Harry Potter and the Witch Queen
by TimeLoopedPowerGamer

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Author's Note: Getting closer to the end now.

Chapter Sixteen

The blasted landscape had once been a town in Belgium. Harry didn't know its name. Now, it was completely flattened, embers still raining down and hissing in the blacked river. The street ran shimmering gray with water, soot, and spilled petrol. Diesel from some tanks by the dockyards—which were also now rubble.

It was just like London. Or Paris. Or any number of cities destroyed by either magic or mundane weapons. England was free now, what was left of it, and so was France. But at what cost? And what was the point of this new destruction by his old friend?

And there was even worse. What he'd seen in that magic-blasted basement had sent him stumbling into the streets where he still wandered.

"Glad you could make it, Harry." Hermione Granger stepped out from behind a pile of burning cars stacked against a house like they had been swept up by a giant, petulant, pyromantic baby. Her black leather boots didn't make a sound in the scattered debris.

Harry's wand was out in an instant. "What did you do?"

"No hello? Just straight to accusations?" Hermione was wearing her battle gear, every piece enchanted to absurd levels, and all of it pitch black leather or dragon hide. Her boots waded through the mess of the street as if it didn't exist, the damp filth sliding off without leaving a mark.

"This! What is all this?!" Harry demanded with a sweep of his hand. "There were people living here, innocent people!"

"You mean, innocent mundanes?" Hermione said. "There are no innocent magicals left, after all. And few innocent mundanes."

She didn't have her wand out. She might not need it anymore. "They were kidnapping magical children up and down the coast, all the way to Germany. This town had a 'scientific'," she did finger quote, "institution to study them. Their mission? To trigger accidental magic, so as to better study it. Safer than trying to capture adults magicals, after all."

Hermione shook her head, her clean, untouched brown curls swaying gently in the breeze from the burning rubble. "This was a concentration camp and torture center. Any adults they found with a magical child were slaughtered and their children taken, mundane and magical alike. The entire town was aware. Not like they could miss the screams. One of the little girls learned of my name, likely from an old newspaper. She said it three times. My taboo over Europe did the rest."

"What did you do to them?"

"The children?" Hermione looked up at the smoke-filled sky. "Took them somewhere safe, all of them. Someplace where evil will never touch them again. That little girl? Mundane actually, sister of a magical boy. She made it out. He didn't. Seven of her friends did. One magical child was still being vivisected when I arrived. I saved them. Barely.

"Then I searched the records. There were thirty children and half as many adults taken to the camp over the last three months. They arrived in broad daylight by government marked lorry. Didn't even try to hide the children being transported in. They were all guilty."

"So you save them! Stop the kidnappers! But destroying an entire town? What you did- You can't murder thousands of innocent people because of the crimes of a few, Hermione! This has to stop."

"Oh Harry," the Dark witch said, her brown eyes staring straight into his. "As long as people like that exist, people who think might makes right and the good of their cruel little tribe outweighs the rights of the outsider, I will kill them. Anyone standing by while horrors happen to someone else isn't innocent. I will not abide such things. Leaving the lesser criminals behind just means they'll be twice as hard to find next time."

"Isn't the world bad enough now?" Harry asked with a growl. "Haven't enough people died?"

"If I have to kill every last human being left on this planet because of humanity's weakness and shortsightedness and pervasive drive to torture the weak, I will."

Hermione reached into her month with two black gloved fingers. Tilting her head back, she seemed to feel around for a moment before withdrawing a solid black wand. She waved her free hand in front of her face and her glamour spell fell away.

"So it's true." Harry said, finding himself backing up a step without thinking.

Two black pits stared out at him now, familiar soft brown eyes replaced by something worse than empty sockets.

"From the ashes of the past, something new will arise," Hermione said, swinging her entire wand arm back and forth as if sweeping the road in front of her. "And I am willing to ensure there are enough ashes for that to happen if need be. After the death of England I found a power vacuum. So I filled it."

"It's all true, isn't it?" Harry asked, trying to assemble a set of defensive charms that would let him survive the next few seconds.

"Likely," Hermione said. "Now, I wear the crown of the Witch Queen of the Isles by dent of ritual...and by being the next living magical in England in the matrilineal line through Æthelflæd, the ancient Mercian queen. By magical pact, no 'Dane-born daughter's she-dog' would ever wear the Crown of Holythorn. As no magical heir was to be had at the time, which is why they did not soundly win their war, it was hidden away. Lost yet safe from the invaders. Turns out I'm a sort of pure-blood after all. Not a drop of Viking blood in me."

"The house-elves were just the beginning, weren't they? You've systematically burned down the entire magical world!"

"True, but the elves were both first and some of my best work. A clear solution for slavery is freedom. What happened after they were freed was the wizarding world's past catching up with them. To be clear, I will not remake the past. That is not why I wear this crown. It is only to find a way to kill Tom for good. Though after, I will not allow them magicals or mundanes to return to either their ways or the Old Ways. I have made sure of that."

"Entire families died, Hermione," Harry said. "You can't believe even the children were guilty."

"No, Harry, they were victims too," Hermione's stony face showed no remorse. "Victims of humanity's xenophobia. Victims of the magical world's belief that there is only one thing that matters: power. So now, Harry, will you do the same? Show me that you have the power to both defeat the wicked and save the innocent?"

One last desperate try. "What would your parents think of this path you're walking, Hermione Granger? What about Ginny Weasley, your wife?"

That actually made the Dark witch pause. "Well, as both my parents died when China nuked Sydney and Canberra following the Russian exchange with North America, I'd assume...nothing. And it is Weasley-Granger now, as you well know. She decided to continue to honor her magical family name but also took mine. We sent you a wedding invitation. It was her idea."

"It was written on human skin!" Harry shouted.

"Yes, my Ginny does love those grand, dramatic touches. Almost as much as she hates Death Eaters. Her hatred is more than skin deep but I told her the gift of organs would be gauche."

