A/N: To the guest reviewer who alerted me that there was something terribly wrong with my formatting, thank you. I hadn't previewed it, so more fool me, I deserved it. It's hopefully fixed now.
Her charms text lay open on her lap, the brief description of the theory behind magically enlarging spaces insufficient for her needs; her intention to turn the closet in her bedroom into a small potions lab over the Christmas holidays had died a painful death when theory proved to be more difficult to master than she'd anticipated.
Giving it up as a lost cause – she'd be leaving for King's Cross in a few hours – she slipped the scrap of pink satin ribbon she used as a bookmark between the pages and closed the book with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. The holidays had not, precisely, gone well. Her parents had always been very understanding when she chose to spend the holidays at Hogwarts, or with her friends, but she wasn't certain that it had been the best decision, all the same. Her mother had met her at the station, after a terribly long train ride spent mostly in her own company. Harry had been off with Ron, who had, naturally, been so wrapped up in his precious Lavender that he had probably not even noticed his presence. Ginny and Dean had been off together; it seemed like everyone was coupling up except for her and Harry. The logical thing, of course, was for the two of them to prove the rumors of the past two years true, and get together.
She laughed, silently, not wanting to disturb her parents. It wasn't that she necessarily wanted to date Harry; she didn't really think of him like that. She was aware, in a sort of clinical way, that Harry was good-looking – certainly better-looking than Ron. But, it wasn't something she really thought about with Harry. And she rather suspected that any sort of romantic relationship between the two of them would be short-lived and only slightly shy of a disaster. Still, it was rather frustrating to be seen by both of them – as well as most of the other boys she knew – as something of a sexless brain.
Too many American movies about 'high school' had set her up with the expectation that eventually, she'd break her cocoon, and emerge the butterfly. Unfortunately, that had happened two years ago, and while it seemed like everyone at Hogwarts had a long memory for everything else, her moment had been forgotten. Besides, she was who she was, and she didn't want or need the attention of stupid boys if it meant she had to spend hours making herself look better just so they'd notice her.
Needless to say, her holiday hadn't been sunshine and bunnies, and as she heard her mother's voice calling her down to the lounge, she suspected it was about to get worse.
At some point in the past few years, her parents had, without her knowledge, taken a subscription to The Daily Prophet, and most of the holiday had been spent explaining to them why it was absolutely impossible for her to leave Hogwarts. Quite frankly, she felt it was a prime example of too little, too late, and she wasn't in the mood to face another 'family meeting', where her parents tried to convince her that it was in her best interest to transfer to some Muggle school, and she tried not to think of the fact that she was, technically, of age in her world, and was not required, by Wizarding law, to submit to their demands.
"Coming," she called, as her sock-clad feet hit the polished wood floor of her bedroom. With a brief prayer to Merlin for patience, she walked down the stairs, slowly and carefully, so as not to make 'that dreadful noise'. Her face was set for battle when she stepped through the archway into the lounge, but the rather stunned looks on both her parents' faces gave her pause.
"Oh, Hermione, there you are." Her mother's voice was stilted, and she hadn't looked at her daughter. Concerned, Hermione followed the direction of her gaze and nearly choked.
Seated in her father's favorite chair was Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, in vivid, canary yellow robes liberally dotted with purple stars. The light refracting from them made her suspect that the stars were actually glittered. As if the robes were not enough, he wore a pointed wizard's hat of bright aqua. One had to give the man points for bravery for his wardrobe alone. He was either completely senile, utterly blind, or absurdly courageous – possibly all three.
Her father cleared his throat and pulled his eyes from the rather startling apparition in front of them. "Hermione, this person says he knows you – that he's a teacher at your school?"
Dumbledore's appearance could only cement the idea that Hogwarts was a madhouse in her parents' minds. "Hello, Professor. I didn't expect to see you here." She let the question speak for itself.
"I was in the neighborhood, Miss Granger, and thought I would offer to bring you back to Hogwarts with me, rather than forcing you to take the rather long, boring train ride to school."
Perhaps her parents didn't understand that it wasn't an offer – after all, how could they possibly realize that the man in the ridiculous clothing was not only the Headmaster of her school, but also the only man that Voldemort was said to have feared? They couldn't, unlike her, be expected to realize that there was no one in their area of London he could possibly be coming to see – not dressed like that.
