• Published 25th Feb 2020
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On the Implications of Parallel Worlds - computerneek



Usually, first contact is made with just a few people. The latest civilization to be invited to Hogwarts begs to differ.

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Chapter 50

Meanwhile…


“Thank you, Gilderoy,” Dumbledore stated, and turned up the passage. Hermione immediately recognized it as the fastest way to Lockhart’s office- and she started to follow, behind everyone else, before she got a message through the magic-based Agency comms network. It was a direct message, from Candy Stripes- so, Lyra. She’d used a similar message to inform Lyra of the words on the wall earlier- though unlike Lyra, she hadn’t used a direct message; she’d messaged the general help channel, which would have included Lyra. And on which Lyra had responded, even before she performed her masked teleport.

Check the bathroom,” Lyra said. “Ginny’s in there, and I don’t think she’s okay. Keep me posted.

Understood,” she answered- and quickly assembled an excuse to break off from the procession.

“I’ll meet you at his office,” she informed Harry, Silver, and Morning. “I need to use the bathroom.” Then, without waiting for a response, she turned and headed off in the opposite direction.

She walked in that direction for only as long as it took for Morning- the last in the line going upstairs- to round the corner, before she turned and jogged right back, to the bathroom door right across the hall from the words and torch bracket. She ignored the large ‘Out Of Order’ sign; it was Myrtle’s bathroom, so it was always out of order. She did have to wonder why the water was pooling quite so much- wasn’t there a floor drain in here?

And there, right in the middle of the room, was Ginny, lying face-down on the floor and not moving at all.

“Ginny?” she asked, bending down to lift Ginny out of the puddle.

Ginny’s skin was cold.

She checked for a pulse.

There was none.

“Ginny,” she barked, laying her back down, on her back. “You wake up this instant!” She started pumping on Ginny’s chest with her hands, trying to get her heart running again. She used a quick spell to drive fresh oxygen into Ginny’s lungs- and extract the blood and water that had gotten in. Ginny’s nose was broken.

There was no response. “I think she’s dead,” she told Lyra.

There was a brief moment of silence, and she felt the strange tingle of Lyra’s magic in the air; she must have been scanning from afar. “Almost,” Lyra answered. “Jump-start her thaumic core.

She took a deep breath, rose up in the air, closed her eyes, and drove her hands down towards Ginny, thrusting her magic out of herself and into her herdmate.


Even through her tears, Myrtle Warren heard Hermione’s cries and wondered who was visiting her so shortly after Peeves had chased her away from Nicholas’ death-day party, so she floated through the door of her bathroom stall.

She was right on time to spot Hermione thrusting her hands out towards Ginny, who lay limply on the floor in front of her.

A solid beam of white energy shot from Hermione’s palms, straight down into Ginny’s form.

Moments later, that white energy started arcing around Ginny, swirling around her, as she was lifted, slightly, into the air. It kept building, even as the color returned to Ginny’s skin.

Myrtle watched, mouth agape, as the power built so far that it started arcing to other objects in the room.

Then, it arced all the way to her. Once, twice. She felt a bit funny after the first one, and the second made her dizzy. Then the third was much larger than the others- and she let out a cry of surprise before she fell over backwards. Moments before she passed out, she felt herself land on her back in the puddle- and it felt wet, something she hadn’t felt for fifty years.


Hermione cut off her magic when she heard the scream, and opened her eyes.

… Ginny was still unconscious, but the color had returned to her face. She checked for a pulse- and found that not only did Ginny have one, she was also breathing.

Then she looked up and down the rows, looking for the source of the scream.

There was… a girl, who didn’t look familiar, lying on the damp floor, face up. She blinked, and looked down at Ginny. “Seems to have done it, but she’s still unconscious,” she told Lyra. “Headed for the Hospital Wing with her- and another girl, unfamiliar, that seems to have passed out in here.

Understood,” Lyra answered.

Then, she reached down to pick Ginny up… and stopped.

Her hands were glowing, surrounded by her own magic aura, again.

She closed her fist. “Not now,” she snarled, concentrating on making herself stop glowing.

To her surprise, it worked. Her aura disappeared from around herself.

She took a deep breath, then picked Ginny up in her arms, then that strange girl with her magic, and left the bathroom, heading straight for the Hospital Wing.

She was just about reaching the main staircase that would take her to the floor the Hospital Wing was on when Lyra contacted her again. “Where are you at?

Third floor, reaching the main staircase,” she answered promptly.

Morning Sun will meet you on the way,” Lyra informed her. “I don’t want her too close to the others just yet.

Hermione agreed silently. As the rest of her herd suspected, she knew that Lyra knew Morning was a changeling. She also knew something her herd had no idea about, though: That Lyra had observed Morning for a month, and had come to trust her- at least in part because even a changeling couldn’t falsify love bonds… so, she was helping shield Morning from detection.

Less than a minute later, right about the time she reached the floor with the Hospital Wing, Morning charged up the stairs behind her. She looked. “Morning,” she greeted.

Morning wordlessly caught the strange girl out of the air, allowing Hermione to drop her levitation spell, and the two of them bolted down the passage for the Hospital Wing.

When the two arrived, Hermione was first- and she flung the door open with her magic. “Madam Pomfrey!”

Madam Pomfrey, who looked to have been resupplying various small cabinets around the room- the hospital wing was empty- and heard them running up, bustled over, leaving her stack of towels on an empty bed. “What happened?”

