Preventing the Future
Chapter 3 - A Chat With Dumbledore
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Author's Note:
A huge thank you goes out to City Lights, my lovely and amazing and talented beta! You should really go look at (and review) some of her stuff, it's quite good!
Hermione walked through the front doors of the school and stood in the Entrance Hall flashing back to the last time she had seen it. It had been crumbling down around her as she and the survivors apparated away with as many injured and wounded as they could carry. Minutes before the Death Eaters had broken through the wards and defence barriers and they only had moments to pack up and leave.
As she walked further into the school Hermione stopped at the doors to the Great Hall, and for a moment she could see it as it had been before the school fell, filled with people who had fled to the last safe place.
Finally she made it to the bottom of the staircase which led up to Dumbledore's office, and pausing, she sent her eagle patronus up and waited to be granted entry. She could probably have forced her way through, but figured it would be polite to wait for permission.
Dumbledore sat in his office waiting for the origin of the alien magic to make itself known; he knew it would happen eventually and he was a patient man. However, he didn't have to wait long because just then an eagle patronus floated in through his door.
"Albus Dumbledore." It said. "There are some things I would like to discuss with you. May I please come up?"
Dumbledore ordered the staircase to open and permitted the stranger entry.
In walked a woman who looked about twenty five, but in the the slightly dim light he couldn't really tell. As she approached the desk she seemed to bring a bit of the shadows with her, staying just out of direct sight. However, when she sat down in front of him, Dumbledore stifled a small gasp - the woman looked to be at least thirty and her face was very scarred. She had honey coloured skin and chestnut hair held back in a tight braid. Her olive-shaped chocolate coloured eyes were filled with an emptiness which was slightly unnerving. She was a bit shorter than average and extremely well-toned. If it wasn't for her many scars, bruises, barely healed cuts, slightly hollow cheeks and too skinny body she would have been beautiful. All in all she looked like she had been through hell and somehow managed to come out the other side.
"Hello there." Dumbledore said in a congenial-yet-distant manner. "I thought I felt something touch our wards a while back, you must be very powerful to have walked right through them." He gazed across his desk at her, "I don't mean to be rude, but may I ask who you are?"
"Oh, right." Hermione said. She wasn't used to introducing herself to people. "I'm Hermione Granger." She held out her hand.
Dumbledore took her offered hand and shook it firmly. "Pleased to meet you Ms. Granger." He was wracking his brain to remember if he knew or had heard of anyone with the name 'Granger', when he came up with nothing he decided she must be a muggleborn, foreign, or both. "And where, may I ask, are you from?"
"Not where, when. I'm from a time where there is nothing left, no people, no love, no light, just darkness and despair. And I've come for your help because now is the only time to prevent this catastrophe and you are one of the only people I trust to help."
Dumbledore thought for a moment. That was a very odd way to answer a question. Direct, but odd. Instead of pointing that out, he tried to tell her that hope was the one thing that remained. "There is never nothing, there is always hope."
"No, really, there is nothing left, not even hope. Yes, it was the last thing to go but by the time I was finished - at the very end - there was no hope." She took a deep breath and continued. "I can see that you are at a point in time where hope is abundant, and it probably seems like that will be what gets you through life, and it will. But by the time the end comes, if your end is anything like our end, it will be gone." Then what she said before hit her. '...you are at a point in time where hope is abundant...' Soon she felt a stirring of something inside her, the sprouts of something creeping up. There was hope now, she could fix things before they happened, she had time to save the world before it needed saving. But then Dumbledore revealed his naivete with his next comment.
"Yes, we have hope now, we will all have hope until the end. Hope and love, those are the two things which will never leave this earth."
Hermione started to get annoyed. Dumbledore had been one of the smartest people she knew and here he was, failing to grasp the savagery of the future. "You do not understand what is coming, you cannotunderstand. There are things that happen, things no one can imagine. Events unfold that cannot be comprehended unless you saw and felt them with yourself." She collapsed into a chair and deflated before the optimistic old man. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Albus, but there is no way to explain."
Dumbledore was shocked when she used his first name - there were very few people who did that. In the future from which she came they must have been quite close to evoke that degree of familiarity.
Then she got up and walked over to the cabinet with the pensive in it.
"You still have your pensive right?" She asked.
