Jörmungandr

Warm Soup in Autumn

Part 1: The Causes and their Effect

a boy snapped my wand in half;
a man devoured my stone;
a woman in black tore my cloak;
and i left them all, alone.

____

It didn't hurt.

Hermione had braced herself for it, in the hollow, burnt-out remains of the old Shrieking Shack. Teeth clenched, muscles tense, ready for whatever pain would rend at her for daring to cheat the laws of time.

But it was barely a breeze.

A light trickle through her shoulders, another across the line of her chest, as her magic responded to the threads encircling the room around her—A web of woven magic stolen, sundered, and reknit for a desperate purpose—And then, she was swept away like a dandelion on a windy hilltop, gently flowing wherever fate decided to take her, to sprout green and maybe make something new.

One breath in, and she was in that blackened husk of a house; one breath out, and she was in a dusty but roofed entryway.

Dull parquet floors, flowery wallpaper peeled slightly at the edges, and an ornate chair unloved and abandoned when its original owners left. Dust motes, disturbed by her sudden appearance, danced through a shard of light shining out of now not boarded-up windows. A chandelier down the hall thoughtfully crafted when the house was first built, but now forgotten the same as everything else in it. The house smelled empty, not the empty of death just that of abandonment, and a feeling of hope so sharp it was almost painful welled up in her chest until it was suffocating.

Hermione laughed.

She laughed! It was a manic thing and probably concerning if she was being objective, but she couldn't be because who cares?

Who cares!

She had done it.

She was not splinched through space-time. She was not scattered to the four winds. She was in the not-Shrieking Shack seemingly fifty years in the past.

There was spellcraft experimentation and then there was intentionally weaving the right runic formula to travel through the folds of space-time. She was the so-called brightest witch of her age, and finally, finally, she had done something that mattered. The hardest part was done, wasn't it? She had practically already succeeded in saving the world.

For a moment, it was bliss. Giggles bubbled out of her, buoyantly effortless, making her almost lightheaded with the joy of it.

She laughed.

She laughed until tears streamed down her face.

Until her breath hitched and her hands started to shake. Until thoughts whirled through her head too fast to catch and hold, running through her like a hare too quick for a snare.

Was she about to break down? That would be a bit of a time-waster, though it would be better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

Wait, no, it would be better later. When she knew it was safe. This was an unknown time with unknown dangers; she needed vigilance.

Hermione took a breath, deep enough to make her ribs ache, and held it.

Stone. Cloak. Wand.

There was a goal.

A plan.

She needed to think. Clearly.

She grappled her thoughts back into working order and slowly relaxed her breath.