The next time Hermione spoke, however, her voice had morphed from lightly bantering to the solid, authoritative tone that could only belong to a Head Girl of Hogwarts. Hermione prized her ability to command her voice. Each level she took it to, from gentle and caring, to teasing and playful, to sharp and clever, to commanding and knowledgeable, was equally alluring, equally effective…and equally her.
"All right. Here's the plan…"
Chapter 3: A Mad and Last Ditch Plan
Friday, May 29, 1998
12:04 A.M.
Hermione turned her long-lashed eyes toward Ginny, wondering where to even begin.
Although the littlest Weasley was a year younger than Hermione, Hermione had always felt a mixture of parental concern and tremendous kinship toward Ron's younger sister. Although her friendship with Ron and Harry was as strong of bonds as friendship could ever be, she had always longed for someone with whom she could share all her concerns about the typical "girl stuff." Harry and Ron, bless their hearts and try as they might, just couldn't figure out the feminine mystique, and Hermione wasn't about to take a few weeks out of her valuable and possibly short-lived life to explain it to them.
Ginny, however, had been the answer to Hermione's prayers, so to speak, and the girls' relationship had become even stronger after Ginny had joined up with the D.A. and Harry. As the war began to silently, indifferently snatch the lives of far too many Hogwarts students, family, and friends, Ginny and Hermione were rarely seen without the presence of each other or Harry or Ron.
That was what had brought all six of them together, really.
Hermione eventually decided the short and sweet – or sour, depending on how one looked at it - version would probably be best. No padding, no working up to it. If there was one thing Harry, Ron, Ginny, Draco, and Lavender could handle, it was the truth, no matter how ugly it was.
"I've spoken to Dumbledore," she started heavily, gnawing at her lower lip thoughtfully in an effort to stall the inevitable. At the same time, she noticed Harry send her a secret, familiar, teasing grin, as he often liked to do when she was acting far more serious than the situation called for.
If only you knew, Harry.
Still, she couldn't stop her solemn expression from softening considerably, her affectionate face sending him a silent hello.
Harry.
With him, she had been through thick and thin, whether it was searching for a giant named Grawp, plunging through a misted, moonlit Forbidden Forest while being pursued by a werewolf, or fighting Death Eaters back-to-back after unwittingly stepping out of Three Broomsticks and into the middle of a battlefield during the last Hogsmeade visit. She and he had never missed their fair share of brushes with death... and they had both survived every encounter.
"Apparently, the information we've been receiving is wrong. He doesn't feel that we have the means to win this war," Hermione continued slowly, pausing when five startled pairs of eyes fixed onto hers. Mentally, she shifted through everything Dumbledore had shared with her. "And quite honestly, now that I think about it, neither do I."
Ron's completely readable, ever-mischievous hazel eyes abruptly connected with Hermione's. Now, however, there was less sparkle to them than usual, and he remained completely oblivious as his hand slowly went limp, the few remaining chocolate frogs squirming out of his grasp and frantically hopping away.
She had to smile. There was no doubt that she and Ron had had their share of fire fights. There was no doubt that, for a few years, a very real spark had existed between them that could have, perhaps, ignited to something more… had not a series of inalterable events been set into motion that had sent the both of them into very opposite directions.
Ron had discovered the glory of the Quidditch, the excitement of battle that war had brought and his particular adeptness at duelling, and the fun-loving love of Lavender Brown.
Hermione had discovered her parents—her entire home, really— lying in smoking, fiery ashes on the day that she had returned home from her fifth year, the excitement and release that nearly every form of dancing imaginable had brought to her during the long, difficult summer after her parents' murders, and the fact that Draco Malfoy was actually an excellent dancer and in constant supply throughout the school year.
Not that the latter meant anything. Not at all.
"Our forces are outnumbered and out-skilled." Hermione tiredly began ticking off her fingers. "Dumbledore just told me that Voldemort has launched a counterattack on the Continent as well as here, and his army's size is exploding exponentially. Exponentially. All the last minute hold-outs, all the fair-weather friends, the giants, the vampires… they've all gone over to Voldemort's side. There's no point in denying it, Harry," she added quickly as Harry began to open his mouth in protest.
He snapped it shut just as speedily, and she again sighed heavily, shaking her head. "Even if you did get the chance to defeat Voldemort…" Her voice caught for a moment, then lowered grimly. "The rest of them wouldn't stop coming. You know they won't. There's enough of them that they have no reason to give up simply because they lost their leader."
Harry looked like he was about to object again, but he instead turned his green gaze away from her and studied his hands. "Yeah, that's about right," he muttered, echoing her sigh.
Draco reached out across the length of the fireplace and tugged on a loose strap of Dumbledore's –and now hers', Hermione assumed — very randomly-given knapsack. His expression curious and fully alert despite the hands of the clock, which were steadily ticking into the early morning hours. "So, let's hear about this mad, last ditch plan of yours, Granger."
