Chapter 6

They Apparated to the edge of the forest. She was grateful for his arm around her shoulders, a guide in this foreign world. Tree branches swung low above their heads, heavy with recent snowfall. The ground before them was untouched...a broad expanse of white as far as the eye could see.

Right up to the tent pitched in a small clearing, beyond a cluster of rocks.

"All right then," she whispered. "Do we just watch to see when one of them comes out of the tent?"

Severus followed her gaze with his own.

"What tent?"

"The one over there." She pointed.

He squinted and shook his head, looking back and forth between Hermione and the endless expanse of snow.

"I don't see a tent."

"It's right over there. There are about three layers of spells all around it, but..."

"Of course she would have set the protective enchantments," he murmured, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight. "What an unexpected perk of having one's own personal Hermione Granger close at hand."

"What do you mean, 'she'?" she asked, ignoring for a minute the twist in her stomach at his obvious pleasure at having his own personal Hermione Granger. "I would never attempt something so important alone."

What a strange world this was, she thought. Where the safety of a whole society rested on the shoulders of so few.

Severus met her eyes. "What if you had no choice?"

She shuddered. She could scarcely imagine such a scenario. So cut off from others that you had to act on your own or die trying.

"You can see them because you are her, and she set the protective enchantments."

Well, then. Thank goodness she was here. How on earth would he have found them in the forest, otherwise?

"What are they doing now?" Severus asked, his eyes darting around, no doubt looking for a likely place to conceal the sword. Dumbledore had explained that it must be found and taken under conditions of valour. Never before had she wished that magical artefacts would, for once, behave with more simplicity.

The other Hermione, as she had taken to thinking of her, sat inside the tent, next to the transparent panel...no doubt hoping for a bit of winter moonlight to illuminate their supper. She was gaunt and worn-looking and weeks distant from a good wash. Even from here, Hermione could see the droop of her alter-ego's shoulders.

Exhaustion. Weariness.

Not yet desperation, but not far from it.

Across from her sat a boy. A young man, really. Dark, rumpled hair. Round glasses. That must be Harry Potter, she thought.

That is Harry Potter.

He was punctuating their meal with bursts of chatter, hands gesticulating in the growing darkness. He was trying to cheer her up, Hermione realised, and felt a rush of warmth for the young man. The woman across from him...she couldn't quite think of her as Hermione, though perhaps Granger would do...periodically nodded. Once, she even smiled.

"There," Severus said from behind her. She hadn't noticed him wander off, so he must not have gone far. "Now, we wait."

The meagre meal didn't take long to complete, and once darkness fell, Hermione watched as Granger made her way to bed, her companion taking first shift.

"Can you see him yet?" Hermione asked.

Severus shook his head. "Is he taking first watch, then?"

"He is."

"Good. It's cold."

Hermione smiled and moved just a bit closer. They'd agreed to use as little magic as possible once on site. The less they risked detection, the better.

Still, it was cold.

She shivered.

Without a word, he wrapped his arms around her, bringing her back flush against his chest. She slid her hands into his sleeves and found warm skin there beneath her bare fingers. Her thumb traced small circles along the silk of his inner wrist and she felt his pulse thrumming beneath her fingers.

His breath huffed against her cheek, and she realised he'd curled himself around her, shielding her from the newly falling snow.

She shivered again, but, this time, not from the cold.

It was good, she thought, that his arms were holding her up because otherwise she might crumple onto the ground. Her heart was pounding, and she hoped that Potter took a long time before he came out of his protective circle.

Thus nearly an hour passed, silently, huddled together with no inclination at all to ever leave this desolate and wonderful spot.

But they had a job to do, and she could feel him begin to stir, restless, behind her as the moon began to set.

"Cast it now, Severus," Hermione whispered, when it was evident that Potter would not be moving beyond the boundary of the enchantments.

He hesitated, and she knew without him saying so that he wasn't entirely convinced of her plan. Not yet.

"He will trust you. He must." How could he not, once he saw what she had seen...had felt...deep in the night? What she could feel now, through his warm skin and in the beating of his heart?

And so, after a moment more to gather his thoughts, Severus wrapped one arm more securely around her and motioned with his other hand, the hand holding his wand, whispering the incantation.

For once, Hermione was grateful for this world's use of wands.

Never had she witnessed such a magnificent demonstration of power.

Never had she seen such a powerful and beautiful Patronus.