"The loss of the last of her blood family," Hermione continued, he mood seeming to shift under the conversation like sand. One moment teasing, the next deadly serious. "The evils she saw in the world. That is why she made her own sacrifice for power. She sold her soul for it. To me in fact, in my new position as Witch Queen with a seat in the Fae Empire's court.

"But don't worry. I will keep it safe. Where I keep all my precious things I want to keep safe."

Hermione smiled, and it seemed for a moment like she was standing not in a smokey moon-lit street, but at the edge of an ancient forest clearing, with the enormous trees behind her stretching out forever into the green-tinted darkness.

Harry's silent stunner made a sound like radio static as it burst against an invisible barrier surrounding Hermione. Her casual backhanded swipe exploded a storefront behind him, but he was already a dozen feet to one side, rolling through another doorway into the burned out skeleton of a building. He vaulted over a sales counter and with a blasting curse took out the remains of the rear exist door and threw himself out it just in time.

The ground shook as a second blast took down the multi-story building, knocking it into the street behind him. Harry took off at a sprint, leaving simple explosive charmscarved into the street and walls every ten feet or so. He transfigured bits of a pile of rubble into the rough shape of a hand, leaving it sticking out and charmed to pounce on the next passerby. Dark birds sprung from his wand into the sky to act as his eyes. When he finally paused, several blocks later, his clip-tipped combat knife was in his hand. Whatever good that would do him. He didn't even remember drawing it.

The Dark lady was in front of him now, not there one second then the next casting a harsh purple stream of unmatter at him. Harry pulled a Dumbledore and thrust out his wand, causing a hastily transfigured rubble golem to rise from the ground to intercept the spell. The stone melted like butter as Harry jumped almost straight up.

Normally, jumping around in combat, even magical combat, was a dumb idea. Since his misspent youth, Harry had learned a thing or two about brooms and magical flight having seen Tom use it often enough. Hermione showed no surprised when he suddenly jogged in midair, dodging another bolt of evil-looking magic and slamming into the side of a tall, ruined building.

His glowing knife bit deep into the scorched wall and he stuck there, hanging by his aching arm. He cast several spells in a chain, area effect ones that splashed against the street around Hermione. Or where she had been. Now she was-

Above him! The wall collapsed as he pulled it down over him with a modified summoning spell. Deafening explosions went off as he cushioned his fall with a wave of his wand under and then quickly above his head before crouching with his hand and wand held high in a blind telekinetic push. The rest of the wall fell around him, most of the debris hitting his head bouncing off like they were made out of foam. Pushing himself to his feet he cast just behind him, exploding the rest of the loose stones out and up into tiny pieces.

Dust filled the air as he doubled back across the street. Sure enough, Hermione appeared in the middle of the road in a gust of wind that cleared the air, already casting at him. He broke line of sight before the curse could finalize a connection only to hear her laugh.

"That's about enough stalling," Hermione said.

Harry winced. She'd figured out his plan. A dozen Free Magus Aurors would be arriving soon to assist. But then no more spellfire came.

"Hermione, I saw what you did in the labs. You didn't save anyone. You killed all of those children. I saw the bodies. What is happening, Hermione? Why are you doing this?"

He glanced around the corner.

Hermione was pointing up at the sky with one hand—her wand was held down casually by her side and her back was to him. Harry looked up at a flickering red dot. It was quickly joined by another. And another. And another.

"No Harry," Hermione said. "I saved them. They are safe with me now. For all eternity."

"You're crazy!" Harry screamed, banging free hand into the crumbled stone wall.

"And that," she pointed at the sky, ignoring him, "that is my response to all those who attempt this sort of so-called research on magical children."

She smiled. "Did you think this was the only facility I hit tonight? I used the information retrieved from their records to pinpoint the others. After clearing them out with Ginny's help in a more...surgical series of strikes, I came back here to intercept you, Harry. This town, and all of those places housing such abominations, will be wiped off the face of the Earth. This is my judgment. Now. Witness my wrath."

The flickering dots grew brighter in the sky.

"Meteorites, nickel-iron core," Hermione said. "Small ones. About thirty meters in size by the time of impact. Now burning up most of their mass but still just large enough to make it through the atmosphere and annihilate each facility and the surrounding area. That is including the main and secondary command centers in both Brussels and Antwerp. This gets the underground bunkers with stolen wardstones. It wipes out the records and backup sites within as well. I don't have time to crack each of those personally but they are both free of research subjects and full of human waste."

Harry tried to hold in his screams of anger. That would kill hundreds of thousands of people in some of the largest remaining western European cities! "Hermione, no! This isn't the way to fix things! How could you do this?"

"Easily. There were over two hundred thousand such objects both within my range and redirectable, and I planned for something like this half a year ago. I just had to cast the final spell to bring them out of near Earth orbits. This isn't like Paris. I can't just cut out the infected parts of every country and hope the world survives. It didn't work then and it won't work now. Not after Paris and London and Bucharest did nothing to change either magical or mundane minds."

She turned to look at him and Harry realized he'd stepped out of cover and was standing in the open street with the Witch Queen. "And Harry, I certainly won't stand by while they torture children for the greater good. Go hide in so-called safe countries with your pretty little wife. It is not your deaths I seek."

Her eyes flicked to the sky again. "You have ten seconds to Apparate away. Make it at least to the border of what used to be Germany if you want to live."

Hermione disappeared silently.

No barriers or other wards were up. Harry took one last look at the small constellation of destruction then Apperated out with a quiet pop.

He hated this part of the plan. But after his lack of sleep last night due to his first nightmare since Hermione's crazy little ritual, Harry hadn't been able to put together a better one at the last moment.

