Кассандра Клэр - Draco Sinister

"Oh!" Hermione gasped out loud as the gray mist suddenly vanished and she pitched forward hard, slamming her hands into the ground.

Her knees collapsed and for a moment she just lay still, catching her breath, her eyes screwed shut.

When she opened them, the first thing she saw was brilliant blue sky. This was disconcerting. Not, however, as disconcerting as the realization that she was no longer connected to Ron and Ginny via the chain of the Time-Turner.

She hurled herself into a sitting position and stared around wildly.

Rubble. She was sitting among a mass of rubble, the remnants of some huge structure which had suffered a massive bout of destruction: broken stone and smashed glass littered the churned earth, as did the trunks of trees ripped from the ground, their roots clawing the sky. The air carried a smell of burning wood: sticky pitch, sharp-burning cedar. Huge listing chunks of stone showed where there had once been walls: one was even adorned with a shredded remnant of tapestry, another sported a staircase that ended abruptly in midair.

Hermioneś eyes saw all this as she scanned the scene, but she barely took it in. She was searching, her heart pounding…

There. A flash of red.

She leaped to her feet and raced forward, staggering over broken paving stones and twisted bits of metal that looked as if they had been melted in some great blast. Nearly tripping over a pile of smashed stones, she rounded a corner and saw Ron.

He was kneeling on a pile of broken stone, gazing around with a rueful expression. Hermione flew over to him and threw her arms around him and hugged him fiercely before he had a second to react.

"Oww..gerroff Hermione. No need to shake me. I´m not a martini," he said, looking rather gratified anyway. "I´m okay. Landed just fine. For a second there I thought I´d dropped the Invisibility Cloak," he added, pulling the silvery Cloak out of his pocket briefly and showing it to her before tucking it back in. "Gave me a horrid turn."

She released him, and giggled — Ron was so covered in dust and ash that his flame-red hair was streaked with white, and he was indescribably filthy. He immediately seemed to know exactly why she was laughing.

"You look just as bad as I do," he pointed out, rubbing his cheek with the back of his sleeve, which served to redistribute the dirt without actually removing any of it. "Don´t think you don´t."

But Hermione had quickly sobered. "Ginny — "

Ron paled under the layers of ash. "Sheś not with you?"

"I´m over here," came Ginnyś voice. Hermione turned and saw the slender figure of Ginny clambering over an upended tree trunk. Like Ron, she was filthy, her face and hands streaked black with ash and dirt. "What happened here?" she demanded crossly, tossing back her flaming hair. "It looks like Fred and George set off the worldś biggest Filibuster Firecracker."

"Aftermath of a magical battle," said Hermione briefly, and shivered.

It was cold, despite the brilliance of the sun. She recognized the slant of it as winter sunlight. Which made sense — if a time turner could take them back to any year, surely it could take them back to any season of that year. She just wished she´d dressed more warmly.

"Must have been a hell of a battle," said Ron, looking impressed.

"I´ve never seen anything so destroyed. At this point, a direct hit by a meteorite would count as gentrification."

"Mmm," agreed Hermione, not really listening.

Ron reached out and touched her cheek lightly. "What is it, Hermione?"

"I´m just wondering where everyone is. Why would the Turner be set to bring us back to a place where everything is destroyed? We must have arrived after the battle with Salazar…"

"Where are we?" demanded Ginny, glancing around.

"Just where we were," said Hermione. "The Time-Turner moves you in time, not place. So it looks like your father was right — the Burrow was a castle, once. Only it was razed down to the foundations. But there must be some survivors…"

"Survivors!"

For a moment, Hermione thought she was hearing an echo. Then, glancing up, she saw someone poised on a slant of overhanging rock above where she, Ron and Ginny were standing. Instinctively, she stepped back, trying to push Ron and Ginny behind her. The sunlight was behind the person standing above them, so she could see clearly only the outline of a robed wizard or witch, wand out, staring down at them. "Survivors!" the person shouted again — it was a boyś voice — and Hermione realized that he was talking about them. "Are you all right down there?" he called.

"We´re fine," Hermione called up. "But we´re not survivors…I mean, not literally. We-"

Apparently, the boy decided that this claim merited further investigation. In the space of a moment, he had leaped down from his rock and landed lightly on his feet in front of them, still holding his wand.

Hermione made a little gurgling sound in her throat, and stared.

It was Harry.

Only it wasn´t Harry as he was now, not the almost-seventeen-year old Harry who even now scared her a little with his grown-up-ness and the fact that occasionally (not that often) he needed to shave.

This was Harry as he had been the first time she´d seen him, small and skinny and eleven, with his dark green eyes the biggest feature of a face still round with the last vestiges of childhood. Only this boyś eyes weren´t green; he wore no glasses, and his forehead was unmarked. Like a Gryffindor Quidditch player, his wizarding robes were scarlet, although of a very archaic cut. And perhaps the most surprising thing about him was that he regarded them with no surprise at all.

"You´re the Heirs, aren´t you?" he said, raising his eyebrows very slightly. "I´ve been waiting for you."

"Demons, Demons, Demons?" Narcissa said, pushing the heavy book back across the table to Sirius. "What a title."

"Thatś what I said," grinned Sirius. Narcissa smiled back at him. He looked ten years younger than he had that morning — still worried, the lines of strain around his mouth and eyes remained, and he repeatedly checked the bracelet around his wrist to make sure that the Vivicus charm was still glowing, but the hopeless look of the morning had gone from his eyes. She knew this was due to the fact that Lupin was all right, and was happy for him.

She touched the covering of the book he had brought upstairs lightly with the palm of her hand. "Where did you get this, anyway?"

"Snape," said Sirius, looked pleased with himself.

"You told him about the demon in the cellar?" Narcissa was surprised.

"Well, it came up in conversation. 'So, Sirius, how you doing?

Whatś that you say? Minions from hell getting you down? Have I got the book for you.´"

"Somehow that doesn´t sound like something Severus would say."

"Severus," mimicked Sirius good-humoredly. "Ikkle Sevvie. I haven´t heard anyone call him Severus, except Dumbledore, for years. Not that I ever called him that — "

"No," said Lupin, appearing in the doorway, "if I recall, you used to call him 'Arse Face.´"

"On good days," admitted Sirius amicably, swiveling around to greet his friend. Lupin had put on clean clothes to replace the ones he had torn during the Change, and although he by no means could be described as looking well-rested and relaxed, he did appear much improved.

"You ready to go?" he asked Sirius.

Sirius nodded.

"And where are you two off to?" Narcissa interjected with asperity.

"Godricś Hollow," replied Sirius, getting to his feet. "Remus has a theory that the box my Key fits is somewhere in the Hollow. And I think heś got a point."

"Godricś Hollow?" Narcissa looked up at Sirius. "Isn´t that…?"

"Yes," he said shortly, pulling on his long gray travelling cloak.