A/N - Another rather major re-write has resulted in this chapter. I still don't own Harry Potter or Back to the Future and, much as it pains me to admit it, I don't make any money from all the time and effort I put into this. Thank you again to my wonderful Beta's Katia, Dementor149 & Ragavendran.
Chapter 13 - Death's Cold Hand
Harry had always known that Hermione loved to read but after their discussion on Valentine's Day she threw herself into it like never before. He knew what she was looking for and he certainly hoped she found it but, for the first time, he had no faith at all that Hermione would find the answers she sought. He knew that she could read every book that had ever been written about magic and she would still never find the answer to this particular riddle there.
She seemed to at least realise that she wasn't going to find the solution in any book sold by Flourish and Blots but her solution to that problem was not one that Harry was comfortable with. She spent March brewing a huge cauldron of Polyjuice potion and then, when it was ready, used it to disguise herself and venture into Knockturn Alley to buy rarer and more specialised books.
Harry still thought it was a waste of time. He was the only person to have ever survived a killing curse after all, so there couldn't possibly be any books that would help.
But none of this activity was a sufficient distraction for him because the ache in his chest was now a constant companion. It was there every moment that he spent with Hermione and it was there in every moment he spent with his parents. As he watched himself grow up, which was an odd enough experience on its own, he couldn't help but feel it then too. He tried to remind himself what a blessing this time in the past was, that he was getting to experience fully things he would barely remember otherwise, but it didn't help. The ache in his chest only deepened day by day, and the love he now realised he had for Hermione, a love that he could never let her know existed, was only part of it.
Not telling Hermione how he felt was a constant battle that he waged within himself every day. He was almost certain that if he wanted to he could make her love him, but with his own death hanging over his head there was no way he could do that to her. For her to lose a best friend would hurt her enough, but to lose him if she really loved him would be the worst thing he could do to her. So he suffered in silence.
Even with the emotional war raging inside him he did still try to help her with her research. He still thought it was completely useless but since she asked for his help he tried. He wasn't much help though, more often than not he found himself staring off into space and completely ignoring the book in front of him. As he stared into space he would daydream about the impossible. He imagined crazy scenarios in which he returned to the future, or woke up in the hospital wing, and his parents were there. Of course they would be older but it would still be them, and Hermione would be sitting on the bed beside him, holding his hand.
The only thing that prevented him from losing himself completely in these daydreams of an impossible happy ever after was the thought of Voldemort still being at large. Even if, by some miracle of magic, he was able to survive Halloween he would still have to deal with Voldemort when he returned to the future. Harry and Hermione had not given up on their training regime (and now that Harry had realised he was in love with her he couldn't believe he'd ever been able to ignore how amazing Hermione looked in her workout gear) but Harry felt that it wasn't enough. So instead of half-heartedly helping Hermione with her research he started to plan for what would come after.
It was the only thing he could do to stay sane.
He was worried that Hermione was going to be mad at him so he didn't mention it right away but, as usual, there came a point where he needed her help.
`Hey, Hermione,' said Harry one day, interrupting her from her reading. She looked up and Harry took that as his cue to continue, `You've still got some of that Polyjuice potion left, haven't you?'
She looked at him suspiciously, `Yes, why?'
`Well I was thinking about what we're going to do when we get back to the future -`
Hermione interrupted him, `I thought you were convinced you were going to die.'
Harry shrugged, he didn't want to admit the truth (that he still was convinced of that but needed something to take his mind off it) but he had to tell her something, `Well I thought it wouldn't hurt to have a plan for after, just in case.'
Hermione smiled, `Okay, so what were you thinking?'
`Well I was thinking that we'd really need to attack the Riddle mansion in force. It'll probably just be Voldemort and his Death Eaters there, so we'll have an advantage in that respect. But he'll probably have all of his Death Eaters there, to show off when Dumbledore is killed.'
Hermione nodded, `That certainly sounds like what he would do.'
`Right so even if we take all of the Order of Phoenix members who are at Hogwarts that night with us we'll still probably be out-numbered, so we'll need to have a strategy for the way we do this.'
Hermione frowned, `That all makes sense, Harry, but I don't understand how any of this relates to Polyjuice Potion at all. Did you want to disguise Order Members as Death Eaters? Because I don't think I have enough potion left for that, though I could always brew more.'
