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Chapter Text

In this short Life 

That only lasts an hour 

How much—how little—is 

Within our power 

Emily Dickinson 

Prologue

None living can say for certain how an object gains sentience.  

A wicked bit of wand work can have your kettle sing and your dishes dance, but true sentience is something else entirely. 

Muggles and wizards alike have studied the phenomenon over the millennia. An entire department of the Ministry of Magic exists deep in the bowels of the building dedicated to studying sentient objects and their origins. 

For Article 7862—a time turner on loan to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—awareness came upon it all at once, like breaking through the surface of a deep lake.  

It came into its awareness of the world and its workings, the history of everything that ever was or would be blazing through the sands, in a moment of convergence.  

Time is a river with many tributaries. Each one twisting, forking, curling in on itself. The rivers of time are endless, but not without boundaries. Some timestreams are circular, closed loops, repeating until the end of existence, each cycle unalterable and perfect in its inevitability.  

Just before the closing of a loop, however, there are moments when the current shifts, when the water surges and the path becomes uncertain. Those are the moments that matter: where a single choice, a single word, a single glance can carve out new futures, loosening the loop just enough to make a change.  

A moment of convergence.  

Perhaps it was the converging of a timeline that woke Article 7862, or perhaps it had something to do with the boy— young man— whose palm it woke clutched in, the sands inside the delicate little hourglass burning white hot in his cold hand. So hot the metal made welts pucker up on the surface of his skin.  

The year was 1980. 

Severus Snape crouched in the grubby hallway of the Hog’s Head, overhearing a prophecy that would change the fates of so many.  

He hissed and let it drop into the pocket of his outer robes. 

For all its lifetimes and turnings, the many hands it had passed through before, there were no attachments formed before this one. This human. 

Even as he pressed his ear to the door to listen to the voices on the other side, the time-turner was drawn to him. From its place against his palm, it had felt all of his potential: there was the potential for cruelty, but also for kindness, for self-sacrifice, and most important of all, for hope. 

It was in that moment—just before the barman would discover him and throw him out into the night, just before Severus Snape would run back to his master and relay the words he’d heard—that Article 7862 assessed the ever-tightening loop of his timeline and made a choice. 

It surveyed his life: the sadness, isolation, and regret that dogged his entire timeline, and the brutal, unsatisfying end closing in ahead.  

Then it wondered, as most sentient things are wont to do, what it was made for. 

According to the laws of time, a life must be lived, the ending as sharply defined as the beginning, but—it mused—a life needn’t be all suffering and sadness. 

With careful precision, Article 7862 loosened a few strings in the fabric of time, leaving just the barest bit of wiggle room in the young man’s future...for hope. 

But this is not a story about the first convergence, nor the second. Nor is it a story about Severus Snape—at least, not solely about him. 

This is a story about the third convergence. A moment that opened up a little rift in the timeline, just wide enough to change the trajectory or three lives and bind them together irrevocably. 

Wednesday, 11th June 2014

Sunlight dappled her skin and hair as Elinor stretched out on the cool grass under her favourite old oak tree on the bank of the Black Lake. Birds twittered in the Dark Forest nearby, and she could hear the faint sounds of laughter from the students leaving the greenhouses. She’d had a free period this morning after Charms, and had decided a nap in the grass was long overdue.  

A strong gust of warm summer wind picked up a few strands of her black curls, and Elinor smiled as they tickled her nose. Opening her eyes slowly, she let her gaze wander from the gently swaying branches above her, to the white wisps of clouds slowly rolling across the perfectly blue sky. 

She startled when a schoolbag landed in the grass nearby with a soft whump.  

A moment later Cordelia’s gentle English lilt filled the air. “Dozing like a lazy cow,” Cordelia teased lightheartedly, flopping down in the grass beside Elinor. “I’m jealous.” 

Elinor turned to face her friend, a goofy smile spreading across her face.

Cordelia smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "You look like the cat who ate the canary. What’s got you so pleased then?” She prodded Elinor’s calf with her foot. The charming ginger bob that framed her face had begun to frizz slightly in the heat of the day. 

Elinor pulled herself up partway, head resting on her arm.  

“I’ve been invited to a party by a rather dashing young man,” Elinor confided with a giggle.  

Cordelia’s mouth formed a little ‘o’ of surprise before spreading into a wide, knowing grin. “Elinor O’Connell, you minx,” she said, nudging Elinor again, “Hamish Chase?” 

Elinor nodded. “The very same.” 

“He invited you to the farewell bonfire?”  

Elinor nodded again, smile growing wider. 

Cordelia let out a low whistle. “Wow,” she said. “When did this happen?” 

“In the corridor after Charms class,” Elinor gushed excitedly, absently twirling a lock of her curly dark hair. “He asked me in front of his friends, and half the Ravenclaw fourth years. 

The two girls squealed in delight, startling a flock of sparrows from the branches above.  

“Good job, you,” Cordelia breathed, once they’d settled down to lay on the grass once more. “I knew you had it in you.” 

“Thanks,” Elinor said, smiling brightly up at the green leaves. “It only took the entire term to bring him around to the idea.” 

Cordelia snorted.  

“Hamish Chase rarely ever dates anyone, you know,” Cordelia explained, smiling wider at Elinor, “but he’d be mad not to fall for you.” 

“Nonsense,” Elinor said, waving her hand as if to swat away Cordelia’s words. “I just wore him down is all.” 

“With all that wistful sighing and staring?” Cordelia teased.  

They were silent a moment before Cordelia asked the question that had been on Elinor’s mind all day. 

“Are you ready for Potions today?” Her tone was careful, gentle, as though she were afraid Elinor might spook like a thestral.  

“No,” Elinor answered honestly, turning over once more to face her friend on the lawn. “But I’ve spent months on this ruddy project, so it’s now or never.” 

Cordelia offered her a soft smile, cheek dimpling on one side. 

Elinor felt a wave of affection for her friend. It was strange, how in just one short year they’d managed to become closer than any friends Elinor had made over the past three years at Ilvermorny.  

Looking past Cordelia, she studied the hulking form of Hogwarts Castle, with its towers and turrets. Another wave of affection welled up in her, nearly bringing her to tears. A year ago, Elinor had thought Ilvermorny her home, but now- 

“Elinor,” Cordelia interrupted her train of thought. She met Elinor’s curious gaze with a serious expression. “I don’t want you to leave.” 

Elinor looked away, afraid she might cry if Cordelia continued on with this kind of talk. 

“I’m serious,” Cordelia said. “I know term is almost over, but what if you come stay with us for the summer? Mum and dad will adore you; I know it.” 

Elinor smiled sadly, blinking back tears. “Cordelia, I--” 

The distant clanging of the lunch bell reached their spot beneath the oak trees, and Elinor turned to gaze at the castle and the faraway figures of students heading inside. 

“We ought to go in,” Elinor said softly, unable to meet Cordelia’s gaze.  

She pushed herself up onto her knees, but before she could stand up, Cordelia’s hand reached out and took hold of her wrist.  

“Just promise me you’ll consider the idea, yeah?” Cordelia asked her, squeezing Elinor’s wrist gently. 

Elinor risked a look at her friend and the earnest jut of Cordelia’s chin, her raised brows and shining eyes brought a smile to Elinor’s face.  

“Promise,” she agreed, turning her palm over and sliding her cool hand into Cordelia’s warm one. Together they stood and made their way across the sloping lawn to the castle. 

Satisfied with Elinor’s answer, Cordelia turned their conversation back to the subject of tomorrow’s party and Hamish Chase, the handsome Gryffindor beater Elinor had been eyeing all year. They giggled and whispered the entire way into the Great Hall. She let Cordelia drag her over to their usual group and squeezed herself between the leggy redhead and her fellow Ilvermorny YOWL Exchange student, Sasha. 

“Where’ve the two of you been sneaking off to?” Sasha asked, eyeing them suspiciously through her wispy blonde bangs.  

“Only snogging in the forest,” Cordelia said loudly, winking at Elinor. 

Elinor couldn’t help the spots of pink that rose to her cheeks. She kicked her friend under the table and avoided Sasha’s scandalized face.  

“Oi, I thought that was our thing, El,” Jaimie Gelthorn, a fellow Ravenclaw fourth year, joked from Cordelia’s other side.  

“Would you two pack it in?” Maeve piped up from across the table. “She’ll turn into a tomato soon if you don’t stop teasing her.” 

Elinor ducked her head and focused on shoveling a bite of warm pasta into her mouth. 

She quite liked the Ravenclaw prefect. Maeve Hartley was a year above her, like Cordelia, but never treated anyone as though they were younger or less accomplished. She was smart, and fair, and friendly. Quite pretty too, with long braids of dark hair and warm brown eyes in a heart-shaped face. 

