’s usually a sign you need new friends.”

This actually made sense to Hermione. She wished she’d heard this years ago. “How did you find out about this? Did you have a special class in your school?”

“Ha! If only,” Megan said. “No, I learned the hard way. Almost two decades of trial and error.”

Hermione frowned. “But you’re eleven.”

Megan’s eyes widened a bit. “Uh, right, well, it feels like two decades.”

Before Hermione could interrogate her further, there was a knock on their compartment door. A very nervous looking boy, even more nervous than Hermione, was standing in the aisle. “Uh, hi. Has anyone seen a toad? I lost mine.”

“No, but I’ll help you look for it,” Hermione said immediately. The boy brightened. Megan gave her a thumbs up.

“Oh, I’m Neville,” the boy said. “Neville Longbottom.”

“Hermione Granger,” she said, and shook Neville’s hand. She started going from compartment to compartment, looking for the toad. She opened up one and saw a redhaired boy and a black-haired boy sitting there.

“Has anyone seen a toad?” she said. “Neville’s lost one.”

The redhaired boy said something, but Hermione’s eyes were too drawn to his wand to notice what it was. She had never seen someone else use magic before other than Professor Trelawney. Maybe if she asked the boy to show her a spell, she’d get a handle on what was typical to know for children her age – so she could rise above it, of course.

“Are you doing magic, then?” she said commandingly. “Let’s see it.”

“Er, all right,” the redhead said. “Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.” He waved his wand and nothing happened.

Hermione shook her head disapprovingly. Silly boys. Didn’t they read the textbook at all? “Are you sure it’s a real spell? It’s not…” She paused as she remembered what Kevin said about always having to prove herself right. “Well, maybe he looks a little paler?” she suggested feebly.

“Now that you mention it, he kind of does a little,” the black-haired boy said.

“Well, maybe if you practice some more, it’ll work better,” Hermione suggested. She sat down across from them, all thoughts of helping Neville gone. “I’m just so happy to be going to Hogwarts. They say it’s the very best school of magic out there. What house do you think you’ll end up in? My friends Kevin and Megan, they think they’ll probably end up in Gryffindor. But I’ve always liked books so I might be a Ravenclaw.” She sighed. “I’m talking too much, aren’t I? My friends say I talk too much.”

“A bit,” the black-haired boy said. “I guess? I’ve never had friends before, so…”

The redhead looked bewildered. “But…but you’re the Boy Who Lived. And no one wanted to be your friend?”

Hermione gasped. This was Harry Potter? But he looked so…average. Everyone said he was extraordinary, that he had to be since he defeated Voldemort so young. But then again, maybe everyone extraordinary came across as ordinary when they were that age. “You’re Harry Potter.”

“Sure, and you are…?”

Hermione did a face palm. “So rude of me. My parents would not be amused. I’m Hermione Granger.”

“Ron Weasley,” the redhead said. “You like Quidditch?”

“Never heard of it,” Hermione admitted.

Ron acted as if she’d committed a crime against nature and immediately launched into a long lecture about the game which could rival some of Hermione’s own. So this was what Megan meant about meeting people halfway. She indulged some of her friends’ flaws, like being obsessed with an asinine sport, and they indulged some of hers, like talking too much and having a need to correct people. Hermione could definitely get used to it.

She lost all track of time until the compartment looking door opened and three boys walked in. One of them was blond and very snobbish looking, and the other two were hulking and looked almost identical. “Is it true?” he asked. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”

“Yes,” Harry said.

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” the blond said, gesturing carelessly at his bodyguards. “And my name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”

“Is that like Bond, James Bond?” Hermione said with a smirk. Ron looked confused, but Harry returned the smirk.

Draco narrowed his eyes, unsure what Hermione meant, but no doubt aware he was being mocked. “I don’t recognize you, so you must be some jumped up mudblood. We have no use for your kind here.”

“I was here first,” Hermione said coolly. “Your presence here is neither needed nor wanted.”

“And just what are you going to do about it…?” Draco trailed off to see a wand leveled at his forehead. “Now this here is one of Ollivander’s finest, one of the most powerful wands in the world, and it could blow your head clean off,” Hermione said, recalling a phrase from a movie she’d once watched (not that her parents were aware she’d been watching). “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?!”

Draco hesitated for a few seconds. “This isn’t over,” he said, and scrambled out of the compartment.

Hermione sat down on the seat, suddenly very drained. “Oh, thank goodness that worked. I don’t know a darn thing about offensive magic.”

“That was brilliant!” Harry said. “I wish you’d been around at my old school. Just think of how Dudley would have reacted to that – he’d have pissed himself!”

“Yeah, you’re all right in my book, Hermione,” Ron said with a warm smile. “So…what was your old school like?”

Hermione leaned back in her seat, feeling very satisfied, as she launched into a diatribe about the various inadequacies of the primary school she’d gone to. So this was what it was like to have friends.

It felt awesome.

Chapter Text

In Albus Dumbledore’s experience, people rarely changed. Not collectively, at any rate. Oh, individual people may change, but people as a whole were much the same, he’d found, over his more than a century of life. Wherever there was a scrap of power to be had, people would claw at it with vicious abandon. Fear usually won out over reason. There would always be individuals who were out to hurt others for their own twisted amusement, or, worse, purely because they believed they were doing the right thing.

But people’s lack of change wasn’t always a bad thing. It never failed to make Dumbledore a happy man to see the total awe on the first year students as they entered the Great Hall for the first time. It was depressingly easy to become inured to the magnificent wonders magic was capable of, so it was a marvel each and every year to vicariously experience once more that moment of joy all of Dumbledore’s young charges felt upon seeing the enchanted ceiling above them. Dumbledore, half-jokingly and half-deadly serious, had decided that the year when there was no one in awe at Hogwarts was the day when he would not only leave the school but also the living world behind.

It certainly was a balm to his soul to see his students in such good shape. The last few months had not been easy for him in the slightest. He’d spent most of it in the Soviet Union, assisting his colleagues in the ICW in creating a peaceful and stable end to the empire that was no less a powerhouse in the magical world than it was in the Muggle one.

Not everyone had been interested in peace, however. Gregor Antonov, the deputy head of the Soviet Ministry of Magic, had refused to give up on the dream that his forefathers had sacrificed so much blood and sweat and tears to build. He’d decided that the only way to preserve the Soviet Union was to break the Statute of Secrecy. His first step would be to take over the Ministry, and then he intended to align himself with the Muggle plotters who would later, unsuccessfully and independently, attempt a coup of their own in August. 

Dumbledore had been in Moscow for negotiations when Antonov tried to take over the Ministry. He had no choice but to duel Antonov, who, after a very long and intense duel, committed suicide by killing curse rather than submit to whatever fate his government had in store for him. Antonov may not have been the world’s most brilliant tactician, but he was a very talented fighter and Dumbledore was left severely injured and magically exhausted. 

He spent most of late July and August in and out of consciousness, with little memory of what had occurred during that time. He had apparently asked Hagrid to fetch Harry, whose relatives refused to respond to his Hogwarts letter. Dumbledore did not doubt that this occurred, but it was not a decision he’d have made while in sound mind. Hagrid was not the most subtle of individuals, for all his abundant kindness and loyalty. Dumbledore had been hoping that he himself could meet with the Dursleys, but alas, fate had different ideas, it would seem.

He was in much better health now, but he was strictly forbidden from practicing any magic for the next six months, and probably wouldn’t be back to his usual health for at least a year. He was not a young man, after all. Dumbledore didn’t really mind that. His magical talents were all well and good, but his role nowadays was primarily administrative; his duel with Antonov had been the first duel he’d faced with an accomplished dark wizard since Voldemort’s defeat.

Dumbledore had almost refused the Flamels when they’d asked him to look after the Philosopher’s Stone until they could establish protections for it at their estate in France. But they were dear friends and had saved his life on multiple occasions. How could he bring himself to say no? He’d delegated most of the planning to the other professors. What could possibly go wrong?

And, of course, even if a potential thief got passed the protections put out by some of the most talented mages in the world, they’d have to deal with the Mirror of Erised. Enchanted by no less a personage than Baba Yaga herself, the mirror had been a thank you gift from the Soviet Minister of Magic for dealing with Antonov. Based on what he’d heard of the mirror, it could be altered to store the Stone in a pocket dimension, but it would take time and thorough experimentation to figure out how to make it work. For now, the Philosopher’s Stone was hidden in a compartment of the toilet in the headmaster’s office. No one would ever think to look for it there, especially after finding out about all the protections in the third floor corridor.

Dumbledore had gotten so lost in his thoughts that he almost failed to see the first year students entering the Great Hall. Thankfully, he wasn’t quite that far gone yet. Dumbledore couldn’t help but smile at seeing those looks of awe once more present on the young’s faces. And, of course, there was a very special boy among them this year: Harry Potter.

How strange it was to look at the boy and to think he had a destiny. He looked thoroughly plain and unremarkable. Even his famous scar would not have attracted any attention in of itself without anyone knowing the significance behind it. But unfortunately, Harry did have a destiny, and in Dumbledore’s experience, all attempts to thwart the will of destiny just led destiny to strike back harder. If Voldemort returned, he would meet his end at Harry’s hands…or vice versa. How Dumbledore hoped that would not happen.

It was a relief to see him looking healthy, if a bit thin for his age. Dumbledore had worried a fair bit over the years about his condition in the Dursleys’ residence. But Arabella assured him that there were no signs of physical abuse, and so far, what he’d seen of the boy confirmed it. Had he believed Harry was in true danger at his relatives, he would have removed him. It was likely Harry’s childhood had been…unpleasant, but that would end now. Hogwarts would become his home. Dumbledore would make sure of that.

He cast his eyes over the other students and then did a doubletake. One of them, a girl with long black hair, was glaring at Dumbledore with so much hate, it rivaled some of his worst enemies. Dumbledore had never seen so much hate directed at anyone from someone of that age before and it was being directed against him! And what’s more, he could not think of a reason why. He did not recognize the girl, yet she was looking at him as if he had been personally responsible for history’s worst atrocities and then strangled her puppy for an encore.

“Minerva, who is that young lady over there?” he whispered at his deputy.

“Hmm? Oh, that’s Sally-Anne Perks, I believe. A bit of a difficult case. Her parents were very religious, very hostile towards magic. But their love for their daughter seems to have prevailed; we sent Severus to do a follow up meeting with them and they said after much praying, they decided to let their daughter attend.”

Dumbledore stroked his beard thoughtfully. He would have to schedule a meeting with Miss Perks to make sure there were no lingering issues. Perhaps – and he freely admitted that it was quite a conspiratorial thought he was entertaining – but perhaps her parents had sent her to the school to undermine it from within. He shook his head. No, he was being paranoid. Likely he resembled some relative who had hurt her or something similar.

Everything was going to be fine this year, he assured himself. If Miss Perks felt unsafe at home or in Hogwarts, Dumbledore would make it his business to reassure her that everything was all right and if it was not, make it so.

After all, he’d been around the block quite a lot. How could anything Miss Perks was going through be unique?

*****

Hermione’s heart felt like it was beating a million miles an hour. This was it. The moment that would define the rest of her life. Her Sorting. Kevin had already been sorted into Hufflepuff, but he’d been very adamant that Hermione should not at all be influenced by his Sorting. They would stay friends no matter what house she was in, and Hermione could not help but feel warmth and happiness at that. Kevin was a bit odd – sometimes, he acted more like her father than her peer – but she knew he’d keep his promise.

“Granger, Hermione!” McGonagall cried out, and Hermione quickly headed up to the stool and planted the Sorting Hat on her head.

My, my, my.

Hermione nearly let out a squeak at the voice that suddenly appeared in her head. You’re sentient! How does that work?

I’m afraid the explanation is far too long to tell you right now, Miss Granger. There are others waiting to be sorted. Hermione’s cheeks flushed. Oh, you have quite a mind, my dear. Very few have such drive at such a young age. A century ago, I would have placed you in Slytherin in a heartbeat. If you can accomplish even a tenth of the things you want…oh, the magical world will never be the same.

But not now?

Alas not. The environment there is most unsuitable for you. You would experience much scorn and hatred. You would not be able to accomplish that which you seek to do there. That leaves three other options. Well, I daresay we could rule out Hufflepuff.

But my friend has been sorted there.

The Sorting Hat laughed softly. A true friend would stay your friend regardless of house, as he has promised. And given what I know of Mr. Entwhistle, I would think the chances of him abandoning you are completely nonexistent. No, Hufflepuff is not for you. So…Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.

Hermione was confused. I’d think I’d be an ideal Ravenclaw. I love knowledge, learning, books…

And that is why I am on your head, not the other way around. Oh, you would do well in Ravenclaw, no question, but Gryffindor would be best for you.

Hermione shook her head. I don’t think so. I don’t think I’m particularly brave.

I disagree. Have you or have you not tried to make friends every year of your life?

If you’ve read my mind, then you know I’ve failed! Over and over again!

If the Sorting Hat could shrug, then it would surely be doing so. So what? It is easy to do things when you know you will succeed. But to do things that scare you, knowing that the likelihood of success is miniscule…yet continuing to rise above your failure again and again…that is bravery. It is what makes you a true “GRYFFINDOR!”

Hermione, somewhat dazed, found her way to the Gryffindor table to a chorus of applause. They didn’t applaud for her more than they would for any other new student, but it was nice to see that they were at least not openly hostile like her last peers had been. Who knew how long that would last?

Megan was sorted into Gryffindor. As soon as the hat had called out her house, she let out a triumphant shout of victory. “YES! IN YOUR FACE! I’M A GODDAMN LION NOW!”

“Miss Jones, language!” Professor McGonagall snapped. “This is your one warning!”

Megan looked ashamed. “Sorry, ma’am.” She quickly headed over to the table and found a seat next to Hermione and quickly grabbed her and squeezed her in a tight hug. “Isn’t this AMAZING?! I’m a Gryffindor! Me! A real, honest to God Gryffindor.” She wiped a tear away from her cheek. “This is the happiest moment in my life. In either…” She cleared her throat. “Yes, well, anyway.”

“I’m really happy you’re here,” Hermione said. “You don’t know how relieved I am to have a friend in my house, especially after Kevin got sorted into Hufflepuff.”

“Well, you’ve got Ron and Harry, right?”

Hermione could feel her face paling. “Oh my goodness. I spent the whole train ride with them! I didn’t even come back! You must have been worried sick…”

“Oh, no, don’t worry. There’s no one I’d rather have you spend time with.” She gave Hermione a gentle smile. “This year’s gonna be great. I’ll make sure of that.”

The rest of the Sorting went by without incident. Sally-Anne’s sorting took a very long time and ended with her being sorted into Slytherin, something she seemed extremely upset over. Hermione was relieved, to be honest. After the strange ranting Sally-Anne had done about Professor Dumbledore at the bookshop, she was glad she didn’t have to share a dormitory with her.

Megan continued to act strangely – as, Hermione was discovering, was her default state – throughout the meal. She seemed to treat Harry with as much awe and reverence as she did Hermione, which wasn’t particularly strange, given that Harry was famous in the magical world and the apparent defeater of Voldemort. But she acted exactly the same way around Ron too, and that actually seemed to creep him out a little. Even Neville got the same treatment, if to a lesser extent. But Hermione did not want to question Megan’s eccentricities too much, lest she decide to alter them…including the eccentricity of wanting to be Hermione’s friend.

Hermione tuned out most of Professor Dumbledore’s speech, which was just harping on administration matters, until her attention was abruptly caught up by his announcement that a certain corridor was out of bounds to those who did not want to die a painful death.

“Was that a metaphor?” Hermione asked Megan.

She shook her head gravely. “Don’t go to that corridor, Hermione. Whatever you do, no matter how good a reason you think you have, do not go to that corridor.”

Professor Dumbledore opened his mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Professor Trelawney passing him a note. Professor Dumbledore looked bewildered by its contents, but then gave a shrug. “And Professor Trelawney, our divination professor, wishes me to pass along the message that any students visiting from another universe are invited to join her for tea on Saturday afternoon.”

“Was that a metaphor?”

Megan gave a horribly forced laugh. “Of course it was! What else could it be?”

Hermione was about to question her further, but then she was interrupted by Harry asking her questions about what classes she was looking forward to, and soon the strange incident had gone completely out of her mind.

*****

“HOW DARE YOU?!” Kevin thundered as he stormed into Trelawney’s office without preamble. The crystal balls on her office shelves trembled with the force of the magic he was spewing out, the sheer force of his fury.

“My dear child, I’m afraid I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Trelawney transparently lied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a prior appointment.”

Kevin tried his best to grab Trelawney by the lapels and slam her against a wall, only to find that his small, scrawny body wasn’t up to the task of moving her. He settled for kicking her in the shin instead. “I am your prior appointment! You’re the one who brought me here, aren’t you? You have to be!”

Trelawney blinked several times. “Oh. Yes indeed. That would be me.” She gave a slight smile. “It was a clever little bit of spell work. I found it in a grimoire belonging to the Witch of Endor. I imagine having Kevin’s voice in your head is a little disconcerting…”

Kevin pulled out his wand. Trelawney whipped hers out and in an instant, had cast the disarming charm. Kevin took a few deep breaths. This was not like him. He was normally a methodical person (his decision to rush a gunman notwithstanding). But something about Trelawney’s cavalier attitude to having prevented him from going on to the afterlife – maybe even making it so he had died in the first place, though even in Kevin’s fury filled state, he had to concede this was far less likely – just infuriated him.

“Mr. Entwhistle, could you please tell your cohabitant that he must refrain from attacking his professors, no matter how disconcerting his circumstances?” Trelawney said tartly.

“There is no Kevin Entwhistle anymore,” Kevin hissed. “No one is home but me! You murdered him when you brought me here.”

Trelawney’s face went chalk white. “That’s…that’s not how the spell was supposed to work. You’re supposed to be sharing the body…”

“I’m not. You murdered three children, professor. I sincerely hope you have a damn good reason for it.”

“I never…I never meant for that to happen,” Trelawney stammered. “You must understand that!”

“Oh, I understand, Sybill. I just don’t care.”

Trelawney sat down at her desk while Kevin took back his wand. He kept it at his side, but it was more a bluff than anything else. Other than the knowledge of the future he possessed, magically speaking, he had no more knowledge or power than any other eleven year old. He really didn’t have the slightest clue how to do any of the spells; he was never that obsessive of a fan. Megan would probably know.

Trelawney reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of vodka. Kevin quickly grabbed it and hurled it against the wall before she could take a sip. “No,” he snarled. “You do not get to drown your guilt in booze. I demand an explanation.”

So Trelawney explained about how she was bombarded with knowledge from all of the fanfics ever written about Harry as soon as she saw him. It was…quite bizarre. Kevin could think of no reason, magical or scientific, why that would have happened to her in the first place. He believed her. There didn’t seem to be any particular reason why she’d lie.

“I am not going to help you,” Kevin said as soon as she was finished.

“Mr. Entwhistle, the one thing I have been able to figure out is that if we don’t stop Voldemort from rising once more, good people are going to die. Now I can’t bring you back to your old time, but I can –”

“I’m going to help,” Kevin clarified. “I’m just not going to help you. Megan, Sally-Anne and I are going to handle this on our own. If necessary, we might enlist Dumbledore’s help.” He leaned forward. “But I will never trust you. Ever. And I have no intentions of ever speaking another word to you again. Good day.”

He stormed out of the classroom before he could snap and Avada Kedavra Trelawney. Sally-Anne had no problem tossing around the Unforgivable Curses, it would seem, but Kevin was a lot less sanguine about using the closest thing to true dark magic in the Harry Potter franchise.

“So what did she want?”

Kevin let out a very undignified, high pitched shriek (curse his newly prepubescent voice) and turned around to see the Weasley twins waiting for him at the bottom of the divination stairwell. He wondered for a few seconds how they found him and then he realized they must have used the Marauder’s Map. As for the why they were there, that was obvious. They probably wanted the skinny on Trelawney’s mysterious request for interdimensional visitors. In fact, they were probably here to pretend they were self-inserts themselves (not that they would last very long).

“Ugh,” Kevin said, not having to exactly give an Oscar winning performance to act annoyed. “Just a bunch of insane rambling. The woman’s a lunatic.”

One of the twins had a small mole on his neck and the other didn’t. The problem was that while this would enable Kevin to tell them apart when he knew their names, right now he didn’t. “So, Fred, what brings you to this part of the castle?”

The twin with the mole looked taken aback. “How’d you know it was me?”

“I didn’t,” Kevin said. “But I had a fifty percent chance of being right.”

“You seem pretty upset,” George noted.

Kevin sighed. “I don’t like having my time wasted, that’s all.”

Fred stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that does seem to make sense. On the other hand, that’s exactly what a multiversal traveler would say…”

Kevin just gave a slight smile. “Yeah, you caught me. I’m from thirty years in the future. I’m really a time traveler from an alternate universe. What the hell I’m doing here, I’m still not sure about.”

George and Fred shared a grin. They didn’t really believe him. Good. The twins were too much of an X-factor to be running around with knowledge of the future right now. “Really? So what’s the future like, my time traveling friend?”

“There’s a worldwide pandemic because people are too damn stubborn to simply wear a mask when they go outside,” Kevin said in the driest voice he had available to him. “It’s really quite annoying.”

Fred clapped a hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “Good one, mate. You’re not too bad for a Hufflepuff.”

The two of them ascended the staircase while Kevin returned to the Hufflepuff dorms. As disappointed as a part of him had been to not get into Gryffindor with the protagonists, he could not deny that he was simply not temperamentally suited, for the most part, for that house. Besides, he was really enjoying being a Hufflepuff. His dormmates were fun to be around (even if they acted, well, quite childish)  and the common room had a very peaceful, tranquil feeling to it.

With each step, Kevin felt something build within him. He wasn’t sure precisely what it was. At first, he thought it was anger. But it wasn’t quite that, though it resembled that. It was grief. Kevin had really hoped that once he figured out why he was there, he’d be able to return to his old life somehow, or at least start along a path that would end with him returning to his old life. But he was stuck. He’d not see his family again for decades. He may never even speak to Derek again.

And why? Because some damn fraud thought it was a good idea for her to play God!

Kevin let out a scream of frustration and sank to his knees. “Why?” he shouted. “Why did this happen to me?”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Kevin wheeled around and was alarmed to see that he wasn’t alone in the room. A boy a few years older than him was looking at him, extremely concerned. Oh. Oh, dear. Kevin had a feeling he knew who this boy was.

“I’m Cedric,” he said, confirming Kevin’s worst suspicions. “I’d like to help you if I can.”

Don’t take the cup nearly came out of Kevin’s mouth, but he managed to restrain himself in due time. In part, this was because he really didn’t seem to have any ability to make his mouth work properly at all. The whole thing somehow felt more real now. Not that it wasn’t real before, but the consequences of not acting were staring at him in the face. If he didn’t do something, this child – this now fourteen year old child younger than Derek – was going to die.

“I…” Kevin plopped himself down on a chair. “I had a younger brother,” he lied. “Derek. He died. A Muggle illness. And I, uh, I was just thinking how unfair it was. You know? Why him? What the hell did he do to deserve it? He should have been here. Right alongside me. Helping me.”

Cedric looked so sympathetic and kind and damn it, Kevin couldn’t let him die. He had to save him somehow. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Wow, that’s…that’s a lot to unpack. Yeah. I’ve never had anyone in my life die like that…everything I can say seems so trite, you know?”

“That’s okay, Cedric,” Kevin said, wiping the tears away. “Just talking about it to someone helps. I’m normally a lot more collected than this. It’s not…I’m not used to being emotionally vulnerable.”

Cedric leaned forward. “I wanna tell you a secret. It’s okay to be sad. To cry. To miss those we’ve lost. And those we just don’t see that much anymore. I bet you miss your parents a lot, don’t you?”

Kevin nodded. Truth be told, he hadn’t thought about the Entwhistles very much, but the thrust of his problem was quite similar. “Yeah, I was so homesick my first year here,” Cedric went on. “I missed my mum and dad so much. But you know what? It got easier.” He made a face. “I mean, not that I’m saying it’s the same thing with your brother! But, uh, I think he wouldn’t mind if you were sad.”

“Thank you, Cedric,” Kevin said softly. “I think I need to be alone now. No offense.”

“Yeah, I totally get it,” Cedric assured him. “And if you need another shoulder to cry on, Professor Sprout is very good at that.”

“I’ll think about it,” Kevin lied as Cedric walked away. He was worried about spending too much time with adults, lest they sense a fellow adult in their midst.

Kevin was irrevocably stuck in what may or may not have been a completely different universe. He now accepted that. The opportunity afforded to him may not have been given to him by a higher power (but, really, could he say with certainty that a higher power hadn’t guided Trelawney’s actions?) but it still existed regardless. He could fix everything that needed to be fixed.

Of course, that didn’t mean he should. But it was easy to preach a path of nonintervention when one was removed from the situation. In theory, it was still best to let events play out as they did in the books. Who even knew what the backlash could be? But in practice? In practice, there was no way Kevin – a man who had rushed a shooter fully knowing it would kill him – could ever let a child die.

It was time to make changes. And he knew just where to start.

*****

Megan was having a blast. Her new life was so much cooler than her last one, hands down. She got to be a witch. She got to go to Hogwarts! She got to hang out with all her favorite characters from Harry Potter, by which she meant, well, most of the main cast. She wasn’t particularly picky. Megan really couldn’t have picked a favorite character if she tried. Though she had to admit that now they were real people instead of just words on paper, she was probably enjoying hanging out with Harry the most.

The boy was just a sweetheart. He’d give the shirt off his back if someone needed it. He was polite, kind, and well-mannered, but he was by no means a wallflower. Megan loved his sassy nature in the books and he really lived up to it in real life. How exactly he’d ended up so well adjusted despite having lived in a cupboard for a decade was a total mystery to her. It was the ultimate proof that one’s choices were more indicative of one’s true nature than one’s circumstances.