Harry shook his head, `No, nothing like that. I want to go to shire council and get the plans to the house. I thought, if I could use some polyjuice potion to disguise myself as someone who works there it'd be easier.'
Hermione frowned, `You're really going to plan this properly, aren't you?'
`Yeah, why?'
She shrugged, `it's just not something you'd usually do, that's all.'
Harry couldn't deny the truth of that but as the weeks passed, and his plans grew more detailed, he became really glad that he had done things differently this time. Not only did it give him some relief from the constant ache in his chest but it also became a point of pride. If he survived this encounter with Riddle on Halloween he wanted to make certain he, and everyone with him, survived the next time too.
He came up with all kinds of ideas to test, some which failed miserably and were dismissed immediately, and some which were brilliant. One of his best (if he did say so himself) was the idea to cut down the boiler Hermione had made and turn the material into shields. She'd already infused the metal with some pretty potent protective magic, which would repel even some of the most vicious curses. The extra benefit was that as a physical object a shield could also deflect the killing curse. He'd been thinking about Voldemort's duel with Dumbledore when he'd remembered the way Dumbledore had animated the statue as a defence and the idea for shields had sprung from that.
It wasn't the only idea that he pinched from either Hermione or Dumbledore, but most of his ideas came from watching Muggle war movies. He particularly liked the ones that featured and invasion of a fortress or castle. Some of the ideas he got from these movies were ridiculous (like swinging in through the windows on ropes) but others had a lot more merit, mostly though he liked the escapism that watching them provided.
All the training and planning served as a distraction, but time marched on regardless and soon Halloween was only a few days away. Harry knew that, finally, the time of reckoning was upon them. He couldn't wait any longer for another solution to present itself. They would have to move ahead with his plan.
`James, could I have a word?'
James was in his shed fixing an old bicycle and looked up to see Harry standing in the doorway.
`Sure mate, come on in. What's on your mind?'
Harry sat down next to his father and began a speech that he'd been rehearsing for some time, `Hermiah is pregnant.'
James dropped the part he was holding and his mouth dropped open in shock, `Seriously?' He asked, incredulous.
Harry nodded trying to play the part of a soon to be father, `Yeah, and well... I'm not really prepared to be a dad.'
James eyes almost bugged out of his head, he wasn't ready to be a grandfather either, `Well... there are other options... I wouldn't be the person to ask about that but, I know they exist.'
Harry shook his head, a bit surprised that his dad would say that, `No... That's not... the reason I'm telling you this is, I was wondering if Hermiah and I might be able to baby sit one night soon. Maybe this Saturday? You and Lilly could go on a date and we could look after baby Harry for the night. Just to give us an idea of what to expect.'
James breathed a sigh of relief, he was now almost certain that this pregnancy thing was just an excuse for Harry and Hermione to get them out of the house this Saturday, but then another thought occurred to him and he realised it was too soon to feel relief.
`You know what's after us, don't you?'
Harry nodded, `I won't let anything happen to that baby, I promise.'
James looked Harry directly in the eye, `I don't want anything to happen to my son, I'd rather die myself.'
Harry looked at the ground, if he didn't know better he would have thought James was talking about him and not the baby playing innocently inside, `I'll take an oath not to let anything happen to that little boy, if you want me too.'
James frowned, Harry seemed to be avoiding giving a promise that nothing would happen to his son (which of course included the grown up version sitting in front of him) and was confining his promises to the baby inside. He didn't like it.
`I'll have to talk to Lilly first, she's been really nervous lately.'
Harry nodded, `Yeah, well... let me know.'
After Harry had left James broached the subject with Lilly, she was in the kitchen making dinner while the baby Harry crawled around in his play pen in what used to be their dining room. He told her everything that Harry had said and his own suppositions and finally finished with, `So what do you think?'
`Do you really think he would do anything to endanger himself?' asked Lilly her brow furrowed in concern.
James let out a bark of laughter, `this is my son we're talking about, and even if he wasn't raised by me he's clearly got enough of my genetic material for that. Yes, I think there is a very good chance he would endanger himself... especially if he thought it would save us.'
Lilly pursed her lips, `but would Hermiah, sorry Hermione, let him? She'll be here with him won't she? Maybe he just didn't want to make the promise because he knows that there is a chance that what they have planned won't work.'
