# The Winter's Rest Inn
The inn crouched at Wintertown's heart like a seasoned conspirator who had learned the value of appearing unremarkable, its timbered frame weathered by decades of northern wind and years of half-spoken bargains conducted in shadowed corners. The Winter's Rest, according to the carved wooden sign that swayed gently in the evening breeze, though Hermione suspected that name meant something more than simple heraldry to the establishment's current occupants.
*How perfectly appropriate,* she thought with a mixture of amusement and apprehension. *Even unconsciously, Harry gravitates toward symbols of nobility and sacrifice. Though I suppose 'The Prancing Pony' was already taken, and 'The Leaky Cauldron' would have been rather too on the nose.*
Smoke curled from the inn's chimney in lazy spirals, thick with the homey scents of roasting mutton and seasoned oak, while lamplight spilled from diamond-paned windows in wavering golden rectangles that painted the surrounding snow in shades of amber and honey. The building itself seemed to pulse with warmth and life, a beacon of civilization against winter's endless siege.
*Everything about this place suggests careful thought,* she observed, her scholar's mind automatically cataloging details even as her heart hammered against her ribs. *Not flashy enough to attract unwanted attention from local authorities, but comfortable enough to justify extended residence. Defensible without appearing fortress-like. The perfect combination of ordinary and extraordinary—exactly what I would choose if I needed to hide in plain sight while maintaining access to information and resources.*
Within the common room, she could sense rather than see the muted pulse of quiet industry. Tankards clinked in rhythm with conversations that rose and fell with the practiced cadence of patrons who understood the difference between privacy and secrecy. This was the sort of establishment where plots ripened like fruit behind shuttered doors, protected not by silence but by the more sophisticated shield of collective discretion.
*A place where strangers could conduct business without drawing comment, where gold changed hands without raising eyebrows, where travelers could disappear into the background noise of commerce and never emerge again,* she catalogued mentally. *Perfect for refugees from another world who needed time to establish new identities and assess local threats.*
She felt Harry before she saw him, his magical signature blazing through the winter air like a lodestone calling to iron. That beacon had sustained her through two days of desperate travel, a constant north star that had never once wavered or dimmed. His magic burned with the same steady, unyielding strength she remembered from their school days—the same warmth that had faced death itself and walked through it unbroken.
*Alive,* she thought, and the word carried seventeen years of desperate hope and carefully suppressed grief. *Here. Real. Not a dream or a delusion born of too many lonely nights and too much wishful thinking. Actually, impossibly, wonderfully alive.*
But she had scarcely taken three steps toward the inn's welcoming glow before another magical presence brushed against her heightened senses like a familiar melody heard across a crowded room. This signature approached from the south with purpose and determination, its resonance achingly recognizable despite the years and worlds that had separated them.
*No.*
She stopped dead in the snow, her heart surging against her ribs with such violence that for a moment she forgot how to breathe. The magical signature drawing closer was impossible, improbable, and absolutely unmistakable.
*It cannot be. The odds against it are astronomical. Luna said we had all crossed over, yes, but the statistical probability of multiple individuals arriving in the same geographic region within the same temporal window is so vanishingly small that—*
*Susan.*
The name formed in her mind like a prayer half-remembered, reverent and disbelieving and shot through with joy so pure it made her vision blur. Susan Bones—loyal to her very bones, brave enough to follow her friends into the shadow of death rather than abandon them to face it alone. The quiet strength that had anchored their entire group during the war's darkest hours. The sort of soul who transformed loyalty from mere sentiment into something approaching the sacred.
*Of course she found him,* Hermione thought, and laughter bubbled up in her chest despite the gravity of the situation. *Of course she's here. Susan Bones, who once tracked a lost first-year through three floors of Hogwarts using nothing but intuition and stubborn determination. If anyone could navigate dimensional barriers and hostile territory to reach Harry Potter, it would be her.*
Her hands trembled as she clutched her conjured cloak tighter, relief warring with apprehension in equal measure. If Susan was here, then the past was not done with them—not by half. What had been scattered like seeds on an uncaring wind could yet be gathered, could yet grow into something stronger than what had come before.
*Or it could be broken beyond any hope of repair,* her practical mind whispered with the sort of ruthless honesty that had kept her alive through war and exile alike. *Seventeen years is a long time. People change. Hearts change. The bonds that sustained us as children might prove inadequate to the complexities of adult desire and adult responsibility.*
Inside the inn, the carefully maintained balance of the evening shifted like tectonic plates grinding against each other. Harry's magical signature flared bright and sharp as a drawn blade—the reflexive response of a man who had survived by learning to sense danger a heartbeat before it struck. Recognition followed, then wary focus, then something that might have been hope if hope weren't such a dangerous luxury for the perpetually hunted.
