AN ~ A recap of the previous three chapters is at the foot of the page.

'Better Never Than Late'

by Witherwings

Chapter Twenty Six – Faith

3rd March 2000

Weary springs creaked in protest as Harry dropped heavily onto their bed. He ran his hands through his hair before fixing her with dubious eyes. "That's a lot of ifs, Hermione."

A piece of elastic, Hermione joined her husband on the bed for all of a single second only to spring straight back up again. Her exhaustion forgotten, she was far too energised to stay still. She began to pace the narrow strip of floor at the foot of their bed. "Why didn't I think of it before? It's so obvious!"

Far from being disheartened by Harry's decidedly lukewarm response, an inexplicable certainty had settled within her gut. The nebulous idea that had ballooned into her consciousness mere moments ago already indurating into a concrete certainty that she knew was the best – no, the only way forwards.

She stopped in the slant of sunlight pushing through the room's only window, the dust motes swirling about her like tiny flecks of gold dust. "But if I'm right – " the irony of adding yet another 'if' was not lost on her. "If I'm right, we had the tools that can help us save Madeleine and rid the world of Riddle all along." A pained smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. "Harry, we've held it in our hands... ."

"The diadem," said Harry, repeating her earlier assertion. His voice was flat, but whether that stemmed from disbelief or frustration Hermione could not say.

The diadem.

For months she had fought against her self doubt, her insecurities, the very notion that she might not be clever enough to find a solution to her daughter's plight. An hour ago these were fears she barely acknowledged, certainly refused to give voice to, and yet now she embraced them as the very solution to their year long search; this was beyond her understanding – beyond that of any witch or wizard alive today for that matter. But there was one who might hold the key. One who had created a magical device to share her wisdom with her students and ultimately the world: Rowena Ravenclaw.

She pushed on. "Yes, the diadem," she said. Her fingers could still recall the feel of its cool metal against her skin, the intricate, impossibly thin frame. "The stories tell us that it can enhance its wearer's intelligence, but I think that it's – "

"If we believe the legend," Harry interrupted.

Hermione's brow splintered into a shallow V as the twin battering rams of her eyebrows collided at the bridge of her nose. Although she continued to remain utterly convinced of her plan's veracity, she could not deny that Harry's obvious scepticism hurt. "Legends have at least a basis in fact," she began but, waspish even to her own ear, she forced herself to take a deep breath. "I know you didn't mean to," she continued in what she hoped was a more even tone, "but after everything we've been through together, everything we've seen, it hurts that you don't trust me with this." She deposited herself at the far end of the mattress and studied her toes.

As quickly as if he had apparated there, Harry scooted the length of the bed and took her hand in his. The sagging mattress forced their thighs together. "I do." She met his eyes and believed him. "You know I do. I trust your hunches more than most people's hard facts. But what you're suggesting ... it's dangerous, Hermione. All the more so because we would be facing so many unknowns.

"Even if we're lucky – " he mimed air quotes with his free hand " – and the diadem is still at Hogwarts, the castle is a fortress now. We'd be walking straight into the Basilisk's lair. "

A smile ghosted across her lips. "Because you've never done that before."

"You're not taking this seriously."

Hermione's nostrils flared beneath the line of her brow. "I can assure you I've never been more serious about anything in all my life. This is our daughter we're talking about."

A beat. "I'm sorry, love." His tone was sincere. "I promise I'm not trying to be deliberately obtuse. I just think it's really important that one of us plays devil's advocate. We're not kids anymore. We can't rely on sheer dumb luck to keep us alive while we run off on a half-cocked theory that just happens to fit the facts. There's too much at stake not to be absolutely certain."

Twin tram tracks wrinkled Hermione's otherwise smooth forehead as her brow climbed towards the pitched ceiling. "When did you get so wise?"

Harry shrugged. "Someone told me that wisdom's nothing more than a wound that's healed." It was not the words so much as the anguish that his eyes held that made her heart ache for him. Loss had made him cautious. She could not blame him; they had lost too many good people and seen many more hurt in the struggle against the darkness already.

"You're right." The words were past her lips almost before she thought of them.

Confusion coloured Harry's features. "Sorry, what?"

"I said you were right."

A beat.

A grin.

"Yeah, I heard you the first time. I just wanted to hear you say it again." He dodged a playful fist to his shoulder and then allowed his brow to hood his eyes again. "Just so we're clear ... what am right about, again?"

Although she felt sure that his ignorance continued to be feigned, Hermione elected to play along: "That this is too important to be wrong about," she told him. "That we should be absolutely sure before we do anything. That we should eliminate all the 'ifs'."

Harry took a moment to push his fringe out of his eyes. "What, now?"

"You had other plans?"

A smile creased the corner of Harry's mouth. "Well, no ... "

"What are we waiting for, then?" Hermione allowed her question to trail away into a deliberate and expectant silence.

Harry adjusted his glasses. A nervous habit. One that meant he was considering his words carefully. "Well," he began after a time, "if we put the question of how to retrieve it to one side for a second, the the first thing I need to know is that you're not getting your hopes up too high. The diadem's not magic – " Harry stopped talking abruptly as the foolishness of his own words registered. He cringed. "Well obviously it is magic," he corrected. "But even magic has limits. There's a very real chance it won't give us any new insight. I need to know that you're not putting all your nifflers in one basket."

Hermione considered his words for a long moment. Objectively she knew he was right – there were absolutely no guarantees – and yet she still could not shake the utter certainty that had taken root within her any more than she could shake the belief that the sun would continue to rise in the east. Whether the diadem enhanced the wearer's own intelligence or else gifted them the wisdom of its creator, Hermione knew – in spite of the distinct lack of empirical evidence to back up her assertion – she knew that the moment she placed Rowena Ravenclaw's creation upon her head it would provide thjem with the answers they so longed for.

