Stray But A Little
The butterfly effect is the lingering fear that haunts even the most daring time-travelers: the reality that a sequence of events can never occur the same way twice. When Draco Malfoy is the victim of an accident in the Veil Room, Unspeakable Granger realizes that there are two ways to re-enter the past: one way that affects the present, and one that doesn't. But how to choose?
Ginny Potter put one sweaty hand on her head and the other on her hip as she surveyed the disorganized living room with the eagle eyes of an experienced Chaser. Her two-year-old son, James, was hiding somewhere in the clutter, desperate to escape his inevitable doom: his nightly bath, which he fought valiantly every evening.
"James," said Ginny, adopting a coaxing tone as she crawled behind the sofa, "you know Mummy has to give Albus a bath too, don't you? You can go to bed sooner if you let me put you in your nice bubble bath now."
"No bath," came the mournful little voice. Ginny rounded the corner of the sofa and found her errant tot curled up under the coffee table. Sighing, she pulled out her wand.
"Accio James." The toddler zoomed gloomily into her arms and his mother gave him a kiss on his forehead. "Come on, let's get you washed up."
When Ginny reached the second-floor bathroom, she found her husband flat under the tub, surrounded by a pool of soapy water.
"Harry?" she asked. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Albus cracked the tub when he threw the soap dish into it yesterday," he explained, his voice echoing off the bottom of the sink. "I tried to run the water for James and it leaked out through the porcelain. Can you use the third-floor bath, Gin? The maintenance spells on this tub are a lot more worn than I realized."
"Sure," she sighed. Exiting the bathroom, she heard a soft tinkle coming from the fireplace. Harry had set up a charm that allowed the inhabitants at Grimmauld Place to block the entry of unwelcome visitors via the floo; therefore, either she or Harry had to let everyone in personally. She set James down and regretfully decided that he would not be getting his bath that night.
"Jamie, will you go play quietly in your nursery?" she asked.
"No bath?" he said hopefully.
"No, no bath," she answered. James ran across the hallway to the nursery he shared with his younger brother, and Ginny ran downstairs, painfully aware of the mess in the front room. When she approached the fireplace, she saw the faint outline of a bushy-haired witch shimmering in the grate. She tapped the mantelpiece with her wand and Hermione's outline solidified. Presently, she came into full focus, and sprang out of the ashes with a harried look on her face.
"I thought you weren't home," she said. "I was about to try the Burrow instead, but-"
"Slow down, Hermione," said Ginny, taking in her friend's bedraggled appearance. Hermione's face was nicked with small cuts here and there, and she was limping noticeably. "What on earth is the matter?"
"There was an accident at the Ministry," said Hermione, pulling off her robe and hissing in pain as a jagged tear in the swollen skin was bared. Ginny's eyes widened and she summoned a bottle of dittany, which she handed to the frazzled witch without a word.
"What happened?" asked Ginny worriedly, watching as Hermione nodded her thanks and smeared a generous quantity of brown fluid onto her arm. "Was there-was there something in the Hall of Prophecies?"
"No, no." Hermione ran a hand through her hair. "Draco Malfoy was trying to summon objects from behind the veil-we've spent weeks developing an incantation for it in the Unspeakable department, and we tried it out today for the first time. It was horrible," she said softly, closing her eyes. "His body just shimmered and seemed to dissolve-and when he was back again, it was as if he'd lost all the strength in his body. He just swayed slightly, shook his head, and keeled over. There was an explosion, in the center of the veil, and no one in that room escaped without injuries. His skin looked sunken and yellow, and he seemed thinner-as if he'd had a horrible illness or something."
"Is there anything you need Harry to do?"
"No, not just Harry-you too, Gin. The project we were working on is strictly confidential, so we can't take him to Saint Mungo's. We all took an unbreakable vow never to reveal the work we were doing, and there was a side clause that kept us from seeking traditional treatment for any injuries we incurred."
"I don't understand. Why would there be a clause like that?"
"The vow applies to injuries, but its original text only allows for injuries as a special case. Most accidents in the Department of Mysteries meet with instant death, and the main provision is that their families not disclose the cause of death to the public later. If we bring Malfoy to Saint Mungo's, there's a high chance that we'll all break the vow, and it'll be the end of us."
"But you just told me about what you're doing," said Ginny, growing more confused by the minute.
"Oh, the purpose of our work is public knowledge, but we can't reveal the methods to anyone but our families. The vow was worded ambiguously enough that taking an injured employee to he hospital might counter it."
"I told you!" cried Harry, appearing at the top of the stairs. "I told you not to work in the Department of Mysteries, Hermione-"
"But that isn't why I'm here," she said hurriedly. "I think that our healing team has the skill to treat him, because we had anticipated some adverse reaction. The point is that we can't take him to the Ministry clinic either, and nowhere in the Ministry works at all, because every room is monitored. Our work is even supposed to be secret from Kingsley," Hermione ran a hand through her bushy hair, making it stand up even more than usual. "Is it possible that we can care for him here? My colleagues' homes are too small, and you don't use the seventh floor anyway. If not, it's all right-"
"Of course you can," said Ginny. Both her husband and best friend studied her in some surprise.
