I am not J.K. Rowling, nor am I associated with Scholastic or anybody else who makes money off of Harry Potter. Although, if I had a time turner...
Chapter 3: I Gotta Wear Shades
"And here we have the bedroom," Harry announced with a sweeping gesture of his arm. Since this was Hermione's first time up in the tower, Harry felt it was only fair to give her 'the grand tour', as she'd called it. Unfortunately, there wasn't that much to show.
Hermione humored him, however. "Is it? I didn't even notice when I came in," she remarked without sarcasm in her voice. A grotty old mattress on a half-rotten wooden frame lie on one end of the room while Hedwig's cage sat in the opposite corner. Harry's trunk and a small, uneven table resting near the bed were the only other items worth looking at. Practically everything in the room was adorned with both the Gryffindor colors and several thick layers of dust. "I love what you've done with the place."
"This tower could definitely use some house elves," Harry assessed. Hermione glared at him by way of reply. "Working for pay, of course," he amended tactfully.
"There isn't much up here, is there?" Hermione questioned rhetorically. "I suppose I expected more."
Harry held his index finger in the air, gesturing for her to wait. "You haven't seen the closet yet."
"The closet?" Hermione scoffed. "What could possibly be interesting about…" Harry opened the closet door, revealing a great number of old, abandoned objects. "Holy cricket!"
"This is where I've been looking for the horcrux," Harry explained as he stepped inside, dodging cobwebs and moving aside a stack of books on how to make wands so that Hermione could follow him. "I haven't had any luck so far, though. The best lead I had was this candle holder." Harry held up the cylindrical bronze object for Hermione to see. "When I held it close to my forehead, it made my scar burn like mad."
One of Hermione's eyebrows rose. "But it wasn't a horcrux?"
Harry shook his head sadly. "No. It still had a lit candle inside." Hermione tried her best not to laugh, but failed. "It really wasn't that funny, Hermione. I have a scar on my forehead now." Hermione gave him a pointed look. "Well, alright, another scar on my forehead. The point is that it really hurt."
"I'm sorry," Hermione apologized quickly, although the amused expression had not completely disappeared from her face. "Have you searched over very many of these things?"
"Several dozen or so," Harry guessed. "It could take me months to go through everything here. I reckon about twenty-five or thirty a day is a good start."
"So many old books are here," Hermione noted approvingly. "I'll bet a lot of them are rare, as well. Harry, do you think…?" She then shook her head. "Never mind." She stepped out of the closet and kept the door open for Harry. "Come on. I need to give you your homework assignments."
With a barely suppressed groan, Harry followed his best friend into the other room, sat down on his bed and, as Hermione crouched by his side, listened to her detail his assignments and explain her class notes. After she had spoken for awhile, something inside her robes made a little chirping noise. "My time's almost up, Harry. I meant to ask you earlier: are you still planning on going to Hogsmeade this weekend?"
"Yeah," he replied, only to add, "with Ginny," a moment later. "You ought to take Ron, too. We could double date. It might be fun."
Hermione's face looked as though she had eaten something sour. "I doubt very much that 'a double date' would be anyone's idea of fun. Yours and Ginny's least of all."
Harry thought about that for a moment. Ron still wasn't that thrilled that Harry was interested in his little sister and if he tried to play the protective older brother, Harry knew how Ginny would react. "Yeah, you're probably right. Still, you deserve to have a little fun. We certainly didn't get to have any this summer."
Hermione seemed to be remembering something and a faint smile crossed her lips. "I don't know about that. Parts of it were fun."
Harry put a smug look on his face, as if she had just proven his point. "You see? Now can't you have just as good a time with Ron on a trip to Hogsmeade as you had while we were hunting for horcruxes?"
Hermione looked like she might quibble with that for a moment, then nodded, a somewhat defeated look registering on her face. "I suppose it might be worth a try."
Harry grinned widely and Hermione smiled back at him with ease. If only he could get Ron and Hermione to spend some time alone together, he was sure that they would resolve their differences, snog and live happily ever after. As if Hermione were reading his mind, she asked, "Have you, um, had any visions of the future yet?"
"No," Harry admitted with a disheartened sigh. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected it to happen immediately, but…well, I have to admit I'm a little anxious to find out what my future's like." In his mind's eye, he pictured a large home filled with red haired children, all destined to be seekers like their mum and dad, with a supportive and beaming Ginny standing right by his side.
