Chapter Text
“It’s a minor test,” Hermione said.
Hermione’s sense of minor was utterly out of keeping with the common usage. Being an Unspeakable had exacerbated that tendency.
“Minor like the last time was minor?” Harry said.
“I didn’t know visualizing your magic would make you shed glitter, Harry,” Hermione said.
“For 48 hours,” Harry added. “I walked around Hogwarts looking like fucking Liberace for 48 hours.”
“We’re talking about parallel universes. Don’t you want to know if you could travel to one?” Hermione asked. Her eyes shone brightly. Even in the swirling black robes of an Unspeakable, she looked great, brown skin shimmering in the dank atmosphere of the Ministry. She seemed at home here, surrounded by books and experiments.
“No,” Harry said honestly. He was not especially given to wonder. He was a twenty-eight year old Hogwarts professor. The time for adventure had passed him by, and that was a wonderful thing a decade down the line from everything he’d gone through.
“You’re not at all curious about what other lives you could have led?” Hermione asked.
There had been a time Harry had been obsessed with nothing but other lives he could live. But to settle into this one, he had given up other possibilities.
“No, I like this one. Where Voldemort is dead and my life is boring and all my friends are alive and well.” She winced at his crassness.
“Well, you couldn’t travel to possibilities where you don’t exist,” she pointed out.
“Hermione...” Harry began.
But two decades of friendship had taught Hermione how to bargain with him.
“Get tested for me. And I’ll make you sticky buns,” Hermione said.
“Two dozen of the special kind with pistachios,” Harry said. She only made them around the holidays and it would annoy Ron, but they could sort that out themselves. Ron was in Ibiza on an Auror mission right now, anyway. He didn’t have to know.
Hermione agreed. Harry could manage a pain-free test that required him to get a finger prick and wait five minutes. Hermione fussed with a smoking cauldron and dropped his blood in there. The memory of the last time someone did that was uncomfortable for a moment, bright in his mind. Harry rolled the beads on his wrist to remind himself he was here and not there.
“You’re a perfect traveller,” Hermione said in awe as her undulating potion turned a shiny gold.
“Again with the glitter. I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Harry responded evenly. Being special reared its head once again.
“It’s rare, is all. We’ve tested the entire building, including the Minister, and there’s only three.”
“What does that mean?”
“Anyone could travel to parallel universes, right? But most people have a limit. More than a few hours and you begin to forget yourself. If you stay too long, you become who you are pretending to be.”
“Why would you pretend to be your other self?”
“Current studies for what happens if you get murdered in another body are inconclusive,” Hermione said. Her face was carefully blank.
“Nothing good, I’d expect. So everyone else can get stuck and perfect travellers don’t?”
“Precisely,” Hermione said. She smiled the way he did when faced with first years who needed encouragement to grasp basic wandwork. Harry rolled his eyes.
“I have to get back to my third years,” Harry said.
“Thank you! See you next week for dinner with Neville,” Hermione said.
“Don’t forget my sticky buns. Rose glaze,” Harry reminded her.
Harry returned to Hogwarts and forgot about the test in a few short days. Midterms were upcoming and some of his students in the seventh year seminar were already worried about their NEWTs in the spring. In his fifth year of teaching, he finally felt he grasped the rhythms of the school year.
Harry was also trying to figure out how to rally his Quidditch team. Gryffindor seemed to have given up on winning a single match all year. They tried, and they tried hard, but they didn’t work well together. He found himself in the November rain setting them drills so they might bond over how hard they worked. Instead, they seemed more and more defeated.
“Sorry the team isn’t any good when you spend all this time with us, Professor,” Aman Clef said, shuffling his feet. He had dropped the Quaffle a half dozen times during passing drills, including, memorably, directly on Harry’s head from twenty feet up. His temple still throbbed a little.
The team circled him on the ground of the pitch, soaked in sweat and the unrelenting cold fine mist that Hogwarts usually had in the autumn.
“Yeah, sorry,” the Captain chimed in. Mud streaked her from head to toe, and it took him a minute to figure out which of the Slate triplets he was looking at, although only Cadence was on his team. Sometimes they liked to switch.
“What do you think makes me happy?” Harry asked them.