Wrought entirely of light, the doe was glorious, wide eyes gilded with long lashes, a lithe body and long, slender legs of silent grace. The doe paused and glanced back at Severus before turning towards the tent. Dancing silently over the snow packed ground, a moment passed before she gained Potter's attention, and even longer before the boy overcame his doubts and stepped outside the protective circle to follow her.

The doe led him past where Hermione and Severus stood, huddled in the shadow of an enormous tree, to a small frozen pool. There, after lingering by the water for only a few hearbeats, she disappeared from sight.

Harry Potter cried out for the Patronus to come back, but to Hermione the doe never truly disappeared. She only slipped through the tiny cracks of Severus's mask, tucked beneath his skin, ensconcing herself once again in her hiding place. Safe inside him where nobody...save Hermione...could see.

"Let's go," Severus whispered, as Potter failed to retrieve the sword from beneath the icy surface of the pond again and again and again.

"Don't you want to be sure he gets it?" What would happen if Potter failed to retrieve the sword?

"The Weasley boy is behind a tree over there," Severus said, gesturing to a point just beside the pond. "Potter will get himself into just enough of a jam that he'll come out and save his skin."

"Ron?" she echoed. "Really?" She couldn't imagine the Ron Weasley she knew doing any such thing, but then again, she would never have pictured any version of herself doing what the woman in the tent had done. Had been doing for years now, according to Severus.

"Yes," he said, smirking, "Ron Weasley."

"Well," she murmured, watching as Ron stepped out of the shadows and swore at the sight of Potter flailing beneath the icy water. "I suppose needs must."

It took what felt like forever to get warm again, but since they seemed to have simultaneously decided that close physical contact was the preferred way to shake off the cold, he could hardly complain.

He'd smuggled her back into the castle through a back door only known to the headmaster, Disillusioned as an extra precaution. Once inside his private rooms, he had stripped them both of their cloaks and hats and, without a word, gathered her into his arms and sat them together on the sofa.

The fire was blazing as if the elves had known they would need a particularly warm fire tonight. Curled up together they sat, in easy silence, even as they grew warm.

A bit warmer than he'd anticipated, in fact. He shifted his position just a bit.

Hermione sighed and turned her head. Her mouth hesitated a hairsbreadth away from the edge of his jaw; her breath so sweet on his skin.

"That went well," he said, clearing his throat.

"Mm hmm," she murmured. The hum of her voice tingled against his skin, and he wondered if she could feel his pulse racing there beneath her lips.

"Are you ready for bed...for sleep?" he asked, grateful her eyes were closed and she couldn't see him blush.

"Mm hmm," she answered. She was completely relaxed, as if there was no better spot on earth than on his lap, in his embrace.

Now he knew the world had turned on its axis. Maybe she hadn't slipped into his world after all, but he into hers. A world where he could be held, where he had a partner with whom he could recuperate at the end of a difficult day. A place where he was safe, if only for these few precious moments out of time.

All of a sudden he wanted her to stay, never to go back to her world where the only way he could see her was as a distant reflection in the glass. But she couldn't stay; not now, not when the war depended on his vigilance and his isolation.

"You can't stay with me," he said. Even though I want you to. He couldn't say it out loud.

But he didn't need to. She lifted her head to look at him. Her eyelids were heavy, but her expression was fierce.

"Watch me."

He brought his hand to her cheek, stroking the flushed skin there. She leaned into his caress, her head heavy against the palm of his hand.

"Hermione." Begging her. Pleading. For what, he couldn't say.

She might have whispered his name, but the sound was lost to the rushing in his ears as she brought her lips to his palm. One kiss, two, three, into the curve of his hand, as if she intended for him to cup each one like drops of water and hold them close for later, when he'd surely be parched again. The next thing he knew, his fingers were threaded through her hair and he'd brought those lips to his.

She tasted of starlight and hope, and his heart surged at the joyous laughter that bubbled up from her in the midst of the kiss. It was like finding something you'd thought lost forever. Something you'd once known and hadn't remembered you missed.

Finding it felt like everything. Everything, all at once, together, bursting from the timbre of her voice and the sweet smell of her hair against his cheek.

He kissed her again and again. Lips and tongue and breath and skin. Every kiss, returned with interest. Her hands beneath layers of clothing, finally finding bare skin. She swallowed his moan and echoed it when his hands found the smooth expanse of her back. She wound herself around him, their legs intertwined.

With his head resting against hers, his lips touching her curls, they lay together on the sofa, until the pounding of their hearts slowed and their breathing eased. One of her curls twined around his finger, and he wanted nothing more than to spend all night mapping each and every one, defining the precise trajectory of each tendril...and to spend every night of the rest of his life doing the same with each part of her. If he could understand the pieces, perhaps he could understand the whole, how this woman had come to be and why, of all the wizards in his universe and hers, she seemed to have chosen him.

