The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man

Title: The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man
Author: ianthe_waiting
Rating: MA/NC-17
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter books and their characters are the property of JK Rowling. This is a work of fan-fiction. No infringement is intended, and no money is being made from this story. I am just borrowing the puppets, but this is my stage.
Genre: Suspense, romance, angst
Warnings: Character Death, graphic violence, madness, non-consensual sexual acts, abuse, oral, M/F, and overall darkness. Dark!Harry included.
Summary: DH-EWE: Ten years after the fall of the Dark Lord, Hermione Granger leads of life of self-imposed obscurity, that is, until the day Headmistress Minerva McGonagall is murdered and a certain 'hero' is responsible.
Author's Notes: This fic is in 1st person POV, so take heed. It will eventually be a DM/HG, but there is a squicky scene that might make you think otherwise. There is some non-con in this fic, so if it squicks you, don't read it for Merlin's sake! Comments and ConCrit is welcomed!



The Fool, the Emperor, and the Hanged Man

Part 21




I awoke with a start, and immediately grasped the pendant resting between my breasts…I had dreamt that the disc had begun to burn, but as I wrapped my hand about the metal, I found it oddly cold.

Draco had not stirred from his place beside me on Severus’ bed. His left arm was still draped over my hips, but had slid to my lap as I sat up. We still wore our dragon-hide clothes, our wands still holstered to our bodies, and our cloaks laying across the foot of the four-poster bed.

I rubbed my eyes and sighed. Nerves…my nerves were fraying, and my anxiety was keeping me from sleeping. I turned to gaze down at Draco’s peaceful face. He slept deeply, his left eye moving under the lid, the remnants of the right eye twitching as if trying to keep in synchronization with the left…but failing. His skin looked flawless in the light coming in through the enchanted bedroom windows…a false moon shining into the room. Draco Malfoy was a handsome man, even more so when his face was unguarded in sleep.

However, I did not let my eyes linger on his ivory skin and the long pale lashes against his cheek. Instead, I carefully extracted myself from Draco’s arms to slide from the bed to move into the moonlit parlour and into the bathroom, whispering a lighting spell to the candles.

I ran water into the basin and splashed the cold liquid into my face, grabbing a towel to dab at my face, gazing into the mirror. Black essence swirled in my irises, and I let the towel drop to the counter, leaning forward to gaze into the mirror.

“What is it?” I asked in a whisper.

I could feel him moving behind my eyes, now that I was awake. He had said so little, but I could feel him there…just where Draco had kissed my third eye earlier in the day.

I leaned forward so that the end of my nose nearly touched the surface of the mirror. Severus’ presence was ink floating in my eyes.

Behold the Man!

Severus’ voice boomed through my head, and before he spoke again, I grasped my head in my hands, and in doing so slammed my forehead into the mirror…shattering it.

I gasped and stumbled back, falling against the side of the tub and into the tiled floor.

“Granger?” I heard Draco…distantly.

Behold the Man!

I gritted my teeth, Severus’ voice was so loud.

I could feel blood trickling down my face, into my eyes, into my mouth. And again, Severus’ voice screamed…

Behold the Man! Hurry!

I shook my head violently as if to dislodge Severus’ presence, which was spreading out from my third eye, just below the gash on my forehead and the glass embedded within. My vision was blurred, but I could see that the candles were lighting in the parlour and Draco moving toward the door.

“Draco…” I rasped…

Behold the Man!

I whimpered as I felt my perception shift…and suddenly I was no longer in the bathroom, but in the parlour, tearing through the bookshelves lining the walls. Books flew all around me as I moved from one wall to the other. Draco’s voice rang out, but I did not hear him…all I could hear was my voice, distorted, uttering…

“Behold the Man…”

And then my hands, which were slick with blood, grasped a battered paperback book. Fingers ripped at the cover so that the blank backside of the cover was visible.

Written in a hand that I remembered from rolls of parchments turned back to me after a Potions Class, were several lines.

May 11th 2008, 2:18 am, you are scarred. June 23rd 1995, 4:27 am, you arrive. June 24th 1995, 7:15 pm, contact. June 24th 1995, 8:45 pm, the task. Keywords: Lily and ‘Tuney Evans, Spinner’s End, 1969. Prepare for pain, Miss G. Warmest regards, Sev, the Half-Blood Prince.

“Severus…”

I had fallen back into Draco’s arms, Michael Moorcock’s ‘Behold the Man’ in my bloody hands. My perception was back into the forefront of my brain, and Severus’ presence was silent and still.

