Chapter Text
Albus blinked as a young woman appeared in the middle of his office. There was no snap of apparition, human or elven, no whirl of Phoenix fire, no portkey left at her feet. One moment he was alone with Fawkes, the next a young woman was standing in front of him on shaky feet. Such magic was unknown to him, but a quick check of the wards told him that they were all intact. He didn’t know if that was more or less concerning under the circumstances, and so settled for filing it away for future examination.
The young woman looked around frantically, but she soon settled on him, and he saw her eyes widen before her wand leveled at him. “You dare impersonate a Saint?” She hissed. “Why have you taken me heretic?” Albus blinked at her words. Well, that wasn’t what he’d expected to come out of the words of an armor clad teenager (for closer examination told him she was seventeen at the oldest) who’d appeared mysteriously in his office in the middle of the summer.
“Saint my dear?” He asked mildly, keeping his hands still and in her sight. Here in his office he didn’t need a wand to defend himself quite adequately.
“You have flawlessly impersonated Professor Dumbledore and you expect me to believe that you don’t know his importance?” The young woman hissed further, eyes wide, manic, and…concerningly unfocused. “As if his day was not a mere week ago?”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, I am, in fact, Professor Dumbledore.” Albus said soothingly. “Where do you think you are child?” She looked around, slowly.
“You…this…how dare…” She began, but fainted before her indignation could be completed, a quick gesture from Albus saving her from hitting her head on the floor with a hovering charm. Fawkes let out a concerned trill as Albus walked around the desk.
“Yes, I agree. This does not bode well.” He agreed, gesturing with a hand. The fireplace in his office expanded and blazed green as he scooped the young woman into his arms. He strode through the flames with her and into the Hospital Wing. It was empty, of course, term being over, but the beds were still laid out and pristine, and so he laid the strange young woman down carefully on one of the beds and waved his wand, casting a Patronus. “Poppy, if you’re available, I’m afraid I’m in need of your aid.” Best to keep Patronus messages short he thought as he sent the silvery messenger out. He wasn’t sure how to concisely explain what had happened.
OoOoO
“You say she just appeared in your office?” Poppy asked. Albus nodded. To his relief Poppy had been quite prompt in her return to the school, an exasperated Minerva in tow. He’d explained the situation as Poppy circled the young woman, casting diagnosis spells and frowning. Lying still he could see how pale she was, her hair a pure white and cut into a bob.
“I can’t remove the armor.” Minerva reported, pursing her lips. “I can’t even find the clasps.” The armor in question was black, with heavy pauldrons engraved with crude lightning bolts, a broach that bore the image of a hooded skull above another lightning bolt, and a fleur-de-lis above where her navel like was, the images a deep and rich green, all of it polished to a shine. Curiously the breastplates were molded rather than flat, emphasizing the feminine figure of the young woman inside of it, but other than that it was fully practical, if heavy and ornate.
“I believe it to be Goblin made.” Albus said slowly. “Though in a style I’m unfamiliar with. One of the deeper clans perhaps, pioneers of their craft that they are and less inclined to do work for humans.”
“And…is that a Muggle weapon?” Minerva asked, gesturing at the blocky contraption of metal on the nearby table. Albus nodded slowly. It sat next to her wand and a belt and bandolier full of vials of potions, and it had taken him the better part of half an hour to remove the items from the slumbering young woman. They had been protected by a wide and complex array of wards and charms, full of traps and alarms, but he wasn’t about to let a strange, hostile, potentially delirious young woman have access to her weapons, not near two of his closest friends, nor in his school.
“Yes, a firearm. One of the faster firing projectile weapons if I’m correct, though I’m unfamiliar with the particular model. It’s more streamlined than the ones I saw during Grindelwald’s War.”
“She has a wand, she has potions in a Hit Wizard’s kit, she has Goblin armor, why a Muggle weapon as well?” Minerva asked, frowning.
“Contingency most likely. Even the most powerful pacifist wards wouldn’t affect that, you would need to work in a mental component or know enough about Muggle weapons to prevent the projectiles from working.” Albus surmised. “Poppy, what can you deduce about her health?”
