Naima Becker awoke. The sun was shining through the single window in her room and rays of it fell across her face. She sat up, yawned and looked around, the straw tick that was her mattress rustling quietly beneath her. Why hadn’t her mother woken her up? It was late; the sun was already above the horizon. Usually Naima’s mother would have her up before dawn to help make breakfast or fluff up the straw ticks and make the beds.
Yawning again, Naima got out of bed and hurried across her room to the small closet. The floor was bitter cold and it stung her feet. Naima pulled out a clean dress, pulled off her nightdress and tugged her everyday clothes on, along with an apron and boots, before hurrying down the stairs to look for her mother. Strangely, she was nowhere to be found. Not in the kitchen, the sewing room or her bed room. In fact she didn’t seem to be in the house at all.
Naima frowned, feeling a little nervous in the silent house. Where could Mother be? she thought as she tugged on a coat and yanked the front door open. A chill wind met her as she stepped outside, slapping her cheeks and bringing tears to her eyes.
It was a clear, bright morning. Naima could hear birds twittering in the trees near the house. The snow had all but melted and a few blades of grass were beginning to pop out of the earth. Naima sincerely hoped that another frost would not come and kill all the feebly blossoming greenery as had been happening over the past few days. Clear mornings did not mean it could not snow.
Samantha was nowhere to be seen. She was not near the stables (though there was no reason for her to be there “ the stable was empty this winter) or around the back of the house. Just when Naima was about to go back inside, deciding that her mother had probably gone to town for some provisions (perhaps they had been running out?) and that it was too cold to wait for her outside, she heard footsteps.
The girl’s heart jumped into her throat. She had forgotten her bat inside even though her father had told her never to leave the house without it. And now someone had snuck up behind her and she had no protection and no mother to call to for help. The footsteps were close now, but Naima couldn’t bring herself to turn away from the front door and find out who had arrived. Her eyes were scrunched closed and her feet refused to move. She wanted to run inside and bolt the door behind her, but she couldn’t move.
‘Naima, there you are!’
Naima let out a cry, but it was a cry of joy. There was no robber or kidnapper or murderer sneaking up on her! It was only her mother, only her dear, loving, sweet mother. Naima turned around and gave her mum a big hug.
‘Mother!’ she cried. ‘Where have you been? I was worried!’
Samantha laughed softly. ‘Dear, you sound like the mother scolding her naughty daughter. I only went up to the village to meet some people. There was no need to worry.’
Naima, still hugging her mother and breathing in her lovely perfume, nodded. ‘I know. I couldn’t help it though.’
Samantha laughed again, and then gently pulled away from her daughter. ‘Come now my dear. We’ll have some breakfast and then you and I must visit Salem Village together. There is something we must take care of. I think it is finally time.’
Naima looked up at her mother, a curious look on her pretty face.
Immediately after breakfast they set out, bundled up in coats and scarves and mittens and heavy boots. Naima felt like a snowman in all the layers and when the wind brought tears to her eyes, she could barely bend her arm to wipe her face. She couldn’t understand why they were going to Salem Village if Samantha had just returned from there. Even when she asked her mother what she had meant by, “It is finally time”, Samantha would only answer that Naima would see soon enough.
Walking alongside her mother, Naima wondered why she (Samantha) was acting so strange. She was usually so careful in everything she did, always graceful and elegant, and never showing too much emotion. Today though she seemed… excited and jumpy. Like a child with a new toy. She had spilled some white sugar on the floor while making breakfast but she hadn’t even bothered picking it up. White sugar was so expensive that even a small amount couldn’t be wasted, her mother knew that! So what was the matter suddenly? Why had Samantha been in such a hurry?
Even now, walking down the path to Salem Village, Samantha was half running and Naima had to hurry to keep up.
