prompt for January 18th - Harry Potter/Sneakers
Prompt for January 18:
"It was noon and nothing was concluded."
The Death Eaters either give up or get stunned into submission after their leader dies - Hermione still isn't sure how it worked out that a Muggle could just shoot Voldemort, but she has to admit it was rather effective. A couple dozen of them try to claim they were cursed into supporting the regime, but the Aurors haul all of them back to London in order to make certain of it, this time.
Those who are left at Hogwarts start notifying the families of the dead, where possible, and making burial arrangements where it isn't. No one's quite sure what to do with Harry - surely, he should have revived by now - and in the end, they put him in the infirmary overnight.
"I don't know what's wrong," Hermione says, over breakfast the next morning. "Harry's survived the Killing Curse more than once."
Carl eyes her for a moment. "I think, by calling it the Killing Curse, you just answered your own question. Not that I don't sympathize with your loss, but he looked pretty dead when the big guy carried him in last night."
"No, no, he's survived it before. That was part of what made him special against Voldemort."
"That doesn't sound like the sort of defense that would last forever," Crease says.
"Yeah, seriously. I mean, if you really want to give this a fair shake, I guess you could give Harry a couple more days and see if he wakes up. But I don't really think that's gonna work out so well for you."
Crease mutters something including the phrase 'needlessly messianic,' and turns his attention to his porridge. Hermione sighs. She'd really thought the Americans would have figured out by now that Harry's special.
***
People keep telling her she's done more than enough for the cause, and therefore she's quite excused from the cleanup. But Hermione is restless, after doing so much the last few months, and she can only sit vigil with Harry for so long. So a couple hours before lunch, she sits down in the library and writes out the prophecy, as best as she remembers Harry telling it.
Cosmo's still around somewhere; she's fairly certain of that based on the fact that Carl doesn't seem to have relaxed yet. (She really must get the whole story there, before they all leave. As far as she can tell, they have no reason to be so wary of an ally.) But he's making himself as scarce as possible, so Hermione doubts she'll have the chance to ask him all the questions she'd like. But she doesn't see how the prophecy could not fit, all things considered.
"...Wow."
She glances up, and allows herself an inward sigh. "Hello, Mother."
"Oh, hi. Weren't you planning on helping with the stuff downstairs?"
"I was, but everyone's kept me out of the heavy labor. What brings you up here?"
"Just got to exploring. I don't know the place well enough to really help, and it's not like we had a chance to see much of the building last night. You?"
"I'm attempting to keep myself occupied. And having a look at that prophecy, to see whether it was fulfilled by what happened last night."
"Oh?" Mother makes a beeline for Hermione's table; she supposes she ought to have seen that coming, given his predilection for conspiracy theories and the like. "Mind if I have a look at it?"
"Certainly. I'll have to ask questions to get much further than this in any case."
He takes the parchment she wrote the prophecy out on and reads it, frowning a bit. "This is... really, really inspecific. How'd anyone ever narrow it down to two people?"
"Harry's never mentioned, but I suspect Dumbledore had a hand in it, since he witnessed the prophecy being made."
"Ah. That'd explain a lot." After a slight pause, he says, "I don't really know enough about Cosmo to tell you much about this thing, nor do I plan on asking. You'll have to find him, or maybe Bishop. But depending on when he busted out of jail, that might work for the seventh-month bit."
"He was in prison? But how would that count toward a birth?"
"Faked his death in the process. I'd say having to conduct most of your business under an alias counts as a new life, of sorts."
"I suppose." She wonders, briefly, whether sticking out Divination longer than she did would have helped her at all in this situation. But she suspects it wouldn't have - neither Harry nor Ron ever considered the prophecy to mean anything other than Dumbledore's interpretation, and Professor Trelawney was far more interested in practice than theory.
She's interrupted in her musings by her stomach growling.
"I think it's almost lunchtime," Mother says. "You know the fastest way back downstairs from here? I keep getting confused on the damn moving staircases."