“Anyway, while you two were off breaking school rules, no doubt,” Sasha broke in, “the Headmistress announced there’s a guest speaker for tomorrow’s seminar.” 

Despite both of them being from Ilvermorny, Elinor and Sasha Holmes hadn’t been friends before their selection for the Young Outstanding Wizarding Leadership Seminar, or YOWL for short. Sasha was nice enough, a short, rounded fourth year, with a sweet face and a knack for Transfiguration. At Ilvermorny they were in different houses, though, and rarely had any classes together.  

“ Well ,” Cordelia demanded from around a mouthful of egg and cress sandwich, “who is it then?” 

Sasha sniffed in disapproval but continued on as if Cordelia hadn’t spoken. “It’s someone from the Ministry, a higher up.” 

“Wait.” Elinor drew her brows together. “She didn’t say who it’s going to be?” 

Cordelia snorted. “McGonagall does like to keep an air of mystery about things.” 

“That’s Headmistress to you,” Maeve corrected Cordelia sharply, “or Professor McGonagall .”  

Cordelia rolled her eyes and took another bite of egg and cress. 

“Well, my money’s on your dad, Cordy,” Jaimie said, bumping the girl’s shoulder with his own larger one. 

Cordelia groaned, swallowing the food in her mouth.  

“He’s not a higher up,” she tried to argue. 

“He’s the head of the whole Department of Mysteries,” Maeve interjected, raising an eyebrow at Cordelia.  

Elinor enjoyed these interactions between her new friends, the lighthearted banter, and the musical quality of their accents. She loathed the idea of returning to Ilvermorny in a few short weeks or spending the summer at her uncle's crowded apartment in New York City. She wished her mom was alive and they still lived in their little cottage in New Hampshire, with its yard full of wildflowers, and the big, leafy oak trees her mom had built her a treehouse in when she was little.  

When her mom succumbed to kidney failure last summer, Elinor had been forced to pack up her belongings and move to her uncle Jon’s fourth floor walk-up in Brooklyn with his two teenaged sons and his wife who always found something to complain about. Usually, it was Elinor. Her hair was too thick, and the strands clogged up the bathtub, or her music was too loud, her clothes too strange, her accent too rural, her school too far away. More than anything, Elinor wished she could spend the summer with Cordelia and her parents in Wales. Whoever they were, they’d be a far sight better than Uncle Jon and Aunt Sue.  

“Who’s your guess, Elinor?” Maeve asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. 

Elinor blinked and the Great Hall came back into focus, with the four faces of her friends staring at her. 

“Oh, um,” she cleared her throat, trying to remember what they’d been discussing before she’d gotten lost in her thoughts.  

“Who do you think the surprise guest speaker’s going to be?” Jaimie asked gently after a moment. 

“What about Harry Potter?” Elinor asked, putting forth the first famous British Ministry person she could think of. 

Maeve scoffed. “He’s old hat now. His wife’s more famous than he is.” 

“His friends are all more famous, too,” Cordelia said, spearing a French fry from Elinor’s forgotten plate. 

“Are they?” Elinor asked absently. Despite having spent a year in History of Magic, Elinor could still only name a handful of British witches and wizards outside of the 17th century. They’d never even made it to the modern age or any of the wizarding wars. Elinor had done a little research before attending the study abroad seminar, just to brush up on her vague understanding of English wizarding laws, histories, and customs. But beyond Harry Potter, the boy who defeated Lord Voldemort, she remembered very little else.  

After that, a contentious disagreement broke out amongst her friends about which of the “Golden Trio” was the most famous currently.  

It concluded when Cordelia insisted that it had to be the youngest ever and current Minister for Magic of Great Britain and Ireland. 

“Who’s that again?” Elinor whispered, leaning closer to Sasha so as not to be overheard by her overzealous friends.  

“Hermione Granger,” Sasha whispered back. 

“Right,” Elinor nodded. She couldn’t recall ever having heard that name before. “Thanks.” 

The bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch hour. Elinor stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder and waving goodbye to the others.  

“Do you want me to walk you there?” Cordelia asked in a low voice, so as not to be overheard. 

Elinor waved her off with a brave face. “It’ll be fine,” she assured her friend. 

Cordelia continued to watch her with concern as Elinor and Sasha made their way out of the Great Hall and down the staircase towards the dungeons. Potions was one of Elinor’s favourite subjects, and one of her best. Each Ilvermorny YOWL seminar student was able to choose one subject to complete an independent research project in, and Elinor had chosen Potions.  

Mistress DuMaurier, the Potions mistress on loan from Beauxbatons Academy in France, was famed for her brewing style and several notable inventions in the field. Not only had Elinor been excited to learn from the best, but she’d been eager also to use the opportunity to brew a very special potion. Consanguinea.   

Last year, this particular potion wouldn’t have given her the kind of thrill it did now. Back then, if Professor Linestor at Ilvermorny had assigned the Consanguinea potion to the class, Elinor would’ve been sure of all of the names that would appear on her family tree. But that was before her mother’s diagnosis, before the failed dialysis, and Elinor’s offer to donate one of her own kidneys. Before the results of the test had sent her lifelong certainty of who she was out the window. 

All year Elinor had poured herself into her independent research project, and today, the potion she’d spent months preparing was finally complete. 

Sasha knew a little bit about Elinor’s research project, the potion, and the reason why Elinor needed it. She stayed quiet on their walk down to the dungeons, seeming to sense Elinor wasn’t in the mood to fill the silence with chatter today.  

They entered the classroom side-by-side and sat down together at a long bench in the third row. Sasha had chosen her independent research project in Transfiguration, so she did what the other Hogwarts students did in Potions and completed the weekly assignments given them by Mistress DuMaurier.  

As if summoned by a thought, the woman herself appeared in the doorway to the classroom. Mistress DuMaurier was a petite woman with close-cropped curly hair and a youthful round face. She wore voluminous robes in rich brocades, usually made of silk or satin, that whispered against the stone floors as she walked. This gave her the appearance of a much taller person, and her presence in the classroom brought a hush over the students, as it always did.  

She waved her wand a with a little flourish, snapping closed the shutters on the windows set high into the walls. Two students who hadn’t noticed her arrival, and were whispering to each other, jumped in surprise.  

A second flick of her wand sent the instructions for today’s lesson onto the blackboard.  

“Now class, this will be our last session together this term. We have one student completing her independent research project today, so let’s all please give her our utmost respect as stay quiet in our final stages of brewing the Pepper-Up Potion. Your instructions are on the board.” 

The classroom grew silent, save for the shuffling of feet, clinking of glass vials, and the low hum of the flames as the student began gathering their supplies and preparing their cauldrons for brewing. 

Elinor pulled out a blank sheaf of parchment. She measured out the two feet required by the potion’s instructions. Then she got in the cue for the storeroom to gather her saved work, and the final two ingredients she’d need today.  

After a few minutes, she had her supplies and returned to light the little fire beneath her cauldron, opening the old tome that held the instructions for the Consanguinea. The sounds of bubbling cauldrons filled the otherwise silent room, and Mistress DuMaurier sat down behind her desk and began marking the final assignments.  

Sweat began to pool in the collar of Elinor’s shirt as she bent over the cauldron, stirring the salamander eyes in with ten anticlockwise stirs of a golden rod. Most difficult of all with Consanguinea, were the expensive ingredients and special metals necessary for the cauldron and stirring rods at different steps of the brewing process. This had required Elinor to write a request to the Headmistress for the extra funds to purchase a pure golden stirring rod, Thestral tears, and the dander of a Demiguise. 

Headmistress McGonagall agreed to the requests immediately, offering extra funds for the purchase of a platinum cauldron recommended, but not required. Elinor wrote back expressing her gratitude, and the two shared a polite smile whenever they passed each other.  

Mistress DuMaurier likewise had been extremely helpful throughout the entirety of the research and brewing for the Consanguinea. Elinor would never have found Guillermo Banderos’s revisions of the original brew if not for the Potions Mistress lending Elinor several books from her own personal research library.  

This had led to the discovery of a hack Banderos had found that cut the brewing time down by nearly three whole weeks when he added powdered doxy egg at the beginning of the eleventh step and brought it to a flash boil before simmering the brew for a further two hours.  

Elinor had spent a great many hours after class in the dungeons, brewing under Madam DuMaurier’s watchful eye, as the potion demanded more time for stirring and simmering than a single or double Potions class period would allow.  

Now, it all came down to the final few steps. Wiping her forehead with the back of one trembling hand, Elinor squinted down at the aging pages of instruction. Two final clockwise stirs with a golden rod, and the colour should become translucent.  

She let the golden stirring rod sweep across the simmering purple brew in one steady clockwise stir.  

There! She thought, does it look lighter?  

