Harry was loath to leave their impromptu embrace, but after a while, a niggling thought in the back of his mind couldn't be ignored any further. He extracted himself from the lanky redhead and rose, stretching languorously. "Hermione has been quiet as a mouse, with no book in sight. I'm worried." He grinned to show he wasn't completely serious, but still. It was a very unusual situation.

Hermione was never one for relaxing, and he remembered the sheer level of rage she exhibited earlier. Chances are she was plotting bloody revenge. That, in Harry's opinion, wasn't strictly speaking a bad thing, but Hermione wasn't best suited for long-term plans. She'd get stuck at the first tangible gap in knowledge and obsess over it until she learned whatever she'd missed. Pedantic was one way of describing her. Pathologically perfectionist was another. Considering how little they knew – well. Better try to avoid the meltdown.

He tugged Ron to his feet and the two ambled off in search of their third. They found her almost exactly where they left her, sitting cross-legged next to the cot. She presented a deceptively unthreatening image, eyes closed, face serene, damp hair piled atop of her head in a messy bun. Harry wasn't fooled for a second. Whatever nightmare she was concocting, she'd best finish. An occlumens at work was best left alone. An occlumens of Hermione's caliber – well. He supposed there were worse things one could do, but not as many as one would expect.

Ron elbowed him and nodded his head in the direction of the tub. He shrugged, nodding his agreement. The two were relaxing silently in the bath for not more than ten minutes, when Hermione opened her eyes and yawned. "Oh good, you're here".

Harry quirked his brow. "Honey, we've not been more than a few meters away from each other since we appeared on this bloody island. Where else would we be?"

Hermione nodded absently "Right, right, of course." He bet she didn't hear a word of what he said. She stood, joints popping from prolonged stillness, and focused a bit on the scene before her. With an approving air, she shimmied out of her own robe and came to join them in the bath. "This will do nicely. We can talk while I get sand out of my unmentionables. I swear to Merlin, I did not know about sand's potential for sticking to any and all available surfaces. Merlin fucking wept, how do people survive beaches without magic."

"They swim," answered Harry, wry. "Swim and suffer. Sand sticking everywhere is part of the experience".

She shuddered.

Ron blinked his eyes open lazily. "Are we pretending you were meditating there in all your occlumentic glory, and what you want to talk about is sand? Out with it, love. Not talking about shit hasn't worked out so far. We're all three of us here, and whole. That's enough for me. I'm done avoiding uncomfortable topics."

Hermione nodded. "I agree. Harry?"

Harry jerked his head sharply. "Absolutely. Will you do the honors, 'Mi?"

She took a deep breath. "Right. Well, first thing's first. Keep in mind, this is just a working theory. But. I think we're in an Alternate Reality. A different universe. Whatever you want to call it. I don't know how, but it's safe to say it has something to do with the Hallows. Anything else would be too much of a coincidence since they're the only things to make the jump with us. It can't be an unfamiliar land, because the differences are too vast. I suppose it could be another planet, but that's neither here nor there. Wherever we are, it's not on Earth. Good so far?"

"We figured as much love," shrugged Ron.

"As you said, it's not terribly important how we got here. We're here, and as far as I can tell the pros outweigh the cons. For one, no-one seems to be policing magic, or they'd be here already. Not to mention, another world means no fucking press. We're free." Harry's tone was becoming increasingly intense the more he spoke, and the last sentence was more than a little feral.

Hermione smile offered its sharpness to the world. "We are that. And we can play by our rules here."

"Build ourselves a proper Atlantis here," added Ron, his lazy sprawl belied by the wolfish grin.

Hermione sobered at that. "There is one thing that I feel I must do. I'd appreciate your help, but it's in no way expected of you."

Harry snorted. "Many thanks. Our schedules are, indeed packed full. It's nice of you to acknowledge that. Having said that, I think it's possible to squeeze in time in between fish one and fish two, to help you."

Ron smirked, amused. "Of course we'll help 'Mi. When have we not?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at them. "It needed to be said, and it's true to boot. The project I have in mind will shape the next couple of months if we're very lucky, years if we're not. And don't kid yourselves. Your schedules, as you so nicely put it, will be unbelievably full. We're free, yes. We can, and will, live in whatever way we choose. But. We're also in a completely unfamiliar world, stranded on a murder island, with next to no resources. We'll manage, and we'll thrive, I have no doubt. But it will be extremely hard work. So. With the caveats in place, the short version of what I want to do is bury each and every person, in accordance to their traditions. Allowances will have to be made because of the sheer number of corpses there, and burying them one by one, for example, would see us dead of old age before we finish. But. I am serious when I say I will not let them rot there, and I will not throw them in a mass grave like trash. That's basically the premise. So. Thoughts?"

Harry and Ron looked at her, incredulity written over their faces. Harry was the first one to speak. "How in the world-?" His voice broke off, eyes downcast. After a moment, he started again. "Hermione, all jokes aside. Of course we will help, that was never even in question but-". He trailed off once more and raised his brilliant eyes, confusion and a bit of hurt swirling in their depths. "Did we do something to make you doubt us? Darling, I'd wreak death and destruction if you so wished. I don't understand why you'd-?"

Hermione interrupted him, her hand gentle on his shoulder. "Hare. You didn't do anything, of course you didn't. I just didn't want to burden you with more death. We just finished one war and.. Darling, yesterday, you and Ron went into shock before we even went through the last set of walls. You were catatonic, both of you. I couldn't force you, or guilt you into this. This will be a grim, exhausting task. This way you can at least make an informed choice, secure in the knowledge that if you refuse that will be the end of it."

Ron leaned over and kissed her forehead, then Harry's. "If you didn't suggest it, I would. It's mind shattering, what happened in that town, and I will do what I can to fix it. There was no fixing Britain. I couldn't help those who don't want to be helped. But here, I can help. So I will. It really is as simple as that."

