Chapter 3

She landed on the carpet behind the desk, a tangle of hair and violet robes.

He released her hand as if it were on fire and took three steps back.

What in the bloody hell was she doing here?

"Granger?" he barked.

It certainly looked like Granger, despite her odd dress and unlikely appearance through a stained glass window one hundred feet above the ground.

Her head shot up, her expression alarmed. Big brown eyes darted around the room, taking in the portraits (who were avidly eyeing her as well), the Sorting Hat up on its shelf, the disordered bookcases, and the path he'd already worn into the carpet in front of the desk.

"How do you know my name?"

Outstanding. A deranged Granger.

"I taught you Potions for five years and Defence Against the Dark Arts for one, silly girl. Why wouldn't I know your name?" He took in a sharp breath. "Unless you're not Hermione Granger."

He sniffed the air for the telltale scent of Polyjuice and cast a surreptitious revealing spell.

Nothing.

"Obviously I'm Hermione Granger," she said, untangling herself enough to stand unsteadily next to his desk. "Though I have no idea who you are and how you know my name."

She folded her arms across her chest and ran her eyes over him, up and down.

"You didn't teach me Potions. Professor Evans is the Potions mistress at Hogwarts, and we haven't got a class called 'Defence Against the Dark Arts'."

Having said her piece, she unwrapped her arms and attempted to run her fingers through her hair, giving up after a few moments of wrestling with the tangles, instead pulling it back with a tie.

"So, who are you?"

No Defence...? Professor...? Even the portraits had begun to whisper amongst themselves, clustered together now in Armando Dippet's frame.

"Professor Evans?" he hissed. "What sort of game are you playing, girl?"

At this, she just looked exasperated.

"You're the one who grabbed my hand and pulled..." She stopped short and turned back towards the stained glass. "What was that you pulled me through, anyway?"

Excellent question.

He followed her gaze back to the window. Just as she had when reflected in the glass, she looked curious but not especially alarmed.

If she thought he was going to reveal his ignorance of her means of transport into the most secure room in wizarding Britain, she was sadly mistaken.

"For someone who has just landed in an unfamiliar place with an...apparently...unfamiliar wizard," he said, taking another step closer, "you seem oddly unconcerned, Miss Granger."

"Why would I be concerned? I'm obviously still at Hogwarts and am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I am a member of staff, after all."

The portraits behind him began to chatter.

He blinked.

Staff member? Definitely deluded. Oh, hell.

"You should be concerned because there's a war on, idiotic girl," he roared, "and the Dark Lord is after you and your..." He huffed and waved his arms. "...Weasley and Potter. You're not supposed to be at Hogwarts. You've abandoned your final year because you're off somewhere, doing whatever it is you are meant to do, so the Dark Lord can be vanquished. You're a seventh year non-student, Granger. Hardly a staff member."

He'd expected Granger to leap to her own defence or possibly to argue with him, perhaps presenting him with a cross-indexed list of reasons why here was precisely where she was meant to be. Instead, she just stood, arms akimbo, looking at last more confused than curious and disturbingly pale.

"You know," she said. "I think I need to sit down."

He pulled a chair to her, and she collapsed into it, head between her knees, breathing deeply.

He wanted to interrogate her, to find out why she'd come back and to compel her to reveal how she'd made her arm materialise through the window, followed abruptly by the rest of her (though, admittedly, he'd had a hand in the latter). But she was breathing deeply now, apparently trying to get hold of herself.

Something was wrong, and it wasn't the sort of wrong he had grown accustomed to over twenty years of spying.

"It's good to see you finally recognising the gravity of the situation, Miss Granger," he said. "This war is coming to a head, and you and your friends are in the eye of the storm."

He thought the strangled sound from beneath her hair was a laugh, but he wouldn't swear to it.

