Chapter Text
Harry sat up, his head no longer hurt, and the bruises and cuts were no longer bothering him. He stood and looked around the clearing. Tommy boy and his Death Munchers were all gone. There was a body, missing a head; he didn’t recognize it. There was a slight mist enveloping the trees around the clearing and as he looked around, a shadow formed into a horse and rider entering the clearing.
“HARRY POTTER, WHY HAVE YOU DIED AGAIN, THIS IS BECOMING RATHER DREARY.” The rider dismounted from the large white horse, and pulling a nosebag from one of its saddle bags set the horse to eat. “LUNCHTIME BINKY, I SHALL NOT BE LONG HERE.”
Harry regarded the figure with some puzzlement. It was tall, perhaps eight feet, and wore an all-encompassing black cloak; its face was completely in shadow, and try as he might he could not fix any of its features in his mind. “Excuse me, but who are you?” he asked, although he had a pretty solid idea.
“I AM DEATH, I DON’T USUALLY COVER THIS AREA BUT MY ASSISTANT MORT IS TAKING HIS DRIVING TEST TODAY, SO I AM COVERING THIS PATCH. YOU KEEP DYING LORD POTTER, YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE YET, IT IS IRRITATING HOW MUCH PAPERWORK YOU CAUSE, CAN YOU NOT SIMPLY FULFIL YOUR PROFECY AND LIVE THE LIFE THE FATES HAD IN STORE FOR YOU. THE NUMBER OF RESETS YOU HAVE HAD IS AN EMBARASSMENT.”
“Oh, excuse me! I am SO sorry for getting killed. I must try harder. Perhaps if I wasn’t a fucking teenager trying to fight the world’s scariest fucking dark warlock without a fucking clue, I might do a bit fucking better!” Harry was more than a trifle pissed off at the figure. He also assumed he was dead, so what was the worst that could happen.
“Language, Harry James Potter; there is no need for that sort of profanity, no matter what has occurred.” Harry spun around to see Hermione behind him. He threw his arms around her and hugged his best friend as if his life depended upon it.
“Hermione. I am so glad to see you. I thought I was dead for a minute there.” He smiled at her.
“YOU ARE DEAD, YOU BOTH ARE. LADY POTTER DIED SHORTLY BEFORE YOURSELF. SHE WAS KILLED BY YOUR FALSE FRIEND. I THINK PERHAPS THIS TIME I SHALL SEND YOU BOTH BACK AS A TEAM, PERHAPS YOU WILL REACH YOUR DESTINIES TOGETHER, SINCE YOU APPEAR INCAPABLE OF ACHIEVING THE OBJECTIVE ON YOUR OWN.” Death turned back to Binky and removed the nose bag, placing a bucket of water that appeared from somewhere on the floor in front of the horse and putting the nose bag back into the saddlebag.
Harry had turned to face Death once more (how many times had his life story held that phrase?), his arm around Hermione’s waist, “What do you mean we are both dead? False friend? I don’t understand,” his voice tailed off.
“I BELIEVE THIS CONVERSTATION REQUIRES A BISCUIT OR TWO AND A CUP OF TEA. WE SHALL RECONVENE IN MY GARDEN. BINKY, IF YOU ARE READY?” The horse whinnied the affirmative, and Death whirled on the spot, his scythe reaping both of the teenagers in a moment.
The clearing disappeared and Harry found himself standing in a pretty cottage garden. The sky, however, was wrong in so many ways. It was pitch black and a huge ringed planet with swirling clouds of orange and red over its surface dominated a third of the sky. Hermione’s arms closed around his waist. He squeezed hers and looked at her, “Are we dead?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand this. I was in the Chamber of Secrets, with Ron, we were collecting Basilisk fangs, and he kissed me. I pushed him away and told him to behave, that I didn’t have feelings like that for him anymore, that I thought I loved you, and he stabbed me with one of the fangs. He called me a mudblood whore. He said if he couldn’t have me, then he would make damned sure you never did. I thought he was our friend.”