Draco rolled me so that I knelt on the floor of the parlour, so that we were face to face. Draco’s mouth was moving, as was his wand, but I felt and heard nothing. I stared at his marred face as I began to feel my body again. My lips were trembling, my eyes were wide, and my face…hurt.

“What time is it?” I managed to ask, my voice dulled as if my ears were full of water.

Draco frowned as I felt that he healed the gash on my forehead, and slowly lowered Severus’ wand from my face.

At my question, Draco’s eye moved about the room, which I had torn apart at the behest at the consciousness residing in my brain. Finally, his eye fell upon a small clock left untouched on the shelf closest to the door leading out of the chambers. It was a small golden clock with an ivory face.

“Two-ten am.”

I could hear him perfectly, and I clutched ‘Behold the Man’ to my chest.

“What the hell is going on?” Draco asked, trying to wrench the book from my hand.

I pulled away, and struggled to my feet. Two-ten am and counting.

I stalked to my cloak in the bedroom and returned to the parlour, shoving the book into the bottomless pocket, whirling to face Draco who had also risen, Severus’ wand still in his hand, his face twisted into one of ultimate frustration. I grasped the back of the wing-backed chair after throwing my cloak across it, my eyes moving to the face of the clock, my body turned in anticipation.

“Granger.”

He was angry, and I waited. Two-eleven am.

“I do not have the time right now, Draco, but I will explain afterward,” I muttered distantly, still tasting a tinge of blood against my tongue.

“After what?”

Draco moved across the parlour and grasped my left shoulder as I turned further to see the clock.

“Harry’s getting ready to use the Time-Turner.”

“What?” Draco asked incredulously.

I sighed, my hand moving to the chain about my neck, pulling the pendant from under my shirt…but Draco grasped my wrist painfully and I dropped the chain.

“How do you know?”

Two thirteen am.

Draco jerked my hand away from my chest and the chain, and I felt the disc press against the inside of my left breast.

“How do you know?” he asked again, grasping my chin, and twisting my face to gaze up at him.

My jaw twitched, but I did not move a finger to push free of Draco’s touch.

“Severus.”

His brow furrowed, but I turned my eyes toward the clock again.

Two fourteen am.

I stood stiffly, and began pondering Severus’ written words.

‘May 11th, 2:18 am, you are scarred.’

I truly did not know if Harry was going to activate his Time-Turner, and I wondered why I had said those words to Draco. Severus’ voice had screamed to me, and his presence had taken over my limbs…just as he had the night Malfoy Manor was attacked.

Two-sixteen am.

I knew his voice and presence must be the embedded spell…what had kept me alive after Harry’s assault. But when had the spell been placed? Surely, it had to have been while Severus was alive…ten or more years ago. But when, and why had I not ever noticed?

“What is happening, Granger?” Draco snarled in questioning, grasping my shoulders, trying to shake me, as if to rouse me from a stupor, but I was in no stupor…I was waiting.

Two-seventeen am.

My right hand moved to the chain about my neck again, and finally I turned my vision away from the clock to Draco’s reddened face.

“We cannot be here when we use it, Draco. We cannot be seen…you know the rules…” I started, my breathing becoming laboured, my chest heaving so that the disc lodged tighter against my breast.

I grasped the chain in my fingers, ready to pull the pendant free.

“The cottage! We will have to go to the cottage and I will need…”

I trailed as I felt an itch against my left breast.

The disc.

My fingers fumbled with the chain, trying to pull the pendant free from my shirt…but I was too late.

“Hermione!”

I was screaming.

The pain Harry inflicted had been much worse, but pain was still pain…and the disc, which I had assumed correctly was spelled with a Protean Charm, did not merely heat up when the Time-Turner Harry had stolen was being used… The disc burned white hot and light could be seen through the dragon-hide shirt.

I fell to my knees, jarring my body painfully as I clawed at the chain. I was screaming…and screaming…but my logical brain was far removed. When the disc had burned sufficiently into the skin of the inside of my left breast, I managed to rip the disc free so that it tumbled out of my shirt, which was not burnt in the least. The white-hot glow of the pendant rattled to the stone floor and quickly began to dim.

Draco was trying to tear away my shirt, but the dragon-hide would not yield. My screams had subsided and I panted, lying on my right side, the long chain, and pendant on the floor before me. My vision tunneled for a moment as I stared at the disc, now only silver in the candlelight.