Hermione and her parents had said goodbye, and she was already getting on the train back to Hogwarts. He'd wait until after the train left then take the floo to Hogsmeade with Tonks. Right now, Tonks was leaning against a pillar on the magicals side of platform 9 ¾. He was hiding out of foot traffic off to the side, under his father's invisibility cloak, pacing from one dark shadow to another.

"Harry, you're here," said a soft lilting voice.

He froze, still hidden under the cloak. It hadn't been Hermione or her parents. Not Tonks. There wasn't anyone else near and certainly no one who should know he was here at all. Hand tucked in his sleeve, he gripped his wand tight as he looked around at the thinning crowd, all too far off to have spoken to him. Was this an attempt to draw him out? Or...maybe it was in his head.

On silent feet, spelled that way by Tonks before they left Hermione's house, he slid across the station floor in a combat shuffle. Coming around the nearest pillar with wand fully drawn under his cloak he scanned the area.

Nothing there either. But...someone nearby was humming a song. An oddly familiar one.

"Hmmmmm hmm hmm hmmmmm, hmm hmmmm hmm hmm hmm hmm!"

A hand rested on his shoulder. Over his invisibility cloak. He whipped around, kicking out low in a sweep. His wand was raised high and held away from his body for easy casting as he felt his heel connect. Not hard enough to overbalance them! Stupid small body!

He continued the motion around to get off the line of attack if they had a knife, gun, or wand pointed at him, then took a step in to engage his attacker. Reach up, arm grab with his free hand, clutch it to his shoulder, and then sharply bend almost double, letting the woman's weight carry her off balance in a tight arc over and around his hips to the ground to land on her back with a thud.

Harry made a little distance between them. Larger opponent meant no ground fighting. Not in this tiny body. Threat analysis again. They were still on the ground. Hands empty at their side.

If needed, the finishing blow would be a quick cross-body slash to the neck—no, that could splash his cloak and enough of that would overpower it and give him away. A stunner—no, his damn magic again! Fine, organ blows from the front and sides, fend off any retaliation by sacrificing his off-arm, then maybe try at the heart before retreating to a safe distance. He was already moving into position. Figure out who this was while prepared to neutralize them. Hit and retreat. Then he'd need to-

Harry froze. His knees gave out, and he crashed to the ground on top of the prone woman. One hand pressed into a soft, full breast.

"Hello Harry. So good to see you again."

Luna lay under him, huge compared to his much smaller eleven-year-old body. Her long, gently curling dirty-blonde hair was splayed out across the station floor like spilled leaves. She was wearing a bright summer dress in the dead of winter but also a floppy-eared fur hat that was now askew—or had been to begin with. The thin dress and the breast under his hand made it clear she was an adult female and also wasn't wearing a bra. It was most definitely Luna Potter.

Or a shapeshifting assassin from the future! He again raised his-

She was holding his wand and knife together casually in one hand—and apparently looking him in the eyes through his cloak. Most things took on a ghostly sheen when seen through the wispy material from the inside looking out. She was a bright splash of color on gray paper, unreal and clear.

"Don't want any accidents, do we Harry?" she said, sitting up and gently pushing him off her, leaving him kneeling to one side.

She tucked his wand behind one ear; the other held her own wand. It was the same wand she'd used in school: oak and unicorn hair, eleven and seven-eighths inches. Thin and whippy but strong. Loyal for those of the light. Good for nature charms and potions.

"And it will be the same one I give my daughter next year when she starts at Hogwarts," Luna said as she spread her hands in a calming gesture. Now his knife was simply missing, no longer in her hands or on the ground nearby.

Harry's lungs weren't working right. The humming from before was now music, ethereal instruments getting louder and louder. Someone would surely hear it soon.

And it was impossible that she could be here.

It wasn't possible for this to be anyone else.

It wasn't eleven-year-old Luna, about to start Hogwarts later this year. It was—wait. Had she-

"-just read your mind? Something like that Harry." The beautifully odd woman stood in front of him, their size difference suddenly shoved in his face. "We will have a connection."

Harry crouched there with clenched fists, gaping up at her and waiting for the world to make sense.

"Oh," Luna said, peering down at him. "Perhaps I overdid it on the dramatic surprise. Here."

The sounds of the train station faded into the background as she bent down and offered him a hand up. The humming music continued, but that wasn't important.

This was his Luna. He'd seen...how was this possible?

"You're...I...what?" He climbed to his feet with her help, then stood staring at his dead and (he'd thought) lost to time-travel wife.

She raised three fingers and smiled at him. "Ah, just like you Harry. Focusing on the most important matters."

One finger down. "Yes, me. I am and shall always be me, Luna, until all the stars die and the last of what will be comes and there is no more. Currently, I am known as Luna Lovegood."

A second finger. "And yes, you, my once and was husband. You are alive and right where you need to be, by the events set in motion by Her Grace the Witch Queen."

Harry shook his head in disbelief.

"Don't look at me like that," Luna said, getting as close to a frown as she usually got. "I know you recognize me."

"Y-yeah," he stammered. "Buh...what?"

The third finger went down, leaving her with a fist. "Yes, what. And as for what: that's usually the most important question of all, hmm? What am I? What is going on?"

She sighed. "I don't have much time, clearly, but I should explain this much first. Again, my name right now is Luna Lovegood."

Harry blinked. "Yes?"

"I am married to Mr. Lovegood and thus took his name, as is common in these lands and times."

Harry's brain was clearly on vacation.

"I think I see where the confusion is. My daughter is currently eleven. Her name is Luna Lovegood as well—the familial name is typically passed down as patrilineal, you know. A similar reason to why I took the name Lovegood. Also, she is me, Luna."

The humming music grew louder and he could hear words now. Luna looked down into his eyes. He couldn't look away. Their misty gray color, always seeming like it wanted to iridesce into something else, shined even brighter. Harder. Her eyes grew wide, physically in her head not just as an expression. The world tilted two degrees to the right, then the odor of incense filled his lungs. Luna seemed to waver in the air in front of him.

