AN- Well, here it is: The officially re-posted version of Nineteen Years! If you've already read this chapter, just skip to the bottom to see the little (but important) change that will be strongly affecting this story. Oh, and don't feel obligated to review if you already reviewed the last time, but if you haven't... or if you want to share your thoughts on the added scene... or if you want me to update faster... er, please feel free! Thanks so much, and without further ado, heeeere's the chapter!
So much had changed.
As Hermione walked slowly beside Bill up the stone path to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she reflected idly on what had brought her there on this hot July afternoon when most students that still attended school were in hiding for summer break. Dumbledore had called the two of them earlier that day, and Dumbledore's summons never meant good news. Since Harry had died that day at the Ministry, the same day that Sirius fell through the veil, everything had gone horribly wrong. The first to go was Tonks, only a week after Harry, at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange. Alastor Moody followed soon after, though his body was never found, and then Remus Lupin, Kingsley Shackbolt, Charlie, Fred, George, Ginny, and Ron Weasley were all killed within two months. After that, each additional death became just a numb blow against their deadened hearts, and by the time a year had rolled by, they had lost the ability to feel fear. The future was simply death, and death was the future, and it would come eventually and inevitably for all of them as certainly as the sun would rise every morning and set each night. They didn't expected any different.
And so it was that Hermione didn't react when Dumbledore informed them a few minutes later of the death of Minerva McGonagall. She sat silently in her chair, staring at the wall, and beside her Bill did the same. However, where Hermione's face showed no emotion whatsoever, only a dull weariness that never left her eyes even for a heartbeat and never would, Bill's face was full of rage. They had grown closer over the past year, simply because that they had no one else to rely on and talk with, and Hermione admired him, in the tiny part of her mind that still registered emotion. Bill would never give up; he was stronger that Hermione and still full of determination. Each additional death weighed heavily in his entire being, but he didn't lose hope or will. He would meet anything that came fearlessly. Hermione would fight fearlessly, too, but only because she had nothing to lose, and therefore nothing to fear. She was almost completely dead inside. And she knew that her former, younger self would have been horrified and disgusted and ashamed of her, and she knew that Harry and Ron would have shaken her until her teeth rattled if they could have seen her, but she couldn't find it in herself to care. Death was the future, and the future was death.
Dumbledore observed them both over the top of his half-moon spectacles. He saw Bill grit his teeth and clench the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white, and he watched as Hermione continued to stare blankly at the wall. They were both very damaged, but he believed they could still succeed.
He stood up and strode to the center of the room, and cleared his throat. "I have called the two of you here today for a very important reason."
Hermione wondered what could be worse than McGonagall's death, and wished inwardly, hopelessly, that Dumbledore would stop speaking, though she knew it would not erase the horror of whatever he had to share.
"There is something I must ask you, and it is so grave and dangerous a matter, I feel I can trust no one else with it." He paused, then continued, "I believe that we have lost everything." There was no point trying to make the situation sound better than it was, but the observation was already familiar to them. "We are not losing this war, we have lost it, and therefore the entire world lies open to Voldemort. Nothing good or beautiful will survive, and if Voldemort is ever defeated, it will be in centuries' time. The world can not afford that. He must be stopped, and if that can not be, he must have never risen to power."
That made absolutely no sense, thought Hermione. The crackling, electric curiosity she once would have felt at hearing such a statement was gone, however, leaving behind only a vague residue of puzzlement, and she didn't comment. When Dumbledore didn't add anything else to clarify, though, Bill asked, "Professor, what are you saying?"
Dumbledore tilted his head to one side slightly, thoughtfully. "If Voldemort never attained such power, he would not be able to destroy the world."
"Yes, but he already has power. It's too late now." Bill frowned, desperately afraid that Dumbledore had finally cracked. To Hermione, that fear was null and void: In her eyes, they had all cracked long ago.
"At this point in time, it is."
They waited while Dumbledore looked at them gravely, a suspicion beginning to grow in Hermione's mind. Finally, he said, "But nineteen years ago, it was not."
Bill's face reflected utter confusion as he wondered what Dumbledore could possibly be implying, but Hermione met his eyes calmly. "It's impossible to go back so far," she said simply, no inflection at all in her voice.
Bill stared at Dumbledore. "Time travel?" he asked incredulously.
"Of course I will not order you, or even ask you to travel back," Dumbledore replied evenly. "I can only suggest the possibility, and offer to send you back if you wish, with additional training and teaching."
