Summary: Months after the Battle of Hogwarts, the Ministry hosts a cleanup of all war-torn areas. While volunteering, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron happen upon a device that allows them to time travel. They soon realize, however, that this is no ordinary time turner.
Disclaimer: The rights to Harry Potter and any associated characters, themes, etc. belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. I do not own this world. I merely write in it.
Chapter 1: No Children in the Training Room
The clock ticked sharply. Many people in the room were sweating profusely under the fumes. Harry Potter tried to stop himself from throwing his potions ingredients across the room. According to his training guide, the light yellow substance in his portable cauldron should have turned a deep maroon by now, and it was showing no signs of darkening. Maybe I should have completed Hogwarts after all, he thought.
Eleven months. It had been eleven months since that fateful duel with Voldemort. After the War, Kingsley had offered that any veteran at the Battle of Hogwarts could graduate without his or her NEWTs and still qualify for auror training. Harry, Ron, and, most particularly, Neville had jumped at the chance, as it meant that they could enter auror training without the necessary marks. Harry had been initially mesmerized with the large auror training room, with its multiple stations for stealth training, dueling, potion brewing, and other disciplines. The last few months of training, though, had been more difficult than he had expected. Much of his success on the battlefield had been pure luck or help. In the training room, however, he only had himself and his objectives. No assistance allowed.
He sighed inwardly as he read the instructions on his worksheet:
Emergency poisoning kits are usually given to practicing aurors in the field. Please use the provided kit to solve the following realistic scenario:
Victim is found at crime scene experiencing slow poisoning from unidentifiable substance. Presumed poisoner has fled the scene thirty seconds previously. Symptoms observed are purple facial veins, dry hands, and frothing at the mouth. Victim has also lost all motor capability. Assuming substance is wizard-made and not Muggle-made or naturally occurring, brew a potion that neutralizes the symptoms. (Time given for exercise: 5 minutes) Please note that emergency poisoning kits do NOT provide all standard potion ingredients.
No mention of what poison it was, no hint of what potion was used to treat it, no steps written on the board, no large standard-issue cauldron, and only a fraction of regular potion ingredients given. And they had five minutes.
This was almost worse than Snape's classes. Almost.
The clock rang obnoxiously. A couple of trainees jumped, and Dawlish silenced it with his wand.
"Hands off, wands away!" he shouted to the room. All of the trainees raised their arms to show their palms. He paced in front of the single long table where all of them were assembled. "Does anyone think that they have completed the exercise?"
Some of them shook their heads. Others looked up and down the table to see if anyone had achieved the feat. Harry looked down at his small cauldron. Still yellow.
"That is exactly what I expected," he stated, "In real situations with standard poisons, you might have less than five minutes, maybe even seconds, to act. But the exercise was being generous considering that it was a rarer, slow-acting variety. Let's examine your work."
Since the end of the War, the auror department had retired Dawlish from active work and assigned him to training the next generation, or 'regiment', of aurors. Harry still wasn't sure if he liked Dawlish. He was very objective in his training style. On the one hand, this meant that if a trainee made a mistake he would simply tell them that they were incorrect and move on. No criticism, just areas for improvement. On the other hand, this also meant that if someone did extremely well, he would simply say that they were correct. No compliments or smiles or house points. As Dawlish liked to say, there were no children in the training room.
Dawlish had reached Neville's cauldron. "There's nothing here, Longbottom."
Neville hesitated, "I didn't have time to make my potion, Sir."
"So do you have any work to show?"
"Well, I made notes on my worksheet, and I gathered potion ingredients." He gestured to them weakly.
Dawlish examined Neville's worksheet and the potion ingredients. "Your notes are correct, Longbottom. The symptoms directly point to the poison Tardis Mortensia, more popularly known as Liquid Senescence, and these are most of the ingredients used to create an antidote. If an antidote was required, that is."
The trainees stared in confusion at his last statement. "Um, Sir," called Armando Fernandez, one of the hopefuls, "Aren't we supposed to be making an antidote?"
"Fernandez, how could you brew a full antidote in five minutes? You were not even given all of the ingredients. And according to the scenario, you were at a crime scene, presumably not an apothecary."
The regiment gasped in realization at what he was saying. Some, like Ron, had not cottoned on.
"The instructions never asked you to brew an antidote, nor did I. Your job as aurors is to neutralize the symptoms. Keep them alive so the healers can cure them. You read the scenario: the poisoner fled the scene. You need to catch the suspect, not spend a bloody hour bringing the victim to glowing health."
He looked at some more of the cauldrons, making corrections. Ron had apparently guessed the wrong type of slow-acting poison. At last, Dawlish came to Harry's cauldron. He peered at the yellow substance.
"You were correct in guessing the type of poison, Potter: Liquid Senescence. And you are a quarter of the way through with an antidote, although it appears you applied a clockwise stir where it shouldn't be. Despite this, there is an indication that your potions skills have improved. However, as I said, we are not looking for an antidote." Harry heard a light snigger next to him, too soft for Dawlish to hear.
It was Elise Fuhrman, one of the other trainees. On the whole, Harry had done well with building relationships in his regiment, despite the fact that most of his peers were either a couple years older or never went to Hogwarts. There was one hopeful, though, who seemed determined to make an enemy of him. Elise Fuhrman, known to everyone simply as Fuhrman, was generally intimidating. She had long, dark hair that stood out against her pale skin, with tattoos down her back and amber eyes that reminded him of a hawk. She was extremely tall and towered over most of the regiment, allowing her to frequently defeat him in physical sparring. Harry didn't know why she hated him, but he thought that maybe it had something to do with her schooling experience. She was homeschooled by a wizard in Newham, one of the poorest areas of London, and her father was a Muggle mechanic. This upbringing seemed to explain why she could spit crude statements across a room with no regrets.
Dawlish approached her workspace. "Where is your cauldron, Fuhrman?"
"Didn't use one, Sir."
"Why not?"
"This was an emergency, and I needed to act fast. In those cases, the stomach and its natural acids work like a cauldron, so you can take the risk of going without one to save time. You can just feed the ingredients to the victim."
Dawlish nodded, "Not generally a rule of thumb, but that is technically correct. So what have you got here?" He pointed to the ingredients on her table.
"Root of asphodel, brings down the heart rate," she went down the row, "Syrup of hellebore to get the victim moving again; flubberworm mucus to make sure the body doesn't dry up. I was about to get one more ingredient before you called time, and after that one I figured the victim would've been stable and ready for a trip to Saint Mungo's."
"I would have also given the victim aconite and shrivelfig. Otherwise, yes, the mixture would be effective. With those two ingredients in addition to your list, you would definitely be able to neutralize given the time allotted."
Although he walked on without giving praise, the whole room stared at her enviously, some of them adoringly. Fuhrman turned to Harry with an almighty smirk. He wished Hermione could still be his class genius.
But life had changed.
Hey everyone! This story is going to have multiple chapters, so don't be alarmed that I haven't referred to time travel yet! We'll get there soon. I'll try to update this regularly.