"I won't lie to you, Harry," she said after a time. "I am getting my hopes up. But that's only because I know that this will work. I don't know how to explain it – sometimes it feels like the idea isn't even mine – but I've never been more certain about anything in my life. We've got all the pieces; we just need a little help joining the dots."

Startled by an unaccountable sense of claustrophobia, Hermione stood and moved to the window. She placed her hands upon the sill and allowed her gaze to follow her daughter as she joyfully chased Buckbeak around the paddock. A sad smile touched her lips.

"This is Founder's magic we're talking about," she continued. Her voice had lost some of the obvious passion of a moment ago but, to her ear at least, it was all the more powerful for it. "Honestly, if even that's not powerful enough to free Madeleine, then I don't know what is. So yes, Harry, I am pinning all my hopes on this, because to my mind it is our only hope."

Sensing rather than seeing him join her at the window, Hermione turned to Harry. If she expected him to argue his point she was wrong; his eyes held a suffering every bit as deep as hers.

"Good enough for me," he told her simply. "I'm in. But there's still a lot to discuss before we take this to anyone else," he added quickly in response to the flash of hope and gratitude Hermione felt certain had ignited in her eyes.

"Like what?"

In lieu of an immediate reply, Harry took her hand and guided her away from the window. Not back to the bed as she initially suspected, but past it and out into the hallway again. He turned towards the kitchen. "This could take a while," he said. "I reckon we could both use some tea."

"I'm not sure this is the time, Harry."

"If there's one thing that I learned from living with my Aunt and Uncle," he said, pushing aside the kitchen door and flooding the corridor with light, "it's that it is always the right time for tea. Great-Uncle Cecil's past away? Put the kettle on. Uncle Vernon's lost a big contract? Put the kettle on ... "

Involuntarily, Hermione's lips parted into a toothy grin. "My parents are the same."

"Well then," said Harry setting the kettle onto the stove with a flick of his wand, "we're in good company."

He pulled out two chairs and waited for Hermione to select one before seating himself however when he did not immediately pick up the thread of their discussion, Hermione offered him a verbal nudge by repeating her earlier question: "Like what?"

"Like are we sure the diadem works?" he wondered aloud after a moment.

Hermione felt her brow furrow. "I thought we just settled this?"

"Only partially," he replied. "You've told me the diadem – the knowledge it holds – is the key and I believe you, Hermione, truly I do, but have you considered the possibility that the diadem doesn't work anymore?" He placed a significant inflection on the last word. "It was a horcrux, after all."

"Actually I have," she answered, slightly surprised by just how seriously she had already considered every element of her plan given that the entire notion had only occurred to her less than ten minutes ago. "I think we can be very confident that the diadem will still work. You have first hand experience – the Resurrection Stone."

Although he nodded, Harry's eyes had taken on a distant, far way look and Hermione knew he was remembering his last conversation with Remus, Sirius and his parents. She slid her hands across the table top to take his. "And I don't suppose it matters that it's more than a thousand years old either?" he added after a moment.

"I shouldn't think so, no. The magic that protects and imbues Hogwarts is even older still ... "

Harry nodded again but remained silent this time. On the stove the kettle began to whistle. Electing not to use magic, he stood and moved it off the heat. "Which I guess brings us to the trickiest question of all," he announced after placing it on one of the cool rings instead. "How do we get it? We were lucky to escape Hogwarts with our lives the last time we were there. Even if Riddle has it on display in the Great Hall it's not like we can just walk in there and take it."

Whatever response Hermione intended to give died on her lips as a loud bang echoed through the kitchen. Two pairs of eyes swung towards the source.

"Sorry," said Ron. "No hands." He was standing in the open doorway that led to the garden with Madeleine's limp frame draped across his arms. He had evidently used his foot to kick open the door. Hermione's heart seized in her chest but quickly relaxed when she saw that he was smiling.

"One minute she's all go and the next she's virtually asleep on her feet!" he exclaimed. "Never seen anything like it."

Harry quickly covered the space between them and relieved his friend of his burden. "Thanks, mate." But instead of taking Madeleine to the crib tucked into the corner of their bedroom, he carried her to the table where Hermione sat and deposited her into her waiting arms. Hermione flashed him a grateful smile. Clearly he had taken on board what she had told him of her feelings of inadequacy in the lounge earlier.

"So," said Ron, drawing out the single word for several long moments. His blue eyes darted from Hermione to Harry and back again; no longer the teenage boy with the emotional depth of a tea spoon, Ron clearly sensed he had interrupted something important. "I can come back," he concluded, chucking his thumb over his shoulder towards the still open door. "Whitby wanted another pair of hands out in the south orchard ... "

Hermione shared a significant look with Harry and he offered her an almost imperceptible nod in response to her unspoken question: Ron was the best tactician they had; it was time to bring him in to the loop. If there was a way to break into Hogwarts and steal back the diadem, he would find it.

"Actually," began Hermione, shifting Madeleine's dead weight into a slightly more comfortable position in her arms, "there's something we could use your help with ... ."

TBC...

Recap

Chapter Twenty Three – Hermione must reverse the memory charm she placed on her mother is a desperate effort to save her life.

Chapter Twenty Four – With the Grangers' memories whole once more, Harry and Hermione learn the truth of Voldemort's resurrection and Madeleine's role therein. Distraught, it falls to Whitby to offer some words of comfort and encouragement.

Chapter Twenty Five – A year has passed and Harry and Hermione are struggling to find a new normal in the sanctuary they created on the orchard. Although safe, neither have come to terms with their inability to find a way to cure Madeleine.