"I told you I'd see you again," the vision of his wife said, then she cried out as he started to tip over.

"Nope, got you!" She grabbed his shoulder, holding him up.

"How is this possible?" Harry whispered, clutching his head in his hands.

Luna leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Warm and soft. Incense. A kiss.

And then he remembered.

A door deep in his mind swung open and everything poured out. A Singer sang her last song of joy and was silent forever.

He remembered everything.

"Ah. Good. You're remembering. The secret I gave to you on our honeymoon. The one I locked away in your head so the Witch Queen wouldn't find it, along with what will-have-been happened to your wife, me—which would-have-been mattered very much if you forgot the first thing. Simple really. All so the plan would come to pass. So you wouldn't grieve for me when now-Hermione and all the future itself needed you clear-headed."

Luna's strange nightly rituals—sex rituals—had been to protect Luna's secrets and to make him mostly forget her when the time was right. He remembered it all and was able to draw conclusions that now seemed so clear.

The full events of his capture by the Witch Queen. Luna's death, half forgotten. His bottomless despair that then...vanished in an instant, all for him to deal with being thrown back in time...where he hit the ground running, instead of spending approximately the rest of his life morning his beloved wife's death. Or avenging it.

"You died," Harry said.

His voice sounded faint next to the song. The singer's words weren't English. Weren't...human.

Harry groaned as the not-quite headache almost knocked him over again. "I'd...forgot? But not? Why...didn't I think about it more? About you! You're, you're supposed to be just a little girl now."

But worse was his heart. It hurt still, in this moment, but it helped that she was standing in front of him alive and smiling her distant, amused smile. And Hermione was innocent and young and good, he knew that in his heart. He could now handle the pain of a loss that seemed to have been undone.

"Hmm," she seemed faintly displeased with his words. Her thumb idly rubbed at a spot on his forehead, just to the side of his scar.

When she finally spoke, the song was in her cadence. Her words blended into the melody. "Dead? Yes and no. A little girl? Always have been, always will be. More so than some, less than most. The oldest matriarch leaning on her cane watching great-grandkids is still a little girl inside. In her mind. And in a very real sense as well. The boat still has its same captain, after all, even if you've replaced all the planks. And it still sails the same seas. Yes. Well, Harry? What else?"

"You knew," he hissed, clutching his fists to his temples. "You knew it would happen. You Saw it!"

"Yes, dear. I did. So I made a ritual in song and charmed you to forget about me and what I'd done, mostly, until I was able to met up with you again and complete the melody. Resolve it. I knew I, or I-as-my-daughter really, would eventually gift someone as sweet and caring as you with at least an innocent peck on the cheek and you would remember it all. But as I now find myself-as-Missus-Lovegood still alive and quite rushed, I simply did it myself without having to wait for me to get around to it, eventually. What Her Highness did over the break helped with that. You were still sort of...congested."

Harry just stared.

Luna squeezed his shoulder. "I have always remembered...I have been remembering—oh dear, existing outside of time and the English language don't agree, do they? Anyway, I know of my once-future self putting the spell on you; as will my daughter, of course, when she is of age at magical twenty-three. Even if directly acting on that knowledge to change her then-future would produce a paradox, she would still eventually find an excuse to kiss you. And even if you moved fast on an eleven-year-old with half-remembered love, and she were more irascible and hastier than I might be believed to expect, that would still give you a year free of grief and pain to reconcile with The Crown Princess until my first year."

"You had no right," Harry said, staring at the woman he thought he knew but couldn't possibly be here and ignoring her confusing talk about herself and the future.

"I was your wife, Harry," she said with a quiet smile. "I had every right to protect my husband as I saw best. I love you, you know."

"I...I love you, too," he said, more confused than ever.

"Now, the details of our current timeline: I have been married to my husband for thirteen years or so, and I have a daughter who is eleven. She's starting this fall at Hogwarts, as you know, but I don't think things will turn out quite the same as last time. I just survived a nasty magical experiment just over a year ago due to unnaturally (for me) paranoid safety precautions I had just put in place."

"Did you...are you..." he started to ask.

"No, now you're thinking," Luna said with a sigh. "That's the opposite of remembering. Or maybe just sideways to it."

Her hands were suddenly on the sides of his head, her face in front of his. "What else. Do you."

"Harry." Her eyes bored into his.

"James." His chest burned, all the way down to his solar plexus.

"Potter." Her lips were oddly thin and pale. Her words came without her mouth moving.

"Remember." Her eyes were his world.

Harry paused. Then he reached out and removed Luna's silly fur hat.

"I am of the Fae, Highest of the High, the First, a civilization two hundred thousand years old." his new bride whispered to him, tears staining her frightened face. He held her closer against the arctic chill, his hands pressed against her soft, unnaturally smooth and hairless skin under her coat. Her eyes seem even larger now, not merely for her small face but compared to how a human's could possibly be. His wife had large, round irises perfect for dark forest nights and secret caves under mossy hills. Yet they were as beautiful as ever as they stared into his, searching for his reaction to her revelation with desperation and fear.

Reaching up with one hand quickly freed from inside her coat, he ran his fingers across her thin lips. They parted, showing a double-row of tiny, sharp teeth a little like a shark's. He moved his thumb across them, and she stayed carefully still, eyes locked to his. Then he smiled and touched her smell pink tongue, and she gasped and closed her lips, carefully sucking on his digit until he pulled it free with an obscene noise.

Her cheeks were blushed again now, her eyes hooded, and her wide mouth turned up in a sly, secret smile. The pink tongue darted out to lick her lips. He ran his hand across to the side of her face, and she leaned into his touch. Her ears were large and pointed, hidden under her hair and the hood of her coat but impossible to have been missed before. Smaller than a house-elf's, larger than a human's, they lay folded downward. When he pulled back her hood and freed them, they sprang up and twitched like an insect's antennae.