"I don't know about any war," she said finally, her voice muffled and a bit shaky. "Or about being in the eye of a storm." She looked up, her eyes wide. "I would have heard about this war, wouldn't I?" She took a shuddering breath. "I don't know what to do in a war."

The Hermione Granger he knew would have been defiant. Pretended to bravado, even if she didn't feel it. This witch was afraid. He sat next to her and handed her a glass of water. She sipped it and handed it back to him before she began to speak again.

"I don't know any of those wizards, either. Apart from Weasley, of course. He won't leave me alone despite having a job he should, at least theoretically, attend to. I don't know who you are and I've never heard of any Dark Lord. Merlin, who calls themselves that?" she muttered. "Or anybody named Potter."

She lifted her head gingerly, taking small sips of air as she sat up. Her eyes were bright and her skin had paled even more. It was the expression of a woman for whom war was not an every day reality. She glanced at him, at the portraits on the walls, and around the large, circular room.

He hadn't spoken, but she didn't seem to notice, lost as she was in her confusion and fear. The wheels were turning; he could almost see them spinning faster and faster, thoughts spilling out almost at random.

"Oh, Merlin," she breathed. "I don't understand. If I'm Hermione Granger, then who is the Hermione Granger who's on the run? What sort of danger is she in?" She looked terrified, as if the Dark Lord would be coming for her at any moment, as well he might. "If there's a war... are you and she, I mean, I, I mean, she, oh, Merlin's beard." She gulped. "It's just... Whose side are you on? I mean, I had the impression from what you said..."

But he cut her off with a gesture, glancing up at the portrait behind the desk. For once, Dumbledore's eyes were open. They moved from Granger back to Severus. The old man paused, and then nodded once. The girl didn't notice; she had continued talking.

"There's one more thing," she said, "you still haven't told me your name or how you managed to get into Headmistress McGonagall's office."

Bloody hell.

He moved her to one of the chairs by the fire and pressed a cup of tea into her hands. She muttered something that sounded like "Where are the biscuits?" but just shook her head when he asked her to speak up.

The scene felt like a dream...only more vivid than usual... until the moment he pulled out his wand.

"Where did you get that?" she shrieked, jumping to her feet.

"What?"

"That!"

Her hands were shaking, but she was clearly pointing to his wand.

The evidence that the girl was addled was growing by the minute.

"My wand?" He waved it a bit just for emphasis.

"That's illegal," she hissed.

He frowned. "Not the last time I checked. Unless you're Muggle-born." He paused and raised an eyebrow. "You are Muggle-born, aren't you, Miss Granger?"

But she didn't answer. Her eyes darted between the window and the Floo as if calculating her odds for escape.

"You keep using words I don't know, and you still haven't told me your name. I don't know who you are or what this place is," she said, lifting her chin, defiant, "but I want to go home now."

For all her faults, and he could catalogue a good many, there was one thing Severus could always count on when it came to Granger.

She was a terrible liar.

Terrible. Only Minerva's death glare had saved the three first year Gryffindors from Granger's pathetic tale of woe and rescue the night Quirrell had set a troll loose in the dungeons.

He sat, lowering his wand slowly, as her eyes tracked its movement. When he slipped it back into his sleeve, she finally took a breath and looked him in the eye.

Ah.

Perhaps.

If he could get her to calm down, be less skittish. Then, maybe. Otherwise, he couldn't risk it.

Had he stopped to think, he might have wondered why he didn't simply immobilise her. It wasn't as if Phineas hadn't already shouted the suggestion amidst the cacophony emanating from the office walls. Had he given himself a moment to reflect, it might then have occurred to him that, unlike every other living soul in the castle (and a fair number of the non-living ones), this woman wasn't scared of him...only of the confusing circumstances she claimed to have found herself in.

The possibility of forging an alliance was remote, but so very tempting. Far too tempting, in fact. Worse, her openness in the face of her fear was a lure he couldn't resist; suddenly he was beyond logic, here, across from the young woman with the frightened eyes and the defiant glare.