“HE WAS A FALSE FRIEND. YOU HAVE MUCH TO UNDERSTAND. PLEASE TAKE A SEAT, HAVE SOME TEA, ENJOY A BISCUIT. PERSONALLY, I LIKE A HOBNOB, BUT I WILL UNDERSTAND IF YOU PREFER A LESSER BISCUIT.” He motioned towards a cast iron table and chair set for four people and covered with a blue and white gingham tablecloth, with a tea pot, cups and saucers and a plate of selected biscuits. “SUSAN, COULD YOU TAKE OVER AND EXPLAIN TO OUR GUESTS WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM, I HAVE TO RETURN TO WORK. DEATH AND TAXIS WAIT FOR NO MAN.” The figure picked up a biscuit and with a nod to the teenagers walked away and faded from view.
“Isn’t it taxes?”
“I don’t know, have you ever tried to get a black cab to wait?”
“Hello, Harry and Hermione Potter, isn’t it?” A tall, slim, young yet stern looking woman—she had white hair with a black stripe down the centre, walked over and sat herself at the table. “Please join me, we shall be a while, and time does not matter here, especially to ones such as you.”
“Why did you call me Hermione Potter?”
“I am sorry, Lady Potter, if you prefer.”
“I am Hermione Granger, I think if I had married Harry I might remember.”
“No, almost certainly you would not, I think you have married him at least twice, I am fairly sure you were carrying his child in your death before last.”
Hermione gave the woman a particularly hard stare. For some reason Harry thought of marmalade sandwiches. They sat at the table. “Excuse me, but who are you, where are we, what in the name of all things holy is going on?” Hermione was very close to swearing. Almost a blue-letter day, Harry thought.
“All in good time. Drink some tea, have a biscuit, relax. We really do have all the time in eternity to discuss this, better to be calm and rational, and GRANDFATHER is not usually generous with the Hobnobs.”
Harry picked up a biscuit, “Without being rude, who are you?”
“I am Susan Sto-Helit. I am also DEATH’s granddaughter. I look after the office admin side of reaping for the old boy. Make sure Binky gets fed, and of course sort out the mess my father MORT makes—busy but never dull.” She dunked a hobnob, and gleefully bit the biscuit. “Truly the Spartan Warrior of biscuits: no measly digestive. You can dunk them and they are steadfast.” She dunked it again, “Lord and Lady Potter, you have been killed once more, and since you Lord Potter are a subject of both destiny and a prophecy, we shall have to send you back, again, to attempt to fulfill the prophecy, and perhaps this time live to your full lifespan, somewhere in the one hundred and seventies, with your soul mate at your side, given your rather haphazard results so far, I think sending you both back would be in order.”
“Excuse me, ‘soul mate’?” Hermione asked.
“Yes, Lady Potter, you are soul mates, your lives and destinies have been diverted and blocked by Albus Dumbledore. He was once a champion of justice and light. However, age and hubris, his belief that only he knows the correct answer, and if he does not know the answer, then there is no solution, have turned him away from the path destiny requires. He believes that you must follow the path he has laid out in order for Riddle to be defeated; sadly, his meddling has complicated this task beyond measure.”
“But wouldn’t we know if we were soul mates, wouldn’t we feel more for each other, wouldn’t we?” Susan held a finger up to Hermione, and with a wiggle of her fingers at the two of them, an icy flush dropped though them, leaving them dizzy for a few seconds.
“Tea, biscuits. Drink. Eat.” Susan instructed. They drank a cup of tea and ate another biscuit as instructed. “Lord Potter, Harry if I may. What do you feel about Ginevra Weasley?”
“She’s OK, I like her, she looks a lot like my mum, and she used to be a bit of a fan-girl for the whole boy-who-lived stuff.”
“So, not wife material then?”
“Oh, heavens no; that would be all sorts of wrong, she is Ron’s sister, she is more like a sister to me than anything.”
“What about Ronald Weasley?”
“He is a jealous, bitter, petty minded git. I honestly was glad to see the back of the whining, farting snore factory when he left the tent. I think he missed mummy cooking for him.”
“Lady Potter, Hermione, how do you feel about Ronald?”
“He disgusts me. I only tolerate him because he is Harry’s friend. He has no table manners; it is like sitting in front of a blender, and his breath is appalling. I thought we were friends, but he murdered me.”