"Though a lie of omission, it was still a lie," she whispered, the wind almost eating her words. "I hide among them but I am not human. I never have been; I was born of Fae and have always been Fae. Reborn every time to a mother who is me, I am the last envoy of the High Elves left in the British Isles. When I die again, I will return to the Forest to be with my people; it is a place where time is without meaning and all that will happen has already happened—including my many, many lives. If I let you get me with child, husband—and I would if you agree—it would be yours truly; but it will also be me reborn once again, living her life before she can return to the Forest as she knows she will. And that would be all I could bare, even for you."

His wife's tears started to drip down her cheeks once more. "But I love you Harry Potter. Please believe that. I am your wife until the day I die, as I vowed, but also for longer. And I love you that long and longer."

He knew that, of course, and held his ever-surprising wife tight in his arms as the North wind blew around them, and strange horned whales breached in the distance.

Reality bent and he could see. Her ears, her human ears, poking out of her dirty blond hair had disappeared like smoke. Her real ears now stuck out from her head, still unfurling from where they had laid under the hat.

"My wife was an elf," Harry said. "Not a Seer or an Oracle."

"You remember and you See," said Luna. "Good. If I had damaged you in some other way, I would never forgive myself."

"And yes, an Elf," she said, as usual the capital letter ringing like a gong. "One of the High. Last left on human shores. Born once, dying but never dead. Since spawned in the primeval forest under the light of the waxing moon Luna has been and always will be—just not always here and now. That's why the when and where are less important questions than the what."

Harry shook his head, as if trying to clear something from it. "But, you remember all your past and future lives, don't you? I think you said that once?"

Luna nodded. "But I cannot act other than I have, even on knowledge from my future lives. It is as impossible for me to speak out of turn and change my own future as it is for you to lick your own elbow. That is, it can be managed, but only if I want to hack off a part of myself and mangle who and what I am forevermore.

"And do you remember what I said about any children we'd have? Why I wept at the lie I'd told you knowing your dreams of a huge and healthy family, my was-husband?"

"You." Harry slumped against the pillar, still under the cloak. "Your children. Always only one. Always you. Which means-"

"That I died in the Witch Queen's ritual in that never-will-be future. That now and here, if that sort of thing matters to you, I, Luna, am talking to you at Kings Cross and also waiting impatiently at home for pudding when my mother, who is also me, gets home. And there is a future me who has just died in a blood ritual and returned to the Forest. And to you, my love. That it happens again and again and again is just how I am and have always been."

Harry tried to take deep breaths but seemed to have forgotten how as Luna's hands stroked his cheeks. "And the, uh, thing you did. To make me forget..."

"The sex ritual? Yes. That was what that was for. To lock away the knowledge of the ritual along with my true nature. To make you forget me until the song was complete. The tricky part was the keyword coded bit when I was about to die. Couldn't have you forgetting too much about me while you still warmed my bed." Her hands came away from his face and she patted his head tenderly. "You love me, I know that. My brave time-hero. That is why I was proud to give you my Boon when we married. And it is my shame that I couldn't give you the family you wanted. Time and tides didn't allow, nor did my nature. But that's all fine now. She again has Her chance; and if not Her than others would now as well. And with you to them to give a chance as well, I hope."

She straightened her dress and smiled at him, her ears twitching up at the ends in that way they did when she was being mischievous. "Just to be clear on one thing, lovely Harry: I have remarried. Sort of. Over a decade ago, now. Our vows were also 'until death do we part'. I was not lying about that bit with you or him. Not really fair otherwise as many of my partners get only one life. Xenophilius had and has also earned my Boon, so it is less pressing with him even if he has not fully realized the consequences.

"What I mean to say is that, even if it were possible, this life," she touched her breast, "is not planned be spent with you. But please do not dwell too much on what has passed when your future remains so bright. Thank you so much for all of your time with me."

He was shaking her offered hand before he knew what was happening. "Oh. Uh. Thank you? I...I'm glad you're not..." There was something in his eyes, making it hard to see her clearly. She shimmered like water. "Luna. I'm...I'll see you again? I mean. I sort of love you, you know?"

Her smile was a sunny day. "Yes, and I love you too. But for now...if you like, think of this as a trial separation. If you wait until my people's majority at twenty-three, she will remember all I do. That's how I survived this time, in this where and when. Since I remembered you would come back and how and why; and yet it was not still in my future, that changed land, so I could use that future's knowledge to avoid my stupid little accident. I never allow those before I've had a child...most of the time. And most of the time I live long and am surrounded by my loves when I go. But sometimes I have to let nature take its course and leave early, and so I do. But this one hurt me left behind greatly."

Luna bent and kissed his cheek through the cloak. "Thank you for helping me through that, and through that war. And for what you will do now."

"So you know how this will go?" Harry asked, head spinning more than during his usual Luna conversations. "The future...you're talking to me about the future as it was. As it happened to us."

"Yes. Of course."

"But you can't do or say anything to influence it now."

"Nothing I wouldn't have done, anyway. If it is something I'm going to do then I'll have to do it. You may choose to do otherwise, of course."

"So I can change the future?" he asked, even more confused now.

She grinned. "So smart, Harry. I love that about you, you know? That war you remember is a future that will never be. Lots of the Fae will-be attempting to take advantage of it but their access to this realm is limited. Everything that happened in that time is now open to exploitation by anyone who knows and remembers."

"Like you."

"Like me," she agreed. "All of me. Which is why this life of mine is still here."

Harry's eyes grew big. "That's right, I understand now. Your accident. Luna's... I mean..."

Luna nodded at him, fully understanding but still amused.

"Luna Jr.," he said, giving her a label (Luna Sr. nodded and silently clapped), "said in my previous timeline that you'd died when she was, what, nine?"