Draco was mumbling as I forced myself to sit, grasping the disc in my shaking hands. Turning the disc so that the engraved side, with its Grecian border and small dolphins was face up, block letters read: ‘Epimetheus: Origin, May 11, 2008, 2:17 am, local time. Destination, June 23, 1995, 4:27 am, local time. Prometheus: 12.908 turns, engage within 2 hours.’

I branded the block letters into my brain, just as the disc had branded me. Twelve point nine zero eight turns…engage within two hours.

I winced as I rose to my feet, the burnt skin on the inner slope of my left breast sore, and itching. The pain would have been unbearable, but I pushed the pain and nausea away. I moved to my cloak, and thrusting my hand inside the bottomless pocket, found the lead box, just where I had left it. I winced again as I replaced the chain about my neck and let the now cold disc fall against the front of my dragon-hide shirt. And then, drawing the Elder Wand, stalked into the bathroom, repairing the mirror and moving to the medicine chest, finding a pain-relieving potion that I hoped was still potent. Uncorking the small bottle, I downed the entire concoction and immediately felt the pain from my burn being pushed away to be dealt with later.

However, as I exited the bathroom, intending to don my cloak, Draco grabbed me by the forearms and whirled me around so that I fell against the table in the middle of the room, nearly knocking it over.

“What the hell is going on, Hermione?” he hissed, using my first name for poignancy.

I leaned against the table, my vision tunneling again. Slowly, I lifted a hand to swipe away some of the tiny braids that had fallen into my face, and let my eyes focus upon the pale skin of Draco’s neck.

Swallowing thickly, I said, “We don’t have much time, and I cannot explain everything, Draco. We need to go to the cottage now, and prepare.”

Draco blinked at me, he mouth open to speak. “He’s done it? He’s really done it?” he asked in quiet disbelief.

“Yes,” I whimpered as Draco’s fingertips dug into the dragon hide sleeves on my arms. “We have to go…now!”

The next few moments were a blur of movement, running, and wincing on my part. We had left Severus’ chambers, cloaks flying behind us, running through the dark passages of the castle dungeon. I did not allow myself to think, but buried my hand in the pocket of my cloak to feel that the goblin-warded box was still in my possession. We came to the troll statue, and Draco barked out the password. Soon we were sprinting down the long tunnel out into the Forest.

The quality of light on the Forest floor was very poor, but Draco could still see the well-worn path among the trees. However, before I could run further, he clasped my arm to stop me.

“Brooms are faster,” he grumped, extracting his shrunken Firebolt, wandlessly resizing it. I nodded in agreement, and hastily found my own broom in my pocket, mimicking his action.

“Keep to the trail, do not deviate, or we will have a problem,” I rasped as we kicked off the ground.

He nodded, his silver hair almost like a beacon in the poor light filtering from the sky between the trees.

Adrenaline kept my senses keen, but anxiety had me trying to keep up with Draco as we streaked through the trees, keeping to the path, weaving between the tree trunks. What would have taken at least twenty minutes in walking, took five when flying. The cool night air seeped down the front of my shirt, caressing the burnt skin of the inner slope of my breast, and I took a shaky breath as the pain lessened.

Severus’ words had been right…right on time.

Coming into the clearing, Draco seemed to jump from the air to land like a large cat, gracefully planting his booted feet on the ground just inside the feeble wards. I dared not attempt his landing, and angled the broom downward to slide off, my boots sliding across the unkempt, damp grass of what had once been my garden. I flashed a look at Draco and quickly shrank my broom again, stuffing it in my pocket.

Throwing the door open, the candles lit automatically, some of the household Charms still working despite the fact that dust lay upon everything, and one of the windows in the kitchen was broken by a branch that obviously had been blow from one of the trees around the clearing. I tamped down my feelings as my eyes scanned my home.

I would need the day diary…I had kept that thought fresh in case I were able to return to the cottage. I had only hoped that I would not need it if Harry had managed to go back thirteen years before…

Draco entered the cottage, slamming the door shut behind him. I paid him little mind as I flew to the bookshelf over my writing desk, my eye scanning the spines of the book until I found a red leather book entitled ‘Year 4, 1994-1995.’ Jerking the book from the shelf, I stuffed it in my pocket and moved to the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” Draco asked, exasperation clear in his voice.

Moving to the cupboards I began pulling a few cans of soup, bottles of butterbeer, a stasis-Charmed loaf of bread, which was still fit to eat, and knife from one of the drawers. Conjuring a clean towel, I wrapped the bread and knife inside. And adding more to my pocket, I knew I had at least another good meal stowed in my pocket if I needed it.