But Harry wasn’t the only awesome thing about her new life. Everything was just so frigging cool! The moving staircases, the talking portraits, magic, it was all a world of wonder and enchantment that Megan was savoring with every breath in her body. And, okay, there was darkness lurking beneath it. Megan remembered the later books; she wasn’t stupid. But that wouldn’t exactly be her problem just yet, would it? For now, she was redoing her childhood, magical style, and life was just magnificent.

As Megan had promised to herself, one of the first things she’d done was talk to McGonagall about the school’s policy on transgender issues. It had not gone as badly as she’d foreseen, but it wasn’t a cakewalk. Megan had forgotten that she was, in fact, in 1991 where being transgender wasn’t exactly a very well known thing in the Muggle world, let alone the magical one. As such, McGonagall was rather confused by the whole concept, but she was definitely trying her best to understand, which Megan gave her props for.

“So you are saying that you are a boy, uh…Mr. Jones?” McGonagall asked, looking and sounding quite uncertain.

“No, no, no,” Megan said hastily. She was cis and never had the slightest doubt about her own gender identity. “I’m just speaking in hypothetical terms.”

“Ah, yes, I see. Hypothetical.” McGonagall didn’t believe her, didn’t she? Oh, well, as long as she didn’t go all Rowling on her, Megan couldn’t see too many negative consequences ensuing. “Well, then hypothetically speaking, I would have to tell you, Megan, that while I personally have no issues with making such accommodations, the Board of Governors tends to be rather…conservative and may overrule my decisions.”

Megan sighed. It was probably the best she was going to get. In any case, as she said, it was all hypothetical for the moment. “Thanks, professor.”

“It should be noted, however, that the enchantment on the stairs to the girl’s dorm is not based on one’s anatomy, but rather one’s perception of one’s gender,” McGonagall went on. “If one does not believe oneself to be a girl, then the stairs would not work. Conversely, if one did not believe oneself to be a boy the stairs would work. The purpose of enchanting it that way was to prevent people from using potions to temporarily change their anatomy and circumvent the stairs.”

Megan’s eyes lit up. “So if a trans girl was able to climb up the stairs, everyone would know they were truly a girl?”

“They would know they believed themselves to be a girl, yes,” McGonagall said cautiously. “That does not mean they would be accepting of that fact.”

“That’s awesome,” she whispered in awe. “So cool. Thanks, prof!”

McGonagall sighed wearily, but Megan thought she could detect a note of amusement on her face too. She probably thought Megan would be troublemaking student the likes of the Marauders or the Weasley twins. She had absolutely no idea just how right she was.

Academically speaking, Megan was finding her classes to be a mixed bag. Binns was just as soporific as the books said he was. It was a real shame too. Magical history sounded so much more interesting than Muggle history, and Megan had always been a history buff. The theory of transfiguration was fascinating, but Megan found she wasn’t especially gifted on the practical side of things. McGonagall was a damn good teacher, though. Charms was something of the opposite; Megan found the theory to be too abstract to be interesting, but she did well in the class. Astronomy was a total waste of her time; Muggles knew way more about the subject than mages did.

Megan was suspecting Defense Against the Dark Arts to be a problem. After all, its teacher was being possessed by Voldemort. If Voldemort found out about her true nature, everyone was screwed. As an expert Legilimens, Voldemort could find her secrets in two seconds flat, and then he’d have a step by step guide to how to be victorious. Megan would not allow that; she’d kill herself first.

But Quirrell didn’t care about her in the slightest. There was no reason why he should, after all. She was just a random Muggleborn student and her only actions to change things had been subtly encouraging people to utilize their more positive character traits. Certainly nothing that would show up on his radar. Nonetheless, it took a supreme effort of will for Megan to not show fear in Quirrell’s class. It wasn’t every day that you were in the same room as a mass murderer, after all.

And then there was potions.

Megan was super excited about potions. It really was one of the coolest areas of magic in her opinion. Yes, she had Snape as a teacher – aka the world’s worst example of teaching ever. Well, after Umbridge, of course. But as horrible a teacher and, in Megan’s opinion, as horrible a person as he was, it could not be denied that Snape knew his stuff. She was really hopeful she’d find a way to impress him.

Or at least she had been until she actually went to the class.

Reading about the first potions class had given her secondhand embarrassment all by itself. Experiencing it in the flesh was on another level entirely.

“Potter!” he shouted. “What would I get if I added –”

“So that thing about bottling fame,” Megan asked, leaning back in her chair in a deliberately insolent fashion. “That sounds really useful. Can you just extract Harry’s fame and make him a nonentity? Cause I bet he’s really sick of being famous. Because, you know, he’s only famous because his parents are dead. Ooh! Ooh, can you give it to me?” She gasped. “Is that how Lockhart became famous?! Because, man, his books suck.”

Snape slowly turned his head to face her. Megan let out a quiet eep. Snape was a lot more intimidating than he seemed in the books. For the first time since she’d died, she really felt eleven again. “That was a metaphor, Miss Jones,” he said, his voice signaling pure and utter menace. “Do not interrupt me again.”

He turned back to face Harry. “As I was saying before Miss Jones deigned to interrupt me, what would I get if I added powered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”

“Draught of the living death,” Megan said, looking at her nails speculatively. She yawned. “Surely you must have tougher questions than that? And why ask Harry specifically? Do you have some sort of grudge against him?”

Snape’s eye twitched. Maybe it was not Megan’s best idea to provoke an only quasi-reformed former Death Eater, but, heck, she’d already died once. Dying a second time didn’t hold much fear for her. “Well, then, Miss Jones, perhaps you could tell me, if you are so knowledgeable about these things, where you would look if I told you to find me a bezoar?”

Megan shrugged. “Supply cabinet, maybe?” Needling Snape was so fun. It was going to be her new hobby, she decided. “Oh, and before you ask me, the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane is that there isn’t one. They’re the same plant…”

“Which also goes by the name of aconite,” Snape finished, his voice unfathomable. “Well, I see at least one person has done the reading. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

Megan subtly intervened to prevent Snape from taking a point away from Harry for not preventing Neville from making a safety mistake (which he hadn’t even known was a thing) by warning Neville herself, but Snape found an excuse to take a point from Harry about something else contrived anyway. Some things, it would seem, were inevitable.

All in all, Megan considered her first few days at Hogwarts to be rather a success. She’d helped Hermione get out of her shell a little bit – she was getting along better with just about everyone. She still had a long ways to go, of course, but Megan was making progress. Megan was also getting along quite well with her dormmate herself. Lavender was absolutely hilarious (and, honestly, she liked having someone to have girl talk with) and Parvati was friendly enough (if a bit mean).

Of course, there were some problems, principally among them Sally-Anne, who persisted in her delusional beliefs about Dumbledore being the true villain of the piece. This would be annoying enough, but she was happy to talk to them to anyone who wanted to listen. And worst of all, she kept on trying to talk to Harry about them. Since Sally-Anne was in Slytherin, Harry didn’t really want to give her the time of day, but what would happen if he changed his mind? The consequences could be dire.

One afternoon, not too long, she believed, after Ron and Harry’s visit to Hagrid (which she had not been invited to, nor Hermione, despite the slight changes she’d made), she was just congratulating herself on fulfilling her childhood dreams, when the door to the boy’s dorms slammed open and Ron ran down the staircase, looking devastated.

Megan had absolutely no clue what was going on. She could think of absolutely nothing in the books that would cause him to be so distraught, nor any changes she or Kevin had made that would do it. Granted, the books were from Harry’s perspective so they didn’t include everything, but surely Harry would have noticed his best friend being so upset.

“Ron, what’s going on?” she asked.

“It’s Scabbers,” he said through his tears. “He’s dead!”

Megan quickly ushered him over to a couch and tried her best to sooth him. She remembered how devastating losing a pet could be, especially at that age. She’d really come to think of the first year Gryffindors as her younger siblings. “Aw, Ron, sometimes pets just pass on. I mean, he was really old, right? He was…”

Oh. Oh, God. Wormtail. He was Wormtail. She’d forgotten about Wormtail! Someone had murdered Wormtail. And she had a hunch she knew exactly who.

Chapter Text

Hermione did not like to admit it in the slightest, but she was terrible at adjusting to changing circumstances. Change was something that she dealt badly with. She liked it when she had a set path, a set routine, a specific plan, and deviating from those things annoyed her in the extreme. Hogwarts, therefore, was more difficult an environment for her than she’d foreseen. The staircases were constantly moving; the way to her classes was thus different every single day. The whole place was a total madness, chaos without a hint of order to it.

And magic was so confusing. It was full of wishy washy things like channeling one’s emotions and connecting to the inherent magic around one. Woe to those who championed empiricism such as Hermione. There had to be ironclad rules to everything. The universe ran on natural, unbreakable laws. Gravity. Thermodynamics. Science. But magic? Magic just chirpily tossed all that aside. It was enough to make a lesser person give up, but not Hermione. Hermione was going to make a path and it would be hers.

Not all the changes she had to deal with were bad, though. The best change was obviously the fact she had friends. Four friends so far! That was four more than she’d ever had! Even though they all had flaws. Kevin was sensible enough, but he was in Hufflepuff and as such, she rarely saw him. Ron’s table manners were appalling and he was a typical boy, filled with rude jokes and a lack of seriousness about just about everything. Harry had a tendency to antagonize teachers and slack off on studying until the last minute. And Megan…

Well, Megan was a puzzle. To be honest, while Hermione was extremely flattered by Megan’s intense enthusiasm towards being her friend specifically, she found it to be a bit, well, creepy. Sometimes, Hermione even wondered if Megan had been stalking her before Hogwarts, as insane an idea as that sounded. She seemed to just know things about her. Like her middle name! She’d said Hermione’s middle name on the train and Hermione despised her middle name. Other than her parents and teachers, no one knew it. Certainly not a mere stranger.

But whenever Hermione would confront her, Megan would just shake her head and give her a fond smile and say things like, “You don’t need to worry. I swear, Hermione, there’s not a thing I would possibly do in this life to hurt you.” Those phrases sounded very comforting and Hermione believed her, but, after a while of getting rebuffed, Hermione realized that they hadn’t actually been answers to her questions.

Meanwhile, Megan seemed to make it her personal mission to drive Professor Snape to an early retirement (or perhaps an early grave) with questions that, while incisive and actually quite interesting, were impertinent in the extreme. It was clear that Megan’s passion for potions was only matched by her contempt for Professor Snape.

“You shouldn’t be so rude to him!” Hermione snapped at Megan after one such lesson. “He’s a Hogwarts professor; he deserves our respect!”

Megan looked at Hermione as if she pitied her. “Hermione. The man is a bully. I am giving him all the respect he has earned as a professor and then taking away all the respect he has lost for being a piece of crap. It’s his fault, not mine, that there’s a negative balance.”

“Language,” Hermione snapped. That was another thing about Megan: she swore like a sailor sometimes. “He’s studied potions for longer than we have. What, do you think you could teach the class better?”

“I don’t dispute that Snape – sorry, Hermione, Professor Snape – is good with potions. He’s a genius. That doesn’t make him a good teacher.”

Hermione was flustered. “I hardly think Professor Dumbledore would hire faculty that wasn’t the best in their field!”

Megan gave a loud guffaw. Hermione glared ferociously at her. “No, no, sorry, that was unfair,” Megan said, trying to suppress laughter, mostly unsuccessfully. “Yeah, but you really think Professor Quirrell is the best there is to offer?”

“He’s fought vampires,” Hermione reminded her. “Just because he has a stutter doesn’t mean he’s weak. I’ve learned a lot from him!”

Megan appeared to find this amusing somehow. “Have you really? Kind of self-sabotaging, then.” She shook her head. “Forget I said that. It’s not important. Look, we’ll have to agree to disagree about Professor Snape, that’s all. People can do that, you know. Don’t forget that.” That was another thing Hermione didn’t like about Megan. She was always giving her advice on how to treat people, and not only was it rather condescending, but even worse, she’d been invariably right. Which meant Hermione had been wrong. And she despised being wrong.

In addition to her four friends, Sally-Anne had been rather persistently trying to make friends with her. Hermione wasn’t having any of it. It wasn’t because Sally-Anne was a Slytherin, of course. No, despite what some of her classmates said, she wasn’t about to condemn people just because they were in a different house.

The problem with Sally-Anne wasn’t that she was in Slytherin; the problem with Sally-Anne was that she was completely insane.

And Hermione meant that very literally. Sally-Anne was completely detached from reality. She believed in preposterous conspiracy theories, most of them surrounding Professor Dumbledore. According to her, Dumbledore was a liar and a fraud and a thief and a murderer. He was a conniving, evil fiend responsible for just about every indignity she could think of. But there was more than that. Her understanding of the magical world itself was just flat out wrong.

Take her interpretation of the Wizengamot, for example. Sally-Anne seemed to believe they were an aristocratic body. In fact, she believed – fervently, with every fiber of her being – that Magical Britain itself was an aristocracy. She would go around referring to Neville as Heir Longbottom and Harry as Lord Potter (or sometimes Peverell or Black or Gryffindor) despite the fact that neither of these titles were based on reality. Sally-Anne believed these imaginary lords comprised the Wizengamot and that Dumbledore, as Chief Warlock, somehow managed to control the body through using blocs of seats that should rightfully be Harry’s nefariously and illegally.

That was not how it worked. In reality, the Wizengamot was an elective body, akin to the House of Commons of Muggle Britain. The Chief Warlock had similar powers to the Speaker of the House of Commons, being only able to preside over a session and ensure that order was kept. Dumbledore was unable to vote on legislation (unless there was a tie and even then he was obliged to vote in favor of the status quo) nor participate in debates.

Sally-Anne ignored this when Hermione tried to explain it to her, along with all her attempts to argue in favor of, well, reality. It was really quite annoying. Hermione despised conspiracy theorists. They were hardly worthy of the title of theorist at all; logic was an alien concept to them. It certainly was an alien concept to Sally-Anne.

And there was something very creepy and off-putting about the way she ranted about Harry a lot. Or “Lord Hadrian Potter-Black-Etcetera” or whatever ridiculous title she wanted to give him that day. She was honestly disturbingly obsessed with him. She kept trying to get Hermione to convince Harry to go to Gringotts and get an inheritance test so that he can throw off the shackles placed on him by Dumbledore and take his true and rightful place in society. Or whatever.

So Hermione had tried her best to avoid Sally-Anne whenever possible. It certainly prevented her from getting a headache as she often got in Sally-Anne’s presence. Hermione even wondered if she should talk to Madam Pomfrey about Sally-Anne’s delusions. What if Sally-Anne decided to attack Professor Dumbledore? On the other hand, she vividly remembered the scorn and hatred she received back at primary for being a tattletale and a snitch. Hermione therefore decided to compromise and seek advice from someone older and wiser than she: Professor Trelawney.

Hermione was of two minds of Professor Trelawney. On the one hand, she really didn’t have any respect for divination at all. It offended her, if she was going to be frank. There was no scientific basis to it at all, no matter what methodology was used. She wasn’t the only one who thought that too. Professor McGonagall made no secret of her contempt for the practice. Hermione was really quite certain Professor Trelawney was a fraud who pretended to be a seer for the sake of a good job.

But on the other hand, going back to what Megan had said about separating a teacher’s professional accomplishments from their personal attributes, Professor Trelawney as a person, not as a professor, was someone Hermione respected, admired, and liked. Trelawney had gone out of her way to be kind to not only her, but to all the Muggleborn students. More importantly, Trelawney treated Hermione with the respect she’d treat an adult, something she was not used to. The two of them often had long conversations over tea regarding various abstruse theories of magic.

Not to mention, Hermione had enormous respect for her decision to get sober, which could not have been easy when one could magically summon alcoholic beverages with the flick of one’s wrist. According to everyone, Professor Trelawney’s alcoholism had made her a very difficult person to work with and led her to do things like pronounce students’ imminent death on a regular basis. She was much better to be around now that she was sober, but, of course, it was understandable that people were cautious.

Professor Trelawney, as always, listened to her concerns, no matter how trivial, extremely carefully. It did not appear this way to look at her. Indeed, she seemed like she was spacing out through the whole conversation. But after several instances of Hermione quizzing her, Hermione realized that, in fact, looks were deceiving.

“I can’t say I find Sally-Anne’s claims to be with merit,” Professor Trelawney said eventually. “I can see how she might have come to that conclusion, but on the balance of what I’ve seen – to say nothing of, well, reality – her beliefs, though popular, are not based on fact.”

“Well, yes, obviously,” Hermione said impatiently. “I think that we can both agree on. I wanted advice about what I should do about her.”

Professor Trelawney was silent for a few moments. “You did the right thing by bringing this to my attention. I will bring it to Professor Snape’s attention. As her head of House, it is his responsibility to deal with his charges’ mental health issues.” That sounded entirely reasonable to Hermione. She probably should have done that herself, though given that he didn’t like her very much, it wasn’t likely she’d have had much success. But Professor Trelawney was a fellow faculty member, so she would be listened to.

“You are still enjoying your time in Hogwarts?” Professor Trelawney said in a tone of voice that clearly indicated that the matter of Sally-Anne was firmly closed.

Hermione sighed. “Yes, of course. It’s a magical school. How can I not? It’s just…there seems to be double standards sometimes. In how the rules are enforced.”

It made Hermione’s blood boil to see Harry not only not punished for his insanely reckless stunt on the broom, but rewarded. Rewarded, she might add, in a manner that itself was a violation of the rules. If the professors just decided which rules they wanted to follow, what was the point of even having rules at all?

More than anger, though, she felt disappointment. She had gone into the magical world expecting it to be better. Superior. They had a piece of the puzzle everyone else was lacking. Logic dictated that their understanding of reality should be superior and, thus, the magical world would be superior. Except it was nothing of the kind. Unfairness was still the guiding principle of the their world.

“Hermione, we mages are only human,” Professor Trelawney said gently. “If you expect too much from people, you’ll only be setting yourself up for disappointment.”

“I know, but…”

“It’s a hard lesson to learn,” Professor Trelawney admitted. “Some – I would argue in my more cynical moments, many – never learn it. Your devotion to the rules is admirable, but the rules are not infallible, because they are made by people who are fallible.” 

Hermione promised Professor Trelawney that she’d try to be more flexible in her thinking in the future, a promise she knew she’d struggle to keep. As she went back to the tower, she couldn’t help but wonder if Professor Trelawney was hiding something from her. She didn’t seem to react to Sally-Anne’s claims in the way Hermione had expected. She’d had some reason to suspect Sally-Anne may have been telling the truth, even if she came to the eventual (and blatantly obvious conclusion) she was not.

Hermione had tried to get Ron and Harry’s opinion on the whole matter, but they seem very distracted. She wasn’t sure why; it wasn’t as if they confided in her too much. As hard as she tried to keep them as friends, their friendship seemed to be very fragile and slippery.

“Personally, I think Sally-Anne’s psychosis mirrors her own internal loathing of her magic,” Hermione mused. “Megan tells me she comes from a very religious family. Many Christians – that’s the dominant religion in Muggle Britain, Ron – fear and despise magic.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Harry snapped at her. “Can’t you see he’s upset?”

Hermione peered at Ron. He had seemed like he’d been in a daze a while, now that Harry mentioned it, but she’d just assumed he was homesick. “Look, Ron, I’m sure you’ll be able to see your mum and dad again at Christmas…”

Ron lips wobbled a bit. He looked like he was about to burst into tears. “Oh, dear,” Hermione said with a gasp. “Has someone in your family died? Your parents?”

“My…my rat,” Ron said eventually. “You seriously haven’t heard?”

Hermione shook her head. She’d heard nothing about Scabbers dying. The one time when actually tuning into the gossip of her peers would have been useful. “I’m so terribly sorry, Ron.”

Harry still looked angry. “That’s all you have to say? How did you not know? Couldn’t you tell he’s been in a terrible state?”

“I…no,” Hermione admitted. She was terrible at telling how people felt. It was like there was something wrong with the part of her brain that was responsible for that. “I’m terrible at these sorts of things, always have been.” She struggled to find the words. “You know how boys say girls are mental? Incomprehensible and beyond the knowing of mere mortals?”

“I’m pretty sure they don’t say that last one, Hermione,” Harry said.

“Well, it’s the same for me!” Hermione went on. “Except it’s not just girls – it’s everyone! No one makes any sense!” She put her head in her hands so the two boys wouldn’t see her own tears threatening to spill out. “Oh, I’m just awful. How could I not have noticed? It’s no wonder no one wanted to be my friend before this.”

Now Ron and Hermione both looked guilty. “I mean, it’s not that big a deal,” Ron said unconvincingly, though Hermione appreciated the effort nonetheless. “You’ve had a lot on your mind with studying, like…everything. I’m still kind of surprised, though. A murder sounds like something you’d hear about.”

Hermione’s head snapped up, all self-pitying thoughts immediately gone. “What? Murdered? Surely you’re mistaken. Your rat was very old.” She frowned. Now that she thought about it, the sheer longevity of Scabbers was very strange in of itself. She hadn’t read anything about magical rats living that long.

“He was strangled,” Ron said, unable to stop himself from crying now. “Madam Pomfrey confirmed it! I don’t understand it! They didn’t even kill him with a spell. Someone throttled Scabbers with their bare hands! Who would do that? Who would hate him that much?”

That was a damn good question. The only person whose name came to mind was Malfoy, but that didn’t track either. Malfoy was an evil-minded git, but he was good at slipping out of trouble. Why would he risk that to kill Ron’s pet? Not to mention if he had a way to slip in and out of Gryffindor Tower and murder on his mind, he’d probably not settle for a mere rat. “I don’t know, but I’m going to do whatever I can to help you figure it out,” Hermione vowed. “I mean…if you want?”

Harry and Ron looked at each other and both nodded. “Sorry I snapped at you,” Harry offered. “I never had any friends before Hogwarts either. I guess it’s not as easy as it looks, right?”

“No, it’s not,” Hermione said fervently.

After breakfast the next day, Sally-Anne cornered her on the way to her first class of the day, looking absolutely livid. Hermione instinctively moved her hand closer to her wand. “How dare you tell Snape I’m crazy?” she practically screamed at her.

“Because you are!” Hermione snapped. She did not have the patience to deal with Sally-Anne’s lunacy. “Nothing you say makes any sense.”

Sally-Anne snarled animalistically at her and then she spaced out for a few seconds. When she resumed normal functioning, she looked calmer than Hermione had seen her in a while. “I appreciate the concern, Hermione,” she said, her voice eerily calm. Frankly, Hermione had found her less scary when she was shouting at her. “I realize it’s not your fault. You’re probably dosed with all manner of compulsions and loyalty potions. But you’re soulbound with Harry – you’ll prevail in the end.”

“Excuse me, I’m what?”

Sally-Anne ignored her. She reached out and squeezed Hermione’s hands. Hermione let out a yelp and stepped backwards. “I’m going to make you a deal, Hermione. A final effort to prove I’m telling the truth. Ask Harry about the cupboard under the stairs. If he reacts, you’ll know I’m right. If he doesn’t react, I’ll personally walk up to the old goat and apologize to him.”

“Fine,” Hermione snapped. Right now, she’d agree to anything to get this lunatic away from her.

“You and Harry are destined to be together,” Sally-Anne called out as she walked away. “Don’t fight it. Fate itself mandates it!” Hermione couldn’t help but shiver. That was it. After classes, she was going to speak to Madam Pomfrey about Sally-Anne. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the Slytherin ended up hurting someone.

Unless…unless she had already done it. Hermione had to admit that she could definitely envision Sally-Anne strangling Scabbers in the grip of some delusion. Maybe she thought he was a spy for Professor Dumbledore or something equally ridiculous. Of course she had nothing but suspicion right now. She wouldn’t accuse anyone, even someone as creepy as Sally-Anne, without firm proof. But right now, Sally-Anne was the prime suspect.

Lunchtime was a somber affair for Hermione and her friends. Hermione had apologized over and over again to the point where they’d all gotten sick of it and told her to shut up. In sharp contrast to her usual bearing, Megan seemed unusually uncomfortable with talking about Scabbers’ murder.

“You really think Sally-Anne could have killed him?” Ron asked Megan. “You think she’s got it in her?”

“I…” Megan looked at a loss for words for once. “I’d like to think she wouldn’t,” she said, sounding as if she was struggling to convince herself. “I can’t see why she would. She knows we need him alive to –” She clamped her mouth firmly shut.

“To what?” Ron snapped. “Are you in on it?”

Megan shook her head frantically. “No, no, I swear! I didn’t know she was going to kill him!” Hermione believed her. “If she did. Remember, we don’t have proof.” She stood up. “I need to talk to Kevin about this.”

Hermione watched her walk away. “So Sally-Anne said something weird to me about you,” Hermione said carefully.

Harry laughed. “Yeah, what is it now? I’m King Arthur reborn? Lord Whatever Fancy Title Suits Her Today?” Sally-Anne’s grandiloquent titles for Harry had become something of a running joke around Gryffindor tower.

“No, she wanted me to ask you about the cupboard under the stairs.”

Harry stiffened. A look of fear formed on his face. He tried his best to quell it, but when Hermione could read a facial expression, it was a sure bet suppression wasn’t working. “How…how does she know about the cupboard under the stairs? Did McGonagall tell her?”

“Professor McGonagall,” Hermione corrected automatically. “And what exactly is the cupboard under the stairs? Is it a metaphor for something?”

“It’s my room,” Harry said.

“WHAT?!” Ron shouted so loud that everyone was staring at him. “Cor blimey, Harry. Muggles sleep in storage closets? What, do you not have beds?”

Hermione shook her head. She could feel anger flowing through her. “Harry, tell us. We’re your friends, we can help you.”

