I've Just Seen A Face
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Viii
I’ve Just Seen A Face
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0743 hours
9 September 1978
Ogden’s Place
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Hermione stirred on the soft mattress when she heard a small chuckle beside her. She opened her sleepy eyes slowly and met Tiberius’ smile. She groaned. “You’re up early.”
Tiberius kissed her forehead and pulled her closer, hand roaming down her naked body. “So I can fuck you before you leave.”
Hermione snorted, burrowing her hand down under the duvet and smirking when Tiberius moaned from her touch. She nipped his jaw and whispered, “Well, what are you waiting for then?”
He trapped her underneath him, laughing at her teasing. Hermione hummed contentedly as the sound of it, and the weight of him against her. Propping his hands on each side of her head, he leaned down, kissing her tenderly.
“Do you have work today?” He asked, kissing her jaw down to her neck.
“None unless Seal calls,” she answered breathily, her hand still stroking him.
He moaned and straightened his back for a moment, placing her hand with his own as he guided the head of his shaft over her folds, rubbing it up and down. Tiberius grinned when she subconsciously ground her hips against him wantonly, making him wet. He pushed in gently, softly muttering, “You feel so good, baby.”
Hermione couldn’t answer. The moment felt too personal, too intimate, for her to ruin it with unnecessary comment. He was kissing her, whispering sweet nothings between kisses, and his strokes were slow, building her up and making her toes curl as he began to increase the pace.
“Oh, Tie,” she moaned as she pulled him down, coming happily as daylight streamed through the windows.
Tiberius moved to lay beside her, kissing her forehead. “Let’s sleep some more.”
Hermione hugged him, humming her agreement. Her eyes were already shut even before he finished his sentence. A smile of contentment graced her face till she fell asleep in his arms.
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Their slumber was disturbed by a ministry owl pecking insistently at the window. Tiberius groaned as he got up, unabashedly naked, to retrieve the letter. “Seal needs you,” he said simply as he dove back into Hermione’s hug. “Are you coming back to me later?”
Hermione laughed at his petulant voice. She pecked his nose and answered, “Not today. I have dinner date with my family, and some things to do.” She stretched her body lazily, leaving the bed for his bathroom. She stopped at the door and turned to find Tiberius looking at her. “You know, I could use a hand to clean the unreachable part of my back. There’s dried cum that’s need cleaning.”
He smirked and made his way to her, picking her up and kissing her as he kicked the door behind them for shower.
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0909 hours
9 September 1978
Department of Mysteries
Ministry of Magic
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“You fucked,” Seal’s voice echoed their Time Chamber.
“How— It’s none of your business, Seal!” She fought down her blush.
“You have that ‘just shagged senseless’ hair—not that it wasn't horrendous before, seriously, kid, your hair is a demon dressed in nightmare—but this is too obvious!” He was standing beside her, picking up a curl and twirling it. “It’s Ogden, isn’t it?”
Hermione snorted at his inquiries. She hadn’t expected the Seal of this time to accept her the way her’s had. It was a warm comfort to know he would still treat her as his own kid no matter in which timeline.
“We showered,” she retorted.
He paled at the thought of her and Tiberius showering together, and Hermione couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, shaking his head. He ruffled her hair before beckoning her to follow him to his table. “You finally getting fucked aside,” he took his seat and passed a thick, leather journal to her, “I need you to tell me what do you think of this journal.”
She tried her best to control her quickening breaths at the sight of Mintumble’s journal. Does he know? “Isn’t it about Mintumble’s time travel fiasco?”
Seal studied her face. “Yeah, it is.”
“And…” she trailed off, wanting to hear his thoughts, though she could barely hear anything over her pounding heart.
“That’s it.” He finished with a shrug.
Hermione plastered a confused face. “Okay? So? Why do you ask?”
He held the journal up, displaying it to her at eye-level. ”What do you know about it?"
She snatched it from his hand, flipping through the pages as though she was puzzled by the amount of magic around it, “I agree.” She levitated the leather-cover journal and dropped it on her table carelessly. “I’ll look into it immediately.”
“Please tell me you didn’t call me in just for this? Keeping me from getting thoroughly fucked?”
“No disturbing talk at work, kid!” Seal covered his ears. When he noticed that Hermione had stopped talking, he jerked his head toward Mintumble’s journal and continued, “Do thorough research on that journal, will ya?”
“Sure. Though I’m not sure I’ll find whatever it is you’re expecting me to find.” She picked up her scrolls, obviously ignoring the journal as though it wasn’t important when in fact, it took all her strength to not put it in her satchel.
“You will.” He crossed his hands behind his back, watching as she packed her things.
“How can you be so sure?” She asked. She didn’t look at him. She could feel his stare, drilling a hole behind her back. Defensive. Suspicious. She could feel it in the air.