"That's a kind offer, Professor, but Dan and I already took the day off to take Hermione back up to the train station," her mother, always the more vocal of her parents, said.
"If we even let her return at all." That was her father's disgruntled mumble, and she rolled her eyes.
Apparently, however, Dumbledore not only heard him, but seemed to feel a response was required. "Not return? Oh, dear me. Hasn't Hermione told you? She is, quite possibly, the brightest witch of her age – of any age, for many generations past. She is a gift to the magical world, and a delight at Hogwarts."
Normal parents would be flustered and proud, hearing a professor praise their child so – her parents, unfortunately, couldn't even choose this one moment to be normal.
"Oh, a gift, is she?" Rose Granger's voice was sharp, scathing. "A filthy little Mudblood like her? We've read your paper. We know what your perfect little magical world thinks of people like her. After that ridiculous little Wesley man questioned us about the simplest things in that monstrosity you're pleased to call a bookshop, we looked out for other parents like us on that blasted platform. The stories we've heard about that school!"
This was the first Hermione had ever heard of parents making friends with the parents of other Muggleborns; she could only imagine what someone like Colin Creevy might have told his parents in his cheerful innocence. The blasted boy probably thought missing most of his first year because he was Petrified was a bloody lark!
"I'm terribly sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Granger," he started, but Rose cut him off.
"Actually, it's Dr. Granger."
One of her mother's pet peeves was being relegated to a plain 'Mrs.' when she'd worked just as hard for her title as her father had.
"I do beg your pardon, Dr. Granger. But you must be aware that Hermione is of age in our world, and should you attempt to prevent her from returning to Hogwarts, as long as she is willing to return, the Ministry would not stand for the interference."
The red creeping up her mother's face looked like nothing so much as that awful shade Ron turned when he was about to spout off at the mouth – the one that clashed horribly with his hair. Sure enough, her mother proved to be as unable to hold her tongue as a sixteen-year-old boy.
"Oh? Your Ministry would do something about it? And what exactly could they do to us? Send those invisible Dementors after us for refusing to allow our child to return to some death trap of a school where more than half the students would be happy to watch her bleed out on the floor – hell, most of them would probably paint themselves with her blood afterwards!"
"Mum!" She'd had enough. She'd been listening to some variation on the same theme since her mother had picked her up from the station, and there was only so much she could take. "When I got my letter, you were relieved. There was an explanation for the 'freaky' things that sometimes happened around me. You were happy to send me off for nine months of the year, so I could learn to 'control' it. I belong with my own kind – you've told me that so many times. So just – please – let me go, to be with my own kind. I'll never darken your door again. Tell your friends I ran away, that I made friends at school that were bad influences."
It was her mother's tears that finally stopped her rant. "Listen here, young lady," her father, always the one to hold his temper, finally snapped. "When we told you that you belonged with your own kind, it was because you always seemed so much happier in your letters, from that school, from those Wesleys' house, from that weird London townhouse that your mother and I couldn't see – you were happy there. You'd never been happy here, not even before you knew what you were."
The guilt hit her in the gut like a Bludgeoning Hex. She'd been a lonely outcast as a child, and she'd never truly been happy at home. Her first two months at Hogwarts were an extension of that. But once she'd become friends with Ron and Harry – the world had been brighter. Even when things were at their darkest (and she didn't need to be a Seer to know it was only going to get worse), she was happier with Ron and Harry than she'd ever been in Kensington.
She looked at her father – really looked at him for the first time; his hair was greying at the temples, the irrepressible curls she'd inherited were shorn close to his head. Deep lines bracketed his eyes. Her parents hadn't been young when they'd had her, she'd always known that, but she had never expected to realize that they were old. And tired. Merlin, they both looked so tired. Worry for their only child, the one they'd thought was a miracle, had aged them terribly. She was so used to magical people – McGonagall, who had to be pushing seventy, and didn't look a day over forty. Dumbledore, well over a hundred, but still spry. Her parents had been in their late forties when she was conceived; they were nearly McGonagall's age, themselves, and for the first time, she saw it.
