Chapter Text
Hermione
Hermione traced the scar on her wrist nervously, trying not to notice the gathering crowd. It wasn't that she was uneasy about public speaking, precisely. When one had fought and won a war before they were legally allowed to drink, one tended to not get one's knickers in a twist about oration. However, the subject of her impending speech would give anyone pause. Speaking to a room full of wizards and witches about a blasphemous combination of modern muggle medicine and healing spellcraft was bound to cause some tremors. The fact that it undid hundreds of years of assumed knowledge would more than tremor, actually. It would likely measure on the Richter scale.
But it had to be done. Hermione had worked tirelessly for three years on this research. And she'd won. Like everything she endeavored to undertake, Hermione did not accept failure. Especially not when it came to her parents. Not when it came to the healing arts. Her finger traced the curved shape of the scar that went from her wrist to the heel of her palm. She couldn't remember where she'd gotten it. The forest maybe, during that year on the run with Harry and Ron. Possibly the Battle at Hogwarts. It was hard to say. There were so many of them. Most unseen.
The raised amphitheater at St. Mungo's filled steadily with robed figures, all of them murmuring to one another, stuffing the dim space with a muted hum. Like most locations in the wizarding world, the room had an ancient air about it. Old, lacquered wood, decorative trim from many centuries ago, creaking floors, and a rounded shape that wasn't quite symmetrical. The balcony level listed off to the left a little. Nothing about the room was square. Nothing measured. The wizarding world was all vibes and no precision. In some ways she loved that. In other ways, she longed for the smooth architecture at Oxford, for bright projector screens and rooms that had been built with, well, any sort of measuring equipment.
The stage where she would present her research had been magically modified to amplify the orator's voice, and she'd requested spelled models of the human brain to be placed in the center of the honey wood stage for her demonstration. The models turned slowly, one blue and one pink, and Hermione panned a look around the room again. There was a small pygmy owl perched on one of the pewter chandeliers. Its head cocked to the side as it stared at her. She averted her gaze and pointlessly straightened her crisp black robes. She wore a cream sheathe dress beneath the open robes, feeling a little like she had at muggle university graduation, minus the cap. The wizards and witches would take her more seriously if she wore official St. Mungo's robes with the burgundy trim and embroidered patch over her heart, so she did.
She wasn't going to forgo her smart watch, though, no matter how many horrified looks she received. They could pry that handy thing out of her cold, petrified fingers. She glanced at it and found the time to be 12:58. Two minutes until presentation. She scanned the crowd again, both pleased and distressed to find it so full. She had never presented her research to the wizarding world before. Most people had forgotten she existed after the War, after the trials and very public horror that those had entailed. This was a novelty—The Hermione Granger stepping out of supposed seclusion to present a top secret but revolutionary finding funded by St. Mungo's own research team.
Several eyes found her at the bottom of the stairs. Most of the room began to fixate on her presence there. Hermione banished the impulse to smooth her curls, a habit she'd mostly curbed after she'd figured out the right spells and muggle creams to tame the tangles. In school, she'd patted the bushy mass when she'd been nervous. Her hair was sleek, now. It cascaded down her back in defined, glossy ringlets, and it only ever exploded when the rain caught her off guard. She gave into the temptation a little by twirling a curl around her finger. It would be fine. This would be fine. She was going to help thousands of wizards and witches with this discovery. No reason to be nervous.
She was starting to get sweaty. Definitely nervous, then.
Her watch blinked to 1:00, and Hermione climbed the stairs to the stage. The room fell to an expectant hush. Unlike the muggle world, there were no spotlights on her. Just a room full of curious people in muted shades of gray and brown. Hermione's gaze found the owl, of all things. Owls were common in the wizarding world, of course. There was no reason to take an interest in it. But why was there one perched on a chandelier? It blinked at her, one eye slower than the other. And then it vanished. Like it had used a portkey or donned an invisibility cloak, it blinked out of view. Hermione's steps faltered, and she stared at the spot the owl had been. The chandelier rocked back and forth subtly. What in Godric's name?