Slowly, haltingly, but getting stronger and more confident as he spoke, Harry explained his absolutely abysmal home life to them. It took all of Hermione’s strength to not burst into tears. Her life had not been fun at times, but at least her parents had loved her. It bewildered her how someone could see someone as kindhearted and good-natured as Harry and despise him, much less his own family.

“Harry, you’re being abused at home,” Hermione said in what she thought was a gentle tone of voice. Judging by the look on Ron’s face, it was not anything of the kind. “This is wrong.”

“No, no, no,” Harry said, sounding like he was operating on autopilot. “I should be thankful anyone wanted to take me in at all…besides, what can be done? They’re my family.”

Ron spat on the table. Hermione would have chastised him were it not for the fact that she was sorely tempted to do the same herself. “That’s not family, Harry! Family’s there for you. Family cares about you. Family loves you.”

“Harry, what if the situation was reversed?” Hermione said, trying to keep her voice from showing emotion, because she knew that if she let in the slightest amount of it, she’d lose it. “What if I told you my parents were keeping me in a cupboard?”

“But that’s different!”

“How?” Hermione questioned.

Harry waved his hands around. “It…it just is, okay?!” He abruptly stood up. “I’ve got to do some more studying before class. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

A suffocating silence ensued, only broken when Ron said, “Wow. I can’t…how could people treat him that way? I mean, he’s the bloody Boy Who Lived! It makes no sense! And did you hear what he said? McGonagall knew about it!”

“Professor McGonagall, Ron. Show some respect.”

Ron shook his head. “If she knew and didn’t do anything, she lost my respect. We’ve got to ask her about this. I can’t…this is almost impossible to believe. I mean, I do believe him! I do! It’s just…”

“Yeah,” Hermione said, the word sounding ponderous and heavy.

Before she could say anything else, her attention was drawn to a shouting match occurring at the Slytherin table. It probably should have surprised her that the source of the shouting was Kevin and Megan confronting Sally-Anne, but alas, it did not at this point.

“How dare you accuse me of murder?” Sally-Anne shouted loud enough for everyone to hear. “I did not kill Ron’s rat and the idea you think I did is insulting and depraved!” She stood on the table and raised her wand into the air. “Here me now, denizens of Hogwarts!” she intoned. “I, Sally-Anne Perks, swear on my life and my magic that I did not kill Scabbers! So mote it be!” She cast a light spell and then sat down, looking rather smug.

“Am I missing something?” Hermione asked Ron. “Is there some sort of magical oath process?”

“Nothing I’ve heard of,” Ron said. “She’s a nutter. But she did know about the cupboard…”

“She had to have overheard someone talking about it,” she said dismissively. “Maybe Professor Snape?”

Ron shook his head. “No way. If Snape knew, he’d be using it against Harry all the time.”

Hermione wanted to argue, but the fact that Ron was, in fact, right stopped her. Anyway, there probably wasn’t anything to worry about. Most likely, Harry had reported his abuse to Professor McGonagall and she was taking the appropriate steps to have the situation investigated. Sally-Anne was probably listening at the door or something like that.

When Megan returned to the table, she looked confused. “I really thought it was her…”

“Oh, come on, you don’t buy that magical oath rubbish,” Ron said. “There’s no such thing!”

“Yes, but Sally-Anne believes there is,” Megan explained. “She wouldn’t have made it if she thought she was lying, because she’d thought it’d kill her. Unless…oh.”

“What do you mean, oh?” Hermione demanded.

“Nothing,” Megan said quickly. “I got to get to class.” She walked over to the Hufflepuff table, practically dragged Kevin out of his seat, and quickly walked out of the hall.

With the whole Scabbers being murdered incident, Harry had almost forgotten entirely to tell Ron he was the new Seeker for the team until dinner. Hermione had to actually bite her tongue to prevent herself from saying anything. Ron’s beloved pet had been murdered; she wasn’t going to get in the way of his happiness for his friend. (Would he feel just as happy about something she accomplished one of these days, she wondered?) It was difficult, but she managed.

But when Malfoy came up to the table and started blustering, somehow causing Ron to take leave of his senses and challenge him to a duel on Harry’s behalf, Hermione couldn’t take it anymore. “Are you insane?” she snapped at Ron. “A wizard’s duel?”

“Some things are more important than the rules, Hermione,” Ron said, visibly struggling to restrain his temper. “Things like honor! He had to have killed Scabbers. Somehow! Who else is there?”

“And what’s to stop him from killing you?” Hermione retorted. She was pleased when neither of her friends had a comeback. “No, for once we’re going to do it my way.”

She strode over to the High Table. Many was the time when she’d reported her peers’ misdeeds to the teachers in her primary school. True, some people called her a tattletale and a teacher’s pet, but they called her names anyway, and at least justice was served that way.

“Excuse me, Professor McGonagall, but what do you know about the cupboard under the stairs?” Hermione asked, and then her face turned beet red as she noticed the words that had actually come out of her mouth. She had honestly intended to snitch on Malfoy, but the question had been percolating in her head all afternoon and now it just came out.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Granger?”

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? “The cupboard under the stairs where Harry lives,” Hermione went on. “His aunt and uncle treat him frightfully, you know. I was wondering exactly what Harry has told you about that. Because he seemed to be under the impression you knew.”

Professor Snape learned forward, looking a bit queasy. “His aunt? Are you talking about Petunia Evans?” Hermione blinked a couple of times. How did Professor Snape know that name? She nodded.

Professor McGonagall’s grip on her fork tightened. “I assure you, Miss Granger, I knew nothing of the kind,” she said through gritted teeth. “She truly…she truly kept him in a cupboard under the stairs?”

“There are spiders that live there,” Hermione said mildly.

Professor McGonagall stood up. “Four points to Gryffindor for alerting a staff member of your peers unacceptable living situations. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to see the situation resolved.” She directed a fearsome glare at Professor Dumbledore. “And so will the headmaster, will he not?”

Professor Dumbledore nodded slowly. Even people more emotionally literate than Hermione would have struggled to comprehend the look on his face, it was that unfathomable. “Yes, this matter will be investigated,” he promised. “The reason, Miss Granger, that Mr. Potter likely suspects Professor McGonagall is aware of his situation is that her name appears on the form letters for Hogwarts invitation, which are magically charmed to deliver to the exact location of the recipient.”

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. That made sense. “Thank you very much, sir. And I’m sorry, Professor McGonagall, if I came across as accusatory.”

“Yes, yes, I think we can all look past that,” McGonagall said, still sounding somewhat shellshocked by the whole matter. “Please return to your table, Miss Granger.”

As soon as Hermione returned to her table, she realized she’d completely forgotten to tell on Malfoy. Well, it didn’t matter. Dealing with Harry’s living situation was more important, obviously. She’d just convince Ron and Harry to stay in the tower – and if Malfoy somehow broke in there, they’d tell McGonagall…and hopefully that would be enough proof for her to start investigating him for Scabbers’ murder.

She explained what had happened at the head table to her friends. Megan’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. “It can’t have been that easy,” she whispered. “This whole time, it was that easy?! But what about the blood wards?” She clapped her hand in front of her mouth. “I mean…”

“Yes, what did you mean?” Hermione asked.

Megan was saved from answering when Harry abruptly wrapped Hermione up in a hug. A part of Hermione wanted to scream at the unexpected contact, but a larger part of her quite liked it. “No one’s ever stuck their neck out for me like that before,” he whispered. “I know nothing’ll probably come of this – it never does – but this means so much to me. If there’s anything I can do for you…”

“Don’t duel Malfoy,” Hermione said immediately.

“No, no, you have to duel him!” Megan said, looking panicked. “It has to happen! If you don’t duel him…uh, he’ll think you’re weak!”

“I don’t really care what that bully thinks,” Harry said softly but firmly. Megan shivered a little. “I care what my friends think. Ron, do you think I should duel Malfoy?”

Ron was silent for a while. “Blimey, Harry, I don’t know. On the one hand, it’s not really Gryffindor of us to back down from a challenge, is it? On the other, Malfoy probably learned all sorts of dark magic from his father…he was one of You-Know-Who’s top followers.”

“I’ve got a pile of homework that needs doing,” Harry decided. “He’s a ruddy coward, anyway; probably won’t even show.”

Megan looked horrified for some reason. Hermione was relieved to see her other friends looked as bewildered as she felt. “This isn’t right,” she whispered. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.” She rushed over to the Hufflepuff table.

“Any clue what that’s about?” Harry wondered. Hermione just shrugged. She’d given up trying to comprehend her very strange friend.

Megan’s strangeness didn’t seem to abate as the days went on. She kept on looking more and more nervous as Hermione, Ron, and Harry’s focus continued to be on trying to solve Scabbers’ murder. Megan thought they should be investigating the item that someone attempted to rob at Gringotts and was now presumably hidden in the third floor corridor that was off-limits. It was Hermione’s opinion, however, was that anyone who was depraved enough to strangle a rat probably wouldn’t wait too long before moving onto humans and she was very keen on not being strangled in her bed.

But each time they tried to investigate, they ended up hitting a wall. Hermione had to very reluctantly concede she just didn’t have enough magical knowledge – yet – to investigate the murder effectively. As time went on and no one else ended up strangled, their interest tapered off. Megan tried to redirect them to the third floor corridor, but after seeing death firsthand, Ron wasn’t keen on venturing to a place that promised a very painful death and Harry was following suit. Hermione, it went without saying, had no interest whatsoever in risking her life or, worse, risking getting expelled.

While her friendship with Ron and Harry was very strong, that wasn’t to say that there weren’t bumps along the road. Hermione was trying very hard to curb her habit of correcting people all the time, which was extremely difficult for her, but sometimes she truly couldn’t help herself. Especially when correcting people over their pronunciation of spells – after all, a miscast spell could be deadly!

“I can’t believe you humiliated me,” Ron grumbled as they walked out of Charms class on Halloween. Hermione hardly classified her behavior as having humiliated him; she just wanted to make sure he was doing it right. “I was going to figure it out on my own.”

“No, you weren’t,” Hermione said. “Back me up here, Harry.”

“Uh, no,” Harry said, waving his hands around frantically. “I’m staying out of this one.”

“You need to stop acting like you know everything!” Ron snapped. “Is that why you didn’t have any friends in primary, Hermione, huh? Did they all see what a know-it-all you were?”

Hermione just nodded, and Ron’s train of anger screeched to a metaphorical halt. “I…I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have thought this could last. Yeah. Why would anyone wanna be friends with a teacher’s pet?”

She ran off, willing herself not to cry, straight to the girls’ toilets and a waterwork of tears fell down her cheeks once she’d gotten there. Memories of the many things her peers had called her cycled through her head. Weirdo. Freak. Know-it-all. Teacher’s pet. Ugly. Fat. So many different insults, all of which were said to mean the same thing: You’re not wanted. She thought she was wanted at Hogwarts. She thought she could have friends. But once more, her true self had shown through and she’d driven them away.

There was a knock on the door. “Uh, Hermione?” Harry called out. “You in here?”

Before waiting for an answer, the door opened and Ron and Harry walked in. Hermione stepped out of the stall, absolutely scandalized. “You can’t be here!” she shouted. “This is the girls’ room!”

Ron and Harry’s cheeks both went identically red, as if this had only suddenly occurred to them. “Uh, right. Sorry.” Ron looked at the ground. “I…I really shouldn’t have said that to you, Hermione. I mean…I was a right git.”

“You were,” Hermione said, her voice shaky. “Really no better than Malfoy.”

“Wow, talk about a low blow,” Ron said. “Uh, but you’re kind of right. I was a real jerk, and I’m so sorry.”

Hermione looked over at Harry for some indication she thought Ron was being sincere. He nodded at her. “I was just trying to help, you know,” she said quietly. “I thought you’d be thankful. I, uh, maybe I should be the one apologizing.”

“How about we just forget it?” Harry suggested. “I mean, look, have any of us had any friends before? And your siblings don’t count, Ron?” Ron shook his head. “Yeah, me neither. So we’ll make mistakes. And, yeah, we’ll say some hurtful things, but you know what? I’m glad you’re my friends.”

“Me too,” Hermione said with a smile. “I see Megan’s wisdom is rubbing off on you, Harry.”

Harry shrugged. “I’ve been known to pick up a few things here and there.”

So the three of them returned to the Halloween feast, their friendship mended, and sat down at the Gryffindor table. Megan’s face looked ashen upon seeing her. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here!”

“Excuse me?” Hermione said frigidly. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I…uh…” Megan floundered. “Never mind. I just…I thought you were crying in the girls’ bathroom? Isn’t…it is Halloween, right?” Sometimes, Hermione thought the primary reason she liked being friends with Megan so much was that she was so confusing that everyone else got to experience the confusion Hermione got to experience routinely when it came to social situations.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Harry demanded.

Before Megan could answer, Professor Quirrell came running into the Great Hall, looking absolutely petrified. “TROLL!” he screamed. “Troll in the dungeons!” Was it Hermione’s imagination or was Megan rolling her eyes? “Thought you ought to know,” he said, and promptly fainted.

“And the reward for least convincing dramatic performance goes to Quirinius Quirrell,” Megan said in a mock announcer’s voice and with a sarcastic clap.

“There’s something very wrong with you, you know,” Harry said, inching a little away from her. “Wait, a troll? Did she just say troll? Like, lives under a bridge style troll?”

Before Hermione could provide an answer, they were ushered back to their dormitories by the prefects. Megan’s face was registering a sickly dread. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered, no doubt not intending to be heard, but Hermione always had had very good hearing. “The whole plot is going off the rails…”

For hours, they huddled together in the common room, petrified that every noise outside their room was the troll breaking through the door to kill them all. Eventually, the door opened and everyone screamed, only to breathe a collective sigh of relief when it turned out to be just Professor McGonagall.

“I…” For once the formidable transfiguration professor seemed to have no idea what to say. “The troll has been vanquished, but I am sorry to have to report that there have been casualties. Professors Vector and Sprout have been wounded and…and Professor Sinistra has been killed.”

Megan let out an earsplitting shriek of horror and immediately fainted.   

Chapter Text

Even by the standards of magical schools, Hogwarts was strange and unpredictable. The last two years of Fred Weasley’s schooling had been chaotic at best. Naturally, he was a huge part of the chaos. He and George had deliberately tried to make things as chaotic as possible, with pranks galore, because it suited their purposes.

He and George knew that when you had a reputation, people would ignore everything that didn’t line up with that reputation. Both of them used their reputation as pranking kings to make people ignore the fact that they were actually quite smart and cunning. In fact, they’d both almost independently been put into Slytherin, only choosing Gryffindor because Slytherin was infested with bullies, and besides, it’d probably give their mum a heart attack. So they were able to study magic to their heart’s content without people (read: again, their mum) having too high expectations.

But even last year, with a Defense teacher who’d thought it was a brilliant idea to give a whole lesson about Muggle weapons right up until the point when he’d accidentally blown his brains out with a pistol, paled in comparison to the strangeness that had been occurring this year. And much to Fred’s surprise, the strangeness was not centering around Harry Potter, but rather a Slytherin by the name of Sally-Anne Perks.

One afternoon, Sally-Anne had ambushed them coming back from the library. There was a manic look in her eyes. Well, there was always a manic look in her eyes – even the other Slytherins had learned to stay away from her – but she looked even more crazed than usual today.

“What’s a lovely young lady like you want with two strapping twins like us?” George joked.

“I need your help,” Sally-Anne said, and in an instant, her crazed look had morphed into a desperate, pleading one. Fred didn’t trust the change in her demeanor one iota. “There’s a conspiracy occurring in the castle, and I need your help to end it.”

George elbowed Fred. “Oh, what’s Dumbledore done now? Changed Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans to Bertie Bott’s Only Vomit Flavored Beans?” 

“This isn’t about him,” Sally-Anne said, looking vulnerable all of a sudden. She seemed to be listening to a voice only she could hear for a few seconds. “Really?” she whispered so quietly Fred could barely hear it. “Okay, then.” She cleared her throat. “Do you remember when Trelawney mentioned there’d be people here from other dimensions?”

Fred nodded slowly. He hadn’t taken it seriously at all. The twins had tried to pretend they were from another dimension to Trelawney for a lark, but she’d seen through their bullshit in three seconds and kicked them out of her office. Since then, he hadn’t given it a single thought.

“Well…well, I’m one of those people,” Sally-Anne said.

George and Fred shared a look. Contrary to popular belief, they weren’t on the same page all the time – really very little of the time, despite the image they deliberately cultivated. But they were on the same page now. Sally-Anne genuinely believed what she was saying. Of course, Fred didn’t believe it was true. But it did mean he’d have to tread carefully. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Okay, this is going to be a bit hard to explain, but here goes. In the universe I’m from, you’re fictional. Everyone here is fictional. Hogwarts isn’t real.” Oh, boy. Once more, Sally-Anne believed every word she was saying. Fred wasn’t the right person to handle this; Sally-Anne needed to go to St. Mungo’s. “I was just an ordinary Muggle when I died.”

“How’d you die, Sally-Anne?” George asked casually.

“I will never answer that question, and if you know what’s good for you, you will NEVER ask it again!” Sally-Anne shouted at them. Her face twitched a couple of times. She grabbed onto her hair and took a few deep breaths, and then she was calm again. “It’s not important, okay? I’m from the year 2022, and in my world at my time, the Harry Potter books are some of the most famous pieces of literature of all time.”

Fred couldn’t help but remember Kevin joking that he was from the future too. At least he’d assumed it was a joke…no. No, what was he even thinking? Sally-Anne couldn’t be telling the truth. Things like this didn’t happen. Not to mention she was demonstrably out of touch with reality in a wide variety of areas.

“Guess I should have known better than to expect to be the protagonist,” Fred joked. “Tell me, what role do I have in this series of yours? Please tell me I end up with some dashing bird or bloke.”

Sally-Anne looked a little surprised for a second, but then she shook her head. “Actually, you die.” A chill went down Fred’s spine. She turned to face George. “You come out all right, more or less, though minus an ear.” She peered closely at them. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“Would you in our shoes?” George pointed out.

“I know about the Marauder’s Map,” Sally-Anne announced. Fred’s hand twitched a little, but he gave no other indication as to what he was feeling. “I know that when you activate it, you say ‘I solemnly swear I am up to no good’ and when you deactivate it, you say ‘mischief managed.’”

“That doesn’t necessarily prove anything…” Fred protested, hating the way he wasn’t sounding entirely persuaded. “You could know the Marauders. One of them could have told you.”

Sally-Anne looked slightly confused. “This really should have worked…” She was silent for a few seconds, looking like she was thinking heavily. “Oh, that’s a good idea. Okay, if you go on the map, you’ll see a man named Peter Pettigrew in the boy’s dorm. In Ron’s bed. That’s Wormtail. He’s a rat Animagus. He’s Scabbers.”

Fred felt nauseous. If what Sally-Anne was saying was true, a grown man had been sleeping in Ron and Percy’s beds for years. Who the hell knew what he’d been doing to his brothers while they’d been sleeping? He pulled out the map and first positioned it to show the very place where he and George and Sally-Anne were standing. Except the name wasn’t Sally-Anne.

There was suddenly a wand pointed straight between Fred’s eyes. “Do not say that name. Ever. Or I’ll have no choice but to kill you. Do you understand me?”

Fred nodded hurriedly and shifted the map so it was showing Gryffindor Tower. Sally-Anne lowered her wand. And sure enough, there was Peter Pettigrew, sleeping right in the boys’ dorms, right next to Ron. He cast a look over at George, who was looking just as horrified as he was. They had used the Marauder’s Map for pranking and silly jokes and all the while, they’d completely failed to notice something that was completely under their nose.

Fred’s parents had always been very tightlipped about the war, but from what he gathered from conversations he’d overheard, Pettigrew had been murdered by Voldemort’s top enforcer Sirius Black, along with a dozen Muggles. Or so the story went. Now Fred wasn’t so sure. Anyone who spent a decade living as a rat in a child’s bedroom can’t have been that heroic…

“Do you think this means Sirius Black is innocent?” George wondered, having leapt to the same conclusion Fred did.

“That’s a later issue,” Sally-Anne said evasively. “So do you believe me now? That I’m from the future? And another dimension?”

Fred still wasn’t sure. This hadn’t disproved his earlier theory that Sally-Anne could have figured all this out by knowing one of the other Marauders. Time travel sounded preposterously far-fetched and dimension travel just took on a whole new level of impossibility. Then again, the magical world was filled with seemingly impossible things. And Sally-Anne coming from another dimension could explain why she was just so out of touch with reality – she had come from a different one where all of her delusions were actually true.

“It was a difficult sell at first, but you’ve definitely convinced me, Sally-Anne,” George lied. It was one of his better cons. Hardly anyone other than Fred would have seen it.

“Yeah, sorry about doubting you,” Fred said, following his twin’s lead. Humoring Sally-Anne at this point seemed the best way to get more answers. “So what now?”

“Oh, now we kill him,” Sally-Anne said as casually as if she was talking about the weather.

Fred could not help it. His jaw dropped open. “You can’t be serious. We need to turn him in. Surely there must be laws against what he’s done.”

Sally-Anne giggled. “Oh, Fred. Silly, naïve Fred. You’re so young!” She patted him on the hair condescendingly. “No, no, death is the only option for him. Pettigrew is a Death Eater. He’s the one who betrayed the Potters to Voldemort.” Fred couldn’t help but admire Sally-Anne’s guts for being able to say the name. “In two years, he’s going to escape and start a chain of events that leads to the resurrection of his master.” She looked Fred in the face. “And you will die.”

Fred shivered a little. The thought of dying so young scared him more than he cared to admit. Life was filled with so many amazing things; the idea of checking out before experiencing even a fraction of them was a dismal one. “Maybe there’s another option…”

“There isn’t,” Sally-Anne said sharply. “The Ministry is corrupt and practically controlled by Death Eaters already. Dumbledore is an insane egomaniac who is actively facilitating abuse and committing far worse crimes to support his megalomaniacal agenda.” In Fred’s opinion, Sally-Anne calling Dumbledore a megalomaniac was really the pot calling the kettle black. “This is the only way.”

Much to Fred’s alarm, George was looking more and more persuaded by this argument. “He’s really been sleeping in our brothers’ beds?”

“Yes,” Sally-Anne said solemnly. “And I have no evidence he’s done anything more than that. But a man who thinks that’s an acceptable thing…you have to wonder how much farther he’d slip. Do you understand me?”

George did, and so did Fred, and George looked as sick as Fred felt at the very thought. “So if he needs to die, why haven’t you killed him yet?”

Sally-Anne looked at him as if he was the dumbest person in the universe. “I’m a Slytherin. I don’t know how to get into Gryffindor Tower. And Megan and I have…differences of opinion as to how everything should be handled. She wouldn’t let me in.” Right. That was a very reasonable, logical point, which had not occurred to Fred because reason and logic did not belong in the same sentence as Sally-Anne.

“Right, then let’s move,” Fred decided. He and George reluctantly let Sally-Anne into the Gryffindor dorms – the Fat Lady didn’t even blink an eye, which was rather disappointing when all was said and done – and together, they went to the first year dorms. Thankfully, everyone was out. It would have been rather awkward to explain why they’d sneaked a girl into the dorms, let alone a Slytherin.

Sally-Anne drew her wand and cast a Stupefy on Pettigrew, who went out like a light. “See?” Sally-Anne said, pointing at a missing toe on Pettigrew’s foot. “That corresponds to the only piece of Pettigrew they ever found – his finger. Now kill him and let’s get out of here.”

There was a murderous look in George’s eye, and in that moment, Fred made a split second decision and grabbed the rat himself. If someone was going to become a killer here, it would be him. He wouldn’t let George have that on his conscience. He squeezed and squeezed at Pettigrew’s neck. It was strange. He should have felt angry – a murderous rage, as it were – but instead, he felt absolutely nothing.

Pettigrew’s struggling came to an end and Fred deposited the contents of his lunch all over the floor. Sally-Anne didn’t look too perturbed; she just cast a simple Scourgify. “I imagine that can’t have been easy,” she said, sounding as if she was just saying a platitude she didn’t really believe. “But it was necessary. You’ve saved lives today, Fred. You did the right thing.”

He probably had, in the long run. It didn’t feel like it now, though. Fred just felt numb all over. He wasn’t sure he’d feel anything ever again.

*****

Megan had been crying all night and the only reason why she had stopped crying was because she was pretty sure she’d run out of tears. She couldn’t believe how stupid she’d been. Arrogant, thoughtless, and idiotic. She’d treated the whole damn thing like it was a game. Some part of her, she genuinely believed, thought she was just dreaming and that one day she’d wake up in a hospital back in Dublin after going through a several month long coma. Because people didn’t actually reincarnate into a fictional universe. Except she had and she’d screwed everything up!

Someone was dead now because of her. The troll was supposed to have been defeated by the Golden Trio, except Megan’s meddling had made them friends before the troll and because of that, they’d hadn’t been in the bathroom to defeat the troll and Professor Sinistra had DIED! An innocent woman was dead, and Megan was responsible. Her blood was on her hands.

“Miss Jones?” a voice called out. It was Professor Trelawney. Megan was so surprised to see the professor in the Gryffindor dormitory (she couldn’t remember the rules about whether or not other staff members were permitted in the dorms) that she actually did open the curtains to her bed. Trelawney was standing next to the bed with a hot cup of tea in her hand. “My dear child,” she said in a compassionate voice. “You should not blame yourself.”

Trelawney conjured a chair and sat next to the bed. She held out the tea to Megan. Megan hesitated for a second and then took the tea. It was really good tea. She hadn’t had such good tea in ages. “It was my fault,” she whispered. “I don’t…they should have been there to defeat the troll…”

Trelawney was silent for a few moments. “The Muggles have a saying, you know. With great power comes great responsibility.”

Megan nodded eagerly. Trelawney understood! “Exactly! I had power and a responsibility to use it wisely. Which I didn’t.”