Without a word, she stepped under her father's left arm and wrapped her arms around him and the petite woman he was clutching to his chest, wincing when she noticed the many silver strands in what had once been rich brown hair. Her mother wrapped her free arm around her, and the three of them held each other in silence for several long minutes.
Her mother broke away first. "I won't pretend I'm happy about this. I always knew you were meant for great things. The ballet lessons, the piano tutors – all of that was because I looked at you and saw a woman who would be able to take the world by storm. This isn't exactly how I pictured it, but I've read enough of that blasted paper to know that the Harry you've been writing home about for the past six years is the same Harry the paper is calling The Chosen One. And if that scrawny little boy is going to save the world – well, I suspect he'll need your help."
Hermione let the tears come, let them slip down her cheeks and stain her silk blouse.
"Dr. Granger." Dumbledore's voice brought them all up short – they'd forgotten he was even there. "One of the reasons I wanted to speak to you and your fine husband today was to discuss magical protection for you. As you've realized, Hermione is very important to those in our world who would like to keep the darkness at bay – and that makes both of you targets. Voldemort would not hesitate to hold one or both of you hostage against her, and as fine a woman as Hermione is, I would not want her to be placed in that position." Unspoken was something she suspected only the two of them understood – under enough torture under the Cruciatus and Legilimency, there was nothing she knew that Voldemort would not be able to discover, whether she told him of her own free will or not.
"What do we need to do?" Her father's lined face was firm. "Maybe we haven't always been the right sort of parents for her, but if we can give her one less thing to worry about, we'll do it." Her mother nodded.
"Miss Granger, please excuse us for a moment." Dumbledore's voice was kind, but firm. "Perhaps you can ensure that your trunk is packed with anything you'd like to bring with you. Anything at all."
She nodded silently, looking to both her parents for their approval, but neither of them would take their eyes off the withered, blackened hand the Headmaster had finally revealed. She left the room, padding on silent feet up the stairs; there was no low murmur of voices from the lounge – Dumbledore had probably silenced the room so she wouldn't be tempted to eavesdrop.
One of the best things about reaching her magical majority was the freedom to practice her magic in her own home, Muggle though it may be, and several sweeps of her wand later, the entire contents of her room were shrunken down and neatly placed in her trunk. That extension charm was looking like something she absolutely had to learn, even if she had to stay after class and ask Flitwick for private instruction.
A quick Featherweight charm on her trunk later, and she levitated it from her bedroom to follow her down the stairs.
"Ah, Miss Granger, please join us." Her parents were sitting together on the sofa, heads down and eyes wet. She joined them, letting her trunk settle by the door.
"Now then, your parents have agreed to go into hiding until such time as the war has ended. A memory charm will prevent them from remembering you, or indeed anything about the magical world. They will take up residence in another country, far from this wretched, wretched war. When we have defeated Voldemort, we will come to lift the charm, and you will be happily reunited with them."
Hermione stared at the old man; a memory charm was easily broken by a powerful Legilimens. If Voldemort ever suspected her parents knew anything, he would break them.
"No," she started, but her father's hand on her arm stopped her.
"We agreed to this," he said. On his other side, her mother nodded.
Her wand was in her hand before she had fully thought of her plan. The nonverbal Stunner hit both of them, and they slumped over, unconscious.
"Obliviate, sir," she said, forcing herself to do what was best for her parents, not what she wanted to do. "A memory charm can be broken by even a mediocre wizard, if they know it is there. And – if the castor dies, the charm breaks. Whether it's you or I, sir, our chances of seeing the end of this war aren't good. It will have to be the Obliviate. They," she paused as a sob caught in her throat. "I don't want them to worry. They're better off not knowing. Safer."
Dumbledore was silent for several minutes, and she prayed that he wasn't going to deny her this; she didn't have the precision to completely erase herself from their minds without damaging them.
"I will do this for you, Miss Granger," he said, finally. "We can magically remove their memories and replace them with those of a normal Muggle couple, preserving their original memories to be returned to them when you are ready." He took a deep breath. "For now, let us put them in their room to sleep, and I will return later with Professor Snape. He is far more skilled at mind magics than I."
She assisted in levitating her stunned parents to their bedroom and casting a powerful charm that she had never heard of before. She memorized the incantation and wand movements, sure that such a charm could come in handy in the future.