“Very little.” The Healer said, her frown deepening. “Her armor shields much of her vitals, I presume to avoid detection. It is…very thorough, Moody would be jealous.” Albus raised an eyebrow.
“Such protections are complex and difficult to weave into armor, even for the Goblins.” He mused. “Or at least…they are at the present.”
“What are you thinking Albus?” Minerva asked warily.
“She called me a Saint.” Albus responded, his voice slow and careful. “And her first thought was that I was an impostor. She was…deeply upset at the thought that someone would impersonate me. Her armor is heavy, and ornate, but it strikes me as a uniform rather than a personal quirk. And yet it is made with techniques that would cost hundreds of thousands of Galleons to have performed for a Wizard today. Her firearm is likewise more advanced seeming than any I am familiar with.”
“You think she’s from the future.” Minerva said flatly.
“If she was sent to assassinate me she was deeply unprepared to do so.” Albus said simply. “She seemed shocked and surprised to see me, talked more than I would expect from someone so equipped if assassination was her trade, and fainted rather quickly. Tom would never send someone armed with a Muggle weapon to kill me, and Cornelius would never take that route. And so, lacking a reasonable explanation for her presence, I must consider the unreasonable possibilities as well.”
“A future where you are regarded as a Saint, but where teenagers are armored and heavily armed.” Minerva said slowly. “Hardly a pleasant future then.”
“If that is, indeed, the case.” Poppy reminded them. “I cannot speak to this young woman’s mental state, and it’s always possible there are other explanations for her behavior.” Albus nodded in agreement.
“Yes, there are other explanations. Though I wonder where a delusional young woman would get such armor and weapons if I’m wrong.”
At that moment the young woman’s eyes opened and she gasped, looking around frantically before her gaze fell onto Albus once more. She glared, then frowned as she seemed to process who was in her peripheral vision. “Three Saints? Was your blasphemy not complete?” She croaked out.
Minerva looked like she’d bit into a lemon, and Poppy wasn’t much better. If he were not afraid of upsetting their guest further, Albus would have chuckled aloud. “And why do you believe us to be Saints?” He asked instead. The young woman rolled her eyes at that, the most teen appropriate thing he’d seen from her thus far, then pointed at each of them and began to recite.
“He who guided and cared for our Lord, the Master of Death. She who guarded and taught for our Lord, the Master of Death. She who healed and preserved our Lord, the Master of Death.” Albus flinched slightly at the repeated title. Old memories began to claw their way up from where he’d buried them, of hands and wicked smirks and dreams and shouts and screams. “Every child of the Union knows this, never mind a Daughter.” There was a moment of silence as they digested this, and the young woman looked around the room. “And you recreated not one but two rooms of Hogwarts? Have you no care for your souls?” She demanded. Albus frowned. That she recognized the Hospital Wing for what it was could be explained by many things, but at the same time…well he knew she hadn’t been a student. Not in his tenure at least.
“What could we do to convince you that we are not impostors?” He asked gently. The young woman scoffed.
“This is not the afterlife. And nor is it a holy vision.” Albus inclined his head.
“Indeed it is not. But it is the summer of 1995.” He said. The young woman went rigid at that, seeming to stop breathing as she turned the date over in her head.
“That…that is not possible. The Lord forbade time travel, had all research into it destroyed. No time turners remain, and the last efforts to research into it fell to ruin at the end of the Second Crusade of Unification. Unless…” She paused and looked at them, then shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t know what to mimic…you’re lying.” The more she spoke the more concerned about the future Albus grew. Crusade of Unification? But right now he had a distressed child in front of him, and that had to be his focus.
“What could we show you to prove our honesty?” He asked gently. The young woman considered it for a long moment.