"I can't keep you here," he whispered. "Though Merlin knows I want to." He felt her arms tighten around him.

"Keeping me here? You're doing no such thing," she said. "Because I'm not leaving you here alone. Not now."

His heart lurched.

"What do you mean, not now?"

"Now that I know where you are," she murmured, her speech slurred from exhaustion. "I've been waiting for you for ages."

Waiting for him? What?

"Hermione?"

But she was fast asleep.

windows have hidden themselves [in every universe they have found their niche] and I wonder what will happen in this world to keep them from public view.

"We will be here," I show them with the sweep of my arm. "Portraits made of glass. Portals between the worlds. I will hold the looking glass in each and every window."

"Who will cross over?" asks Godric. "For what reason?"

"I don't know," I tell him. "I only know that despite the split, these worlds are still tethered to one another." All the possibilities, every potential outcome, linked. Always linked.

"So we are here," says Rowena, "and also, there." She gestures to the streams of colour that span the ceiling.

"Yes."

"And what of the Hallowing?" asks Salazar. "What does it matter if we do it now, if in other universes it never happens?"

I hear what he doesn't say. What of the witches and wizards in the other worlds who will die because they have not been protected or guided? Who will remember them?

"When the time is right," I answer, "once every century, the portal will open."

"And in the meantime?" asks Godric.

"We complete the Hallowing," says Salazar. "And we wait."

By the time the morning sun snaked its way through the high, leaded windows, the echo of dreams and the very real sensation of Hermione's body against his had blurred his memory of the night before until he was no longer sure what had been dreamt and what had been said aloud.

He wished that morning would linger just beyond the horizon for a little while longer. The Baron was bound to have obtained the information he needed soon, and once the sun was up, there would be little excuse to delay finding the portal back to Hermione's universe. The world stopped spinning for no one, not even for wizards desperate for a tiny bit of time out of time.

The chime that indicated the Baron wanted to speak with him wasn't loud enough to wake Hermione, but it roused him from his daydreams. He reached for his wand and with a flick set the chimes off again, letting the Baron know to wait for him in the outer office.

Unwinding from Hermione took a bit of finesse, as even in her sleep, she seemed determined to keep him anchored at her side. He shouldn't be surprised, he thought. Even the Granger of his world had shown a tenacity that impressed her instructors and earned decidedly mixed feelings from the rest of her class. What a singular pleasure, he thought, for such determination to be directed towards him.

Finally, he escaped from her grasp; for a heartbeat he let his fingertips linger against hers before he tucked her hand beneath the blanket. He paused to brush a kiss against her forehead, and to soothe her until her breathing deepened again as she fell back to sleep. Permitting himself only another brief to glance back at her, Severus entered the outer office and closed the door softly behind him.

The Baron hovered over an armchair, waiting. Severus couldn't be sure, but perhaps eagerness and not impatience led to the agitated tapping of the ghost's translucent foot against the table.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said Severus.

"No need to apologise," replied the Baron. "I knew you were particularly keen for this information, so I thought it best to interrupt you despite the early hour."

"Greatly appreciated," said Severus. "So, tell me. What did you discover?"

They slipped through the corridors like two ghosts, past portraits feigning sleep and coats of armour standing at attention. Down, down, down , until the high ceiling of the entrance soared above them, remote as the stars.

The Great Hall was empty. Severus's footsteps echoed faintly against the stone as the Bloody Baron led him to the high table and behind, where the stained glass stood, early morning light filling the wall with deep colour.

"Incendio," Severus whispered, and the candle in its holder ignited, throwing long shadows along the table and walls.

"Here it is, Headmaster," said the Baron. "Helena told me that when it happened...", he paused as if for breath, "...each... world obtained its own window. Empty, of course, until each of the founders moved to the next plane."

Severus nodded and approached the expanse of stained glass. Each pane was enormous, spanning the height of a full-grown wizard. Delicately wrought, each depicted one of the four Founders. Each with, as Hermione had explained, one of the artefacts (Hallows...she'd called them Hallows) used to establish the protective enchantments of the castle.

"Why are they immobile?" he asked the Baron. For, indeed, none of the figures within their frames moved, though every other window with live figures he'd ever encountered in the castle thrummed with magical life.

"I'm not certain," he said. "But Helena did mention that these glass portraits might need something to enliven them."

