"It's not going to work," Harry said.
"Well, with that attitude, certainly not," Hermione answered sharply. Harry opened his mouth to respond in kind, but he looked at Hermione and something in her expression stopped him. She was working so hard on this, and right now, she looked like she was about to break. He quickly swallowed his sharp response. He also didn't want to risk causing a mistake. It was their last chance, after all. Of course, that was what they had thought about the last couple of chances they had taken, but this time it really was the last.
"Ron, fetch me the dried ginger leaves," Hermione said, holding her hand out imperiously. While Ron ran to fetch Hermione's bag of potion ingredients, Hermione kept stirring the potion with the same look of concentration on her face. Harry could tell from the color of the smoke exuding from the bubbling cauldron that it was at a critical stage. They had all pored over the recipe for hours, and had memorized every step. Not that it stopped Hermione from keeping the book in front of her. She checked it again, for the umpteenth time.
It was a very complicated spell. Ron had found it at Grimmauld Place, while they were desperately searching for information. It made Harry wish that Fred and George were still with them; he knew how good they had been at potions, despite their dismal grades in it at school. That wasn't even their fault, though, it was Snape's. Thinking about it made Harry regret that Snape was dead. He had a few things he would have liked to discuss with him.
Ron came back with the dried ginger leaf and handed it to Hermione, who carefully crumbled it between her hands and dropped it with precision into the cauldron. They all held their breath as bubbles rose to the surface, and then a golden shimmering sheen followed.
Ron audibly let his breath out.
"What are you so anxious for?" Harry laughed tiredly. "You're not going to be the one using it."
"No, but I'm going to have to watch you use it," he retorted. Their eyes met. Harry understood what he meant. After everything that had happened, everything they had lost, and all of it together it was hard for Ron and Hermione to watch him take on this adventure alone.
But there was no other way. The potion only made enough for one person to travel back, and it would take too much time to prepare again. By the time it would be completed, they would probably be dead.
"Thirty more minutes at a constant boil," Hermione said, "and then we take it off the heat and cover it." She consulted the book again.
Ron flopped onto the couch. "Mate, why do you keep checking that? We all know you have it memorized."
"Does it hurt to check?" Hermione asked him. She put the book back down on the table and sat next to Ron on the couch. They all stared silently into space, thinking and remembering.
Harry thought about where they were, and how the place had changed. They were in Privet Drive, in the house Harry had grown up in. It brought back a myriad of memories, most of them bad, but with a few good ones in there, like when Ron, George, and Fred had rescued him second year, or when the Order had showed up fifth year and rescued him.
They were all dead now. Either dead, imprisoned, or disappeared. And it was all in this house where it had started.
The plan had been for them to use polyjuice, and divide into groups to confuse the death eaters. But then everything had gone wrong when Snape had killed George, and Remus had retaliated and killed Snape. The deaths just kept coming after that: Bill and Fleur hadn't made it out of their wedding alive, the students and teachers at Hogwarts who had tried to fight back were publicly executed to discourage others from following their example, and almost the entire Order had been slowly picked off.
The old cuckoo clock on the wall chimed, startling Harry out of his thoughts for a moment. He was surprised that the clock still worked. The house had been abandoned for a few years, ever since the Order took the Dursleys into hiding. Come to think of it, what had ever happened to them? Who had been the order members assigned to watch them? Harry had no idea. It didn't matter anyway. They were probably all dead.
Hermione broke the silence. "Alright, Harry, what's the plan once you make it through?"
Ron groaned, shifting in his seat. "Come on, 'Mione, we've already been through this a thousand time. He knows what to do."
But Hermione kept her eyes fixed on Harry. He sighed and ran a hand through his already tangled hair, tangling it ever more.
"I have to focus on where and when I want to travel. I have to envision it completely in my mind, like with apparating. And then I step through the smoke, still focusing on where I want to go."
"Which is?"
"September 1, 1991. Dumbledore's office."
Hermione nodded. "Good. And once you're there?"
"I contact Dumbledore and tell him about the horcruxes. We destroy them. I find and kill a couple people."
Hermione's eye twitched at that last statement. Harry knew she wanted to object to it, but they had already had this argument multiple times and she knew he would have his revenge.
"And then?" she prompted again.
Harry's mouth tightened. "I… relax. And enjoy my life." The words tasted strange in his mouth. It was something he'd never expected being able to do.
"And you have the notes I wrote up for you?" Harry patted the moleskin pouch from Hagrid that was hanging from his neck. "Got 'em right here."
Hermione nodded. "Good." She glanced over at the clock, then the cauldron. "I think it's almost ready."
"The question is, are you almost ready?" Ron joked.
Harry managed a half-hearted smile. "I'm gonna have to be."
It was hard to prepare for time travel, especially with so much at stake.
The plan was for Harry to travel back in time, to his first year at Hogwarts, destroy the shadow of Voldemort living in Quirrell's head, and then destroy all of the other horcruxes. It was a risky plan, but it was their last chance.
But the hardest thing for him would probably be having to see everyone again- the Weasleys, Remus, Sirius, Tonks, McGonagall… they would all be there. Everyone who was now gone, and he would have to face them, talk to them... he didn't know how he could do it without breaking down and crying.
"It's ready," Hermione's quiet voice announced.
Harry looked up, taking a deep breath. Ron stretched, his arms high in the air. "Well, this is it, mate. Good luck." The unspoken words, "you're going to need it," hung in the air between them.
Harry took another deep breath and stood up. Hermione lifted the lid of the cauldron, revealing the shimmering silver sea inside.
"It's beautiful." For some reason, Harry was surprised by that.
Hermione carefully drew a perfect circle on the floor using magic. She lifted the cauldron from the table and poured it into the circle. It spread to the edge, and then stopped within the lines.
"When the fog appears," Hermione reminded Harry again, "step completely into the circle and stay there, concentrating on where and when you want to go.
Harry nodded, his eyes fixed on the circle.
His concentration was shaken by a yell, coming from above.
Ron frowned. "Did that come from upstairs?"
There was another indistinguishable shout, this time definitely coming from upstairs.
"We forgot to check the entire house when we got here."
"Don't beat yourself up about it. We were in a hurry, and didn't expect anybody to be here."
Ron pulled out his wand.
"Don't do anything!" Hermione yelled. "Casting spells near the potion will disrupt the magical field!"
"But there's someone up there!" Ron said desperately. His eyes flickered towards the circle on the floor. Tiny wisps of smoke were beginning to form.
"Just ignore it. They're probably dying, anyway. Harry, are you ready?"
Harry nodded wordlessly. His throat was dry.
The circle was sending up full waves of smoke and Harry was mentally preparing himself to step into it just as a drunken Vernon Dursley stumbled down the stairs and into the room, stopping just inside the circle.
"No," Hermione said. For some reason, her voice was calm.
Vernon caught sight of Harry. His face filled with rage. "Potter! This is your fault! My Petunia is dead because of you!"
Vernon's body started to fade out as the smoke waved around him. He looked down, and, realizing his body was disappearing, reached out to hurl the empty bottle in his hand at Harry. Just as the bottle would have hit left his hand, Vernon disappeared, hurtling through time and space.
"Well," Ron said, "Someone's going to get a surprise."
"I wonder what time he was thinking off," was Hermione's response.
"That was our last chance."