The moment they reached Salem Naima realized that something was wrong, or maybe it was just different. Near the outskirts of the village there was a crater in the earth. Someone had been digging and digging hard. The hole was huge, it could have fitted Naima’s bedroom inside it. Next to the pit was a large mound of dirt. As Naima walked past it she peered down into the depths of the crater and was surprised to see that besides dirt and rock, there seemed to be a long, black, rough-looking sleeping gown lying tangled in pieces of polished wood. What was going on? Who had been digging here and why? Naima had visited Salem Village only a week ago. The hole hadn’t been dug then…
Turning to her mother, Naima was about to demand that she be told what was happening. Then she realized where Samantha was headed. Her mother was walking, no she was practically running (and dragging Naima along with her), to Gallows Hill.
Naima stopped in her tracks and yanked her hand out of her mother’s grasp, hoping that Samantha would stop, but it did little good. Samantha was hurrying up to Gallows Hill where the gallows had already been setup. Naima’s eyes widened in horror.
They were going to execute someone.
No, she didn’t want to be here anymore. Naima stepped backwards. She didn’t want to see a hanging, she didn’t want to and she wouldn’t! But it was like she was rooted to the spot. All she could do know was stare. And wonder what was going on and why everyone was acting so strange.
Samantha had reached the gallows and Naima could hear her yelling.
‘What are you doing you fools?!’ she shrieked to two men standing by the gallows. A chill went down Naima’s spine. She had never heard her mother speak like that.
The two men, one of whom Naima recognized to be Magistrate Hawthorn and the other a shopkeeper named Elias Adams, looked a little surprised to see Samantha angry.
‘We’re getting ready to hang the boy,’ explained Hawthorn calmly.
‘I never gave you orders to hang him!’ said Samantha furiously, striding up to the two men. Both of them seemed to shrink as she approached them. In spite of herself, Naima moved closer to hear what they were saying.
‘You said we would get rid of him. That’s what we’re doing,’ muttered Adams, looking at the ground.
Those words seemed to calm Samantha down and she nodded, taking a deep breath. ‘Yes, I did say we would get rid of him. But not like this. He shall die at the hands of my daughter.’
It took Naima ten seconds to figure out what her mother meant and when it finally registered her whole body went ice-cold. Her mother was going to make her kill someone.
‘Bring him out,’ Samantha said, and Naima tore herself away from her thoughts to see what was happening, as her heart hammered in her chest, trying to beat itself dead.
‘He still hasn’t come to yet,’ said Hawthorn but one cold look from Samantha made him turn and call to three people standing nearby. Two were women and one a man. ‘Bring him!’ he yelled to them and all three nodded and hurried away.
Bring who?! screamed Naima’s brain, Bring who?!
‘So Miss Becker is going to kill the boy?’ asked Hawthorn as they waited, walking up to Naima. ‘Is she even up to it?’ he added scathingly, having walked a circle around the girl, scrutinizing her as if she was a horse he was looking to buy.
Samantha frowned. ‘We shall soon see.’ Naima looked up at her mother, pleading, begging with her eyes. Please, I can’t… don’t make me… you know I can’t!
But Samantha either didn’t understand or wouldn’t listen. She just looked back at her daughter with firmness in her eyes and then turned to face the direction in which the two women and the man had disappeared. Naima turned too and she realized she could hear yells and sounds of scuffling. The women and man soon came into view, forcefully dragging someone forward. Naima squinted.
They were carrying a man with black hair. He was fighting with all his heart, digging his heels into the earth, kicking out at his captors. One of the women grabbed his hair from the back of his head and pulled hard. Simultaneously, the man cried out and Naima gasped.
That man was a boy. A boy Naima knew.
‘Harry!’ she whispered in horror. NO!
She would not kill him, never! She couldn’t!
Naima turned, ready to run away, but she slammed right into Hawthorn. She looked into his face and he stared back down at her with cold brown eyes. He grabbed her shoulders and spun her around, back to the unfolding scene. His grasp was firm and he didn’t let her go even when she struggled to pull out of his grip.