"Maybe it won't happen at all," Hermione pointed out with a frown. "I know what Professor McGonagall said, Harry, but I still think divination, whether it's done by a tower or a fraud like Trelawney, is a crapshoot at best and a dangerous pipe dream at worst." She reached into her knapsack and pulled out a thin, blue vial. "Now, show me your scar."
"My scar?" Harry asked in surprise. "What? Why?"
"I've brought you some essence of murtlap," Hermione explained as she poured some out on her hand, "and since there aren't any mirrors up here, I thought it would be best if I applied it for you." Harry nodded, removed his glasses and closed his eyes. One of Hermione's hands pushed back his bangs as the other one rubbed the substance onto the scar. "Does that feel alright?"
Harry had to admit that it did. "It feels brilliant," he declared. Once she had rubbed the murtlap into his skin, Harry opened his eyes to see that Hermione was blushing bright red. The quarter moon shone dimly through the window and the only real light in the tower was from the still-glowing candlestick holder that had caused the burn in the first place.
"I…I should really go," Hermione stammered as she fumbled for the door handle. "I'll see you tomorrow." She departed with great haste, leaving Harry alone and confused. 'What was that about?' With a shrug, he decided that sometimes girls were inscrutable. Just as he was lying back on his bed to sleep, he remembered that he had left the candle burning in the candlestick holder. Since he had painfully discovered that this particular candle would burn forever if you didn't blow it out, he rose from his bed to extinguish the flame.
Harry picked the candlestick holder up and held it in front of his face. As soon as the breath left his lungs, however, it formed a cold vapor, as though he were outdoors in cold weather. Within the space of a moment, Harry realized that he was outdoors in cold weather. The candlestick holder wasn't in his hands anymore, but his wand was drawn. It was still night (or perhaps early dusk) although he was no longer in the oracular tower at Hogwarts. In fact, he was standing in a dark alley. Instead of the muggle clothes he had been wearing, he was decked out in official-looking robes. Harry looked down at himself more carefully. 'Auror's robes.'
'This must be a vision of my future,' Harry thought to himself. 'I'm in the future.' A thousand things shot through his mind at once. He had to find Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Neville and McGonagall and Lupin and Hagrid and dozens of other people that he knew and find out if they were alright. Was he married? Did he have children? What about Ron and Hermione? Were they happy together?
And what of Harry himself? Obviously he was still alive, so he must have survived the final battle with Voldemort. How had he done it? He would have to find the answers to all of these things and quickly. Who knew how long it would be before the vision would end?
His thoughts were interrupted suddenly by the appearance of something all too familiar in the sky. Harry's stomach turned as he caught sight of the luminescent green skull and snake symbol grinning wickedly down at him. 'Voldemort's not beaten,' he thought grimly. 'It was stupid of me to think that he would be.'
"H…Harry," he heard a weak voice call out to him. It only took a moment for him to recognize it as Ron's. His best mate was lying at the far end of the alleyway, a pool of blood growing larger beneath him. "Help me. Please… help me."
"Ron!" Harry cried out. As he rushed toward his injured friend (who he noticed was also wearing Auror's robes) a jet of green light flew past his head. "Death Eaters," he whispered softly in surprise.
'Of course there are Death Eaters here,' he chided himself. 'That's why there's a Dark Mark overhead. Now, just remember your Auror training and… wait a mo. I didn't actually go through Auror training. I guess I'll just have to do what I usually do. Play it by ear.' As another unforgivable curse whizzed past him, Harry deftly rolled behind a crate to take cover.
'Alright. I'm hiding. Not the best long-term plan, maybe, but for now it'll have to do.' It did at least give him time to take stock of his situation. There were two Death Eaters approaching rapidly, firing deadly spells at him all the while. He had no clue what he was doing here, who was here with him (other than a gravely injured Ron) or how many more Death Eaters there might be lurking about. However, he did know that Ron likely needed medical attention and soon. He couldn't afford to waste time.
'So…they outnumber me, they know more spells than I do and they don't care whether Ron lives or dies. That's their advantage over me. What advantage do I have over them?' After considering the matter a moment, he arrived at the answer. 'Their expectations. They're looking to fight the Harry Potter that's a trained Auror and who does things by the book. Well, I don't even know what the book says.'
Using the reductor curse many times in rapid succession, Harry knocked a few bricks loose from the wall in front of him and then levitated them until they were lined up in a row. "Turbo levitatis," he said aloud. The bricks promptly began to swirl around each other like a miniature cyclone. Harry then sent the flying bricks in the direction of the nearest Death Eater, who managed to avoid some of them with a quickly produced shielding charm, but ended up getting hit in the face by the larger fragments nonetheless. With a small moan, he collapsed in a heap.
