Ma Chérie

It’s the evening of Buckbeak’s ordered death sentence, and the golden trio are walking hurriedly down to Hagrid’s hut.
Hermione said they should go, even though the other two didn’t really want to, in order to comfort Hagrid- who would surely be really upset.

Hermione was right, as Hagrid is clearly holding back tears when he opens the door to them, and when he pours them scalding hot rose-hip tea. They quickly rush out, however, when Harry spots Dumbledore making his way towards the hut, followed by a sweaty Fudge and the grinning executioner. Harry bets the executioner would be really good friends with Lucius Malfoy, if he isn’t already. Poor Draco… with a dad like that…

As Harry’s thoughts drift to Draco, he wonders for the hundredth time whether it’s normal to like waking up next to a blond boy his age, and playing with his hair of all things, as this is exactly what he had done a couple of weeks ago when they all slept in the Great Hall.
He had asked Hermione afterwards if it was weird, and she had given him a long look, and then shrugged, her answer for ‘work it out yourself, sorry’. Ugh. He’s always been confused by Draco, and the ‘spooning incident’ had made the confusion worse. He wanted to know what the blond thought- Draco had been blushing to the tips of his pointy ears when Harry had called his hair soft and twirled it in his fingers, but he hadn’t pulled away in disgust or anything.
He would ask at some point, maybe. Later.

After sneaking through Hagrid’s pumpkin patch and back up to the Ryal Bridge, the three don’t watch but look back at the castle, Hermione hugging them both as they hear an axe fall below in Hagrid’s garden.
Harry can’t hear anything else, and then suddenly Ron spots Scabbers on the grass, going to grab him. The rat had been missing for three days now, and it had not helped the frosty tension between Ron and ‘Mione, who Harry was tired of reconciling.
When Ron picks up Scabbers, however, the rat bites him. Ron shrieks in a very high-pitched voice, before muttering to the others,

“Er- he’s never bitten me before. Caught me by surprise.”

Hermione stifles a laugh but Harry sees, and is about to change the subject to reduce Ron’s embarrassment when out of nowhere, the black shaggy dog Harry found chasing Draco a few days ago suddenly appears. It digs its sharp teeth into Ron’s leg and starts dragging him to the Whomping Willow, Ron shouting protests and holding his rat tightly.
Harry and Hermione shout in response, chasing after this strange procession, Harry also aware that they are going towards the Willow, something he does not for any reason want to do.
This bloody tree almost killed him and Ron in second year!

However, when Ron is dragged by the dog down a random secret hole at the base of the tree Harry realises they’re going to have to try get to the trunk of the tree.
The willow’s thick, knobbly branches are already flexing, hungry to crush someone. Him and Hermione, specifically, it seems.

Chaos ensues as Hermione grabs a swinging branch and is twirled around at record speed, Harry losing his glasses while trying to hop flailing branches trying to swipe at him. It reminds him of being forced to skip rope by Dudley and his laughing bully friends when Harry was 10, after they had found a skipping rope in the local park.

After a bit of scrabbling on the ground, he grabs his glasses- without which he’s basically blind, which Draco loves teasing him about.

He has only a second or two to register that Hermione, clinging to her moving branch, is waving frantically at him, before she grabs a fistful of his shirt and lifts him up, chucking him down the hole Ron went through.

As he slides down what seems to be the entrance to a secret passage (not on the Marauder’s Map, which Harry no longer has after Lupin confiscating it anyway), Harry mourns for his now muddy and torn t shirt.
His t shirt has David Bowie on, lightning face paint and all, from Hermione at Christmas and is literally his favourite top.
Whenever he wears it on the weekends, he gets a lot of comments from other (mainly pureblood) students about who the ‘wizard’ on his top is. Draco especially won’t let Harry tell him David Bowie isn’t a wizard, especially after Harry let him borrow his Bowie cassette and player, the blond claiming Bowie must be an undercover wizard or something because, come on.

Harry is dragged from mourning the t shirt by Hermione falling right on top of him, knocking the air out of him.

“Sorry Harry! That was fun though, like a proper workout!”