The man and two women had deposited Harry at Samantha’s feet. His legs were folded underneath him and his hands were bound behind his back. The man who had gone along to get Harry was, Naima recognized, Christopher Andrews the local shopkeeper. He had a fist full of Harry’s hair in his right hand, pulling so that the boy was forced to look up at Samantha. His right foot was on the poor boy’s back, pressing down hard so that Harry wouldn’t be able to move.
‘So,’ said Samantha to Harry, and she let that “so” hang in the air. In the sudden silence, Naima heard the soft sounds of happy chatter and morning brightness. A few birds chirped and a pigeon cooed. People living in the nearby houses were waking. Delicious smells floated into the area. A few children hurried out of their warm homes, bundled up tightly, and stood staring at Samantha, Harry and the others on Gallows Hill.
‘”So” what?’ Harry snarled at her. He wiggled around a bit, trying to get out of Mr. Andrews’s iron grip but the man gave his hair another yanks and with a cry Harry became still again. Naima moved a few steps forward, staring at her friend.
He looked different. The last time she had seen him he had looked healthy, well-fed and happy. Now he looked sickly as if he had been ill for a very long time. The bones in his face were clearer than usual and he had deep, dark bags under his eyes. There was dirt in his black hair and his clothes, which were honestly more like rags, were coated with grime. More than that, there was something about him… something surrounding him. Like an aura of grief and despair that Naima could almost see.
‘So,’ said Samantha again and this time she continued her sentence, ‘I think it is time we finally got rid of you Mr. Potter.’
‘I’m sure you’ll try,’ spat out Harry, a look of pure hatred etched on his face.
Samantha seemed to find this remark amusing. ‘Oh, no, I won’t try. But my daughter will. And she will probably succeed but if she doesn’t… well, we have an entire village to help “do you in”, as they say.’
She turned as she said this, looking out over Gallows Hill towards the shops and houses that made up Salem Village. Harry, Naima, Mr. Andrews and the rest of the group followed her gaze.
People were approaching Gallows Hill from all sides. All the folks who lived in or near Salem Village seemed to be gathering. Men, women and children alike were hurrying forwards. The sounds of quiet, interested chatter could be easily heard. Out of the corner of her eye Naima spotted Mary Easty a lady from Topsfield, and one of the women who had run to fetch Harry, rejoin the group on Gallows Hill. She must have run door to door, calling all the families out.
The crowd seemed a normal group of people. The elderly men and women held walking sticks and were bundled up in layers of thick shawls. The children looked like mini-snowmen, with their thick coats and hates, packed up so efficiently that only their noses could be seen clearly, already red with the cold. As Naima watched, the children and a few of the elderly were gently shunted to the back of the crowd while the able adults all stepped forward and formed a rough circle around Gallows Hill. It was like they had all come to watch a slightly dangerous funfair, from the way they were talking and smiling and the way they had pushed back the children. The only strange thing, what made everything that was happening even worse, was that every single adult in the circle was holding ready a smooth, long stick of polished wood.
A wand.
Samantha smiled down at Harry. Smiled at the look of pure shock on his face. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘isn’t it wonderful?’
‘What have you done?’ whispered Harry.
Samantha laughed. Laughed! Naima stared up at her mother. She loved her mother’s pure, joyful laughter. Perhaps things weren’t so bad after all? Her mother was, at least, sure of herself and Naima’s abilities. Even if Naima herself wasn’t.
‘I confess, I thought you cleverer, Harry,’ said Samantha. ‘Has history taught you nothing? Don’t you read? I’m sure history will be made to day. Today’s events will form the future… so how can you not understand?’
Naima saw Harry look at Samantha, confusion clear in his emerald colored eyes. He opened his mouth to say something but Samantha beat him to it.
‘Oh, yes, I know where you come from. That is why I am surprised… you know so little. Have you no idea what Salem is, what we have made it, what it has become?
Harry still looked confused.