As Dumbledore sent her trunk along to Hogwarts and connected her parents' fireplace to the Floo Network temporarily, she followed mutely, wondering if she was doing the right thing for them.
She joined the Headmaster in a cozy sitting room off his office, smiling a little at the matching purple armchairs in front of the fire.
"I am very sorry to have intruded on such a private family scene this morning, Miss Granger. It truly was not my intention."
"I'm sorry you had to witness it, sir. They've been very upset over this holiday." She paused, trying to frame her next thought. "Sir, did you come to my house this morning just to help me protect my parents, or was there another reason?"
Dumbledore smiled at her as he settled more comfortably in his chair. "You are very direct, Miss Granger. It is an underappreciated trait, as I'm sure you've discovered." She offered him a wry smile, not wanting to change the topic. "I am sure, by now, that Harry has told you something of the prophecy you were sent after at the end of last year."
She nodded. "He told us after you left him at the Burrow, sir."
"Very good. That was my intention. As you know, I have been giving him private lessons this year, to prepare him for the task he will have if he wants to defeat Voldemort. My intention this morning was to speak with you, privately, about something that is only tangentially related to that."
"Sir?"
"Miss Granger, if you will bear with an old man for a few moments, I will endeavor to explain all, but you must promise me that you will never speak of this to young Harry."
"I'm not sure I can do that, sir. Harry is my best friend." She frowned; she'd always suspected that Dumbledore kept things from Harry, and last year's debacle with the prophecy had only cemented those thoughts, but she'd never expected him to ask her to do the same.
"Miss Granger – Hermione – I was not merely offering flattery when I said you were the brightest witch in several generations. By now, you will have pieced together much of what I am about to tell you on your own, and, for your own reasons, have not shared those thoughts with Harry. Harry, as you know, can often be reckless, and some knowledge should not be shared with him until he is ready to hear it. Or have I misjudged you?"
She narrowed her eyes at him as a thought crossed her mind. "The memories you're showing him – you're trying to lead him to a conclusion. Whatever it is you're doing with him in those lessons, it's a way of getting Harry to understand something he'd run off half-cocked about if you simply told him outright."
It wasn't a question, but he nodded. "You are far too logical and sensible for such a ruse to work on you, and while I suspect you are putting some of the pieces together on your own, there is more to it than I am sharing with Harry – though I'm certain you've already figured that out." He offered a smile, which she was not willing to reciprocate.
That only seemed to encourage him; he smiled widely. "In a very real way, you are just as integral to the War effort as our mutual friend – perhaps even more so, in the end." When her eyebrows went up at that, he nodded. "Oh, yes, Hermione. You see, very old men, such as myself, are prone to making mistakes. And being rather cleverer than most people, the mistakes I make tend to be quite a bit larger."
She was glaring at him with open skepticism now. "With all due respect, Headmaster, I have not given you leave to use my proper name, nor did I agree to this meeting for you to blow smoke up my arse." The calm, collected part of her, the little girl that was in awe of all things magical and held more respect for authority than was probably wise, cringed. The rest of her – the part that had coldly looked at the situation with her parents and decided on the most efficient, if slightly ruthless, solution – was proud. "You claim you brought me here for a reason. I think it is time you told me what it was."
"Very well, Miss Granger. Please accept an old man's apologies for – how does Severus phrase it? – ah, yes, 'dancing around the topic like a virgin on her wedding night'." She stifled a grin at that, though it took her a moment to recognize that 'Severus' was her Potions Professor. "What I am showing Harry is, as I said, tangentially related to what I brought you here today to discuss, which is, of course, why I mentioned it. Tell me, have you uncovered the lesson in what I'm showing him?"
Hermione closed her eyes, recalling everything she could about Harry's lessons. "Tom Riddle was charming, clever, handsome, and ambitious. He was fiercely proud of his magical heritage," she mused. "Obsessed might be a better word. He was related to Slytherin, and he liked to collect trophies of his kills." She opened her eyes as a thought occurred to her. "Trophies. There's something there. Harry said he was confused as to why you seemed to think he was on the right track with the mouth organ. The ring." She darted her eyes to his hand, but it was bare. "The locket and cup he sold. There's something special about them, besides being valuable historical artifacts, isn't there?"