"Miss Granger," he said, pitching his voice low, calming, "it's clear something odd has happened. Might I suggest we both sit..." he gestured to the chair she'd so recently vacated, "and attempt to determine what it might be?"

She watched him for a long moment, then another. Her breathing slowed, but her eyes kept darting from his hands to his sleeve, where he'd tucked his wand.

"I'm going to sit," she said, at last, "and you're going to tell me everything about what's going on here. Everything."

Wherever this was, at least they had decent tea.

She held onto the teacup with both hands, wishing she could bury her face in the aromatic steam and find Professor McGonagall smiling benevolently at her when she looked up. But when she lifted her head, he was still there.

"How about starting with your name," she said between sips.

He looks wary, she thought. Which is odd. I'm obviously the one compromised here.

"Severus Snape." His lips twisted into a sneer, and she wondered for whom he held such deep contempt: himself, for some unnamed sin, or his parents for saddling him with such a sour sounding name.

"Severus Snape," she echoed. "Thank you."

Knowing his name shouldn't have mattered, shouldn't have made her feel less anxious or unsettled. And yet it was as if a counterbalance had been set on the scale and she could nearly breathe again. Severus Snape.

All right then.

"I take it that you occupy the Headteacher's office," she continued.

"Obviously."

"Yes, well, it's less than obvious to me." She paused. "Obviously."

He sat up straighter at that. Good. She took a deeper breath.

"I am confused about your surprise, Miss Granger," he said. "To my knowledge, you have lived six years in this castle and should know me. Quite well, in fact." His lips twisted again, and she wondered what sort of teacher he had been to her, or whatever version of her he knew.

"The Hogwarts I know employs only witches as faculty," she replied. "There are only Headmistresses, no Headmasters. It's been that way for nearly five hundred years." The look of shock on his face gave her pause, but she continued. "It's one of the reasons I was so taken aback when I first saw you. You know. In the goblet and then in the window. That's where I saw you..."

He nodded and she relaxed infinitesimally. She hadn't been the only one, then. He'd seen her, too.

"It's not as if I go around seeing strange wizards in reflections everywhere, so that was odd, of course. But seeing a wizard at the podium in the Great Hall, and then in the headmistress's office, that was... jarring, as you might imagine."

"I have no need to imagine," he said. "The Hermione Granger I know isn't currently in residence at Hogwarts," he said, appearing to choose his words carefully. "As I said earlier, she is meant to be doing some very important work. Work that is vital for my own mission, here."

So. They were meant to be allies, then. He and the Hermione he knew.

She relaxed a bit more.

"So, seeing her image where it wasn't meant to be was a bit of a shock, then."

"To say the least."

They eyed each other over their teacups. Comrades, now, both confused over a turn of events neither had engineered. She could work with this.

"I must admit, the idea of another me running around, trying to stay away from...who was it again, 'The Dark Lord?'...is rather unsettling."

Snape snorted and shook his head, and Hermione wondered how he felt about the Hermione he knew. Later, she thought. Later.

Hermione took a final sip of tea and placed the cup and saucer gently on the table. She had a thousand questions...about the Hermione Granger who was on the run, about the wizards that Hermione knew and the wizard they were running from...but now she was feeling a bit calmer. Answers could wait. Not long, but for a bit. First, there was something else she needed to know.

"Can you show me the window you pulled me through?"

His head shot up, surprised.

"Don't you want to hear about Potter and the Dark Lord?" He leaned in closer to her. "About Hermione Granger?"

Hermione shook her head, resisting the offer.

"Later, I will," she said. "First I'd like to work out how I got here and how I can get back."

He looks almost disappointed, she thought. The memory of the expression on his face, reflected in the window, bereft and haunted, hit her like a punch in the stomach. Was he so alone here?

"Get back," he echoed. "Of course."

"I expect you'd like me to go back. Be out of your way?" She felt inexplicably reluctant.

