8

Ah, Disclaimer! Thou that art necessary, but unwanted, but always assumed! As if people should be reminded that I am but an intruder upon the 'Verse, furtively attempting to fix egregious lack of awesomeness and nonsensical character decisions in the shadows of stories I do not own ...

A/N: This little fic has been expanded and clarified from the first version that was here. It is easily the least liked of everything I've written, but I thought it deserved some extra work anyway. I've also changed the writing to E-Prime; details comprise the last chapter.

Think of this as version 1.5.

-o-

Chapter 1 – The Madness

"Hermione, will you marry me?"

Ron had one knee on the floor, with the traditional ring-in-a-box held in an upraised hand. His hopeful expression spread all across his face, and he had his usual optimistic cluelessness.

Hermione hesitated. "Stand up, Ron. Before I answer, I need to know something."

He stood, slipping the ring box into his robe's pocket. Ron had no doubt, hesitation, or, well, anything, going on beneath his surface emotions. In her mind, she snorted. Ron barely has anything going on on the surface.

"Sure, what do you want to know?"

"Ron, do you promise to answer my question completely, with no deception, regardless of what I ask?"

He frowned a bit in thought. "Okay, but you have to promise in return that you will keep my answers secret unless I give permission. I will answer all your questions, but you will keep my secrets for me, right?"

As if Ron has any real secrets. "Okay …." As soon as the first syllable left her mouth, Ron grabbed Hermione's arm and towed her along as he ascended the staircases of the Weasley home. Up they climbed, until finally, at the fifth floor, they stopped and entered Ron's bedroom. Ron drew her inside, closed the door, and with this wand, poked the molding around the door – it slid downward, revealing an extensive array of miniaturized runes. A muttered incantation later, and the runes lit while the molding levitated to its original location.

Ron smiled genially at Hermione's confusion. "I created the most complete security rune system I could fit into the space I had. As long as we don't start screaming, nothing we say will leak outside."

"But … but … you didn't even take Runes!"

"Well, no. Of course not. I stared reading Bill's Runes and curse-breaking manuals after I hit my seventh birthday. Taking Ancient Runes at Hogwarts would have put me to sleep."

Blink. Wha?

"Um, Hermione … Hermione …"

"What? Oh, right … So why didn't you take arithmancy?"

Ron shook his head. "I had access to Bill and Charlie's books, right? So when I read the arithmancy texts, I quickly found that arithmancy has nothing to offer except a more refined version of Divination." At Hermione's blank look, he went on, "I play chess, Hermione. I immediately decided that I will not spend effort on setting up a favorable environment for success when I can set up actual success instead."

She shook her head and refocused. "Why did you leave during the hunt?"

Ron's focus was a little thrown by the change of subject. "My reasons started out simple but became … a little complicated," he hedged. "How much time do you have?"

"As long as you need." Hermione's expression promised dire consequences for an incomplete explanation.

Ron then settled Hermione on the bed, and he pulled the desk and wardrobe away from the opposite wall with a flick of his wand. He took down the five eye-wateringly orange posters of the Chudley Cannons with another series of wand movements, laying them carefully on the desk. The absent posters revealed a group of mis-colored rectangles on the wall; Ron tapped two of them with his wand in a staccato rhythm, and the wall faded. Hermione gasped. The disappearing wall revealed a shallow compartment, showing a series of small notebooks – easily over a hundred – and a whole bunch of pegs, from which dangled two …

"Time turners!" Hermione gasped. "How did you get them?" She whirled to Ron. "Where did you steal them from?"

Ron chuckled. "I recieved them as a gift. From … well, me actually." He sat down on the chair. "I originally had a few hundred, because every time a messenger came back to deliver a notebook of instructions, they would hand me their time turners, and then disappear. Over and over again," he said softly.

Hermione sat down on the bed with a whump, bouncing slightly. "Explain," she said curtly.

Ron sat back and put his hands behind his head. "Just before I turned seven, I got an … unusual … visitor. Myself, as identical as I could tell. I – He – gave me two time turners, and a notebook. He just said, 'These belong to you, now. Read everything first.' So I did."

"But … time turners can only go six hours into the past, and only if you've got one of the powerful ones! How did a six year old you get two of them!"

Ron smiled easily. "From me of course – the six hours in the future me. And from the six hours ahead of him, and the six hours ahead of him … a long way in the future, a Ron Weasley obtained two of the best time turners in existence, and made a plan that killed off the world that he knew. And every six hours before his decision, the prior Ron Weasley made the same decision, until it got to me."