The older woman who looked like, but wasn't really somehow, his wife nodded again. "I would have died in a spell-crafting accident. But I remembered doing so in that lost timeline, so I decided to live the rest of this life otherwise instead."

"You know when you'll die now, though," Harry said, frowning. "And when Luna will die."

She nodded.

"And when I'll die," he added.

She didn't react, still smiling softly at him.

"And you both won't and can't say, because that is your own future...futures...now," he ended.

"Correct, Harry. It is a joy to be able to talk to you once again." Luna Sr. looked impossibly sad. "I don't have much more time to spare here, though-"

Harry tensed.

"-because your train is leaving soon."

Harry sighed.

"Wait," he said, thinking rapidly. "Why not rescue me from having to stay with the Dursleys or stop my parents from dying, or something like that?"

Luna Sr.'s face fell even more. "Remember, I only come into my full powers at twenty-three, Harry. That was after your parent's death and Voldemort's first defeat."

"So he'll be defeated again?" Harry asked, happy to be able to tease his favorite maybe-not-actually-a-Seer for future knowledge. "So you can do something about that?"

She looked at him blandly. "As I was saying: I didn't actually know the specifics of your life, but I know the you-now was coming back with certain knowledge of the future. And I knew how to make sure that future you knew from before came to be up to that point. So, if someone who looked like you suffered ten years in a cupboard, or if your godfather spent the same in Azkaban with only the mediating effects of his animagus form, well... perhaps a better woman than I would have risked it, but then everything would have changed. Perhaps for the better, but perhaps for the worse. But I would have been changed forever, and in ways no one would like. And the you that returned might not have reintegrated and been lost forever.

"As it was, the few things I poked at briefly seemed... elastic, and bounced back, quickly canceling my attempts at change. That ended the day of your birthday. Until you arrived, every change I tried to make felt heavy, as if the universe was resisting. But after you came back...well, I have already started accumulating minor changes."

Luna leaned forward as if to share a secret. "My now-husband has started wearing ties if he is to meet with clients. Impossible before, believe me. Oh. And saving myself the year before last did take great effort but I think even that was mediated by time's resistance related to you, as my would-be-having resolved to not change anything else avoided the worst of it. This would explain why other agents of the Fae on Earth haven't had much luck changing things before your arrival as well."

She looked away and seemed to gather her courage. "But worst of all was that risk. You might not have made it back to me here if I pushed through some great change. You could have been lost to me forever. My love, I... I don't think I could have stood losing you like that, not when I selfishly had a chance to get you back. When I died that was-time, I saw the look on your face and... it broke me. I have now always almost wanted not to save myself once I had a child—in this life as well—simply to speed my return to your side in the Forest, along with my other loves who I love just as much but almost all of whom were hurt so much less by me and my nature. But I couldn't. All of myselves ever-would want the same thing. I love you that much."

Looking back at him with damp eyes, she continued, "But I find the strength as I always have. I have a now-husband I love, and a was-husband now returned to me. I have a daughter who has a mother still—and I know what that means to me. I will help you how I can, Harry, but I can not tell you the future of this world, or my daughter's new future, nor will I wait for you in body to grow into who you are in mind.

"Even though I still live in this life, I had become a bit of a recluse, using the excuse of my work and near-miss accident to hide away from the magical world. That seemed to ease the pressure of my presence on time. Of course now that pressure is completely gone and I am free to act. I may remain more passive or I may not. But remember, you still do not know where all of our enemy's power is hidden. And remember above all that I, Luna, am sort of conservative when it comes to playing with questionable future knowledge. But even given that, I will help you in any way I can, my love."

Harry took a deep breath, trying to find a handle to grip this madness. "How is this going to work, Luna? I mean. I'm physically eleven. You're married. I still need to fight against Tom. And you said you love Xenophilius, now. Or you always had. I understand that. I think. But, you also said you love me but won't wait for me? I mean, I love you of course, but I don't see...wait, did you just answer me before I-"

"All of myselves love you, Harry," she said slowly. "Again, I love Xenophilius as well, though differently of course. I, my ancestors who were, my daughter who is, and all her daughters that will be. We love most of our partners, even before we remember them. And we even love many of the brief and fleeting dalliances with males that gave birth to what your people might call our bastard daughters. Who are also me. I never-will choose one truly unworthy."

"I'm still confused," Harry said. "You reincarnate as yourself. And you are saying you always love me, along with all of your past partners. So you're telling me your daughter, Luna Lovegood Jr., is in love with me right now? And you are too, even though you're married and also love another? And more? How can one person feels all of those things at once? How could you love hundreds-"

Luna's eyebrow quirked.

Harry blinked. "...thousands of people all at once?"

A small, tinkling laugh escaped her lips. Then she closed her eyes and her human disguise fully melted off like mist. Her eyes were huge as he remembered from that icy honeymoon, her smile sharp and predatory, along with pointed ears that still poked out of her shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair. Her gaze was full of the love he remembered with a tight, aching heart as she placed a hand on his cheek and bent low towards him.

"Love, I am of the High. I can love none, or all the legions of humans on the Earth. It is my choice. My love for humanity, all of it, is why I was chosen to say. Because my love is complete and true and forever. I will always love you, even though you are no longer husband to either this one of myself or my now-daughter."

"Ah," Harry swallowed, overwhelmed. "But, as you said, 'till death do we part', at least for mortals?"

His ex-wife smiled a sharp, toothy grin. "Quite so. And yet also...not quite. Therein lies the paradoxical nature of my Boon. Consider my death in a future that never will be an annulment of our equally unfuture marriage. If you want, feel free to court my daughter when you reach ages where that sort of thing seems like a good idea. I'm sure that would be...interesting, for both of us. Remember she will only have vague feelings and obscure partial visions of what happened to you both in that unfuture until she is twenty-three. This will color her reactions to you and others, however. So be not afraid if she acts...oddly sometimes."

