Chapter Two--Hermione's Fault

August 13, 2006--The Burrow

Ginny Potter slumped into a chair beside her husband, feeling absolutely drained. Harry was trying to eat the dessert Mrs. Weasley had saved for him, but after every bite, his head would slowly sink to his chest, eyes closed. He would then jerk himself awake.

"Remind me again--why did I say I wanted another one?" Ginny lamented to Harry, running her hand into her hair in an effort to hold up her head.

"Let's see. I believe you said 'Oh, Harry, we have so much love to give. Let's have another baby.' Apparently my wife forgot exactly how much work a baby is and how little sleep parents of a newborn get," Harry responded with a long yawn.

"Well, you didn't say anything either. Must be you forgot as well," Ginny replied grumpily.

"What can I say? I love my wife. I would do anything for her--fight Basilisks, kill a Dark wizard, die for her."

"Oh, Harry, I love you, too." Ginny leaned over to put her head on Harry's shoulder. "I love Sirius as well. He is a perfect miniature of you, but I do wish he would learn to sleep for longer than two hours at a time." Ginny abruptly sat up and looked around suspiciously. "Where are the twins? It's far too quiet in there."

At that moment, sounds of an argument erupted from the living room. Ginny stood to go in there. She looked back over her shoulder at Harry, who had finally succumbed to sleep. He was slumped over the table, his face lying in the middle of the empty plate with his glasses askew. Running her hand through his hair, Ginny murmured, "You are such a wonderful father, Harry, but don't think this means that you can get out of waking up for your turns tonight. Thank Merlin; you took some time off from work. I think we would all be batty by now if you hadn't."

The argument in the living room was evidently escalating as the voices were getting louder and louder. Ginny couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but she figured that was a good thing as hopefully Sirius wouldn't start crying again.

"James Arthur Potter! Lily Ginevra Potter!" Ginny hissed, walking into the living room. "You are going to wake up your baby brother! Can you never stop your arguing?" As she entered the room, Ginny saw her oldest children pulling on something and suddenly disappear. Ginny screamed, sinking to her knees. "Where…where have they gone?! My children…Harry!"

Harry rushed into the living room, wand stretched out in front of him. His hair was standing straight up on the side that had been in the plate and crumbs of treacle tart clung to his cheek. Harry made some motions with his wand, apparently with the intent of checking for any untold magic. When his scans came up clear, he rushed to his wife of more than six years and gathered her in his arms. He sat on the couch and tucked Ginny into his lap.

"What happened? I heard you scream. Didn't you just put Sirius down, or was I dreaming?" Harry asked very softly, trying to calm down his wife by rubbing circles on her back.

Hermione and Ron Weasley sprinted into the room a few seconds behind Harry. "What happened?" Ron queried as he made his way there. He knew how exhausted his sister and Harry were from taking care of the new baby, but still it wasn't like Ginny to get hysterical.

"James and Lily! They just disappeared! They were here when I walked in, but they… they just vanished, like someone used Evanesco on them or something." As Ginny cried out an explanation rather hysterically, Hermione looked around the room as if searching for something.

"Oh no! No! No!" Hermione shook her head back and forth slowly. "Ginny, I think this is entirely my fault," Hermione sighed heavily and stared down at the floor.

"Your fault? How could Lily and James disappearing possibly be your fault Hermione? We know you wouldn't do anything to your goddaughter. James, well, that's a different story," Harry pondered.

Hermione sighed again before adding, "Because I was stupid enough to bring along a piece of work to ask for your help, Harry. I forgot that your twins are just like their parents, twin uncles and most especially like their Grandfather Potter--into everything." As Hermione was saying this, George appeared in the doorway of the living room.

"So what was this piece of work, and how did it make my children disappear?" Ginny demanded from her sister-in-law, looking thoroughly spent. Harry looked from his wife to his sister-in-law with a deeply worried look on his face. Ginny had been having a rough couple of weeks since the birth of their third child. She looked like she might collapse at any moment. Harry worried that she might not be able to withstand any potential problems that might crop up in this situation. Normally, her face would have her traditional blazing look on it, but now it was devoid of any emotion.