"Yes, I do." Dumbledore responded, realising what she was thinking. Following her to the cupboard he said, "But I do not want to invade your privacy, or endanger the future by looking into your memories. We do not need to upset the balance of the universe."
"Oh, don't worry Albus," Hermione said while she took memory after memory out of her mind and laid it in the pensive, "I plan on doing that myself. Messing with the future is exactly what I plan to do now that I'm here."
Dumbledore looked at her with a mixture of confusion and reproach on his face. He'd had the impression that she was a smart woman, yet here she was talking lightly about changing the past to affect the future, something which people were not supposed to do under anycircumstances. Time was not to be changed; it would upset the balance of the universe and the consequence of doing so was usually death. The universe did not appreciate being messed with, and Dumbledore told Hermione as much.
"What you're missing is the fact that the universe itself brought me back here to change the past; it's not about to punish me for following it's own orders. Or do you not remember the little message it sent with me?"
In fact, Dumbledore did remember the words which he – along with the rest of the wizarding world – heard earlier that day. Things were starting to add up.
"Alright, you have convinced me that meddling with time - in this case - is a good idea." He said. Then he noticed that Hermione had stopped adding memories to the pensive.
"Albus, you may now dive into the future. But I'm warning you now: What you see in there is terrible. In fact, it is so bad that it could drive you crazy. Please come out when you've had enough - we will not be able to win the war this time around without your help," Hermione said before letting him step up to the pensive.
Dumbledore highly doubted that he would have to leave before he had watched all the memories, but he heeded her advice nonetheless.
The first memory was not one of Hermione's, but rather one which she had seen in a pensive herself. It was a fuzzy memory of a one-year-old baby boy that had obviously been recounted by the same boy many years later. It was also quite obvious that the young man had tried very hard to remember this memory, and had had a lot of help doing so.
They were standing in a small nursery, the baby was in a crib looking up at a young woman with brilliant red hair. The obvious focus was the woman's hair - everything else was a bit fuzzy. They heard a muffled yell from somewhere and the baby was scooped up by the woman who then started to run - or that's what Dumbledore assumed because the surroundings started to blur. Suddenly the walls flashed a brilliant green and the baby was thrown to the floor. A huge black shape loomed in front of the boy and the world turned green.
The next memory was Hermione's; she looked to be about 11 and was sitting at the Gryffindor table at Hogwarts, watching as a young boy with messy black hair and awkward glasses took a long time to be sorted. Dumbledore had a sneaking suspicion that it was the same boy from whom the previous memory had been taken.
This quickly changed into another one from the same boy - still about 11 - as he faced a man in a purple turban which then fast-forwarded to the bare back of the turbaned man's head. Dumbledore gasped at the face that was plastered on the back of his head: it was a horrific combination of snake and human.
The memories progressed rapidly through Harry's school years, most of them Hermione's but some second-hand memories from Harry and another boy named Ron. There was even one from Harry which showed the second rising of Voldemort.
Then, Dumbledore saw the war. One of the first things that happened was the conversion of Hogwarts from a school into a hybrid of the Order's headquarters, base and refuge. This saddened him beyond belief; the world must have really been in danger if they stopped teaching. He saw as his older self explained about the Horcruxes and the look of horror on their faces when everyone realized how many there were. Then there were missions when the Order tried to find the bits of Voldemort's soul, sometimes resulting in severe injuries and even a couple fatalities. The people who died were taken back to Hogwarts and given full burials, missed and mourned by all.
Then the atmosphere of the memories changed: it began to feel more like a full out war rather than a series of minor attacks. There were large-scale battles instead of guerrilla warfare. Hermione and her friends Ron and Harry were always at the forefront; for every Death Eater the others killed they killed at least two or three. Their skill was both amazing and terrible. Dumbledore also noticed that he was there for almost every big attack, right at the front with Hermione. Now he understood why she had used his first name. It came as a huge shock when he saw himself die, to see himself fall while defending Hogwarts. The Death Eaters had finally breached the defences and the school was overrun, the casualties innumerable. One memory stood out more than the others - Dumbledore guessed it was a turning point in Hermione's life.