Through stone and timber and the layered protections of a dozen subtle ward-schemes, Hermione's magically enhanced senses caught fragments of conversation—threads pulled from the larger tapestry of reunion and revelation that was about to unfold within those amber-lit walls.
"—magical signature approaching from the south. Strong. Familiar. I know that resonance, but it's been so long I can barely—"
Harry's voice, rough with emotion and careful control in equal measure. Still recognizable despite the years, still carrying that particular combination of strength and vulnerability that had made her fall in love with him when they were barely more than children playing at war.
Another voice cut in, sharp as winter frost, undeniably female and carrying the distinctive cadence of someone raised in the untamed lands beyond civilization's reach.
"—told them all from the beginning, didn't I? Stupid, hidebound fools who wouldn't recognize fortune if it danced naked in their feast halls—"
*Definitely not from our world,* Hermione noted with the part of her mind that remained coolly analytical even in the midst of emotional crisis. *Local dialect, local references, local attitudes. But speaking as though she has personal investment in Harry's wellbeing. An ally, then. Or perhaps something more.*
A third voice joined the chorus—male, warm, carrying the pleased anticipation of someone who had just glimpsed fate dealing him an unexpectedly favorable hand.
"—and here I thought you were just unusually fortunate with Val and the occasional tavern wench who couldn't resist those mysterious green eyes—"
*Val?* Her mind seized on the unfamiliar name with the lightning speed of a chess grandmaster recognizing a crucial piece's movement. *Not a name from our world, which means either a new identity assumed for local integration, or...*
The possibility that struck her was so elegant, so perfectly suited to Fleur's particular blend of practicality and artistry, that she felt her lips curve in genuine admiration despite her nervousness.
*A mask. A role carefully constructed to provide social position and emotional camouflage while allowing her to remain fundamentally herself. If Fleur has managed to integrate so thoroughly into local society, then there's real hope for all of us. Hope that we might preserve our essential selves without surrendering to whatever this world demands we become.*
Her pulse quickened as Susan's presence drew nearer to the inn's threshold, magical signature sharpening with each step like steel being honed to a killing edge. Inside, the comfortable hum of evening conversation stilled as though the very air were holding its breath, waiting for revelation to shatter the carefully maintained equilibrium of the past seventeen years.
*Here we go,* Hermione told herself, and the sensation was remarkably similar to the morning of her N.E.W.T.s—that peculiar combination of excitement and terror that came from knowing the next few moments might determine the entire trajectory of her future. *Love conquers all, according to the poets. But can it conquer death, time, dimensional barriers, and the sort of romantic complications that would make a Restoration comedy blush? Can it conquer Fleur?*
*Can it conquer my own fear of not being enough?*
The thought arrived unbidden and unwelcome, cutting through her careful confidence like a blade between armor plates. For seventeen years, she had carried the memory of Harry Potter like a sacred flame, never allowing it to dim or fade or become anything less than perfect. But memory was a notoriously unreliable narrator, and the man waiting inside that inn was not the boy she had loved in another world, another lifetime.
*He has changed,* she acknowledged with characteristic honesty. *We all have. The question is whether we have changed in compatible directions, or whether the paths we've walked have led us too far apart to find our way back to each other.*
But Susan would be there beside her, and that steadied her more than she had expected. Two together was immeasurably better than one—not supplication but alliance, not desperate petition but unified front. Proof that she had thought this through, planned it carefully, approached it with the gravity and respect such a momentous reunion deserved.
*And if nothing else,* she thought with a flicker of her old academic humor, *Susan's presence will demonstrate that I'm not some mad stalker who chased romantic fantasies across dimensional boundaries. I'm simply one of several old friends who happened to find themselves in the same impossible situation and chose to handle it with characteristic Gryffindor determination to see things through to their conclusion.*
The inn's door creaked wide on hinges that had seen decades of use, and she felt the flare of recognition ripple through the common room like stones dropped into still water. Susan stepping into that amber warmth, into the circle of lamplight and companionship, into Harry's direct gaze for the first time in seventeen years.