“Take me to Hogsmeade. Somewhere where I can see the whole of it. Recreating two rooms and recreating that are two different propositions.” Albus nodded and closed his eyes, mentally adjusting the wards of the school before holding out his hand. The young woman blinked at him in surprise, then reached up and clasped his hand in her armored one. There was a crack, and then the familiar squeezing sensation of apparition, and then they stood on a grassy hill that stood between the school and the village. The young woman released his hand and stared down at Hogsmeade, looking around wildly, then sank to her knees, hyperventilating.
“It’s so small. As it was.” She breathed. “This…this is…” She swallowed and made a gesture, slashing one hand through the air over her chest, not unlike a Catholic Muggle doing the cross. The gesture was different, but the meaning felt similar, he thought. “I abandoned my sisters…” She whimpered.
“Given that you did not arrive here intentionally, did not even know it was possible, I think it would be more accurate to say you were kidnapped.” Albus said gently. The young woman nodded slowly, clinging to the alternative framing, then looked up at him and blanched.
“I threatened a Saint.” She breathed, her blue eyes staring up at him, shining and terrified. She leaned forward, perhaps to prostrate herself, and Albus quickly reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder and halting her movement.
“You had no way of knowing. You had just been brought to a place and in front of people you believed impossible to find yourself at. Your skepticism was reasonable caution.” He told her firmly. “And I do not believe I have done what makes me a Saint in your future quite yet.” She paused, frowning, then slowly nodded.
“I…you are in the process of it now, much has been done already.” She admitted. “But I will not contradict you.” He fought back a grimace. Someone had done severe harm to this child, and he trembled at the inkling of who might have done so. Tom would not have beatified him, nor Minerva and Poppy, but he…no. He lacked the information necessary to be suspicious. And he had no idea if time travel to this extent was set in stone or not. Time Turners meant you had always been there, that things seemed changed only to whoever was making the changes, but their range was much smaller than what the young woman was implying with her reactions. He didn’t know if her future was set in stone or not, didn’t know if he could fairly make judgements based on it or not.
“May I know your name, young lady?” He asked instead of the question burning in the back of his mind. She nodded quickly.
“I am Sophronia Professor.” She said, standing up on shaky legs. “Proud sister of the Daughters of Death, thirteenth legion.” Albus despaired. A child soldier indeed then.
“And when do you come from?”
“It is 547 in the calendar of the Daughters, 2545 in the standard.” She reported.
“That is…quite far. And Hogwarts still stands?” Sophronia nodded eagerly.
“I did not study there, but it still stands, and is still the best school for magic in the world.” She said proudly. Albus blinked in surprise.
“It’s still a school? I confess, from some of your talk I thought it might have been converted to a shrine or museum if it still stood.”
“Oh no, Professor, our Lord is very fond of Hogwarts as a school, he treasures the place and is proud and devoted to its legacy.” She frowned. “And, I concede, not everyone views Him or it with the same reverence as the Daughters do. To many citizens you are just a figure of historical import and emotional relevance to our Lord.”
“I confess that that is something I find more comfortable to imagine.” Albus said politely. Sophronia nodded sharply.
“Your humility and aversion to power beyond the school is well documented, Professor. I will treat you as your preference for however long I’m here.” She swayed on her feet a moment later, and Albus quickly caught her, grasping her by the elbow and apparating them back to the Hospital Wing.
“I believe that whatever happened to bring you here is taking its toll.” He said carefully, helping her sit down on the bed. “Would you be willing to remove your armor for us, so Madam Pomfrey can look you over?” She nodded shakily and pressed a few spots on her chest plate, causing seams to appear all along the length of the suit, from the legs to the arms. Albus and Minerva quickly moved to help her remove it all, revealing that she was clad simply beneath in thick, olive colored trousers and a black shirt with short sleeves that revealed muscled arms. Around her neck was a beaded necklace, bearing a charm with the same symbol as on her broach. Once the armor was removed it shrunk itself, turning into a black bag that she placed beside her weapons, though she retrieved her wand in the same motion before lying down on the bed and promptly passing out, the wand clasped to her chest.
“So…time travel then?” Minerva asked worriedly. Albus nodded gravely.
“Time travel.”