"It was noon and nothing was concluded."
The Death Eaters either give up or get stunned into submission after their leader dies - Hermione still isn't sure how it worked out that a Muggle could just shoot Voldemort, but she has to admit it was rather effective. A couple dozen of them try to claim they were cursed into supporting the regime, but the Aurors haul all of them back to London in order to make certain of it, this time.
Those who are left at Hogwarts start notifying the families of the dead, where possible, and making burial arrangements where it isn't. No one's quite sure what to do with Harry - surely, he should have revived by now - and in the end, they put him in the infirmary overnight.
"I don't know what's wrong," Hermione says, over breakfast the next morning. "Harry's survived the Killing Curse more than once."
Carl eyes her for a moment. "I think, by calling it the Killing Curse, you just answered your own question. Not that I don't sympathize with your loss, but he looked pretty dead when the big guy carried him in last night."
"No, no, he's survived it before. That was part of what made him special against Voldemort."
"That doesn't sound like the sort of defense that would last forever," Crease says.
"Yeah, seriously. I mean, if you really want to give this a fair shake, I guess you could give Harry a couple more days and see if he wakes up. But I don't really think that's gonna work out so well for you."
Crease mutters something including the phrase 'needlessly messianic,' and turns his attention to his porridge. Hermione sighs. She'd really thought the Americans would have figured out by now that Harry's special.
***
People keep telling her she's done more than enough for the cause, and therefore she's quite excused from the cleanup. But Hermione is restless, after doing so much the last few months, and she can only sit vigil with Harry for so long. So a couple hours before lunch, she sits down in the library and writes out the prophecy, as best as she remembers Harry telling it.
Cosmo's still around somewhere; she's fairly certain of that based on the fact that Carl doesn't seem to have relaxed yet. (She really must get the whole story there, before they all leave. As far as she can tell, they have no reason to be so wary of an ally.) But he's making himself as scarce as possible, so Hermione doubts she'll have the chance to ask him all the questions she'd like. But she doesn't see how the prophecy could not fit, all things considered.
"...Wow."
She glances up, and allows herself an inward sigh. "Hello, Mother."
"Oh, hi. Weren't you planning on helping with the stuff downstairs?"
"I was, but everyone's kept me out of the heavy labor. What brings you up here?"
"Just got to exploring. I don't know the place well enough to really help, and it's not like we had a chance to see much of the building last night. You?"
"I'm attempting to keep myself occupied. And having a look at that prophecy, to see whether it was fulfilled by what happened last night."
"Oh?" Mother makes a beeline for Hermione's table; she supposes she ought to have seen that coming, given his predilection for conspiracy theories and the like. "Mind if I have a look at it?"
"Certainly. I'll have to ask questions to get much further than this in any case."
He takes the parchment she wrote the prophecy out on and reads it, frowning a bit. "This is... really, really inspecific. How'd anyone ever narrow it down to two people?"
"Harry's never mentioned, but I suspect Dumbledore had a hand in it, since he witnessed the prophecy being made."
"Ah. That'd explain a lot." After a slight pause, he says, "I don't really know enough about Cosmo to tell you much about this thing, nor do I plan on asking. You'll have to find him, or maybe Bishop. But depending on when he busted out of jail, that might work for the seventh-month bit."
"He was in prison? But how would that count toward a birth?"
"Faked his death in the process. I'd say having to conduct most of your business under an alias counts as a new life, of sorts."
"I suppose." She wonders, briefly, whether sticking out Divination longer than she did would have helped her at all in this situation. But she suspects it wouldn't have - neither Harry nor Ron ever considered the prophecy to mean anything other than Dumbledore's interpretation, and Professor Trelawney was far more interested in practice than theory.
She's interrupted in her musings by her stomach growling.
"I think it's almost lunchtime," Mother says. "You know the fastest way back downstairs from here? I keep getting confused on the damn moving staircases."