She forced herself to look away. A mystery for another time. Portkey-using animals. Or an animagus? Not now, Hermione. Focus. She gave the room her full attention, coming to a stop behind the rotating brain models in the middle of the stage. "Good afternoon, Witches and Wizards." Her voice sounded strange, magnified like that. It bounced over the dark, wood-paneled walls and lingered in the air. "I am Senior Healer Hermione Granger, Consultant Neurosurgeon and Senior Specialist in Neuro-Enchantments here at St. Mungo’s. Although, most of you are aware of my titles, I am sure." She half-smiled, and a few members of the audience chuckled in good natured agreement. "Thank you for joining me here today. I realize your invitation was vague, to put it lightly. I was following the advice of senior healers here at St. Mungo's, as well as top officials within the Ministry of Magic when deciding how and when to reveal my research to the wizarding community at large. It is, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, a topic that requires some discretion."
She had their full attention, there was no doubt about that. The room seemed to hold its breath, waiting for what sort of revelation would involve both St. Mungo's and the Ministry of Magic. To her left, Hermione knew that Harry stood close by, her self-appointed auror protector there in case news of her research caused an unwanted reaction. It was unlikely, but Harry hadn't gotten soft as the years went by. He was Head Auror now. He was well trained and overly cautious in all aspects of his life. That included the well being of his best friends.
Hermione cleared her throat, trying to dispel some of the nerves that were pricking the back of her neck and dotting her forehead with sweat. "For hundreds of years, we have treated spell-induced cognitive injury as something fundamentally different from its non-magical equivalent. That is to say, when someone is hit with one too many confundus charms, we try to magically revive them. Or sedate them. There are no tests done on physiological damage like there would be performed in the muggle world when brain damage is suspected. When obliviate is used to wipe a persons' memory, we medicate the symptoms—damage control but not damage reversal."
A wizard in the front of the room was scowling at her now, probably catching on to the fact that Hermione was about to make a link between her ten years of muggle neuroscience training and the same number of years she had been training as a healer at St. Mungo's. Her dual-world degrees were enough to make any wizard or witch raise and eyebrow. Here went her blasphemous research results. "Curses fray pathways, hexes scar them, and Dark magic, when it doesn’t destroy outright, leaves behind what we call arcane residue. It leaves unstable magical signatures that interfere with thought, memory, and voluntary movement." Hermione used her wand to bring the blue brain model up higher, and some of the twisting "gray" matter separated, revealing an enlarged neural pathway dissected to show the nerve, myelin sheathe, and damaged tissue. "Drawing on Muggle neurosurgical models of neuroplasticity, combined with diagnostic spellwork and structural charm-mapping, my team and I have developed a method to trace disrupted magical pathways as if they were neural circuits. If we trace them, we can stabilize them." She swished her wand, wiping away a layer of spellwork to reveal another. The model seemed to heal itself, the myelin sheath repairing and the nerves reattaching. "If we can stabilize them, we can heal them."
Already, there were whispers as the cleverer healers caught on to what Hermione was saying. She sensed a shift to her left and then to her right where Ministry officials waited in the wings. The implications of Hermione's discoveries were of vital important to the the wizarding community as a whole, but the Wizengamot especially wanted to keep Hermione under close observation. They hadn't outright tried to control her yet, but she knew they would attempt it. Especially now that her research would be out in the open.
"Using this research, and years of careful experimentation, my team and I have performed the first successful reversal of a severe case of an obliviated mind."
The room exploded with chatter. Phrases like "impossible" and "unheard of" floated around. Hermione waited patiently. She'd experienced this in small doses already, of course. When she'd brought her results to the board of St. Mungo's. When they'd then forced her to recite the same results to the Minister of Health. When she'd then been brought before the Minister of Magic himself and been ushered into a room full of aurors which had included Harry. She'd done it several times now. The reactions had always been the same.
Utter disbelief.
Talking over the increased volume, Hermione added, "And furthermore, my team and I have reason to believe that with our techniques, we will be able to successfully heal the minds of countless others—those minds ravaged by torture, by unforgivable curses, by magical creatures—"
The room might as well have been filled with doxies. Every person moved, spoke, exclaimed. A ripple of exclamations grew into a tsunami level wave, and Hermione found herself peppered with questions.
"…been tested on others?"
"Are you saying you've used muggle technology to—?"