Ron could tell that Hermione did not quite follow. "In the distant future, Super Ron steals, finds, buys, or otherwise acquires two different time turners, and has a burning need for the world to have a different past. So he buys a small notebook and writes down the point at which he needs to act. Carrying both time turners and the notebook, he uses one time turner to go back in time six hours. Follow me this far?"

Hermione's face and gestures prompted Ron to continue. Quickly. "So six hours in the past, he finds a slightly younger himself, and hands the notebook over with both time turners. Super Ron disappears – becomes unmade – and Slightly Less Super Ron uses the second time turner to go back six hours. He finds another, younger self, and gives him the time turners, and then he repeats the process – and that continues until all the information and the time turners get back to the version that has a chance to make the necessary changes. All the Ron's up the timeline become unmade, and as Not-At-All-Super Ron, I find myself left with a set of Time Turners and a notebook detailing why I felt that the future needed to change. I felt so strongly enough about it that I was willing to undergo … disincorporation." He paused and sighed. "My death. My deaths." Another pause. "I used to have a lot of time turners. I still have a lot of notebooks."

"What did the first notebook tell you?"

Ron shrugged. "It set up the procedure for using the time turners for an extended trip: when I should use them, what information I needed to pass along to the past, the obligation that I've … given to myself, I guess. I told myself to study runes and charms; runes for application and theory and charms for power, and to conceal my abilities as best I could by emphasizing my natural state of idiocy."

Hermione snorted. "You did that well."

Ron took no offense. "Thank you," he smiled easily. "I followed exercises that would strengthen my core, and I learned how to put together my essential spell book – the spells, curses, jinxes, and enchantments that I needed to use to complete my mission."

"And, your mission?"

"Why, to keep you and Harry alive so that Tom Riddle could undergo a permanent death."

Hermione frowned. "Why me? I mean, I understand Harry, but …"

"Because you help keep Harry alive, and because you prepare Harry for his fights. I worked to make you both effective … and to whittle those fights down a little, so that Harry could win," he admitted.

"What do you mean?"

Ron settled back and began the story.

"The protections around the Philosopher's Stone in our first year all came from Dumbledore and the teachers, right?"

"Of course, Ron."

"And we found that we could get around those protections fairly easily, right?"

"Well, I was scared a few times …"

"Did it ever occur to you that the protections fit our group in a kind of tailor-made way?"

Hermione's eyes grew wide.

"And just why did Dumbledore commission a logic problem for the protections if you didn't join the Chosen One's group until November first?"

Hermione stopped breathing for a moment. "So that means …"

Ron picked up the sentence for her. "…that Dumbledore chose the protections for the stone to fit the strengths of the team that would face them." He nodded. "A version of me went back to before first year – not all at once, in a relay," Ron hastily added, "to guide me into maneuvering Dumbledore into placing the obstacles that we needed to face."

"Just how did you do that?"

"Um, we'll discuss my methods later."

Hermione sat still in thought for a moment. "So how did you finesse our second year's adventures?"

Ron shrugged. "Think back to all our time at Hogwarts."

Hermione nodded.

"Did you ever hear of anyone breaking their wand except for me?"

Hermione's eyes closed as she thought back.

"And if anyone did have an issue with their wand, how did their parents and the staff of Hogwarts react?"

Hermione whispered, "They took care of it immediately."

"So you would find it very anomalous that my semi-broken wand did not get fixed immediately, right?" Hermione did not pick up on Ron's change in vocabulary.

Hermione quickly straightened up. "But Harry's fight against the basilisk! How could you know that he would live though it?"

Ron shrugged. "Well, a phoenix can cure anything. And I persuaded Dumbledore's phoenix familiar to turn up at the right time, with the right weapon, and the right defense. The solution did have some issues," he admitted, "I – a future me, at least – ended up rejiggering the timeline going back and forth trying to make it so that the roosters didn't die – but every time I tried that, we ended up losing about half the students in the school as the basilisk went on a rampage. My last time through, Harry apparently volunteered to put his life on the line to prevent that, so I went back and arranged for Lockhart's spell to bring down the ceiling, so that Harry could take out the snake."

He paused. "This path had problems, and it involved gambling on random chance, but of all the possible scenarios, this one developed into the only path I could find that didn't end up with massive deaths. We didn't end up with one!"

Hermione murmured, "Not even Mrs. Norris." She had a bit of a history with that particular ball of malevolent fluff.

"Exactly!"

Both of them conspicuously ignored Hermione's stint as a stone statue.

"So what about third year?"

Ron smirked a little. "Do you believe that time travelling involves danger?"

"Of course!" She definitely exuded exasperation now.

"So why would a responsible adult give a thirteen year old girl free access to a time turner just to take more school classes? Shouldn't a responsible leader reserve anything that dangerous for attempts to remake causality?"