"Of course I would. I have a great deal to attend to here. I haven't the time to protect a Hermione Granger who is meant to be..." He waved his hand towards the window, "...out there, away from the dangers here at Hogwarts."

Hermione's stomach twisted. There hadn't been war in the wizarding world for more than a thousand years. She had no frame of reference other than her history books to guide her. But this man looked haunted, exhausted, and the realities of what it must mean to be under siege began to take on a shape far more vivid than inked words on parchment. She wondered again what the other Hermione was doing and whether she was safe.

Oh, safe.

"Are you in any danger?"

Now he looked angry. Why was he angry? She was just worried for him.

"That's not your concern, Miss Granger," he said, but she thought she heard a crack in his voice.

"Are you in the habit of telling people what their concerns should be?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Because I'm not accustomed to being told such things. And if I were, I'd hardly listen." The first was not strictly true, but he didn't need to know that. The second was, though. Unequivocally.

"Of course you wouldn't," he muttered. "Why should that be any different."

She smiled, and for the first time since she'd fallen, head first, into this room, felt the weight on her chest entirely ease.

"Well, then," she said. "At least we have that in common."

His face was blank for a long moment, studying her. And then, like the clouds parting, the lines of his face softened.

"That, we do," he said softly.

The stained glass behind the desk looked, at first glance, like many of the windows peppered along the walls of Hogwarts. Some of them, like the one in her common room or the mermaid in the prefect's bathroom, had become as familiar as the back of her hand. Others, she'd stumbled upon turning a wrong corner, lost in thought. Until tonight, though, she hadn't given much thought to the windows in the headmistress's office. The portraits had always commanded far more attention, after all, and besides, Hogwarts had no end of wonders to keep one occupied.

The window in question was beautiful. All vivid reds and blacks and greens. It depicted three wizards, each holding what looked like one of the four Hallows. Here there were only three, though. She wondered where the fourth had gone. Before them all stood what might be the personification of Death.

"It's beautiful," she said. "Disturbing, of course, but quite lovely." She looked up at him. "But why are you showing me this one?"

He frowned. "You asked to see the window through which I pulled you." He gestured to the stained glass. "This is it."

Hermione turned back to the scene in the glass. "This isn't the one I was looking at when my hand slipped through," she said, running her fingertips once more over the glass.

Cold. Solid.

She sighed.

"What was the scene, then?" he asked.

Her eyes were scanning the broad wall of windows.

"I don't see it here. Perhaps it's elsewhere in the castle."

"What does it depict?"

"The Hallowing," she said.

"The what?" His voice was sharp and Hermione was confused.

"The Hallowing," she repeated slowly, as if he hadn't heard her the first time. "You must be familiar with..."

"Obviously not," he interrupted, voice clipped. "What, pray tell, is 'The Hallowing'?"

What was The Hallowing? Every child in the wizarding world knew the story. And if they were unclear on the details, it was told to them again at every Welcoming Feast at Hogwarts. How could this man, this wizard, not know the story that everyone in her...

Her world.

"This isn't my world," she whispered.

"Miss Granger, despite what the Dark Lord would like everyone to believe, you belong in the wizarding world as much as any pureblood..." But she was looking at him, aghast, and he stopped short.

"What on earth does my parentage have to do with any of this?" she asked, alarmed.

"I assumed..."

"You assumed, what? That the question of my birth should have any bearing on my status as a witch? The wizarding world eradicated that sort of bias nearly a thousand years ago, Snape. What sort of world are you living in?"

By the look on his face, he was contemplating just that.

She sniffed and turned back to the windows.

"What does this scene depict?" she asked.

"It is a children's fable. 'The Story of the Three Brothers.' Have you heard of it?"

She shook her head. "I haven't. My parents aren't magical, but my primary school emphasised both magical and non-magical lore, so if it had been an important tale, we would have heard it."

"We?" His voice was tight and she wondered why.