The second stir of the golden rod appeared to pull the remaining pigment from the liquid, and all at once, she was able to see clear through to the platinum bottom of the cauldron. 

A sigh of relief ruffled the parchment spread out on the workspace beside her. Blinking several times to clear her vision, Elinor bent over the instructions once again. 

Now, for the results of the Consanguinea, lay out two feet of parchment on a clean work surface, and using a dropper, place three drops of the clear brew in the middle of the parchment.  

Elinor’s hands shook as she reached for the clean dropper on her work bench. She squeezed them several times and wiped them on her school skirt in an attept to ease the tension built up in them. Then, with steadier nerves, she gathered a dropperful of the completed Consanguinea.   

Images of her family tree flashed through her mind, and she couldn’t help the little bubble of excited nerves that buzzed in her sternum at the thought of finally finding out the identities of her birth parents. Since the day the doctor’s had sat her down to tell her that not only was she not a good match for the kidney donation, but she and her mother were so dissimilar the doctor’s had ordered a blood test.  

They’d been fearful Elinor was a victim of kidnapping, it was later revealed. These things did happen. So they had shared the revelation with only her, a fourteen-year-old girl already frightened of losing her one remaining parent. When it became clear that her mother Evelyn had no idea Elinor wasn’t her biological daughter, they’d apologized profusely and offered to talk directly with the hospital where she was born to get to the bottom of the situation. 

Elinor knew little more now than she had back then. The hospital she was born at could only apologize and offer up the information that one live birth and one stillbirth had been recorded the evening Elinor was born, but that the medical records were sealed. There was no legal recourse for the hospital, for the accidental switching of the babies, and no contact information available for the other mother who had given birth. 

This revelation had broken something in Evelyn O’Connell, who was already suffering from acute kidney failure. Dialasis wasn't working well. Their last few days together were spent in conversation, as Evelyn begged Elinor to find her birth mom, who was out there somewhere, believing her daughter had been stillborn. She’d apologized to Elinor profusely, though none of it had been her fault. Then she’d thanked Elinor for giving her fourteen wonderful years of motherhood. 

Tears came unbidden to Elinor’s eyes at the thought of her mom, but she blinked them away, focusing once more on the blank parchment and the dropper full of answers.  

The first drop of potion hissed as it spilled onto the parchment.  

The second drop bloomed like ink in water, delicate lines of pale blue colour spreading outwards. 

Mistress DuMaurier walked amongst the chattering students and bubbling cauldrons of the dungeon classroom. From the shuttered windows, set high in the stone walls, the distant sounds of birds floated in, chittering away in the trees. The soft chatter of students, the rhythmic clinking of stirrers in cauldrons all fell away as Elinor leaned over the parchment, holding her breath. The sound of her own heartbeat rushed in her ears as she watched the third drop ripple with a silvery sheen. 

Out from the drop of shimmering liquid, lines of swirling ink curled and swooped across the page. In minutes, the lines spread across the parchment, spanning out to the edges until the entire two feet were filled with an intricately drawn tree. Amongst the branches and leaves were blank spaces for the names of Elinor’s family members.   

She finally let out the breath she’d been holding. It worked.    

Now came the final, most crucial step. 

With a murmured spell, Elinor carefully pricked the tip of her thumb. A small droplet of blood welled up, which she pressed to the parchment in the spot reserved for her name, a blank space nestled in the trunk of the tree.  

For an anxious moment, nothing happened. Then, the drop of her blood began to glow an iridescent blue, an indication of her magic.  

In a beautiful swooping script, her own name appeared. 

Elinor Isolde O’Connell  

She leaned forward, transfixed as a line snaked upwards from her name, splitting in two at the top. Both forks glowing blue to indicate a magical lineage. 

Elinor sucked in a breath.  

She had sensed it, that her birth parents must be magical. Elinor had grown up no-maj until eleven when she received her letter to attend Ilvermorny. But since the moment she’d discovered she was not Evelyn O’Connell’s biological daughter, she’d wondered who her biological parents could be.  

Elinor’s brow furrowed as more lines emerged, moving upwards before splitting in two again. Some glowed, and some did not, indicating non-magical heritage on one side of her family tree. She waited for names to appear in the blank spots. 

A minute passed, and then another. The process of drawing lines appeared to be completed, but no names aside from her own had materialized in the blank spaces.  

Her hand shot up instinctively. 

“Yes, Elinor?” Mistress DuMaurier asked from the front of the room. “Have you completed your project?” 

Elinor didn’t respond, staring blankly at her parchment, afraid to look away and miss the revelation of the information she’d been waiting nearly a year for.  

She felt the air around her shift as Mistress DuMaurier arrived at her desk. Elinor’s voice was already shaking as she murmured, “maybe three drops weren’t enough.”  

Elinor finally dragged her gaze away from the parchment to gaze hopefully up at her teacher. Tears welled up in her eyes and she quickly blinked them away, feeling foolish. 

 “Aren’t there supposed to be names or something?” asked Sasha from beside her. “Why’s it blank?”   

“The lines are blue?” asked Camden Web, a Slytherin fourth year, from the workspace behind them. 

Elinor could feel the gazes of several other curious faces as they craned their necks to catch a glimpse of her parchment. Tears of embarrassment and shame began to well up in her eyes. She attempted to swallow the lump currently rising in her throat. 

"I thought she was muggleborn?” Camden asked, in a loud whisper that seemed to echo through the quiet classroom. 

The whispers continued, gathering around her as she willed herself not to cry. Mistress DuMaurier dismissed the class with a few well wishes for a good summer, but there were some grumbles as the students began to gather their things and leave. Once the last of them had left, she closed the door behind them and placed her hand on Elinor’s shoulder. 

Elinor swallowed thickly but found herself unable to form the words to ask the questions she wanted answers to. Mistress DuMaurier interpreted her silence correctly and began to explain. 

“There is a spell I’m aware of,” Mistress DuMaurier began in a careful tone. “An old spell from the Dark Ages of witch hunts that can mask the blood. I’ve seen it before, during my mastery. The master I apprenticed for, he had me use a drop of his own blood for the potion. Like yours, it was his name alone that appeared on the parchment. Lines flowed from his, but the other names were hidden.” 

“The spell gained popularity during the Second Wizarding War against the man who called himself Lord Voldemort.” This name she spoke more quietly, voice dwindling to a whisper before continuing on as normal. “It was a way to protect ones’ family from target, particularly those with one or both non-magical parents.” 

She stopped talking, but Elinor felt no less confused than before. 

“Your mother--” Mistress DuMaurier began, but Elinor cut her off. 

“She wasn’t my,” Elinor started, swallowing down more tears, “my birth mother.” 

"Oh,” Mistress DuMaurier exclaimed. “I didn’t know.” 

Elinor nodded blankly. “We found out last summer, before she died.” 

Mistress DuMaurier squeezed Elinor’s shoulder again. “I’m so sorry, Elinor.” 

“Is there a way to reveal their names?” Her voice shook, but Elinor soldiered on. “I want to find them, my birth parents.”  

“No,” Mistress DuMaurier turned her gaze back to the parchment. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so. Do you have any other information about them?” 

Elinor shook her head, finally letting go of the tears she’d been fighting to hold back. She looked down at her parchment, at the blank spaces and glowing blue lines. “No,” she whispered, “nothing.” 

She felt strangely empty, hollowed out. When her mother died, she’d been beside herself with grief, made all the more acute by the added pain of leaving her childhood home behind and moving in with people who hardly knew or understood her at all. But even then, through all of it, she’d had this secret little feeling of hope, lodged somewhere beneath all the sadness.  

Elinor had thought that if she could just find them, everything might be okay. 

She wouldn’t be alone in the world anymore. 

- 

Cordelia attempted to drag Elinor from her four-poster bed for dinner, despite her protests. Her eyes were rimmed red from crying all afternoon, and she felt like she’d been run over by the Hogwarts Express. 

“I can’t face them,” Elinor whispered as Cordelia tried to gently coax her out from underneath the covers. 

“I can talk to them for you,” Cordelia soothed. “Nobody will mention it.” 

Elinor sniffled. “They’ll still be thinking about it. I don’t want anyone’s pity.” 

Cordelia nodded, sitting down beside Elinor. 

“I heard from Sasha that the spaces where their names should be were blank,” Cordelia said, her tone soft. 

Elinor nodded. “Mistress DuMaurier,” she swallowed around a lump in her throat, “she said it was some kind of spell that masks the blood. Something to protect people during the war.” 

Cordelia looked pensieve.  

“I can ask my dad,” she offered. “He might know how to reverse it.” 

Elinor let out a little sob and shook her head.  

“She said nothing could reverse it.” 

Cordelia was quiet for a long time, letting Elinor lean against her for support. Dinner was long over by the time Sasha sauntered into the dorm, offering them a quiet ‘hullo,’ before disappearing into the shared bathroom to complete her nightly routine. 