Samantha seemed to find this tiring. ‘Hmm,’ she murmured softly and then sighed and waved her hand. ‘Take him away. I’ll give him five minutes to… “prepare”, while I talk to Naima.’
Mr. Andrews lifted Harry to his feet and was about to drag the boy away, when Harry shouted something to Samantha. ‘Prepare for what?’
This seemed to surprise Samantha. ‘Why, for the end, of course!’
And Mr. Andrews, cutting a path through the crowd of witches and wizards surrounding Gallows Hill, dragged Harry back in the direction he had come from just an hour ago.
Samantha walked up to Naima, a genuinely happy smile on her beautiful face.
‘Well Naima,’ she said, putting a finger to her daughter’s cheek. ‘Are you ready?’
Naima, still shocked from what had occurred in the last hour, took sometime to answer. When she finally looked up at her mother it was with an air of uncertainty.
‘Mother, why “?’ she began but Samantha cut her off.
‘My dear, I am sorry. I didn’t tell you what was happening in Salem because I did not want you to feel… as if you were under pressure. I felt, that if you knew, just a few miles away Salem Village was filled with many able witches and wizards… well what would you have done?’
‘I wouldn’t have been able to learn anything,’ admitted Naima in a soft voice, looking at the number of people gathered around Gallows Hill.
‘Exactly,’ said Samantha briskly. ‘You do let your feelings get away with you, my dear. I was sure you would have worried to no end and stressed yourself needlessly, thinking you could never be as good as any of them.’ Samantha motioned towards the crowd of wizards and witches. ‘I couldn’t have that. You needed to learn things and understand and practice to become the best. And the best is what I wanted you to be. And the best is what you are.
Naima gazed up at her mother skeptically. ‘Mother to this day, I have never been able to do a spell.’
‘No,’ acceded Samantha, ‘but there is a first time for everything.’ She smiled and handed her daughter a wand. ‘You’ve learnt all there is to know. And you never know, perhaps pressure is what you need to do a spell.’
There was a moment of silence between mother and daughter as Naima gathered her thoughts, gazing around slowly. Perhaps her mother was right. Some people did perform better under pressure. She had read about it countless times. Everyone had thought Uruk the Great was a Squib until a group of Chimeras had ganged up on him. He managed to kill all of them, losing only an arm and a leg. It was possible for magical prowess to remain hidden until the right time. But Naima was still uncertain and the prospect of dueling in front of what looked like all the wizards and witches from Salem and all the nearby villages still gave her the jitters. Or maybe what was giving her jitters was the fact that he mother expected her to kill Harry.
Naima sighed and then said in a small voice, ‘Mother… I can’t kill him.’
Samantha was silent in turn, frowning thoughtfully at her daughter. Finally she spoke, her voice gentle but serious. ‘I think, my dear, it is time I put it into clear words for you.
‘In this world you have a choice between two things. To do what is right for you, your family and you’re people… or to do something that will not aid your people. Your people being wizard-kind everywhere and in every time. Sometimes doing the former will mean hurting a loved one. Sometimes it will mean seeing someone in pain. Sometimes it will mean killing a friend or an acquaintance. The question is, my dear, when the time comes, which is more important? Which do you choose? Isn’t the loss of a life here or there acceptable, if all that life is doing by living is harming its own people? He is a wizard but he does not want us to become strong, to be free. I want you to have everything you deserve. I want witches and wizards alike to have everything they deserve. And they deserve strength and freedom! I am working to give our people what they want: a life where they do not have to hide their beautiful gifts from anyone. Freedom to practice their magic whenever and wherever they want. To be open about their uniqueness. I work to give your children and your children’s children a chance to live a life in a time when they rule. Where they are powerful. Where they can prosper. He, Harry, comes from the future. You know this. He lives in a world, during a time when wizard-kind no longer has to hide around muggles because there are no muggles. And what does he do? What do him and his friends do? They come here to change that life. They become traitors to their kind, all for their own selfish reasons!