Harry leaned into Ron's taller frame, taking comfort in his steadiness. "Don't doubt me, 'Mi. I didn't shy away from Death when I was a child, and I won't do so now. It is a noble task you chose, one worthy of you. I will be by your side as you were at mine. Always."

A gentle hand brushed his bangs from his face. "I apologize. I should've phrased it in a better way. I did not mean to hurt you." He leaned into her hand, hurt abating

Hermione closed her eyes. She allowed herself a moment of weakness as relief punched through her. Merlin. The hard part's done. She gathered her iron will and wrapped it around herself like a cloak.

"So be it. I won't insult you by questioning you further. Just know this is no small undertaking." She pierced them with her eyes. "We have to plan this in detail. Our workload is immense, and I've just added to it considerably. Regardless, this is what I've got so far.

Our goal, in this case, is to bury the citizens of Spiral-city. We want to do it as respectfully and as carefully as possible, within reason. Our first roadblock is time. We need to learn their language, their history, and customs. Then we need to collect all the dead, and, well, sort them. Time is our enemy here because I won't let those people decompose there for months it will take us to figure out the logistics of this.

I have a couple of potential solutions, but I'd love to hear your thoughts first. Plus my throat is parched."

Ron, whatever his demeanor might suggest, listened to Hermione attentively. The sheer scope of what she was suggesting made his head spin. "You want to put a stasis charm on the whole Morgana damned city, you wonderful lunatic," he croaked, in awe.

Harry pursed his lips. "No, I don't think so. Too crude. Not a stasis charm. A stasis Ward."

Hermione's eyes gleamed, smug as a cat. "A warding scheme. The Spiral city already has walls circling it, for that exact purpose I bet. It shouldn't be too difficult to inscribe our array there. The difficult part will be designing the system because 'stasis ward' is something of a misnomer. It will actually be a rather multi-faceted piece of magic. I will enjoy designing it immensely. I have it figured out for the most part, at least in theory, and the arithmancy will be time-consuming, but not too challenging intellectually. What will be challenging is keying ourselves in them. In most cases, keying one or more persons in a warding scheme means those specific people are covered by the effect of the ward. Our situation is pretty much reversed. We want to be specifically excluded from the effects. Either we would have to reverse the concept of the key or design another set of wards on top of this one. Tricky business."

Ron looked up, deep in thought. "What will we do in the meantime? It will take weeks to design the wards, and at least a week to inscribe them. Even if we had the materials we need, which we don't."

Hermione winced. "A stasis charm," she admitted, blushing slightly.

"Hah!" Crowed Ron. "I knew it!"

Harry stared at her, flabbergasted. "You can't cast a stasis charm on a town, you absolute madwoman! More to the point, I can't cast a stasis charm on a town!"

Hermione shrugged, unconcerned. "You most certainly can. I've seen your power output. Your Revelio covered about the surface of the town, and that takes roughly the same amount of magic. A conventional charm will be impossible, but with seven anchors around the town, and a metric ton of magic, it will be manageable. Don't stress your pretty little head about it, darling. That will be the easy part."

The easy part, mouthed Harry incredulously. "Well, fuck me," he shrugged helplessly. "We're casting a stasis charm on a town."

"To recap," sighed Ron. "We need to cast a system of stasis charms, to buy us time to design a system of stasis wards, to buy us time to bury a city's worth of dead people."

"Not the most flattering way of putting it, but essentially true," agreed Hermione. "I doubt it will be quite as bad as all that. Most of the work will be theoretical. Once we get the warding schemes done, the rest will be spread out over weeks and months. You won't even notice, what with all other work we need to get done."

"Well, that's good to hear. I was worried for a second, but now I understand that this pile of work will be camouflaged in the other, much bigger pile of work. Phew," deadpanned Harry.

Hermione beamed, a manic light in her eyes. "Isn't it just?"

Ron cleared his throat, an amused smirk brightening his face. "Getting back on point. We still need to discuss the practicalities. Namely, while this project is important, it's also important to stabilize our lives in the immediate future. There are a couple of issues I feel hadn't been addressed.

"Security for one. Someone killed all those people. I want wards in place to prevent them from coming back.

"The Hallows, for another. They're our only dependable source of magic right now, and that makes them a huge security issue. We really can't afford to lose them, especially -and this didn't even occur to me until just now- because the genocidal maniacs that live in this world could potentially use them. 'Mi, it could be a good idea if tried to recall something you might have read about binding rituals. If you can't remember one, we're going to have to design one. We're basically bound to the Hallows anyway, why not make it permanent, thus solving both problems?

"Hermione and I should also start working with our Hallows. Harry only used the cloak, and sparingly so. They're incredibly valuable and useful artifacts. We shouldn't lose such a resource because of fear and squeamishness.

"Intel is an obvious one. We will need to inhale this world's culture and history. The obvious first step is learning the language. I'm sure we can liberate enough books to learn the rest on our own. But leaning the language requires people. Don't look at me like that darlings, if you can figure out how to learn a new language without any human contact, I'd be eternally grateful.

I'm not too worried about food and such. Everything we need, we can make, or conjure. That's actually the part I'm looking forward to most. We've been raised to use our magic to destroy, whatever hypocritical shit they've taught us in school. Now we can build. We can stretch our magic, and cast all the spells we wanted to when we were children. I wasn't kidding when I said we can make ourselves Atlantis."

"O-kay. Give me some time to process this," pleaded Harry. "You can't just dump something like that on me, you know? My head? You know what it's doing right now? Killing me. Merlin."

Ron huffed, amused, and buried his face in damp locks, tightening his hands previously slung around the green-eyed boy. "We've got all the time in the world Hare-bear."