*Now,* Hermione thought, and began walking toward the door with measured steps that belied the chaos of emotion churning beneath her carefully maintained composure. *Now we discover whether fairy tales can survive contact with reality, or whether some stories are too beautiful to survive their own endings.*
She paused just outside the door, one hand on the iron latch, gathering the courage that had carried her through wars and council chambers, through dimensional barriers and the long, lonely years of exile.
*Deep breath. Confidence. Remember: you are bringing answers, not problems. Resources, not burdens. Support, not competition. You are not here to take anything away from what they have built. You are here to add to it, to strengthen it, to help weave something even more beautiful from the threads of what was scattered.*
*If fate insists on scattering us across worlds like seeds on an indifferent wind,* she decided with growing determination, *then I shall demonstrate that I know how to gather those seeds and plant them in soil rich enough to support something stronger and more beautiful than what came before.*
The inn's glow beckoned through diamond-paned windows—warmth and welcome and the promise of reunion, or the fire that would consume every dream she had nurtured through seventeen years of careful hope.
*Either way,* she thought, lifting the latch with steady fingers, *the education will be worth the price of tuition.*
And with that, Hermione Granger—who was and was not Margaery Tyrell, who had crossed worlds for love and would cross them again if necessary—stepped into the light.
—
The door swung open with a creak that seemed to echo through dimensions, and for a heartbeat that stretched toward eternity, the common room held its breath. Amber lamplight spilled across the threshold, illuminating a figure that made every magical signature in the room flare to brilliant life—recognition blazing like Greek fire across impossible distances of time and space.
Hermione Granger stepped into the warmth, her traveling cloak dusted with snow, her cheeks flushed with cold and something deeper. But it was her eyes that commanded attention—brilliant with intelligence and fierce determination, holding depths that spoke of two lifetimes lived and lessons learned in the hardest possible ways.
"Harry," she said, and the single word carried seventeen years of accumulated love, loss, and the sort of desperate hope that had carried her across dimensional barriers and through the shadow of death itself.
For a moment that felt like standing at the edge of a precipice, Harry Potter—Hadrian to this world, but always and forever Harry to the people who had known him when—simply stared. His emerald eyes moved across her face with the intensity of someone memorizing something precious that might vanish at any moment, cataloging every familiar feature transformed by time and circumstance.
"Hermione." Her name escaped his lips like a prayer answered by gods he'd stopped believing in. "Bloody hell, how—?"
He stopped, his voice breaking on words too large for human language to contain. But his feet had already begun moving, carrying him across the common room with the sort of desperate haste that belonged to someone who had learned not to trust in miracles until he could touch them with his own hands.
"We followed you," Hermione said simply, her voice warm with the sort of matter-of-fact affection that had once driven their professors to distraction. "What did you expect us to do? Let you face whatever cosmic impossibility had claimed you without backup? Let you try to save another world entirely on your own? Really, Harry, after seven years of friendship, you should know us better than that."
The collision when they met was not graceful—desperate rather than elegant, fierce rather than pretty. Harry's arms closed around her with the sort of crushing intensity that belonged to someone who had learned to hold tight to everything precious because the universe had a tendency to steal such things away without warning.
And Hermione, brilliant Hermione who had always been more practical than romantic, who had spent years maintaining careful emotional distance from the boy who belonged to someone else entirely, finally allowed herself the luxury of simply holding on.
"I missed you," she whispered against his shoulder, and the admission held seventeen years of loneliness carefully concealed behind scholarly dedication and political maneuvering. "God, Harry, I missed you until it felt like missing a limb. Missing breath. Missing something so fundamental to who I am that I forgot how to be whole without it."
"I know," he murmured into her hair, which still smelled faintly of parchment and determination despite her travels. "Merlin, I know. There were nights when I would have traded everything—power, position, whatever destiny this world had planned for me—just to have one more conversation with you about some obscure bit of magical theory that nobody else would understand."
From across the room, Fleur watched this reunion with an expression that was complex beyond simple description. Joy blazed in her blue eyes—genuine, unfeigned delight at seeing someone she had also mourned returned to life and love. But beneath that warmth lay something sharper, more cautious. The wariness of someone who had claimed a prize worth dying for and now found herself faced with others who might contest that claim.
*But I am not a child,* she thought with the hard-won wisdom of someone who had survived far too much to be broken by romantic complications, however cosmic in scope. *And neither is she. We are women who have loved the same extraordinary man across impossible circumstances. Which makes this delicate, yes—but not impossible.*
"Mon Dieu," she said, her voice carrying warmth that was not quite forced, curiosity that was entirely genuine. "Even after crossing between worlds themselves, the people who love him still find their way to his side. There is something almost... inevitable about it, non?"