"We. My classmates and myself." She tilted her head, curious again. "What's wrong?"

"You were educated alongside Muggles?"

"There's that word again," she said. "Muggles?"

"Non-magicals."

"Oh. Why don't you just call them non-magicals, then?"

He looked flabbergasted. "I can't say that I have an answer to that."

"Hmm." She looked back to the window.

"What happens in the story?"

Snape took a step forwards, drawing a long finger to point to the first wizard depicted. "Antioch, the first of three brothers faced with Death, bargained with him for an unbeatable wand with which to vanquish him. The second brother, Cadmus, bargained for a stone with which to reach those who had already departed this plane, and the third brother, Ignotus, requested a way to hide from death, and so Death gave him his own cloak of invisibility."

He paused and looked at Hermione again. "The first two failed to escape death, but the third brother..." He shivered and Hermione resisted the urge to lay her hand on his arm. "The third brother hid from Death until he was ready to go, and then he passed peacefully into the next plane."

The room was still, and Hermione held her breath, watching as Snape lost himself in the images in the glass. Such a desperate and powerful fable, and one that clearly resonated with him. He'd said that they were at war. How long, she wondered, had he been hiding from Death?

"Such a sad story," she said at last. "So much resistance to the natural order of life." She pointed to the wizard with the wand. "They say that's why wands were outlawed not long after the establishment of Hogwarts. They provided too much focused power, too much temptation to take over instead of seeking to be in harmony."

"Outlawed," he echoed. "Wands, outlawed? I can't even imagine."

"And I can't imagine walking around with a loaded weapon at your disposal all the time," she said. "Besides, how do you cultivate your intrinsic magic if you're always tethered to that... stick?"

His lips quirked and the corners of his eyes crinkled a bit; she wondered if he ever smiled. Really smiled. Her face grew warm at the thought and from the swooping feeling in her chest.

"Will you tell me about 'The Hallowing'?" he asked, and she was grateful to see that he was still looking at the window and not at her.

"Of course," she said, grateful for the request, for the concession and the opening of a door.

Seemed only fair. She'd gone through a pretty massive door herself, today. It was his turn, after all.

decided months ago on the Great Hall for this ritual. It is the heart of the school, and where better than its heart to plant the seeds for its primary purposes and goals?

The twilit ceiling still shines with the fractured light of the rainbow arcing across it, end to end. We can hardly keep our eyes from tracing each coloured ribbon, searching for our own images shadowed there as we are undoubtedly shadows to the others...others who are also us...who might be searching their own reflected skies.

"So many possibilities," murmurs Godric, shaking his head. Awestruck. "Will we be able know them all?"

"I suppose the main rays at least should be knowable," answers Rowena with a glance at me. She is uncomfortable not to be in the role of expert, but she is also gracious and perhaps just a tiny bit afraid.

"Should we wish to view the other threads, we can do so through the mirror portal," I explain. "We cannot interfere, but we can observe."

For a moment, we all look at the indistinct figures moving within the glass and then, one by one, back up to the ceiling.

"What happens to the looking glass in future generations, Helga?" Salazar asks. "When we are all gone?"

I had been waiting for this question, in truth.

I smile.

"The Hallowing is intrinsic to the story of the establishment of Hogwarts," Hermione began, finishing a second cup of tea. "I'm surprised you didn't come across it in 'Hogwarts: A History'." She wrinkled her brow. "You do have 'Hogwarts: A History,' don't you?"

"We do," he said with a smirk. "Not to worry." And at her puzzled expression, added, "The Hermione Granger I know carried a copy with her at all times for what must have been her first four years of school. I suspect she knows it by heart."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Your Hermione is lucky. We're not permitted our own copies. Too much emphasis on history is a barrier to moving forwards. We must know our history, of course, but not dwell on it."

It sounded like something she'd learned by rote and was trying her best to believe.

"There are, nonetheless, certain stories everyone must know. Stories that form the foundation of who we are."