“Aren’t you Mintumble number two?”
Hermione startled. She tried to continue acting aloof but the moment was gone. Seal had caught her.
“What are you, Hermes?” His voice was calm, but the underlying threat reverberated in the chamber.
She could feel her palms start to sweat. She had thought of this – she had planned an elaborate explanation for Seal – but she hadn’t planned for it to be this soon. For it to be today. She was not prepared.
She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Seal,” she tried, “I didn’t mean any harm.”
She hissed at the sound of him locking the door. She knew he wouldn’t let her out alive if she couldn't explain herself.
Hermione traced three horizontal scar across her right inner forearm. She had crossed three different timelines before this one. And she had failed in all of them.
She would not let herself fail this time.
“Talk, bitch.” Seal waved his wand, binding her tight against the chair. "Expelliarmus."
She sat directly in front of him, immobilized and wandless, her knees nearly pressed flush against his.
Hermione’s eyes danced with mirth. Cute, she mused to herself. Taking her wand wouldn’t save him if she wanted to kill him.
“Talk!” He tightened the bindings.
“I’m just a time traveler who wants to change the future,” she said it firmly. It was a simple line yet impactful enough.
“And you expect me to trust you, o’ saint sent from the future?” He jabbed his wand right under her chin. “Explain yourself, Hermes.”
Hermione resisted sighing. It would do no good to anger the man. In her old time, he was the best Unspeakable, old and wisened by his experience. From experiences like these, she reminded herself. But, the wizard in front of her was young and hot-blooded, and she knew from experience he wouldn’t flinch at the thought ot casting Unforgivables. She arranged her words in her head carefully.
“My name is Hermione Granger. I came from the year 2002.” She paused to gauge his reaction. Seeing none, she continued, “In my time, we had a group of four Unspeakables, whose sole purpose was to create magic that could transport beings – human to be specific. And as you can see, it worked.”
“It didn’t prove your allegiance,” he probed.
“I know you, Seal. Saul Croaker, You took me in. You lost your last family member last year, on the last day of August. She was your everything. Your friend, your confidant, your lover, your wife.” She felt the jab loosen. “And you never told anyone about her because she was a muggleborn, and a muggleborn wife of a prestigious Unspeakable like you was not ideal in this time. War. Blood purity. Voldemort.”
“You said I took you in? Who are you?”
“A pretty well-known Light fighter,” she admitted.
“I know myself well, kid. No matter when, no matter which timeline, I know I wouldn’t take someone in simply because they are a Light fighter.” He locked his eyes on hers. “You’re hiding something. There’s more of the story.”
“Seal, no–”
“Either you start talking or I swear my face will be the last thing you'll see before you die.”
The thin rope tightened around her neck, choking her as she took short breath for whatever little oxygen she could grasp. She could take the rope off. Anytime. Easily. Just a flick of her wrist. Just a snap of her fingers. But she knew he needed this. So she forced out words, forced out more truth than she ever shared with Saul from her previous crossing. “My friend died.”
Instantly, the rope left her neck. She took sharp intake of air, inflating her lungs fully once more.
“You killed your friend?” He asked incredulously.
Hermione wanted to nod but the vow that she took wouldn’t let her. She felt her forearm itch, burning, reminding her the vow she had made with the very same man in front of her. She let out an anguish cry.
“And I supposed to trust words of a murderer?” He spat, seeing she didn’t deny his accusation.
“I–” She wheezed, her face twisted in pain as she swallowed the bitter truth down. She felt an invisible force squeezing air out of her. She wished she could lift a hand to silently ask him for a chance to catch a breath, “My friend died. It all started then.”
“When was then?”
“1998. The timeline I originally came from.”
“Originally?”
Her laughter lacked the humour. “Apparently, time isn’t the loop we’ve been taught to believe it is.”
“But Mintumble–”
“Mintumble thought it was. Not until she came back from 1402, believing she came to her original timeline. It was the first time portal that ever existed — created accidentally." She couldn't hide the wonder in her voice, even after all this time.
“But the time turner proved that time is a loop.”
“No.” She shook her head. Curiosity shone brightly in her eyes as she explained the greater magic behind the small tool. “The time turner proved that there are other timelines. The user unknowingly transfers themselves to the same second, but in a different universe.” She watched as Seal’s eyes slowly widened, the truth dawning on him. “Yes. We are merely a string in a cluster of parallel universes.”
“How can you be so sure?” He rose up from his seat, pacing as his hands ran through his hair. “Are you saying you’re not from this universe? Are you saying there’s more than one Saul Croaker?” He stopped and he whispered the same thing as the first two versions of him. “There’s more than one Issabel.”
“Seal, listen to me,” she tried.
“I can save her.”
“No, Seal.” She shook her head. “Seal, old man, listen to me.” This never ended well.