Hermione just looked at the dead body of her friend with acceptance written all over her face and reached down to close it's now blank eyes. She carefully took off a necklace and wedding band and picked up their wand. Covering the body, she muttered a spell and a mound of dirt covered it. Then she just turned and walked away, never looking back. It seemed that by this point she had seen so much death and suffering that her heart had hardened and now she just did what needed to be done. She started to accept the deaths as they came and was not longer able to mourn them individually. It was then that Dumbledore realized that the entire time they'd talked Hermione had not shed a single tear, not once looked sad or depressed - just defeated.
Dumbledore also noticed that after awhile she charmed a purse hanging around her neck to collect the wands and personal affects of the fallen. There were short clips of Hermione breaking into museums and packing - or stuffing - art and artifacts into the same pouch. He saw her raid the Ministry of Magic, gathering piles of documents and handfuls of dangerous items from the Department of Mysteries. As she and the few others who were with her ran out, Death Eaters swarmed the place. Dumbledore had to admire her foresight.
He saw as she began to explore a different type of magic, creating spells and incantations that didn't quite fall into the category of the Dark Arts but that wasn't quite light either. A few times he heard her refer to it as the 'Grey Arts'. It made him sad to see someone so good heading towards the fuzzy line between good and evil. However, he also noticed that what she did she did for good, and there were some lines she never crossed.
He could not believe the horrors this woman had faced - he himself could barely stand seeing them. He understood why she refused to accompany him into her memories; there are some things that a person should never see once, let alone twice. He watched as thousands of people trying to save the world. With every death the faces of those left became a little harder, a little less forgiving. About two years into the war he noticed that those on the 'good' side were slowly coming to use the killing curse, and he found that he didn't disagree with their choice. For once in his life he fully believed that some people deserved to die. It did lighten his heart to see that they never resorted to the other Unforgivables - apparently those were still seen as taboo. After watching three years of memories he couldn't stand it. The events which had transpired were too much for him; he knew that if he continued he would go insane. He knew that he was not strong enough to stay, so he did what he had vowed to never do again - he ran. Pulling his head from the pensive he turned to face the woman in his office who had lived through all this. He looked at her and was speechless. What kind of person could endure that? How was she able to sit in a chair knowing that this was what the future held? He now understood why her eyes seemed so empty.
Hermione looked away from the pendulum she had been watching and came out of her trance. "Albus." She said, glancing at her watch. "That was quick. Why are you back so soon? There were four years of memories in there." Then she noticed his expression and she broke a little more inside, something she hadn't thought possible. "You didn't finish, did you?" It was more a statement than a question.
"I am so sorry," he said, grief and guilt written over his face. "I couldn't stay. I don't know how you can keep living after all that."
Hermione looked up at him with a flat look in her eyes and said. "That's the thing Albus: we weren't living, we were fighting for what we knew was right. There is a difference." She took a deep breath and tried to find words to explain what had happened to those who still 'lived'. "After three years it was no longer a matter of staying alive, but rather of surviving in the hope that future generations would be allowed to live. The only good thing left in the world - the only thing we fought for - was love. Love and desperation, that's what kept us going. But having love was not enough to really live. It gave us strength; nothing more, nothing less. You were right, many years ago, when you said that love was a power the Dark Lord had not."
Dumbledore sat with his head in his hands. "Love." He said quietly. "The greatest thing in the world and it became a weapon?"
Hermione looked at the man who had taught them to love in times of war. She got up and walked over to him, then lifted his chin she looked him in the eye. "You misunderstand me." She said, watching tears run down a face younger than any she had seen him wear. "Love was not a weapon, it was the one thing we could hold on to. It was our bond, what kept us together till the end. Yes, in a way it became a tool, but never a weapon." She returned to her chair and they sat in silence until the sun peeked its face through the windows.
They spent the next day talking, or rather, Hermione talked and Dumbledore listened. She told him everything from when Harry was first marked by Voldemort to when the Dark Lord rose again in the graveyard. She told him how they started the hunt for the Horcruxes, and how one by one they forced Voldemort back into the mortal realm. She related how the Death Eaters gained power, how no matter how hard they tried the Order of the Phoenix could not keep up with the spread of evil. She explained how Hogwarts became a refuge and that it eventually housed every single living witch or wizard who didn't serve Voldemort. As soon as she noticed Dumbledore begin to succumb to despair Hermione started talking about some of the good. How people finally came to realize that they all had to stand together. She told him of the Death Eaters that turned from Voldemort and joined the dwindling ranks of those who opposed him. In particular she mentioned Severus and Draco, but not by name – that was still too painful - who were among the first. She also told him of all the spells and potions they discovered or invented; how to remove a Dark Mark; a way to draw and send magical power across long distances; a cure for lycanthropy; a potion to make you impervious to the Imperious curse; how to recover from the Cruciatus curse; and many many more. However, as soon as she saw that he was no longer on the verge of tears (something she really wanted to avoid) she went back to explaining the progression of the war. She ended by telling him how the last of them fell, taking most - but not all - of the Death Eaters with them.