Hermione lifted her head from Harry's shoulder—reluctantly, but with the sort of graceful dignity that spoke to both natural breeding and hard-won political sophistication. When she turned to face Fleur, her expression was carefully calibrated: warm enough to invite friendship, respectful enough to acknowledge prior claims, confident enough to suggest that she was not easily intimidated by beauty or power or the sort of supernatural allure that made strong men weak.
"Fleur," she said, and the name was spoken with the sort of reverent affection usually reserved for saints or sisters. "I should have known. Of course you found him first. Of course you're here, at his side, exactly where you belong." Her smile was radiant, transforming her entire face from merely pretty to something approaching luminous. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am that he found you."
The response was so unexpected, so utterly contrary to every defensive instinct that Fleur had been preparing, that for a moment she could only stare. Where she had braced herself for rivalry, she found celebration. Where she had expected territorial assertion, she encountered gracious acknowledgment. Where she had feared confrontation, she discovered... alliance?
"I..." Fleur began, then stopped, her usual composure faltering in the face of Hermione's radiant joy. "You are not... angry? Jealous? I thought... that is, when Susan spoke of how you felt about Harry..."
"Angry?" Hermione's laughter was silver-bright, musical with genuine amusement. "Fleur, you beautiful, impossible woman, why would I be angry about the single most wonderful thing that could have happened to the man I love more than life itself? You made him happy. You gave him what I never could. You loved him with the sort of complete devotion that most people only dream of, and you proved it by literally dying for him."
She stepped closer, her hands reaching out to clasp Fleur's with the sort of sisterly warmth that transcended romantic complications entirely. "Thank you. Thank you for being everything he needed, everything he deserved. Thank you for loving him enough to cross worlds for him."
Fleur felt tears prick at her eyes—an unprecedented loss of composure that spoke to just how thoroughly Hermione's response had disarmed every defense she'd prepared. "But... but you love him too. I can see it, feel it radiating from you like warmth from a fire. How can you be grateful when my presence prevents—"
"Prevents what?" Hermione interrupted gently, her tone carrying the sort of patient wisdom that belonged to someone who had learned hard truths about the nature of love through years of careful observation. "Prevents me from forcing Harry to choose between people he cares about? Prevents me from demanding that he abandon the woman who has stood beside him through thick and thin for the sake of someone who failed to confess her feelings when it might have mattered?"
She shook her head, copper curls catching the lamplight like captured fire. "Fleur, love isn't a zero-sum game. It doesn't diminish through sharing, doesn't weaken through division. If anything, it grows stronger when it's supported by others who understand its value. Harry has enough heart for all of us—the question isn't whether there's room, but whether we're wise enough to recognize that room when we see it."
From his position beside the fireplace, Tormund Giantsbane let out a bark of laughter that rattled the inn's ancient timbers. "By all the old gods and new, I knew I should have started following this lad years ago! Any man who can inspire this level of devotion from women willing to cross death itself just to find him again... that's the sort of leader who could unite the clans, tame the Others, and probably teach the ravens to speak proper Common Tongue while he's at it!"
"Tormund," Hadrian said with fond exasperation, though he couldn't quite hide his grin, "this is possibly the worst possible moment for your commentary on my allegedly irresistible charm."
"Worst moment? Are you mad, boy?" Tormund's eyes gleamed with delight. "This is the best entertainment I've had since that time I convinced three rival chieftains that they were all destined to marry the same woman! Though I'll admit, your version has more magic and fewer axes. Less immediately dangerous, more cosmically significant."
Ygritte, meanwhile, had watched this entire exchange with the sort of bewildered fascination usually reserved for natural disasters or court proceedings conducted entirely in foreign languages. Her grey eyes moved from Harry to Hermione to Fleur and back again, as though she were trying to solve a puzzle whose pieces kept changing shape.
"So let me understand this properly," she said with the careful precision of someone navigating conversational territory that might explode without warning, "you're all from this other world where Hadrian was some sort of war hero, and you all loved him enough to follow him through actual death, and now you're all here reuniting like it's some sort of cosmic tea party? And nobody's trying to kill anyone else over him?"
"Well," Hermione said with academic precision, "the evening is still young."
Hadrian shot her a look that was equal parts horrified and amused. "That's not helping, Hermione."