"Really?" asked Harry in surprise.
"Of course," she repeated. "We owe a life debt to Narcissa Malfoy," she explained to her companions, "and now will be as good a time to repay it as any."
"Will you be here, Mione?" asked Harry.
"I'll be in to look at him every day, and I suppose our healing team will take it in shifts once they are healed themselves. I have other work to do, though."
"What will you be doing?"
"I need to break the Unbreakable Vow," said Hermione desperately. "I haven't taken it, but my colleagues all have-but my going against it could kill them. I've no way of knowing."
"Herm-there's no way to break an Unbreakable Vow," said Ginny gently, fervently thanking her stars that she had chosen to follow Quidditch and journalism as a profession, while her husband was an auror. "You can't-"
"I'm not going to break it. I know it can't be done. I'm going to go back and stop it from ever being made."
"You mean-"
"Hermione, your own research shows how dangerous that is!" cried Ginny. "When you and Harry went back to save Buckbeak, you literally went only three hours back and you changed the universe as we know it forever. But if you were to go back-"
"It was seven months ago that they took the Vow," Harry put in helpfully.
"Yes, and you know-you know that any child conceived after then will never come to be, and so much could be changed, and doing this could mean your death for all you know..."
"I wouldn't even think of doing this if I believed that," said Hermione, falling onto the sofa in exhaustion.
"What do you mean?" asked Harry warily. "And be careful about what you tell us..."
"Don't worry. This is my individual research, I'm not endangering my colleagues at all. There are two effects when we go back in time. Either we always went back in time-that is, the past already had us from the present in it, or-"
"Our third year!" said Harry excitedly. "Even before we went back in time, our future selves were there. Buckbeak never died at all. We didn't change time. We had always been meant, I suppose, to go back."
"Exactly. We didn't change time. We traveled in time, to be sure, but that's the sequence of events that took place in all possible dimensions. However, it is possible to change time, by going back when you weren't there before. As to that sort of paradox, it's usually only illustrated in situations where wizards ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake. Otherwise, time is changed entirely and only the traveler remembers the original universe at all."
"So you're saying that if the butterfly effect has happened, we would have no way of knowing?" said Ginny, furrowing her brow.
"Exactly. If I go back in time, and stop Malfoy and the others from taking the vow-"
"That'll be changing time, surely," said Harry. "After all, he has taken the vow, and you know that's a fact. If you stop it from happening, you'll be changing time, and there's no knowing what will happen."
"If you were to go back and stop it from happening," said Ginny, thinking furiously, "you would be sure to leave a cover story of sorts, so no one would know the vow had never been taken."
"Yes..." said Hermione slowly, beginning to see what Ginny was aiming at.
"You can't know whether the Vow they took was legitimate," Harry realized. "Maybe you've already gone back in time and stopped the Vow from happening. And maybe you haven't. If you did, you have to go again. And if you didn't, going will mean you'll be changing time."
"It's your choice, Hermione," said Ginny softly, looking up as James toddled down the stairs and crept towards them guiltily. "What's the matter, Jamie?"
"Bwoke Al's wattle," whimpered James. "Didn't mean, Mummmy, pwomise."
"I'll get it," Harry offered, bundling the sleepy tot into his arms and whisking him upstairs.
"We'll never know, and never feel the loss of anything you change," said Ginny sadly, going over the events of the last seven months in her mind and wondering if there was anything she would miss. She thanked Heaven that both her boys had been before then. "If you feel you must, then you must, Hermione. You owe it to Malfoy, anyway. Or we do. If he dies because of this, and we could have done something-"
"And Narcissa Malfoy would suffer anything to make sure her son was alright," said Hermione softly, curling up in a corner of the sofa. "Exactly." She shook herself and rose from her seat. "He's at Frisham's flat for tonight; is it all right if I have him moved here tomorrow morning around half-past nine?"
"Yes, I'll be up, I won't start on my stories until noon, Harry will have gone, and the boys will still be asleep," said Ginny, calculating with the practiced acuity of a harried mother. "I'll get Flippy to have the attic ready." Flippy was the Potters' house elf, who served as a playmate for James and Albus when their parents were busy more than anything else.
"Will you let Ron and the rest know I won't be coming to the family dinner tomorrow?" said Hermione apologetically. "You two can go on, we'll look after things here."
"Yeah. My brothers really have missed you, you've been so busy," said Ginny with a chuckle. "When do you mean to procure a time-turner strong enough to go back seven months?"
"I'll have to check the records to see what combination of time-turners I need," said Hermione. "Is it all right if I sleep here tonight, Ginny?"
"Of course," said Ginny. A thought crossed her mind and she sprang up with an oath. "You've been here for so long and I haven't even offered you supper. It's not much, just French onion soup with garlic bread and some baked apples, but-"
"That sounds wonderful," said Hermione with an exhausted smile. As Ginny jogged toward the kitchen, she tucked her head into the sofa and closed her eyes.
She was asleep before Ginny returned with the soup two minutes later.