But Severus wasn't listening anymore. He was standing before the glass image of Salazar Slytherin. The Founder's profile was visible, his head bowed, hands clasped in front of him. On his right index finger was the ring Severus had seen more than a year ago, its stone broken, on Dumbledore's hand.

"Salazar," he whispered, and brought his fingertips to stroke the glass, brushing away a layer of dust and grime. The ring glimmered, and Severus used the edge of his sleeve to wipe away more of the dust coating it.

The stone glowed with a deep green fire, as if lit from within. The Stone of Memory. A whisper inside his head. He looked back at the window and at the softly glowing stone. The Stone of Memory.

"What did you want to be sure we remember, Salazar?" Severus murmured.

He hadn't expected the portrait of iron and glass to actually answer.

Hermione woke up alone.

Every other morning of her life, in fact, she'd woken up alone, but never before had it felt as if part of her had gone missing.

"Severus?"

He wasn't there. Not in the inner office, where they had fallen asleep on the sofa. Not in the outer office, if the lack of sounds she could discern with her ear against the door was any indication, nor was he behind the bedroom door at the far end of the room that remained resolutely closed.

"Severus," she murmured, back on the sofa where she'd woken, "where are you?"

Only the crackling of the dying fire answered her. And so, still wrapped in the twilight of half-sleep, she wandered through the small office until she once more reached the door at the far end. Without a second thought and for the first time, she touched the doorknob, hardly surprised when it swung open beneath her hand.

Beyond was his bedchamber, his most private place. He hadn't invited her in, but she had seen the texture of his soul and tasted hope on his lips, and so she just walked over the threshold with a sleepy smile.

"Oh, good," she murmured, and climbed onto the wide, four-poster bed made up with white linen that still held traces of his magic and fell right back to sleep.

That's where he found her when he returned from the Great Hall.

He was vaguely surprised to feel no panic, no moment of terror when he found her gone from the inner office. But he just knew she was still there, and that both of them were still safe.

She'd made her way to the centre of the bed and found a good many pillows, though she hadn't burrowed beneath the covers. He resisted the urge to fold the duvet around her, and to slip in beside her. Such temptation, he thought, to hide from the world here, in his innermost sanctuary, safe from the horrors of life outside, with only their basic human needs to consider. What luxury that would be.

But he was a disciplined man; no matter how deeply he longed for the peace and safety of this woman's regard, and the sanctity of the thick walls protecting them from intrusion, he understood what he must do. If Dumbledore's explanation had been frustrating, Salazar Slytherin's had been more satisfying, if no less painful.

Hermione stirred and he sat on the side chair by his bed. He didn't dare get closer; his longing had a gravitational pull from which he knew he would never, ever be free if he allowed himself into its orbit at last.

"I woke up and you were gone," she said, sleep still in her voice.

"The Bloody Baron had information for me. He found out where the portal is in this world."

She sat up unsteadily.

"He did?" Her voice was sharp and he knew there would be an argument.

"He did."

"I don't care. I'm not leaving." She rubbed her eyes and sat up straighter as if she intended to stay right there for the foreseeable future.

Oh, how difficult it was not to climb onto that bed and...

He folded his arms and raised his eyebrows.

"Aren't you the least bit interested to hear what I've discovered?"

No matter the universe, the response of Hermione Granger to as yet unlearned information was fantastically predictable.

She pursed her lips.

She wrinkled her brow.

She attempted to look uninterested.

She held out approximately twelve seconds before her need to know triumphed over her desire to appear unconcerned. Not bad, all in all.

Considering.

"Fine," she grumbled. "What did you find out."

Suddenly a knot in his throat made it difficult to speak.

"The stained glass. The panels you sketched the first night," he began.

She nodded. "The Hallowing."

"Yes. The Baron spoke with the Grey Lady. Helena Ravenclaw." He paused for her gasp of surprise. "She was a child when it happened."

"It?"

"When the world split."

The concept still felt like something out of an old legend, though now he thought of it, he supposed that was precisely what it was. Only nobody but the founders (or their portraits) and the few others who were there at the time (and who remained) still remembered.

Such a delicate web of threads, he thought. Connecting them to a history that was all but lost to the perambulations of time and fractured worlds.

"How did it happen?" She had shifted closer to him, legs bent near the edge of the bed. He could touch her if he reached out his hand.

"Helena was just a child at the time, but she told the Baron that it happened as the castle was being built. Before the students arrived. One of the founders did it, but she doesn't know which one."