“What do you think of Harry?”
She smiled, “I love him, I have loved him for as long as I can remember, he saved my life from a troll. He read to me every night while I was petrified. I dream about marrying him and having his babies, we flew on the Hippogriff to save Sirius and we kissed and my heart exploded, I was so happy….” Her voice drifted away. “We kissed on the platform, what happened?”
Harry was sat staring at Hermione, “Harry, tell Hermione what you feel about her.”
“Hermione, you are my anchor, my compass. You are the only reason life is bearable for me. Every summer I could survive Durskaban because I knew in September, I would get a Hermi-hug at Kings Cross and everything would be better. I love you more than life itself. When Bellatrix killed you in front of me, I did not want to live; I gave up. I would rather die with you than live without you. Why have I never told you this before? I can summon the courage to tackle a Basilisk with a sword, but not to ask the girl I love, who I have always loved, to be my girlfriend?” Harry turned to Susan. “What is happening?”
She pointed to the cups, “Drink. I removed the compulsion spells from you and flushed any remaining potions. Dumbledore has potioned you both with loyalty potions to him, Ronald and Molly Weasley. Hermione was given a low level of love potion towards Ronald, and some repulsion potions to you Harry, to prevent you forming a relationship. Harry, you were originally being potioned towards Ginevra, she decided that she wanted a real relationship, and intercepted them on your behalf, she may not have known about Ronald’s efforts. He engineered the argument and left the tent to pick up fresh potion stocks, he did not expect you to have moved.” She ate another biscuit. “Please indulge me, give Hermione a kiss, it will spark off your bond and clear out anything the flushing missed.” Harry turned to Hermione, and they leaned into each other, hesitating, and then Hermione pulled Harry’s head in and they kissed. It was clumsy at first, tentative, and awkward, but as they kissed it became softer, gentle, sensual. Harry could feel his body reacting to the feel of Hermione’s lips, to the essence of her magic as it wrapped around him. “Aaaaand break. You can finish what you have just started later, you have long lives in front of you, and we have plans to make.”
The couple broke their kiss and sat staring into each other’s eyes. Hermione was flushed and her breathing fast. Harry looked like a rabbit caught in headlights, his goofy grin made Hermione smile. “Wow. Hermione. Just wow.” She beamed, and kissed him again, just for a few seconds. They turned back to face Susan. Hermione slipped her arms around Harry and pulled him tight to her.
“So how is that attraction going now, Hermione?” Susan asked over her teacup, raising her eyebrows as her hair swapped from the bun it had been in to a French plait.
“I think I agree with Harry, wow. That is how love should feel. I can feel his magic around me, it loves me, I feel loved. This is what we should have had for years. I think I hate Albus Dumbledore.”
“That is a good starting point, Hermione. Harry, since you are sitting looking as if you have had a minor stroke, I can assume you are happy as well?”
Harry blinked and a smile spread across his face. “Very happy. If Hermione is with me, I don’t need or want anything else. I don’t know if I really want to go back; perhaps eternity with Hermione is a better option.”
Susan cocked her head slightly, “Sorry, Hero; you have a destiny, and your children are also important to the future, I can clearly remember the impact your eldest made on the magical world. I can’t tell you what, of course—no spoilers.” She stood and addressed the pair, “We have plans to make and I need you to sign some release forms, indemnities and such, we do not wish to upset the Auditors of Reality after all, please follow me inside and we shall make use of grandfather’s office.” She walked past them and into the cottage behind them. They followed and as Susan turned and walked through a door they felt a shift in reality. They walked into a surprisingly modern looking office, spacious with a pair of sofas facing each other across a low table, a meeting table with eight seats around it, and a large black desk, behind which hung a spare (they assumed) scythe and cloak. There was a bank of filing cabinets, in black. Harry looked around the room, the furniture was all black and chrome, the carpet blood red, and the three walls starkly white. The remaining wall was one large window, showing a spiral galaxy filling the entire view. Susan turned to them and motioned them to sit at the table, Hermione noticed that her hair had reverted to a bun.
