Recover (The Optional Remix) [Harry Potter; Harry, Hermione, Lily, Bellatrix; PG]
Title: Recover (The Optional Remix)
Author: elucreh
Summary: This complex enchantment is the means to major changes in past world events…
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Book Six
Original Story: Hidden by Anansay
From Temporal Temptation: Time-Travel, Teleportation, and Terrible Truths (In Other Words, Just Don't!) by T. Lorax, Chronologist
Verus Semita
First conceptualized by N. Onceler, Carpechronist of the British Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries, in 1593, and refined by Onceler and his colleague S. Swan over the next several years until its present form was established in 1642, this complex enchantment is the means to major changes in past world events.
...In theory, the Messenger's spirit is sent a key point in time that led to wide-ranging events in order to persuade a key player to act differently than he or she chose to in what might be called the false or recorded past. The Messenger has no foreknowledge of where or when or to whom he or she might be sent, and is bound to speak only the truth.
The possible ramifications are terrible as well as extensive, ranging from (at best) dangerous probability shifts to (at worst) total unraveling of the universe; as such, casting of the spell is strictly controlled…
*****************
Hermione knew just where to hunt in the house.
She found him in the little room beneath the stairs. The door was slightly ajar, a thin line of blackness coming from inside. The door opened with a loud squeak. It was a small, tall room. A storage closet for things unneeded and unused.
Lily's heart broke again and again, one crack for each horrible squeak of the horrible door with its horrible lock.
The boy lay on a small cot, tucked tightly in his single thin blanket, a tiny fist cupped beneath his chin, his eyes shut tightly, pressing together as though to keep something out. His hair was a right mess, sticking up this way and that. His tiny body shook in tiny spasms as he floated in dreamland.
Bella's eyes gleamed, two pinpricks of light in the dark.
Hermione hovered, the possibilities flicking through her mind, what to say, what to do, how much do I tell him and what harm is this doing?
She hunched down before the cot. “Harry,” she called to him softly, hovering a hand above his head. She called his name again, “Harry. Wake up, young one. Time to go now.”
Lily tried to snatch the time to admire his thin straight nose, the endearing knobbiness of his knees, his ears so like his father's, but no feature could catch her attention for long before it was drawn back to the unhappy twist of his mouth. She longed to call him son, to kiss each eyelid and draw his head to a mother's breast, but there was no safety to it, and could only end in worse hurt.
Bella had lain awake through Azkaban nights seeing visions, remembering she had no children and would never have them now, haunted by the syrup-stickiness of the voices of her aunts at the tea-table, "A pity you'll never be capable of working yourself, dear, but you'll be an admirable companion if you try hard," and the pain of displeasing her master, the worse pain of missing him. She liked children now, she wanted to bring them close to her and teach them about growing and pain, and she had practiced the sweet voice until even that usurping snake was almost lulled to her side.
Squinting eyes relaxed and opened, blinked, and opened some more. And then, wide green eyes peered up at her, brilliant in their youth and dazzling in their pain. She let her hand rest on his head, fingers carding gently through tangles. “Time to go now,” she repeated.
Her own Harry was still the man his aunt had made him, flinching at the first touch of every hug before he could relax into it, shying away from affection and sympathy as though, far more foreign than basilisks and kappas, they might do anything. Hermione couldn't help but touch him, doing her best to keep it from a rude awakening, but already he knew to flinch from a hand coming toward his head, and the small soul-cut the motion usually gave her was wider and deeper from this wide-eyed child, who should not have to know such fear.
Harry slowly sat up, bringing the blankets with him. His tiny fist rubbed first at one eye, and then the other, before focusing on her once again.
Lily's eyes welled up at the childish gesture he hadn't yet outgrown, still reminiscent of the small nursery and the pegasus mobile above his crib.
“Who are you?” he asked and his tiny voice shot pins through her thin veneer of armour.
Your guard, your left hand, your common sense and your walking index; mother to your godchildren, bride to your best man, sister-in-law, sister-in-arms, sister-friend.
She smiled, pulled her lips thin and allowed some softness to droop her eyes. “I am no one, young Harry. But you are someone. Someone very special and we have to leave now. Before your aunt gets up.”