He laughs; Hermione’s a good companion for a rescue mission.
Harry has a feeling he knows where this passage leads, but he doesn’t tell Hermione because he doesn’t want to worry her further. He tells her he’s seen the dog about before though and gave it food from the kitchens, at which she looks interested, and then worried again.
She notices his t shirt and mutters a spell that sounds like a variation of Reparo, pointing her wand at him in the dim light of his own Lumos. The tears mend rapidly, the mud remains and Harry thanks Hermione gratefully. She smiles.

“I know it’s your favourite top, and I can’t buy you another one to replace it this soon,” she tells him.

Eventually the tunnel ends, and yes, they emerge in a dark empty house which can only be the Shrieking Shack.

*

They find Ron lying in the corner of one of the rooms upstairs, but he doesn’t seem relieved to see them, instead shouting,

“It’s- it’s Black. He’s an a-animagus!”

Harry and Hermione only have a few seconds to process this when they turn to see the man that’s been plastered on wanted posters since August last year.

Harry goes to grab his wand but Black has Ron’s and shouts ‘Expelliarmus’. Hermione’s wand is still in her pocket, but she doesn’t reach for it just yet.

Harry summons up courage he doesn’t have and asks Black,

“So, you’re going to kill me now. Go on.”

Black looks confused for a second, and then says in a worn voice,

“Give him to me.”
Harry notices he’s looking at Ron. What on earth is going on?
He doesn’t have time to ask the convict as suddenly Lupin of all people appears. Ron looks relieved to see a teacher, Hermione suspicious.
Harry was scowling at Black, but now his face forms an expression of complete shock as Lupin, his favourite teacher, his parent’s friend, hugs Sirius Black. As if they’re old friends, or even something else.

Hermione gasps beside him, before shouting at Lupin,

“I trusted you! I didn’t tell anyone about your-your condition!”

Harry and Ron glance at her in confusion, Harry noticing across the room Sirius Black’s jaw clench in anger, the first time he’s looked properly scary so far. Hermione sighs in exasperation,

“He’s a werewolf. That’s why he’s always ill every month, why Snape taught that lesson on werewolves for Defence!”

Lupin looks tired, very tired, as Hermione says this, and Harry knows it’s true from his professor’s expression. Black snarls and tells Hermione,

“Very clever of you. Now give him to me. I’ve waited 14 years! 14!”

Lupin nods at the three of them, about to say something, when the broken door is suddenly pushed open and Snape appears in the room, expression furious and slightly scared. He only scans the situation for half a second, then casts a strong Expelliarmus on Sirius, throwing him across the room, Ron and Harry’s wands flying to Snape’s open hand.
Lupin turns, pointing his wand Snape, the two sneering at each other, neither casting any spells though.

“Severus, you don’t understand, Sirius isn’t here to kill Harry-“
Lupin’s cut off by Snape’s shout of,

“How dare you talk about Harry, like you care about him!”

Harry is rather intrigued by this. He does still trust Lupin despite everything, but he also trusts Snape, and isn’t sure what to do.
When Snape shoots the three of them a warning glance, translated as ‘don’t move,’ Harry decides.

Harry slowly pulls Hermione’s wand out of he jeans pocket, giving her a significant ‘trust me’ look as she glances at him. Ron is still whimpering on the floor, leg torn and bloody, and Snape and Black are arguing about how Black claims he ‘would never betray the Potters’.

Harry quickly points the wand at Snape, shouting ‘petrificus totalus’, silently begging his Potions professor to forgive him some day.
This gets the other two’s attention, Lupin and Black turning to him in shock. Harry points Hermione’s wand at them now, demanding,

“What do you mean, you don’t want to kill me?”

Black is looking at him like he sees someone else he used to know, and it’s a bit off-putting.
Lupin sighs and tells the three of them,

“Harry, I know how you feel right now. I felt the same, until you told me you saw Peter Pettigrew on the Map, a man I thought to be dead, because I and everyone else thought Sirius killed him.”

Harry narrows his eyes, but doesn’t interrupt- he wants to know where this is going. Sirius keeps shiftily looking at Ron while Lupin talks.