“Could you teach me that trick with your hair? Mine is unmanageable, it has a mind of its own sometimes.”
“Sorry, my hair also has a mind of its own, perhaps you need to befriend your hair so it adopts a style helpful to your circumstances?” She replied.
She walked to the desk and extracted a thick folder from the drawers, before returning to the table and sitting opposite the pair. The folder had eight coloured tags, one for each of Harry’s lives. She extracted a pair of documents from the rear of the folder and passed them a copy each, then passed them pens she conjured in her hands. “These are the contracts and indemnities, please read them and sign once you are happy, these are required to re-insert you two into the world of the living with your memories so you can avoid the mistakes of your past lives. Perhaps Harry,” she added with heavy irony, “If you listen to Hermione when she urges caution in future, you might not get everyone killed.”
They sat and read through the documents. After a few minutes Hermione started to ask questions, to no-one’s surprise.
“It says here that I will have my magical core unbound. What does that mean, how is it bound?”
“It is a bit of a misnomer, magicals believe that magic comes from the user; it does not. It is in everything and it is everywhere. Science calls it dark energy. Magicals believe that they have a core that contains their magic; it does not. It channels magic, like the heart pumps blood, what is called your core channels and controls the flow of magic. Like a heart it can become overloaded, and you call this magical exhaustion. Someone,” She mimed a long beard, “put a restriction on yours and Harry’s to limit the amount of magical power available to you. This shall be removed when you return, and we shall show you how to develop your ability to channel more magic.”
“Occlumens?”
“Dumbledore and his pet snake, Snape, love peeking at student’s thoughts, we shall show you how to erect defences within your minds so that they see only what you wish them to see, and if needs be you can expel them from your minds.”
Harry asked the next question, “I learned about the Horcrux in me just before I was killed, that’s why I allowed him to kill me, to rid him of his last soul anchor, you will remove this from me on my return?”
“Yes, you shall be sent back without the leech. It is these phylacteries, Horcruxes you call them, that must be destroyed before Riddle is finally killed. They date back to ancient Egyptian priests of Anubis, and one of their most secret rites, an attempt to allow the Pharaohs and High Priests to achieve immortality. They were killed for this egregious blasphemy by the priests of the God Ra, as abominations against creation, and the rites required were believed lost. Osiris was worshipped in place of Anubis as the god of death from this time. This Warlock Riddle has created a number, and you shall find them so I may destroy them before sending him on to meet grandfather. You are the Master of Death, you are the last Peverill, you have the three hallows, the gifts from grandfather to your ancestors, we will show you how to use them wisely. Being the Master of Death means you work FOR GRANDFATHER, not that you are his Master, a rather confusing title as I told him earlier.”
“It says we shall be immune to potions and magics of compulsion, what are they specifically?”
“Confundus and compulsion charms, such as Dumbledore has been layering the pair of you with since your third year and the time he caught you kissing, Potions, love, lust, fertility, loyalty, repulsion, and revulsion, and a few others. Potions that will impact how you think and feel about others. Harry, do you remember the first task in that ridiculous tournament you were manoeuvred into?” Harry nodded, “How did you feel about Ronald Weasley and Hermione after you had completed the task and retrieved your egg?”
“I pretty much despised Ron; he was a completely jealous arse, I had realised that I loved Hermione; she was supporting me when almost the whole school opposed me. I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend.”
“Do you remember Ronald’s apology? Let me remind you.” She made a gesture with her left hand and a small three-dimensional image appeared over the table, showing the pair of them and Ronald Weasley.
‘Harry,’ he said, very seriously, ‘whoever put your name in that Goblet – I – I reckon they’re trying to do you in!’ It was as though the last few weeks had never happened – as though Harry was meeting Ron for the first time, right after he’d been made champion. ‘Caught on, have you?’ said Harry coldly. ‘Took you long enough.’ Hermione stood nervously between them, looking from one to the other. Ron opened his mouth uncertainly. Harry knew Ron was about to apologise and, suddenly, he found he didn’t need to hear it. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, before Ron could get the words out. ‘Forget it.’ ‘No,’ said Ron, ‘I shouldn’t’ve –’ ‘Forget it,’ Harry said. Ron grinned nervously at him, and Harry grinned back. Hermione burst into tears. ‘There’s nothing to cry about!’ Harry told her, bewildered. ‘You two are so stupid!’ she shouted, stamping her foot on the ground, tears splashing down her front.