Bella didn't really care whether the horsy little filth awoke, but the boy would never come with her willingly if she pulled a wand and made people scream, no matter how much he despised them, and the master had said he must be told the truth and come of his own will or history's momentum would override it all.
Harry’s body tensed and his hands clenched on the blanket, his little eyes darting up to the ceiling of the little cupboard in which he slept. Darkness reigned in the heavens and dusty cobwebs held everything in stasis, letting nothing grow, nothing change. There was silence beyond, so there was still time.
What is it, darling? Are you frightened of this white woman who looks at you so, as though you belong to her? But you do, you are mine, and mine to protect, and you must come before I can no longer protect you.
“We have to go now, little Harry. It’s time.”
Time and past, she worried, trying to calculate how long she had been, how much damage each second might cost.
“Time?”
Time, yes, we have so very little of it…
“Yes. You’ve had enough. It’s over. Take my hand, now.”
Her hands were almost unclawlike now; she had even cut her nails close to avoid scratching his charming porcelain skin, so white and smooth.
He eyed her outstretched hand, pale skin over delicate bones. “I don’t think I want to go with you,” he said, looking up at her.
Lily bit her lip. Oh, Harry…
“Why ever not, child?”
Bella restrained the urge to roll her eyes. I haven't time for this, brat--softly, softly, remember your master's words…
“I don’t know you.”
But you will! I know you will! I've put my life in your hands, can't you trust me?
“You don’t need to.”
You grew inside me, baby, I carried you under my heart…
“What if you hurt me?”
Hermione felt as though she had been slapped.
“I could never hurt you, Harry.” She caressed his face, feeling the baby-softness of pudgy cheeks still puffy and damp from tears of the night before. And from youth, from innocence. In time those cheeks would hollow out and become gaunt and angular, sharp like his mind and shadowed like his heart. It hurt to think of that time, and she longed to part from it. To take another path and ease him along a better life. “You are too good.”
Such a shame, such a waste, Bella reflected. But this is a chance to salvage it. The master will want you to himself, anyway, for a time at least. And then you will be our child, his and mine, and together we will teach you.
“But my aunt and uncle-”
Petunia! Hah! Such a waste of bedtime stories!
“Will not miss you, I’m sure you know that.”
It had always hurt Hermione, that knowledge, but she made herself say it, not only here and now, but every time Harry needed to talk about it, helping him to heal as best she could.
The boy leaned back, rested against the open studs of the wall and some dust rained down on him, like fairy dust from above and she couldn’t help but smile and think she might not be alone in her quest.
Even the house that is used to protecting him…
“I don’t want to go with you,” Harry stated, his small, child’s voice strong even in its highness.
No!
“You want to stay here?”
Here, Harry? Here with this woman who claims to share my blood, but who never shares my heart's blood?
“Yes.”
Oh, Harry, you don't always have to…"
“It will be painful, Harry, if you stay here. There will be much pain and sorrow, fear and horror. It won’t come tomorrow, or even next year. But in time, the darkness will come and you may begin to think the sun will never rise again. You will slink from shadow to shadow, cold and hungry and very much alone. You will chase the darkness even as the darkness chases you.” The boy shuddered but kept his eyes on her as she spoke. “You have a strength in you, Harry, that you don’t know yet. It will come to you when you really need it.” Then she leaned forward, took his body and pressed it against hers, cradled his head to her bosom and kissed the top of his head. “I don’t want that to happen to you Harry. I don’t want you to lose yourself and get lost. I may not be able to find you again. Please, come with me.”
She knew she shouldn't, but Harry looked so lost and lonely and yet still so determined that Lily couldn't help but gather him in her arms, offering what little comfort she could.
“And if I come with you? What happens when the darkness comes?”
And suddenly the ramifications of what she was doing came to her, and Hermione's eyes widened. Not only the repercussions for history, for time and space, but for their family back home, for the people they were saving, what would it do to them to never have their precious Boy?