“Well, you see, Sirius was supposed to be secret keeper for your parents that night that-that they were murdered. Which is why I thought he betrayed James and Lily, as only the secret keeper could have told Voldemort or their location-“

At this point Sirius takes over the story, looking at Lupin sadly,

“But the actual secret keeper that night was Wormtail- Pettigrew- we changed it last minute because why ever would old Voldy-mort suspect little useless Peter Pettigrew, hmm? We didn’t tell anyone, not even Remus, and for that I’m forever sorry.”

The convict glances at Lupin as he says this, they share a look that seems to say a lot of things all at once, Harry unsure of what those things are, though.
Hermione seems to understand something here, adding,

“Oh! So you, Sirius, went after Pettigrew after he basically got Harry’s parents killed.. but you didn’t kill him?”

Sirius clenches his jaw and responds,

“No. He must’ve known I’d go looking for him. He staged the whole thing, killed a load of Muggles and cut off his own finger before disappearing, leaving me to his deserved Azkaban sentence.”

“His finger..”, Hermione muses, glancing at Ron, who looks a bit confused and scared.

Sirius grins a bit manically now, telling them all loudly,

“And he’s here, right now! Peter! Come out, come out!”

Harry glances about the room, but can’t see who Sirius’ talking to anywhere. Then Sirius points right at Ron, as Hermione asks, ‘Where?’.

Ron turns even paler, mumbling,
“What, me? Are you all mad!”

Sirius groans in annoyance,
“Not you, your RAT,”

*

After turning Pettigrew back into his human form from the rat, which fully disgusted Ron, their little gang left the Shack via the Whomping Willow tunnel. Snape was floated out by Sirius, still under the spell, and they all emerged into the dusky evening, Harry catching up with his godfather who’s actually really funny.

The pale full moon was glowing behind them as they started to trudge up towards the castle, until Hermione shouted, ‘The moon!’, and not in a poetic, happy way, but a frightened, ‘werewolf alert’ way.

This was how Harry has ended up lying on the bank of a lake in the forest, his soul being sucked out by a crowd of dementors, Sirius collapsed beside him. He’s clinging to his last bit of life when an incredibly bright white light crowds his remaining vision, the dementors leaving rapidly, flying from the light. He feels his soul returning to him, and peers about to vaguely see a full white Patronus, a deer, he thinks.
Without his glasses, he can only see the outline of a figure across the lake, who seems to have dark hair. He knows his dad’s Patronus was a stag, and he tiredly accepts that this was his father, saving him and Sirius, as he floats off into unconsciousness.

*

Harry wakes in the hospital wing, a glance at the clock telling him it’s only been an hour since he almost died. Almost-dying seems to be a common theme of his last term at Hogwarts literally every year.

He feels alright, if a bit shaky, and gets up from the bed, spotting Ron with his leg bandaged in a bed opposite. Ron grins painfully at him, looking tired, and Hermione suddenly bursts in through the doors followed by a grave-looking Dumbledore.

Dumbledore explains to the three of them that Sirius Black is locked in the Astronomy Tower, soon to be administered the Dementor’s kiss on Fudge’s orders, and Pettigrew has escaped.
Harry sighs in frustration. It was all for nothing, the almost getting killed and everything.

Dumbledore seems to be insinuating something else though, as he tells the trio that, with only some extra time, two innocent lives could be saved. Hermione’s eyes seems to light up at this, but Harry is as confused as ever, and Ron looks sleepy.
As Dumbledore leaves the Hospital Wing with another significant look, Hermione starts pulling out her long gold necklace that she’s worn most of this year, undoing the clasp and pulling it round Harry’s neck as well as her own.

“Err, Hermione, what are you doing?”

She seems to realise she hasn’t actually explained what she’s up to, but doesn’t say anything other than a distracted,

“Three turns should do it, don’t you think?”

Just as she’s about to turn the strange circles on her necklace, Draco Malfoy suddenly bursts in, mouth open as if to say something, looking worried. He suddenly forgets what he is about to say when he sees what Hermione’s doing, and instead exclaims,

“No way you have one of those, Hermione. That’s so wicked.”