'There's one down.' As Harry considered how he was going to deal with the other one, a glint of light appeared in the corner of his eye. A large shard of glass that looked like it might have come from a broken mirror lay not far from him, wedged beneath one of the crates. Taking care not to cut his hand on the glass, he removed the shard and tossed it in the air. "Stupefy." The stunner glanced off of the reflective glass and bounced back in the direction of the Death Eater.
Harry did not bother to conceal his disappointment as the spell missed by a few centimeters. He was not about to give up, however. He tossed the piece of glass into the air once again. "Stupefy." Again, the stunner narrowly failed to hit its target.
The Death Eater, in the meantime, was using the reductor curse to demolish the crates Harry was hiding behind. This heightened Harry's sense of urgency. "Stupefy," he tried a third time as he watched the piece of mirror go flying through the air. The spell was deflected harmlessly by a shielding charm.
After trying a fourth time with similar luck (although he actually thought he might be getting better at this), Harry watched in horror as the crate behind him shattered into pieces, leaving his position completely exposed. Swiftly, he tossed the looking glass into the air one last time, diving to the ground as he aimed his wand at its temporary target. "Petrificus totalus."
The Death Eater, having perhaps grown overconfident that he had bested his opponent, had no time even to cast a shielding charm. His entire body stiffened, leaving him frozen in place. With a great thud, his petrified form fell to the pavement.
Warily, Harry stood and began to approach Ron, his senses suddenly more acute as his heart pounded loudly in his ears, courtesy of the adrenaline rushing through his veins. "Ron?" Harry tried in a low voice. "Are you alright?"
"Harry," Ron said, his voice strained. "Is…is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me," Harry assured him. His best mate was pale, shaking and covered in blood, but Harry could not see a wound. As he searched for one, he said soothingly, "Listen to me. You're going to be alright. I'm going to go get help." 'As soon as I figure out where help might be', he thought to himself.
"Harry," Ron rasped as he motioned for Harry to come closer, "there's something I need…to tell you. It's important."
A lump rose in Harry's throat as he looked down at Ron, so badly hurt and obviously needing to get something off his chest. "Of course, Ron. You can tell me whatever you want."
Ron attempted to sit up slightly. "That stripper that I saw last night…Bambi…" Harry frowned. Did this have to do with a case they were working on? "She…she was worth all of the quid that I stuffed down her knickers."
"What?" Harry asked, confusion written all over his face. Behind him, a loud buzzing noise filled the alley as night suddenly turned into day. Harry spun around with his wand drawn as about a dozen people approached. None of them were wearing Death Eater garb, however, and Harry thought he recognized Kingsley Shacklebolt standing near the front. The others gathered around him were young, probably in their early twenties, and wore star-struck expressions.
"Well done, gentlemen, as usual," Kingsley called out to Harry and Ron. To Harry's surprise, Ron rose quickly from the alley floor, casting a quick 'scourgify' on himself to make the blood disappear. A few moments later, the Death Eaters he'd taken down rose as well, albeit more slowly. Kingsley shook Harry's hand and leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I know how much you hate these training exhibitions, but they're good for morale."
"Training exhibitions?" Harry repeated. Had everything he'd seen been for show?
Ron slapped him on the back as the two of them stood before a group of gawking youngsters. "Way to go, mate," he told Harry under his breath. "You really sold that one."
Harry was still hopelessly confused, but decided to smile and nod politely. "Yeah, I guess I did."
"Trainees," Kingsley called out in an authoritative voice, immediately silencing all chatter. "This concludes today's demonstration. However, if you have any questions for Mr. Weasley or Mr. Potter, I'm sure they'd be happy to answer them."
'Speak for yourself,' Harry thought, but said nothing as a nervous young man with blonde hair who reminded him a bit of Neville raised his hand. "Mr. Potter, sir, can you tell us what spell you used to defeat Lord V…Voldemort?"
As everyone stared at him, Harry was both thrilled and embarrassed at the same time. Thrilled that Voldemort had been beaten and that he had done it; embarrassed, because he could not answer the boy's question. He did not want to look like a fool in front of so many people, although appearing foolish was a small price to pay to learn the secret of defeating Voldemort.