Elinor’s stomach grumbled. 

“Let’s sneak down to the kitchens,” Cordelia suggested, her breath ghosting over the top of Elinor’s head. The two of them had settled closer, with Elinor’s head resting in the crook of Cordelia’s neck. 

“What if we’re caught?” Elinor asked, not moving from the comfortable position. 

Cordelia scoffed, blowing another little puff of air over Elinor’s curls. “Term ends in two days, what are they going to do?” 

“Keep us here?” Elinor suggested with a smile. “Lock us in the dungeons?” 

Cordelia reached up to tug on a stray curl of Elinor’s. “It wouldn’t be so terrible,” she whispered, “we’d be together.” 

Elinor hid her smile in Cordelia’s shoulder, a strange fluttering feeling building up in her stomach. To distract from the sensation, she agreed, “let’s go to the kitchens, then.” 

If Cordelia had felt the same kind of anxious flutterings, her face didn’t reflect it. Elinor studied her carefully as the two stood from the four poster, stretching and yawning. Some strange desire to take hold of Cordelia’s hand came over Elinor on their silent walk through the dark corridors, but she resisted the urge, twisting her fingers into the folds of her cloak instead. 

They made it to the painting of an overflowing bowl of fruit, and Cordelia instructed Elinor to tickle the pear, which prompted the hidden door to swing open. Despite the lateness of the hour, the house elves of Hogwarts were still hard at work, some of them bustling about the large kitchen with buckets of soapy water and mops, others preparing breakfast for the following morning.  

The two girls were treated to a veritable feast by the eager creatures, who continued to pile leftovers onto their plates long after their stomachs had ceased to grumble. It was with a bit of effort and many thanks that Elinor and Cordelia were finally able to make their exit from the kitchens.  

“I don’t think I’ll be hungry again for at least a week,” Elinor joked as she slid the secret door closed behind them.  

Cordelia chuckled, and began to speak before pausing and turning to Elinor with wide eyes. 

A pair of footsteps could be heard just around the corner from where they stood in the darkened corridor. There wasn’t time to sneak back into the kitchens, nor to run down the opposite way. They stood frozen in fear, clutching each others hands as a familiar figure rounded the corner, holding her wand aloft. The light emanating from the tip fell over them both, illuminating their comically frozen faces. 

“Miss Bailey, Miss O’Connell,” the Headmistress sputtered in surprise. “What the devil are the two of you doing out of bed?” 

The girls looked at each other as though trying to decide who should play representative. When neither of them spoke up quickly enough for the Headmistress’s liking, she snapped at them. 

“Curfew began more than an hour ago,” she said tersely, “explain yourselves.” 

“We’re sorry, Headmistress,” Elinor said, shuffling her feet nervously. “Cordelia missed dinner because of me, and we were hungry.” 

“Is that so?” Headmistress McGonagall asked, raising her eyebrows and looking at Cordelia in question. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Cordelia said, nodding her head. “Elinor received some upsetting news today, and wasn’t feeling well.” 

“Hmph,” the Headmistress grumbled, looking back at Elinor. “Yes, I heard about the results of your research project Miss O’Connell. I’m sorry you didn’t receive the outcome you’d hoped for.” 

Her gaze softened. “The end of term is nearly upon us,” she said, “I trust I won’t find the two of you out after curfew again?” 

The girls shook their heads, murmuring, “No ma’am.” 

The Headmistress sniffed, and gestured for them to take their leave.  

“Thank you ma’am,” Elinor called out as they hurried back to their dorm.  

- 

Back in the Headmistress’s office Minerva sat on the loveseat in front of the fireplace, staring absently into the flames. Though summer was upon them now, the old stones of the castle still held a chill. 

In the midnight silence, only the sounds of several softly whirring magical instruments could be heard over the crackling of the fire. Over the years, several objects had ceased their whirring, spinning, and sputtering. But Minerva rarely ever paid them any mind at all. 

She didn’t care to know the workings of the old artifacts, nor did she worry much as dust settled over them. In her mind, the timeless treasures were an homage to her predecessor, Albus Dumbledore, and nothing more. Once in a very great while, she spared a glance toward the shelves, but usually her stares were empty, thoughts focused inward. 

“Minerva?” A quiet voice broke through the silence of the office, making the Headmistress jump in surprise.  

She righted herself with a sniff and looked up at the painted face of Albus Dumbledore’s portrait. “Yes, Albus?” 

He rarely spoke to her these days, preferring to spend a significant amount of time in his other gilded frame at the Ministry of Magic, in one of the courtrooms that housed portraits of former Supreme Mugwumps of the International Confederacy of Wizards. There, he pretended to doze, whilst listening in on the current goings on at the Ministry.  

This year he’d been more talkative than most, however.  

“It’s nearly time, don’t you think?” He asked cryptically. 

“You speak of the girl again?” Minerva asked, tired from the day and Albus’s tendency to talk in riddles.  

“It is her, isn’t it?” He asked. “Elinor?”  

Minerva met his painted gaze and nodded, “I believe so.”  

Albus’s portrait didn’t respond right away but stayed silent. Eventually he spoke in a slow, measured tone.  

“I believe it might be time for the Mirror of Erised to make its way to the fourth-floor corridor,” he advised. 

The Headmistress frowned, glancing at her calendar. The end of term was mere days away. All year she’d been asking Albus how and when it would happen, to no avail. 

“What does the mirror have to do with anything?” She asked, annoyed with Albus’s cryptic messages. 

He huffed out a little laugh. She glared up at him. 

“You know as well as I, Minerva,” Albus chided, “that there’s little I can tell you that wouldn’t disrupt the timeline.” 

Minerva continued to frown, standing to pace in front of the crackling fire. “She’s been here all term, Albus. Why now?” 

“Because soon she will go looking for answers,” he continued. “That's when she'll find it.” 

Minerva stopped her movements and let her shoulders sag in defeat . 

Curiosity got the better of her, then, and she found herself voicing the question quite before the thought had finished coalescing in her mind. “What will she see in the mirror?” 

He chuckled again. 

She longed to throw one of his particularly heavy antique crystal balls at his portrait. 

“My dear, I cannot say.” 

“Then how do you know she will find it here?” Minerva asked, "At Hogwarts?” 

He smiled, and she would swear the paint on his eyes twinkled. “Because she already has.” 

“But that’s--” Minerva flapped her hand at him. “That’s absurd, Albus.” 

“You know it’s true, Minerva,” Albus said with a level of patience that grated on her last nerve. “You’ve seen her before.” 

Minerva huffed, cheeks reddening in anger. “Well, so what?” 

The painting blinked at her in surprise. “So what?” 

“Yes,” she growled. “What if I don’t want to be complicit in your scheming anymore, Albus? It’s been 17 years!” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “For once in your after life, just let it alone.” 

Silence descended for several minutes, and Minerva, cheeks still tinged with pink, felt a bit embarrassed by her outburst. This wasn’t the real Albus Dumbledore, anyway. She’d let herself get all worked up over a clever spell and a few strokes of paint on canvas.  

Then he spoke again, his voice sounding every bit as real as she remembered. 

“Move the mirror, Minerva,” he said softly, “please.” 

It was the plea that did her in. It worked the way it always had when he was alive. 

“Fine,” she agreed tersely. “By the end of the week.” 

“Tonight,” he insisted, tone firm and unyielding. 

Blood rose high in her cheeks again, but she only nodded in silence, pursing her lips to hold back a sharp comment. She walked over to her desk and tapped her fingers over the stack of letters she’d meant to read this evening, glancing at the glint of gold on the edge of her vision.  

Since she’d discovered it in the Shrieking Shack after the disappearance of Severus Snape’s body, Minerva had hardly spared a second thought for the little golden object. Seeing that it was emptied of its sands, and cold to the touch, the rings swiveling uselessly as she examined it, Minerva had slipped it into her pocket. 

A day or two later, after the preliminary cleanup of the other deceased from the battle, she had reached her hand into her pocket and been surprised to find it still there.  

When his portrait remained empty, Minerva had often wondered of the fate of the late Potions professor and Headmaster. She’d half expected to see his corporeal form skulking about the dungeons, but there seemed to be no signs of him anywhere, as a portrait or a ghost. It was almost as if he’d never existed in the first place, except for the dark patches of dried blood staining the floor of the Shrieking Shack. 

Perhaps he’d survived somehow. She liked to think that, anyway. 

He might be off on some tropical island somewhere, sipping fruity drinks and enjoying his life for once. 

Shaking her head of the thought, Minerva’s gaze focused again on the task at hand.  

She made her way over to the glass cabinet that housed the old time turner. It appeared much the same as it had on the day she’d discovered it. Squinting, she examined the hourglass and discovered it was not empty after all. 