I scanned the parlour and kitchen again, trying to think of anything else that might be of use. With a sigh, I ran to the fainting couch and took an afghan Minerva had made me, wadding it up as tightly as I could and adding it to my pocket. After finding clean bandages in the bathroom, I could think of nothing more we would need.

I could tell Draco was seething, but I ignored him as he stood in the middle of the parlour, arms cross about his chest, his mouth set in a harsh line. I could not waste time…not our time in the year 2008 to explain.

“Time?”

Draco sighed, extracting Tom Riddle’s wand and casting an intricate Charm, which I did not recognize, and in glowing green numbers and letters, the exact local time floated upon the air. May 11, 2008, 3:11 am.

I had time. Moving to the island counter, I pulled the goblin-warded box from my pocket, and set it on the stone top. Draco finally moved from his spot in the parlour to stand at my side. Opening the box, I felt my heart compress. We really had to go back.

I gingerly lifted the Time-Turner from the box, examining the pins at the sides, which held the large hourglass in the middle of the circular frame. One pin was a series of small dials, base ten numerals to a one hundred thousand super base on one side of the decimal separator, and to one-one hundredth on the other side. I narrowed my eyes…one could travel billions of years with this infernal device. Set the hourglass to turn one way, you went back, in the opposite direction…forward. One tiny clamp held the hourglass from slipping in either direction, and I knew that I had to be very careful lest I be inadvertently sent back or forward.

With a little bit of difficultly since the dials were quite tiny, I set the Time-Turner to 12.908, all the while holding my breath. When the dials glowed fainting silver and the coordinates were accepted, I took a breath…

“Are you sure that those numbers will take us where we need to go?” Draco asked softly, both of us staring down at the device in my hands.

“Merlin, I hope so.”

“I thought that this was your field, Granger,” he growled, reverting to using my surname.

I barked a sardonic laugh. “Time travel is not as specific as you might think…Malfoy.”

Draco’s eyes flashed dangerously in the candlelight, but the danger was quickly squashed as I took his arm and pulled him into the middle of the parlour, pulling upon the chain of the Time-Turner to extend its reach.

Most Time-Turners were made to only allow up to two people to travel. If the regular Time-Turners were any indication, the one I held in my hand was the same. The disc had read the names Prometheus and Epimetheus, the brothers of foresight and hindsight. I wondered if that was what these Time-Turners were called. It seemed I held Prometheus…it was a fitting name.

Lifting the chain to place it over Draco’s neck, I stood closer to him, my fingers moving to the clamp.

“Wait.”

My fingers paused and slowly I glanced up at Draco’s face.

“We have to do this now?”

I swallowed, stepping closer to him so that my left side was pressed into his chest.

“We have a time limit, it seems. So, yes, we do this now. I am not exactly sure how to calculate the exact settings to follow Harry back…I only have an idea, and we do not have the time to figure that out…

Why? Are you scared?” I asked quietly.

Draco grinned. “Absolutely. You know what it’s like to time travel, I don’t.”

I sighed. “And this trip might be less than pleasant,” I mumbled. I had considered that traveling back almost over twelve years would not be comfortable. I licked my lips. I would simply have to utilize whatever healing potions from my pocket and rely on my wands to deal with whatever pain might come.

“But we have to do it, eh?” Draco whispered, his arms moving to wrap about my waist.

I nodded slowly, staring at my fingers poised at the clamp. “For our world…”

I glanced up at Draco who eye moved from my fingers to my face. He sighed and then nodded, resigned.

He held me tighter and I felt a wave of sorrow sweep through me…and released the clamp.

“…and for us…”






My assumptions about time travel reaching backward or forward in time in terms of years had been correct. It was very unpleasant to be sure. As soon as the clamp released, the hourglass began to whirl, and soon I had my body pressed against Draco’s painfully. I had one arm about his neck while the other held the Time-Turners frame in my fingers. We could not speak, we could not breathe, but could only watch as the cottage around us flew about us.

Black blurs indicated movement, but we could not discern who or what the figures were doing. Light seemed to flash on a steady pattern, and I realized it was the rising and setting of the sun, the lighting and extinguishing of candles…years were passing.

Finally the flashing was not so bright, and I realized we had come to the time in which no one lived in the cottage. I knew we were close to the end of our journey.

However, when the hourglass stopped, our bodies were thrown to the floor as our travels came to a violent halt.