"I'm not trying to help, Harry. I'm trying to be accurate." Her grin was pure mischief, the expression of someone who had always found genuine humor in the absurdities of their extraordinary circumstances. "Though I will say, Fleur's reaction has been far more gracious than I had any right to hope for. I was prepared for considerably more... territorial negotiation."
"Territorial negotiation," Fleur repeated with growing amusement, her initial wariness beginning to give way to something that might have been genuine fondness. "You make it sound like a diplomatic summit rather than romantic complication."
"Isn't it both?" Hermione replied with that particular blend of innocence and intelligence that had once made Professor McGonagall shake her head in despair. "Politics is just romance with higher stakes and better documentation. And this..." She gestured broadly at the impossible situation they'd found themselves in, "this is definitely high-stakes territory."
"Politics, romance, cosmic impossibility," Susan said from her position near the door, her voice carrying the dry humor that had once made her such a welcome presence during their darkest moments. "Really, it's just another Tuesday for Harry Potter. Though I'll admit the dimensional travel aspect adds a certain novelty to the proceedings."
"Susan," Hermione breathed, spinning toward the door with an expression of pure delight. "Oh, thank God. I was hoping... I sensed you approaching, but I wasn't sure... How long have you been standing there?"
"Long enough to witness Hermione Granger deliver what may be the most diplomatically sophisticated romantic concession speech in the history of interdimensional relations," Susan replied, stepping fully into the circle of lamplight with a smile that transformed her entire face. "Though I have to say, your technique was flawless. Acknowledge prior claims, establish non-threatening intentions, frame cooperation as mutual benefit rather than compromise. Machiavelli would weep with pride."
"I learned from the best," Hermione said with a slight bow that was pure Margaery Tyrell—graceful, self-aware, and just theatrical enough to acknowledge the absurdity of conducting political analysis on romantic situations. "Though I suspect the real test of my diplomatic skills is yet to come."
"The real test?" Harry asked, though something in his expression suggested he already suspected the answer.
"The others," Susan said simply. "Daphne, Padma, Luna. They're here too, scattered across this world like seeds on the wind. And if our experiences are any indication, they'll find their way to you eventually. The only question is whether they'll arrive individually over the course of months, or show up all at once in some sort of cosmic convergence that would make probability theorists weep."
The silence that followed was profound—not the comfortable quiet of people at ease with each other, but the breathless stillness that preceded either triumph or catastrophe, depending on one's perspective and capacity for optimism.
"All of them," Hadrian said finally, his voice carrying wonder and terror in equal measure. "Everyone who walked through the Veil. Everyone I thought I'd lost forever. They're all here, in this world, alive and whole and..."
"And heading straight for you like lodestones seeking north," Hermione confirmed with characteristic precision. "Really, Harry, did you expect anything else? We've already established that death itself was insufficient to keep us separated. A few thousand miles of hostile territory and unfamiliar politics hardly represent insurmountable obstacles after that."
Fleur laughed—a sound like silver bells touched with fire, warm and bright and utterly without malice. "Mon Dieu, Harry. Even in another world entirely, you cannot escape your destiny as the man who inspires impossible devotion in extraordinary women. It is almost... how do you say... cosmically ridiculous."
"I prefer 'cosmically blessed,'" Tormund interjected with his usual diplomatic subtlety. "Though I'll admit, the logistics are going to be interesting. Where exactly does one house five brilliant women who've crossed death itself for love of the same man? Because I'm thinking we're going to need larger accommodations. And probably a detailed schedule for personal time. And maybe professional mediators standing by, just in case."
"Tormund," Hadrian said with the long-suffering patience of someone who had learned that his friend's mouth came equipped with neither filter nor off switch, "you are absolutely not helping with the logistics."
"Of course I am! I'm providing practical considerations that the rest of you are too romantically addled to think about properly!" Tormund's grin widened. "Besides, someone needs to point out that this inn, comfortable as it is, wasn't designed to accommodate interdimensional romantic reunions involving multiple parties and potentially conflicting claims of affection. We're going to need a bigger venue. Preferably one with thicker walls and better soundproofing."
The look of absolute horror that crossed Hadrian's face at that particular implication made everyone else in the room—even Ygritte—dissolve into laughter that was equal parts amusement and hysteria.
"And on that note," Hadrian said with desperate determination to regain some semblance of control over the evening's proceedings, "perhaps we should focus on more immediate concerns. Like the fact that we have interdimensional refugees who need food, shelter, and probably some sort of plan for integration into a world that doesn't know they exist."
