Second Lives Are Not Chosen

This year we agreed to meet on the platform. I don't know about everyone else, but I intend to defend myself from dementors with Lupin's help. So I plan to gather whoever I can and drag them to his compartment. The needed compartment is successfully found, and Susan, Hannah, Neville and I join the sleeping Lupin. Justin preferred to ride in a compartment with his friend Ernie Macmillan. The Weasley family is late as always, and Harry is with them now. I would of course stuff a bunch more people into the compartment if I could. But now it's one of those cases when helping everyone is unrealistic, so I help my own.

Malfoy and his team found us first, but not finding Potter among us, Draco muttered something under his breath and left. And five minutes later came disheveled Harry and Ron—they had met Malfoy in the corridor and hurried to show each other how much they missed each other over the summer.

Since Lupin with his werewolf hearing might not be sleeping at all, but rather eavesdropping, I try to steer the conversations in the compartment toward neutral topics. And then the train begins to stop. The lights go out, I try to mentally gather myself one last time. Lupin wakes up and casts lumos. He says he'll go see what's wrong. Cold, very cold. And with each second it gets more terrible in my soul. Lupin didn't have time to reach the door when it opened, and we saw a robe floating in the air with a void instead of a face. I feel sick. I repeat to myself that these aren't my feelings, that I need to endure it, and soon it will all end, but with each moment it gets harder.

...the policeman tells me there are no survivors... I look at the burned shell of the house—all that's left of the dacha... my ex-husband screams that it's all my fault...

In general, in this world two unconscious bodies lie in the compartment—mine and Harry's.

I come to from slapping on my cheeks. If Lupin did summon a Patronus, I missed it. Harry and I are handed chocolate, and we chew it, huddled against each other. Susan hugs me from the other side. It's good that there are many of us in the compartment; the warmth of human bodies nearby helps no less than chocolate. However, both don't save us completely. When the train reached Hogwarts, Harry and I were still trembling slightly and couldn't warm up. I hate dementors!

At the castle entrance McGonagall caught us:

"Potter! Granger! Come with me."

In the Gryffindor head's office, Madam Pomfrey quickly examined us, cursed the dementors and told us to eat more chocolate—there it is, the recommendation that all children in the world dream of hearing from doctors.

Harry waits outside the door, and McGonagall kept me back to discuss my schedule. Alas, they didn't give me a time-turner, either McGonagall turned out to be a more responsible person here than in canon, or I didn't make the grade by house. I had to cross out Muggle Studies and Divination. I didn't really want those subjects anyway. It was all started for the sake of the time-turner.

The next day Slytherins in the Great Hall teased Harry about fainting. Nobody teased me—who needs me. Still, it's not very convenient to be such a famous person as Potter. Pansy Parkinson tried the hardest. She made faces, apparently depicting a dementor, and screamed: "Ooooooh!"

"Hey, Colin!" I suggested loudly, "Take a picture of Miss Parkinson right now. In a few years she'll pay you any money just so no one sees her photo with such a face."

Three tables burst into joyful laughter. Even some Slytherins smiled. Others frowned that I was spoiling their fun. Children.

After lunch we had Hagrid's lesson. Students go to elective classes with all houses together. I was thinking about how to carefully distract Malfoy from the hippogriff today so no one would get hurt. Malfoy's wound in canon wasn't concerning, and I don't particularly care about Buckbeak, but I like Hagrid. I don't want the poor guy to worry.

Hagrid is an oaf—he brought several animals at once, and of course has no assistants. At a farm, each hippogriff is led to visitors by its own handler.

So far everything is going well, Harry rode the hippogriff, after his flight the kids got bolder and began approaching closer. Then someone sharply pulled me by my robe.

"I found out you also fainted, Granger," Parkinson grinned joyfully, "how about locking you in a room with a dementor, what do you think? Probably only he would want to kiss you, such a mudblood..."

Behind my back I heard a menacing screech and Malfoy's scream. I got distracted by this fool Parkinson at the worst possible moment!

Malfoy was lying on the ground and screaming shortly with each exhale. He's really in a lot of pain. Hagrid was trying to calm the agitated hippogriffs. Pansy, seeing what happened to her Draco, also shrieked hysterically, and this didn't add order.