Pain was an understatement, and once again, I hated that my assumptions were correct. The pressure in my head was unbearable, and every bone seemed to crack…and I wailed with what little breath I had into Draco’s chest, rolling off him, but not so wracked with pain that I rolled upon the Time-Turner…it was our only way home again.

My lungs burned from lack of air and I gasped, my chest heaving, the burn on my breast hurting as bad as it had when the disc first burned.

Distantly, I knew that Draco had recovered before I, and he shrugged out of the Time-Turner’s chain. He did not speak, but moved to lift me into his arms while I cradled our only hope of returning home in my arms.

Kicking open the door the bedroom, his voice growled a spell and I heard a rumple of noise, and soon was laid upon a clean mattress that would be the bed I slept in more than twelve years from that point. Draco’s face swam before my eyes, and in the pale early morning light suffusing through the dusty panes of the windows to my right, I saw that his face was bloody…blood coming from his damaged eye, his nose, and ears.

“Can you hear me?” he asked softly, his hands moving to brush away the braids that had fallen into my face.

Slowly, I nodded.

“Are you alright?”

I nodded again, the pain only a slight discomfort.

Pulling the chain of the Time-Turner from around my neck, he studied my face.

“You look as bad as I feel…”

I wanted to smile, but found myself too tired. My adrenaline rush had waned.

Draco rose from the bed and pulled his wand, casting another Time Charm. I turned my eyes to the glowing green numbers and letters. June 23, 1995, 4:29 am. We had arrived two minutes before.

“We did it,” I whispered. Draco turned to me and nodded gravely.

“And now we have less than a day before the Dark Lord is reborn.”

Yes. Less than a day to strategize.

“You need to secure that thing,” Draco said softly, his grey eye moving to the Time-Turner in my hands.

I had left the goblin-warded box behind and I wanted to kick myself. I would have to find something to keep the Time-Turner safe from being broken, but it would have to wait until other pressing matters were attended to first.

Summoning my strength I tried to rise from the bed, but found that I was far too tired to move just yet. Draco frowned, and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. His wand still in his hand, he waved it over my face, and I felt blood being cleansed from my skin. He repeated the action upon his own skin and sighed.

I then dug into my bottomless pocket. My fingers found the bandages I had stuffed into the pocket only moments before, and carefully, I wrapped them about the Time-Turner. Then, finding the afghan Minerva had crocheted, I wrapped the Time-Turner again, sure that it was cushioned sufficiently before placing it back inside the dark, vast recess of my pocket.

“You need to let me look at your chest, Hermione. I know that that thing burned you,” Draco said, pointing to my chest.

“Yes,” I said softly.

Draco unhooked my cloak, and then, helping me sit up in the bed, gently worked my top off over my head, my braids falling heavily against my back. I took the pendant from around my neck, and passed it to Draco who slipped it in my cloak pocket.

The cottage was cold even in an early June day, and I shivered as the air hit my bare skin. I still had the sleeves on my arms, but the air licked at my breasts, hardening the nipples, and causing goose pimples to form on my skin.

Draco tossed the shirt aside, smirking as my hands moved to cover my breasts.

“Shy?” he asked, his voice a deep purr.

“Cold,” I supplied, soberly.

He said nothing more as he moved from the bed and into what would be my kitchen. The sound of cupboards opening startled me, the hinges making a terrible sound. When he returned, Draco had candles in his hand, candles that I knew had not existed when I first arrived at the cottage years later. This thought perplexed me…but I stowed it away in my mind.

Charming and lighting the candles to float and burn, I began to see how dusty and disused the bedroom was…and how coated in grime the carved wardrobe was in the corner of the room. However, I could also see how badly the disc had burned me. A circle of red was burned into the inside of my left breast, the diameter the size of a Galleon on the inside of my left breast. The skin was an angry red, and swollen, but burnt scabs of a sickly yellow in the shape of a Grecian pattern.

“Hold still,” Draco whispered as he stowed Tom Riddle’s wand, and pulled Severus’ dark wood wand. Pointing the tip just a fingerbreadth from the burn, Draco whispered, and cool blue light flowed from the wand tip to be absorbed into my skin.

Immediately the itching went away, as did the swelling. It felt as if someone had pressed an ice cube to my skin, and it felt wonderful.

Another spell, this time a golden colour, cleaned the wound, and the sickly yellow scabs healed, leaving strange scars of tiny dolphins and a Grecian border of geometric curls, like waves for the dolphins to jump out of a mythical sea. A last spell of a green colour took away the lingering pain, and I sighed. The burn had not been large, but it hurt nonetheless.