"Um, um." Harry hadn't seen Hermione this nervous since her wedding to Ron. "Well, it looks like they used the Time-Turner I had brought to get Harry's help with."

"Time-Turner? Like what we used to save Sirius in third year?" Harry asked with a furrowed brow.

"Wait. I thought all of those were destroyed during our trip to the Ministry during my fourth year," Ginny said with a confused look. Hermione preferred Ginny to be confused rather than mad as she was less likely to hex someone. However, she knew that she had better explain, even though she really wasn't supposed to talk about her work as an Unspeakable.

"They were destroyed. However, when I began working in the D.O.M., I was assigned the task of creating new Time-Turners to replace the ones that were broken. I got the assignment because I had actually used the device before and had some knowledge as to how they worked," Hermione responded.

"But why would you need my help? I mean, how could I possibly help you with this? I never took Arithmancy or anything like that."

"Harry, love, focus. Do we really need to know all this?" Ginny apparently was getting her second wind as the look appeared on her face. She turned to Hermione, "What do we have to do to find my children and bring them home if they used this Time-Turner?"

"Well, it won't be hard to find where they are as Time-Turners only manipulate time, not space. So they would have appeared in the living room. I think the real problem is when they are," Hermione explained.

"What do you mean? Didn't it go back a few hours like we did third year?"

"It is possible that they just went back a few hours, but I think we would remember two sets of the twins being here. No, the Time-Turner I created is slightly different from the device we used. The new one has four settings--minutes, hours, days, or years. I haven't quite figured out how to use more than one setting at a time yet."

"Obviously, they didn't go back minutes or hours, but what about days or years? How will we know?' Ron interjected. His years as an Auror were paying off as he methodically thought through the problem. Harry was known to say around the office that the best day of his life as an Auror was when Ron married Hermione because since the wedding, Ron seemed to share some of Hermione's brains.

"It can't have been days because we have been here for the past two weeks getting Mum and Dad's help with the kids. Honestly, I think it is more probable that they went back years," Harry said, slipping into full investigative mode. "Hermione, how do we find out what year and how do we get the twins back?"

"One of us has been here around this date every year for as long as she can remember. Ginny, have you ever seen the twins before?"

"Not in the way you mean. Trust me. I would remember if I had seen them, but why are you assuming they went to the past? Couldn't they have gone into the future?"

"Time-Turners can't go into the future. There are too many possible outcomes. They can only go into the past where events are set," Hermione said.

"But if you change something in the past, it changes the future, right?" Ron inquired.

"It can, but not always," George piped up, pushing himself off of the doorway. The quartet startled as they didn't realize that George had been standing there listening to the conversation.

"What do you mean, George?"

"Think about it like this. Did Harry and Hermione know what would happen because they saved Sirius? No. What they did changed things that happened after they arrived back in the infirmary. Now let me know if I am wrong Hermione, but since the twins went back in time, nothing they do can change the events that led them to this point in time."

"How do you know so much about it, George?" Ginny wondered.

"I told Fred and my younger self when I went back to get the twins."

Harry quickly cast an Imperturbable Charm on the room as he saw the warning signs of an explosion from his wife. Ginny stood up and placed her hands on her hips, in a Molly Weasley-style stance.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN--YOU TOLD YOURSELF?! YOU KNEW MY CHILDREN WERE GOING TO GO BACK IN TIME AND YOU DID NOTHING?!" Ginny shrieked at George. She pulled out her wand, brandishing it like a cutlass.

"Now Ginny, calm down. I'll explain everything." George sighed as Ginny was pulled back onto her husband's lap by two strong arms. However, her wand was still out, promising retribution if she didn't like what came next.

"I'm listening," Ginny said rather reluctantly.

"Well, after much discussion, in 1995, which is when the kids are, Dumbledore told Fred and I that if we changed anything and, I mean, anything that happened then there could be serious repercussions. I was told that I must allow everything to happen exactly like before." George raised his eyes to meet Ginny's. "Do you understand what this has cost me? I knew that Fred was going to die, but I couldn't stop it because there was a chance that if I saved him, we would have lost Harry or someone else. I couldn't take that chance. As much as I miss my twin, I wouldn't take the chance of subjecting this world to a life filled with Voldemort. We talked about this quite a bit actually, Fred and me."