“But you see, you’re wrong,” Trelawney said patiently. “On both counts. Your power was your knowledge of the future, and you used it responsibly. You taught Hermione how to make friends and keep them. You have been kind and compassionate to a fault.”

“That’s not as important as saving Professor Sinistra’s life!” Megan shouted. She looked around her frantically to see if anyone had heard her.

“I cleared everyone away from the dorm so we could talk in private,” Trelawney said. Megan breathed a sigh of relief. “Megan, once the future shifted, you lost the power you had. If great power means great responsibility, then logically no power means no responsibility.” She patted Megan on the arm. “I know what it is like to have your knowledge of the future backfire spectacularly. Why do you think I was a drunkard until recently?”

Megan sighed. She supposed Trelawney had a point. Beyond her knowledge of the future, she really wasn’t any more knowledgeable or powerful than any other first year student. Teachers should have been able to stand up to a troll that the Golden Trio had stood up to. It was not her place to deal with trolls. Kevin had said as much to her several times over the last few hours. But it didn’t feel that way.

“Do you know what I’ve concluded, Megan? It’s that we ourselves are in a fanfic.”

Megan tilted her head. “Come again?”

“Yes, indeed,” Trelawney said serenely. “The situation you are in now has all the hallmarks of a self-insert fic, does it not? Admittedly, it’s a bit more metafictional than usual, what with the Indy Harry tropes being skewered left, right, and center, but it really feels like a fanfiction, in my opinion. I do, after all, have all those fics loaded into my head.”

Megan felt nothing but sympathy for her for that. She couldn’t imagine what it was like to have to go through life with things like My Immortal or Thirty Hs stuck in one’s head, to say nothing of all manner of smut fics, including ones starring oneself. Kevin was still tremendously pissed off at Trelawney, but Megan knew she hadn’t really meant badly and she was still pretty grateful to be living life as a witch, even after the most recent debacle. As for her theory about whether or not they were stuck in a fanfic…well, Megan had absolutely no clue whether or not that was the case. It was probably best to act as if she was not, she decided, regardless of what happened.

“I’m just going to live my life as normal,” Megan said out loud. Trelawney nodded in approval. “I don’t suppose you could foresee what happens next?”

Trelawney grinned. “Where would the fun in that be?” How perfectly lovely. “Now did I help you any? I’m not used to comforting people, you know. I’m normally trying to terrify them for shits and giggles.”

Megan cast a disapproving glare at her. “Yeah, I knew that. You listen to me. If you tell Harry he’s going to die when he takes your class, I will punch you in the face, do you understand me? The poor kid’s gone through enough crap without you adding to it.”

“In my defense, it is not as if I was wrong,” Trelawney pointed out. “Everyone does die eventually, after all.” Megan’s glare only intensified. “Very well. We are agreed.”

Megan set her cup aside and gingerly got out of bed. The idea of facing her classmates still hurt, but it was one she needed to do nonetheless. She walked down to the common room where she was almost immediately tackled by Hermione. “Oh, Megan, I’m so glad you’re feeling better,” Hermione said with earnest intensity.

In that moment, Megan was struck by just how young Hermione looked, not only relative to Megan’s own mental age but to the image Hermione usually put out. It was kind of easy to forget that this was still a child. She was used to getting bullied back in her old school, even if she hated it with every fiber of her being. She had no experience with a professor dying, much less being horribly killed. “Thanks, Hermione,” Megan said. “I’m sorry, I must have kept you up all night…”

“I don’t think any of us could have gotten any sleep anyway,” Parvati pointed out. “I can’t believe it. A troll at Hogwarts…I have half a mind to write my parents and have me pulled out.” Megan couldn’t help but notice Hermione’s expression getting shifty; no doubt she had absolutely no intention of letting her parents know. Well, that was Hermione’s choice.

Lavender shuddered. “Poor Professor Sinistra…I hope at least it happened quickly. She was a really good teacher. Always treated everyone fairly.” She tried to put a smile on her face. It was a rather shaky one. “Anyway, let’s look on the bright side. I hear there’s a reporter from the Prophet in the Great Hall. Maybe we could get our names in the paper!”

Megan groaned. Of course they’d have to deal with Rita Skeeter. Well, there was nothing for it. She absolutely had to get to the Great Hall now and intercept Skeeter before she could get her hands on Harry, if she hadn’t already. She remembered how badly she’d smeared him in Goblet of Fire. Maybe Megan could distract her by throwing Dumbledore under the bus. While she certainly was not anywhere close to being in Sally-Anne’s league for her dislike of the man, there was no doubt he’d made some rather critical errors in judgment with the Stone and how he’d handled the Harry situation. He probably deserved some bad press. Maybe it would even convince him to get his act together.

When she entered the Great Hall, she couldn’t help but burst out laughing at what she saw before her. It really shouldn’t have been so funny, but there was a magnificently cruel irony to the whole thing. The woman interviewing various staff members – right now, she was talking to Snape – wasn’t Rita Skeeter.

It was J. K. Rowling.

At first, Megan believed she had to be mistaken. Surely the stress of thinking she was responsible for Professor Sinistra’s death had driven her round the bend. But nope, there the author of the series she was trapped in was, talking to Professor McGonagall, who, in a turn of events that made Megan’s heart soar, looked like she was ready to throttle Rowling.

Megan could sympathize. She’d loved Harry Potter as a child. It had fueled her interest in social justice, in activism. The fundamental message of the series, that it was not how you were born but your choices that defined you, had made her what she was today. Rowling’s decision to go against that philosophy to viciously attack a marginalized community had felt like a betrayal to Megan, even though she was cis. And now Megan was finding out she was an actual witch who’d turned her knowledge Harry’s suffering into entertainment. It almost made her want to throw up. Right now, she had more respect for the troll who’d killed Professor Sinistra than Rowling.

She walked over to the head table. Professor McGonagall raised an eyebrow at Megan’s approach. “Professor, I’m sorry for interrupting,” Megan said, the picture of perfect politeness. “But I have some transfiguration questions…”

“Ah, yes,” Professor McGonagall said, barely managing to hide the relief she must have felt at being given an excuse, however flimsy, to avoid talking to Rowling. “You’ll have to excuse me, Joanne. Duty calls.”

She allowed Megan to lead her to another part of the Great Hall. “One point to you, Miss Jones, for having the sense to prioritize your academics over the potential of getting your name in the papers.” She and Megan showed a knowing nod. “I presume you are not all that fond of Miss Rowling?”

“I don’t know what you mean, professor,” Megan said, trying to sound innocent. Unsurprisingly, it did not fool the formidable Scotswoman.

“Of course,” Professor McGonagall said. “There are respectable journalists out there, I am sure. Lamentably, the Daily Prophet does not seem inclined to hire them.”

“Like Rita Skeeter?” Megan guessed.

Professor McGonagall tilted her head. “Who?”

“Uh, you wouldn’t know her,” Megan quickly bluffed. “She’s Irish.”

“So your questions…?”

Megan was confused for a second before remembering her excuse. “Actually, I don’t have any questions, ma’am,” she admitted. “I just noticed you looking uncomfortable and wanted to give you an out.”

“That’s very kind of you, Miss Jones,” McGonagall said, looking genuinely touched. “I’ve been informed that you took Professor Sinistra’s death quite hard. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Yeah, it was…uh, it really took me by surprise,” Megan said. “But, no, Professor Trelawney already helped me.”

Professor McGonagall looked a bit befuddled. “Yes…yes, indeed. I must say, I have clearly underestimated Sibyl in the past. She seems to be a more able educator by far when sober.” She shook her head. “I apologize. That was perilously close to speaking ill of my colleagues, and I try to not make a practice of that. Either way, I am happy she has taken it upon herself to provide extra support to the Muggleborn students. Well, Miss Rowling appears to be sufficiently distracted, so I daresay it’s safe for us to go our separate ways now.”

Megan looked back over at the head table to see that Rowling was grilling Dumbledore. Perhaps word had leaked out about the cupboard under the stairs or perhaps it was just regular politics as usual. It was a shame, in her opinion, they couldn’t both lose.

She headed over to the Hufflepuff table once she spotted Kevin. “Doesn’t it disgust you to see her just walking around this palace of wonder, bold as brass?” she said.

Kevin sighed. He had on his “I’m an adult and you’re just a child and I’m so much smarter than you” face again which Megan really thought she’d cured him of. “You don’t understand what this means, do you?”

“I finally have a chance to punch J. K. Rowling in the face?”

Kevin looked actually angry for once. Megan was shocked. It took a lot to get Kevin angry. She didn’t think it was even possible, actually. He was the epitome of a cool, composed Hufflepuff. “Megan, you seriously do not grasp what this means?”

“Why don’t you tell me like I’m stupid, Kevin, huh?” Megan snapped. “Since you’re so fecking smart!” 

Kevin closed his eyes and then opened them again a few seconds later. “I’m sorry. I…I’m just a bit stunned by all this.” He leaned forward. “Megan, if J. K. Rowling has always been a witch, if we are still in our own reality, then what guarantee do we have that the books are even remotely accurate?! What if the troll always killed Sinistra?”

“Professor Sinistra,” Megan corrected him, then made a face. She was starting to sound like Hermione. “Show some respect for the dead.”

“Sorry,” Kevin said. “But my point is, our future knowledge could be totally useless! If Rowling just made up everything, then nothing we know could be right!”

Megan thought it through very carefully, and then she shook her head. “I don’t believe that. So far, everything’s happened as it did in the books except for stuff effected by changes we made. Snape’s trick questions were exactly the same, the cupboard under the stairs is the same, all the characters are pretty much the same. Rowling might just have a counterpart here, that’s all.” She gave a huge grin. “A counterpart I can punch in the face!”

“I don’t think you should do that,” Kevin said.

“But I’ve been yearning to punch her in the face for years,” Megan whined. “It’s not going to affect the timeline any, really. She’ll still write the books. She’s not going to say, oh, that weird Gryffindor punched me in the face, so I’m not going to write the books. Why shouldn’t I punch her?”

“Because you’ll get sent to detention,” Kevin pointed out.

“Maybe that’s worth it?”

Kevin opened his mouth to say something no doubt sanctimonious, but then he paused and tilted his head. “You know what? You’re right.”

*****

If the troll incident hadn’t proved it, Rowling’s appearance settled it for good. There was no telling just how reliable the books were and assuming that their future knowledge was infallible – including the fact that the casualties listed in the books were accurate – was dangerous in the extreme. Granted, the balance of probability still suggested that the books were accurate. Everything listed so far had occurred to the best of Kevin’s knowledge. But even a tiny risk that it was not was still not something Kevin could take when lives were at stake.

One thing they did know for certain: Voldemort was definitely possessing Quirrell. Harry still got headaches whenever he was in Quirrell’s presence. Voldemort had killed once at the school and would kill again if given the opportunity. It was now imperative that they take him out decisively and, if at all possible, discreetly. Naturally, given his Horcruxes, it would not take him out of the game for good, but it would still buy them three years before he even made the slightest move to return.

Of course, they could deal with Quirrell right now if they so chose. They could walk up to his offices and Avada Kedavra him in the face. But Kevin would rather not run the risk of getting caught. He wasn’t quite that desperate yet. So they would have to deal with him at an opportune moment when they were away from the castle.

Fortunately, Kevin knew exactly when that would occur: on the night when Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco got detention for being out of bounds after dark. (The punishment they’d received had always struck Kevin as being incredibly disproportionate. Fifty points? Detention in the Forbidden Forest? But that was neither here nor there.) It was an excellent time to ambush Voldemort. And if they caught him red-handed drinking a unicorn’s blood, then they’d have a really good excuse for it too. Heck, they might even get an award.

This was going to be easier said than done, though. They’d only have exactly and precisely one chance to ambush Voldemort. The odds were good that even with two of them (there was no way on God’s green earth Kevin was entrusting Sally-Anne with the plan), Voldemort would make mincemeat out of them if given half a chance. So Kevin had a brilliant idea. Seriously one of his better ones. He’d use a weapon Voldemort would never see coming. A power he knew not, if one was being glib.

“Are you sure you’re going to be comfortable with this?” Megan asked as the two of them trudged through the Room of Hidden Things. “I mean…with what happened to you…”

“I might not be,” Kevin admitted. “That’s why we’ll both do it if we can. And we don’t even know if there’ll even be one here.”

“Well, let’s just hurry,” Megan said with a shiver. “Don’t forget, there’s a horcrux down here. I’d rather not spend a single second in this room more than I have to.”

Kevin had almost forgotten about the diadem. He wasn’t planning on going anywhere near that thing, not without a way to destroy it immediately. He had no idea what it could do to his mind, and he had no intention of finding out. He raised his wand. “Accio gun!” he shouted.

There was a rustling sound and then a revolver flew through the air and landed directly in front of him. The revolver was extremely old, likely from the time of World War II. That made sense. If Kevin had been a Muggleborn student at that time with both a basilisk wandering the castle and Grindelwald wreaking havoc on the continent – to say nothing of the mundane threat of the Nazis – he’d want a gun on hand too. Kevin awaited more guns to pile up in front of him, but that seemed to be it. Mages didn’t seem to have much need for guns. Or maybe it was just because they were British.

Megan picked up the gun and looked at it with a mixture of revulsion and fascination. “Man, this thing is old,” she said, waving it around rather haphazardly as she adjusted it further. “Does this thing even work?” As if in answer, the gun went off, blasting a hole through a shelf. Hopefully the room was soundproof.

Kevin quickly grabbed the gun out of her hands. He was surprised but pleased hearing the gunshot didn’t have a terribly adverse effect on him. Maybe it was just because he’d moved bodies. Perhaps his old body, if it had survived, would have had PTSD. Who knows? “Look, I know you don’t like me lecturing you, and, yes, you have a point that I do it too often, but guns are the sort of things you don’t fuck around with.”

Megan nodded. “You know, sometimes I wonder if you were like some spy in your former life,” she said, only half-jokingly. “You’re so chill about things.” Kevin wished that was the case. At least he’d probably have gone out doing good (or at least in a cooler fashion).

“Here’s the plan,” Kevin outlined. “On the day of detention, I steal the invisibility cloak, walk up to Quirrell and put a bullet through both of his faces. Simple.” He checked the cylinder. There were still five more bullets left in it.

“Why you?” Megan wondered.

Kevin shrugged. “It doesn’t have to be me. You want to do it, feel free.” Megan shuddered at the very thought. “Thought so.”

Megan raised a hand. Kevin stifled a giggle. It would seem that despite their dynamic, some things about the student/teacher dynamic were inexorable. “Question: If I’m going to get to detention for punching Rowling, how are you going to get detention?”

“I might punch Malfoy,” Kevin decided. “I really don’t like that kid. I’m sorry, but he just gets under my skin. Smug, arrogant, classist bully…he needs to be taken down a peg.”

Megan laughed. “I’ll corrupt you yet!”

“We’re technically plotting to murder a teacher, Megan,” Kevin reminded her. “I think we’re past that point.”

Megan abruptly sobered up. “Yeah…you’re sure what we’re doing is right, Kev?”

“If you’ve got an idea of how we can get Voldemort out of Quirrell without killing him, I’m all ears,” Kevin said seriously. “But since we don’t, this is our best option. And really, I’m not convinced it’s all that more wrong than our original plan of still letting Harry kill him at the end of the book.”

“That would be in self-defense,” Megan argued. “We’re talking about premeditated murder here.”

Kevin sighed. “Yeah. And I’m fine with that. The man kills unicorns to stay alive, Megan.”

“I…I’m sorry, Kevin, but I don’t think I am,” Megan admitted. “I know it’s cowardly of me, but after what happened to Professor Sinistra…I just don’t think I have it in me to do it. I won’t stop you, but I can’t help you in this one, Kevin.”

Kevin gave Megan a reassuring smile. “I completely understand. And I don’t think that’s cowardly at all. Anyway, better off if you have an alibi, right?”

Megan suddenly wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug. “Don’t you dare die on me, Kevin. I know where the Resurrection Stone is – if you die on me, I’m dragging your spirit back here from the afterlife to yell at you. You won’t want that.” She wiped a tear from her eyes. “I love you, you know. Not like that!” she quickly added. “You’re like the weird, boring uncle I never had.”

“And you’re like the wild and crazy niece I wish I always had,” Kevin said. “Love you too, Megan. And don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

At least the timeline seemed to be more or less on track for the moment. Kevin wondered if Sinistra’s death would have caused Voldemort to be more circumspect and not attack Harry at his first Quidditch game, but matters proceeded as they’d done in the book. Presumably Harry found the Mirror of Erised. Kevin certainly didn’t bother searching for the damned thing; he knew exactly who he’d seen in the mirror and he didn’t need a reminder of what could never be. And even more reassuringly, from what Megan had overheard, the Golden Trio appeared to be back on the trail of the Philosopher’s Stone.

It wasn’t all good news, though. Sally-Anne remained suspiciously quiet. She’d stopped all her weird outbursts and was acting like a perfectly ordinary student now. Kevin was left waiting for the other shoe to drop and it sounded like he wasn’t the only one. Sally-Anne was definitely capable of anything, including very dark magic. Kevin was constantly on his guard these days whenever he was anywhere near her.

And the Golden Trio had completely shut both him and Megan out. Kevin wasn’t sure why. Megan’s efforts to interrogate them and get closer had all been met with a stone wall and Kevin’s efforts hadn’t been much better. Probably worse given how awkward he still felt about interacting with these heroes out of legend.

Kevin had decided to not punch Draco, lest he get assigned to a different detention from him. Or Rowling for that matter – he really didn’t have much of an appetite for punching total strangers even if they were huge transphobes. Instead, he’d did something he’d been longing to do for years: He punched Snape. Right in the middle of breakfast on the day Hermione, Hermione, Neville, and Draco got detention. A solid quarter of the students had applauded him after he’d done it – probably a lot more would have applauded too if they weren’t worried about getting into trouble.

Kevin had given Snape a chance. He’d given him a gentle nudge in the right direction. It had amounted to nothing. As a teacher, Snape disgusted him. His attitude and cavalier approach to his students’ safety were bad enough in of themselves, but were absolutely insupportable when one took into account that he taught one of the most dangerous classes in the whole school. It was honestly a miracle no one had died under his alleged care.

“Mr. Entwhistle!” Professor Sprout shouted. “How…why?! In all my years here, I’ve never seen an unprovoked attack on a teacher of this magnitude. Detention and fifty points from Hufflepuff!”

“He should be expelled!” Snape thundered. “The very nerve! He should be brought up on charges!”

Dumbledore peered into his eyes. Kevin quickly looked away. “Mr. Entwhistle, I find myself quite puzzled by your actions. Why on earth would you attack the professor so brazenly?”

Kevin shrugged and gave an impish smile. “I thought I’d bring some cheer to the castle. Everyone’s been so glum recently!” Megan let out a flurry of hyena-like laughter. “Oh, well. I should have known I’d get caught. See you tomorrow for detention, professor.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Entwhistle,” Sprout said. “You will be joining Messrs. Malfoy, Potter, Weasley, and Miss Granger for their detention tomorrow. I think you’ll have quite a different sense of humor after you’re done.” It took a Herculean effort to keep the smile off of his face, but he somehow accomplished it. Mischief managed!

Despite vowing not to be present for the actual murder, Megan had helped Kevin out by stealing the invisibility cloak. Kevin could not help but marvel at it. Not only was it one of the Deathly Hallows, but it was probably one of the most potent symbols of magic in general out there. Not to mention it was really freaking cool in of itself. A part of him really longed to keep it. He wasn’t sure whether that impulse was something inherent to its nature as a Hallow or simply a natural one, but either way, he would never give into it. It belonged to Harry, and as a relic of his father, there was no way Harry would ever give it to him. As soon as the night was over, he’d return it.

On the night of the detention, Kevin felt absolutely terrified. Not only was he planning on killing someone, but that someone was a preposterously dark wizard who Dumbledore could only duel to a draw. There was an extremely large chance that his life would end tonight again. And somehow, he didn’t think he’d get another chance when that happened. But he was determined to do the deed nonetheless. It had to be done, and no one else was willing to step up to the plate to do it.

With the gun hidden in the waistband of his pants (yes, a hellishly dangerous place to put it, but it wasn’t as if Kevin was overflowing with options) and the invisibility cloak stuffed into his pocket, Kevin was ready to go. He joined the other miscreants and listened to them say the lines he remembered from the book. His own presence there didn’t seem to change much, not with Harry and Hermione both giving him the silent treatment. He was worried Draco might decide to pick on him, but Draco appeared to have decided that anyone crazy enough to attack Snape in front of everyone was probably best avoided and was ignoring him. Neville tried to make conversation, but Kevin was too tense to respond much.

Things continued to go the way they did in the books until Neville set up the sparks. But then they went off the rails. The instant Hagrid left, Hermione and Harry both immediately pulled out their wands and put them at Kevin’s throat.

“We know you, Sally-Anne, and Megan are trying to steal the Philosopher’s Stone,” Hermione announced.

“What?” Kevin said dumbly. Out of all the things he was expecting her to say, that was definitely not one of them.

“We know you let the troll in,” Harry said, a snarl in his voice.

“WHAT?!” Kevin screamed, his complete shock and horror registering all over his face. How had they leapt to such an absurdly wrong conclusion?! What the hell was going on?

Hermione gave a sympathetic look to him. If they were trying for a good cop/bad cop routine, they probably should have reversed it. Harry was too small and adorable to be intimidating. “Look, we know you didn’t mean to harm anyone,” Hermione said in a soothing tone. “You probably just meant to create a distraction and lost control of the beast. But Megan confessed.”

Kevin blinked repeatedly. “You must have misunderstood her,” he said. Was this Sally-Anne’s doing? Had she Confunded them somehow? Or maybe used Polyjuice to impersonate Megan?

“Oh, I don’t think I did,” Hermione said coolly, her good cop routine evaporating in an instant. “Her exact words were, ‘the whole plot is going off the rails.’” Kevin couldn’t help but groan. Of all the things Megan could have said! He was tempted to tell them the truth, but there was no way he had the time to persuade them, not with Voldemort wandering the forest.

“That’s why you’ve been so keen on us pursuing the Stone, isn’t it,” Harry said quietly. He sounded betrayed. And no wonder! Kevin and Megan had been among his first friends; how it must have hurt to discover that they supposedly had an ulterior motive. “You want it for yourselves.”

Kevin made an executive decision. They could prove absolutely nothing or they’d have gone to higher authority. They tried their best – er, they would try their best; damn time travel – to do just that when they thought Snape was going to steal the Stone with only marginally more proof.

Before Harry and Hermione could cast a single spell, he drew his gun and fired two shots between the two of them, aiming for high above their heads. As they dived for cover, Kevin ran for it in the direction of the castle. He’d deal with the fallout later. He who ran away lived to fight another day, after all.

*****

Harry hadn’t felt so low since he’d learned he was a wizard. Even the contempt and isolation his peers had given him after losing so many points hadn’t hurt as much. Two of his friends turned out to be thieves and killers, even if they didn’t mean it. Every kind word Megan and Kevin had said to him was a lie, a carefully crafted act of manipulation dedicated to helping them get their hands on the Philosopher’s Stone. And there was no doubt in his mind they were both guilty. After all, innocent people didn’t just go waving guns around willy-nilly.

He shivered at the memory of the gunshots, even more so than the memory of encountering the cloaked unicorn killer – almost certainly Voldemort – in the forest. There was a reality to them the other magical dangers had lacked. There was something thoroughly disorienting about having been threatened with a gun of all things after months of being completely isolated from Muggles. The fact that it had been Kevin who had been wielding the gun was just icing on the cake.

Harry had really hoped there was some rational explanation. That was why he’d suggested that they interrogate Kevin in the first place. But there clearly wasn’t. Right now, Harry’s life was in mortal danger, and the worst part was, none of the teachers even believed him. Or seemed to understand why he was so alarmed for that matter. They thought Muggle weapons weren’t a real threat, despite what had happened to last year’s Defense professor. And the idea that Kevin somehow managed to smuggle one into the castle was met with ridicule. He was already on thin ice with McGonagall anyway. It was probably best not to test his luck.

If having Kevin and Megan betray him was a low blow, then realizing that they stole the invisibility cloak – the only thing Harry had ever had of his father – made him feel ten times worse, even though Megan had returned it to him the next day. He’d only had one obligation to his father in all his life, keep his cloak safe, and he’d failed at the first post.

“Hadrian,” a voice called out as Harry walked to his DADA class, lost in his thoughts, and Harry couldn’t help but groan. There was only one person who called him that. Well, seriously, at any rate.

“What do you want, Sally-Anne?” Harry said, trying to keep his voice neutral, but failing abysmally.

Sally-Anne walked forward and smirked. “You’re so small, Harry Potter,” she said in a voice that sounded…wrong somehow. “It’s amazing that someone as fragile looking as you could defeat the Dark Lord, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know how I did that,” Harry said. “But whatever it was, I bet I can do it again if you try to hurt me!”

Sally-Anne put her hand on her heart theatrically. “Oh, Harry, you misjudge me greatly. I’ve never wanted to hurt you. All I want is to help you achieve your destiny. Help us achieve our destiny.” She suddenly looked him straight in the eyes and it was like she was searching his soul. “You despise those Muggles you live with, do you not? With my help, they will no longer stand in your way. I can offer you so much more than that…”

“No thanks, Sally-Anne,” Harry said and tried to walk past her.

“Fine, I suppose we’ll have to do this the hard way then,” Sally-Anne said. Before Harry could ask Sally-Anne meant by that, she said a word and Harry was suddenly floating in a sea of bliss. Every thought in his head was just wiped away in a tidal wave of mindlessness and relaxation.

Walk to class, a voice whispered in his head, and Harry couldn’t help but agree with the voice, which sounded completely reasonable. Of course he was going to class, so he’d walk there. Kind of obvious, really.

Harry was only dimly aware of Sally-Anne walking closely beside him as they both went to DADA class. Her presence wasn’t important at all. Nothing she said to Harry was of the slightest importance, and he wouldn’t remember her saying anything else either. Smiling contentedly, he walked over to his seat.