Harry raises an eyebrow at the both of them, Hermione sighing and quickly motioning Draco to come and stand next to Harry, muttering that he might as well come too, wrapping the necklace around him as well. Good thing it’s long.

Harry doesn’t have a chance to ask what the hell is going on, as Hermione twists one of the circles three times.

And then the room is whirling past rapidly, the sky outside the Wing brightening, blurry shapes of people moving around, time moving backwards and them with it.

*

The swirling stops abruptly, Harry feeling a bit sick.
He can feel Draco’s rapid warm breaths brushing his cheek, but Hermione seems fine, as if she goes back in time every day.

Hermione pulls the necklace over their heads and back under her pink jumper, the three of them pulling apart, Harry looking around.
It’s still the hospital wing but no one is here, no Ron, and it’s sunny outside.
The clock on the wall read three hours earlier than it had been just a minute ago when he looked, before Hermione did whatever she did.

Hermione seems preoccupied though, asking them both,

“Where were we three hours ago?”

Draco looks blank, Harry remembering that the other boy has no idea what happened with Sirius and Lupin- he’ll have to remember to fill him in later.
Harry considers, before telling Hermione,

“Hagrid’s. Hermione, what-“

She nods at him, interrupting to say,

“I’ll explain in a minute, Harry. Draco are you alright? Let’s go then, we don’t have long.”

She doesn’t explain, though, till they get to the Ryal bridge and Harry sees him, Hermione, and Ron trudging down to Hagrid’s hut.

“So weird,” he hears himself murmur.

Even Draco, who Harry knows is quite good at pretending to be unruffled by things, looks a bit queasy.
Hermione turns to them both and tells them,

“Okay. So, as you can probably guess, this is a Time-turner, and we just went back three hours, to save ‘two innocent lives’, one of which is Sirius, I think. And before you guys ask, I got it from Mcgonagall, so I can take all of my chosen subjects this year, I’ve been going back in time most weekdays all year.”

Harry didn’t even know there was magic that could mess with time, but he’s not surprised that Hermione would go so far as to turn back time just to learn as much as she can. Draco is grinning at Hermione,

“I can’t believe this, imagine how much more I would know if I had a time-turner too. So unfair.”

He doesn’t look that jealous though, just in awe of the whole situation, as Harry is too. Then Draco’s smile drops away and he now gives them both confused looks, asking,

“Wait, you want to save Sirius Black? But-“

Harry replies,
“Look, I know it sounds crazy but we’ll explain later. He’s innocent though, honestly. Just trust us, okay?”

Draco nods at Harry, muttering something about ‘circe, trusting Gryffindors now, what’s to become of me’, which Harry pretends to ignore, giving Draco a very Gryffindor smirk.

Hermione smiles slyly and looks between the two of them, Harry unsure exactly what her smile means, before she says,

“Okay, come on. We should go down to Hagrid’s, I think I know the other life we have to save. Oh, and don’t let your other self see you, either of you, or you’ll go mad. Got it?”

*

Hiding behind a hefty pile of pumpkins, the three of them mull over how to save Buckbeak, who Hermione thinks is the other innocent life to save.

Draco looks a bit peeved to be near the Hippogriff, but he tells them both he needs to help save Buckbeak ‘as a man of principle’, as this is all his own fault. Harry scoffs and mutters under his breath, ‘a man?’, earning himself a friendly flick on the ear from the blond. Draco has remarkably good hearing.

Hermione whispers to them both now,

“Look, Fudge and that horrid executioner are about to go in Hagrid’s. Oh wait, our other selves are coming out the back, hide!”

She drags them both to the forest behind the pumpkins and the three of them hide behind a tree.
Hermione peeks round the trunk and gasps (quite loudly),

“Is that really what my hair looks like from the back?!”

Luckily, she quickly turns back behind the tree, the old three of him, Hermione, and Ron all pausing for a second before then running back up to Hogwarts.
Harry does vaguely remember hearing something from the forest as they had walked back up, but the three of them had just assumed it was one of the gazillions of dangerous, weird creatures in there.