“I can keep her alive. I can have her again,” he continued without realizing Hermione had broken free from his bind.
“For fuck’s sake, Seal! Listen!” She jumped up and hugged him, burying her face into his chest. “You can’t save her. No matter what you do, no matter how, you can’t.”
“You can’t know! We have to try! I have to try! She’s my wife!” He screamed. He tried to push her off him but she hugged him harder.
“I know, Seal! I tried! Merlin knows I tried,” Hermione realized her cheeks were wet. Not from her, but from the man that had his hope crushed over and over again by her. “I tried. But the endgame was always the same.”
“What do you mean?” He choked but to Hermione relish, he stopped pushing her away. “How many time have you jumped?”
“Three.”
“What happened?”
She let go of him, urging him to sit down as she summoned a chair for him. It was her turn to pace.
“When my friend died, I found out then that time isn’t a loop. I was confused. I had time turner before, you see. I knew how it worked — how I believed it worked — But her death changed that. Something impossible happened. So I went to the first place I know would hold the answer.”
“Department of Mysteries,” he added.
“Yes. We were at war. Mudbloods and Half-bloods weren’t safe. It was risky but I needed to know. And that was when I met you. For the first time.” She gave him a fond smile. “You found me lingering in the corridor, looking for the right Time Chamber’s door. You gave me your robe to cover me. I was Undesirable No.2, after all.”
“You were what?!” He looked alarm, his knuckles white from gripping his wand.
Hermione rolled her eyes. “We were against Pureblood supremacist, remember? Me being an Undesirable is the best prove that I’m against those bullshit, Seal.”
Seal grumbled, crossing his arms with his wand still tightly wrapped around his fingers. “Must be fucking important.”
“You can say that,” she nodded, “I was one of the frontliner against Voldemort.”
“How old were you?”
“The age I met you? Nineteen. The age we started fighting Voldemort?” She chuckled as she recalled how ridiculous the story of them fighting troll sounded now after she had told it to Seal more than once. “Eleven years old.”
“Bloody hell.” He shook his head. “So I took you in?”
“Pretty much, yeah. The Lights were scattered around UK. We found old castles, manors, buildings, and we fixed them as safehouses.” She Acciod her wand and Mintumble’s journal. “I was alone when you found me. Battered and traumatized. I couldn’t even explain myself to you. It was all random words, incoherent sentences and lots of spits and snots and tears.” She laughed, flipping through the pages. At the last twelve pages, she waved her wand in a complicated move, fast and sure. It was a muscle memory, her mind not even needing to help the movement. “And when we finally settled down, after bottles of Ogden’s, mind you, we started our own research team, consisting only the two of us. You faked my registry under the codename Unspeakable Hermes.”
“What was I thinking?” He muttered to himself.
Hermione laughed, passing the now curse-freed journal to him. “Read it.”
It was pages of Mintumble’s journey to 1402 — how she created the time turner that was only meant to transport her few hours back. She explained in great detail how her body took the travel. It was a big feat, and her creation wasn’t meant for that. Hence, her body caught up with her aging process from 1402. Her excursion to the past provoked a great alarming signs that time itself had been disturbed: Tuesday following her reappearance lasted two and a half full days, whereas Thursday shot by in the space of four hours.
Seal scanned the pages in tepid attention, cursing and gasping until he finished the entry. Hermione caught his eyes darting between her and the last of Mintumble’s writing, and wondered why he looked at her apprehensively. She was about to ask him what was wrong, but Seal beat her to it, passing the journal back to her with the last page displayed on the palm of her hand.
“You killed your friend,” he said. His voice was low but his statement was firm without any sign of accusation, just the hard truth.
Hermione recoiled, taking a step back as Seal watched her with a hint of pity. She looked down to the entry and her face scrunched in an agony that only she alone could understand – someone who had been through three different universes. It was Mintumble’s last entry, of her killing her other self.
“That’s how you know time isn’t a loop. You killed your friend. And yet she is still alive.”
Hermione stumbled two steps backward.
“Three jumps, three different timelines, three different Hermes,” Seal muttered with his eyes wide in horror, though Hermione could see a hint of sorrow, “How many times have you killed your friends, kid? How many times have you killed yourself?”
Hermione left the small chamber. She ran, wishing that she could disapparate right there, ignoring the echo of Seal’s yelling her name in the empty, dark corridor. Her hood slipped off, her hair smacking her face painfully as she ran, but she kept going. She could feel her throat constricting; she could feel her heart racing; she could feel tears rolling down her cheeks, mixing with the cold sweat covering her face and body.
She disapparated once she reached the apparition point, determined to do what she should have done the first time she came here.
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0002 hours
29 March 1998
Croaker’s Place
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“What the fuck have you done, kid?!” Seal yelled angrily at her, his hands roaming, looking for the wound that had resulted her bloodied face and hands.