Suddenly, he had a brilliant idea. He would walk over to Professor Quirrell and give him a handshake. The poor man looked so frightened. Some skin to skin contact would reassure him. He walked over to the desk and grabbed Quirrell’s arm.

Harry whistled contentedly as Quirrell’s flesh started rotting away before his very eyes. It just didn’t seem as important to him as holding on tightly to his arms. Nothing seemed important compared to that very important need. He had to hold onto Quirrell’s arm. It was the most important thing in the world. It was certainly more important than the incessant screaming Quirrell was doing right now, screams that were being echoed by his horrified sounding peers.

“HARRY! STOP IT!” a voice called out and Harry dimly noted it was Hermione’s. It barely even registered. He just kept on holding onto Quirrell’s arm as the flesh continued to rot and burn and blister and the man convulsed and died right in front of him.

There was a rustle of fabric and the screams got louder and there was a face on the back of Quirrell’s head. The face was saying words, but none of them seemed to get past the wonderful feeling of bliss Harry was feeling. Soon, both of Quirrell’s faces and the rest of Quirrell too crumpled to dust.

And then, abruptly, the euphoric feeling left Harry and he looked down at the teacher he had just killed somehow. “What the hell just happened?!” Harry shouted.

Chapter Text

“Professor, I swear, I don’t know what happened!” Harry protested, his face chalk white, as McGonagall led him into Dumbledore’s office. McGonagall’s face was not looking much more composed; she hadn’t seen such ugly carnage since the war. Even poor Professor Titian, whose tragically lax understanding of gun safety had cut short such a promising career, hadn’t left such a grisly corpse behind. “I don’t understand how I did it…I’m not even sure it was me!”

Dumbledore put up a hand. “Mr. Potter, if my theories are correct, you are not in any trouble. Please tell me exactly what happened.”

“Well…I’m not entirely sure,” Harry admitted. “My memories are all kind of jumbled. I remember feeling really good and happy, like I was dreaming, you know? I was…talking to someone before class.” He scrunched up his face. “I can’t remember who it was! And then the next thing I know, I’m thinking I should give Professor Quirrell a handshake, and then it was like I was waking up and he was dead!” He let out a gasp of horror. “Oh my God, professor, I’m a killer!”

This definitely matched what the eyewitnesses at the scene had informed him of Harry’s behavior. “You are not,” he said firmly. “Based on your description, I believe you were placed under the Imperius Curse. It is a mind control spell. You were merely the instrument of the true killer, whose identity remains, for the moment, unknown.”

Harry shivered. “Mind control…so anyone could cast it? And make anyone do anything they want? That’s…bloody terrifying.”

“Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said firmly but surprisingly softly. She knew all too well the damage the Imperius curse could do; it was, as Harry had put it, rather bloody terrifying.

“The Imperius Curse can be resisted with enough strength of will,” Dumbledore said, slipping into his lecturing tone. “Furthermore, it is a very complex spell to cast. Attaining dominion over the brain, by far the most complex organ in the body, is no easy feat. It is also highly illegal. Casting it earns one life imprisonment in Azkaban, our prison. A fate worse than death.”

“Aren’t there useful uses for it though?” Harry said tentatively, and then winced. “Like, say if someone had a knife and a kid’s life was in danger? You could use it to make him put it down?”

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. “One could, Harry. But then what? Where does it end?” He remembered very well how it could end; Gellert showed him what lay at the end of that road, and Dumbledore wanted no further part in it anymore. “You say it could be used for good – who makes those decisions? And how to stop them when their definition of good diverges with yours?”

Harry lowered his head. “I’m sorry, professor. I’m not…I’m not trying to defend it…I’m just trying to understand.”

Dumbledore gave a fond grin. How Harry reminded him of himself at such an age. “It is very commendable to try to understand these things. Very few people ask these questions. More should, in my opinion.” He leaned forward. “Magic is not inherently corruptive, Harry, but nonetheless, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We need to place limits on what we can do with magic, because if we don’t, we will destroy ourselves.”

McGonagall coughed pointedly. “Ah, yes, but this delightful philosophical interlude is indeed taking us away from our original point. Harry, Professor Quirrell was being possessed by Voldemort.”

Harry let out a hiss of fright and stepped backwards. “My parents’ killer! But…but he’s supposed to be dead. But then again, Hagrid said he didn’t have enough human in him to die properly…”

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. How ironic that one of Voldemort’s first victims would figure out the truth of his condition before nearly anyone else, if only by accident and pure guesswork. “Well, Hagrid is quite correct, I am afraid. Voldemort did not truly die on the night your parents did.” Dumbledore closed his eyes for a few seconds, overwhelmed by sudden memories of such a bright couple sparkling with a potential stolen from them too soon. “I have some theories about how, but they remain unverified at present.”

“He was killing unicorns,” Harry blurted. Oh, how sad. Tom had once been a prodigy. Even as a Dark Lord, he’d at least carried himself with dignity, even if he was profoundly evil. To have fallen so far as to drink unicorn blood, well, that was just pathetic. “In the Forbidden Forest. We were there for detention.”

Dumbledore blinked repeatedly. Teachers were expressly forbidden from holding detention in the Forbidden Forest. One would think that was a rather obvious point, given that it was forbidden. “Professor McGonagall?” he said, a note of sternness slipping into his voice.

“Mr. Filch was in charge of their detentions,” McGonagall said quickly. “I will have a talk with him.”

“See that you do,” Dumbledore said. He would not abide students being put at risk for the sake of discipline. He gave a kind smile to Harry. “Mr. Potter, is there anything else I can do for you?”

Harry was silent for a while. “Yes. I have reason to believe that Kevin Entwhistle, Megan Jones, and Sally-Anne Perks are planning on stealing the Philosopher’s Stone.” Dumbledore tried to keep the surprise off of his face. McGonagall was less successful; there was a reason she always lost at the staff poker games. “They’ve been manipulating us into investigating it, and Hermione and I confronted Kevin in the Forbidden Forest, and he pulled a gun on us!”

“A gun?” Dumbledore said, unable to keep the befuddlement from his voice.

“Yes, it’s a Muggle weapon,” Harry said, sounding a bit frustrated. “It fires pieces of metal at extremely fast speeds.”

“I know what it is,” Dumbledore said. “I just do not understand where he would have gotten one from.”

“It was really old,” Harry offered. “Maybe it was a family heirloom and he brought it with him?”

Dumbledore frowned. Why would one bring a gun to a magical school? Perhaps the late Professor Titian had left it behind after his unfortunate end? But, no, if Dumbledore recalled correctly, the professor had shot himself with a modern handgun. “This incident will be investigated. I will not countenance a student carrying such weaponry in my school. But have you any more proof for your other accusations?”

Harry hesitated. “Nothing solid, sir.”

Dumbledore nodded. The odds were very good that Harry was just being paranoid. And no wonder. With a troll having killed a professor and the perpetrator still at large (though Dumbledore would bet every last galleon he had it was Voldemort now) he’d be paranoid in Harry’s shoes too. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was set a precedent for students being allowed to bring Muggle weaponry into school. Lord knew their wands were hazardous enough.

Harry walked over to the door and then hesitated. “Sir…I know you said you were going to investigate my living arrangements…?”

Ah. Dumbledore had wondered when this would come about. He had gone to Privet Drive to speak to Petunia glamoured to look like Harry. Petunia had responded with a horrifying level of vitriol, confirming that Harry’s concerns were, if anything, understated. Dumbledore had then revealed his true self and given her a dressing down the likes of which he hadn’t done in decades. Needless to say, Harry would not be returning to her alleged care. The blood wards were a definite advantage, but they were hardly useful from defending Harry from threats from within them.

He had badly messed up, and he freely admitted it. McGonagall had tried to warn him that they were the worst kind of Muggles. While Dumbledore had agreed with her, he’d assumed their obsession over appearances and looking like a “normal” family, combined with the love Petunia surely must have felt for her sister despite their estrangement, would be enough to overcome their darker impulses. He was wrong, and it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Initially, when Dumbledore had placed Harry with the Dursleys, it was meant to be extremely temporary. The weeks after Voldemort’s defeat were tumultuous ones, filled with some of the worst atrocities the Death Eaters had ever committed. Harry had a prime target on his back, so Dumbledore placed Harry in Petunia’s care for what was supposed to be a period of no less than a few weeks. He would be hidden in the Muggle world. But during that time, Sirius and Alice had both been disqualified for consideration as guardian, and the Potters had nominated no other choices for being guardian. Under the law, guardianship thus passed to their closest relative, even though she was a Muggle. (Remus Lupin was unable to adopt Harry under the law due to his werewolf status.)

Harry obviously needed to be removed from Petunia’s care, but the question of where he would go was still unanswered. Many families would try to get their hands on him, and they did not all have benign motives. Death Eaters like Lucius Malfoy would dispose of the boy the instant he came into their care, or worse, try to convert him to their cause. And there were many potential guardians who would not give Harry the love he needed, only motivated by a desire to enhance their own family image by adopting the Boy Who Lived.

Dumbledore thus had three options available to him. Option one, he could ask the ministry of a country with more favorable laws on werewolves such as Sweden or Norway to give Harry and Remus citizenship and have Remus raise him. On the one hand, that would likely keep Harry safe and he would be loved, but Dumbledore wasn’t sure it would be beneficial to the boy to once more uproot him from everything he knew and place him into the hands of a total stranger. Option two, he could roll the dice with adoption and use all of his political might to try to get the Weasleys to adopt him – he was sure Molly and Arthur would gladly agree, given how important he was to Ron. But there was still the chance it wouldn’t work.

Or option three, he could simply raise the boy himself; who would dare argue with the magical world’s greatest hero adopting its second greatest? But Dumbledore knew nothing about parenting and he was not a young man either. He would do his best to keep Harry safe and loved, but would he truly be the best fit for him?

No, there had to be a fourth option. One as yet undiscovered.

“Professor?”

Dumbledore coughed. He was having a tendency to slip into reverie more in his old age. He had to remember to work on that. “Yes, indeed. Your living conditions, as I am sure you guessed, have been deemed most unsuitable.”

“I didn’t,” Harry said bluntly, and seemed to regret the words the instant the words left his mouth. “Er, sir.”

McGonagall looked extremely sympathetic. “You did not expect the investigation to bear fruit. Similar investigations in the past have not done so, am I correct?” Harry hesitated, and then nodded.

Dumbledore sighed, feeling more of his age than he had in months. “Alas, Mr. Potter, it is distressingly easy for people to be taken in by facades, such as the façade of respectability your relatives put up. We as humans are primed to see what we wish to see. It is a flaw not unique to Muggles or mages, I assure you.” He leaned forward, trying to project trust and honesty. “Harry, the issue of exactly where you are going to be staying this summer remains unresolved. There are many factors. Given your fame, the matter has taken on a political tinge.” He said the word political as if it was a nasty swear word.

“I understand, sir,” Harry said, sounding resigned. “You don’t need to go to all this trouble on my behalf.”

“Of course I do,” Dumbledore said dismissively. “It is my responsibility as headmaster to ensure the safety of all of my students. To say nothing of the fact that I considered myself a dear friend of your parents.”

Harry’s eyes lit up. “You were friends? Really? Nobody really seemed to know them…I haven’t gotten a lot of information…”

Dumbledore put up a hand. “I quite understand where you are going with this; however, I have another appointment. We will have to pencil in a time to have tea and discuss dear Lily and James. Minerva will help coordinate matters.”

Harry nodded, and, understanding that he was dismissed, walked out of the room. A good thing too, because a few seconds later, Snape entered the room. They must have passed each other on the stairs; that must have been awkward. “This matter must remain between Severus and I,” Dumbledore said, and McGonagall simply walked out of the office without another word.

Quirrell’s death – his murder, in fact – appeared nigh incomprehensible to outsiders. Dumbledore had not yet come up with an adequate public explanation as to why the man had burst into flames when Harry touched him. Or even much of a private one either. Presumably, whatever Lily had done to save Harry had left him with the ability to be an anathema to Voldemort. But Dumbledore had figured out exactly what had happened.

There was only one person with the means, motive, and opportunity to murder Quirrell, and that someone was Severus Snape.

Harry being anathema to Voldemort was merely a theory until this point, and it was a theory that Dumbledore had only discussed with Snape. Snape had the motive: his utter hatred of Voldemort for killing Lily. He had the opportunity – who would have paid a second glance to him skulking around the castle and talking to Harry? And, of course, Snape was no stranger to casting the Unforgiveable Curses.

“I know you killed Quirrell,” Dumbledore said without preamble.

“I did no such thing,” Snape said immediately. “The boy –”

“Do not attempt to blame your victim for this, Severus,” Dumbledore snarled. Snape looked Dumbledore in the eye and invited the headmaster to scan his thoughts, but Dumbledore did not bother. The potions master had defenses against Legilimancy greater than any Dumbledore had ever seen. It was even possible he had Obliviated himself so that he genuinely believed he was innocent; it would not be the first time he’d done that to hide sensitive information.

Snape crossed his arms. “I have no memory of having done it. Yet if I had done it, then truly, what harm was done? A clear and present danger to our students is dead. Voldemort has once more been vanquished – and word is leaking out to the general public he may yet return.”

Dumbledore sighed. He really would like to control the flow of information so Voldemort’s acolytes did not know he was still alive, but that was not possible. Eleven-year-olds were the biggest gossips known to humanity, and now a significant number of their parents knew and were spreading the information.

He had not yet made a public statement regarding Quirrell’s death, but he would have to do so eventually. Perhaps silence was the best course for the moment, though. If he came out publicly and said Voldemort was alive, Minister Fudge might take it as a power play, and Dumbledore had nothing to gain with tussling with the ministry for the moment. Besides, it took Voldemort a decade to make a return; it may be another decade before he tried again.

But he was getting away from the point of the meeting. “Severus, you know I cannot prove that you killed Quirrell. If I could, you would be in Azkaban now. I have not one shred of real evidence that you are responsible other than logic and my intuition. So here is what we are going to do. You are going on paid leave for the rest of the year. You will leave Britain during that time; I do not care where you go. If you do not agree to this, you will be fired.”

“Fired?” Snape said, raising an eyebrow. “On what grounds?”

“I think we both know that there are numerous grounds I could use, Severus,” Dumbledore said softly. “Do not test me.”

“I again protest my innocence,” Snape said stiffly. “But I will comply with your order, sir. I have been meaning to peruse the texts of the libraries in Istanbul for some time…”

Dumbledore nodded. “Thank you. And should I receive proof you are innocent, I promise to give you a most heartfelt apology.” Snape just gave an impressive sneer and stalked out of the office.

Being a headmaster was so stressful. Maybe Aberforth had the right idea. Surely running a bar was a much easier job.

*****

Was it really too much to ask, Hermione wondered, to be allowed to study magic in peace? Hogwarts was supposed to be a place of wonder and enchantment (quite literally) where Hermione could actually make friends, study the limits of existence itself, and study with her friends. Instead, their DADA teacher was possessed by an evil wizard who was on the back of his head, Harry had been mind controlled into murdering said teacher by burning him to death through entirely unknown means, her first ever friend turned out to be a traitorous thief, and her second ever friend was also a traitorous thief with a gun. It was just too much to handle!

And what’s more, the whole thing didn’t make any sense at all. There were too many seemingly unconnected pieces. Who had murdered Scabbers? Who mind controlled Harry? Who let the troll in? How did Kevin and Megan even find out about the Stone in the first place and was Sally-Anne in on the plot? Hermione hated unanswered questions with the burning passion of a thousand suns. She had decided she’d solve the mystery or die trying.

Of course, this was not just some impersonal scenario. Hermione had been betrayed. Her first ever friend had turned out to be just in it for herself. Hermione probably would have taken Megan’s betrayal a lot harder if she hadn’t had Harry and Ron by her side. And she knew they weren’t traitors. You couldn’t fake Harry’s precious and adorable nature and Ron was not exactly the world’s subtlest of individuals. As it was, she just felt extremely angry. No. Absolutely furious.

“We have to bring them to justice,” Hermione said, slamming her fist down on the library’s table, earning a loud shushing sound from Madam Pince. Hermione sniffed; the shushing had been louder than the slamming in truth. “They all have to face the cold taste of vengeance. I’ll give them a fate worse than death…didn’t Professor Snape mention something called the Draught of the Living death, Harry?”

Harry inched away from her slightly. “Or…we could figure out what they’re planning and stop them first? If they’re willing to kill, to violate my mind…” He shivered. He still hadn’t gotten over being controlled. “Ron, how do you stand it, knowing that someone could make you their slave at any moment?!”

“Well…I don’t know,” Ron said. “Never really thought of it before.”

“I think we’re getting away from the point here,” Hermione said, both because she was annoyed at the sidetrack and knew that it was better for Harry that they get away from this topic. “All three of them are dangers, and something has to be done.”

Ron stroked his chin, looking contemplative. “What if we…safekept the stone ourselves?”

“You can’t mean to steal it,” Hermione said, though not as strongly as she would have liked. For some reason, the idea of owning the Philosopher’s Stone, of studying it had a certain magnetic appeal to it. She didn’t like that she was thinking that way, not one iota.

“No, no, no,” Ron said, waving his arms about. “Just protect it ourselves. Who’d try to steal it if it was hidden in my home? Who’d even know where it was? And, you know, if we made some gold for my family, well…just consider it a fee for protecting it…”

“We are not stealing the Philosopher’s Stone,” Harry said firmly. “It’s not happening. You know what I have to go back to. If I don’t have magic to fall back on, I’ll be staying in the cupboard every day of my life for the next five years!”

Hermione winced. “Yes. Yes, of course, Harry. You’re absolutely right.”

Ron looked a little shamefaced. “Yeah…sorry, mate. Didn’t really think things through there. Got caught up in the moment, you know?”

Hermione sighed. Maybe she had just gotten caught up in the moment too. But Megan’s betrayal really, truly hurt. She could barely even look at the other girl now, which was a bit of a problem, given that they slept in the same dormitory. Her only consolation was that her isolation from Megan appeared to be hurting Megan just as much. No, much more, it would seem. But then again, what if that was just another manipulation? Hermione was rubbish at emotional matters. If only there was some way she could figure out what people were feeling by magic. But that was probably too invasive.

She was abruptly taken out of her thoughts by someone snapping a finger in her face. She gave a sheepish grin at Ron. “Sorry. Got lost in thought.” Hermione took a deep breath. “Look, if no one’s going to do something, we have to. Now we don’t have enough proof to go to a teacher. But if we follow them, maybe they’ll let something slip.”

“With the Invisibility Cloak!” Harry said with a smile, looking hopeful for the first time in ages. “But that’s kind of risky…what if they catch us?”

“It has to be done,” Hermione said briskly. “So far, they’ve killed two people, even if one of them wasn’t on purpose. Three if you count Scabbers.” Ron lowered his head in a moment of grief for his beloved pet. “We can catch them in the act of stealing the Stone. Professor Dumbledore will have to believe us then.”

In the meantime, they had a lot to distract themselves, what with the upcoming exams. There were also two new teachers, an Auror by the name of Ian Savage and an apothecary by the name of Joanna Meier to teach Defense and Potions respectively. It was abundantly clear the instant Hermione had finished with Professor Meier’s first lesson that she was a much better teacher than Snape. (Hermione justified leaving out the accolade by saying he was technically not her professor when on leave, but in all honesty, she knew she probably would think of him that way when or if he returned.) Professor Meier didn’t belittle her students, she didn’t tolerate the Slytherins sabotaging potions, and she explained the potions very clearly before they started brewing them. Professor Savage was curt and blunt and seemed to not enjoy teaching, but he treated everyone fairly and they actually learned from him.

Also, he didn’t have Voldemort on the back of his head, so that was a nice perk.

At least the studying was going well, because following Sally-Anne, Kevin, and Megan was something of a bust. At first, they’d tried to follow Sally-Anne exclusively, but that proved to be a very unwise misstep, because she’d somehow sensed them following her, even though she was invisible. She’d threatened to strip the flesh from their bones in a dreamy, sing-song voice that somehow triggered a primal reaction of pure fear in Hermione. Somehow, Hermione thought she was very capable of doing just that.

After that, Sally-Anne must have passed the word over to Megan and Kevin, because they were rarely alone together and never let anything slip.

“Maybe we’ve got things wrong,” Ron suggested tentatively after several days of fruitless attempted eavesdropping. “I mean, Sally-Anne’s all kind of messed up, yeah, and Kevin did have that gun but…do we really have any proof they’re after the Stone?”

“It’s the only explanation that makes any sense,” Hermione said as the three of them passed a tapestry of trolls dancing. I need to find the truth about them! her mind thundered. I need to understand why the people I thought were my friends have been lying to me!

“And life usually makes sense?” Harry asked, sounding genuinely curious. Hermione just scowled at him. He was right, of course, but she’d be damned if she admitted it.

Ron sighed. “Look, should we care if they get their hands on the bloody Stone, honestly? It’s not like we were asked to protect it. They’ve got that huge dog guarding it…maybe it’ll eat them and our problems will be solved.” Hermione winced. Even with her fury towards Megan, the idea of her getting eaten made her sick.

“I think Ron’s right,” Hermione admitted. Ron smirked. “Don’t expect me to say that on a regular basis, Ron. We’ve already warned Professor Dumbledore, we’ve done everything we could reasonably be expected to do. And we have exams to study for! I’m done.”

The three of them heard voices coming from the other end of the hallway and hid themselves under the Invisibility Cloak. It was really out of instinct; they actually were allowed to be where they were, but they’d spent so much time sneaking around that the idea of not getting caught was second nature. Nonetheless, it turned out to be a very useful thing indeed when none other than Megan and Kevin approached the tapestry, and the door that was next to it. Hermione blinked. Had there been a door there before?

“I’m telling you, Kevin, I just have a feeling,” Megan said. “We’re going to find the diadem this time around. Trust me.”

“Okay, but if we don’t find it today, we’re going to have to use Fiendfyre,” Kevin warned her. A chill went down Hermione’s back. She didn’t know what Fiendfyre was, but it sure as hell didn’t sound good at all.

The two of them walked through the door and Hermione, Ron, and Harry walked in after them.

*****

Harry was stunned at what he saw when he walked into the cavernous space. It was like the world’s biggest lost and found department, filled with objects of every kind. He could probably outfit an entire museum with everything in it. It was also probably worth a great deal. Was this what Megan and Kevin had been after the whole time?

It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, and now that he thought about it, it made a lot of sense. There could have been two sets of thieves at Hogwarts. Voldemort and Sally-Anne could have been working together to steal the Philosopher’s Stone, with Voldemort bringing in the troll to cause chaos while Sally-Anne searched for the Stone, and having Sally-Anne kill Voldemort’s host so Voldemort could tie up a loose end. If that was the case, then Megan and Kevin were after the diadem, whatever that was, the whole time, and maybe they were pushing Harry and his friends to protect the Stone from Sally-Anne.

But as much as Harry would like to assume Kevin and Megan were innocent, he knew it was unwise to make that assumption. After all, they had mentioned they were going to use Fiendfyre, which sounded really bad, and Kevin still had brought that gun with him to the forest. Then again, if Harry had gotten word he’d be in the forest in advance, he’d have probably brought along a gun for protection if he could. Maybe Kevin got the gun in this lost and found? It would explain why it was so old.

“I still say we should tell Dumbledore about the Horcruxes and let him handle it,” Megan complained. At the word Horcrux, Harry twitched a little as he felt a feeling he could barely describe. Something about that word sounded incredibly familiar, yet he was also extremely certain he’d never heard it in his life.

“We are not going to tell anyone about the Horcruxes until we can get it out of Harry’s head,” Kevin said in a firm tone of voice. Harry looked over at Hermione and Ron, but both of them were just as confused as to what a Horcrux was or why it was in his head. “Thus far, our only option seems to have Voldemort give him a killing curse, and that’s out of the question for obvious reasons.”

Was…was that why he’d been mind controlled into killing Quirrell? Were they just initially trying to provoke him into using the Killing Curse on him, but Harry’s weird powers ended up burning him to death? Harry didn’t like the idea one iota.

“I can’t believe I can’t remember anything about how to find the goddamned diadem,” Megan said as they trudged through a seemingly endless array of aisles. “I really should have been paying more attention to the books, but my mind’s a total blank.” Books? What books?

Kevin put a calming hand on her shoulder. “Hey. Calm down. I know this is difficult on you…”

“Calm down?!” Megan asked incredulously. “I cannot bloody calm down, Kevin! The plot is completely off the rails. We don’t even know if the books are accurate! My hero, whom I have idolized for the past fourteen years, hates my guts!” But Megan was only eleven. Neither of them had been alive for fourteen years. “Not to mention Hermione, who was my first fictional crush…” Fictional crush? What the hell did she mean by that?

Harry frantically looked over at Hermione, who just looked as confused as he was. “What the heck?” he whispered at them.

“I know how you feel,” Kevin assured her. “It’s hard to take this all being real, you know? When I started writing Harry Potter fanfic, it was just a fun hobby. A way to connect with my son…” Were these people going to start making sense at any point? There was no way Kevin was old enough to have a son. And what was fanfic anyway? “But now it’s life or death.”

“That’s enough,” Hermione said abruptly and threw the Invisibility Cloak off her shoulders. Kevin let out a shriek of fright. Megan looked like she was going to throw up. “I want answers, Entwhistle and Jones, and I want them now!”

Megan’s face turned red. “Oh, no. They heard everything. Hermione knows I had a crush on her. This is so bad.”

“I think we have bigger problems than that,” Kevin said.

“When I said crush, it was just a slight infatuation,” Megan babbled. “People get crushes on fictional characters. I know you weren’t real, of course. I’m not crazy like Sally-Anne. But you were so good at magic and you wouldn’t let anything get you down, and Emma Watson is rather pretty, you know what I mean?”