"Already handled," Hermione said with the brisk efficiency that had once made her the most organizationally competent person in their entire year. "Well, partially handled. I've secured adequate funding through... creative resource acquisition... and I have some preliminary ideas about what the next steps should be. Though I'll admit, my plans assumed I'd be working independently rather than as part of a... collective effort."
"Creative resource acquisition," Susan repeated with obvious amusement. "That's what we're calling theft now?"
"It's not theft when you're redistributing assets from people who acquired them through systematic exploitation of the powerless," Hermione replied with the sort of moral certainty that had once made Professor McGonagall simultaneously proud and deeply concerned about her ethical flexibility. "It's justice with accounting irregularities."
"Justice with accounting irregularities," Fleur murmured, her voice rich with appreciation. "I like that. It has a certain... poetic quality to it."
"Poetry aside," Hadrian said with growing amusement despite the cosmic complexity of their situation, "we should probably discuss coordination. If the others are coming—and apparently they are—we need to ensure we're prepared for arrivals that might be less... diplomatically sophisticated than this one has been."
"Less diplomatically sophisticated?" Susan asked with raised eyebrows. "You mean there are approaches to this situation that involve more chaos than what we've already witnessed?"
Hadrian's expression grew thoughtful, tinged with the sort of fond exasperation that belonged to someone who had spent years dealing with people whose capacity for creating complications exceeded their ability to solve them. "Well, Daphne has always preferred the direct approach to complex negotiations. And Luna... Luna operates according to her own internal logic that rarely aligns with conventional cause-and-effect relationships. As for Padma..."
"Padma thinks everything can be solved through proper research and systematic analysis," Hermione finished with sisterly understanding. "Which would be wonderful if we were dealing with academic problems rather than cosmic romantic complications involving interdimensional travel and potentially conflicting emotional claims."
"So what you're saying," Tormund observed with gleeful anticipation, "is that things are about to get considerably more interesting than they already are? Because I have to tell you, from where I'm sitting, this evening has already provided enough entertainment value to last most men several lifetimes."
"Things," Hadrian said with the weary certainty of someone who had learned to recognize the patterns of his own existence, "are about to become absolutely bloody ridiculous. And knowing our luck, they'll manage to do it in the most inconvenient and publicly visible way possible."
"Well then," Fleur said with a smile that was equal parts anticipation and determination, "I suppose we'd better prepare accordingly. After all, if we're going to be part of a cosmic romantic comedy involving interdimensional travel and multiple competing claims of affection, we might as well do it with style, sophistication, and sufficient preparation to ensure everyone survives the experience with their dignity intact."
"Their dignity intact?" Ygritte asked with skeptical amusement. "Have you met these people? Dignity was abandoned somewhere around the point where they decided to follow a man through actual death just to continue being part of his story."
"Fair point," Susan conceded with a grin. "Though I prefer to think of it as commitment rather than abandonment of dignity. We're simply... very thorough in our approach to friendship."
"Very thorough friendship that involves crossing dimensional barriers and defying the fundamental nature of mortality itself," Hermione added helpfully. "One might call it dedication to excellence in personal relationships."
Hadrian looked around the room at the faces of people who had, apparently, loved him enough to transcend death itself just to find him again, and felt something that might have been humility if it weren't so thoroughly mixed with terror, gratitude, and the growing certainty that his life was about to become exponentially more complicated than it had been that morning.
"Right then," he said with the sort of determined cheer that had once carried him through Dark Lords, Ministry conspiracies, and public relations disasters that would have broken lesser men, "I suppose we'd better start planning for the others' arrivals. Because if there's one thing I've learned from knowing all of you, it's that proper preparation is the difference between manageable chaos and complete catastrophe."
"And sometimes," Susan added with the wisdom of someone who had survived years of Harry Potter's adventures, "proper preparation is what allows you to appreciate the catastrophe properly rather than simply enduring it."
As laughter filled the room—warm and bright and utterly at odds with the cosmic impossibility of their situation—none of them could have predicted that their relatively controlled reunion was about to be complicated by the arrival of someone whose approach to interdimensional romance would make their current situation seem like a model of restraint and careful planning.
But then again, when had any of their stories ever unfolded according to reasonable expectations?
The evening was young, and in the distance, three other signatures were beginning their final approach toward what was about to become the most chaotic and wonderful and absolutely impossible reunion in the history of multiple worlds.
Some stories, it seemed, really were too good to be contained by a single dimension.
---
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