She let his head go and he looked up at her. And she saw that he knew more than a child his age ought to know and it pained her to have that knowledge, much as she knew it must pain him to have that knowledge, even if he weren’t consciously aware of it’s existence within him. “People will die, young Harry. They will die horrible, painful deaths. They will lose all hope and succumb to the darkness. They will give up their bodies and their minds and finally, their souls. Hope will be no more.”
Bella tried to keep the eager hunger from her voice. She had to tell the truth, the master had said so, but if he thought that it was the reason she wanted him he would never, ever go with her.
Harry shuddered against her, and drew back. “And if I stay here?”
Hermione thought of her own world, of the people and the pain she had left to try this grand experiment. She thought of Remus, still angry and throbbing over Tonks's death, of Molly who wept every night. Of the look on Ron's face when she laid their Martha in his arms, and the look on Harry's when they asked him to stand as godfather.
“If you stay here, people will still die. People will still lose hope. But, in time, the sun will rise again and the darkness will recede and hope will return.”
Lily said it tenderly, resignation to her loss of this boy's safety already creeping through her veins. She would have raised him to be just who he was, anyway-would have wanted him to want to protect people.
Harry let the blanket drop to his lap and he rested his hands in the folds. His back straightened, his head tilted up and his eyes became the wrinkled orbs of wisdom she remembered so well.
Hermione thought of the time Luna had tried to persuade Harry to put erumpet skin over his eyes to erase those premature wrinkles, and how he had laughed and said that he'd earned them, and he wouldn't know his own face without them, and how sad it had made her, and how sad it made her now to see how very soon they had become a part of him.
“Then I choose to stay here.”
No! The master will not like this!
She closed her eyes and nodded her head. “As you wish.”
And the woman rose from the bed and went to the door, and paused, and looked back in frustration,or worry, or pride, and clicked off the light, and shut the door behind her.
*********************
…the spell has in fact only been cast eight known times since its invention. Each attempt failed; six times the casting was imperfect, with insufficient amounts of power or incorrectly drawn runes or diagrams. In both allegedly successful castings, the Messenger returned saying only that they had been unable to persuade the object of the choice to change his or her mind, reinforcing the theory held by several reputable chronologists that history is far less fluid than most carpechronists are willing to admit.
Author: elucreh
Summary: This complex enchantment is the means to major changes in past world events…
Rating: PG
Fandom: Harry Potter
Warnings: None
Spoilers: Book Six
Original Story: Hidden by Anansay
From Temporal Temptation: Time-Travel, Teleportation, and Terrible Truths (In Other Words, Just Don't!) by T. Lorax, Chronologist
Verus Semita
First conceptualized by N. Onceler, Carpechronist of the British Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries, in 1593, and refined by Onceler and his colleague S. Swan over the next several years until its present form was established in 1642, this complex enchantment is the means to major changes in past world events.
...In theory, the Messenger's spirit is sent a key point in time that led to wide-ranging events in order to persuade a key player to act differently than he or she chose to in what might be called the false or recorded past. The Messenger has no foreknowledge of where or when or to whom he or she might be sent, and is bound to speak only the truth.
The possible ramifications are terrible as well as extensive, ranging from (at best) dangerous probability shifts to (at worst) total unraveling of the universe; as such, casting of the spell is strictly controlled…
*****************
Hermione knew just where to hunt in the house.
She found him in the little room beneath the stairs. The door was slightly ajar, a thin line of blackness coming from inside. The door opened with a loud squeak. It was a small, tall room. A storage closet for things unneeded and unused.
Lily's heart broke again and again, one crack for each horrible squeak of the horrible door with its horrible lock.
The boy lay on a small cot, tucked tightly in his single thin blanket, a tiny fist cupped beneath his chin, his eyes shut tightly, pressing together as though to keep something out. His hair was a right mess, sticking up this way and that. His tiny body shook in tiny spasms as he floated in dreamland.
Bella's eyes gleamed, two pinpricks of light in the dark.
Hermione hovered, the possibilities flicking through her mind, what to say, what to do, how much do I tell him and what harm is this doing?
She hunched down before the cot. “Harry,” she called to him softly, hovering a hand above his head. She called his name again, “Harry. Wake up, young one. Time to go now.”