There, clinging to the sides and very bottom, were a few pale grains of sand. Not very many, and doubtful enough to allow the object to be used for its intended purpose. 

But what did she know about it? 

If Albus was right, and he was rarely wrong , her internal voice grumbled, she needed to put the time turner into the Mirror of Erised.  

She’d done the spell before, in Harry Potter’s first year. She didn’t know if she’d be able to do it again, but there was only one way to find out.  

And, if what Albus believed was true, about the timeline being a closed loop, then it would work because it had worked before.  

Minerva straightened up abruptly, rubbing at her temple where a headache was starting to form. Bugger it all. Before she did what Albus asked, there was a man she needed to see, who might be able to fix what was broken. Coincidentally the only man she trusted to keep a secret as big as this one.  

Chapter Text

12th June 2014 

Sunlight filtered in through the high, arching windows of the North Tower classroom, gilding dust motes in a warm gold as they danced above the heads of the students seated in a semicircle. Douglas Hexham, Head of the Department of Mysteries and guest speaker, stood near a floating diagram of magical timelines and causality webs. His wand flicked sharply to highlight the rippling strands of glowing thread that connected key temporal incidents. 

"And so," he said, his voice smooth and clipped in the low acoustics of the stone room, "time is not a straight line. Nor is it a spiral. It is... fractal. Predictable until it isn't. Until someone touches it." 

The students—fourth through seventh years from Ilvermorny, all selected to attend this year’s Young Outstanding Wizarding Leadership exchange program at Hogwarts—sat before him, listening politely, a few of them filling notebooks with half-drawn diagrams and rapid shorthand. 

Nary a whisper of a breeze wafted through the stiflingly hot tower classroom. Sweat dripped down his forehead and trailed in trickling drops down his neck to pool in the middle of his back. His shirt had begun to cling uncomfortably to his overheated skin. 

Try as he might, Hexham’s subtle shifting did little to relieve his condition. He gave in and tugged ineffectually at his collar, clearing his throat. 

Sensing his discomfort, the Headmistress flicked her wand, and a cooling charm fell silently over the room and its inhabitants. Murmurs of thanks could be heard throughout. Hexham nodded politely to Minerva before continuing on.  

A blonde girl in burgundy Ilvermorny robes raised her hand. "But sir, if time remembers, how does it forget enough to allow paradoxes?" 

Hexham smiled faintly. "Ah. An excellent question. Time doesn’t forget. It permits ." 

About halfway through his prepared lecture, he’d come to the conclusion that he quite enjoyed it. Perhaps if he ever tired of his time in the Department of Mysteries, he might seek out a position at Hogwarts. There was a glaring lack of instruction in quantum causality and other advanced Arithmantic studies.  

His gaze began to wander around the room for the first time since beginning to relax. Hexham nearly choked when his eyes fell on her. 

She sat with an air of quiet tension, eyes slanted downward as she jotted down notes. A few dark curls sprung free from her braid to float around her light brown face. She paused in her note taking as he studied her, head tilted, light catching a faint shimmer of something magical in the air around her as she dotted an ‘i’ and crossed something out. 

He recognised her. He wasn’t sure how. But he did. 

A pulse beat behind his eyes, slow and heavy. A ripple through memory, sensation before thought. The uncanny click of something old resuming motion. 

Hexham’s breath caught. 

It was that sense of double-seeing, of memories layered atop the present. It had happened only twice in his life: a young woman who’d appeared in the Hall of Time with clock dust on her fingers, and a man who’d sworn he’d gone back and met Merlin himself. Both of them time travellers. 

He cleared his throat and tore his gaze away from the girl, hoping nobody had caught his momentary distraction. 

“Where was I?” Hexham murmured, looking down at the notecards in his hands. They were shaking.  

“That’s right, now only in the past ten years or so has there been a change to the International Statute of Secrecy regarding the use of time-travel. It’s still not widely allowed for recreational use, only under supervision, and then it’s closely regulated...” 

Though he could tell that he’d lost the attention of more than half of the student audience, Hexham didn’t have the heart to cut short the little speech he’d spent the last several weeks writing and memorizing. He knew not everyone would find public policy as exciting as he did, but his intent had been to spark interest in at least a few of the youth. 

With the Minister’s recent visit to the States, there were hopes that a fresh generation of Yanks might be persuaded to emigrate to Great Britain, bringing with them a much-needed influx of new blood amongst the dwindling magical families of the old isles. It wasn’t spoken about directly, but everyone had become aware of the rapidly declining birth rates in Wizarding Britain.  

The Minister herself was spearheading a research fund to look into the mysterious rise in stillbirths and squibs amongst the post-war baby boom. 

Clang.  

An ancient brass bell near the stairwell let out a shrill clang that startled even the enchanted threads of the matrix still hovering in midair beside him. Students rose to their feet, gathering books and murmuring among themselves. 

Minerva cleared her throat, before raising her voice over the sounds of rustling books and scraping chair legs.  

“I’m afraid we’ve gone over our allotted time,” she said, shooting him an apologetic glance. “The rest of the school will be making their way down to the Great Hall for lunch. Please thank Mr. Hexham for his illuminating talk.” 

With her dismissal of them, Hexham could see the students perk up one by one and begin to shuffle towards the door. He fought against the embarrassing urge to beg their attention a moment longer. The speech, his inner voice bemoaned, it's all been for nothing. He still had a few interesting points yet to make. 

"Mr. Hexham?" A boy in royal blue Ilvermorny robes—Wampus House, by the crest—stood at the edge of the podium with a hesitant expression. "Sorry, but I wanted to ask… is it true your department handled the Blackwell Disruption? The time fold in 1979?" 

Hexham's brows lifted, impressed by the question. Not many people were aware of the Blackwell Disruption.  

"Handled?” He repeated, amusement turning up the corners of his thin lips, “we observed and barely survived it. Time doesn’t much like to be 'handled.'" 

The boy grinned, nodding, and turned to leave. As Hexham tracked the movement, his gaze snagged. 

The girl.  

At the edge of the hallway. 

He’d nearly forgotten. 

Another boy approached the podium, dragging Hexham’s attention away once more. 

The boy asked about the requirements necessary for joining the Department of Mysteries, and Hexham recalled the credits needed to apply.  

“You’ll need ‘acceptable’ or above on your NEWTS in Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms. Arithmancy or Ancient Runes certainly wouldn’t hurt your chances either,” Hexham confided. “And you’ll need a glowing recommendation or two from your professors.” 

He glanced over towards the door again and was surprised to find the girl walking toward him. His gaze traveled over her, and his certainty began to grow. She wore burgundy robes – he couldn’t remember which Ilvermorny house they belonged to – and walked with an air of importance despite her slender form and small-ish stature. Head held high, brown eyes scanning the room like a bird of prey. 

She came to stand by them, meeting Hexham’s gaze for a moment before blinking and looking over at the boy. Hexham tried to shake off the strange sensation of deja vu. 

How odd.  

“Douglas,” the headmistress said, walking over and gesturing to the two students, “these are two of our best and brightest.” They were alone in the classroom now. “Allow me to introduce Jack Gadow and Elinor O’Connell.” 

Hexham swallowed, files from the Time Room came bobbing to the surface of his memory. He frowned slightly. Clearly a coincidence. Surely there were a plethora of O’Connell’s in America, it being an extremely common name after all.  

“Pleasure,” he croaked, smiling through his discomfort. 

“I believe they’re also in league with your daughter,” Minerva continued. 

The girl named Elinor smiled brightly, and Hexham felt his heart drop like a stone.  

That smile. There was no mistaking it. He’d recognize that smile anywhere. He’d been on the opposite end of that smile once a week, every week, for nigh on a decade now.  

If he hadn’t been certain before, he was now.  

“My daughter?” He chuckled nervously. “I hope Cordelia has been behaving herself this term.” She rarely did, but that was one of the things he loved most about his daughter. Cordelia had inherited her adventurous, sometimes reckless nature from her mother, another woman he loved dearly.  

“Cordelia has been wonderful,” the girl – Elinor – responded in an American accent. 

Hexham nodded, finding he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. Sweat prickled at the back of his neck once more and he was desperate now to be anywhere but here.  

“Very good,” he said. Nervous laughter. “Very good.” 

Minerva clapped her hands together, signalling a close to the conversation. Hexham flinched. 

He ignored the headmistress’s concerned gaze as she dismissed the students. “Enjoy your lunch. Don’t forget that you are not dismissed from the afternoon classes,” she called after their retreating forms.  

The two students nodded dutifully before hurrying out of the room, no doubt eager to get to lunch. His own stomach grumbled then, loud enough to be heard by Minerva, who gestured for him to follow her as she set a brisk pace out of the classroom. 

“Let’s have lunch,” Minerva said as he jogged to catch up to her.  