Harry raised a wry eyebrow at this. When had Luna not been "odd"?

She ignored his humorous face and continued, "But I think even with knowledge of only the present, I can safely say that is unlikely to happen."

"What?" he exclaimed in confusion.

"Nothing," she said, distant smile on her face.

Clearly changing the subject, Luna asked, "How is Her...mione doing?"

Harry tensed, on guard in an instant. Luna dropped her hand to rub his shoulder comfortingly.

"Harry, dear," she said, "I don't blame Her. In fact, I conspired with Her to marry you, then walked willingly into Her plan to kill me—though She knew not that part of my plan. After making my own preparations, that is, ones of which She remained unaware. Even though the Witch Queen was insane from grief and pain, and quite wrong in several ways, it really was our best chance to save the world."

After concentrating for a moment on maintaining current lung and heart function, Harry unclenched his hands and asked again, "What?"

"Hermione didn't want you leaving our little group by yourself and getting killed," she said lightly, continuing to rub his shoulders. "I am sorry I never told you but it was for the best. I offered to her to follow you, keep you out of trouble. Hermione wanted a guarantee I wouldn't get bored and wander off on some snipe hunt. I said, 'I've already found and cataloged that species already,' but I also offered to marry you. She agreed after seeing in my mind how much I love you. You always did hate being manipulated, so I never filled you in on our little girls talk we had."

"Wait, when did you talk about this?" Harry asked.

"In the moments after your shouting match in the Immortal's vaults under Paris and your decision to leave the group. Though I had prepared my arguments much in advance, knowing it was coming. And knowing what arguments I would make, of course."

"But, but you were only in the room for a handful of seconds before we left again!" Harry said, exasperated. He'd forgotten how often that happened while talking to his now ex-wife. "You hardly said one word to each other."

"It was in my mind. Her Majesty knocked and I let Her in. I showed Her how I felt, if not who I truly was. She...but that is not my business. Her-mione is and always has been one of my favorite people, even if we do fight sometimes. She sees the world so four-dimensionally."

Harry simply looked at his ex-wife blankly.

"Three spatial and one of time, of course, dear," she said, patting his cheek again.

"This is very strange," he muttered.

"Oh, thank you," Luna said with a smile. "One last thing. Your magical weakening."

Harry's pulse quickened. "Do you know what happened? Can you help undo it? It wasn't something you did, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," she agreed. "Or at least, not on purpose. I don't really understand the ritual she used. In fact, I have no clear idea why it worked, but I knew it would. My best guess is, your current state has something to do with your mother's protections allowing you to survive time travel in the first place. That could have drained you and left your recovery unnaturally slow as time itself sapped your strength.

"My worst guess is...it has something to do with Tom, and that you are alive because of a piece of him that is still in you remains unchanged, a constant in time and space. In that worst case...there is a chance other pieces, ones that hold bits of his actual intellect, might have memory of what is to come, the same as the Fae."

Harry shuttered. "I don't like the sound of that. At all."

A train whistle sounded, unusually quiet here in the odd privacy charm Luna was apparently using on them.

"Well, you've got a train to catch, Harry," she said, leaning down to once again press her lips to his cheek in a long kiss. "Go, my love. Remember to keep your temper while saving everyone."

Harry took her hand in his and smiled back. "Thank you, Luna. I'll write. I'm... it's so good to know you're okay. I thought I'd never see you again."

"Oh, silly. You'll join me in The Forest, eventually. All those to whom I give my Boon do. You simply don't remember doing so. But you will. Join me, that is. Just not yet, not while you cannot live yet do."

Luna smiled down at him, shaking her head. "As if I'd leave my greatest loves to die the true death. And none would deny me this. The Fae are capricious but the power of your love is not something they'd cross."

"Boon? Wait. You bring all your husbands into the Fae afterlife?" Harry asked in surprise. "You didn't bring that up before."

"No, Harry," she said turning. "I bring all those I love most dear. Every one of them. Not that you need my help getting there now. And, good sir, you never asked before now."

"How can you talk about it...if it is in this timeline's..." then Harry trailed off. "I'm going to the Fae afterlife, alternate dimension, thing because of what I did in that lost future."

Luna smiled back, silent.

"But it isn't just that. Also. Something that isn't just being...having been...because I married you?"

Luna nodded slowly.

"The prophecy," Harry snarled. "I'm still needed to resolve that cursed thing. Tom. Did the Witch Queen...She levered the prophecy against time itself, flinging my soul back. She risked my very soul for this?"

"You know," Luna said, eyes staring over his head at something distant, "she would drag you from Hades with her last cast if she had to. She risked less than you think. Even mortals can love as the Fae sometimes. Closer still is when they escape mortality on their own, though not as Tom did. No—her soul has been tattered but never shattered, and both the Dark and the Light can live together in the shadows of the Forest.

"She had a plan, you know. Her final fell-powers were from the Fair Folk themselves. That give Her insight into the Boon, though She likely knew not the name and never knew of me. That gave Her an option, to throw you back in time using the Forest as a fulcrum. Even if Her ritual failed in that dark future and She was simply left with two cooling corpses, She hoped to reclaim your soul from there once again. That was Her fail-safe, though She ultimately did not understand all it meant. But ultimately, the Forest is not the gift for which she thinks you most worthy. Nor do I, though I have-willen hoping you visit with me in the then-after often."

Luna turned to leave, then said over her shoulder, "You know I would-have-been offered Hermione entrance, even if she didn't always find her own way in; but she has something else in mind for you both. Take care until we see each other again. You two are all of our hope for the next future. I love you both."

"I love you too, beautiful."

She blushed, her pale gray skin turning a little purple. "Always the charmer, Harry. I need to get back to my husband. And myself, of course. I'm always so impatient."

