Yesterday is Tomorrow (Everything is Connected)

Eight: Heavy

Yesterday is Tomorrow (everything is connected)

VIII

*

Doc: This is more serious than I thought. Apparently, your mother is amorously infatuated with you instead of your father.

Marty: Whoa, wait a minute, Doc. Are you trying to tell me that my mother has got the hots for me?

Doc: Precisely!

Marty: Whoa, this is heavy.

Doc: There's that word again: "heavy." Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the Earth's gravitational pull?

- Back to the Future (1985)

*

Like most Januarys straight through to June, time passed quickly - so much so that the entire five months disappeared in a blink. One moment, Hermione was studying in the library for her upcoming NEWT exams in Arithmancy and Charms, her two favourite classes, spending time with Barty and Regulus, researching and practicing her own form of transmutation and wandless magic, and tutoring Potter in Arithmancy.

After her breakthrough with the flower, Hermione found herself back in the Room of Requirements with her (fake) Harry watching her curiously, as she paced, muttering to herself under her breath as her brain jumped from one idea to the next, her synapses firing hotly.

Her understanding of transmutation was growing rapidly. She was far beyond her research back in her future - alternate timeline? - which made a part of her squirm in happiness, and the rest made her annoyed at the slow progression.

"I think you're overthinking this," said Harry. His image flickered for a moment, and then he was no longer standing, watching her placidly, but sitting on what looked like a replica of a Gryffindor armchair - one she was familiar with, in her other life, and its placement by the fire and in which she and her friends would often congregate around.

"I thought we agreed that I'm the brains of this operation," muttered Hermione, tugging on a curl. Her eyes cut to her friend.

Harry sighed. "You're frustrated with your lack of advancement. I understand that."

"Because you're me," muttered Hermione darkly.

Harry blithely ignored her. "Let's break it down, shall we? When you're stuck, and you don't know what to do next - what do you do, Hermione?"

Hermione stopped pacing, turned to Harry, and together they said, "We break it down into smaller parts."

He grinned at her, and she felt her lips quirking up into a smile, too.

With a sigh, she bounded over to him in his chair. An identical one popped into existence opposite him, and Hermione slid in it as the room shifted from a large white space to an eerie replica of the Gryffindor Common Room from their time, right down to the scorch marks Seamus left after another failed water-into-wine attempt.

"So," began not-Harry, leaning forward in his seat as his ankle crossed over the opposite knee and he steeped his fingertips together. "Basics. Begin with that. What do you know about magic?"

Hermione sighed at the simplicity - and complexity - of the question. "Magic is a form of energy that each witch or wizard has."

"Very Star Wars," replied Harry, a mocking glint in his eyes behind his frames. He warped between fourteen-year-old him and the much older forty-something Hermione knew him as, grey at his temples.