"Such as 'The Hallowing.'"

She nodded.

"When the Founders established Hogwarts, they were particularly concerned with embedding protections into its foundations and walls. It is said that they disagreed about whether it was safe for children whose families had not always been magical to attend the school. We are told that Salazar Slytherin in particular worried about the safety of the students from non-wizarding homes and the risk non-magical families might pose to the wizarding world as a whole."

Severus sat forward in his chair, grateful for the teacup occupying his hands. He'd never heard Salazar Slytherin described by non-Slytherins as anything less than an elitist, a wizard who hated Muggles and anyone associated with them, magical or not.

Slytherin House had its own version of history, of course. But usually those tales involved Salazar's great power and superiority. His cunning. His ambition and magical achievements. There hadn't been much even within Slytherin House to contradict the lore about the Founder's beliefs about non-pureblood wizards. He hadn't ever given much thought as to why that might have been the case, nor to whether it was true.

"Go on," he said, breathless.

"The Founders agreed that each would bring something wrought by their own hands, imbued with their own magic, and together, they would infuse the castle with their own protections, both literally and symbolically. They called those items the 'Hallows' because they had a sacred purpose."

She caught his eye then, like she might read his own hallowed purpose there. For a moment, it seemed as if she would reach out her hand to him, and he couldn't bear to look away.

"They are meant to protect us all."

He looked at her hand, suspended between them as if frozen in time. How long had it been since anyone had reached out for him? How long since anyone thought him worthy of their protection, their support?

"They are a myth. A child's fairy tale," he said roughly.

"They are not," she insisted.

He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"I don't believe the Hallows exist, Herm..." He hesitated, stumbling over her name.

"Hermione," she whispered. "My name is Hermione."

He nodded. No matter how improbable, it was clear that this woman was not the Hermione Granger he had known for six years, had taught, had done battle with as he attempted to prepare her for war. This was someone else. From somewhere nearly out of reach. A woman who had never heard of the Dark Lord and thought the idea of wielding power for its own sake bizarre.

"Hermione," he repeated after her. "And I am Severus." She smiled broadly at him until his face grew warm.

"How was the Hallowing achieved?" he asked, flustered. "What is depicted in the stained glass on your side of the barrier?"

She focused her eyes once more on her teacup and continued.

"As the tale goes, each Founder came to the Great Hall with the item they had prepared. Gryffindor with his wand, Slytherin with his stone, Ravenclaw with her crown, and Hufflepuff with her cloak. Together, they wove the four Hallows into the shields and structure of Hogwarts, providing unimpeachable protection from harm to those who dwell here."

"There are only three Hallows, Hermione."

"No, Severus. There are four. In my world, there are four."

There. She'd said it again.

My world.

It was a relief to acknowledge it. Dancing around what had become blindingly obvious took more energy than she had to spare. Besides, the sooner they both admitted the unlikely but unavoidable truth...that he had pulled her through some sort of portal...the faster they could work out how to get her back again.

To her Hogwarts. Where the headmistress was undoubtedly frantic, and Professor Evans would be displeased that the third-years had no teacher for tomorrow's lessons.

"Your world," he repeated.

"So it would appear," she said.

"It would seem so," he murmured, glancing at the stained glass window behind his desk. The window that, inexplicably, connected to somewhere so completely 'other' that he could never have fathomed...

"How do you think it happened?" he wondered out loud.

"Two Hogwarts?" she asked.

"Who says there are only two?" He raised his eyebrows and her eyes widened.

"How many could there be?" She felt nauseous with a mixture of fear and excitement at the idea.

"Infinite," he whispered, and it occurred to her that this thought, above all, seemed to bring him surcease from his burdens. How heavy they must be, she thought, if it takes the prospect of infinite universes to free him.

"But Severus," she said, loath to interrupt his moment of peace, "if there are infinite universes, how am I supposed to find my way home?"