`Should we take that chance though?' James rubbed a hand across his face, `Are we horrible parents if we let him put himself in danger to save us? Isn't that incredibly selfish of us?'
`Isn't it even more selfish of us if we don't at least give him the chance... think about how much he's sacrificed for this... he's been living in the past for two years now all so he can try to get rid of Voldemort and save us. Aren't we being selfish if we stand in his way?'
`So you think we should let him then?' asked James, incredulous.
Lilly sighed, `We agreed that we would act as though we didn't know what was really going on, we agreed that Harry and Hermione know what happens to us better than we could and the best thing we can do is try not to change anything ourselves. So far we've stuck with that.'
James nodded, `I know, I just... I can't face the idea of leaving them here to face our destiny.'
`I think it's pretty simple really. We either trust our son to do the right thing, and maybe everything will be okay, or we don't and we definitely die.'
When she put it like that James realised that they really didn't have a choice so the following day he went across the road and told Harry that he and Lilly would love to let them babysit while they went out for an evening. As soon as James had left Harry told Hermione what he'd done.
`So you're going to go ahead, and maybe ruin everything? We've got no plan, Harry!'
`Yes, we do. Just because you don't like the plan doesn't mean it doesn't exist.'
`And you don't care about any of my objections, you don't care about the fact that I don't...' but Harry cut her off.
He grabbed her by the shoulders, `don't accuse me of not caring, Hermione, but what other choice do we have? If we do nothing, I lose my parents and we both lose our magic. If that happens we're all screwed. We have to do something, so in the absence of any other plans this is what we'll go on with.'
Hermione looked like she was about to cry. She shrugged his hands off her shoulders and turned away from him.
`Well, I've still got a few days, I may still come up with something else. Excuse me,' and she flounced from the room.
Harry fell onto the sofa, emotionally drained. He had a feeling then that the next few days were not going to be easy and he was right. Hermione all but worked herself to an untimely death with the amount of reading she was doing and she wouldn't even look at Harry let alone talk to him. She hardly slept and when she did it was at the kitchen table surrounded by books and not in the bed. Harry let her go for a few days but the day before Halloween he decided that enough was enough and spiked her tea with a sleeping potion. She'd be angry at him, but Harry thought it probably wasn't possible for her to be any angrier with him than she already was so he decided that he didn't care. Besides he needed her rested and alert for their final mission that night, they were going back to the cave.
When Hermione woke up in bed she worked out pretty quickly what had happened and stormed down stairs to yell at Harry for drugging her, but she didn't get far.
`Don't even try it, Hermione,' said Harry as soon as she entered the room, `You needed to sleep, and I couldn't have you falling asleep on me while we had a horde of inferi chasing us.'
Hermione was still angry but she was rational enough to admit the truth of that, `Are we going to apparate there?'
Harry nodded, `I think there's probably an anti-apparition ward on the cave itself but we'll apparate to the nearest cliff, if we take the broom we'll probably be able to avoid getting wet... especially now that we know where we're going.'
They waited until nightfall, apparated to the cliff over the cave, and flew down the face of the cliff to the small cave. Harry was right, there was enough clearance between the cave roof and the water to allow them to fly through the cave to the stone landing and avoid getting wet. When they reached the landing, however, they decided to leave the broom where it was. They knew that Voldemort had left a boat inside the cavern and they weren't sure if travelling across the water by another method would wake the inferi or not but they didn't want to risk it.
Hermione again cut her hand to open the entrance before Harry could stop her and then they were once more in the terrifying pitch blackness of the inner cavern. Harry felt more confident than he had last time but was also more nervous, they knew what was waiting for them but the idea of facing it was still the stuff of nightmares.
Neither of them spoke until they were on the island and facing the stone basin, Hermione conjured her cup and moved forward but Harry put out his hand to stop her.
`I just want to try something else first.'
Hermione looked confused until Harry pulled the packet of portable holes from his pocket that he'd nicked from Ron over a year and a half ago.
`It's a nice idea Harry, but I think you'll find that basin is covered with the Impervius charm.'
`Can't hurt to try though, can it?'
Hermione nodded sadly, `Actually I think it might, I think any type of spell work on that basin will wake up the guards in the water.'
Harry sighed in frustration and stuffed the holes back in his pocket, then tried a different track, `We can do this together, we brought more than enough antidote ... but I'll go first and when I can't take any more, pour some down my throat and then you can go.'