"Well done, Miss Granger. I must say, I'm terribly sorry to have never had you as a student while I was teaching. It would have been an absolute delight, I suspect." He nodded. "Indeed, I believe that his 'trophies', as you've phrased it, and what a ghastly word for items to remind one of a murder, are far more dangerous than anything we've seen in centuries – save, perhaps, one small item." He pulled something ragged and black from the top drawer of his desk, and Hermione stared at it for several seconds.
"Is that the diary – from the Chamber of Secrets?" Her eyes narrowed. She'd done extensive research on ways one could preserve a memory – but nothing had come close to abilities of that diary. Either it was extremely dark magic that she would have no access to, or it was something he'd created himself, which was, perhaps, even more frightening. Known Dark Magic, for example, usually had some sort of counter – an original spell would have none, unless the creator himself had devised one.
"Indeed. I had long suspected that Tom had dabbled in magic that should never be meddled in, and I had my suspicions as to how he remained alive in any form after that fateful Halloween. It wasn't, however, until young Harry brought me this diary, flushed with his victory over the basilisk, and young Tom himself, that I had something bordering on proof." He paused for several moments, and then put it away. "Tell me, Miss Granger, have you, perhaps, ever heard of a Horcrux?"
As always, hearing an unfamiliar term frustrated her; the Hogwarts Library was vast – there was no way for any one student, no matter how quickly she read, to make it through the entirety of it in seven years of schooling. The Library, in fact, was one of the main reasons that she considered becoming a Professor. "No, sir. Should I have?"
"I would sincerely hope not. Put quite simply, my dear, a Horcrux is an object in which a witch or wizard traps a part of his soul. When this person dies, the part of the soul trapped in the Horcrux acts as something of a tether, binding the rest of the soul to the mortal plane, until a new body can be created or possessed. It is a rather brutal form of immortality." He paused to let it sink in, and she recalled Harry's recounting of Tom's introduction to the magical word, his conviction, at age eleven, that his mother couldn't have been magical, or she would never have died.
"In the normal course of things, a Horcrux will call the creator's soul back to it's physical location, and the soul, bound to the earthly plane, will collect the magic from the surrounding area, and any witches or wizards in its proximity, to create, literally from the earth itself, a new body. This, of course, presumes that the wizard's body is not still whole. What, then, would you consider the downside to this method?"
"Well," she said, giving herself a few moments to process that souls were, in fact, real, and not a product of religious propaganda, and that it was possibly to put part of one's soul in an object. "If the Horcrux is destroyed, then the soul would be free – to go wherever souls usually go, I suppose." A thought occurred to her, and she looked up at him, curiously. "Sir, could you split your soul more than once? Create several of these things?" At his nod, she continued. "In that case, I suspect the soul would be – torn? – between two or more locations." The implications of that stunned her. "He has more than one, doesn't he?"
"I believe he does. If he did not, then the destruction of that diary, which was obviously, in retrospect, a Horcrux, and one created when he was quite young, which is frightening in and of itself, should have either sent his soul to oblivion, or should have created a new body for him, pulling magic from the area it was stored in until it was done."
"What about his original body? Didn't they say it was never found?"
"Ah, yes. I suppose that was always a possibility. However, I believe that his original body had been subjected to too many Dark rituals to survive the circumstances of his death. If I am wrong, well…it would indicate that his soul animated the corpse in an effort to relocate to his Horcrux, but failed before the soul was pushed from it. My understanding, from speaking to rather powerful necromancers, is that the soul usually takes around three days to depart."
"And if he had more than one Horcrux, his body wouldn't have known which direction to go to," she concluded. "What do you think happened?" Her earlier frustration and suspicion was forgotten for the moment in the excitement of discovery.
"I believe that Tom's body was torn, or perhaps shredded would be a better word, as his soul attempted to direct it to the various locations he had hidden his Horcruxes in."
"And his soul?"
"Ah. Yes. Well, insomuch as I have been able to discover, Tom's soul was probably damaged beyond repair, and while parts of what was left of it would have split off in that mad scramble to create a body, the vast portion of it slunk away to some secret place to lick its wounds, until it was strong enough to try again. Had he not regained his body, it would eventually have been torn apart, leaving his Horcruxes, however many of them there are, as nothing more than powerfully Dark objects, without the ability to resurrect him."