“Winning,” their Beater said. The team laughed for the first time all practice.
“No, I am happy when you try. No matter the result. Ground drills, and then we’re done for the day.”
The team all groaned even the Captain who liked being on the team to burn off excess energy. But they did the floor-work with the determination to do it right and get out of there. Out of a sense of fairness, Harry got down in the mud and crawled along with them. He could use the exercise.
“Good job team. See you Saturday.”
Some of them smirked at the grass and mud stains on his front, but it seemed to cheer them.
They still lost on Saturday, but from then on asked him to fly and join them for all the drills. Sometimes they would laugh at him as he struggled through the harder bits; after all, he wasn’t thirteen anymore. Gryffindor played well enough and took a reasonable second in the House Quidditch rankings for the year. All his students passed. Most of the seventh years got an O or E on their NEWTs.
It was a good year, he thought.
Harry did not understand why Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt summoned him to the Ministry from his summer cottage a few days after term, but he was certain he wouldn’t like it. It wasn’t for social reasons, as the Aurors who flanked his door proved.
“Hilltowne, Pellack.” Harry nodded. They nodded back.
It surprised him, however, to see Hermione sitting with Kingsley.
“Harry,” Kingsley greeted warmly.
“Hi Hermione. Hello Minister,” Harry said. If he smiled a little, it was because he knew what was next.
“We’ve been over this. It’s Kingsley to you, Harry,” Kingsley said, pointing his quill at him.
“It was easier to remember when you were Head Auror,” Harry said.
“Perhaps if you had agreed to become Head Auror as I asked, government would be less confusing to you,” Kingsley shot back.
“We both know I’m not coming back, Kingsley,” Harry said with a bit of a smile.
Kingsley had encouraged him to take the posting and they had spoken about it at length, but Kingsley had made it known at every turn he was very sorry to have lost Harry.
“Ah, Hogwarts. The hours are long, but at least the pay is a pittance,” Kingsley teased.
Hermione cleared her throat, and they both sat up.
“Harry, you’re here because we have a mission for you. Draco Malfoy stole an item from the Ministry and we need someone to track him down,” Hermione explained. Harry felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Not because of Draco Malfoy. He barely knew him anymore, and Hermione was the one who worked with him directly. They saw each other when Harry was an Auror in Ministry hallways and greeted each other politely. In the last year, he might have seen Draco once, perhaps at a Ministry fundraiser for St Mungo’s or his orphanage or one of the dozen causes Harry gave money to since he had too much of it.
“Why?” Harry asked, dreading her answer.
“We don’t know,” Kingsley said. Admitting that seemed to weigh on him.
“No, not why Malfoy escaped. I expect if you knew, you’d find him. Why are you asking me?”
“Harry, you’re the only person who could go after him and search,” Hermione pleaded.
“But what do you mean? Where did he go?” Harry insisted. Hermione hesitated.
“Harry isn’t likely to agree without details. Go ahead, Hermione,” Kingsley said.
“The item he took is called a Firebird. It’s an experimental magical device that allows you to jump to alternate universes. When we tested you last year, we had made several prototypes for study. He's taken one. We need someone to look for him,” Hermione said.
“Isn’t there someone else?” Harry asked. He already knew the answer by the slope of her brow and the unhappy tilt of Hermione’s mouth.
“There isn’t anyone else since Theo disappeared,” Hermione said.
Harry almost couldn’t meet her eyes. She hadn’t talked about it like most of her work, but she had taken Theodore Nott’s loss hard a few months back. The rumour had been that he had vanished into thin air, but no one outside of Mysteries knew for certain.
“I would do it myself, but I can’t sustain enough jumps to do a thorough search since Malfoy is a perfect traveller,” Hermione said. It must not be possible if she admitted that much. But the question still rankled.
“I’m not an Auror anymore,” Harry reminded both of them. He had wanted to see the back of missions forever.
“It’s not a mission I’d give an Auror,” Kingsley said.
“That’s not the point. You can’t just call me up at any time to do shit for you. I don’t work here anymore. You promised me I would be done and walk away from this. I don’t have missions or duty or service. I don't owe anyone anything.”