"Minerva," he whispered quietly, turning toward her. "That girl. Is she...what I mean to say is...” he wasn’t sure how to phrase the question without revealing too much. “Do you recognize her?" 

Minerva slowed down, glancing both ways down the corridor before leaning in close. 

“Not here,” she shook her head. “My office.” 

Once they finally reached her office, she closed the door behind him and indicated for him to take a seat in the plush armchair across from her desk. 

“Please, sit. I’ll order us up some lunch, shall I?” 

Hexham nodded, suddenly feeling weak at the knees as he collapsed into the armchair. He panted from the unexpected exercise of climbing several staircases. Minerva had surprised him. She had to be – he studied her as she strode around the desk and took a seat – going on eighty at least. He hadn’t expected her to still be so spry. She didn’t appear to be out of breath in the least.  

He made a mental note to take the stairs at the Ministry a bit more often.  

She snapped her fingers and summoned a house elf from the kitchens. He wasn't listening as she ordered them lunch, and it was a minute or two before the house elf reappeared holding a silver tray with two plates and covers.  

“Thank you Mopsy,” Minerva said politely.  

“Anything for the Headmistress of Hogwarts,” the house elf squeaked, before bowing and disappearing with a quiet little pop.  

Minerva smiled at him knowingly. She set the silver tray on an open spot in the middle of her desk and slid it across to him. “Here,” she said, “you look like you could use it.” 

He nodded feebly, before reaching for the lid. Underneath was what looked like the most delicious roast beef sandwich he’d ever seen. His mouth began to water, and he nearly forgot all about the strangely familiar girl before Minerva spoke again.  

“Interesting you should ask about your daughter’s behavior. Just last night I discovered her and Miss O’Connell sneaking out of the kitchens in the middle of the night.” 

“Is that–” He cleared his throat, “that’s Elinor O’Connell?” He asked, finally looking up into her eyes. “The same Elinor O’Connell I just met?” 

Minerva nodded slowly, taking a bite of her roast beef sandwich. She looked up at him over rim of her spectacles.  

“I’m beginning to suspect she might also be the same Elinor O’Connell I met years ago. I recall the name.” 

“After all this time?” Minerva asked, her eyes sharp behind her spectacles. 

Hexham let out an incredulous little laugh. "One doesn’t forget temporal anomalies. Especially not ones like Miss O’Connell." He could still recall her intake interview. Stubborn as a mule. Sarcastic too. She hadn’t appeared to be afraid of any of them, though no doubt they’d been a little afraid of her.  

McGonagall sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "She doesn’t know yet. About any of it. She brewed a genealogical potion yesterday. The results were...abnormal." 

Hexham’s interest piqued even more. “Abnormal? How?” 

“The places where the names of her family members ought to have been were blank,” Minerva explained.  

Hexham’s lips tightened. He frowned in thought. "Cloaked lineage spells?" 

"Albus thinks so. He believes someone in the past tried to protect her bloodline." 

Hexham glanced towards the empty portrait frame of Albus Dumbledore, his eyes narrowing. "Albus believes?" 

"Albus always believes," she murmured, rolling her eyes.  

“So she doesn’t know her lineage?” He asked. 

Minerva shook her head. “Nor do I, if that’s what you’re going to ask.” 

Hexham glanced up at the empty frame of Albus Dumbledore. “Does Albus know?” 

Minerva scoffed. “If he isn’t certain, he has his suspicions. Not that he’ll deign to share them with me, mind you.” Her face had begun to shrivel up as she spoke, as if she’d bitten into a lemon. 

He tsked . That was Albus for you. Ever the tinkerer, the theorist. Not only a master manipulator, but also perhaps the best secret keeper known to man.  

“I’ve been keeping a close eye on her this year,” Minerva explained. “She’s developed a rather close friendship with your daughter, interestingly enough. Attached at the hip, it seems.” 

Hexham’s brows came together to meet in the middle. He had his own suspicions about the girl’s mysterious parentage. After deliberating for a moment, he decided not to share them with Minerva quite yet.  

“Do you think the results of her potion sets her on her course?” He asked finally.  

Minerva didn’t answer him. She reached into a drawer in her desk, hesitating before pulling out a velvet-wrapped bundle. She set it gently on the desk between them and began to unfold it with reverence. 

Inside, resting on a bed of dark blue velvet cloth, was a golden time-turner. 

He leaned forward to inspect it. It was missing its chain, and there was a – was that blood – what appeared to be a bloody fingerprint on one of the golden rings. He leaned closer. It was difficult to see without his appraisal spectacles, but what it looked like to him was a crack in the hourglass where it looked like most of the sand had drained out.  

He turned his head to the side, squinting. There . Clinging to the sides and bottom of the hourglass were a few grains of sand. They appeared to be vibrating ever so slightly. One had to look very hard to catch the movement.  

"Where did you find this?" Hexham asked. “The time turners at the Ministry were destroyed in 1996.” He couldn’t help the accusatory tone of his voice. 

"It was in the Shrieking Shack," McGonagall said softly. "The night I went looking for... his body." She paused, and he watched the way she seemed to lift herself up, vertebrae by vertebrae until she sat tall in her seat. “Severus’s body, I mean. It wasn’t there.” 

Hexham inhaled sharply. "Snape?" 

She nodded once. 

Hah, a part of him wanted to rejoice, I knew it.   

Hexham had nearly lost his job when the time turners were all destroyed, and the one working time turner left went missing the next morning. He’d searched and searched for the missing time turner. He’d long suspected Snape had it but could never seem to pin the man down about it.  

Then, the sobering thought that Snape was dead, washed over him.  

Hexham exhaled. His gaze drifted toward the wall of portraits behind her desk. There were many faces there—former headmasters and mistresses—but one empty frame stood out starkly among the rest. Its background was completely black. 

"His portrait?" Hexham asked, pointing to the empty frame.  

"He never appeared," she said, voice brittle. "Even when I summoned the frame." 

Hexham’s stomach twisted. "You don’t find that strange?" 

"I find it extremely strange." She met his gaze finally, and Hexham could see the range of emotions flickering on her face.  

"He was the last to see her, wasn’t he?" Hexham asked. "Elinor?" 

McGonagall hesitated. "Dumbledore’s portrait says she’ll make it back. But only if we don’t interfere." 

Hexham let out a dry, skeptical sound. "You’re interfering by doing nothing ." 

McGonagall smiled faintly. "That’s the kind of paradox Albus enjoys." 

They sat in silence for a moment, studying the time turner. 

"Do you think she’ll find it," McGonagall asked at last, "when the time is right?" 

Hexham reached out, and the magic of the artefact whispered against his palm like wind through dry leaves. 

"She’s already found it," he murmured. "The loop was begun a long time ago." 

“So, whatever we might or might not do is inevitable?” 

Hexham sat back, thoughts already ticking. He brought the sandwich to his mouth for a generous bite, before sitting back to chew it thoughtfully. This was a conundrum. 

As the previous head of the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries, Hexham still had access to the old files. It had been some time since he’d reviewed them. His duties now extended to the other rooms, and mountains of paperwork. He worked closely with the current Minister for Magic on matters of secrecy, so he rarely had time to keep up with all of the individual cases that used to fascinate him.  

He would review the 1996 records. Re-read the Malfoy file. Double-check the autopsy report that had never quite existed. 

An idea came to him then, the hair on his arms rising. He knew how to fix it. 

He’d rarely been involved in this kind of conundrum before. Usually, he heard about these situations second-hand from other his co-workers in the Hall of Time. Now he had an opportunity to become a vital part of the timeline. He couldn’t help the internal struggle that arose.  

If he meddled now, did that mean he had always been meant to meddle? If events were a fixed loop, then because he remembered her from the past, she was destined to return there.  

He let out a groan, bringing his hands up to scrub over his face, a headache blooming behind his left temple.  

“Indeed,” Minerva agreed from the other side of the desk.  

- 

Elinor hunched over a wide, polished table tucked into the far end of the Hogwarts library, piles of books bracketing her like castle walls. The afternoon sunlight filtered through the tall windows, illuminating floating dust and casting golden streaks across the pages of Ancestral Wards and Family Binding Charms . 

She turned a page too fast, nearly tearing it. 

Nothing. Again. 

"Come on," she muttered, fingers gripping the edge of the page. "There has to be something." 

She had skipped her last two classes—History of Magic and Advanced Charms—claiming a stomach ache. Not a complete lie, considering how twisted her insides felt after the latest dead end in her search. 

There had to be a way to undo the cloaking spell. A thread, a clue, something to follow. 

She scratched a few notes on a spare bit of parchment, already filled with runes, cross-references, and a list of titles from the Restricted Section that she knew she wouldn’t get permission to access before the end of term. 