“NO!” Hermione screamed. “No, I do not know what you fucking mean, Megan Jones.”

Megan let out a slight gasp. “Okay. Right. Well, Kevin, I think we need to tell them the truth. They’re just going to keep asking questions until we do and…and honestly I feel crappy about lying to them. I don’t think I can do it much longer.”

Kevin was silent for a few minutes. “All right, then. God, I hope this turns out well, because there is no going back from this, you know that, right? Let’s have this discussion in a more appropriate setting, though.”

He led them all out of the lost and found room and then closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he led them back in, the room had changed entirely. It was now a very cozy room decorated in yellow and black – a smaller version, Harry realized, of the Hufflepuff common room. 

“What is this place?” Ron marveled as they were led to very comfortable leather chairs. Kevin started a fire in the fireplace. It felt more like home than any home Harry had actually ever lived in.

“It’s called the Room of Requirement,” Kevin explained. “The house elves call it the Come and Go Room. We’re looking for an extremely dark artifact hidden here. We…”

Megan put up a hand. “Let’s just rip the Band-Aid off, shall we? Remember when Trelawney mentioned visitors from other universes? Well, that’s us. We’re both from another universe where you’re all fictional characters. We died and reincarnated here.”

Hermione laughed somewhat hysterically. “That’s not possible. Alternate universes, reincarnation, both of those are not real.”

“We thought the same thing and yet here we are,” Kevin said. “We also traveled back in time, for good measure. And, actually, time travel is a known thing here in the magical world, Hermione. In about two years, you’ll get a chance to time travel yourself. Though, honestly, I wouldn’t take it – it wasn’t good for your mental health. Won’t be? Also, another problem with time travel, the grammar is hellishly confusing.”

Harry was still trying to wrap his head around the idea. “So you’re from…what year?”

“2022,” Kevin said. “Professor Trelawney brought us here. We were supposed to be sharing these bodies with the real Kevin and Megan, but her ritual was flawed and killed them.” Everyone winced, including Kevin. “Yeah. We try not to think about that.”

“This isn’t possible,” Hermione said repeatedly under her breath. “Lying, you have to be lying…”

Ron wrapped an arm around her shoulder protectively. Hermione was practically trembling, an expression of horror on her face. “So you said we’re fictional,” Ron prompted.

“NO!” Hermione shouted. “I’m real, I am, I am, I am…” she muttered.

“Yes,” Megan confirmed. “You are not only fictional, but you’re the stars of pretty much the most popular books of all time. There have been movies, theme parks, whatever it is, you name it, it’s been done.”

Harry didn’t want to believe them, wanted to think they were as insane as Sally-Anne, but he did. He believed it down to the very core of his being. “That’s…how you knew about the cupboard under the stairs,” he whispered. “Everyone knows about the cupboard under the stairs. It’s been in a bloody movie!”

“I’m…I’m so sorry,” Megan said. “If it helps, I always thought you were really brave to have survived all that. But on the bright side, they were really popular movies! And really good ones too. You’re heroes! Known by millions! No, billions!”

“Look, I didn’t ask for any of this,” Kevin said. “I have a family. A wife and a son. But thanks to a meddling divination teacher and some whacko with a gun, I’m here, and I decided to make the best of it.”

“I got hit by a car,” Megan said sulkily. “While drunk. Not my finest moment, and the fact that it was technically my last wasn’t much of a consolation.” She looked Harry straight in the eyes. “We did not let the troll in the castle. That was Quirrell. We’ve just been trying to subtly make changes.”

“The story that’s going to be playing out over the next few years is one hell of a fun read, but it’s not something we can let happen in reality,” Kevin explained. “Good people will die if we don’t thwart Voldemort.”

Ron looked like he was still struggling to process all of this. “So…is Sally-Anne…uh…?”

“We call ourselves self-inserts,” Megan said with a slight grin. “You might even call us a Self-Insert Cabal. And, yes, Sally-Anne is from our universe, but she’s absolutely bonkers.”

“She believes in these…um, I guess you’d call them conspiracy theories regarding the books,” Kevin said. “I don’t know why. But I’m guessing – and that’s all this is for now – that she killed Scabbers and cast the Imperius curse on Harry.”

Ron clenched his fists. “I’m going to pulverize her!”

“Uh, no,” Megan said. “Believe it or not, she did you a favor. Your rat wasn’t an ordinary rat. It was an Animagus – a shapeshifter – named Peter Pettigrew. He betrayed your parents, Harry.” Harry let out a gulp. This was one hell of a revelation to just toss out there. “And he framed your father’s best friend Sirius Black for it. Getting him out of prison is one of our long-term goals, but without Pettigrew, we’re not sure how to do it.”

She gave them a sunny smile. “You know, there’s a lot to process here. How about I bring us some snacks and we can go over the events of the books?”

Hermione stood up, a deadened look in her eyes. Something had broken within her. “I’m not real,” she said, her voice panicked. “I…everything about my life was a lie. Everything I’ve endured, everything I want, it’s all meaningless!” She started breathing heavily. Harry was worried she might pass out. “Oh my god, people are watching me! They could be listening to my thoughts! RIGHT NOW!”

“Hermione, calm down,” Ron urged her. “These people are probably just nuts…”

Hermione opened her mouth and tried to say something, but words failed her, and she just ran out of the room, tears filling her eyes.

Chapter Text

Sybill had not been having a fun time of things recently. Her gambit to try to improve the future had only seemed to make it more cloudy, to say nothing of the ruinous consequences it had brought to the real Megan, Kevin, and Sally-Anne. While appearing sane at first glance, her mind had a rather precarious balance. She couldn’t think too much of the various possible futures from the fanfics she’d consumed without her perception of reality starting to become skewed again. And she hadn’t had a single drop of alcohol in months. Mages had access to potions that ameliorated the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, but quitting was still no walk in the park.

And to make matters worse, she’d been compelled to go on random fourth-wall breaking tangents at a moment’s notice, making her look even crazier than she used to. She’d spent much of her most recent class yammering away about how the recent trend of Indy Harry fics fitted ominously well with the signs of fascism that Italian author Umberto Eco would write about in 1995. When Sybill went into one of those states, it was like her body was being piloted by someone else. By an author.

Oh, Sybill hoped that her theories about being stuck in a fanfic herself were not true, but she strongly suspected they were. Some random author – probably some weirdo and hack in Sybill’s estimation – was pulling every string she had right now. Her will was not her own. But Sybill had always been rather blasé about the possibility that her fate was out of her control. The stars, the gods, some total bastard of a fanfic writer – it was all the same when all was said and done. All she could do was fulfill her role to the best of her ability.

“Eco’s eighth sign of fascism is that the enemy is simultaneously too strong and too weak,” Sybill pontificated to stares from her students which were even more confused looking than normal. “Dumbledore is portrayed as a master manipulator and at the same time a senile old man whose plots can be unraveled by mere children. The role of the goblins –”

The trapdoor to the classroom suddenly banged open and Hermione charged in, a thousand yard stare in her eyes. A look of profound mortification should have shown on Hermione’s face upon realizing she was interrupting a class in session, but it didn’t, and if that wasn’t a sign that there wasn’t a dire emergency happening, Sybill didn’t know what was.

“Class dismissed,” Sybill said immediately. “Make sure to read chapter seven by next class and come prepared to discuss hepatoscopy! It’s a subject that really takes guts!” She sniggered at her awful pun.

The students couldn’t hurry out of the classroom fast enough. Hermione, trembling in what looked like fear, wringed her hands nervously. “I’m so sorry, professor,” she babbled. “I didn’t know you had a class. You shouldn’t have canceled it on my account!”

Sybill gave her gentlest smile. “My dear child, to be blunt, you look like crap.” Hermione giggled a little, despite herself. “A student is in distress; I daresay there are no better reasons to cancel a class.” After learning how her teaching methods would deteriorate further and how it would distress her students, Sybill had made a concentrated effort to be a much better teacher.

“Now, come take a seat,” Sybill said. She conjured a pair of beanbag chairs and they both sat down. “I’m going to guess our visitors told you the truth behind their identities, then?”

“You knew,” Hermione said in a dull, betrayed tone. “You knew who they were. You killed the real students…”

Sybill sighed. “It was an accident. Such magic is…volatile. And in my defense, I was not entirely in my right mind. I have been burdened with knowledge I pray you may never learn. My mind had not quite stabilized by that point.” She conjured two cups of tea and gave one to Hermione. “I have been working on trying to return them but…to be honest, I don’t know when or if that will be possible. Tell me what’s really troubling you, Hermione.”

Hermione looked at her, terror in her eyes. “I’m not real, that’s what’s troubling me,” she said, hardly even able to get the words out. “I’m just a character in some book people are reading!” She moved her arm. “Did I choose to move my arm, or did someone writing words on a piece of paper make me move my arm?! They’re in my head! They’re watching my every move! They could be watching me in the bathroom! While I sleep!”

“Drink your tea, dear,” Sybill advised. “It will help.” She didn’t tell Hermione that she’d laced the tea, both mugs, with an exceptionally mild Calming Draught. It would barely make a difference to someone in their right mind, but to someone spiraling like Hermione, every little bit helped.

“I…I’m sorry, professor,” Hermione said, looking ever so slightly calmer. “But I just can’t get over what an incredible invasion of privacy this is. And these horrible feelings of existential dread!”

Sybill sighed. “I do understand how you feel. Perhaps it would help you to realize that you are not the first person to have dealt with these issues and you will not be the last.” Hermione raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Of course this specific circumstance is rather unique, but for as long as humans have had sentience, they have struggled with the issue of whether or not their will is truly their own or that of a higher power. In a way, that is precisely and exactly what divination is about.”

Hermione looked more reassured. “I suppose that does make sense in a way.” She laughed somewhat hysterically. “You must think me rather silly to have overreacted in such a manner…”

Sybill was genuinely shocked. “Silly? Certainly not! It certainly is a more healthy way to react to such a shocking revelation than drowning one’s sorrow’s in drink.” She reached over and squeezed Hermione’s hand gently. “Hermione, I don’t believe you’re not real. I think it’s more likely that in some alternate reality, an author got a glimpse of your story and put it into print. That’s all.”

Hermione nodded. Sybill wasn’t sure whether or not Hermione believed her. Hermione’s expressions could be rather impenetrable sometimes. “Thank you, professor.”

“And certainly you don’t need to worry about being watched in the bathroom or while sleeping,” Sybill added in a lighter tone. “I’m pretty sure if it was that kind of story we’d have seen some rather worrying signs by now. My advice is to keep proceeding as normal.”

Hermione crossed her arms. “What if I can’t?”

“Well, you have your friends to lead on, do you not?” Sybill reminded her. “And I am happy to help you whenever you need it – though, if you please, unless the situation is dire, do try to talk to me outside of when I have classes.” Hermione blushed in embarrassment. “Not to worry, this was clearly an emergency.”

“They’re not really my friends, are they?” Hermione said, worry through her face. “Kevin and Megan, I mean. They just like me because I’m famous.”

“They have seen you at your best and your worst and they have chosen to be your friend nonetheless,” Sybill argued. “Draco Malfoy is a prominent character in the story too, yet I do not see them befriending him. Yes, you are famous. But you are not famous for your job or your family. You are famous because you are a good and loyal friend of a hero, a very talented and intelligent individual, and a hero in your own right. Those qualities drew them to you.”

Hermione looked like she was still skeptical of the idea that Kevin and Megan truly liked her for herself. But she wanted to believe it, Sybill could tell. “Thank you so much, professor.”

“Anytime, Hermione,” Sybill said. “And when we are alone, you may call me, Sybill. I do believe you have earned that.”

Hermione opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “I think I’m going to need some more time before I can get used to that.”

*****

“So let me get this straight,” Harry said slowly. “These horcruxes, they’re pieces of Voldemort’s soul.” Kevin nodded. “And I have one of them in my HEAD?!”

Megan let out a nervous laugh. “Um…kind of. Sorry about that. And I got to be honest with you, we have no clue how to get it out of there without killing you. That’s why we’re going to tell Dumbledore and pray he can find a way. But first we need the diadem because there’s no way he’d believe us without it.”

“To quote, well, you, we plan, we get there, and all hell breaks loose,” Kevin quipped. “I mean, that was a quote from movie you, but still, quite apt.”  

Harry still found it a little difficult to wrap his head around the idea that in the universe Kevin and Megan were from, he was even more famous than he already was. But he believed them. They’d given a play by play, almost word for word account of the events that had led up to him meeting Hagrid, and that had been enough to remove whatever skepticism was still left in their head.

“I still can’t believe I’m in a movie,” Harry admitted. “Much less eight.”

Ron raised a hand. “What’s a movie?”

Megan gamely launched into an explanation, allowing Harry some more time to process what he’d been told. The next six years of his life were, to be frank, a total shitshow. Being scapegoated as a dark wizard, nearly having his soul sucked out, watching a friend die right in front of him, having to fight a freaking dragon, having some sadist force him to carve his own hand up, and so much more awaited him. Unless, of course, Megan and Kevin succeeded in their mission and destroyed Voldemort once and for all.

Harry imagined it made a rather thrilling tale. And, indeed, a part of him was excited by it all. When he thought about it abstractly, as something that happened to someone else, he could definitely see how it became one of the most famous stories in history. But as soon as he thought of him going through all this, to see Ron’s brother die, he was filled with dread. Maybe it made him a coward, but Harry desperately wanted to avoid this horrid future.

“…and people will tell you that the prequel trilogy is terrible, but it’s really a masterpiece,” Megan argued as Harry finally tuned back into the conversation. “Oh, and you’ll simply have to read the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, because it’s the best book ever written, bar none.”

The door creaked open and Hermione walked in, looking a bit wobbly, but certainly much better than she had been when she left. “Hi,” she said shyly. “Sorry for running off on you there.”

Harry immediately swept her up in a hug, surprising both of them greatly. “Oh, Hermione. I’m just glad you’re here now.” Hermione blushed a little.

“Point one for Harmony,” Kevin muttered and then looked a little annoyed at himself.

“Harmony?” Hermione said.

“Nothing,” Kevin said, looking rather guilty.

Hermione put her hands on her hips. “Look here, you have been keeping secrets for months, and all it’s done has gotten people killed. If you want our trust, you have to bloody stop hiding things from us!”

“You take this one,” Kevin said to Megan.

“Coward,” Megan hissed at him. She seemed to be at a loss for words for a few seconds. “Okay. Does anyone know what fanfiction is?” Harry certainly didn’t. “Lovely. Okay. So people write stories based on stories already written.”

“Oh!” Hermione said. “Like Paradise Lost or Dante’s Inferno are based on the Bible.”

Megan chuckled. “Not according to my literature professor, but yeah, like that. Anyway, people have written fanfiction about, well, you. All of you. A ridiculous amount of it. You could spend entire lifetimes reading it and not come anywhere close to reading it all. So…people write about characters in relationships, or ships for short. Like, for example, Harry and Hermione – Harmony.”

Harry felt a little disgusted. Hermione was a friend. The idea of liking her, or indeed anyone in that way, was simply odd. “That’s…weird,” he muttered.

Megan laughed like a hyena. “Oh, that’s one of the tamer pairs out there. There are far stranger. Like Drarry – you and Draco.”

“Me and Draco?!” Harry shouted. “This is a twisted joke, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’ve never shipped you guys,” Megan admitted. “But a lot of people do. Kevin here, writes fanfic about you and Ginny.” Ginny? Wasn’t that Ron’s little sister?

Kevin groaned. “You weren’t supposed to tell them that.”

“Hmm. Guess that’s what happens when you foist the awkward conversations on someone else, isn’t it, Kev?”

Kevin glared at her and then looked over at Harry sympathetically. “I’m not going to give you any insight about who you might or might not end up with. I won’t have you thinking you’re obligated to date someone just because it happens in the books. So if you’re asking for spoilers there, it’s not happening.” He turned to face Hermione. “Are you okay?”

Hermione nodded. “I’m really sorry about sneaking around and trying to get you into trouble.”

“Oh, we deserved it,” Megan said airily. “I would have done the exact same thing in your shoes. We’ve been acting really weirdly.”

“It just hurt so much when I thought you weren’t really my friend,” Hermione admitted. “And when I thought you only wanted to be my friend because I’m famous. But Professor Trelawney told me that you wanted to be my friend because of the kind of person I am.”

Kevin nodded. “You, all three of you, are an inspiration to so many people. You have no idea how many lives your story has made better. Your story helped me connect with my son. It was a huge inspiration to Megan, even after what Rowling did…”

Ron looked confused. “Rowling? The Prophet reporter?”

Megan rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Her,” she said in a venomous tone.

“I don’t understand,” Harry admitted. Why did they love his story so much yet have so much vitriol for the person who wrote it?

“Rowling has used her fame to promote some…rather hurtful viewpoints towards a certain marginalized community,” Kevin said, choosing his words carefully. “For those of us who idolized her and the books, it was a rather harsh blow. A lot of people are turning away from the books because of that. Others, like us, have tried their best to separate the art from the artist.”

Hermione leaned forward, her eyes alight with enthusiasm. “So tell us about the future! Have we terraformed Mars yet? Did we find aliens? Do I succeed in figuring out what causes magic and making it accessible to everyone in the entire world?”

“Uh, no, no, and no,” Megan admitted, looking ever so slightly weirded out. “Hmm. I don’t think I want to give out specific spoilers. But we have mobiles that fit in our pockets and have access to more information than you can possibly imagine. People are more tolerant of the LGBT community.” Harry had no idea what she was talking about. “They also know what it is. We’ll unpack that another time, I think.”

“There are new Star Wars movies coming out,” Kevin offered. “In 1999, 2002, 2005, 2015, 2017, and 2019.”

“Right, right!” Megan said enthusiastically. “And the Lord of the Rings is getting adaptations in 2001, 2002, and 2003.” Harry felt very excited about that. Those were some of his favorite books.

Ron raised a hand. “Anything I might know about?”

“Sorry, Ron, but I don’t know anything about that. I was a Muggle in my old life, remember?”

Harry was suddenly extremely tired. He really needed time to process everything. Right now, he wasn’t in any danger, not from Voldemort or his friends, so he needed to study some more and get some sleep. It was certainly good news to know that he wouldn’t have to face down Voldemort soon or end up in the hospital wing. With Quirrell dead (at your hands, killer, a vicious voice whispered in his head), nothing eventful should happen for the rest of the year.

“Can we finish this another time?” Harry asked.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Kevin said. He looked at his watch. “I didn’t realize it was getting so late. Look, if you need any help, let us know. I was not lying about being your friend. At first, you were really just a character in a book, you know? But now, I know the real Harry. I want to be friends if you want that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

*****

Hermione really thought she had completely lost the ability to be surprised. Not only was she a witch but she was either a fictional character in an alternate reality or would become a world famous individual thought to be fictional in her current reality. One of her best friends was a fifty-year-old maths teacher who had been murdered in a school shooting and was remarkably blasé about it. (What was wrong with the future if Kevin thought such things weren’t beyond shocking?) And one of her other best friends once had a crush on her. (For both of their sakes, Hermione had forbidden all discussion of the matter. It wasn’t the fact that Megan was a girl that was the problem – the Grangers were quite openminded – but the fact that she was way older than her.)

But Hermione’s assumption she could no longer be surprised came to a screeching halt the day before exams. She was walking into the hallway outside the dungeons when Malfoy grabbed her. He looked absolutely horrified and for a few seconds Hermione almost forgot the two of them hated each other. “Is it true, Granger?” he said, shaking her. “Please tell me it’s not true!”

“Will you tell me what you’re blathering about?” Hermione snapped.

“Your parents are professional torturers, that’s what I’m blathering about!” Malfoy retorted. Hermione rolled her eyes. More mind games from Malfoy. She shouldn’t have expected anything less. “And the bloody Muggles pay them to do it! They pay them to drill holes in their teeth!”

Hermione couldn’t help but giggle a little. Some spiteful part of her liked the way that this made Malfoy even more scared. But that wasn’t her intention; she genuinely found his comments amusing. Her parents were just dentists, but to the mages, who could fix dental issues with spells and potions, ordinary dental practices were utterly horrifying.

Malfoy stepped backwards, practically trembling in fear. Hermione liked it, and she did not like that she liked it. “I tell you what, Malfoy. You leave me and my friends alone, and I won’t have to show you what my parents like to do to silly little boys who bother me.”

Malfoy nodded curtly and stepped aside. Hermione reckoned she wouldn’t hear from him for a while. He’d no doubt forget himself eventually, of course. Hermione looked forward to reminding him.

She was so lost in her own thoughts that until she walked into the Potions classroom, it never occurred to her to question exactly how Malfoy had learned about her parents…until she walked into the room and saw them sitting in the back of the classroom.

Hermione blinked. Then she blinked again and she did it a third time for good measure. But, no, her parents were still right in front of her. It was incredibly surreal. After quite a few months of moving paintings, ghosts, and magic spells – to say nothing to the shocking revelations she’d just learned – it was her parents who looked bizarre now. They were dressed perfectly normally, like she’d run into them in the workplace. She nudged Ron. “Do you see that?”

“Yeah, who are those people?” He looked closer at them and saw Mum’s incurably bushy hair, something Hermione had lamentably inhabited. “Blimey, Hermione, are those your folks? What are they doing here? Parents never show up here – much less Muggle parents.”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

Hermione didn’t get a chance to interrogate them before the lesson began. It was a good thing that Snape was not teaching anymore, because Hermione had a hunch the castle would not survive her parents’ wrath if they saw how he taught. Professor Meier, on the other hand, definitely seemed to meet with their approval.

“Mum, Dad, what are you doing here?” Hermione said as soon as class was over and she could talk to them away from the classroom. “Not that it’s not good to see you…” A horrifying idea suddenly came over her. What if they’d heard about the troll attack somehow and were there to withdraw her from the school?

As hilarious as Megan had found Hermione’s comment about getting expelled being worse than being killed (which she’d never actually gotten a chance to say in this timeline), it was no joke to Hermione. She meant it with complete seriousness. The consequences of being expelled from Hogwarts was inevitably the snapping of her wand and having all of her memories of the magical world removed. Hermione would genuinely rather die before that happened. She loved magic and she had no desire to go back to a life where she was alone and miserable.

“What, a mother can’t just show up and want to spend time with her daughter?” Mum said.

“Not without the headmaster’s approval, according to the rules,” Hermione retorted. “And I doubt he’d give it just for that or every parent would want to show up here, and we’d have more adults than children wandering around the place.”

Dad gave her a fond smile. “Good to see that your brains are still sharp as they’ve ever been, pumpkin,” he said, and ruffled her hair. “No, we have a meeting with the headmaster.”

Hermione wracked her brains, but for the life of her, other than the dragon incident, which she’d already been fully punished for, she could not think of anything she might have done that precipitated such a meeting. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

“Of course not,” Mum said with total confidence. “I don’t honestly know why he wants to talk to us, but I’m sure it’s nothing you did.” She looked at the moving staircases and shivered a little. “You don’t find this place to be…creepy?”

“That’s the Muggle repelling charms,” Hermione explained. “Their power is strongly diluted by the protective medallions you’ve no doubt been given, but you’ll still be left rather discomforted at times. It’s necessary, I’m afraid. We can’t avoid a repeat of the witch trials, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” Dad said, but he looked deeply unsettled nonetheless. Hermione supposed she could understand why. It was not good to hear that one’s mind was being messed with, even minutely. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything. “Well, your teachers have informed me that you’re as exemplary a student as always. And also that you have friends!”

Hermione grinned like a loon. “Yes! Harry and Ron and Megan and Kevin. No one’s ever had better friends.”

Mum tilted her head. “I was under the impression you and Megan and Kevin were on the outs.”

“That was a…misunderstanding,” Hermione said awkwardly. She didn’t like lying to her parents, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them the truth. They wouldn’t believe her, for starters. “We’re good now.”  

In order to distract from the Kevin and Megan issue, Hermione launched on a long, rambling monologue all about her time at Hogwarts. She skirted around sensitive issues such as the whole troll issue and Professor Quirrell’s death. That, she reasoned, was Professor Dumbledore’s responsibility, after all, though it seemed rather weak in her head. Her parents were in awe over the many things magic could do, though she could tell much of what she was saying went completely over their heads.

In short order, Hermione and her parents had made it to the headmaster’s office. Hermione didn’t quite understand why the headmaster’s office wasn’t accessible to everyone – it had certainly been that way back in her old primary school – but then again, the magical world did a lot of things differently and this was way low on her list of priorities of things to fix.

Hermione was somehow not surprised to see Harry also waiting in the headmaster’s office, even though objectively speaking, she should have been. It seemed these days much revolved around Harry. The perils of being the protagonist of one’s own book series, apparently.

“Ah, good, everyone is here,” Professor Dumbledore said, and held up a tray of lemon drops. “No? No one wants one?”

“We’re dentists,” Mum said primly. Well, when she put it that way, it was slightly crass of him to offer them candy.

Professor Dumbledore politely smiled at her, but it was clear he had no more clue what that term meant than Malfoy had. “Well, the issue I have brought you here to discuss is young Harry’s custody arrangements.” He looked over at Hermione’s parents. “Mr. Potter is credited with the defeat of the leader of what I believe you muggles would refer to of a terrorist organization.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Harry said quietly, sounding like it was something he was tired of saying. “I was just a baby. It was probably a spell my mum cast…”

“Regardless, these terrorists believe he killed their leader, and thus he is a target of them. When Harry’s mother was killed, she left behind strong, ancient protection upon him, tied to his bloodline. To continue to have access to that protection, he must live with his aunt.” So that was how Harry was able to kill Quirrell!

Dad scratched his head. “So this has to do with us, why?”

“Lamentably, it has come to my attention that Harry’s aunt does not have even a fraction of the benevolence her sister did,” Professor Dumbledore said, regret flavoring his voice. “Harry is not safe in that environment; the blood wards protect the house from external dangers but leave him helpless against Petunia’s wrath.”