"But why you, George? Why not one of us? Why couldn't we go back?" Harry asked, evidence of his guilt and grief that his brother-in-law had to silently live through everything with the knowledge of what was going to happen written clearly on his face.

"Because if one of you were to go back, it could irreparably change the timeline. With me, I had secondhand knowledge of all the crucial aspects, but only firsthand knowledge of parts of the Final Battle. Plus, think about it. Would any of you be able to resist telling Sirius what happened in the Department of Mysteries, knowing how his loss affects Harry? I can't tell him because I wasn't there. I know approximately what happened, but I can't tell anyone specific enough things that could irreparably change what has happened. Harry, Ron, Hermione, you three are the only ones who know exactly what happened on the Horcrux hunt. Ginny, you remember the incident at the D.O.M., plus you need to stay with your baby. These are the reasons I need to be the one to go back," George ended with a mischievous smile. "Plus I have to save my godson."

"Right. So how do we send you back?" Ron inquired, apparently understanding and agreeing with the evidence that George had presented.

"Well, Hermione will have to go to the D.O.M. in the morning to get the device that allows one to go back in time and return back to the same moment that they left."

"Wait, Hermione, I thought you said Time-Turners can't go into the future," Ginny said.

"They can't go into the future that hasn't happened yet for the user," she explained. "However, you can return to the time you left if you go backwards in time first. It has taken me more than a year to figure that one out. It's all about maintaining the timeline, like George said."

"So how is it that we don't remember our children paying us a visit… in what the summer before my fifth year?" Harry asked George.

"Well, we had to Obliviate all of you so that the timeline wouldn't be destroyed" George told him. "They arrived the day we were at the Burrow celebrating Ginny's birthday. You know, the day after your hearing at the Ministry. It was fortunate that we were even there when the twins arrived considering that we only went home to celebrate because Ginny wanted to so badly. Certain things happened during the time the twins were there, which did lead to future events that had to happen, but it wasn't time for it yet. I gave the Order and most particularly Dumbledore some crucial information when I went back, which they never would have gotten if I didn't let your twins stumble back. I told Dumbledore about when Harry's private lessons should start and even where the ring Horcrux was. I knew some integral parts that seemed rather minor, but ended up helping in the long run. Dumbledore, Fred, Sirius and I were the only ones who didn't have the Memory Charm placed on us."

"Why not?" Ron demanded to know.

"Because George had to remember to know when to go back," Hermione answered with a look of concentration on her face. "Fred, I am assuming, because George would never have been able to keep a secret from him. Sirius--why Sirius George?" .

"Sirius wanted to know that his godson survived and was happy. He wanted to be able to tell Lily and James, your parents, about meeting Lily and James, your children. Dumbledore didn't because he needed the information I provided to help Harry win."

"George, you said Hermione needed to go in the morning. Why can't she go now? She can Apparate there and be back in a jiff," Harry stated.

"One, I can't go back in time until tomorrow. I have to be there for the Order meeting at Headquarters. Two, Hermione can't Apparate right now."

"Of course, she can Apparate. She's the brightest witch of her age," Ron said.

"Actually, Ron, I should in fact not be Apparating right now. Oh, this isn't how I planned on telling you," Hermione said with a small groan. Taking a deep breath, she continued. "Apparition isn't good for the baby."

"Baby? What baby?" Harry watched his best mate as the look on his face went from one of complete confusion to wonderment to absolute joy. "Hermione? Are we having a baby?" Ron questioned ever so softly.

"Yes," Hermione nodded.

Ron grabbed Hermione and twirled her around. After spinning a couple of times, he lowered her to the floor while kissing her gently. Ron laid his forehead against hers and softly whispered, "I love you so much, 'Mione."

"On that note, my gorgeous sister and wonderful investor, let us depart for bed," George said, wanting to let Ron and Hermione be off in their own little world.

"But George, are the twins okay? Is it safe for them to be where they are?" Ginny questioned her brother.

"Ginny, they're in the best hands they could possibly be."

"Whose? Mum's?"

"No, Harry's and yours," George replied over his shoulder, climbing the stairs to his room.