Draco smirked as he slipped Severus’ wand back into the holster on his arm and flicked his eye back to my face. I wanted to smile in thanks, but my jaw quivered instead.

With a light sound, which sounded like a wistful sigh, Draco helped me reapply the dragon hide shirt and lay me back in the bed, wrapping my cloak around me. Then he lay down beside me, gathering me against him so my head rested upon his shoulder.

“We should rest a while, yeah? The sun will be up in a few hours…” he whispered before uttering a ‘Nox’ on the candles.

I agreed. There was nothing to be done until we had sufficiently recovered from such a draining trip from one point in time to the other. Draco whispered that he would watch over me until dawn…and then he wanted to know exact details about why I had pulled us both back through time.




“Severus told me.”

Draco blinked, breadcrumbs sticking to the corners of his mouth as we ate in the sunlit floor of the cottage parlour. We had slept for a few hours, and then rose to eat a breakfast of the food I had stowed in my bottomless pocket…tepid cheese soup and bread. The butterbeer was forgotten as we realized that the water running into the cottage was fit to drink.

“He has been telling me a lot of things through the months,” I said, trying not to smile at the ridiculous expression of shock on Draco’s face.

Continuing to chew his bread, Draco spoke as soon as he swallowed.

“If my life was not so insane, I would be telling you how stupidly impossible you sound, Hermione.”

Finally, I smiled.

Draco sat before me, muscular legs crossed so that he had his left hand on his left knee, his elbow on the other, a chunk of brown bread poised before his mouth in his large hand…cheesy soup soaking the grainy morsels.

“It is the spell Parvati discovered. That is the only explanation. At some point Severus cast a spell upon me, obviously before he died…which lay dormant for years. I first noticed it the night Harry attacked me. But I’m sure that I had been hearing it before then…like a subconscious thought.”

“But why would Severus cast a spell on you without your notice, and what sort of spell?”

I dipped more bread into the Conjured bowl of soup and ate before answering.

“I can only assume that he was compelled to cast the spell, but why, I cannot say. I thought for a second that it had been Albus who had told him to do it, but at this point, I doubt that.

As for the type of spell, I can only assume it was something that would allow a piece of him reside in my mind. Severus’ voice is not just some expression of my wild imagination…”

I paused, my eyes fixing upon the bowl of soup resting on the floor between us. I had not heard Severus’ voice since he screamed the title of the book he needed me to find. I could not goad Severus to speak to me, he did so in his own time. But the idea that a piece of Severus Snape resided in my head reminded me too much of Horcruxes. Perhaps he had made me a Horcrux…but he would need to somehow splinter his soul to do so. That usually meant killing, or it had meant so to Voldemort.

I did not know how many people Severus had to kill through his years as a spy…and the only person I knew for a fact he had killed was Albus. It was almost impossible to know when I could have been made a Horcrux, or if I was a Horcrux at all.

“The night the Manor was attacked, I dreamed about him…about my parents and your parents…but I dreamt of Severus leading me away from something. When your parents found me, I had been sleepwalking through Temple Wood.”

Draco frowned.

“Severus had saved me.”

Voldemort had been connected to Harry because Harry was a Horcrux…and there had been instances that Harry could speak with Voldemort’s voice…but had Voldemort ever willed Harry to physically move?

“And last night…almost thirteen years from now, Severus woke me because he knew that Harry was about to use the Time-Turner.”

Draco’s frowned deepened. “How can that be possible?”

I sighed and took a drink of water from a Conjured cup Draco had made since we did not have dishes. I then pulled Michael Moorcock’s ‘Behold the Man’ from my cloak, passing it to Draco. He dropped his bread in the soup and took the book.

I studied his face closely as he examined the book, read the back cover, and then the inside cover and Severus’ words. Draco’s pale brow shot up as he read the words written inside, and gently he closed the book and set it on the floor.

“You realize what this means, don’t you, my dear?” he growled, raising his face so I received the sight of his scoundrel-like smirk.

Again, my core rippled with arousal.

“It means that we have done this before, and we are doing it again…”

I smirked. “Yes.”

Draco smiled, his hand reaching out to touch my cheek warmly…but slowly his smile faded.

“But we still do not know if we stopped him…Potter. Or if we successfully made it home.”

My smirk turned into a sad smile. “Yes,” I repeated.