And Draco Malfoy.
Hermione had always known him as… as, well, the pure-blooded, prejudiced pain in the arse. But everything had changed before sixth year had even begun.
The details of whatever had taken place on that summer night in June were sketchy at best, but the facts remained: Lucius Malfoy had killed Draco's mother Narcissa and his girlfriend Pansy Parkinson. Draco Malfoy returned to Hogwarts free of the Dark Mark, free of his previous discrimination toward Muggle-borns, Muggles, and other people he had previously disliked in general… and free to become one of the Order of the Phoenix's most informed spies.
Hermione had found this complete turnaround somewhat baffling, given the extreme change as well as the speed at which it had occurred, yet Draco had been willing to work with Harry and Ron (to their reluctance), had proven himself true in tight situations, had volunteered himself for her use whenever she needed that dancing release, and had not complained much when she actually took him up on the offer.
"What makes you think I have a mad, last ditch plan?" she asked, smiling innocently over at him, the reflection of the flames from the fire dancing across both his face and hers.
He shook his head at her, tisking. "Please, Granger. I haven't been Head Boy with you for the entire year without learning a few things. I can read you like a book." At her horrified expression, he smirked and added with a bit of reluctance, "And you did begin this entire thing with, 'Alright, here's the plan…' "
"Oh, you Slytherin!" she exclaimed in mock irritation. Suddenly, the knapsack in her hands suddenly seemed to be there for one reason only, so she had no choice, really, but to take aim and chuck the thing at Draco's head.
The blond instantly dodged with all the reflexes of a skilled Seeker and caught the knapsack with one hand. His eyebrows shooting up toward the ceiling, he shook a finger at her warningly. "You try that again, Granger, and I'm going to take this thing away from you forever."
"Right on, mate," Ron said heartily, holding his now-fixed bottle of butterbeer up to Draco in a toast before taking another swig of its contents.
"Oh, stop it, you two. This is serious." The smile began to fade from Hermione's face as she realized what she was going to have to say next. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she dove in. "The point of this entire conversation is the reason Dumbledore called me up to his office in the first place. He thinks that our only chance to stop all this madness once and for all is by travelling back to 1944."
Lavender tumbled off Ron's lap and banged flat on the floor. "Wha-at?" she exclaimed in disbelief, the carpet partially muffling her voice so the question sounded more like, "Phuumph?" Hermione smiled inwardly, having long since become accustomed to Lavender's flair for the dramatic. "I thought…. I thought I just heard you say travelling back – Now what… what do you mean by that, exactly?"
"Back… in time," Ginny mused slowly before Hermione could answer. "Back to… That's it." An enlightened expression spread across her lightly freckled features. Swiftly, she pulled herself up from Harry and leaning forward eagerly, resting her chin on her hands, her brown eyes staring intently at Hermione. "That's it, isn't it?"
Hermione smiled in spite of herself, and nodded. "Very good, Gin, five points to Gryffindor."
Lavender pumped her arm in an excited Yes! and reached her arm back, giving Ginny an upside-down high-five. Ron rolled his eyes, stretching one long arm up from his spot on the carpeted floor and barely managing to nudge Ginny's leg with the tip of his finger. "Well, bully for you, then, Ginevra, care to share with the class?" he asked sardonically.
Ginny cocked her head sideways, looking down at her brother in amusement. "I don't see why I should, since I somehow get this strange sense that you were mocking me back there, brother dear," she said in a miffed tone of voice. "Do you feel the mocking vibes, Lav?"
"Ooooooo," Lavender chorused, raising her hands up in front of her face and wiggling her fingers ominously at Ron before covering her mouth and collapsing into giggles.
Ron stared at his girlfriend in horror and moved several inches away from her. "Never do that again. Please."
As Lavender glared at him and started arguing that he never appreciated her 'talents,' Hermione chuckled, relishing the moment before she knew that things would take a sudden turn to the serious side. As Ginny suddenly hopped in on the side of Lavender, however, Hermione just opted to sink farther down into her seat, nearly getting dumped off onto the floor as the rocker tilted forward.
Apparently, it wasn't possible to Ron to have a truly argument-free relationship with any woman in his life, she thought sardonically, and, after her discussion with Dumbledore, she just didn't have the energy to jump in the midst of it and break it up. Holding back a groan, she met Draco's amused eyes and muttered, "Stun me, please."
"Or maybe just all of them," he countered with a wink and a nod toward the squabbling redheads and dirty blond.
Needless to say, Hermione was relieved when Harry finally resolved the argument by telling Ron and Lavender to take it outside or shut it. Ginny took up her analysis again. "All right, so Dumbledore wants us to go back in time and stop Voldemort before he has the chance to rise to power." She leaned back, pulling her elbows off her knees, and crossed her arms in superiority. "Now, am I right, or am I right?"