She finished by telling him of their last stand. How by the end everyone was dead - the entire Order, Harry, Snape, him, Moody, the Weasleys - and how she'd been their last hope and had failed. How together she, Ron and Harry had taken out all the remaining Death Eaters but that Ron went down in a last moment of grief and Harry went willingly to save Hermione and kill the last piece of Voldemort which was held inside of him. They had fought bitterly and they had lost.
After she finished talking Hermione felt a tiny piece of her soul start to stitch itself back together. Dumbledore, on the other hand, felt as though his heart was shattering into a million pieces.
"Thank you, Albus." She said after a few moments of silence during which her words had hung in the air.
Dumbledore looked up. "For what? I have done nothing."
"For listening to my story; you are the only other person in this world who knows what happened."
"Well..." Dumbledore said hesitantly. "I'm glad that I could help, even in this small way. I cannot imagine what it must have been like, carrying all that on your..." His voice trailed away.
Hermione stood up and walked over to the pensive, after collecting her thoughts and putting them back where they belonged she turned to him. "Albus," She started, not knowing how to say or do this but with the knowledge that for the sake of his sanity it must be done. "I'm going to do something now and I beg you not to stop me."
Dumbledore's head shot up and looked her straight in the eyes - he knew what she planned to do and no matter how much he wanted it he couldn't let her do that to herself. "Hermione, no."
"You cannot live knowing all that." She said sadly. "But don't worry, I won't take it all, just those things which would eat at your soul as they already have mine."
Dumbledore raised his wand to stop her, but after years of fighting Hermione was faster. His wand flew from his hand and landed in hers. The look on Dumbledore's face was one of complete and utter shock, it had been 40 years since he was last disarmed and he hadn't thought it possible. But Hermione had fought for so long that this sort of thing was instinctual and she performed so much magic that she no longer needed to speak or even wave her wand for most spells. And this one, this one she didn't even need a wand for; disarming was the first of many spells she had learned to do wandlessly.
"This is for your own good and you know it," she said quietly. Hermione then proceeded to pull memories of the horrors of the war from Dumbledore's mind. She was careful to leave enough that he would still know the extent of what she had gone through. She also left his mental reactions to what he had seen in the pensive and what he had felt during her story because it was important for him to remember why she'd done what she did. One thought in particular she highlighted - she could have planted a similar thought in his head, of that she was more than capable - but instead she just emphasized this one. Merlin, he had thought, this is awful. I don't know how she survived. I would have gone insane. There was a pause. And now that I have seen some of what she saw I probably will. Oh how I wish I could forget. She brought this one reaction to the very front of his mind so he would know why he couldn't remember. She also emphasized the words the universe had spoken the day before, "Save me, my girl. Only you know what is to come.""Obliviate," she muttered, and finished the spell.
Dumbledore blinked twice and looked around the room, confused for a moment. Then his eyes fell on Hermione. "Why did you do that?" He asked. "You had no right to invade my mind and take those."
"I had all the right in this world and the next," Hermione stated flatly. "I cannot have you sacrificing your mind just to relieve some of my burden. There are people here who need you, I will not take you from them." She looked at him and knew he was grateful for what she had done, she just hoped he had the decency to tell her.
"I-" he started. "You - " he tried again. Finally he deflated and crumpled back into his chair. "Thank you," he said almost imperceptibly. "You have no idea what that means to me. I hope you know that I now hold you in the highest of regards. Whatever you need, whatever you want, just mention it and I will give it to you. Anything, anything at all."
Hermione smiled at Dumbledore from where she was still standing. "I need you to help me destroy him now." She looked down upon him, daring him to say what he should in this sort of situation. As a time traveller, she should not be allowed to change the past, but she knew - and hoped that he did too - that the universe had sent her here to change it. She was prepared to do whatever necessary to make sure that she followed through with this task.