Harry's silence on the matter did not appear to surprise anyone, however, and eventually Kingsley Shacklebolt cleared his throat and stepped in. "Mr. Heath, you were instructed specifically not to ask Mr. Potter that question. You will see me after basic instruction." The blonde boy looked dejected. "Fall into line. We'll be heading back to the classroom in five." Kingsley stood in front of Harry as the group of young Auror hopefuls lined up single file. "Sorry about that, Harry. You know how these kids are. Hero worshippers, the lot of them."
"Of course," Harry agreed with a forced smile. "I get it all the time." 'Or at least I think I do.'
As Kingsley moved to stand at the front of the line, Ron let out a short laugh from behind him. "Just remember, Harry: next time you get to be the Death Eater victim and I get to be the brave heroic idol of millions."
Now Harry's smile was more genuine than forced. "I don't think it works that way, Ron." He put his arm around Ron's shoulder. "It's good to see you."
Ron looked confused. "We're partners. You see me every day," he reminded Harry as though he were a child.
"Well, yeah, of course," Harry hedged, fumbling for what to say next, "but I…seeing you in that alley like that, it just reminded me of…of the war. Of how things were before I defeated Voldemort."
Now Ron's face became more sympathetic. "You're having the flashbacks again, aren't you?"
Harry was unlikely to get a better opening than that. "Yeah, I am. The flashbacks. That's it. Brilliant, Ron." A thought occurred to him. "Except…they're not really flashbacks."
Ron frowned. "They're flashbacks, but they're not flashbacks?"
Harry grimaced. He would have to do better than that if he was going to get any answers out of Ron. "Not exactly. See, some of the things I've been seeing didn't really happen. Things about me defeating Lord Voldemort in particular. Now it's hard to tell what really happened from what I'm imagining."
This piece of news didn't seem to make Ron very happy. "Dunno why you'd want to remember what happened back then. I try to forget it every day." As Harry pondered that for a moment, Ron's expression suddenly became brighter. "Could we maybe discuss this over a hot meal? Pretending to be a Death Eater victim always makes me hungry."
Harry nodded and let Ron lead the way. It was good to know that some things, at least, hadn't changed.
***
As Ron ate his food ravenously, Harry stared down at a tray full of traditional English food unenthusiastically.
'Can I eat in a vision? Would I get nourishment from it? Who could I ask about these things?' He considered the
matter for only a moment before finally taking a bite of his Yorkshire pudding. For cafeteria food, it wasn't
half-bad. 'I wonder if they have treacle tart, too.'
"So…did you want to talk about Voldemort?" Ron asked between and during bites of roast.
"Er, yeah," Harry answered, surprised slightly by the fact that Ron was now saying Voldemort's name. 'I'll bet everyone does now.' "I was just wondering if you remembered anything about the final battle."
Ron looked like he would sooner be discussing an upcoming root canal. "Some of it. More than I'd like, to tell you the truth. What do you want to know?"
Harry decided not to waste any more time. "How did I do it?" When Ron looked confused, he elaborated. "How did I defeat Voldemort?"
Ron's face was blank for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders casually. "I dunno."
Harry was flabbergasted. "What do you mean, you don't know?!" he exclaimed loudly, drawing the attention of several Aurors eating around him.
"Just what I said," Ron informed him as he dug into the mashed potatoes. "You never told me and I never asked. To be honest with you, I was so thrilled that he was dead, it wouldn't have mattered to me if you'd bored him to death by reading him passages of Hogwarts: a History."
"But…" Harry protested weakly, not knowing quite what to say. "Somebody had to have seen me do it, right?"
Ron shook his head slowly. "Not that I know of. You were pretty adamant about going off on your own to off him after Luna died."
Harry's eyes widened in shock. "Luna died?"
"How can you not remember that?" Ron asked, a twinge of anger entering his voice for the first time. "Voldemort killed her himself. I've never seen you like that, mate, before or since. It was like something inside you snapped. You apparated close to Voldemort, probably through about a dozen anti-apparition wards, and then side-alonged him somewhere far away. I dunno where, but when you came back with what was left of him there was snow in your hair. And, just in case you've forgotten that, too, it was May."
This information hit Harry hard, harder than he would have anticipated. Sure, he liked Luna well enough, but he wouldn't have expected this enormous sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, as though he'd just lost a relative. A relative he really liked, that is, and not one of the Dursleys. For some reason, the first question that popped into his mind after finding out what had happened to Luna was, "How's Hermione?" He had found it curious that Ron had not mentioned her thus far and was suddenly concerned for her well-being.