The wooden floor creaked behind her, and she flinched. 

"There you are," came Cordelia’s voice, soft but pointed. "I figured you’d be in here." 

Elinor looked up, managing a tired smile as Cordelia stepped into view, long auburn hair loose. Behind her, Sasha, Jamie, and Maeve hovered with brooms slung over their shoulders. 

"We’re putting together a pick-up match," Jamie said, a grin spreading across his face. "One last chance to prove I'm better than all of you." 

"Especially you," Sasha added, pointing at Elinor. "Come on, you promised we'd do something stupid and ungraded today." 

Elinor gave them a look, torn. She wanted to go. She did. 

But the potion results still burned in her mind, the blank parchment sinking like a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. 

"I can’t," she said, gesturing around at the mess of books piled up on the reading table. "I have to figure this out." 

Maeve rolled her eyes and exchanged a glance with Sasha. "Of course you do. Fine. But if you change your mind, we'll be out by the lake." 

They left in a flurry of banter and broomsticks. 

Cordelia, to her credit, stayed. 

"You really aren’t coming?" she asked quietly. 

"I really can’t," Elinor said, rubbing at her temple. "It feels important. Like... something's waiting just out of reach." 

Cordelia didn’t argue. She simply sat down, tied her hair up into an elegant knot on the top of her head, and shoved her wand into it. She took one of the toppling books off the nearest pile, and cracked it open. 

"Then let’s get to work." 

They sifted through volumes on ward-breaking, magical concealment, and blood magic. They whispered theories, ruled out methods. Cordelia flagged a passage about legacy enchantments that could be embedded in maternal bloodlines. 

Every so often, Elinor glanced out the window at the clear sky, and wondered how much time she had left before everything changed. 

Or whether it already had. 

After a lull in their quiet page-turning, Elinor sat back and stretched. "By the way, did I tell you who was leading the YOWL Seminar this morning?" 

Cordelia shook her head. 

"Douglas Hexham, Head of the Department of Mysteries,” Elinor waggled her eyebrows. 

Cordelia chucked, “I guess I owe Jamie a couple quid.” 

“You didn’t tell me your dad was a genius,” Elinor accused. “He gave a lecture on temporal structure—loops, folds, all of that. Really brilliant stuff." 

"Yeah," Cordelia said, a little sheepishly. "Well, he doesn’t bring his work home with him. Secrets, mysterious jobs, grim warnings. Mum insists none of it follows him home.  

She shrugged, “It’s easy to forget he’s anything more than just my silly old dad.” 

A feeling of jealousy burned in Elinor’s stomach. She ignored it. 

Elinor’s eyed her friend. "That makes sense. You definitely have his eyebrows." 

Cordelia laughed. "His everything , unfortunately. Much to the disappointment of my mum." She took a breath and put on a high-pitched voice, “I carried you for nine months and you couldn’t even have the decency to look a bit like me.” 

Elinor giggled. Cordelia’s parents sounded charming. 

“So how was he? Aside from being absolutely brilliant like his daughter,” Cordelia asked, batting her eyelashes. 

Elinor smiled faintly. "He was kind. I met him after the lecture.” She hesitated. “I think he recognised me. Like really recognised me. It was... odd." 

Cordelia tilted her head. "Odd how?" 

"Just a feeling. Like I’ve met him before.” Elinor shook her head, shrugging. “But I know I haven’t." 

Cordelia leaned forward a little, smirking. "Maybe you were soulmates in a past life. Or rivals in a time duel." 

Elinor screwed up her face. "Rivals, definitely. If his dueling skills are as shoddy as yours, it’ll be an easy victory." 

"You wish ." Cordelia grinned, resting her chin on her hand. “Though you’re clever enough to go back in time and untie his shoes or something.” 

Elinor arched a brow. "I take that as a compliment." 

"You should. I like clever girls." 

Elinor glanced at her, pulse skittering, unsure whether to laugh or look away. She did both, badly. 

Cordelia turned another page casually. "Besides, you make a pretty decent research partner. Broody. Mysterious. Easily bribed with chocolate." 

"Now that," Elinor said, sitting up straighter, "is slander. I am not easily bribed." 

Cordelia leaned in with a smirk. "So... with difficulty, then?" 

Elinor didn’t answer. Couldn’t, really. Her throat was tight and her face was warm, and somewhere in the back of her mind she thought: this is exactly what I’ll miss most. 

Cordelia tapped her quill against her lips as she squinted at the pages of the open book in front of her. “Honestly, I think half these diagrams are made up. This one looks like a kneazle got into the ink.” 

Elinor leaned over to peer at the page, their shoulders brushing. “That’s not a kneazle. That’s just 16th century wand work. They were all hopelessly dramatic. Look—see how it loops in on itself? Total attention-seeking behaviour.” 

“Bit like you, then.” 

Elinor raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” 

“You loop in on yourself. Just… emotionally. When you’re upset. See? Attention-seeking.” 

“Wow.” Elinor leaned back in mock offense. “Brutal. And here I was thinking you were staying to be supportive.” 

Elinor rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help the twitch of a smile. “So I’m a puzzle, now?” 

Cordelia finally glanced up, smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “A beautiful, broody puzzle who gets all flustered when someone sits too close.” 

Elinor’s stomach gave an unhelpful lurch. 

She swallowed, fixing her gaze on her parchment. “I don’t get flustered.” 

Cordelia leaned in, just enough for Elinor to feel the warmth of her, and said softly, “You do, though.” 

Then, without missing a beat, she turned the page and resumed reading like nothing had happened. 

Elinor sat frozen for a second too long, her heart tapping out a rhythm that had nothing to do with research. 

“I am being supportive,” Cordelia said, not looking up from the book. “You just happen to be a mystery I find very entertaining.” 

She didn’t know what any of it meant—if it meant anything at all. Cordelia flirted with everyone. Probably. Maybe. She didn’t know . But the heat under her skin wasn’t going away. 

And she definitely wasn’t getting anything else done today. 

Snapping closed the tome in front of her, Elinor sighed. She ran a hand through her hair, fingers getting snagged in the curls.  

“I say we call a halt and get some dinner,” Elinor suggested, untangling her fingers from her hair. 

Cordelia looked up from a diagram of a 16th century spell, blinking. “Is it that time already?” she asked, squinting up at the light filtering in through the high windows. 

“Mhm,” Elinor confirmed, glancing at her watch. “It’s nearly half six.” 

Cordelia yawned and stretched, their shoulders brushing. 

She flipped closed the thick tome titled Bloodlines and Betrayals: The Politics of Magical Ancestry and blew a bit of dust off the top. “You know,” she mused. “Most people would be flattered if their best friend ditched a Quidditch match just to sit around researching ancient blood curses with them.” 

Elinor raised an eyebrow. “Are you angling for a ‘thank you’ or a monument in your honour?” 

They began packing up the books, stacking them on an empty cart behind them.  

Cordelia sighed theatrically. “You owe me chocolate frogs for this, you know.” 

Elinor glanced over, brow raised. “Chocolate frogs?” 

“At least three. And one of the collectible cards better be Morgana this time.” 

“I feel like the fact that you’re helping me discover the truth should earn you something more than sugar and exceptional witches.” 

“Please,” Cordelia said, smirking. “You say that like sugar and exceptional witches aren’t the backbone of our entire friendship.” 

Elinor smiled despite herself. “Fine. Four frogs.” 

Cordelia grinned widely, lifting her arms in triumph. “Now we’re talking. And if you cry on me later when the answers we find are devastating and traumatic, I’m charging extra.” 

“Wow, so compassionate.”  

“I contain multitudes.” 

Together they headed down to the Great Hall for supper. 

Several floors above them, in the West Tower, the tallest tower at Hogwarts, Douglas Hexham returned from the Department of Mysteries with a vial full of sand recovered from the Hall of Time. 

- 

After dinner, Elinor wanted to return to the library, but her friends had insisted on going back to the common room and playing exploding snap until someone had to take a shot of the contraband bottle of fire whisky Jamie had snuck in. Naturally, they’d all gotten sloshed, and crawled into bed at a most unreasonable hour. 

Elinor had fallen into a fitful sleep. Full of dreams of ticking clocks. 

She was roused from one such dream by a pair of strong hands shaking her shoulders. 

“What the bloody—” 

A hand clasped itself over her mouth, muffling the words. 

Elinor blinked through the darkness and nearly rolled her eyes. 

Of course it was Cordelia.   

She sighed against the hand holding her mouth, and Cordelia slowly released her. 

“We promised the Headmistress we wouldn’t sneak out again after curfew,” Elinor reminded her friend. “What do you want?” 

Cordelia smirked, a dimple forming on her cheek.  

“She won’t see us,” she assured Elinor.  

“What do you mean?” Elinor asked, suddenly suspicious. She sat up in bed. “Cordelia, what is it?” 