"Yes," Dumbledore said and nodded his head once, "We will prevent that apocalypse from happening."
"Thank you," she said and returned his wand.
"Now. On a completely different note." He said, shaking his head to move what he remembered of their previous discussion to the back of his mind. "We need to decide what to do with you."
"Excuse me?" Hermione asked, completely taken off guard.
"You need a place to stay, do you not?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess I do." She had lived on the run for the last year, so the thought of having an actual place to stay had not even occurred to her.
"I could have a house ready for you by this evening if you like. No one would bother you there, you could live in peace for a change."
"Um." In truth, Hermione didn't really want a place of her own. She had never lived on her own before; she was only 18. Then it occurred to her that she didn't look 18 - she probably looked much older - to him. "I suppose I could do that," she said hesitantly. She didn't know how to tell Dumbledore her age, or if he would even believe her when she told him.
"You don't sound too enthusiastic," he observed.
"Well, the thing is, I've never lived on my own before. Even during the war I always had Ron, Ginny and Harry around. I'm not sure I would be able to stand the loneliness."
"Never?" He asked. "How is that?"
"Well," she said, "I'm only eighteen."
Dumbledore slumped back in his chair and stared at her. Eighteen? She could not possibly be eighteen. She looked thirty. Her face and arms were laced with scars and fading bruises, her face had premature wrinkles and her eyes a slightly sunken look. " Oh," he said softly.
Hermione looked at him, confused for a moment. Then she realized that she had not been very specific with the time line - she had left out ages and dates. This was mostly because they had ceased to be relevant during the war; it had gotten to the point where you could either fight or you couldn't, age really didn't have much to do with it. "I'm sorry," she said, "I must have left that out."
"Don't worry about it. It just came as a bit of a shock. You have been through so much I just assumed it had been a little more spread out." There was a very long pause as his mind tried to catch up with the conversation and then figure out an alternate solution.
"Have you finished your studies," he asked?
Hermione snorted and then started laughing bitterly. "Seriously? You're asking me about school?"
Dumbledore just looked at her pointedly. "I've been fighting since the end of my fourth year! Hogwarts ceased being a school a few months after the war broke out. Everything I know I learned during the war. I may not have had a formal education but I can promise you that my skills and knowledge far outweigh those of the students here."
"Yes, they probably do," Dumbledore said calmly. "Would you like to complete your education? I understand that, as you said earlier, you know more than the students here, but would you like to have a certificate to prove it?"
Hermione paused. She hadn't even considered that. The school had been closed for so long that she had almost forgotten it existed. "Um," she said, "But we have to work on stopping Voldemort before he gets too powerful, don't we?"
Dumbledore smiled softly, "Ah but you see, you are not alone anymore. The war is only just beginning, the Order is still intact. We have time. You have time. And from what I can remember," he glanced at her with a mixture of gratitude and annoyance, "we only have five Horcruxes to destroy, and one of them isn't a living, breathing human being. We know where and what they are. Therefore, I believe that you can have at leasta year of relative peace to heal your wounds before you jump back into the fight."
"Oh," was all Hermione could say for at least ten minutes. Then, "But aren't I too old for school? I may only be eighteen, but I promise you I look older than that." Dumbledore tried to protest but she held her hand up. "Don't." She said. "I know it and you know it. War ages a person. Look at me." She said sadly. "Look at me and see if you can say I don't look old."
Dumbledore knew he couldn't argue with that without insulting her intelligence, so he didn't try. After a few moments of silence he remembered something mentioned years ago. "I believe there is a way to change that."
Hermione looked at him incredulously; she knew thousands of spells and potions and remedies, none of them could cure this particular disease - ageing.
"I have heard of a spell that was used in cases such as your's, hundreds of years ago. It was invented by Merlin himself, if I remember correctly. I believe it allows the broken body of a hero to be restored. It is very old magic and has certain conditions and consequences, but I believe it fits your situation perfectly. I will have to look it up to be sure. Please wait here a moment." He disappeared into his personal library and returned a short while later with an ancient book.
Author's Note (#2):
The next chapters may be a long time coming so to avoid any angry messages I will tell you now that Merlin is very smart and Hermione counts as a hero with a broken body. Draw your own conclusions.
Thanks again to City Lights for the beta!
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