Lily tried to snatch the time to admire his thin straight nose, the endearing knobbiness of his knees, his ears so like his father's, but no feature could catch her attention for long before it was drawn back to the unhappy twist of his mouth. She longed to call him son, to kiss each eyelid and draw his head to a mother's breast, but there was no safety to it, and could only end in worse hurt.
Bella had lain awake through Azkaban nights seeing visions, remembering she had no children and would never have them now, haunted by the syrup-stickiness of the voices of her aunts at the tea-table, "A pity you'll never be capable of working yourself, dear, but you'll be an admirable companion if you try hard," and the pain of displeasing her master, the worse pain of missing him. She liked children now, she wanted to bring them close to her and teach them about growing and pain, and she had practiced the sweet voice until even that usurping snake was almost lulled to her side.
Squinting eyes relaxed and opened, blinked, and opened some more. And then, wide green eyes peered up at her, brilliant in their youth and dazzling in their pain. She let her hand rest on his head, fingers carding gently through tangles. “Time to go now,” she repeated.
Her own Harry was still the man his aunt had made him, flinching at the first touch of every hug before he could relax into it, shying away from affection and sympathy as though, far more foreign than basilisks and kappas, they might do anything. Hermione couldn't help but touch him, doing her best to keep it from a rude awakening, but already he knew to flinch from a hand coming toward his head, and the small soul-cut the motion usually gave her was wider and deeper from this wide-eyed child, who should not have to know such fear.
Harry slowly sat up, bringing the blankets with him. His tiny fist rubbed first at one eye, and then the other, before focusing on her once again.
Lily's eyes welled up at the childish gesture he hadn't yet outgrown, still reminiscent of the small nursery and the pegasus mobile above his crib.
“Who are you?” he asked and his tiny voice shot pins through her thin veneer of armour.
Your guard, your left hand, your common sense and your walking index; mother to your godchildren, bride to your best man, sister-in-law, sister-in-arms, sister-friend.
She smiled, pulled her lips thin and allowed some softness to droop her eyes. “I am no one, young Harry. But you are someone. Someone very special and we have to leave now. Before your aunt gets up.”
Bella didn't really care whether the horsy little filth awoke, but the boy would never come with her willingly if she pulled a wand and made people scream, no matter how much he despised them, and the master had said he must be told the truth and come of his own will or history's momentum would override it all.
Harry’s body tensed and his hands clenched on the blanket, his little eyes darting up to the ceiling of the little cupboard in which he slept. Darkness reigned in the heavens and dusty cobwebs held everything in stasis, letting nothing grow, nothing change. There was silence beyond, so there was still time.
What is it, darling? Are you frightened of this white woman who looks at you so, as though you belong to her? But you do, you are mine, and mine to protect, and you must come before I can no longer protect you.
“We have to go now, little Harry. It’s time.”
Time and past, she worried, trying to calculate how long she had been, how much damage each second might cost.
“Time?”
Time, yes, we have so very little of it…
“Yes. You’ve had enough. It’s over. Take my hand, now.”
Her hands were almost unclawlike now; she had even cut her nails close to avoid scratching his charming porcelain skin, so white and smooth.
He eyed her outstretched hand, pale skin over delicate bones. “I don’t think I want to go with you,” he said, looking up at her.
Lily bit her lip. Oh, Harry…
“Why ever not, child?”
Bella restrained the urge to roll her eyes. I haven't time for this, brat--softly, softly, remember your master's words…
“I don’t know you.”
But you will! I know you will! I've put my life in your hands, can't you trust me?
“You don’t need to.”
You grew inside me, baby, I carried you under my heart…
“What if you hurt me?”
Hermione felt as though she had been slapped.
“I could never hurt you, Harry.” She caressed his face, feeling the baby-softness of pudgy cheeks still puffy and damp from tears of the night before. And from youth, from innocence. In time those cheeks would hollow out and become gaunt and angular, sharp like his mind and shadowed like his heart. It hurt to think of that time, and she longed to part from it. To take another path and ease him along a better life. “You are too good.”
Such a shame, such a waste, Bella reflected. But this is a chance to salvage it. The master will want you to himself, anyway, for a time at least. And then you will be our child, his and mine, and together we will teach you.