OoOoO
Lord Harry Potter, Master of Death, immortal ruler of the Grand Union, sovereign of seventy-five percent of the planet, was sitting in his office, doing paperwork. Saving the world and making sure it bloody well stayed saved required a tremendous amount of the stuff it turned out. He delegated what he could, putting his children and their descendants as governors over various portions of the world, selecting the best department heads and officers for the various branches of his government and its mammoth bureaucracy, but a fair amount of it still needed his eyes and signature, and he didn’t want to be hands off besides.
He’d tried being hands off. He’d tried for two hundred years. Had sat on his hands, first as an Auror and then as a private citizen, hoping the world would get it together, that he could prod them to progress and equality through words and peaceful action alone. He knew better now. The world trended towards injustice and inequality, and it was up to those who cared to make it better.
There was a knock at the door, jolting him from his thoughts. “Enter!” He called, and a moment later his Chief of Staff entered, wheeling in a Pensieve.
“My Lord, I have concerning news from the Vegas front.” They reported. “A Daughter vanished from the battlefield.” Harry stilled.
“A Daughter fled?” He asked. That…that didn’t happen.
The Daughters of Death, along with the more general trend to treat him as a deity among the populace, was one of the things about his work and government that troubled him most deeply. He…didn’t feel good about it. But the cult that he’d co-opted and shaped into the Daughters had begun and grown independently of him, their matriarchal makeup built on reading too deeply into the fact that he and Ginny had only had daughters and that their daughters had also only had daughters. Better that it exist under his eye and regulation than grow wild, right? And…one didn’t conquer the world, Wizarding and Muggle, with just regular soldiers. You needed fervor, you needed devotion to hold the line, to march through sprawling Muggle cities, to face down tanks and jets. And he protected them, he did. Master of Death meant so much more than Dumbledore had ever dreamed, and so Harry guarded and preserved the Daughters even as they fought alongside his regular armies. He made up for it. And…better some should be lost than the whole world.
But regardless, the Daughters didn’t flee. They didn’t go AWOL. They were raised basically from birth to be Daughters, trained by their older sisters, taught and molded and surrounded by them and their devotion to their Lord. They might retreat, he’d done his best to ensure they viewed themselves as valuable rather than expendable, he didn’t want a martyr culture popping up, but they didn’t desert or break.
“No my Lord. At least, I don’t believe so.” His Chief of Staff said, pouring out a vial of memories into the Pensieve. A tap of their wand caused a large, clear image to project into the air above the basin, and Harry watched a detachment of the Daughters marching through the Strip, spells and bullets flying at what remained of the American military. And he watched as one young woman, planted ahead of the others, crying fearlessly as she fired with her enchanted SMG, vanished.
It wasn’t apparition. It wasn’t a portkey. It wasn’t floo. It…he didn’t know what it was. “Did the Muggles invent a weapon that could vaporize a person?” He asked softly. He hadn’t had to take the battlefield personally since the first strike on the Muggles to remove the nuclear option from the table, but if they’d figured out disintegration he would. “Or New Avalon?” The Wizarding nation of Mars had never liked him, but they’d never directly attacked one of his before, content to keep an uneasy peace. They’d be next after Earth, and both sides knew it, but up until now that had been a future problem.
“We don’t believe so.” His Chief of Staff said, shaking their head. “Examining the memories of the other Daughters on the field revealed no beam, not strike. She simply…vanished. Examinations of the site once the battle was finished, however, revealed…quite a lot of magical energies however. A similar amount to the site in the Forbidden Forest where you took the Stone and became Master of Death in full.” They handed him a roll of parchment and he looked it over, studying the readings. He still wasn’t Hermione, but he’d been around long enough now to read the reports his researchers gave him.
“...I want Vegas secured ASAP.” He said shortly, “Don’t abandon any fronts, but I want what troops can be spared to be moved there, and I want it locked down. The minute it’s safe I want all Unspeakables not working on Priority Alpha projects studying this. Find…” He paused to examine the scroll again, “find Sophronia.”
“Yes my Lord. It will be done.”