"How?" It was the most Hermione had spoken in days.
"There is a means that a colleague of mine and I have been developing that it is now, finally, ready. This man worked previously in the Department of Mysteries on the standard Time Turners. I would trust him with my life."
"Why don't we know him?" asked Bill. "Hasn't he been fighting?"
"He has preferred to keep away from the fight, in order to work on this last, ultimate weapon. We hoped it would not be necessary, but alas, I can see no other alternative."
They digested this new information in silence.
"What exactly do you mean, sir?" said Bill at last. "What do you want us to do?"
Dumbledore took a deep breath. "If you do this, here is how it should be gone about...."
The next two months were spent in a frenzy of preparations and training and lessons. Bill and Hermione met with Dumbledore every morning to discuss everything they would need to know in the past, from what Voldemort was doing two decades ago to current laws and how they affected important people. Dumbledore instructed them until noon, and then they dueled while he taught them special spells and outdated defenses that had been very common twenty years ago but since fallen out of use. They were shown pictures and memories of people they should protect (including Harry's parents, who would be seventeen at the time, the same age as Hermione), and given descriptions of Death Eaters who would still be at Hogwarts. Dumbledore's full plan emerged for them, shocking but filling them with determination.
Bill and Hermione already knew about Voldemort's Horcruxes; Dumbledore told them now about the ones he thought the Dark Lord had probably created in that time (he certainly was missing Nagini and probably hadn't yet made the diary) and where they were likely to be. He also warned them, unnecessarily in Hermione's opinion, to maintain the secret of their origins at all costs, for Voldemort would do anything to possess the information they were taking with them, and in his hands, things could go even worse than they had in the present. They would lose any possibility of spies, and Voldemort wouldn't make the few mistakes he had if he knew of them.
Dumbledore explained that he wanted Bill to take a part-time job at Hogwarts, possibly as a teacher's assistant, to be able to keep in regular contact, but that otherwise his assignment would be to start and train the Order of the Phoenix. Bill was an important member; he knew the organization's inner workings and strategies, and he would be able to teach the new members well. Of course, he would also act as advisor to Dumbledore himself, providing information about the future whenever needed.
Hermione's assignment was much more difficult. Because of her age, she should still be a Hogwarts student, so Dumbledore had decided that she should attend her seventh year as she would in the future, but in Slytherin. He wanted her to infiltrate the House of the Serpent and become a spy while at the same time trying to discourage and save people who didn't truly want to follow Voldemort. He gave her some ideas of who they would be, but told her that ultimately she would have to trust her own judgement and reveal her loyalties to whomever she deemed trustworthy. No one had been offered the choice in the past as they knew it, so they couldn't be sure how anyone would react.
After she left school, Dumbledore hoped she would continue to spy along with anyone she managed to sway against Voldemort, but understood that if she didn't want to become a full Death Eater, she could simply 'disappear' as her presented character, and work as a covert Order member. Hermione spent many afternoons with Dumbledore practicing her Occlumency, working diligently to block him as he attempted to enter her mind until they were both confident that her shield was sufficiently strong. She didn't think even Voldemort would be able to extract information from her against her will by the time she was finished training.
They also had to decide what they should take with them and what they should tell people about where they had come from. They couldn't have been English, because the Ministry would have had records of their births, so Bill was planning on pretending to be French, and Hermione would say she had been born in Spain but traveled constantly after that, hence her lack of the Spanish language. Luckily, Bill spoke French fluently after spending a few years there and later having a French girlfriend. Hermione was going to claim that she was the daughter of Alphard Black, who was estranged from his family but on good terms with Dumbledore. He had always been strange and secretive, so his having a child and not telling his relatives wouldn't surprise them very much, nor would his plan of home-schooling her. A great skeptic of public education though he himself had attended Hogwarts, it made sense for him to have sheltered his daughter from the largest wizard school in Britain.
After much thought (and advice from Dumbledore), Hermione packed a trunk full of clothes, a few of her favorite, most necessary books, and some mementos. Dumbledore had performed a complicated, near-impossible-to-break charm on her trunk to protect her privacy and allow her to maintain secrecy, so she felt safe taking a few incriminating items.