"…implications for imperioused death eaters alone would—"
Hermione held up a hand, taking an instinctual step back. Alright, so she hadn't done this in front of quite so many people before. The questions were valid. The good her research would do would be quickly outweighed by the literal witch hunt that would ensue when the Wizengamot got their hands on her techniques and began yanking imperioused and obliviated ex-death eaters from Azkiban or forcing suspected sympathizers to have their memories restored and put on trial. It could be a terrible upheaval for the wizarding world.
It could be salvation for so many others, though. Like her parents. Patients A and B. The first successes, the first testaments to the soundness of Hermione's hard work. They had been the reason she'd worked tirelessly to solve this issue. She, herself, had obliviated her parents in her seventh year at Hogwarts to protect them. And she, alone, had been responsible for the torment of losing her parents, of them never knowing they'd had a daughter to begin with. So, she alone had been responsible for fixing it.
And she had, although based on the torrent of questions being released over her head, she was regretting coming forward with it personally. Especially if they were going to get in a snit before she'd gotten to any actual research. Godric, they hadn't even allowed her to present the beautiful—if magically profane—combination of neuro surgery and spell work she'd used. "Please, if you'll allow me to continue." Her magnified voice managed to drown out the many questions, and the room fell back into an uneasy silence. "Please allow me to fully present the first documented cases of functional recovery in patients whose injuries were previously considered irreversible—Cruciatus exposure, memory curse fragmentation, and post-possession arcane trauma. I think you will find that the outreach of positive implications will benefit the—"
The room wavered, like a ripple in a still pond. Hermione paused, eyes darting around the stuffy amphitheater. Several of the occupants noticed too, and some of them half-stood, their wands out. That had been a ward disturbance. She knew it well. She'd cast so many wards during the war, during her time on the run with Harry and Ron. When the wards were tampered with, they rippled. They—
A percussive bang reverberated through the room. Several occupants made startled sounds of distress. Hermione pivoted, changing her wand grip and letting her heart accelerate, letting her senses sharpen. Harry was at her side the next second, tugging on her elbow. "I told you," he gritted out, green eyes scanning the room as he pulled her back. He had on his auror's robes, which these days were much more tactical than they'd used to be. Slick, breathable material with pockets and straps for potions and spelled objects. Instead of a hood, a high cowl hid the lower half of his face, although, the shape of his glasses was unmistakable. No one else wore round, black rimmed glasses. No one else had a lightning shaped scar below their messy black hair. He liked it that way. It instilled fear in his enemies. The boy who lived and lived and lived. The man who defied the odds.
Another explosive rumble shook the ground, this time dislodging some dust from the ceiling and causing the chandeliers to wobble. "Harry, I've only just started. I haven't even said anything of importance," Hermione pointed out, thinking of the many facts and figures she had to present. It was a triumph, her research. The graphs alone were practically artwork. "Who would possibly attack a doctor for presenting research?"
"I don't care what you've shared or not shared with the class, Hermione. We are going." Harry tugged her harder, his eyes on the walls and his wand at the ready.
Another tremor rattled the walls. Hermione breathed in sharply, inhaling dust and the tint of fear in the air. She exhaled into the shocked silence. The walls exploded.
She only had a moment to register the splintering of wood, the violence of the explosion, the screams of terror that mingled with the carnage. Then she was down, her shields up and being buffeted by flying shrapnel and broken plaster. Pandemonium broke out, with red and blue spells flying through the air and a strange ricocheting kind of sound splitting the air. One of the brain models flew through the air before smacking against the wall. Something splintered the wood at her feet.
A bullet?
"They're muggles!" Harry shouted into the chaos, his stance practiced, his wand already sending curses and stunning spells into the dusty destruction.
Hermione was still on the stage, still open to attack. Her shields blocked a stupefy, and she countered it immediately, hearing a satisfying thump from someone nearby. But then she felt something hot graze her arm, and it slammed her body to the side, bringing her to her knees. In confusion she stared down at where red seeped through a rip in the fabric just below her shoulder.
Did I just get shot? With a muggle bullet?