‘So in the end, who do you choose Naima? Your mother or a traitor? Me or him?’
Again, silence. Thick, palatable silence.
‘You,’ said Naima finally, knowing that all her mother was saying was true. How could it not be?
‘Yes,’ said her mother, smiling. ‘Because we know right from wrong. Good from bad. Truth from lies.’
With that Samantha patted her young daughter’s head and said, ‘Well, I must see to the boy. Be prepared dear. I’m sure today you’ll manage to pull of a curse.’
Naima smiled slightly and watched her mother leave, walking gracefully through the mob around Gallows Hill. Her smile faded after a moment. Naima was sure her mother’s final words to her were meant to be encouraging but somehow… to her… they had sounded very much like a threat.
While Naima and Samantha began their talk, Christopher Andrews was hauling Harry back to the small abandoned barn full of moldy hay that Harry had awoken in a few hours earlier.
Keeping a firm grip on Harry, Andrews untied the hands around his wrists, slammed the boy against the long, rectangular support post of the barn and retied his hands behind the post. Bringing out another length of rope he used it to secure Harry to the beam. Then he turned away and left the barn.
Harry was finally left to his own thoughts. The last few hours had been filled with hectic activity, so much so that there hadn’t even been room to think. Everything was so different from what it had been earlier, when he had Apparated into Salem Village.
Harry simply couldn’t understand it. Samantha had managed to trap him perfectly. When their secret meeting place had caved in, Harry hadn’t had the time to think, let alone utter a life-saving spell. By all rights, he was dead the second the whole thing had collapsed. So why on God’s green earth had Samantha gone to the trouble of digging him out of his readymade grave?
It made even less sense when he considered that she was now going to kill him anyway. Or at least, Naima was.
Naima was another thing. From all the talk it seemed that she was a witch. So why hadn’t she mentioned it before, when Harry, Ron and Hermione had been staying with her?
And what the hell was happening in Salem? How was it suddenly full of witches and wizards and why did Samantha expect him, Harry, to understand what was happening? She knew he was from the future, fine, but so what?
Salem had no history of being a magical settlement. No written history, at least.
Harry blinked in sudden realization.
No written history.
All this time, since the beginning, Harry had been sure that he and Hermione and Ron had been changing Salem’s history, New England’s history. He had wondered endlessly why the American Ministry of Magic had not “caught them in the act”, why it had not realized that three time-travelers from the future were wreaking havoc in Salem.
All along the clear answer had been staring him in the face, he had even speculated upon it once, but had brushed the idea away because it was ludicrous. Impossible. It went against everything he knew.
The only reason for everything happening and this sudden lack of Ministry activity was that they, Harry, Ron and Hermione, had not changed history. And now he, Harry, was not changing history.
This was they was it was supposed to be!
Salem had no written history of ever being a magical community… what if history had purposely been written in a way that would ensure that no one ever realized what had really occurred. Not muggles and not wizards and witches.
Harry frowned slightly. All of it now made sense… all of it was completely possible. All but the part about not allowing wizard-kind to know the truth about Salem. There was no danger in witches and wizards knowing that Salem had once been crawling with magical people. But they didn’t know. Why the concealment? Why hide a magical Salem from witches and wizards?
Harry would’ve thought more about it but just then the barn door opened. A rush of cold wind entered the room and Harry felt goosebumps erupt all over his arms and naked torso. His body reflexively wanted him to curl up into a small ball to conserve heat but being bound to a wooden beam, this was impossible. Trying to control his chattering teeth, Harry looked up to see who had entered, full prepared to shower abuse on Samantha Becker if it happened to be her who had come in.
But it wasn’t Samantha Becker who had walked into the barn, looking furtively behind her as she closed the door to make sure she hadn’t been followed, before staring at Harry with a reprimanding but relieved and joyful look in her chocolate colored brown eyes.
It was Hermione Granger.