Damn, and Malfoy is clearly wounded more severely than in the book—not only is his arm torn, but his robe on his chest too, and blood is flowing abundantly. I quickly kneel next to the teenager, push aside the torn fabric—no, thank God or Merlin, doesn't matter who, despite the painful and quite deep wounds, death definitely doesn't threaten Malfoy. In principle, he could even walk to the hospital wing himself if he hadn't lost the ability to think from fear. Good thing I have star anise extract with me. Thanks to additional lessons last year, I've already started collecting my medical kit. I take out the bottle, pour the contents on the wounds—the star anise hisses, and the cuts begin to heal. Pansy stopped wailing, and the patient himself also shut up. The rest of the children stand around confused as they were. Hagrid, who had already managed to tie up Buckbeak, also stands confused and pale. He's a good person, that is, half-giant, and shares unicorn hair with sufferers, but what kind of professor is he? Actually, they mauled Malfoy pretty well. Madam Pomfrey promised to teach me the simplest medical charms in third year, I'll ask her about it today, because you can't relax at Hogwarts.

Finally the last cut healed. Malfoy immediately began feeling himself all over.

"Murderer! He should be shot!" Pansy sobs, pointing at the hippogriff.

I need to take the situation into my own hands.

"Hagrid," to hell with subordination, the newly-minted professor will be the first to take offense at it, "we need to go to the hospital wing!"

"Hermione, you... you healed him. Didn't you?"

"Yes, but what if not completely? We need to make sure. And if possible, I'll also go with him, tell Madam Pomfrey what the injury was and how I treated it."

"All right, go," Hagrid retreats sadly.

Crabbe and Goyle leave with Malfoy, ignoring the professor's shout. Draco walks, trying to wrap himself in his robe to hide the tears, and is indignant that his father will find out and kill and fire everyone who needs it. I silently agree—in his place I would want the same.

After diagnosis, Malfoy is given a blood-replenishing potion—he did lose quite a lot—and released to go wherever he wants. And I stay to learn spells. In the evening I pick up the girls, and we go to the kitchen for chocolate cakes—after all, we were told that around dementors you can't have too much chocolate. The girls tell fresh gossip.

Hagrid set the hippogriff on Malfoy. Malfoy wanted to set the hippogriff on me, but got hurt himself. Malfoy successfully set the hippogriff on me, and that's why I was in the hospital wing, but Hagrid hit him for it, and that's why he was just coming from there too. The hippogriff killed me, and Goyle carried my corpse to school to give the body to my inconsolable parents, and Malfoy ended up in the hospital wing because he was secretly in love and now fell ill from grief. Malfoy and I accidentally killed the hippogriff, and Hagrid cursed us with special giant magic.

Well, I like that.

The next day Malfoy approached and briefly said thank you. I thought I'd never see the day.

I don't see Hagrid at breakfast or lunch. I should visit him after classes.

Hagrid is drowning his sorrows at his hut. The boys sit with him and try to comfort him awkwardly.

"Hagrid, no one will fire you," I say confidently. Logically they could, but I know they won't, "and next time you'll account for your mistakes, and everything will be wonderful. You know the subject better than anyone and know how to tell it interestingly. You just need to prepare in advance. We'll make an excellent professor out of you yet. And now—stop drinking!"

"Yes, Hagrid, that's how it will be!" Harry claps him on the shoulder.

"You know, you're right!" the giant gets inspired. He gets up and leaves the hut. Returns wet, probably dumped a barrel on himself for sobering purposes, "that's better! Thanks for coming to comfort me," he grabs all three of us in his arms and squeezes.

"Hagrid," I escape from the embrace, "we need to make a plan. Tell us what animals you'll show next. And we'll listen to you. You'll practice on us so everything will be perfect in class."

"Thank you," the giant sniffled touchingly, "you do so much for me... What are you doing?! You came here, in the evening! Harry, what about you? Black is hunting you! And you, Ron, where were you looking? You need to think!"

"Hagrid, but how can I meet with you if I'm not allowed to go outside?" Harry objects.

"All right, you... I'll escort you. But not a foot outside the castle after dark!"

Hagrid does have some notion of responsibility. Sometimes. But I wouldn't trust him with children, with all due respect.

Together we spread Hagrid's animals throughout the year. It's strange that now students from third to fifth year are studying the same thing with him. Oh well, where's Hogwarts, and where's logic?

Safe and funny nifflers, boring but useful flobberworms, bowtruckles, crups—dogs with two tails and similar creatures were placed at the beginning of the year.

Fire salamanders, runespoors—three-headed snakes, thestrals and so on were postponed for later.

I took out parchment and began filling out a plan for nifflers.

Safety measures, how to handle them properly, what they're used for, features of their habitat in the wild... On each point I interrogated Hagrid and carefully wrote it in the plan.

"Here, this is your outline. You know everything, you just sometimes forget what you need to say. This way you'll look here and tell-show by points. And you won't get confused! And next time we'll go over another animal."

Hagrid got emotional, gave me a bundle of feathers that hippogriffs periodically shed (how Snape hasn't sniffed this out and robbed this naive fellow yet), and thanked me at length and verbosely while escorting us to the castle. I'm starting to feel like a good fairy!