"I didn't think you could do that, though. Change the past," Harry interjected, his eyes pensive. He glanced questioningly at Hermione. "I mean, you could – look at third year – but with something this drastic, wouldn't you end up, I don't know, doing something to stop yourself from ever being born and generally mess up the entire timeline?"
"Only in Muggle fanfiction," Hermione replied with a weak grin, impatiently jamming a fallen lock of hair behind her ear. "The Old Magick tried and true spell for time travel actually works quite differently… nothing at all like a time turner, actually. For example, instead of changing the entire future, from, say, 1944 onward, you can only affect the future of the world immediately after you go back. The changes would only begin to be reflected here, in our world, the moment we leave."
She paused, gesturing with her hands as she tried to express the general but somewhat complicated intricacies of the time travelling spell. "That's all right, though, because basically, that would be the time that we are, in essence, trying to change in the first place. Not the future, in general, but our future… from this year onward."
The confusion was evident in Lavender's face.
Hermione bit her lift thoughtfully. "You see, in the case of the spell Dumbledore favours using, if something in the past change due to its use, two alternate dimensions are immediately created: the original dimension, the one from which the time travellers came, in which the past change is not reflected until the moment the travellers actually go back in time… and the world to which the travellers went. That world would continue to evolve in the way it was changed, if that makes sense. So, in that past world where the change, the future would necessarily repeat itself exactly."
She paused, making sure that she hadn't totally lost any of them. Not that they weren't intelligent enough to follow it, but more often than not, she'd catch Ron falling asleep next to Lavender. "Of course, most of this is purely theoretical," she musingly added as an afterthought. "No respectable, written records of successful time travel exist, despite the presence of a spell for it."
"Yes." Draco was shaking his finger at her in agreement. "Yes, I think I've heard of this. It's called Impartus Infinitivum. It's extremely volatile Old Magick. Illegal now. Most experienced wizards would never hope to even complete the spell in their lifetime. I don't doubt Dumbledore could do it, though." He let his words momentarily hang in the air before he went in for the kill. "Last I heard, it was also said to be irreversible."
Hermione swore she could hear a pin drop on the far side of the Room of Requirement. What would I do with Draco? That had been the one piece of info she herself had been most hesitant to share, and with good reason: Who in their right mind would want to go once they heard they would be stuck in the past for life? Would the effects of this plan really be worth the price they would all have to pay?
Ginny was no exception. Her mouth fell open, her face a mask of shock, and she stared at Draco incredulously. "You mean we can't come back?" she all but gasped.
Draco glanced at Hermione, nodding as if giving her back the floor, and Hermione heaved a large breath. "Yes," she admitted reluctantly. "He's right, no counter spell for it has been found."
Ginny's steely hazel gaze swung from Draco to Hermione. "You knew?" she exclaimed, disappointment and anger lacing her words. "Don't you think you could have mentioned before you got us excited, gave us the idea that we might have a chance to defeat Him, that if we did this, we'd have to leave our family, our friends, everyone we know… permanently? Look, Hermione, I realize you don't have much family left to lose, but some of us still do!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, Ginny looked horror-struck, and the room again fell deathly silent. Just as it had normally been with Harry's parents, bringing up what had happened to Hermione's had become as much of a taboo. The brunette stared at her friend in shock, her chest feeling as if someone had just plunged a knife through it. Against her will, memories of that nightmarish day a year and a half earlier swept through her mind…
"You know, Gin," she said slowly, drawing out the words as if tasting them for the first time, "You're right." Her voice began to gain momentum as she looked resolutely at the auburn-haired girl.
"You're absolutely right! Let's stay. Let's not go back and not take what might be the best, the only chance we'll have to save what's left of our friends and our family. Let's just selfishly stay here and watch with a bag of popcorn in hand as Voldemort overruns the rest of Europe by sheer numbers alone. And, while we're at it, we might as well tell the house elves to set out stations of biscuits and tea for the Death Eaters as they walk into Hogwarts –"
"All right, all right, you've made your point effectively," Ginny snapped, her face flushed. She glanced at her lap guiltily. "Look, Mione, I'm sorry I brought up your parents… It's just that everything is happening extremely fast..."
Hermione sighed. "It's all right." She tilted her curly head back and gave Ginny a tired but understanding smile. "I know. I do." She noticed Harry glance between his girlfriend and his best girl friend, and she sent him a silent plea with her eyes. Harry. Please. This could be our only chance.
He read her, his face clearly torn between this world and the past without wanting to show it. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime to Hermione, he gave her a small nod and the faintest hint of a cheerless, determined half-smile. Sliding his arm out from around Ginny, he leapt off the sofa. "Right then, you lot, up and at 'em. We've got fifty plus years worth of stuff to pack!"