Harry’s mouth fell open. He stared at Hermione. Her bushy brown hair, her chocolate colored eyes, the way she walked toward him, the way she held herself, the clothes she was wearing, all of it was Hermione. She looked almost exactly the same as she looked the day she had been hanged. The only difference was her expression: she looked happy, not panicky or frightened or hopeless.
Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Images of what had happened the last time he had seen her kept flashing through his mind. The Gallows, the rowdy jeering of the crowds, Hermione telling him she didn’t want to die… he remembered looking up into her face, seeing the blue and black and purple blotches all over her skin after she had been hanged “ he even felt the horrible revulsion he had felt then.
But here she was, standing in front of him, whole and unscathed, her eyes bright and not lifeless and her skin clear. Harry stared and stared and the absurdity of the situation slammed into him, and he felt like his mind had gone numb with the shock of seeing one of his dead best friends standing in front of him “ alive. But still he actually believed it. Believed that Hermione Granger was alive and well and standing in front of him. A million and one emotions were fighting for control of his brain. Anger and shock and grief and guilt. His first instinct was to look around Hermione to see “ naively, gullibly “ if Ron was behind her. If she was alive, why couldn’t he be? But there was no Ron behind her, no red-head grinning at him, and Harry’s heart sank because at that moment seeing Ron and Hermione together in front of him would have been a breath of fresh air. His second instinct was to ask how she was alive “ how she came to be here. His third instinct was to apologize, to beg her to forgive him because it was his fault she was dead and if he had only thought about everything that had happened and acted correctly she wouldn’t have died. And then he saw her and realized she wasn’t dead at all and it finally hit home. None of this was possible. The ridiculousness of it all had been troubling him from the second he recognized Hermione and now he acknowledged it. Hermione couldn’t be here “ but she was “ was he going mad?
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head, laughing a laugh that was more a sob. ‘No, you died! This isn’t possible. Go away, go away!’
But she “ the ghost, the apparition, the delusion “ didn’t go away. She moved closer to him and hugged him and patted his back like Hermione would have done if she had been alive. And Harry could feel her hand on his back, feel her clothes scraping against his bare skin through the tattered strips of his clothes. It was real. I’m going mad, thought Harry and he struggled against Hermione’s grasp as if he could pull away from insanity.
‘Leave me alone!’ shouted Harry. His cheeks were wet and his eyes scrunched closed and he tried to push Hermione away, but it was practically impossible because he was tied to the post. Hermione finally let go of him and after a few seconds Harry opened his eyes, praying that the hallucination had vanished “ and at the same time praying that it hadn’t because maybe it was Hermione and maybe she was alive.
Hermione was still standing there, looking at him stoically. And Harry, at his wits end, yelled, ‘SAY SOMETHING!’
She didn’t say anything but she did scrunch up her eyes like she was concentrating really hard on something and then right before Harry’s eyes, Hermione’s bushy hair fell limp and became auburn in color and her eyes changed shape and went from brown to blue. In a matter of ten seconds Hermione Granger had been replaced by Samantha Becker.
Harry gaped at her and then, struggling against his bindings like a rabid animal, shouted, ‘YOU BITCH!’ He straining at his bond with such violence that the rope was cutting through his very skin. ‘YOU FILTHY BITCH!’ He wanted to kill her, strangle her with his bare hands, force the life out of her, he wanted to hear her scream, plead for mercy. How dare she play with him, how dare she pretend to be Hermione?! Harry yanked at his bonds again and again, and the support beam he was tied to creaked ominously.
‘Enter,’ called Samantha calmly, watching him struggle with a look of violent eagerness in her eyes. Andrews and Hawthorn entered the barn, answering their leaders call. Hawthorn stepped up to Harry who was still trying to break free and untied the ropes around him. Harry made a leap for Samantha but Andrews had grabbed him and aimed a punch at his stomach. Harry went down, winded. Hawthorn and Andrews lifted Harry to his feet and dragged him forward, following Samantha out of the barn and back to Gallows Hill.