Hermione nodded. "Doesn't matter, does it?"

No, it didn't, really.

"She also showed him where the windows are, here, in our world."

"Oh! Where are they?"

"In the Great Hall. Behind the high table. Hidden in an alcove."

She leaned even closer. Eager to hear.

"Did you see them?"

"I did." How could he describe the experience? Touching the glass, clearing layers of neglect from its surface. Awakening a wizard.

"And?"

"Salazar Slytherin spoke to me."

"Salazar. Slytherin." She sounded awestruck. Odd. Gryffindors didn't typically have that reaction to mentions of Slytherin.

"Seems appropriate. I was head of Slytherin House for seventeen years."

"What's Slytherin House?"

He blinked.

"Do you not have Houses at your Hogwarts?"

"Dormitory Houses, yes, of course. But the founders belong to all of us, not just to a certain House." She looked confused again.

"So many differences," he said. "I can hardly imagine..."

"Me, neither," she echoed. "So I take it to mean that, for you, talking to Salazar Slytherin was an especially meaningful experience."

"Oh, yes," he said.

"The Hermione Granger in this world, what House is she in?"

Severus grimaced. "Gryffindor."

"Oh!" A huge grin split her face.

"Why do you look so pleased?"

"You know. Gryffindor and Slytherin." She blushed.

"They fought. Their disagreement split Hogwarts."

She looked alarmed.

"What are you talking about? Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin adored each other. They built a family together at Hogwarts."

They did what?

"That's, erm. That's not what happened in the history I learned," Severus said.

"We need to sit down side by side with copies of 'Hogwarts: A History' one day," she muttered.

"One day," he said. "When the war is over."

If I survive, and if we can get you back through the portal again.

He didn't need to say it out loud. The mood shifted and Hermione's face fell.

"So, what did Salazar Slytherin tell you?" she asked.

"It makes a bit more sense now, actually," Severus said. "He told me to learn from his mistakes, to remember what I'm meant to do." His voice was tight, but he had to tell her the last bit, no matter how difficult. "And that the people you love never really leave you. Even when you think they have."

Tears filled her eyes and choked her once she could finally speak.

"What are you meant to do?"

He reached over and brushed the wetness from her cheeks with his fingertips.

"What he didn't do in this world." He swallowed. "Stay."

He left her there, in his bedchamber, like a talisman against the Dark, as he went about Hogwarts business that last day.

The horrors of his life (every day was like this; every single day) were muted against the contented buzz beneath this skin, reverberating even in his bones. She was still here, for a few more hours at least. Sitting on his bed or on his sofa or on the window seat of his bedroom, Hogwarts: A History (his world's version) in her eager hands.

He couldn't help but laugh at her bemused expression when the house-elves gave her a wide berth with each delivery of food and pot of tea.

"Was it something I did?" she finally asked, slightly hurt.

"You...she...thought it wise during her fourth year to free them," he'd told her, and laughed again at her wide eyed shock. Ironic, he thought, since this was not at all unlike what she'd proposed doing with him. For him.

"If I can't stay here, then you must come back with me," she'd said even after he'd explained what Slytherin had told him.

"Hermione, I have to stay, remember?"

"Yes, but for how long?"

He just shook his head and sighed.

Until it's over.. But he didn't say it out loud. She already knew.

So he'd left her, all indignation and longing, and gone about his duties. Scowling at students and dangling illusory enticements in front of the Carrows' eyes in the hope that they would be distracted long enough to spare the unfortunate few students remaining over the holidays their sadistic attentions for a few moments.

All the while, the image of Hermione stayed at the back of his mind, anchoring him, the hum of their connection, soothing. A buffer against the sharp edges and dark corners of the world he inhabited.

He wondered if it were possible to store her up to keep for later. To hold alone in the dark after she'd gone away.

gather in front of the blank windows. The smooth stretch of glass rises before us, empty portrait frames to be inhabited later. Someday, after we're gone.

Our gifts are ready, and so are we. At last, we will complete the sanctification of the castle, investing it with the qualities we each value most.

Salazar glances again at the ceiling. "Will the others have a Hallowing?"

Godric follows his gaze and squeezes his hand. Rowena smiles at me, as relieved as I am to see them reaching for one another again.

"Some will, I think," says Godric.

"And some won't," adds Rowena.

Salazar nods, and my own heart aches at the grief I know he feels, the regret. We all pause, a moment of silence before we begin.

As Salazar lets his tears fall freely (finally) onto the stone, I understand, truly, for the first time, what imbues them with so much magic.