This chapter is part of a rewriting of this story. Subsequent chapters may be in present tense and first person. The story should be understandable, but changes are to be made. This warning will be at the beginning of every revised chapter until there are no unrevised chapters left. Thank you for your patience.
Hey, so, long-time-no-see. :) I've redone this chapter to the best of my abilities and I am grateful for every read it gets. If you read the original, please tell me how the new one fares in my place. If you haven't, please still tell me what you think. Reviews are lifeblood.
There were many things Harry Potter learned from the war, but one of the most important was that, sometimes, you had to pick which battles were worth fighting for. When Hermione insisted that the three of them sort through their old packs for Hogwarts before the next year started, he deigned it a necessary evil.
Three hours later, however, he had started to regret that decision.
Wondering how he had managed to fit so many broken quills into a single suitcase, he groaned, falling back against the wall in Ron's room with a thunk. Hermione studiously ignored him, sifting through what looked to be photographs. Ron made a small noise of understanding from his place on the floor, having given up long ago.
"'Mione," Harry began, sugar-sweet. "I-"
Hermione let out a small laugh at something she had found. Harry craned his neck to look, but her hands blocked his view. "Oh, Ginny'll love this," she said moments later, a hint of humor still in her voice. "It's my old time-turner." She let it drop on it's chain, bouncing it slightly as the cord pulled taught.
Harry frowned, thinking back to the end of that year. It had been quite a blur after the danger had passed, as most things were. "I'd thought that you turned that in to Professor McGonagall."
She paused, looking at the pendant hard, as if it could tell her what had happened to it and why it was there. "I had thought so as well," she murmured.
Ron laughed, a bit oblivious to the sudden tension in the air. "You, Hermoine Jean Granger, forgot something. You."
"If I remember correctly," she snapped, a faint blush grazing her cheekbones, "there was quite a lot going on at the time."
Harry nodded, watching the way the metal glinted bright in the light streaming out the window. "Can you-" he paused, swallowing his words back and choosing better ones. "Could you imagine what we could've done? If we'd only known?"
Hermoine shoved it in her pocket harshly. "Yes, I suppose so," she said, something not unlike guilt flickering across her face. "We can't change it now. What's happened, happened."
"Best to not dwell on it," Harry said, softly as he dared. She nodded.
They were all quiet for quite some time.
After the war, several families had taken refuge at The Burrow. Most had long since left, but a few remained: the Lovegoods, Neville Longbottom, Teddy Lupin, and Andromeda Tonks. Despite Molly's insistence against it, lunch had became a grab-and-go activity. There was simply not enough room for everyone to eat at the table.
Along with Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Neville, and Ron, Harry sat under a larger tree in the backyard. They spread out with sandwiches and talked, watching the garden gnomes squirrel away noisily as they walked by.
"What do you think it'll be like to go back?" Luna asked dreamily, gazing off at something none of the others could identify. Her sandwich looked to be abandoned.
"I don't know," Harry responded. "Last year wasn't easy on anyone. Some are bound to be bitter."
"I think bitter would be an understatement, mate," Ron grimaced. "We locked the Slytherins in the dungeon."
"They were going to help Voldemort!" Neville protested around a mouthful of food.
Grimacing, Hermione countered, "Actually, most of them just wanted to be neutral. They didn't see the value in fighting either way."
"It's just as bad," Ron said fiercely. Neville nodded, and they both looked to Harry.
People did that often after the war. It was unnerving, to say the least. "I dunno," Harry said slowly. "If there were any way I could've avoided fighting, I would've taken it."
Luna smiled in his general direction. "Yes, but if you were there, and there was a war going on, I think we all know you would still be fighting, Chosen One or not."
Harry wasn't so certain, but he remained quiet.
"Oh," Hermione said, changing the subject in a way that was extremely appreciated. "You'll never guess what I found."
"What is it?" Ginny asked, appearing interested for the first time.
"My old time turner," she said, pulling it out of her pocket smoothly. "Isn't it odd?"
"Very," Luna intoned, grasping it away from Hermione smoothly and inspecting it with unusually sharp eyes. She fiddled with it almost absentmindedly.
Neville looked up from his intense study of the grass to his left. "It might do well for you to turn it in. From what you hear, the Ministry's in a bit of a fix. A lot got destroyed. Just think-that might very well be the last time-turner left."
"It's broken," Luna interjected almost lazily. "It must've twisted at some point."
Something in Hermione shifted, and she seemed almost relieved. "No use in giving it back, then," she said slowly. "They've got plenty of broken time-turners down at the ministry."
Harry nodded, part of him suspecting that his friend had been suffering more than a little bit of guilt over holding this little bit back from the effort, however unknowingly. He was glad she could let that go. They all held too much guilt already. It was of no use to add more.
"You're right." Harry met her eyes solidly. "There's nothing for it now. It's best not to dwell." He saw her nod almost imperceptibly. He looked up towards the sky for just a moment, eyeing the thin clouds dotting the horizon. Some things never changed.
Luna hummed a single note, off-key but somewhat soothing. Harry looked to her, smiling, and met her grey eyes with his green. He glanced at her hands, seeing her short nails and pale skin vaguely just as every last muscle in his body froze.
His eyes followed the movement of her small hands as they gripped the pendant, turning it around and around slowly, steadily.
"Luna!" he shouted, shocked, suddenly jumping to motion. He grabbed her hands in his, stilling her quickly, before any more damage can be done.
Her eyes slid down smoothly to rest on their conjoined hands. He could see the moment she realized what she'd done in the way she had buffed out a short breath of air, staring.
"Oh," she murmured. "That isn't good."
Everyone's eyes were glued to their intertwined hands, in the same way one cannot look away from a trainwreck. No one took single breath.
Nothing happened for several minutes. Inch by inch, they relaxed, thinking that, maybe, just maybe, there might not be anything to worry about after all. The time-turner had been broken, after all.
Ginny giggled softly, and the tension in the air evaporated like smoke under a fan.
Luna and Harry clutched each other's hands as they burst into grins. "Fuck," Harry said. "I thought we were done for, there. Didn't know what it would do."
He relaxed a bit more, thinking that they were safe, for that one second.
He only had a moment before he felt a twisting in his gut, like something was pulling at him from the inside out. Everything went black. All he could feel was Luna's hand in his, clutching tightly.
Soon he was lost in the darkness.