whose possibility Dumbledore had been instructed by seers to create.
I need to think faster, grow up faster… How alone am I, how alone will I be? Am I making the same mistake I made during Professor Quirrell’s first battle, when I didn’t realise Hermione had captains? The mistake I made when I didn’t tell Dumbledore about the sense of doom, once I realised Dumbledore probably wasn’t mad or evil?
It would help if Muggles had classes for this sort of thing, but they didn’t. Maybe Harry could recruit Daniel Kahneman, fake his death, rejuvenate him with the Stone, and put him in charge of inventing better training methods…
Harry took the Elder Wand out of his robes, gazed again at the darkgrey wood that Dumbledore had passed down to him. Harry had tried to think faster this time, he’d tried to complete the pattern implied by the Cloak of Invisibility and the Resurrection Stone. The Cloak of Invisibility had possessed the legendary power of hiding the wearer, and the hidden power of allowing the wearer to hide from Death itself in the form of Dementors. The Resurrection Stone had the legendary power of summoning an image of the dead, and then Voldemort had incorporated it into his horcrux system to allow his spirit to move freely. The second Deathly Hallow was a potential component of a system of true immortality that Cadmus Peverell had never completed, maybe due to his having ethics.
And then there was the third Deathly Hallow, the Elder Wand of Antioch Peverell, that legend said passed from wizard to stronger wizard, and made its holder invincible against ordinary attacks; that was the known and overt characteristic…
The Elder Wand that had belonged to Dumbledore, who’d been trying to prevent the Death of the world itself.
The purpose of the Elder Wand always going to the victor might be to find the strongest living wizard and empower them still further, in case there was any threat to their entire species; it could secretly be a tool to defeat Death in its form as the destroyer of worlds.
But if there was some higher power locked within the Elder Wand, it had not presented itself to Harry based on that guess. Harry had raised up the Elder Wand and spoken to it, named himself a descendant of Peverell who accepted his family’s quest; he’d promised the Elder Wand that he would do his best to save the world from Death, and take up Dumbledore’s duty. And the Elder Wand had answered no more strongly to his hand than before, refusing his attempt to jump ahead in the story. Maybe Harry needed to strike his first true blow against the Death of worlds before the Elder Wand would acknowledge him; as the heir of Ignotus Peverell had already defeated Death’s shadow, and the heir of Cadmus Peverell had already survived the Death of his body, when their respective Deathly Hallows had revealed their secrets.
At least Harry had managed to guess that, contrary to legend, the Elder Wand didn’t contain a core of ‘Thestral hair’. Harry had seen Thestrals, and they were skeletal horses with smooth skin and no visible mane on their skull-like heads, nor tufts on their bony tails. But what core was truly inside the Elder Wand, Harry hadn’t yet felt himself knowing; nor had he been able to find, anywhere on the Elder Wand, the circle-triangleline of the Deathly Hallows that should have been present.
“I don’t suppose,” Harry murmured to the Elder Wand, “you could just tell me?”
There came back no answer from the globe-knobbed wand; only a sense of glory and contained power, watching him skeptically.
Harry sighed, and put the most powerful wand in the world back into his school robes. He’d get it eventually, and hopefully in time.
Maybe faster, if there was someone to help him do the research.
Harry was aware on some level—no, he needed to stop being aware of things on some level and start just being aware of them—Harry was explicitly and consciously aware that he was ruminating about the Future mostly to distract himself from the imminent arrival of Hermione Granger. Who would receive a clear bill of health from St. Mungo’s, when she woke up very early this morning, and who would then Floo with Professor Flitwick back to Hogwarts. Whereupon she’d tell Professor Flitwick that she needed to speak with Harry Potter immediately. There’d been a note from Harry to himself about that, when Harry had woken up later this morning with the sun already risen in the Ravenclaw dorm. He’d read the note, and then Time-Turned back to before the dawn hour when Hermione Granger would arrive.
She won’t actually be angry with me.
…
Seriously. Hermione isn’t that kind of person. Maybe she was at the start of the year but she’s too self-aware to fall for that one now.
…
What do you mean, ‘…’? If you have something to say, inner voice, just say it!
We’re trying to be more aware of our own thought processes, remember?
The sky had gone full blue-gray, dawn barely short of sunrise, by the time that Harry heard the sound of footsteps coming from the ladder that opened into his new office. Hastily Harry stood up and began to brush off his robes; and then, realising what he was doing, stopped the nervous motions. He’d just defeated Voldemort, damn it, he ought not to be this nervous.
The young witch’s head and chestnut curls appeared in the opening and peered around. Then she rose up higher, seemed almost to run up the ladder steps, like she was walking along an ordinary sidewalk but vertically; Harry could have blinked and missed it, how her one shoe came down on the top rung of the ladder and then she leaped lightly onto the roof an instant later.
Hermione. Harry’s lips moved around the word, but made no sound.
There’d been something Harry had meant to say, but it had gone right out of his mind.
Maybe a quarter of the minute passed, on the rooftop, before Hermione Granger spoke. She was wearing a blue-edged uniform now, and the blue-bronze-striped tie of her proper House.
“Harry,” said Hermione Granger, a terribly familiar voice that almost brought tears to Harry’s eyes, “before I ask you all the questions, I’d like to start by saying thank you very much for, um, whatever it is you did. I mean it, really. Thank you.”
“Hermione,” Harry said, and swallowed. The phrase may I have permission to hug you, which Harry had imagined using for his opening line, seemed impossible to say. “Welcome back. Hold on while I put up some privacy spells.” Harry took the Elder Wand out of his robes, got a book from his pouch that he opened to a bookmark, and then carefully pronounced “Homenum Revelio,” along with two other recently-acquired security Charms that Harry had found himself barely able to cast if he wielded the Elder Wand. It wasn’t much, but it was marginally better security than just relying on Professor Vector.
“You have Dumbledore’s wand,” Hermione said. Her voice was hushed, and sounded as loud as an avalanche in the still dawn air. “And you can use it to cast fourth-year spells?”
Harry nodded, making a mental note to be more careful who else saw him do that. “Is it okay if I hug you?”
Hermione moved lightly over to him; her movements were peculiarly swift, more graceful than they’d been before. Her motions seemed to radiate an air of something pure and untouched, reminding Harry again of how peaceful Hermione had looked when she was sleeping on Voldemort’s altar—
Realization hit Harry like a ton of bricks, or at least a kilogram of brick.