Harry’s voice was a little more unsteady, a little more shrill than he’d like. His heart started hammering so hard, he could practically hear it in the hushed silence of the room. He could feel it. Both of them said nothing.
“Who cares where he goes? Let him run. Merlin knows he’s probably looking for his dead parents,” Harry said emphatically.
“If we don’t know where Malfoy is, he could collapse this universe and kill us all,” Kingsley said.
“I don’t think we would notice if that happened,” Harry said.
“He could destabilize the magic in several worlds until there’s no magic and we all die a painful death as the structure of reality collapses,” Kingsley said, deadpan.
“Does that sound like something he would do these days?” Harry asked Hermione incredulously.
The Draco he'd seen around the Ministry was quiet and kept to himself. He ate in the Ministry canteen. No one ate in the canteen. Harry hardly saw him in Wizarding London except for work and formal events. He gave off the same unsettling aura as the other Unspeakables, but even Harry didn’t think he’d been biding his time to do something nefarious. He was probably still a right bastard, but Harry had looked evil in the face plenty enough to know the difference.
“Personally, I don’t think that’s the case at all. Reports say that he had been struggling in his personal life, but he kept to himself at work. This seems like it had more to do with him than the work,” Kingsley admitted.
“The Firebird he took is an earlier prototype. It isn’t stable. He could seriously hurt himself or get killed by accident. And even unintentional damage could have severe consequences,” Hermione said.
Harry hated it when people made sense. And doubly so when that meant the Minister for Magic was asking him for favours. He couldn’t care less about the devices, but he still had a hard time knowing anyone was in danger. That was why he had left the Auror Department. Someone was always in need of rescue and it weighed on him, whether or not it was his case.
“I have to be back at Hogwarts by August 15. Properly back. I don’t care what kind of wobbly time bullshit goes on,” Harry conceded.
Hermione was good enough to hide her secret triumph.
“The time is almost equivalent, give or take a few milliseconds. No matter how many times you jump, you would have three months,” Hermione said. “Tomorrow come in for a test run, then you can start.”
“If I thought there was any other way, I would never have called you Harry. I hope you know that,” Kingsley said as Harry left.
Harry felt as though he would soon regret this immensely.
The next morning didn’t reassure him in the slightest. He drank half a coffee, stared into space, and realized he was running late. He had apparently forgotten his Floo fee because the network shut his Floo with an extremely pissy note that said his account was in arrears once again. He sprinted to the Apparition point and Hermione said nothing about him arriving twenty-two minutes late and out of breath.
“It’s a test run,” Hermione promised. “We jump in, we jump out.”
“It’s random?” Harry said.
“Not exactly. There are patterns to how you jump. It’s a shorter jump to universes that are like ours, and a longer one to universes that aren’t. If we cast for a close, it’s more likely to be one that seems somewhat familiar.”
“What happens to the Harry and Hermione whose life we take over?” Harry said.
“They exist in a liminal space outside of time,” Hermione said.
“In plain English, Hermione,” Harry said.
“They go to an in-between place. We can’t study it because no one remembers being there. Like a dream,” Hermione said. Harry frowned slightly.
"They don't remember anything?"
"Not really," Hermione said.
“Sounds ethically dubious to do that to someone.”
“It is,” Hermione admitted. “Put the Firebird around your neck. Then take its left wing and turn once clockwise. We find each other as quick as we can.”
They landed in the middle of a nightclub with throbbing bass and strobe lights. Harry looked down at himself. He was on the slender side here, wearing what appeared to be a leather vest, small tight black shorts....or underpants, with sandals and glitter everywhere. He was dancing hip to hip with a strange brunette man who licked a stripe up Harry’s neck.
In thirty seconds, this Harry had seen more action than Harry had in the last five years.
“I have to go find my friend!” Harry shouted over the music. The man he was dancing with shrugged and danced off in another direction. The thick press of people’s bodies against his was sweaty and hot.
He went to the bar, and there was Hermione. Her hair was loose here, and she wore a lacy bra and shorts that made Harry blush. She had taken a similar approach to glitter smeared liberally all over her face, cleavage and shoulders.
“Don’t look suspicious,” Hermione murmured, swaying to the music.