A black shadow swirled into existence before her. On her knees, with dust coating her lips and shrouding her vision, Hermione could have sworn it was a death eater. Her heart clenched in fear. Her body systems ground to a halt. Time seemed to stand still. In a panic, her muddled brain picked out details—black gloves, a silver-gilded mask, a towering figure, and…
"Guns?" she choked. "Are you absolutely mad?"
The figure didn't seem to even notice she was there. He was dressed almost like a muggle with his sleek, form fitting vest, full tactical helmet, and leather gloves. Almost. The potions in his belt, shimmer of dissipating disillusionment charm around his fit body, and the wand in his left hand gave away his wizard status. Then again, he was unloading a Glock into the crowd, and casting spells at the same time. She actually had no idea what this person was.
He turned to glance at her, and she got a good look at the mask covering his face. Silver gilded the bottom half, almost like a modern, SWAT version of a knight's helmet. The top, a tinted visor, hid his eyes. "Shields, Granger." His voice had been modified behind the mask, but he was most definitely English. There went her fleeting "American spy" theory.
She shook herself from her stupor and raised her shields again, managing to deflect a purple curse that singed the air as it dissipated. The figure backed up a step, his combat boots heavy against the wood stage, and while he emptied the rest of his clip with what looked like deadly precision, he grabbed her wrist and lifted her to her feet. With an alarmingly strong tug, he pulled her against his side before releasing the empty clip from his gun, jamming another one into the chamber with his arm around the baffled witch, and then resumed firing.
The shots rang sharply in her ear, and Hermione flinched away from him. "Put that weapon down before you kill someone." She moved to stupefy him, but the masked figure batted her hand aside easily.
"I aim to, Granger." His voice, synthetic and low, purred in her ears. "Are the stories of the great war hero exaggerated? Feel free to fight back anytime." He moved her, guiding her with him as he backed away. Hermione had never felt so… handled. He barely seemed to register her resistance, tugging her to the side, then back, maneuvering her across the stage with sure, confident movements.
She shielded against incoming spells, completely bewildered. "I can, but I—" she slammed a hex aside, countering immediately with petrificus totalus and causing a shrouded figure in the dusty carnage to topple over. "I don't know who I'm fighting." It was like all those years ago. The confusion. The lack of visibility. The choking smoke and dust in the air. The screams of pain. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Not anymore.
The masked figure turned suddenly, hooking her body into his and plastering his hard form to hers. "Then be still, at least." He'd shocked her into compliance. Her arm burned and her vision swung back and forth as an explosion rocked the amphitheater behind him. He waved his gun like a wand, drawing a pattern in the air, and bright light flashed around them. He released her again, turning so his back was to her, and he pushed her against the curved wall, shielding her with his body. With his wand hand freed, he swirled it in her direction. A red circle appeared around Hermione. The heat of it infused her body, causing her skin to tingle. She blinked at it, entranced. A ward? A singular ward for one person, and done wordlessly… almost carelessly? Impossible. Spells bounced off the barrier. Bullets clattered to the ground around the circle.
It wasn't just a ward. It was impenetrable. "What did you do?" she breathed, her head buzzing. Something was happening to her body. Her hands were shaking. Her arm had gone numb. She couldn't seem to think about anything but the ward, now. It had to be some amalgamation of protego maxima and repello… incinium? Perhaps a convoluted repellant hex?
"Who the bloody hell—?" Harry started to ask the stranger, sprinting into view through the fog.
The masked man dropped an empty clip again, letting it clatter to the ground. With a swish of his wand, half the rubble turned into soapy bubbles, and Hermione got a good look at their enemy for the first time. They were muggles, yes. Dressed in jeans and T-shirts, in corporate wear and missing shoes, they stumbled over wreckage like zombies. Imperioused or worse. But between them, wizards wearing white masks fought with alarming intensity, casting spells almost faster than she could see them. Despite the room being full of competent wizards and witches, they were utterly besieged.
Her masked protector slid his Glock into a pocket on his vest, hooked his arm around her waist, and drew a symbol in the air with his wand. It glowed brightly for a moment, long enough for Hermione to glimpse it. A rune. She'd never seen anything like it. And then, despite the fact that it was impossible to disapparate within St. Mungo's walls, a queasy, folding kind of sensation, yanked at Hermione's middle. She vanished into thin air.
With him.