Hero of the Story || James Potter x Hermione Granger Fanfiction

prologue | you taught me the courage of stars

For the next few days, it felt refreshing to know that they were finally focusing on a plan. Hermione swallowed down her trepidation – 'Will this really work? Will we really escape from this reality?' – and her mind, which hadn't been challenged for a very long time, focused solely on perfecting the potion. Hermione sometimes fancied herself into thinking she was back at the Potions laboratory, trying to best Malfoy into brewing the perfect potion which Snape even couldn't deny. Harry had a newfound rigor too, as he procured the ingredients that were too rare and dangerous but was still able to collect them all. Hermione never questioned his methods of obtaining such things. She knew by the way Harry's hand shook while he slept that it was through things he would later on regret.

Soon, months flew by, and the potion was nearing its completing. The last ingredient it needed were chimera scales which Hermione knew could never be found in England but at the outskirts of France, safe from the hands of people who would use it for their own personal gain. They packed away their things and Hermione carefully placed the potion under the Stasis Charm, risked the use of an illegally-made International Portkey, and found themselves blinking widely at a quaint, beautiful French town that never seemed to be touched by the Second Wizarding War.

Unknowing tears formed in Hermione's eyes as she watched the little children running around, throwing snowballs at each other until they were wet and cold and absolutely happy.

"We should finish it quickly before they find us," Harry whispered, voice strangely choked as he started trudging towards a lovely hotel at the center of the town.

-ooo-

Later that day, Harry, who was hidden under the Invisibility Cloak, went out of the hotel to roam around, in search of the elusive chimera scales. While he was gone, Hermione found herself rereading the texts on the potion they would be completing soon.

"... beware for the effects had been unknown. The potion brewed from the darkest of ingredients, harvested from dangerous creatures, might take a month to complete, or maybe a year, perhaps even a hundred more. Once completed, with a shade the darkest blue, two gulps are all you need to escape from this reality. No one knows where you will be brought. In another time, perhaps in another universe, but know this, drinker, that wherever you are brought to will be far away from your reality."

The potion's description almost sounded like it was written for a cheap, fiction book. It never offered facts, of accounts and testimonies of witches or wizards who attempted to brew the potion. There were no statistics of success, of deaths and accidents due to a botched potion, and Hermione's rational brain could not accept the ridiculousness of it all. But Harry had been adamant, explaining that if they wanted to get another shot in life, they should try this. Hermione once suggested to use a Time Turner. She could experiment, tinker with it a bit, until she built a prototype that would bring them a few years back and not mere hours, so that they could change the course of the events if they really wanted to win.

But Harry... Harry was laughing, maniacal and helpless and so, so anguished and Hermione started crying. "Don't you understand, Hermione?" he croaked, reaching out for her shaking hand with his equally shaking one. "I don't want to live this life anymore."

Hermione never voiced aloud that the potion could kill them if it wasn't brewed perfectly. With the amount of dark magic emitted she would create after finishing the potion, she knew that once consumed, it was either you become successful or you die. There was no in between. And Hermione knew that Harry had this inkling, too, and she didn't like the look in his eyes every time she complained that it wasn't the right shade after adding a pint of each of their blood, or how she had added a little too much basilisk venom. Harry looked like whether he lived another life in a different world or died in this reality, it wouldn't matter to him because he could finally escape this cruel burden.