“But my aunt and uncle-”
Petunia! Hah! Such a waste of bedtime stories!
“Will not miss you, I’m sure you know that.”
It had always hurt Hermione, that knowledge, but she made herself say it, not only here and now, but every time Harry needed to talk about it, helping him to heal as best she could.
The boy leaned back, rested against the open studs of the wall and some dust rained down on him, like fairy dust from above and she couldn’t help but smile and think she might not be alone in her quest.
Even the house that is used to protecting him…
“I don’t want to go with you,” Harry stated, his small, child’s voice strong even in its highness.
No!
“You want to stay here?”
Here, Harry? Here with this woman who claims to share my blood, but who never shares my heart's blood?
“Yes.”
Oh, Harry, you don't always have to…"
“It will be painful, Harry, if you stay here. There will be much pain and sorrow, fear and horror. It won’t come tomorrow, or even next year. But in time, the darkness will come and you may begin to think the sun will never rise again. You will slink from shadow to shadow, cold and hungry and very much alone. You will chase the darkness even as the darkness chases you.” The boy shuddered but kept his eyes on her as she spoke. “You have a strength in you, Harry, that you don’t know yet. It will come to you when you really need it.” Then she leaned forward, took his body and pressed it against hers, cradled his head to her bosom and kissed the top of his head. “I don’t want that to happen to you Harry. I don’t want you to lose yourself and get lost. I may not be able to find you again. Please, come with me.”
She knew she shouldn't, but Harry looked so lost and lonely and yet still so determined that Lily couldn't help but gather him in her arms, offering what little comfort she could.
“And if I come with you? What happens when the darkness comes?”
And suddenly the ramifications of what she was doing came to her, and Hermione's eyes widened. Not only the repercussions for history, for time and space, but for their family back home, for the people they were saving, what would it do to them to never have their precious Boy?
She let his head go and he looked up at her. And she saw that he knew more than a child his age ought to know and it pained her to have that knowledge, much as she knew it must pain him to have that knowledge, even if he weren’t consciously aware of it’s existence within him. “People will die, young Harry. They will die horrible, painful deaths. They will lose all hope and succumb to the darkness. They will give up their bodies and their minds and finally, their souls. Hope will be no more.”
Bella tried to keep the eager hunger from her voice. She had to tell the truth, the master had said so, but if he thought that it was the reason she wanted him he would never, ever go with her.
Harry shuddered against her, and drew back. “And if I stay here?”
Hermione thought of her own world, of the people and the pain she had left to try this grand experiment. She thought of Remus, still angry and throbbing over Tonks's death, of Molly who wept every night. Of the look on Ron's face when she laid their Martha in his arms, and the look on Harry's when they asked him to stand as godfather.
“If you stay here, people will still die. People will still lose hope. But, in time, the sun will rise again and the darkness will recede and hope will return.”
Lily said it tenderly, resignation to her loss of this boy's safety already creeping through her veins. She would have raised him to be just who he was, anyway-would have wanted him to want to protect people.
Harry let the blanket drop to his lap and he rested his hands in the folds. His back straightened, his head tilted up and his eyes became the wrinkled orbs of wisdom she remembered so well.
Hermione thought of the time Luna had tried to persuade Harry to put erumpet skin over his eyes to erase those premature wrinkles, and how he had laughed and said that he'd earned them, and he wouldn't know his own face without them, and how sad it had made her, and how sad it made her now to see how very soon they had become a part of him.
“Then I choose to stay here.”
No! The master will not like this!
She closed her eyes and nodded her head. “As you wish.”
And the woman rose from the bed and went to the door, and paused, and looked back in frustration,or worry, or pride, and clicked off the light, and shut the door behind her.
*********************
…the spell has in fact only been cast eight known times since its invention. Each attempt failed; six times the casting was imperfect, with insufficient amounts of power or incorrectly drawn runes or diagrams. In both allegedly successful castings, the Messenger returned saying only that they had been unable to persuade the object of the choice to change his or her mind, reinforcing the theory held by several reputable chronologists that history is far less fluid than most carpechronists are willing to admit.