Hat on head again and glamour firmly in place, he could still see her true nature now that the spell was broken. Her long, delicate hands. Her wide, expressive eyes. The tips of her large, dainty ears poked out from under her hat flaps. Little radish earrings hung from their pointy ends.

Luna turned back to look at him. "I'm impatient enough that if you are not married by when she is at her full nature again...maybe my daughter-self will find you and attempt to renew our agreement. But I promised. Next time, She got Her chance first. And who am I to disobey this Realm's Crown Princess?"

With a wave, she was gone. His wand fell in front of him, clattering on the station floor. Harry was standing alone behind a pillar in the station, the Hogwarts Express sitting where he'd left it.

With a deep breath, Harry picked up his wand, keeping it under his cloak, and started off towards the train. He was running late.

Seeing the time on the large wall clock Harry rushed off, his head still full of the confusing love of an immortal and new memories of the un-future. Only this time, he knew they were memories someone he loved had intentionally locked away from him. He also had insights into the mind of the Witch Queen, his magical issues, as well as a possible new threat that Tom might bring.

The world seemed less alive still without Luna but he could cope.

Harry skidded to a halt, clutching at the cloak. Oh bugger. How would he explain this to Hermione?

"I'm just glad to be getting back to routine." McGonagall said as she sipped her tea, all the while glaring at the Headmaster.

The old wizard, today wearing a bright pink floral robe, just smiled back as he held up his own teacup. The other Hogwarts teachers at the table sighed, knowing the work to come in following days.

"I am not a zookeeper," McGonagall said, frown deepening. "Trying to wrangle Hagrid's beast while he was out finding another to replace that foul troll is not in my job description."

The Headmaster nodded.

"Nor am I an Auror," Snape added, joining the complaining older witch. "I've done my best but the spells protecting Hogwarts simply aren't designed to look for every modern method of disguise or attack. And that doesn't even touch having to deal with and upkeep the defenses on your...special project. Sir Edmond's Potion of the Paired Flames has an active shelf life of only a fortnight and must be regularly renewed with a fresh brew."

Sprout rolled her eyes. "Just taking care of my part is hours out of my week. Do you have any idea how much ground up fish fertilizer I need to use to keep that much Devil's Snare alive and growing inside the castle? It is meant to grow in huge bat-dung encrusted caves or evershaded in deep forests. The vine's root systems usually spread out over acres and are not happy confined to a single room."

"I mean it, Albus," McGonagall continued. "No more special projects. No more surprises. No more keeping an unconscious rat animagus in my office until you find the right time to turn him in to the authorities. After this summer we are expecting a record number of students for the '91-'92 school year. There will be more children than we've had in the castle in the last decade. And with no additional budget for more teachers from the ministry. Half the staff quit or...had died by 1980. You know why. And none of the missing positions have been replaced since Septima joined us in '83, allowing the Arithmancy program to reopen."

"We are stretched thin, Albus," Flitwick said. "Even with you getting the Tonks girl in as a teacher's assistant, you'll be run ragged yourself just to finish off the fourth through seventh years in Defense. And next year we'll need yet another teacher for the Defense position. Miss Tonks won't be able to continue as she starts full-time working at the DMLE this summer."

Finishing his tea, the old wizard nodded again. "What you all say is correct. And I am sure we will all do our part to ensure the students get the best possible education given the circumstances. I am also sure we will get the help we need when we need it. And now that the most unfortunate matter of Sirius Black's travesty of justice is satisfactorily completed and the Wizengamot is out of session until spring session, the school once again has my complete attention. I will of course be taking lead on all other projects now that classes are starting."

The unbridled optimism of the old wizard quieted the complaints with only a few muttered final curses.

"How did that go so well?" Flitwick asked as the group quieted down again.

"Normally," McGonagall said with a displeased growl, "I would expect the Ministry to drag their feet much longer on something like revisiting an old trial. Or the lack thereof."

Dumbledore smiled widely. "Why, since late in September last year, 'A Hogwarts Student' has been writing very persuasive letters in the Daily Prophet. Once they turned to the matter of how well the Minister looked on certain issues compared to the failed policies of, say, former Minister Millicent Bagnold, it was easy for me to introduce the idea of correcting a previous administration's miscarriage of justice. Combined with rolling up the malfeasance of the corrupt former Head of the Magical Department of Law Enforcement, Bartemius Crouch, and what he'd done with and to his wife and son...well, Cornelius found it a pleasure to put things to right for Mr. Black once presented with the new evidence."

Snape simply clenched his jaw and, for once, held his tongue.

Dumbledore smiled even more brightly. "Well. What is left to do before the feast?"

"We've prepared the...dramatic entrance for the Tonks girl," Snape said, grumbling. "Everything is ready to get this rolling disaster started. After bidding her a...fond farewell from my advanced potions class last spring with a barely passing grade, I cannot say how glad I am to see her again so...soon."

"All upper levels are ready," Vector said. She was organizing this year's O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. planning among the teachers, a task that they switched off between senior staff as it was as boring as it was necessary. "All schedules are in and reconciled. We're ready for the long slog to the end-of-year tests."

"All the animals are, hwek, good," Kettleburn said with a cough. Everyone looked to what remained of the older wizard with concern. "Hagrid has the working farm under control. The walls are still buried under snow but he has quite a stack of stones to begin repairs come spring. All is well there."

"And the rest of the classes appear to be in order, Headmaster," McGonagall said, taking up the sheets in front of her and snapping it against the table. The parchment neatly rolled back up into a loose scroll with a burst of magic.

"Good, good," Dumbledore said, still smiling brightly as he looked at his friends and coworkers. "Well, a happy New Year to everyone! Let us get to it."

More Notes: Hope this made sense. I hate writing endings and I really don't want to "Lost" this thing up with the mysteries not being resolved satisfactorily. I swear I had this ending in mind the whole time. And we haven't even gotten to the controversial part yet. I think it is two more chapters to go, maybe with an epilogue to roll into year two.

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