`No, Harry, this is something I have to do; besides one of us has to be fit enough to get the other out of here and you're stronger than I am. I doubt we'll have to lift that locket very far out of the basin before those things in the water wake up.'
Harry wanted to argue with her but knew he couldn't so instead he watched helplessly as she lowered the goblet into the potion. When she brought it out it was full to the brim but she downed it in one shot and plunged it straight back in again. Her eyes were closed tight and she looked like she was in pain. Whatever that potion had done to her after taking one sip Harry could see it would be nothing to what she was going through now. She drank the second full goblet and stopped for a moment to drink some of the antidote then plunged the goblet straight back into the basin for more.
She was shaking now and Harry was tempted to run forward and force her to drink more of the antidote but he was paralysed in horror and utterly helpless.
With each goblet she drank he saw her get weaker and her pain grew, every now and then she'd stop to drink more of the antidote but she seemed to keep going by sheer willpower alone. He was glad she had the strength for it because he didn't. There was no way he would have been able to keep pouring the potion into her mouth if she hadn't been able to.
Hermione was now lying across the top of the basin to prop herself up, she was drinking much more slowly now and her sips on the antidote were becoming more frequent. Harry though he couldn't stand to watch but he couldn't turn away either. She was crying now.
`Harry...' she pleaded, `Harry, please...'
He rushed to her side, unable to take it anymore, `Come on Hermione, you've done enough,' he pulled her off the basin and lay her down on the ground. She was moaning and shivering, clutching at him and crying his name.
`Sshh,' he whispered, holding her in his arms and rocking back and forth, `its okay, I'm here.' There was still one goblet full of the poison left but there was no way he could feed it to her. He forced her to drink all but a couple of sips of the antidote; hopefully what was left would be enough for him.
When Hermione swallowed the antidote she went stiff as a board. Harry waited for the scream that had come last time but it wouldn't come. He waited and waited, his dismay mounting rapidly as she lay with her back arched, her eyes and mouth wide in a perpetual, silent scream of terror. After a few minutes Harry poured a tiny bit more antidote into her mouth, he only had one sip left now and he would need that when they got home.
Hermione's words from earlier came back to haunt him, they did need him to be okay by the following night or it would all be in vain but how could he leave her like this? They didn't have any more Bezoars, it had never even occurred to Harry, prior to this moment, that they might need more when they had an antidote.
He was almost ready to give her the last sip when he finally heard it, that dreadful but welcome, whining, hollow scream coming from deep inside her chest. It was an awful, terrifying noise but the sound of it filled Harry with relief. His relief was short lived when he saw the water around them begin to churn, the noise she was making was waking the inferi and their time had run out.
Harry grabbed the goblet and swallowed the last of the potion in one mouthful; the pain that rushed through him was so intense it nearly brought him to his knees. After a second it abated somewhat and Harry was able to grab the locket.
The inferi in the lake were all rising now and Harry knew he had only seconds before they were upon him. He raced back to Hermione and gathered her in his arms, trying to ignore the awful screaming noise she was still making and the burning in his own body.
He had her in his arms and stood up but when he turned towards the boat he saw that his path was now completely blocked by inferi. They were surrounded on all sides with no way out.
The closest of them reached out with pale slimy hands as the others shuffled closer and Harry, without thinking, shoved the locket at it. It stupidly grasped at him but found only a locket in its hands. In the split second that it looked down at the locket, time seemed to stand still and before he knew what he was doing Harry had pulled out his wand and screamed the first spell that came to his mind.
`Hostilis Incendia!'
Harry watched in horror as the spell leapt from his wand and roared through the inferi surrounding them destroying not just the locket but everything else in its path as well. The Fiendfyre turned back towards where he stood still holding Hermione. He looked down at her in dismay, he had failed and they were about to die. But when he looked down what he saw was the emergency portkey that she had pinned to his robes nearly two years ago. Quickly he touched his wand to the pin and felt the familiar jerk behind his navel pulling him and Hermione home to safety.
They landed in the living room.
Harry put her on the sofa and then took out the last of the potion. He didn't want to take it, for some reason it seemed like the worst kind of poison, but he knew he had to. He thought of his parents and what would happen to them if he wasn't over this by the following night. From that thought he was able to summon his last remaining reserve of strength to drink the last sip of antidote, and then he collapsed.
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