Chapter 52: Borrowed Hours
Hyacinth POV
The city didn't feel any different when I woke up.
That was the first thing I noticed this morning. Atlantis hummed the same way she had the night before, like a generator that'd finally settled into a rhythm it liked. There was no dramatic shift or strange pressure in my chest. Just the quiet sense that everyone else was already awake and doing the things that we needed to get done.
I rolled onto my side and stared at the ceiling panel for a moment before sitting up. The light above me adjusted automatically. Somewhere down the corridor, someone dropped something metal and swore under their breath. A house-elf scolded them in a whisper that was anything but quiet.
Atlantis sounded normal, or as normal as living in a city on the bottom of the ocean can get.
Which if anyone was going to ask me I would have to say that was a good thing.
By the time I pulled on my boots and shoved my wand into its holster, the day was already moving. I could feel it in the way the floor warmed under my feet, in the faint vibration of lifts running more frequently than they had yesterday. Atlantis wasn't waking up anymore. She was in full working order.
Breakfast was fast and simple. Bread, fruit, and some form of a hot tea that tasted pretty good. I ate standing up while listening to everyone move about rather than talking to anyone.
Professor Sprout and Neville were arguing quietly about root systems. Henry Clearwater was already halfway through a schematic with Serena Zabini, both of them talking at the same time and somehow still understanding each other. Fred and George were whispering too intently to be trusted, which meant I made a mental note to keep an eye on them later.
Dad caught my elbow as I passed.
"You ready for today?" he asked.
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be," I said. "We're still trying to set up the time bubble today, right?"
He nodded. "We figured there is no sense waiting. Everyone knows what we're attempting to do. So it's better to get it done while the city's stable."
Stability... that seemed like the main focus for all of our plans. No one wanted to test how much wiggle room we had for failure when it came to Atlantis. She was our home now and no one wanted to risk her destruction.
Dad and I just looked at each other before we headed over to the others so that we could start on todays project.
Henry led us to one of the observation galleries that sat right up against the primary shield. The wall there wasn't transparent, exactly, but it shimmered faintly, like when you stare at the pavement for to long on a hot day. Beyond it was the ocean, dark and vast and very much not something we wanted inside the city.
"This is as far as the primary shields go," Henry said, tapping the readout mounted beside the shield. "Everything inside here will be subject to the temporal field once we activate it."
"And everything outside it won't," Serena added. "At least not without help."
That was where the Arkeions came in.
The ships sat in the bay just beyond the shield, their hulls dark and dormant. They looked small against the city, but I knew better. The repository had been very clear about what they were capable of.
Henry pulled up another schematic, this one layered with projections of water flow and light dispersion.
"We've been able to modify one Arkeion first," he said. "The plan is to station it just outside of the primary shield. It'll act as a field amplifier, projecting a secondary temporal bubble."
"And it will be permeable, right?" I asked.
"Yes," he answered. "It should allow for water to move freely. It's not so much a physical barrier like the primary shields. Its more of a time displacement bubble. The only thing it enforces is time."
Neville leaned closer to the display. "So anything inside that bubble experiences time the same way we do?"
"Exactly," Henry said. "It won't feel any different time wise than inside the primary shields. It'll just feel normal to to them and us."
"And outside?" Professor Sprout asked.
"Outside stays in 'real-time'," Serena said. "Which means transitions from inside the shields have to be deliberate. There will have to be no wandering in and out without accounting for the difference."
Professor Sprout frowned thoughtfully. "That's going to be a nightmare. Especially for planting schedules due to the natural light that will filter through the shields. It won't be like the greenhouses inside the city that are completely indoors."
"It's also going to matter for people and anyone that wants to live on the surface," Dad said. "We'll need clear rules."
"We'll get there Dad," I said. "Right now lets just focus on building a space for the merfolk. We did promise them the essentials after all."
We didn't send anyone straight into the secondary bubble. Instead, Professor Sprout and Neville stood right at the edge of the primary shield, peering out at the water like it might answer their questions if they stared long enough.
"The light penetration looks decent," Professor Sprout said. "It's definitely being filtered, but it's consistent. We'll need plants that can tolerate lower energy input."
Neville nodded. "Kelp would do well here, probably. We'll also need things that anchor fast and spread slow. I don't want to plant anything too aggressive."
Uncle Newt hovered nearby, hands clasped behind his back. "We also need to think about what not to introduce. Aquatic ecosystems can spiral quickly if you're careless."
"Cause that's reassuring," Dad muttered.
After a bit more back and forth, Professor Sprout finally nodded. "Alright let's see about taking a short stroll. Just to confirm the substrate and water flow."
I was glad when they didn't walk into the water like it was nothing. They prepped properly. Bubble-Head Charms, stabilization spells, and layered wards that made sure the water pressure wouldn't crush them. Neville looked more excited than nervous, which told me he was exactly where he wanted to be.
They were gone less than fifteen minutes.
When they came back, dripping wet and grinning my shoulders relaxed. But Professor Sprout looked like someone who'd just been handed a very complicated puzzle.
"It'll work... for now," she said. "We won't be able to plant everything we want to just yet, but we should be able to plant just enough to secure the merfolk's survival. We can start preparing the area by planting in stages."
Neville wiped water off his sleeve. "We'll need time to let the plant root. But we have that now."
That was the point of all this.
We checked the stability of the temporal field from a control node tied directly into the primary shield again just for our peace of mind. Then we flipped the switch so to speak. It wasn't anything grand, and there was no big celebration or a countdown. It was just Henry confirming parameters, while Professor Flitwick and Snape were reinforcing the magical stabilizers, all while Dad and I stood there to authorize the final sequence.
The change was subtle.
A clock on the wall ticked.
While another clock, just outside the shield that had been synced with ours just seconds ago lagged behind all of a sudden.
"That's it," Henry said after a moment. "We're live."
I waited for something to happen. For dizziness, or pressure, or some sense of wrongness.
But nothing did.
Time just... moved on like normal.
Someone laughed softly. Someone else immediately asked how birthdays were going to work now. Fred and George exchanged looks that made me sigh in advance.
Dad leaned closer. "You alright?"
"Yeah," I said. "I think I was expecting it to feel different."
"I know me too," he said. "But I guess not feeling anything means we did it right."
The rest of the day unfolded in pieces. Elves reported which sections were clean and ready. Families were grouped together and allocated rooms for them to live in. Someone complained about stairs. Someone else argued about the window placement in their quarters.
At some point, Fred and George set off a charm that made Percy think he'd lost ten minutes of his life. I didn't stop it because I felt like we could all use the laugh, and laugh I did when Percy finally realized what happened.
By evening, I stood at the observation gallery again, my arms resting on the rail.
Inside the city, time moved on like normal. People ate, talked, argued, planned and pranked.
Outside, the ocean drifted around us, unaware that we'd just borrowed a century from it.
"We're really doing this," I murmured.
The work had started, and now all that was left was living in the time we'd made for ourselves.