Hermione sat back, stunned. Why did they let me do that? "Um …"

"It became the neatest solution to rescuing Black from summary execution. It allowed Harry to rescue himself and Black from the Dementors, and – almost as importantly – it gave you an experience with your limits."

"Why would that make a difference?"

"Because if you truly feel like you can do anything, you overload yourself and have a breakdown on the Hunt. You nearly did, anyway, but in this scenario, Harry dies protecting you from the Snatchers."

"Really?"

Ron shrugged. "Several variants of that scenario exist, but the massive possibility of your death in that future stems from your failure to experience, well, failure. I had to include a few other considerations, too. You could have had the brush with your limits in fifth year, but that would have made everyone in Gryffindor a little on edge, trying to deal with your manic studying, and our grades would suffer." Ron's smirk came back. "And I figured that you and Harry should have your own time turner adventures. Spread the fun around, like."

"And what about Pettigrew?" Hermione challenged.

"You should find it amazing that in two and a half years around Harry, Scabbers never tried to attack him in the middle of the night, never tried to kidnap him, never attempted anything even remotely aggressive … and also completely failed at gathering critical information for his master. Amazing, right?"

Hermione sighed, acknowledging Ron's point. "Fourth year?"

Ron sat forward. "I found that complicated and tricky. Every report I got from up the timeline showed that Harry didn't take the Tournament seriously if we were still friends, so we had to separate so that he would prepare himself; that meant a fight where he rejected me. I really hated to screw up the Ball for you and Harry, but if you had gone with your preferred partners, Skeeter's character assassination would have hit before we could have countered it, and then we would have lost all public support, and the rest of the fight would have gone downhill. It really boiled down to sacrificing one night's fun so that we could have an easier time for the next three and a half years."

Hermione pounced. "So just who did we prefer as partners?"

Ron smiled easily, "Well, you would have preferred to go with a seventh year Ravenclaw, and without my intervention, Harry could have fallen for any number of girls."

"And what about that is so bad?"

"Well, your date would have seduced you, leaving you pregnant that night, leading to you dropping out of school." With a wry grin he added, "Your education is world-shaking, it seems, and I do not feel bad about making sure that you have all the opportunities I can arrange."

Hermione found herself a little nonplussed at that, so she changed her focus. "And Harry?"

Ron hesitated a little. "If Harry went with the wrong girl, he would have been killed. And other dates might have turned out worse, in their way. The absolute worst choice was Fleur Delacour, though."

Hermione raised a threatening eyebrow. "And just why would Harry's involvement with Fleur hurt anyone? No wait – first tell me how Harry could have a date worse than getting killed!"

Ron said soberly, "Harry grew up starved for affection, and he also represented a political powerbase, even though he didn't know it. When you put those two things together, some girls would have given him all the affection he wanted – in any way that he wanted – as long as he followed their political directions. That would have had catastrophic repercussions, regardless of which side got their hooks into him. In the end, Harry either drops out of the war, leaving Voldemort to win; or he finds out that his girlfriend betrays his trust, and he commits suicide."

"And why would Fleur change the future so badly?"

"Fleur has a very level head on her shoulders. But because she has Veela heritage, she experiences a lot of prejudice, right? And given her access to wealth and French political power, if Harry began a romance with her, her experiences would have her tell Harry to take the more cautious and less risky path that was more politically involved internationally … which leads to Death Eaters torturing and killing Fleur as a way to try and manipulate Harry. Harry goes Evil – and where Voldemort merely acted Dark, Harry went full-bore Evil – and he kills every wizard and witch he can find. When Harry finishes spanking the Wizarding world, magical humans are extinct at his hand."

Hermione goggled.

"Well, it headed that way. The me that reported back on that one said he knew of three magicals left when he came back; me, Harry, and Voldemort. The solution to that catastrophe leads to preventing it from happening in the first place." Ron shrugged. "Harry has an immense amount of love, and if it gets twisted, he can and will destroy the world. I had to hope that it could also save it, and that I could nudge things so that Harry could live with his choices."

Hermione fell silent for a moment, considering Ron's explanation, and then continued, "And the Tasks for the Tournament?"

Ron tiled his head. "I believe that your fundamental question runs: why didn't I make everyone's life an easy walk in the park and get all the obstacles out of the way?" Hermione nodded. "At no point did a future Ron Weasley, full of knowledge, cunning, and immense power, ever show up and save the day. I just received a letter that passed through a long relay of postmen, and I had to change what I could however I could." Ron got up and looked out through the window, facing away from the girl sitting on his bed.

"Only one person attempts to fix the future. Me. I only have my own thoughts and my own hands. Nobody else. "