“Hush, now,” Cordelia chuckled. “You’ll wake the whole dorm. I’ll show you, just come on.” She pulled the covers down off of Elinor and tugged her up by her hand. 

She glanced around the fourth year Ravenclaw dorm, but all the curtains were drawn around the other four poster beds, and the steady breathing and soft snores indicated everyone else was still asleep. 

Elinor hesitated for a moment longer, before caving. The look of determination on Cordelia’s face told Elinor she likely wouldn’t catch much sleep tonight. After all, she reasoned, tomorrow was her final day at Hogwarts. What was the worst that could happen? She’d be forced to serve detention the following term at Ilvermorny? 

Elinor pushed away the thought of leaving, climbing out of bed and following Cordelia out the door and down the spiral staircase to the empty common room.  

“Okay,” Elinor spoke once they were far enough from the dorms for her voice to risk waking anyone, “what is it?” 

“Well,” Cordelia began, spinning around in front of the fireplace, “whilst you were busy studying blood masking spells, I saw a spell I think we might find particularly useful this evening.” 

She raised her eyebrows and her wand, tapping the top of her own head and saying, “ illusio.”  

Elinor stared at the excited face of her friend, unimpressed. She was just about to suggest they return to their rooms, before some truly magical began to happen.  

From the spot where Cordelia had tapped her wand to the top of her head, she began to disappear. In a matter of seconds, with a little shimmer, Cordelia’s entire body, wand and all, disappeared. 

“What the--?” Elinor blinked quickly several times. Expecting it to have been an illusion of some kind.  

When Cordelia didn’t reappear, Elinor reached out a finger and poked the space where her friend had stood not a moment before.  

“Oi!” Cordelia’s disembodied voice exclaimed. “I can feel that you know.” 

“Oh,” Elinor gasped, taking a startled step backwards and nearly falling into an armchair.  

She’s still here.  

Relief flooded her chest. She squinted at the space previously occupied by Cordelia, and after a few moments of study, Elinor found that she could catch just the faintest shimmer of movement. It was almost like the scales of a fish, a subtle glinting that caught the light. Only then could she see the barest outline of her friend.  

“I can see you,” Elinor said, smiling and reaching out with one hand. 

She blinked, and then the shimmer was gone. 

“See me now?” A voice whispered in Elinor’s ear from right beside her. 

“Bloody hell!” Elinor exclaimed, jumping and screeching like a frightened cat.  

Cordelia’s maniacal giggles calmed Elinor’s nerves. 

“Shhh.” Cordelia hushed her. “Waking up the whole house now would really defeat the purpose of this rather ingenius spell.” 

Elinor shoved her hands in the direction of Cordelia’s voice and felt a sense of satisfaction when her fingers connected with flesh and she heard a grunt. 

“What a rude young lady,” Cordelia said, from slightly further away. 

Elinor turned to face the empty space and stuck out her tongue. 

“I know you can’t see me right now, but rest assured,” Cordelia said, “I’m flashing a very naughty gesture in your direction.” 

“Okay,” Elinor said, laughing, “teach me this spell so we can get up to no good.” 

“Bossy madam,” Cordelia teased, her breath fanning across Elinor’s face. “I like the sound of that.” 

Elinor wondered how close Cordelia was now.  

“It’s called the Disillusionment spell, I found it in a book about obscure spells and curses. I thought your blood masking spell might be in there. But this is good, too.” 

“Finite.” Cordelia appeared directly in front of Elinor. 

It took a couple of tries for Elinor to replicate Cordelia’s wand movements, but soon enough they were skating along through the darkened corridors of Hogwarts, hand in hand so as not to get lost. Elinor trailed a few steps behind, letting Cordelia lead the way to the Astronomy Tower.  

The tower door creaked closed behind them, and Elinor felt the cool night air waft across her cheeks. She felt grateful she’d thought to wear her cloak. 

They climbed the spiral staircase to the top of the tower, and paused to admire the view. The moon was rather bright this evening, but so were the stars. Elinor gasped as a comet flashed across the sky before disappearing from view.  

“Did you see it?” she asked, turning to Cordelia. 

But Cordelia appeared to be studying her, and quickly looks away and down.  

“Are you cold?” Elinor asked, conjuring up a wooly blanket big enough for both of them to share. 

“I’m fine,” Cordelia said. She reached for the blanket and spread it out on the ground. “Stargaze with me?”  

Elinor grinned. Her head still buzzed pleasantly from the fire whiskey several hours ago.  

They lay down, side-by-side on the blanket. Elinor cast a cushioning charm on the blanket, whilst Cordelia cast a warming charm over them.  

“I always forget that one,” Elinor said.  

“I’ll teach you tomorrow,” Cordelia reassured her.  

Then she pulled out the remainder of the bottle of Ogden’s Finest. “Care for a splash?” 

Elinor knew they shouldn’t, but she decided to throw caution to the wind. Together they got a little more drunk and made up a game where they pretended to know the constellations. They made up the most ridiculous stories, though probably not terribly far off from the real mythology surrounding most of them.  

At some point the conversation turned more serious.  

“I’ve always wanted a sister,” Cordelia whispered. 

Elinor smiled in the darkness, her head pillowed on her arm as they admired the starry sky above them.  

“It’s not too late,” Cordelia continued, turning to face Elinor. 

Elinor’s brows drew down, thinking of her parents who were both passed.  

“Maybe not for you,” Elinor sighed, “but it is for me.” 

“What if it’s not, though?” Cordelia asked. 

Elinor turned her head and squinted at her friend. “What do you mean?” 

“There’s this other spell I found today,” Cordelia began, eyes sparkling in the starlight. “A ritual, really. It requires a little bit of blood, but then we could—” 

She paused, a sweet smile spreading across her face. “We could be sisters, for real...We could be family.” 

Elinor could’ve sworn her heart stuttered. Oh. Oh. Something in her stomach swooped. 

“Before you say anything,” Cordelia hurried to interrupt whatever words were forming on Elinor’s lips, “just hear me out. Please?” 

 “El, it would mean you could come and live with me, with us. You wouldn’t have to go back to your uncle’s house, or New York. You could stay here, at Hogwarts.” 

Elinor looked away, feeling overwhelmed. Her eyes felt itchy, and her throat scratchy all of a sudden. She tried to swallow. 

“That is only if...” Cordelia grew quieter, “only if you want to.” 

When Elinor didn’t immediately speak, she rambled on nervously. 

“I mean, I don’t know, maybe it’s a stupid idea.” She sat up, then, startling Elinor. “It was only a thought, but it’s okay if you don’t want—” 

“I do,” Elinor croaked, sitting up as well. She cleared her throat, reaching for Cordelia’s hands, which she’d been ringing in her lap. 

“I just can’t believe you’d want me,” Elinor admitted a little sheepishly. 

Cordelia gasped. “What?” 

Elinor stuttered nervously, bringing one hand up to twirl a curl of her hair. “I mean, you could’ve asked Maeve or Sasha, or, well I suppose Jamie would make a good brother...” 

“Are you daft, woman?” Cordelia snapped, pulling Elinor’s hand away from her hair. “Maeve isn’t my best friend, neither is Sasha or Jamie. It’s you, Elinor, you silly witch.” 

Elinor chuckled, a few errant tears escaping her eyes.  

Cordelia smiles and reached up to wipe them away with her thumbs before holding Elinor’s face. “ You are my favourite person, period. I would be honoured to have you as my sister.” 

Several more tears escaped to run down Elinor’s cheeks as she grinned.  

“And you are my favourite person,” Elinor agreed. 

“Is that a yes?” Cordelia asked, squeezing Elinor’s cheeks. 

“Yes,” Elinor replied, chuckling. 

Cordelia let out a little whoop of joy and leaned forward to place a kiss on the tip of Elinor’s nose before releasing her face.  

“So how does it work?” Elinor asked, ducking her head away from Cordelia’s keen gaze, and pretending to admire the starry sky.  

“I’m glad you asked,” Cordelia said. “Tomorrow –  today –” she corrected herself, “is a full moon, and also Friday the 13th. As you know, the number 13 is particularly powerful in witchcraft, as well as spells performed during a full moon.” 

Elinor nodded, following along. She rather thought Cordelia had a lot in common with her father when she went into ‘lecture’ mode. 

“So,” Cordelia concluded. “I say we come back here tomorrow night to perform the ritual. We won’t need much, I don’t think.” 

“Hopefully nothing expensive or illegal,” Elinor joked. 

“No, just a few drops of blood from each of us.” 

“And then we’re sisters?” Elinor asked.  

“And then we’re sisters,” Cordelia confirmed.  

It wasn’t long after that they both fell asleep atop the Astronomy Tower, bathed in the light of the moon and stars.