“But we know when to go…I suppose that is the only great thing about Severus writing in the book.”

“True,” I conceded.

“He would have to pick some book about time travel, wouldn’t he?” Draco chuckled, but I could tell that it was strained.

“He always had excellent taste.”

“That he did.”

We continued eating in silence, lost in our own thoughts…which were not in the least bit cheerful.

By midday, we were both laying on the bed, having doffed our cloaks and boots, opening the bedroom window, the June heat beginning to be too uncomfortable in the stuffy cottage. Draco was reading ‘Behold the Man,’ and I had finished reading my day diary for my Fourth Year. I had managed to unseal ‘The Hanged Man’ within an hour, which had caused Draco to howl with laughter…Lucius had underestimated me again, Draco said.

I found that reading the German was challenging, but started from the beginning, finding that the earlier chapters were merely tales of various sexual conquests. The beginning was considerably tame compared to the later parts. I hardened myself as I read on, noting the spells described, the incantations and the wand movements detailed. The spells were all dark magic, but none that I had ever studied. I skipped past the part I had read months before, and moved to the end. ‘The Hanged Man’ was not a long book, but it was loaded with information that my mind assimilated quickly. When I finished, I slammed the book shut, startling Draco.

“Would your father mind if I incinerate this book?” I asked, angrily, shifting against Draco’s side.

“I doubt it. Got what you needed?” he asked distantly, nearly finished with his own book.

I was surprised at how slowly Draco read, but I also realized that the Muggle nature of the book was most likely foreign to him. Then again, Draco had hundreds of other Muggle books, and surely he was informed as to the life of Jesus Christ…

“Plenty.”

“And you remember all the spells?”

I nodded. I had an eidetic memory when it came to things I had read. I could still see every page, every word of ‘Hogwarts, a History.’

I threw the book across the room, and into the kitchen, pages flapping violently on the air, and as it flew, I drew my wand. With a blaze of red, ashes of what was ‘The Hanged Man’ floated down to the floor.

Draco was staring at me, gaping, the spell having whizzed over him without any warning from me. He laid his book on chest and began laughing.

“Do you do that to all poorly-written books, my dear?”

I smirked, slipping Bellatrix’s wand back into my arm holster.

After a good laugh, which lightened my mood considerably, we settled into the bed again, Draco finishing his book and I curled against his side, staring out the open window to the overgrown garden and trees. I wondered if the centaurs had noticed our presence. If so, they seemed to pay little mind.

“Not bad,” Draco yawned, closing his book and dropping it gently on the dusty floor next to the bed. “But I don’t think I can form any clear opinions about it now…maybe later…” he mumbled, closing his eye and relaxing back in the curved bed.

I smiled.

I wondered, if everything went well, would I be able to share moments like this with Draco Malfoy again? Laying in bed, or lounging on a couch, reading together…curling into each other. The light, the bed, the faint smell of his citrus and sage, and the warmth, it was all a piece of a greater happiness.

I knew that my younger self was encouraging Harry Potter to practice for the Third Task…and that she, my younger self, was happy just to be next to Harry and Ron. It was strange how time changed one’s idea of happiness.

I turned my face toward Draco and realized that he had been watching me looking out the window. Raising a pale hand to my face, he caressed my cheek with his knuckles. It was a simple motion, but it only made my happiness surge. And when he kissed me, holding my face in his hands, I smiled into his lips.

How could Draco Malfoy have been the one to make me ever feel so happy? Thirteen years before, I would have never dreamed it. I could have never imagined that he taste so wonderful, or feel so strong under my hands. He had always seemed like a pale wisp of a boy, something the wind could blow away…only his sharp tongue and cruel wit keeping his feet on the ground.

Draco Malfoy had grown into a man to be respected, feared, and loved…and I love him was what I wanted to do.

My fingers slipped between his hard belly and the waist band of his dragon hide trousers, and wrapped about the stiff length that was hardening further at my touch. The way he groaned into my kiss as I hovered over him made my core heat with liquid fire.

Clothes were tossed aside, but we kept out wands strapped to our bodies. As deep as we wanted to lose ourselves, we kept a piece of our minds set on the possibility of attack…it was how we had come to live our lives after the War, after everything we had had to do.

Draco rose to kiss my breasts as I straddled his hips, his tongue lapping at my nipples, his lips grazing over the now healed burn, his nose burying between my breasts to inhale my scent. My fingers slipped through his silken hair, down to his pale chest, still lost in trying to compare the boy to the man.

