Hogwarts, 2018
"I'm not entirely sure whether we should go through with this, Potter."
"With all due respect, Professor - time is not something to be meddled with."
McGonagall snorted quietly, shaking her head at the younger man's words. They had been mulling over the same idea for the past half hour, and they still hadn't come to terms with what was to be done about it - and arguing with Harry Potter, being as blunt as he was, wasn't exactly an easy task.
"Oh, so let's just send a group of children back in time and let them toy with the very outcome of the last war!" retorted McGonagall, letting out a huff. "Because that isn't meddling with time."
"Harry does have a point, Professor," noted Neville cautiously. In spite of being a thirty-eight-year-old Hogwarts professor, he was still as soft-spoken as he used to be as a teenager. "If you decided to send them back once, being aware of all the risks we were going to take in doing so, it's only right that we shouldn't break the circle now."
"It still sounds ludicrous to me, Longbottom. To send our students back in time, without the Ministry's explicit approval and their parents knowing about it! We're talking about minors!"
"Professor, you do realize that most of us were still children back in the war too, don't you?"
McGonagall huffed. "It's not the same thing, Potter."
The spectacled man shrugged his shoulders and placed a careful hand on his former professor's shoulder. McGonagall had always been fond of him, but she had always been wary of his way of doing things - even though he ended up being right most of the times.
"Please, just let me talk to them when they get back from the holidays," he said carefully. "Neville has been studying them for years now, and I'm sure he's made the best choices. The time has come, and I'm sure they'll understand. Merlin's sake, they might even be willing to collaborate from the beginning."
McGonagall sighed. "Potter, I really hope you're right about this whole idea."
"Well, we are here, right?" Neville shrugged quietly, and then did a faint smile. "It went fine, and all things considered it shouldn't go wrong this time. I met them all when I was younger - they really are to be trusted, Professor."
"I'm not questioning my students' integrity," replied McGonagall, a little too harshly. "But they're children, Longbottom. That's what I'm worried about."
"We won't even notice they're gone, Professor," Harry said. "They'll be back in the blink of an eye. Quite literally. And Neville knew them back then, so his younger self, Luna and Ginny will be there to keep an eye on them."
McGonagall closed her eyes, as though asking herself if they were making the right choice. It was a difficult decision, Harry and Neville knew that much - to allow a group of minors who were supposed to be under her protection to travel back in time and get involved in something as dangerous as directly trying to fight Voldemort's thugs in Hogwarts during the 1997-1998 school year. But they also knew that McGonagall was wise enough to see that time in the Wizarding World wasn't but a circle that had to be completed, and so it didn't strike them as a surprise when the woman nodded her head and muttered, glancing briefly at Dumbledore's portrait,
"All right. Let's do it."