"Sir, couldn't we make one for Harry? That way, if something goes wrong, we can bring him back, and he can still fight?" The excitement of new knowledge quite blinded her to the horror on his face, but his next words put a stop to it.
"Miss Granger, to create a Horcrux, one must deliberately split one's soul – to do that, one must murder, in cold blood, an innocent. I rather suspect that part of the malfunction of Tom's Horcruxes is that few of his kills were done to the innocent." The Headmaster's voice was cold, and she shivered.
Another tremor rocked her, when she realized what he was getting at. "So – the Horcrux tying him to life was made when he killed – or tried to kill – Harry? Is that what you're saying?" He didn't answer. "Where is it?"
The blue eyes filled with tears, and she was terribly afraid she knew what he was going to say; it made perfect, if horrific, sense. The connection between them, his reactions to Tom's presence. All of it. "It's Harry." Her spine turned to steel. "How do you destroy a Horcrux?"
"The item containing it must be destroyed, beyond magical repair. There are so few things that can accomplish that, you know," he said, letting her reach her own conclusions.
"Basilisk venom. Certain magical fires. And the Killing Curse." To destroy the Horcrux, they would have to kill Harry. She would not accept that.
"We have begun so late, Miss Granger. We do not know the locations of his Horcruxes, nor do we know how many he has made. What we need is more time."
She looked up at him, shocked. Those were the exact words he'd said to her, not three years before, when she and Harry had used her Time-Turner to save Sirius and Buckbeak. But it wasn't possible.
"The five hours given by a Time-Turner wouldn't be much help, sir."
"Indeed not. However, I must wonder if you are familiar with the cautionary tale of Miss Eloise Mintumble?" She nodded; it was one of the in-depth stories in the Ministry pamphlet she'd been given with her Time-Turner in third year. She'd read it cover to cover countless times, making sure she didn't muck it up. "As you know, Miss Mintumble had a rather catastrophic accident with her Time-Turner, and was stuck five hundred years in her past, until she could be rescued. And while that is, of course, a horrifying fate to imagine, let us not forget what happened upon her return: unbirths, damage to time itself – and Miss Mintumble, living all five hundred years in the space of time it took for her to come back."
Experience, via Harry, taught her that with Dumbledore, the story on the surface was only part of the tale. The point was always buried in inanities. Was it her imagination, or had he slightly, very slightly, emphasized the word 'return'? Oh, of course!
"Sir, are you implying that it was the return journey, and not the trip to the past, that caused the damage?" He nodded, and she frowned. "The changes would have rippled through time until they caught up with her 'present', the one she'd vanished from. Which would mean that she would have been perfectly safe if she'd just stayed five hundred years in the past." It was a staggering thought.
"Perhaps, what is even more important, is that there was no existing Miss Mintumble in the time she journeyed to. No past and future selves meeting and causing chaos, no need to share the limited magic between two persons, risking turning oneself into a Squib – or worse."
And she understood. Even if the limitations could be removed from a Time-Turner, there was no way for Dumbledore to travel back over a hundred years and prevent his own birth – or worse – in order to stop this. Nor could any of the professors, save perhaps Snape, who was probably too vicious to be much good at changing things around. Every other member of the Order was either too old, or had magical relations that would recognize their physical traits – the particular shade of Weasley red, for example. No, it would have to be her.
He must have seen the realization come over her. "Please understand, Miss Granger, I cannot ask this of you. This is not a task I could reasonably request someone to volunteer for, nor could I be certain of the motives of anyone who did. Your life, as you know it, would be completely forfeit. Hermione Granger may never be born, and I have no idea what effect that could have on your current self. And it should only be as a last resort – if we have lost the war so badly that there is no hope for the future, with an immortal Dark Lord ruling the world."
"You mean, if Harry dies, somehow, and Voldemort lives." Somehow, she thought bitterly. She may have to be the one to do it herself; if Voldemort could possess Quirrell, he could possess Harry – he had possessed Harry, at least for short periods of time. If Voldemort were to use Harry against them, it might fall on her to kill him. Surely, that was the circumstance Dumbledore meant – that she was to go back in time before she had to kill Harry.
She took a deep breath. "What do I need to do?"