“This is supposed to be a close universe?” Harry asked, watching one patron snort a white line off the bar. Neither the bartender nor the other patrons paid them any mind. He wasn’t a Hitwizard or anything, but he thought people should at least be discreet about their drug use.
“Believe me, enjoying nightclubs is the least of our potential problems,” Hermione said. “You should see what I’ve seen myself get up to.”
As if that phrase summoned him, he spotted Draco across the room. His hair was tied back in a bun and he had opted for no shirt at all and a green tartan kilt which somehow made him look more naked than if he had gone starkers.
Hermione looked down at her Firebird.
“It’s not red. That’s not our Draco,” Hermione said.
“What do I do then?” Harry asked. Draco had spotted them and was coming over. Harry was uncertain he had ever seen that expression. It was a warm, engaging smile, notably absent of any mocking or glee over his misfortune.
“You’ll get some cues. There’s a sort of sense-memory held in the body. If not, pretend,” Hermione said quickly.
“Hi,” Draco said. The quality of his voice was slower, less polished. Harry thought he might’ve been able to tell that this was not his Draco. His Draco? What a phrase.
“Hi,” Harry said back, matching his smile. In this universe they must have some sort of friendship.
Then Draco reached out and tucked a curl of hair behind Harry’s ear, brushing his cheek softly. Harry was so taken aback he let it happen. The haziness he felt in this body—which he realized might be party drugs—responded to this. With a bit of embarrassment, he realized he could feel the edge of a deep affection. Not friendship. Even Luna didn’t touch Harry like that. No one did.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Draco asked him. “Come if you’re up for it, Hermione. Last time was fun.”
Harry thought he finally understood what the word lascivious meant by the way Draco looked at Hermione like she was something to eat and he was starving. She smiled, but Harry could see the panic in her eyes.
“Hold that thought and we’ll be right back!” Hermione grabbed Harry’s hand and walked them to the hallway where the loos were.
There was a universe where apparently he had threesomes with Draco and Hermione. He was uncertain what to make of that. Hermione wrinkled her nose. Neither did she from the way she avoided his gaze.
“Turn counterclockwise,” Hermione said. They both pulled the wing back to centre and stumbled back into their bodies at the Ministry.
“I think he liked you,” Hermione said.
“He would have liked you all night long,” Harry said. They both burst into giggles.
Hermione tossed him her Firebird.
“A spare in case you break yours or he’s broken his. Remember, none of those other worlds are yours,” Hermione said.
“That’s it?” Harry said. Hermione waved a hand dismissively.
“You learn by doing, don’t you?” Hermione said. Right, so she was going to send him into the multiverse with nothing but a magical device and a set of vague instructions. She smirked a little. Harry thought she would have a textbook or manual or something.
“Are there any rules?” Harry said, tapping his finger on the desk.
“You know the standard Time Turner rules, and I already told you not to get killed,” Hermione said. Sometimes Harry hated the wry sense of humour she’d developed coping with her job. He raised an eyebrow. She grabbed her Firebird back.
“Okay. Rotate in one direction, then back.” Hermione demonstrated without touching the Firebird. Her fingers ghosted over the device lightly.
“Wait in each world until it cools down and use it when you're alone. Most people can't perceive the Firebird, but if you draw attention to it someone will get suspicious. Do not take it off,” Hermione said.
“And what then? I run around trying to locate him by blind luck?” Harry asked. Did she seriously not have some protocol?
“The magic will guide you. It has a proximity charm for Draco’s and will lead you where he’s been. He has calibrated his to go to particular places. Just follow and you’ll catch up,” Hermione explained patiently.
“So can I go home while this is going on?” He knew the answer before he asked. A minimally warded Muggle summer cottage in the Outer Hebrides was probably a no-go.
“I’m sorry Harry but it won’t be safe. If you go to Grimmauld, I’ve secured it to contain the magical activity.”
“You didn’t know I would say yes,” Harry said. Hermione, politely, did not say that they both knew he would do it regardless of the test run.
“I’ll take care of your cottage,” Hermione said. “Everyone will think you’re in the Arctic backwoods hiking for the summer.”
“I’d rather do that than this,” Harry grumbled.