“I had to,” Hermione muttered under her breath.
“You’re not hurt,” Seal surmised after his thorough check up. “Then whose blood is this, Hermione?”
Hermione tucked her chin deeper into her chest, not wanting to see the disappointment in Seal’s eyes — her only constant in this new timeline.
“You’ve given up on saving your red haired friend. So whose blood is this, sweetheart?” Seal plead her to answer, the more reason why Hermione couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Hermione, love, please.”
“I had to. You don’t understand. I really had to, Saul! I had to!” Her scream was almost hysterical. She pulled her curls, letting her frustration took over herself. “There can’t be two! There can’t be two!”
Seal pulled her into his embrace, hugging her tight as though she would fall without his hold. And Hermione thought she would.
“You should have asked me,” Seal said, his voice muffled by her hair, splashes of blood coating it. “I could have done it for you.”
“There can’t be two,” she sobs, “I had to, Gods, I had to.”
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0956 hours
9 September 1978
Pimlico, London
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The warm, bright sun assaulted her eyes, contrasting with the cold, dim chamber. She continued running; she ran, and ran, and ran until she felt her knees buckled, tingly from the frictions as they rubbed with each other.
She hid herself in the small alley, scourgifying herself before charming her jean pocket to fit her work robes. She stepped out of the alley when she was done, eyes falling closed as she took a long, deep breath of the chilly cloudy London morning.
She missed this. The morning hustle, the loud honking, and the many yells of propagandas like “The end is near!” “God is a woman!” “Men loves men too!” She took it all with pride. This was her world, her familiar and untouched Muggle world. Yet she’d chosen her home — every decision she had made and would make had ensured her place — the Wizarding World.
Hermione walked leisurely, a fag between her lips. She smiled occasionally at the people who admired her silver mane, whose hair had striking colours of their own. For a moment she felt like she belonged. Yet, as her inhales grew shorter and her feet felt heavier, she knew this world would never be hers completely. She reminded herself as she stopped in front of a small clinic, I’ve made my choice.
As she took her first step into the dental clinic, she berated herself for delaying this. She was supposed to be the Brightest Witch of Her Age and yet, she couldn’t even face the inevitable. She saw her mother, young and dressed in her dentist's frock. 'Intern ' was spelled out on her badge, just under a cleanly written ' Jean ,' and Hermione wondered: Is this really necessary?
Yes, Hermione. Two of you would complicate things.
But what if she’s already pregnant?
She can’t be. You do know pregnancy takes nine months, don’t you? And today is still September, you smarty.
I know, I know. But, what if?
She tuned in to what her mother asked her, “Have you ever had your teeth clinically plucked before?”
Then you do what you did before. Kill.
She swallowed inaudibly, shaking her head as her defiance to kill but the other woman took it as her answer.
“Oh! Well, how old are you, miss?”
Until now, she never knew how old exactly she was.With all her dealings with time, she was anywhere from twenty-three to thirty. “Twenty-four,” she finally answered.
“Oh, dear. Have you had your teeth checked?”
“I have. My parents were dentists.”
“I see.” Jean gave her a small, pitying smile. “Seeing your perfect sized and straight teeth, I’m sure your parents would be proud of you.”
Hermione sniggered. She missed her mum’s tactless yet acceptable comments, a talent Hermione failed to master. She seemed to have always made insensitives comments throughout her youth. War and age taught her that some thoughts were better be kept to herself.
“Yeah. I’m sure they would.”
“Now, please lay down, love. this won’t take long,” Jean ordered her as she stood up, putting rubber gloves on.
Now or never.
Instead of following suit, Hermione walked toward her with her wand out. “ Immobilus.”
Jean froze in place, her eyes darted from her wand to her face and Hermione shut her eyes as she saw a glimpse of her older mother in hers. The honest, caramel eyes that she had missed so much. She placed her wand on Jean’s temple, not trusting her shaking hand would hold still without any support.
“ Obliviate,” she whispered and slowly, Jean’s confused eyes turned vacant. “You want an adventure, alone. So you’re going to book the earliest flight tonight to Maryland, United States, find a local dental clinic, and work and live there for two years, at least.”
“Eric,” she whispered. Hermione’s heart broke at the tone of her father's name form her mother's lips.
“You’re going to leave without telling him anything,” her voice cracked from her sobs, “You’re going to forget him, Jean.”
Jean stood quietly, taking everything earnestly.
Hermione lifted her wand after what was like the longest minutes in her life. She watched as her mum slowly gained her consciousness, blinking her eyes as if the action could get rid of the fogs in her mind.
Hermione left without a single backward glance. And if she saw Remus’ long face following her through the crowds, Hermione told herself she didn’t care.
Not anymore.