“Can you see the point at which you were hit with a confundus charm and made to accept Ronald as a friend, and how you broke Hermione’s heart. She forgave you. Again.”
Harry looked at the frozen image, crestfallen, “Hermione I am so…” She silenced him with a kiss and when she released him, “Nothing to apologise for Harry, it was all Dumbledore, again. I should have seen it, but I assume I got confounded shortly after as well.”
Susan nodded in agreement, “Correct, Hermione; the meddler was determined that Harry would not feel any self-worth. He even engineered it so that you attended the ball with Krum, rather than Harry. I believe you asked each other and agreed multiple times before he got the mind magic to stick, your love for each other is very strong.”
Hermione nodded. “It says here we are animagus?”
“You will be before you return, as I stated earlier, we are outside of time, you shall train before you return, and you shall be animagus by the time you return. It was considered to make you both shape shifters in the truest sense of the word, but that would also make all of your children shape shifters and we thought that this was a recipe for disaster for the future.”
Hermione nodded thoughtfully, and resumed biting her bottom lip. “Harry, we need to decide when to go back. We could go back really early and I could rescue you from the Dursleys. You could come and live with my parents, but that would mean reliving our lives from the age of three or four all over again, with our adult minds, and maybe forgetting some details. Or we could go back later, after rescuing Sirius, maybe. We have older bodies and we could spend summer Horcrux hunting, what do you think?”
“Much as I like the thought of not living in Durskaban, the thought of having to wait for ten or more years before I can kiss you again isn’t great. I think we need to plot out a strategy, and work back from the end game to decide when to go back in. Can we get some help in planning?” he looked across at Susan as he asked the last question.
“Yes, of course. You will need help in your training, and planning is part and parcel of this. Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”
Harry looked at Hermione, his eyes moist, “My mother and father? Maybe Sirius? Remus, Tonks? What about Moody?”
Hermione looked at him and smiled softly, “Of course your parents, what about the Founders? It’s their school we were fighting for when we died.”
“How many are we allowed?”
Susan looked up from her notes. “At any given time, let’s limit it to six, but you can have different tutors, you need to learn close combat skills as well as magic. You need to get some help with your mental state, your relationship with Hermione will help. But you need to let go the abuse you suffered, unless we send you back early enough to avoid it in your next life?”
“I will start a list. Susan, can I have some paper or a notebook,” Hermione asked, a spiral bound notebook in blue with ‘Harry’s Training Plan’ on the front in silver materialised on the table next to her elbow. Hermione squeaked and grabbed the book, flipping it open and immediately started making notes in the pages.
“Would you two like some time to figure out what to start with, what to do?”
“Could you let my parents visit?”
Susan stood. “Of course.” She walked around the table and opened the door that had just appeared, “Lily, James, please come in,” Susan stepped to the side to allow Harry’s parents to enter and left through the same door as they passed.
Lily ran over to Harry, who had stood to face them, “Harry, my lovely boy.” She grabbed him into a Hermione style hug, and they both broke down in tears. James walked over more sedately and smiled at Hermione, “They will be a moment, it is really nice to meet you, Hermione; you are so good to my son. He might learn to understand love with your help. Welcome to our family.”
“Everyone keeps calling me Lady Potter, I don’t really understand.”
“Harry is Lord Potter, more things we need to tell you about, we have time, we can help you both understand what has been withheld from you. You might like to know that Dumbledore is suffering in his own personal hell for what he did to your lives, and Lily attacked him like the lioness she is for harming her cub. She will tell you herself in time.” He looked at his wife and son, still sobbing in each other’s arms, “Thank you Hermione, for supporting Harry, without you I don’t think he would have carried on. I want to rescue him from the Dursley’s somehow, it ruins his life, it ruins his character, he doesn’t understand love, his love for you is obvious to everyone except him.” She nodded in agreement.