“Found her face-down in a puddle in Myrtle’s bathroom,” Hermione answered. “I managed to get her breathing again.” She took a breath. “And restore her pulse.”

Then Morning entered behind her, and Madam Pomfrey’s eyebrows shot upwards.

Hermione glanced at the strange girl in Morning’s arms. “She… I didn’t see what happened, but I think she passed out while I wasn’t looking or something- wasn’t there when I entered. Same puddle, but face up.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “Alright, thank you. Right over here, please.” She indicated two beds.

Hermione placed Ginny on one, while Morning put the strange girl on the other, before walking around to sit next to Hermione at Ginny’s side.

Madam Pomfrey’s wand popped out of her wrist, and she pointed it at Ginny’s face to do a quick spell to mend her nose.

“Where’d your wand just come from?” Hermione asked.

Madam Pomfrey smiled. “Little storage compartment, courtesy of Silversong, right after her Papa Tango. Mighty convenient, I might add.”

“... Oh.”

“Anyways, Ginnerva here is on the path to recovery- another… Oh, hour or so, and she’ll finish incorporating your magic donation, restabilize herself… and wake up.”

Hermione nodded, and let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, thank you.”

“And by the way, you’re glowing.”

She looked down at her hands. Her aura was back.

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Let it.”

There was a bright flash of icy blue light.


Hermione wobbled slightly, but managed to catch herself, when she reappeared in her seat. “Woah… So that happened,” she muttered, and looked at her hands again. She didn’t feel any different.

“I believe congratulations are in order,” Morning muttered.

Hermione blinked. “Nah, that was nothing.” She waved it off.

Morning raised an eyebrow. “... Alright.” She looked up at where Madam Pomfrey was looking over the other girl. “She’s been looking her over, so you didn’t miss anything.”

Then Madam Pomfrey looked up. “You did a good job on her too, Miss Granger,” she smiled, pointing her wand down at the girl once again. “Rennervate.”

The girl’s eyes opened, and she took a sudden breath, staring at the ceiling.

Madam Pomfrey leaned into her field of view. “Good evening, Miss Warren,” she greeted. “How are you feeling?”

“I…” The girl muttered, raising one hand to look at it as if she’d never had hands before. “I’m feeling…” She let out a sigh of relief, and dropped her arm back down on the blankets. “Alive.”

“Well, there’s no doubt about that,” Madam Pomfrey answered. “Anything more specific? Good, bad, okay, or the like?”

Myrtle smiled back up at her. “I don’t know. It’s… It’s been a long time.”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “Fifty years will do that to you, yes.”

“Fifty?” Hermione blinked.

Morning smiled. “That’s Myrtle,” she answered.

Hermione tilted her head. “Okay?”

“Like, Myrtle, the ghost Myrtle.”

“What-?”

“Yep! You resurrected her!”

“I What-!?!

Morning only grinned, while Myrtle and Madam Pomfrey watched.

“I- I-” Hermione stuttered. “I didn’t… I didn’t even realize she was there.”

Morning let out a snort of laughter. “So, you didn’t just resurrect Myrtle, you resurrected her accidentally.” She looked up at Madam Pomfrey. “That’s quite the feat, isn’t it?”

Myrtle just smiled. “Thanks.”


Dumbledore was just moving to pick Mrs. Norris up again, this time to carry her to the Hospital Wing for Madam Pomfrey to watch over, when an owl swooped in the magically opened window to land on the desk and offer him a note. When he took the note, it returned from whence it came- and the window promptly closed itself.

“You have a self-opening window?” Twilight asked Lockhart.

He shrugged. “Kinda need it, with the amount of fanmail I get. It’s either that, or make ‘em wait in the rain.”

“Neat. I should probably look into a suitable self-opening charm for my library doors back home- then po-er, people would quit leaving them open.”

Dumbledore let out a whistle, reading the note. “Miss Sparkle,” he began. “How common are resurrections in your world?”

Twilight blinked. “There’s been a few attempted, but the only one that ‘succeeded’ didn’t really succeed- the subject didn’t have a soul, so it lasted for about three days before it died again.”

He scowled slightly. “I take it you don’t have ghosts?”

She shook her head. “Not usually. There have been a few, but they always need destroying, so nobody has ever tried resurrecting any. Did something happen?”

He nodded. “Miss Granger.”

She rolled her eyes. “She’s resurrected a ghost, hasn’t she?” She looked at Lyra. “What’s your guess, Myrtle?”

Lyra nodded gravely.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “And is it a real one?”

She nodded. “Looked like it from afar.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the Hospital Wing,” Dumbledore answered. “Why don’t we go meet her?” He picked Mrs. Norris up, and started around Professor Lockhart’s desk, towards the exit.

Harry looked at Silver. “Hermione’s in the Hospital Wing?”

Silver nodded. “Ginny was unconscious.”

Harry blinked. “How-?”

She shook her head.

“... Alright.”

Lyra looked at Twilight. “Tell us all about it?”

Twilight nodded, and turned to follow Dumbledore, Harry, Silver, McGonagall, and Snape out of the office. Filch also headed out, but turned the other way.

Author's Note:

Alright, soo... Chap. 51 is in the works with editors, but since I'm very busy lately, I can't make any guarantees that Chap. 52 will be ready on time. I'll try.

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