He leaned forward and Hermione saw that Professor Dumbledore’s eyes were alight with mischief. “In truth, however, the wards were always limited. When he went to school, for example, they did not protect him. The wards, really, were always more of an excuse to keep him in the Muggle world.”

“You kept him there,” Mum said slowly.

Professor Dumbledore sighed. “I readily admit to making mistakes, Dr. Granger. I did not know until this year how bad things were in Harry’s home environment. Harry’s enemies do not understand the Muggle world. It is beneath them. They cannot find him there.” He looked Mum straight in the eye. “That is why I wish to ask you to take in Harry during the summer months.”

“Really, professor?” Harry said eagerly. “I get to live with Hermione?!”

“Oh, please, please, mum and dad?” Hermione begged. “It’s just frightful the way Harry’s so-called family treats him. I’ve always wanted a little brother!”

Harry gasped. “Really? I’d be your brother?” Hermione nodded eagerly.

“You really care about him, don’t you?” Mum said softly. She and Dad looked at each other for a long while and then whispered to each other for even longer. “All right, then. I think it’s the least we can do for someone with the sense to befriend our Hermione.”

Harry looked like what had happened was simply not computing for him, and Hermione could quite understand why. After so many years of wishing to be free of his awful relatives, for it to be finally occurring just didn’t seem real yet. Hermione, for herself, was practically ready to jump off the walls with excitement. (She could probably find a way to literally do that with magic now that she thought about it.) She got to spend all year with her friend now!

“Very good!” Professor Dumbledore said. “I will send a message to Petunia instructing her to get in contact with you and formally transfer custody. I am certain she will not refuse and if she does, I will…persuade her otherwise.” He gave a cold smile. “You will find that I can be quite persuasive when the need calls for it.”

Harry’s face was twisted up from an effort not to cry. “Oh, thank you so much. I promise I’ll be good. I won’t get into any trouble. I’ll help out around the house however you want.”

Hermione’s parents shared a concerned look, but they must have decided that it wasn’t worth it to get into it just yet. “Not to worry, Harry,” Dad said, trying to sound perky. “I’m sure Hermione wouldn’t make friends with any troublemakers, right?”

“Yes,” Hermione said solemnly. “Never.”

“Thank you so much, professor,” Harry said earnestly.

Professor Dumbledore looked ancient all of a sudden. “No, Harry. There is no need to thank me for doing what I should have done many years ago.”

Hermione simply couldn’t believe her luck. Things were really looking better than before. She got to spend her whole summer with Harry, she got him out of that awful house, and Malfoy wasn’t going to be bothering her any longer. How could things possibly get any better?

*****

Harry felt like he was floating on air, even during the times when his accidental magic wasn’t making him literally do just that. Could it truly be? Could his time at the Dursley house be done? No more cupboard? No more Aunt Petunia and her frying pan and her cutting words? No more Harry Hunting? No more being yelled at by Uncle Vernon? It felt like a marvelous dream.

Of course, Harry didn’t know really much of anything about Hermione’s parents, but she certainly seemed well-adjusted enough. It was probably going to be a boring summer – Hermione’s parents probably believed in reading over television and computer games – but heck, Harry would take a boring summer any day over living with the Dursleys. Besides, what with the rather eventful school year he’d been having, a boring summer sounded rather nice.  

The next few days, he had plenty to keep his mind off of the looming question of exactly what it would like to be living with the Grangers, to be Hermione’s brother. Exams had arrived. Harry had been a nervous wreck through the whole thing, though Megan had pointed out that in the alternate timeline, he’d been in even worse shape, because he was petrified Voldemort was going to steal the Philosopher’s Stone any day.

After exams, Harry and his friends lay down under a tree by the lake, enjoying the sunshine. “You know what would have happened today before?” Megan said. Harry shook his head. “You three would have gone down to protect the Stone from ‘Snape.’ Only to find poor, stuttering Professor Quirrell down there…except his stutter was fake.”

“I knew it!” Ron suddenly shouted. “You said I was being insensitive,” he added to Hermione, who just sniffed at him.

“Yeah, Harry would have been down there facing that possessed bastard,” Megan said. Hermione opened her mouth. “Yes, I know, language.”

“We’re impressionable youths compared to you two,” Harry joked. It was strange how easy it was to get used to Megan and Kevin’s otherworldly nature. He supposed after ghosts who walked through walls, he’d sort of lost his potential for disbelief.

Megan swatted him playfully. “Anyway, Harry would have burned him with the power of love.” Harry flinched at the reminder of how he’d killed Quirrell, even if he hadn’t been responsible. “And he’d have ended up in the hospital wing. Instead, we get to party! Also, Neville doesn’t have to wind up petrified on the floor for hours, which I always thought was a little much of you, Hermione. Couldn’t you have just stuffed him in a closet?”

Harry yawned. The hot summer air and the relaxing of the tension he’d been feeling for several days was making him sleepy. “I think I’m gonna get a nap in. Wake me up if you need any professors killed…and no, Ron, I’m not serious about that.”

Ron pouted. “Yeah, I think I’m gonna turn in too,” he admitted. “We’ll be up for dinner.”

“Have a nice snooze!” Kevin said with a wave.

Ron and Harry chattered about various inane topics for a while. Ron had been a little resentful that Harry hadn’t been asked to live with his family over the summer, but Kevin had warned him that Ron’s jealousy could destroy their friendship if not kept in check. The idea that Ron might abandon him at a time when he was facing schoolwide scorn was something that chilled Harry’s blood a little, but he was determined to not judge Ron for something he hadn’t done yet.

“Hey, Ron, look, I promise I’ll visit over the summer,” Harry swore as the two of them swung the door to the dorms open. “I’m sure the Grangers would be happy to be rid of me for a few weeks…”

“Mate, you shouldn’t talk about yourself like that,” Ron advised. “It’s not true, for one. And also –”

“Petrificus totalus,” a voice called out, and Ron went as rigid as a board, then fell to the ground. Harry looked around, but didn’t see anyone. A few seconds later, Sally-Anne tossed Harry’s Invisibility Cloak on the ground, and then trained her wand directly at his chest.

Harry took a few steps backwards. “You…how did you even get in here?”

“My dear friend Fred was kind enough to give me the password,” Sally-Anne said, her eyes alight with an insane fire. Well, more alight than usual. “We are so close to the time of reckoning, Hadrian. Can you not sense it in the air?”

“Gonna be honest with you, I really can’t,” Harry admitted.

Sally-Anne’s face twitched. “You’re coming with me. We’re going to Gringotts and you will finally fulfill your destiny. I will not let anything – or anyone – to stand in my way this time around.”

“You made me kill Quirrell,” Harry realized. “You killed Pettigrew!”

Sally-Anne laughed. “Neither of whom were very big losses. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You were destined to kill Quirrell tonight anyway. And Pettigrew betrayed your parents.” She took a step forward. “Oh, Hadrian. You’re so foolish. But it’s not your fault. You’re being deliberately kept in the dark.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Harry said. “You can make me. But I’m gonna guess people will notice if I’m under the Imperius Curse.”

“Oh, they would,” Sally-Anne agreed. “But there are other ways to force someone. Tell me, Harry, are you familiar with the Cruciatus Curse?” Harry shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t be. As its name suggests, it’s a torture spell. With enough application, it can be used to drive someone to insanity. That’s what happened to Neville’s parents, incidentally.”

She pointed the wand at Ron and, with a dreamy smile, hissed, “Crucio.” Since Ron was already paralyzed, he was unable to move or scream, but Harry could see the pain he was suffering in his eyes.

“ALL RIGHT!” Harry shouted. “That’s enough! I’ll go with you!”

Sally-Anne lowered the wand. “There you go. Wasn’t that easy?” She pointed the wand at him again. “I wonder if I should kill him…”

“Kill him?!” Harry said. “What the heck could he have done to deserve that?”

“He’s a spy for Dumbledore,” Sally-Anne said contemptuously. “He and his whore of a sister and harridan of a mother, they’re all plotting against you. Stealing money from your vault, dragging you down academically, making sure you don’t know you’re an heir…the list goes on and on.” She laughed softly. “Tell me something, Harry, did you really believe that every single cabin was filled? Yours was the only remaining empty one?”

“It was a figure of speech,” Harry said coldly. Not for one single second did he believe any word that was coming out of Sally-Anne’s mouth. “He just meant it was really crowded. I trust Ron. He’s my friend.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” Sally-Anne spat.

Harry wondered if he could run. But no. Sally-Anne would kill Ron in a heartbeat. “Megan and Kevin told us the truth, Sally-Anne. We know where you’re from.”

“YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME!” Sally-Anne snarled, her face twisted in a terrifying rictus of anger that made Uncle Vernon in his most towering of furies seem as meek as Neville by comparison. “No one does and no one ever will! Demand from me nothing, Hadrian Potter-Black. I will never speak of my past. I will rip your tongue out if you dare try.”

Harry put up his hands up placatingly. “I just meant, we know about the books. We know that nothing you’ve been saying was in the books.”

“There’s more to truth than just books,” Sally-Anne said cryptically. She put on the Invisibility Cloak. “Don’t say a word to anyone. You’re just out for a stroll. I will use Fiendfyre on anyone who gets even the least bit suspicious.”

Harry had no choice but to walk out of the dormitories and make his way outside the castle. Sally-Anne led him well away from where Harry’s friends were still chattering away. Harry wished he had the courage to let someone know that something was wrong, but Harry really did believe Sally-Anne was able and willing to kill innocents. Sally-Anne must have cast a spell once they reached the gates, because they opened near soundlessly as soon as he approached them.

Only once they were out of Hogwarts grounds did Sally-Anne remove the Invisibility Cloak. “I will use Fiendfyre on the entire alley if need be,” she warned him. She grabbed a rock off the ground and shouted “PORTUS!”

There was a pulling sensation behind Harry’s navel and an instant, he was somewhere else. He was back in Diagon Alley. He’d teleported there thanks to Sally-Anne’s spell. Sally-Anne was practically skipping with anticipation as she dragged Harry through the street. He was attracting even more attention than normal, no doubt due to the fact that he was supposed to be in school.

Sally-Anne bowed deeply to the goblin guard outside of Gringotts. “May your gold be ever flowing.”

“What?” the guard said, looking puzzled.

Sally-Anne huffed. “Moron,” she muttered as she dragged Harry into the lobby. “Doesn’t even know the proper greetings. I can see why he’s on sentry duty…”

Maybe now was the proper time to run or let someone know he was being held hostage? Sally-Anne was obviously not going to get what she wanted and the results were not going to be pretty. “I see through you, Hadrian,” she whispered. “You want to run, don’t you? You still don’t believe me. Well, too bad. I’ll burn everything to ash before letting you get out of this. You’re mine now. This world…everything…it’ll all soon be mine.”

She charged up to the teller’s desk and Harry had no choice but to follow. “We need an inheritance test for my friend here. He also needs his horcrux removed. You’re probably wondering why he hasn’t been getting any of your missives – it’s because his so-called magical guardian has been blocking your mail.”

“Is she high?” the teller demanded. “Look, lady, I don’t know what you’re smoking, but nothing you said makes any sense. We don’t do inheritance tests. We don’t remove horcruxes. We. Are. A. Bank. Now unless you have real business here, get out.”  

Sally-Anne looked positively devastated. As if someone had punched her dog. Harry couldn’t help but feel a spike of pity for her. “Sally-Anne…you need help,” Harry said gently.

Something incredibly familiar sparked in her eyes. “You’re absolutely right, Harry,” she whispered. “I do need help. It’s time for me to do what I should have done a long time ago.”

Harry couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as Sally-Anne walked over to a nearby alleyway. At last, she’d seen that her delusions weren’t based on reality and was going to get mental help. He wouldn’t have to worry about her hurting anyone anymore.

“You were right about everything,” Sally-Anne said.

Harry put a hand on her shoulder. “I know this is hard. But I’ll help you.”

“Oh…I wasn’t talking to you, Hadrian,” Sally-Anne purred. “All right, you win. You get to play it your way.” And then she waved her wand and the disillusionment spell she’d been using for…probably as long as they’d known each other now that Harry thought about it just vanished.

On top of Sally-Anne’s head was the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw.

“Hello, Harry,” Lord Voldemort said through Sally-Anne’s lips. “Surprise.”

Chapter Text

Megan couldn’t help feeling extremely smug. They were well on their way to fixing everything. Harry was safe and away from the Dursleys. Once they’d found the diadem, they’d have the necessary proof to convince Dumbledore they were who they said they were. Not to mention she was pretty sure she’d aced the end of year exams. Not that she cared very much. Really, only the OWLs and NEWTs had any effect on one’s future. Of course, she wasn’t dumb enough to tell Hermione that. Add that to the fact that she was going to spend a summer with parents who actually loved her for the first time, and everything was coming up Megan.

“Hermione!” a voice called out and Megan groaned upon seeing a panicked looking Neville run towards them. Spectacular. What was it now? Did someone release the damn basilisk early? “It’s…it’s Ron! He’s in the hospital wing! Someone petrified him and…and…crucioed him…” Neville could barely bring himself to say the spell that took his parents’ sanity.

“Sally-Anne,” Hermione snarled. They really should have seen this coming. It was only a matter of time before Sally-Anne snapped entirely and attacked Ron and/or Dumbledore. After all, Ron was utterly vilified 95% of the time in the Indy Harry fics Sally-Anne was obsessed with. Megan knew Sally-Anne might be a danger to Ron; why hadn’t she warned him?!

“Where’s Harry?” Kevin demanded. “Wasn’t he supposed to be with Ron?”

“She took him,” Neville whispered. Megan’s heart lurched in her chest. “She’s kidnapped Harry. The professors are trying to track them down. They think they might have left Hogwarts.”

Kevin and Megan shared a look, both on the same page. “Gringotts,” they said simultaneously. Hermione nodded.

“We’ve got to talk to Dumbledore,” Hermione decided. “Er, Professor Dumbledore, I meant.” It was a testimony to how phenomenally serious the situation was that Megan didn’t hold this over Hermione’s head, nor would she ever do so. “I know we’ve said we can’t tell him until we have proof, but…his life is in danger too, isn’t it?”

“Get Trelawney, Hermione,” Kevin said. “It’ll come across better with a faculty member backing us up…even if it is Trelawney.”

Neville raised a hand. “I think Ron mentioned something about Fred being involved? I don’t know. He was pretty incoherent.”

Megan groaned. Of course one or both of the twins were involved. For some reason, the Weasley twins were always on the side of the “heroes” in Indy Harry fics, along with Neville (who Sally-Anne probably wouldn’t have confided in pre-character development) and Luna (who wasn’t at Hogwarts yet). Not to mention, Sally-Anne could at least unequivocally back up that she wasn’t who she said she was with the Marauder’s Map.

Now that Megan thought about it, it was likely that Fred at least gave Sally-Anne access to Gryffindor Tower to kill Wormtail. Sally-Anne could have gotten around her “magical oath” by having Fred actually kill Wormtail himself (though it was still possible she could have done it and used the loophole that she did not kill Scabbers, since there was no real Scabbers). Either way, Megan would have to tread cautiously. Not for a second did she believe Fred was capable of hurting her, but there was no telling how deeply he had bought into Sally-Anne’s bullshit. Fred was quite intelligent, so it had to have been a heck of a yarn Sally-Anne told.  

“I’ll grab Fred and bring him up to Dumbledore’s office,” Megan suggested and ran off to do just that.

Thankfully, Fred believed Megan entirely when she told him about Ron being attacked and Harry getting kidnapped by Sally-Anne. “I…I can’t believe she did that,” Fred whispered. “I’m so sorry, Megan. I should have known better.”

“It’s not your fault,” Megan said. “She tricked you.”

“It’s just, she said I was going to die if I didn’t help her,” Fred said pleadingly. “And she was right about Pettigrew. She was right about him, right?” Megan nodded. “I really don’t understand. Can you help me understand?”

“You’ll get to hear the whole story along with Dumbledore,” Megan said briskly. She didn’t really blame Fred per se, but she was annoyed with him nonetheless. Killing Wormtail may have severely reduced the likelihood of Voldemort being resurrected, but it also made it extremely difficult, if not impossible to free Sirius. Even Wormtail’s human corpse would have been useful, but he had died in rat form and to the best of Megan’s knowledge, there was no way to turn him back to a human corpse.

Fred nodded solemnly, seeming ready to accept whatever punishment necessary. Whatever punishment would be levied upon him would be redundant in Megan’s opinion. The knowledge that he’d been aiding his brother’s torturer seemed to be slowly eating him up from the inside. “Will he be all right? Ron? And Harry?”

“I think Ron will be fine,” Megan said cautiously. If he was in serious condition, surely Neville would have led with that, right? “And Harry…look, I just don’t know anymore. Sally-Anne’s cuckoo for cocoa puffs.” Fred tilted his head quizzically at the abstruse Muggle expression. “I mean, she’s batshit insane. Logically speaking, she’d want to keep him alive, but I honestly have no clue about what’s going on inside her head.”

Megan led Fred to the headmaster’s office. The gargoyle opened the passageway as soon as she arrived; Hermione and/or Kevin and Trelawney must have gotten there before her. Sure enough, the three of them were waiting for her. Dumbledore was behind his desk, looking politely bemused.

“So what brings such a motley assemblage to my office this fine day?” Dumbledore said.

“It’s about Ron and Harry,” Hermione began. “We think Sally-Anne’s bringing him to Gringotts.”

Dumbledore looked suddenly very grim. “Thank you for the tip. I assure you, the Aurors have been notified and every available agent is out looking for Mr. Potter. I will pass along your suggestion. He will be found and Miss Perks apprehended. You needn’t worry.”

Kevin glared fearsomely at Trelawney, who cleared her throat. “There is much to be discussed, headmaster, and you may not believe much of it. But it is essential you now understand what is going on.” Dumbledore raised an eyebrow and motioned for Trelawney to proceed. “Last summer, I cast a ritual to bring three individuals from another world to our own. In this world, the events of the next several years, centering around Harry Potter, are a popular work of fiction. The ritual…backfired somewhat…”

“Somewhat?!” Kevin snarled. Hermione put a gentle hand on his arm and he calmed down.

“The ritual was meant to merge the souls of the visitors and the individuals present, but the souls of the visitors supplanted their hosts instead.” Dumbledore looked sick to his stomach. “They were brought back in time additionally.”

Dumbledore crossed his arms. “What proof have you of this?”

“‘Your point about wizard dominance being for the Muggles’ own good – this, I think, is the crucial point,’” Megan recited. She was amazed she actually remembered the full text of the letter. Of course, she would have vastly preferred to remember how to find the damn diadem, but this was a nice second prize. “Do I need to go on, headmaster? Because I’ve got a lot more where that came from.”

Dumbledore looked extremely uncomfortable. “No, I daresay you have amply proven your point, Miss Jones,” he said sourly.

“We’ve been subtly interfering with events all year,” Kevin explained. “Or at least trying to. It hasn’t always worked. Our efforts to help Hermione become better friends with Ron and Harry worked out well for her, but it meant she wasn’t present to fight the troll, leading to the death of Professor Sinistra.”

Dumbledore shook his head. “It was proven that Quirinus let in the troll. That was his choice.”

“That’s not the point,” Kevin said. “Sally-Anne has chosen to interfere much more blatantly. She killed Quirrell and Scabbers.” Dumbledore looked confused and no wonder; the news of a dead pet no doubt did not reach his ears. “She believes in all sorts of conspiracy theories. Mostly centering around, uh, well…you.”

Dumbledore looked very amused. “Ah, yes, I believe I’ve heard some of her…beliefs. She gravely underestimates me, I am afraid, both in terms of moral fiber and my actual effectiveness should I choose a dark path.” He gave a serene smile. “If I was going to be a dark lord, I would not bother with trivial things like the distribution of prophecies and compulsion charms. I would simply become Minister for Magic, Imperius the prime minister into starting World War III with Britain’s nuclear arsenal, and then have the magical world rule the ashes thanks to the antiradiation potions we developed during the Cold War.”

There was dead silence in the room for a good thirty seconds. “It’s rather a good thing I’m not a dark lord, isn’t it?” Dumbledore said jauntily. Megan couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing, like a hyena. It was probably deeply inappropriate of her, but she couldn’t help herself.

Kevin cleared his throat. “This delightful interlude aside, we believe that with your help, we can lure Sally-Anne into a trap. In the original timeline, you were supposed to be at the Ministry. If you go there, we know where she’ll be going.”

Megan groaned. “I should have known it would end there. It really couldn’t have ended another way, could it?”

“No, it couldn’t.”

Dumbledore stood up. “Very well. I believe you. I should not – it goes against everything we thought we knew about temporal and multiversal mechanics. But I do. We will have to have a long discussion about what you know and how we can use that information to win the next war before it starts, but that is for later. You have my full support.”

*****

Harry just stared at his parents’ killer. Because there was absolutely no doubt that Voldemort himself now stood before him. Kevin had told him about all the Horcruxes and the diadem was definitely one of them. The diary had been able to possess people and influence them mentally, so there was no reason to suspect the diadem wasn’t capable of it. How long had Voldemort been possessing Sally-Anne, Harry wondered? How much of her actions had been of her own volition? Some part of her was clearly there, but Voldemort had to have been influencing her. For one thing, how else could she cast such advanced dark spells as the Unforgivables?

“That’s…that’s a pretty sparkly tiara you’ve got there, Sally-Anne,” Harry said, playing dumb.

“Do not waste my time with lies, Potter,” Voldemort snapped. “Your mental shields are pathetically weak – aligning perfectly with the rest of you, to be fair.”

Harry straightened up. He would die on his feet than live on his knees if it came down to it. “If you’re going to kill me, Riddle, then you’re welcome to try,” he bluffed. “It didn’t work so well the last time.”

“Oh, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, Harry,” Voldemort drawled. “And if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” He raised his wand.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, though,” Harry plowed on. Megan and Kevin had explained the books’ plots very thoroughly and if there was one thing Voldemort liked to do, it was monologue. Basically, every time the two of them encountered each other, it was only Voldemort’s love of monologuing that saved his bacon. “If you’re a piece of Voldemort, then why kill the original version? And why kill Wormtail?”

Voldemort’s eyes glowed a faint shade of scarlet. “You think if you get me talking long enough, someone will save you. You are not the only one with knowledge of what is to come. Sally-Anne has been a most generous partner. She has shown me the mistakes of the future and how to avoid them.”

Harry gulped. Then he tried to take a few deep breaths. “Yeah. You’re probably right. It’s probably some stupid, convoluted scheme that’ll fail like all the rest of them.”

“Insolent welp,” Voldemort snapped. Harry rolled his eyes. “I am not the pathetic original version of myself who failed to accomplish a task as simple as killing a baby. With the memories Sally-Anne has shared with me, and the wisdom of Rowena Ravenclaw, I will accomplish greatness he could not.” He smirked. “As if I could allow that fool to rise again. So I slew Quirrell and cast him back to being a wraith, then slew Pettigrew so he would never return.”

He started pacing around the alley. Harry really hoped someone would notice them. They probably wouldn’t. Not with his luck. “Sally-Anne never really believed any of this was real, you know,” Voldemort said. “She thought she was in a coma dream. She absolutely insisted Flitwick take her on a tour of Hogwarts, so she could find the diadem. And then she put it on, and from that moment, she was mine.”

Voldemort gave a low chuckle. “It was some of my best work, in my opinion. Subtly adjusting her thought patterns, blocking memories that contradicted the delusions I fed. Anything that contradicted her insistence that Dumbledore was the ultimate villain, I blocked. Oh, she was dancing to my tune soon enough. She actually thought I was the hero, did you know that? The noble defender of pureblood traditions from the Muggleborn who wanted to destroy wizarding culture.”

Harry could not help but rule his eyes a little bit. Voldemort did have a bit of a point about Sally-Anne being naïve in the extreme if she believed that. “But there is no good or evil,” Voldemort pontificated. “Just power and those too weak to seek it.”

“Power doesn’t solve everything,” Harry argued. “No matter how strong you are, you can’t be the strongest at everything. That’s why having friends is important.”

“Spare me your asinine blabbering,” Voldemort spat. “You sound just like your mother.” Despite the dire circumstances, Harry could not help but feel a burst of pride. People had offered compared him to his father – unfavorably in Snape’s case – but this was the first time someone had compared him to his mother. Aunt Petunia barely even mentioned Mum. Mentioning Mum made her even angrier than mentioning magic.

“My mother was smarter than you,” Harry said, defiance all over his voice. “She managed to defeat you.”

Voldemort’s lips thinned. He had struck a nerve there. “The past is in the past.”

Harry laughed. He was aware it was a stupid move, but what other options did he have but to continue taunting Voldemort and hope he made a mistake? “Doesn’t sound like it’s in the past to me. Sounds like you’re still a pathetic parasite without a real body. No, even worse. A piece of a parasite. You’re just a knockoff.”

“I am Lord Voldemort, you foolish boy!” Voldemort snarled and smacked Harry across the face. Harry looked at Sally-Anne’s hand with dismay. It was completely intact, unburnt. Whatever power had enabled him to kill Quirrell must not have worked on Voldemort’s horcruxes. They probably could not harm each other. That made sense, since he would have burned himself long ago if that was the case. “You will bow down before me. All will bow down before me.”

Harry yawned theatrically. “Yeah, whatever. You’re not going to kill me or you lose a horcrux. We both know you’re bluffing.”

“Oh, Harry,” Voldemort said with a low and menacing chuckle. “You’ve gravely underestimated me. There are so many ways to break a man without killing him. And worst comes to worst, I’ll simply Obliviate you until you’re little more than a drooling vegetable.” Harry gulped. “But you needn’t worry. So long as you do as I say, you’ll walk out of this alive and unharmed. I have a certain pretty rock I wish to get my hands on, and you will be the key to doing it.”