The man was stronger, his body thicker, more powerful, more substantial than the boy had ever been. The boy was a vague resemblance to the man under me. I had hated the boy…but the man…

Draco choked as ran my tongue along the underside of his cock, my short fingernails grazing the insides of his thighs. I had had little experience with ever pleasuring man orally…but it did not matter. I wanted to hear his voice calling out, groaning my name, or perhaps confirming his feelings with some combination of small words… I would not say I loved him until I knew for certain that he felt the same way. If his actions had been any indication…

I took his length, my eyes moving to his face, his silver eye watching me, his mouth opened in a pant. Satisfied to see the beginnings of his undoing, I closed my eyes and began applying suction to the thick flesh between my lips. He grasped my hair, and I grinned internally, moving to try to take all of him into my throat. Breathing in through my nose, I hummed as I felt his cock twitch and his voice grind out a curse.

My centre ached as I listened to him groan, moving my head to imitate a motion more suited for another act. He whined, and finally he moaned my name.

Draco took the upper hand when he rolled me on the bed, ravenously kissing my face, plundering my mouth with his tongue. And when he slipped inside me, I was the one to call out his name.

Pulling me to him, I found that I was sitting on his thighs, he kneeling in the centre of the bed, arms curled about me, his silver eye burning into my own eyes…muscles pumping as he thrust up into my body. His body throbbed with power, and I held to his neck, eyes moving over the way his pectoral muscles rippled under his chest holster, gazing down between our bodies to watch in fascination as his thick cock slid in and out, heady, thick juices trailing between us.

He muttered that I should touch myself, his hands moving to grasp my hips, slamming me down harder. With one hand firm about his neck, I did as I was told…and came with just a light touch.

Draco gritted his teeth, examining my face as all sense of time and meaning slipped away. My head fell forward, but Draco continued moving…twisting us so that I straddled him again, his chest heaving under his holster, sweat making his skin glitter like quicksilver.

“Move…my dear…” he panted, his thick arms thrown back, Severus’ wand poking out of the holster on his right forearm, his hands behind his head.

I nodded, and began swiveling my hips, faster…and faster.

His hands found my breasts, grasping them roughly, but not painfully. I whimpered as his left hand trailed down my body to my core, a finger tickling toward my clit…and when he found it, I squealed as my pussy clamped down around him.

Draco hissed, but still let his finger circle about the nubbin of nerves and flesh. I was no longer swiveling my hips, but forcing them down cruelly so that Draco’s cock brushed against my womb, and the pale hair around his organ was matted down with sticky essences.

I cursed as he pinched my once ruined nipple, and closed my eyes, my upper body feeling suddenly very light…and falling.

“I’ve got you, luv…” he whispered as he pulled me down, wrapping his muscle bound arms around my much smaller body.

“Draco…” I gasped, my cheek pressed against his shoulder.

“Hang on,” he whispered as I felt him shift, and suddenly he was thrusting harder and faster than ever.

I whimpered and clutched at his shoulders. I could not take much more, and I fell over a precipice again, down into the oblivion of climax. Draco growled…fighting against my clenched body to finish…and with a throaty roar he filled me, my name on his lips…

And then he said it…like a manic prayer.

“Love you…gods, I love you, Hermione…only you…”

My hips jerked at his words ripping a weak cry from his lips. I held to him with my hands and my core.

Proof. Undeniable proof. And my heart felt as if it were about to burst. I kissed his neck, his cheeks, already scruffy after a day without shaving. He returned my attentions, dominating my senses and my mouth, rolling us over again on the bed, still firmly lodged inside me. His hands sought to touch every bit of my face before slipping between our warm, sweaty bodies to brush my clit.

I moaned as he pulled out of my body, quickly missing the fullness I had felt and the heat of his presence inside me. His tongue traced down the midline of my body, and I watched him slide down the bed through my lashes, the late June daylight streaming in through the western facing bedroom window…making his skin glow.

My back arched and Draco mouth closed over my mound…the tip of his tongue lightly flicking my nubbin, sending electric shocks of my spine and through my limbs. Another swipe of the tip of his tongue forced a cry, and Draco rose up, grinning at me like a mischievous boy.

Crawling up my body, he lay on my right side, again gathering me against his warm body. Kissing the side of my face, he wrapped his arms about me. Again, I was struck at the desperate grip he had on my body, and the manner in which he curled about me. In his arms I felt so small, so safe, so beautiful… And for a while, I again forgot our situation, and that we were not in our time.