The most treasured was a small photo album. It held a few pictures of her family (who of course had been killed) and a few more of the Order of the Phoenix as she had known it, and lastly were three cherished magical photographs of her with her friends, taken in their fourth year. She and Harry and Ron waved happily out of the first picture, sitting under a tree by the lake with a few books that they were ignoring, and the two boys laughed as they zoomed in and out of the second picture on their broomsticks and she covered her eyes in worry. The third photo was her favorite at all, and never failed to bring tears to her eyes, despite its apparent simplicity: She was standing with her two best friends at the foot of a staircase, and the three were clutching each other and laughing so hard that they had to fling their hands out every few seconds to keep from falling over. The memory that went with it was hazy, and she could only recall vaguely that it had had something to do with the Weasley twins, but their sheer, pure happiness always caught her breath in her throat. She couldn't believe they had ever been that carefree.
She also chose to take Harry's Invisibility Cloak. It had been in Dumbledore's possession since Harry died, and he allowed her to take it, reasoning that it could be useful, although it would also raise serious questions if James or his friends saw it. It would mean that there would be two identical Cloaks, but she didn't care. The Marauder's Map had been destroyed the year before, or she might have taken it as well.
Lastly, and for no reason she could devise (for she certainly would never use them), she took a few Skiving Snackboxes. Must have been nostalgia.
The day arrived that she and Bill were scheduled to depart (she thought it was an oddly appropriate phrase, remembering the phrase used with people died and reflecting that they were leaving the world), and they stood together at Hogwarts with Dumbledore. They were in his office, all standing in the very center of the room. The Headmaster was holding a small goblet carefully in one hand, and Hermione knew it was the time-traveling potion, brewed especially with the same dust that allowed Time Turners to operate, but infinitely more complicated.
"Are you two entirely positive that you both want to do this?" Dumbledore asked quietly, gravely.
"Of course," said Bill in surprise. "We've been preparing all summer, we-"
"It will mean the destruction of all you know."
"I know," Bill answered more forcefully. "But we have to try. There's nothing left here."
Dumbledore nodded, as if to himself. "Then go with my blessings, Bill Weasley." He held the goblet out, and Bill took it solemnly. Before raising it to his lips, he looked at Dumbledore for a long moment, then simply stepped forward and embraced him.
"Thank you for everything, sir. It has been an honor and pleasure to know you."
"Likewise, my dear boy, likewise." Tears twinkled in Dumbledore's eyes.
There was nothing more to say, so Bill looked around once more and, eyes locked with Dumbledore's, lifted the goblet, placed it against his lips, and drained it in three rapid, decisive swallows.
He vanished instantly.
Dumbledore heaved a great sigh, looking older than Hermione had ever seen him, and then turned back to his desk and retrieved a book.
"This is for you, Hermione," he said. "It is merely a collection of spells and potions invented after the 1970s. It might be useful, and of course I don't have to caution you to keep it from falling into the wrong hands."
Hermione took the thick, leather-bound book almost reverently, weighing it in her hands before placing it in her trunk and shrinking it once more to fit in her pocket. "Thank you," she said. "I'll take very good care of it."
He nodded, already turning away once more. When he looked back, he had a tightly woven basket in his hands. He held it out wordlessly. "I know you have the worst part of this deal. It will be very difficult for you, and I thought you might get lonely."
Hermione rapidly unbuckled the thick straps and gasped as she lifted the lid to find a dark brown kitten blinking in the sudden light. It wore an expression of trust on its little face, and purred happily when Hermione reached down a trembling hand to stroke its head.
"Oh, Professor!" she cried. "I don't know what to say!" She rushed forward, careful not to upset the basket, and threw her arms around him. "Thank you so much!"
"Not at all, my dear. I only know that, in your position, I would want a friend."
She blinked back tears and suddenly found that she couldn't speak.
"Go well, Hermione Granger." He handed her an identical goblet full of ruby liquid.
Hermione looked up, a lump in her throat, and saw in his eyes that he understood; there was no need to say anything more. Without averting her eyes, as Bill hadn't, she gripped the goblet tightly and quickly drank its full, flavorless contents.
And then everything began to swirl crazily, and the world as she knew it dissolved around her.
Far, far from there, two men stood side by side in a dark graveyard, shrouded in fetid gray mist. The taller man was white and snake-like, with red eyes and slits for nostrils. The second one looked slightly nervous, his pointed face even paler than usual and his blonde hair disheveled, but he concealed his feelings behind an impassive mask and stood perfectly straight and still. Suddenly, in a motion almost too swift to perceive, the snake-like man stiffened and shivered, and then turned to his companion. "There," he hissed. "It is done. Now, Draco...."