Voldemort grabbed onto Harry’s arm suddenly and the two of them teleported over to what looked like the Forbidden Forest. “We’re going to get the Philosopher’s Stone, boy.” Harry flinched a little at the word boy. For a second, Voldemort sounded so much like Uncle Vernon. Not necessarily in voice, but in the way they imbued the word with a dismissive apathy. Like Harry didn’t even deserve a name. Like they couldn’t care for a second if he lived or died.

Harry’s thoughts raced as he tried to remember what had been said about the Philosopher’s Stone. There was a lot of information he’d been told about the events of the books, and since Kevin and Megan had sworn up and down it wouldn’t be relevant in the new timeline, he hadn’t exactly memorized it. But then it came to him. In order to get the Stone, you had to want to have the Stone, but not use the Stone.

So what would he want the Philosopher’s Stone for? Well, money obviously. He could use unlimited gold to buy out Grummings, become Uncle Vernon’s boss, get revenge on him. Or maybe buy the houses next door to the Dursleys and give them to the most flamboyant mages out there, so every day they’d be scandalized. Or just buy some nice things for himself. Maybe get the Grangers gifts for letting him stay with them. Yes, the possibilities were endless. He didn’t think he liked the idea of being immortal, though. He certainly intended to live a long life, but the idea of never being reunited with his parents was a horrible one.

“You are more clever than I suspected, Harry Potter,” Voldemort said, his eyes narrowing as he no doubt read Harry’s thoughts.

Harry shrugged. “Yeah, I get that surprisingly often.”

Voldemort raised his wand and then lowered it. “No. You will be present for my triumph. I will make sure of that. You have merely delayed me. My return to power is inexorable. Now start marching towards the gates.”

“You’re going to lose,” Harry spat at him as he marched towards the gates at wandpoint. “We both know how this ends.”

“If I conquer Britain, then, yes, I suspect I will lose,” Voldemort admitted. “But if there’s one thing my knowledge of the books has taught me, it is that I do not need to conquer Britain. Not when I can buy it instead.” Harry gulped. Yeah. That…was definitely a more effective method of taking over than using force. And with the Philosopher’s Stone, Voldemort would have unlimited bribery capability. The magical world was doomed if he got his hands on it.

As they approached the gates, Voldemort glamoured himself so he looked like a seventh year Slytherin Harry could vaguely remember seeing around, transfigured Harry into a snake and grabbed him before he could slither away. It felt extremely weird not to have hands, feet, or ears. “Not so fast there, Harry,” Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue. “You’re going to miss the show.”

Now with the diadem disillusioned once more, Voldemort marched into the castle bold as brass. No one stopped him. Harry tried to call out to people, but only Voldemort could understand him. Voldemort strode confidently in the direction of the third floor corridor.

“Hey!” a voice called out, and then the boy who Voldemort had been impersonating strode towards them. He was wearing a prefect’s badge. “Who the hell are you? Why do you look like me?”

Voldemort silently cast the Killing Curse at the poor boy and he dropped like a stone. Harry would have screamed if he was able to. It seemed no matter what happened, he was doomed to watch as innocents died and he was unable to stop it. “And now, let us brave the gauntlet that the august Albus Dumbledore thought could stop me.” He rolled his eyes at the very thought. “Oh, and I suppose it won’t be nearly as amusing if you’re in that form.”

He waved his wand and Harry was back in human form. “You’re not going to win!” he said frantically. “My friends will save me.”

“I’m rather counting on that now,” Voldemort said with a smirk. He opened the door to the forbidden corridor and Fluffy let out a terrifying roar and Voldemort cast the Killing Curse once more and the Cerberus was gone. “Just like your parents, Harry. How does that make you feel?”

Harry headbutted Voldemort as hard as he could, hoping to dislodge the diadem from Sally-Anne’s head. Voldemort’s nose broke with a sickening crunch, but the diadem remained firmly lodged in its position. Voldemort healed himself with a snarl, and then paralyzed Harry, using a levitation spell to carry him through the remaining obstacles.

The Dark Lord got through the challenges in record time, unfortunately. How Professor Dumbledore had ever thought they’d hold him off for longer than a second, Harry had no clue. Maybe the whispers he’d been hearing were right. Maybe he was going senile. Voldemort burned the Devil’s Snare to a crisp, somehow managed to fly on his own power to grab the key, blasted the chess pieces to blazes, and then dispelled the magical fire that would have separated Harry from Hermione and Ron in another life.

“You know, with that display, I am starting to suspect that perhaps Dumbledore really did set this up to test you, not to stop me,” Voldemort mused. “Well, in we go, Harry. Forever awaits.”

Harry was halfway expecting someone to be waiting for them, but the room was completely empty, except for that damn mirror. The Mirror of Erised seemed to be drawing Harry inwards. Its power overrode the petrification. Inexorably, he walked over to the mirror. Voldemort, looking amused, let him.

And there they were. Right there in the glass. His parents. Megan had informed him about what he would have seen in the mirror, but knowing about it and actually seeing it were two very different things. “Harry…” a voice whispered. It was coming from the mirror. He couldn’t tell which of his phantasmal parents had said it. “Stay with us…”

It was tempting. It was so tempting. Harry had wondered all his life what it would be like to have his parents in his life, even when he had thought they were nothing more than unemployed drunks. Not that he’d ever believed that. Sure, he’d bought the car crash story – people died of those all the time – but Harry had never trusted anything else his aunt and uncle had said about his parents. Justly so, as it turned out. He used to lie awake in his cupboard at night dreaming that they were still alive and would rescue him one of these days.

Even now, he really had no way of knowing what would have happened if they’d lived. Even the knowledge of the future he’d gained couldn’t tell him that. Kevin and Megan weren’t able to tell him much more about his parents than anyone else could. The books they’d read weren’t the story of Lily and James Potter.

“I’m sorry, mum and dad,” he whispered. “One day I’ll be with you again. But not today.” He raised his fist and slammed it against the mirror as hard as he could…and it bounced off the glass. “Darn it!”

Voldemort snickered. “Oh, Harry. This is a priceless magical artifact. You’re not going to be able to destroy it with your fist, you silly boy.”

“Okay, so what’s the plan here, Tommy?” Harry wondered, genuinely curious. “If you can’t get the Stone from the mirror, and I can’t get it, then what are we going to do, just stand around until someone else comes along?”

“That is precisely what we are going to do,” Voldemort said. “Your dear friends will arrive soon enough.” Harry winced. Yeah, now that he thought about it, that was precisely what they were going to be doing. He really hoped they’d come along with Aurors and/or Dumbledore, but if he knew his friends, they’d probably rush in all by their lonesome.

There was an awkward silence for several minutes. “So…you read comic books?” Harry wondered. “I mean, growing up in the orphanage during the war, you probably read comic books. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man? No, wait, Spider-Man was later…”

“Be silent, you insolent fool.”

Harry tried to make conversation for at least fifteen more minutes, but could barely provoke a reaction from Voldemort. Wasn’t this guy supposed to be charismatic or something? Instead, he could barely hold a conversation for two seconds that wasn’t about threatening someone or hurting someone or threatening to hurt someone.

“You!” a voice called out and Hermione charged into the dungeon. Voldemort grabbed Harry by the throat and pressed his wand against the side of his head. “You stupid moron,” Hermione snarled. Voldemort’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Oh, yes, the great and powerful Dark Lord. You had all this power and all this loyalty and you wasted it on your own selfish megalomania. You could break the laws of reality and you wasted time on breaking the laws of man.”

“Um, Hermione, maybe not the time?” Harry suggested.

Hermione surged forward, her wand in hand. She appeared too angry to realize any consequences of her actions. “And now, you pathetic man, you’ve kidnapped my best friend, and you have made a powerful enemy.”

Voldemort threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, Hermione, please. You think I’m scared of a little pipsqueak like you?”

“You think I’m scared of a has-been like yourself?” Hermione retorted.

“I am feared!” Voldemort shot back. “The wizarding world cannot even bear to say my name!” He snarled. “Enough of this! Get me the Stone or I will torture your friend into insanity!”

Hermione stepped over to the mirror. “I…huh,” she said, sounding genuinely surprised. “I’m surrounded by my friends. That’s…that appears to be it. I really thought a Nobel Prize or five would factor into it somewhere.”

“THE STONE!” Voldemort shouted at the top of his lungs.

Hermione reached into her pocket and came up with a shiny red stone. “Beautiful,” Voldemort whispered. Hermione held out the Stone and then threw it to the ground. Voldemort bent down to pick it up and Hermione stomped on it with her foot. It broke into a pile of shards. There was never any Philosopher’s Stone in the mirror. It had been a decoy, nothing more than colored glass, the whole time.

“NO!” Voldemort shouted. He lifted his wand and aimed it at Hermione’s chest. “AVADA –”

“Expelliarmus!” a voice called out and Megan came striding into the room, her wand in hand and Kevin beside her. “Woo! I actually disarmed the Dark Lord! How awesome is that!”

Voldemort raised a hand and sent a jet of fire in her direction without even using a wand, igniting her. Kevin quickly dispelled the flames, but the damage was done and Megan was out of the fight. Voldemort moved his hand like he was conducting an orchestra and the shadows started moving and moving directly in Kevin’s direction, looking as sharp as glass.

Kevin drew his gun, the same one he’d used in the Forbidden Forest, and fired three shots at Voldemort, looking sick to his stomach. Two of them missed, but one of them hit him in the lower chest and he staggered backwards. Harry took advantage of Voldemort’s distraction and tackled him. With one hand, he grabbed Voldemort by the throat and started squeezing. He let his hatred overwhelm him. This man had stolen his parents from him! He’d stolen his future! He’d forced Harry to commit murder and indirectly condemned Harry’s rightful guardian to a continued stay in Azkaban!

Voldemort was so focused on defending himself from Harry’s attempt to kill him, so convinced that the surface thoughts that he was feeling were accurate, that he didn’t realize the truth until it was too late. Voldemort didn’t understand altruism. Not at all. He couldn’t understand that Harry had no desire to kill Sally-Anne. Even after all she’d done, even after choosing to give into Voldemort, Harry couldn’t let her die.

So it came as a complete surprise to him when Harry knocked the diadem off of his head. It was very hard to do – it was almost as if it was completely magnetized – but Harry managed to accomplish it, though it felt like it took all his strength.

Sally-Anne instantly went limp and unconscious. But she was still breathing! She was still alive! Harry had somehow managed to win.

Hermione surged over to Harry and then punched him in the stomach, hard. For a second, Harry worried that she might be being possessed by Voldemort too, but then he saw the panicked, terrified expression on her face. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Harry James Potter-Granger!” she screamed at him. “Do you have any idea how scared I was?”

Harry couldn’t help but grin a little. He’d heard a lot of weird names from him over the past year or so from Sally-Anne, but somehow, he thought he could definitely learn to like being Harry Potter-Granger. Sure sounded like a better name than Hadrian Potter-Black. “Is Ron okay?”

Hermione wiped a tear from her eyes. “You self-sacrificing hero,” she said, sounding as if she was using the word hero as a swear word. “Will you ever change?” Harry shook his head. “Ron will be fine. I just…I can’t believe how close I came to losing you…”

“You’re not going to lose me, Hermione,” Harry promised. Hermione burst into tears and fell into Harry’s arms. He just held her as she cried.

There was the sound of footsteps and then Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, along with two people Harry didn’t recognize – probably Aurors – came into the room. Dumbledore let out a sharp gasp upon seeing the diadem. “So it is real…” he whispered.

“NOBODY PUT IT ON!” Kevin said, putting every last ounce of authority he possessed into his voice. It was the voice of a leader, of a full-grown adult. “I will kill anyone who puts it on, I swear to God!”

One of the Aurors conjured what looked like a lead box and telekinetically placed the diadem inside, locking it securely. The other quickly grabbed both Megan and Sally-Anne and apparated them to the hospital wing.

Kevin sank to his knees. “Oh, God…” he whispered. “I shot her. I could have killed her. She was just a kid and I shot her!”

“She probably wasn’t actually a kid,” Hermione offered, not sounding entirely convinced.

Professor Dumbledore looked over at the shards of the fake Stone on the ground and smirked a little. “Did you really think I was actually foolish enough to put the real Stone in such a transparently obvious location?” he said. “No, it is quite secure in a location only I know of.” He looked Harry in the eyes. “You were very brave. Is there anything I can do to help you?” ”

“I want to see Ron,” Harry said immediately.

“Then we will go to the infirmary posthaste,” Professor Dumbledore assured him. “I’m very proud of you, Harry.”

*****

It took a long while for Kevin to get over the guilt of having to shoot Sally-Anne, and, truth be told, he wasn’t entirely convinced he’d ever be rid of it. He’d died trying to stop a school shooter and now, strictly speaking, he’d become one. She’d looked so frightened, even though he knew that it was really Voldemort who was calling the shots.

Kevin couldn’t begin to imagine exactly why Sally-Anne had been dumb enough to put on the diadem in the first place. What had persuaded her that these ideas based on fanfic were real? It couldn’t have all been Voldemort’s influence. It was clear he’d only completely possessed her after her trip to Gringotts had been an inevitable failure. What sort of life had Sally-Anne led that made her the person she became?

He never found the answer. Sally-Anne was placed into a magical coma for the next few weeks to make sure all the consequences of Voldemort’s possession was gone and when she awoke, something entirely unexpected occurred: the real Sally-Anne was back. Not the imposter self-insert who had come from an alternate reality, but the real, actual Sally-Anne Perks! She had absolutely no memory what had happened since the fake Sally-Anne had been brought to her reality.

According to Trelawney, the soul of the real Sally-Anne was still residing in her body, but Fake Sally-Anne had dislodged it and rendered it inactive. Sally-Anne, for most the time Kevin had known her, had no less than three souls in the same body – the real one, the fake one, and Voldemort. No wonder she was so unstable. Once Voldemort had been dispelled, the real one automatically returned to supremacy. Presumably, Fake Sally-Anne would remain dormant for the rest of her life.

After a good deal of discussion with the Perks parents, who had turned out to be perfectly loving parents who’d been Imperiused by Voldemort so they wouldn’t notice the changes in their daughter, it was decided that Sally-Anne would go to Beauxbatons. She was not in any trouble for the crimes she’d committed while being possessed by Voldemort (or, for that matter, possessed by the fake Sally-Anne), but she’d still acquired a reputation as a paranoid, unstable lunatic and it was better for her education she go somewhere where she was away from it. Kevin couldn’t help being a little relieved. It would have been quite an adjustment to have to deal with a sane Sally-Anne.

Megan and Ron recovered quite nicely from their injuries. Kevin got to shout a lot at Dumbledore for his extremely poor judgment both in terms of the gauntlet for the fake Stone and his general policy towards dealing with Harry. Seriously, what sort of a dolt left a baby on a freaking doorstep in November? Dumbledore must have taken his chastisements to heart, because soon afterwards, he made the announcement that he was going to be stepping down as headmaster. He would still work at the school as a professor of alchemy, however, and take on Headmistress McGonagall’s old role as head of Gryffindor. He seemed much happier in that role, honestly.

Dumbledore had Harry open the door to the Chamber of Secrets, then went down there alone with a rooster. A half hour later, the basilisk was slain and they had more than enough fangs to destroy the Horcruxes with. It took less than a day to destroy the diadem, the locket, and the ring. Thankfully, Dumbledore, knowing the consequences of putting on the ring, managed to resist its siren call long enough to slay the ring. No one told him that it was also the Resurrection Stone.

Snape managed to steal the diary from Malfoy Manor and it was destroyed too. It was looking like he would not be returning to Hogwarts even though he was vindicated for killing Quirrell. The Turkish Ministry of Magic had given him a lucrative job offer brewing potions for their Aurors. Kevin was relieved. Whether or not Snape was truly evil or not was a matter of intense debate, but it was still good news for his friends’ education, if nothing else, to have Snape a whole continent away from them.

Two of the horcruxes were deemed near impossible to destroy satisfactorily, however. The cup was still firmly ensconced within Bellatrix’s vault. Breaking into Gringotts was vetoed; it was just too insanely risky and the only reason Harry and his friends had ever survived was that they had plot armor. And no one could figure out a way to get Harry free of the horcrux without killing him either.

So they decided if they couldn’t kill Voldemort, then they could at least take him out of commission permanently. Snape convinced Lucius Malfoy that he could revive Voldemort if he gave him his hand for a ritual, and Lucius fell for it hook line and sinker. Megan broke into a Muggle blood bank and stole a vial of some random person’s blood. Since Voldemort had declared war on the Muggle world, all Muggles were technically his enemies. With the blood of the enemy forcibly taken, the flesh of the servant willingly sacrificed, and the bone of the father unknowingly given, Voldemort returned…

…for all of three seconds before he was rendered unconscious by a team of Aurors, given the Draught of Living Death, and then thoroughly Obliviated until he was nothing more than the drooling vegetable he’d threatened to make Harry. Then he was put into a coffin with airholes and delivered to the Muggle government, which put him in one of those government warehouses à la Indiana Jones. No one in the magical world would be able to get their hands on the Dark Lord, and even if they did, it would do them no good, because Voldemort didn’t even remember how to speak anymore, much less how to rule the world.

The bastard wanted immortality? He could have it.

As Dumbledore had promised, Harry indeed stayed at the Grangers over the summer. It could have been a coincidence that not too soon after, Vernon Dursley was arrested for tax evasion…but Kevin suspected otherwise. Either way, there was no way he would ever regain custody of Harry, and that was what truly mattered.

Trelawney, using what had happened to Sally-Anne as a starting point, finally figured out how to return the real Kevin and Megan to their bodies. Which unfortunately meant that the fake Kevin and Megan would have to return back to where they came from. A part of Kevin desperately wanted to stay, to live in the magical world, to continue to wield the beauty that was magic. But keeping the real Kevin from his actual life a single second longer than he had to would have been wrong.

“So…I guess this is it,” Megan said, her voice cracking, as they walked back into Hogwarts about two weeks into the summer. Kevin hoped they’d meet again in the afterlife. He hoped there was an afterlife to meet in. The two of them, with the Golden Trio beside them, trudged their way through the castle into Trelawney’s chambers.

“I’m going to miss you both so much,” Hermione said, barely sounding more composed herself. “Thank you so much for helping me make friends. Thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re sure you have to go?” Ron asked.

Kevin nodded firmly. “I wish we could stay. So much. You have no idea. But we don’t belong here. We never did.”

“I’ll look after your family,” Harry promised. “They’ll want for nothing.”

Megan burst into tears and swept the Golden Trio into a group hug. “You’re all the best! Remember what I told you.”

“Don’t enter into the Triwizard Tournament,” Ron recited. “Run the hell away from Rowling if she asks for an interview. And punch Umbridge in the face if we see her.”

Megan gave a weak grin. “Yeah. Yeah, and be nice to the real Kevin and Megan. They’re gonna be really confused. Don’t take them not being us out on them, okay?” The three of them all nodded. “I love you all. I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“I would have done the same,” Harry assured her. “I hope we meet again someday.”

Trelawney had them stand in the center of a ritual circle and started chanting. Megan grabbed and squeezed Kevin’s hand tightly. She was putting on a good show for the Golden Trio, but Kevin could tell quite easily that she was absolutely petrified.

There was a flash of light and then everything went dark.

*****

Megan opened her eyes. Everything was dull and blurry. She instinctively grabbed her glasses from an end table next to her and then she shot upwards. Her glasses! As Megan, she hadn’t needed glasses. She quickly put them on her head and then let out a soft gasp. She was back in her old body, lying on a hospital bed. She could see the skyline of Dublin outside the window. She hadn’t been dead at all! She’d just been in a coma. Was it real? Was anything she’d experienced real?

As if in an answer to her query, the door opened and a woman walked into the room. She may have been thirty years older, but there was no mistaking that incredibly bushy hair. Hermione Granger gave a huge smile at her. “Remember me?” she asked hopefully.

“As if I could ever forget you, Hermione,” Megan responded. “Wow. You got old.”

Hermione sniffed. “Please. By the standards of the magical world, I’m still quite young.” She gave an awed look at Megan. “You’re just the same as I remember. You know, there have been times when I thought I might have imagined you. Especially since the real Megan acts very different from you.”

“It was real,” Megan breathed. “I was really a witch. I could really do magic. I really met my heroes.”

“Yes,” Hermione said, a note of sadness in her voice. “Unfortunately, Megan, you’re not a witch anymore. You’re still an ordinary muggle. Well, a Muggle, at any rate. I don’t think one could ever classify you as ordinary.”

“So everything worked out?” Megan said eagerly. “Voldemort never returned? You had a quiet time in school?”

Hermione nodded. “It was honestly quite boring when you compare it to the books. But there was certainly more time for our studies when we weren’t fighting to our lives. And so many people still live who otherwise would have died.”

“So…this is it?” Megan said, emotional pain surging through her. “You’ve gotten confirmation I’m okay, and this is where we part the ways?”

A devious expression appeared on Hermione’s face. She was far more confident now than she used to be. This was a woman who could move empires. She was marked for greatness and it showed in every bit of who she was. “Not quite,” Hermione said. “For the past three decades, I’ve been working for a singular purpose: ending the division between Muggles and mages once and for all. Humanity – magical and otherwise – is stagnating. And the only way to fix it is to allow us to achieve our true potential, without an invisible line dividing us.”

“It sounds like you’ve become a supervillain, Hermione,” Megan said, only half-jokingly.

Hermione laughed. “Nothing quite as fun as that, I’m afraid. After quite a bit of political maneuvering, the Muggle and magical world governments have come to an agreement to transition into a full age of magic. The global water supply is about to be imbued with specially made potions that will transform the DNA of all humans so that all future babies are going to be magical.”

“It’s going to be one hell of a transition period,” Megan warned her. “People will die. Probably quite a few of them. The backlash will be inconceivably damaging at best.”

“And that’s why I’ve come to ask you to take on a job working for the Granger Foundation, an organization with footholds in both worlds. A part think tank, part scientific research foundation, and part advocacy group dedicated to making the transition as smooth as possible. We have need of your brilliant mind, Megan. And…I miss my best friend.” She held out a hand. “What do you say?”

“As if you even need to ask,” Megan said and took her best friend’s hand.

*****

Kevin opened his eyes and immediately realized that he was in a hospital bed. Wow. He really thought his injuries were fatal, but they must not have been.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Kev,” a voice with a British accent called out, and Kevin watched as Harry Potter himself walked through the door. Harry may have been thirty years older, but Kevin would recognize that smile anywhere. “Surprised to see me?”

“Yeah, a bit. Actually –” He shot bolt upright in the bed. “MY STUDENTS!” he shouted. “Are they okay? What happened? How many are dead?”

Harry kept him in suspense, the little bastard, for the better part of thirty seconds. “None of them. Kevin, you saved them all.” Kevin breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I think you’re gonna get a medal or something. I’ll be quick because I know your family will be here soon. I’m okay. Everyone’s okay. It all turned out okay.”

“What about Sirius?” Kevin wondered.

“Sirius is fine too. They gave him a trial and he somehow managed to get off on a technicality. He’s living in Mexico now – everyone in Britain still thinks he’s guilty. But the people who matter know the truth.”

Kevin couldn’t help but grin. “Well, thanks.” He cleared his throat. “So…can I ask who you ended up with? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I actually ended up with Ron,” Harry said with a sheepish smile. “Sorry to crush your Hinny dreams.”

Kevin shrugged. It was one thing when he was writing about fictional characters, but now that Harry was real, he probably wasn’t ever going to write Harry Potter fanfic again. “No matter. I can read Rarry fanfics instead. Hon? I don’t really know the ship name…”

“Actually, you can’t,” Harry said, sounding apologetic. “The books were never written. Last I heard, J. K. Rowling was cast out of the magical world for being an unregistered Animagus. I think she’s a teacher now? Either way, not a household name, that’s for sure.” Kevin felt very satisfied. Having the very fame that Rowling used to hurt people taken away from her seemed a very fitting fate for her.

Kevin nodded. “Well, thanks for giving me closure, anyway.”

“Actually, I’m here to give you more than that,” Harry said, leaning back and smirking a little. “I happen to be the headmaster of Hogwarts.”

“Congratulations!” Kevin said. He always thought Harry had the making of a fine teacher. His stint teaching the DA in Order of the Phoenix was ample proof of that.

“And we have need of a new Muggle studies professor…”

Kevin could feel his eyes lighting up. Maybe he’d never be able to use magic again, but at least he’d be able to return to Hogwarts. “I’m in!” he said. “I mean, of course, I’d have to clear it with my family,” he quickly added, “but if they’re good, I’m in!”

Harry opened his mouth to say something else, but the door opened before he could do so. Chloe and Derek ran in. Derek grabbed Kevin and put him in a hug so tight it made Kevin’s ribs hurt.

“Don’t you ever do that again, Dad!” Derek said between sobs. “I can’t lose you!”  

“I’m with Derek,” Chloe said fervently. “You’ve been in a coma for the better part of a year, sweetheart!”  

“I missed you so much, my love,” Kevin said, gazing into Chloe’s beautiful eyes for the first time in ages. He really thought for a long while he’d never see her again. He’d never been so happy to be wrong.

Chloe cleared her throat and gestured at Harry pointedly. “Oh, right,” Kevin said sheepishly. “This is Harry Potter, a friend of mine from a long time ago.” It was surreal saying that name and it provoking absolutely no recognition in their eyes. “We were pen pals back when I was younger than your age, Derek.”

“When I heard about his injuries on the news, I decided I absolutely had to be there for him,” Harry said, giving Chloe a firm handshake. “As a matter of fact, I happen to run an educational institution that I think can benefit from my good friend’s unique qualities.”

“Where would we be going, Dad?” Derek said, sounding intrigued.

“Somewhere magical, Derek,” Kevin said. “Somewhere truly magical.”

THE END