Ron, despite going through varying degrees of discomfort throughout their conversation, had remained unperturbed until this moment. However, at the mention of Hermione's name, he cringed and ducked under the table. "Bloody hell, Harry. She's not here, is she?"
"I don't see her," Harry reported dutifully, although his brow furrowed in confusion. "Why? What's the matter?"
"You know how I am about my ex-girlfriends," Ron informed him, his tone slightly embarrassed as he rose from his hiding place. "I don't go anyplace where I've seen them ever again. In fact, I don't go anyplace where you tell me you've seen them ever again." Ron thought about this for a moment. "Well, except for that time you told me you saw Lavender in the Quidditch supply store. A bloke's got to keep his priorities straight."
"Ex-girlfriend?" Harry asked in disbelief. "You mean, you and Hermione aren't….I mean, I thought you and she would…you're not married?"
Ron snorted derisively. "Me and Hermione? Married? You're joking, right?" When it became clear to him that Harry wasn't, he continued. "We barely even spoke to each other while we were dating. Unless you want to count yelling as speaking. It was a disaster, mate, from beginning to end." Ron eyed Harry suspiciously. "You haven't seen her lately, have you?"
Harry got the distinct feeling that he would be answering honestly when he said, "No." The sinking feeling inside of him now seemed to be pulling at his heart as he asked, "So, Hermione and you and I, the three of us, we're not friends anymore, like we used to be at Hogwarts?"
"Friends grow apart sometimes," Ron answered unapologetically. "You know, Harry, if you're having this much trouble keeping your memories in line you should probably go back to that counselor you were seeing for awhile. Therapy might do you some good."
Harry was no longer listening to what Ron was saying. He was too busy thinking about Hermione. Hermione, his best and most loyal friend, who had stood by him through everything. The thought of her being excluded from his life after all that they had gone through together was almost too much to bear. Then he remembered something Hermione had told him to do. "When you get to the future, look me up." He would have to do just that. Perhaps he could even find time to mend the friendship between the three of them.
Harry's brain began tuning Ron back in just as he was saying, "and I know Ginny's been on you about that, but that doesn't make it a bad idea."
"Ginny," Harry exclaimed softly. In his malaise over Hermione, he had nearly forgotten about her. Glancing down at his ring finger, he saw that there was no wedding band there. He couldn't help but wonder what had happened between the two of them. "Have you, um, heard from her lately?" he tried, trying not to sound too much like he had no idea what was going on.
"Yeah, actually, I have," Ron answered him as he withdrew a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his robes. "She wanted me to remind you to pick up your wedding ring at the jewelers. It looks like they were finally able to get all of the pygmy puff vomit out of the settings."
"That's…that's great," Harry replied enthusiastically. So he and Ginny were married. At least something was working out for him in the future. Suddenly, he became anxious to go see her. "You should really come over some time," he offered. 'Like tonight. So you can show me where I live,' he added to himself.
Ron rolled his eyes. "I don't think so. The last time I came over there I got a tea cup thrown at me." As he turned his attention back to the food in front of him, he grumbled, "You two fight more than Hermione and I ever did."
"We…we fight?" Harry asked incredulously. After all, he and Ginny had never fought before. "What about?"
Ron dropped his fork and heaved a sigh. "I dunno, Harry. Last time I was there you were fighting about having kids. You wanted them and she didn't. Seems like the sort of thing you two would have worked out before you got married, but I guess not." He rose from the table and picked up his now empty tray. "Unless you need my help with the latest break in the Dolohov case, I think I'm going to go back to my desk and catch up on some paperwork." Ron winced. "Of all the things I hate about being an Auror, the paperwork's the worst. Give me dark wizards any day." Harry stared at him for a moment, searching for something to say. "They brought in some French bloke who's been working for Dolohov. You told me about it, remember?" Ron gave him a longsuffering look. "Look, Harry, I know how much the final battle buggered you up, but this is really getting out of hand. Seriously, go talk to somebody."
As Ron walked away, Harry thought about everything he had said. He did desperately need to talk to someone: someone who could tell him why he was no longer on speaking terms with Hermione and someone who could explain what was going on between him and his wife. First and foremost, however, he needed to find someone who could tell him what had happened to Voldemort. If that wasn't someone who had been on his side during the final battle, perhaps a Death Eater would fit the bill.
Harry rose to follow Ron in hopes of finding his desk. If he was going to question this 'French bloke' who was working for Dolohov, he didn't want to go in unprepared. He wanted to know everything he could about him.
More about Ginny, Hermione and the French bloke will be in the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one!
ITL