“Phew!”, Draco sighs in relief, Hermione smiling apologetically at them both and murmuring sorry.

Now, the three of them run quickly to the edge of the pumpkin patch where Buckbeak is tethered, casting worried looks at Hagrid’s hut all the while.
Hermione is quick-thinking enough to grab a phew dead pheasants from a hook, to lead Buckbeak away and into the forest.

The three of them have only just made it to the safety of the trees, breathing heavily, when the teachers, minister, and executioner all exit the hut.
Fudge sounds baffled, Hagrid grateful but confused, and Dumbledore doesn’t even seem shocked, calmly offering Fudge a sherbert lemon and smiling. The executioner looks furious, his prey set free, and raises his axe, cutting it through a huge pumpkin- this must be the axe sound they heard before!

The three of them don’t stay to watch this, instead leading Buckbeak deeper into the forest and eventually letting him off his chain. The Hippogriff bows deeply to each of them in turn (even Draco!), before turning around and galloping off.
Harry has a feeling this isn’t the last they’ll see of Buckbeak….

Harry’s then starts trooping up towards the Whomping Willow, seeming through the trees Ron getting dragged down the tunnel by Sirius (as a dog).
He suddenly realises something,

“Hermione, we can go in there, we can stop Pettigrew escaping and save Sirius! Let’s go, come-“

Hermione looks sad but firm as she tells him,

“I’m sorry Harry, but we can’t let ourselves be seen! And what’s happened there has happened, I know because we haven’t seen us stopping it, if you know what I mean. I know it’s hard, but we’ll just have to wait for them to leave the passage. We can wait here till then.”

Harry sighs,
“I know, you’re right, it’s just so frustrating, that git Pettigrew escaping.”

Hermione nods sympathetically, and then notices Draco staring at them both in utter confusion, Harry noticing the blond too.

“Oh, sorry Draco! I forgot we haven’t told you everything that happened! We’ll tell you now, while we wait….

*

A few hours later, the three time travellers are running from a blood thirsty werewolf that is a kind, woolly-jumper-wearing teacher most of the month.

Draco’s fumbling for his wand as the wolf stalks towards the three of them. They’re trapped with their back against a large tree, Hermione and Harry utterly terrified, clinging to Draco.
Harry’s pretty sure this is the end for him. He wonders if he’ll be a cool werewolf, like Lupin, or a lame one.

They’re all saved by a squawking Buckbeak, who flies at the werewolf and scratches him, causing the wolf to run off whimpering. Harry feels a bit bad that Lupin’s probably got another nasty scar.

“Thank you Buckbeak, I owe you a lifetimes supply of pheasant.”, Draco tells the Hippogriff gratefully, Harry and Hermione shakily laughing.

Then Harry realises where they need to be, telling the other three they need to get to the lake with the dementors. Buckbeak follows them as they run, following the black-cloaked dementors all flying in a single direction above them.

*

When they reach the lake Harry can see himself and Sirius, both barely sitting up, on the opposite side of the lake to where he stands now.
Hermione and Draco quietly join him as he stands, waiting for his dad to come and cast the Patronus, come and save him.

“Harry, you’re dying.”, Hermione tells him urgent,y, willing him to do something.

“No, my dad will come. He’ll come and cast his Patronus, it’s a deer. I know, I saw it.”

He knows he’s only convincing himself at this point. Draco grabs his arm and gives Harry a pleading look,

“Harry, please.”

Suddenly, at this look from Draco, he realises.

He turns back round to see his dying self and pulls out his wand, summoning all his best memories:
His parents just talking to him and smiling (the only real memory he has of them); finding out he was a wizard; Christmas at Hogwarts- Christmas with Draco specifically; treacle tart in the warm kitchens; watching Hedwig fly; listening to David Bowie- one earplug shared with Draco as they studied; Hermione, Ron, and Draco hugging him that day in Hogsmeade as he cried.

“Expecto Patronum!”

A lovely silver stag bursts from his wand, with white light so bright the three of them have to shield their eyes.

*