# # #
Two weeks passed quietly at the house down the lane from Hogsmeade.
Silently, almost, in mourning for the death of Lavender Brown and all of those who would soon fall at the hands of Voldemort and his followers.
The Prophet was still being delivered, but there was no sign of anyone being aware of Voldemort's return. However, there was plenty of coverage over Ginny's kidnapping. The Prophet was still very much in favor of Harry, and were only taking tentative steps toward blaming Harry for the kidnapping. Most of the coverage made it simply seem like there had been a tragic accident, highlighted the grieving Browns, and inquired as to the reason, noble of course, why Harry Potter felt it was best for Ginny to take her away.
He smiled humorlessly. "They don't know it's because I'm a coward," he said over breakfast one morning.
Hermione wasn't laughing either. "Harry you have to move past this. Lavender was hidden with the diary – it could've been anywhere in the Chamber – or in the entire underground of Hogwarts!
"Ginny was your top priority," she said, lowering her voice as a yawning Ginny walked into the kitchen in her dressing gown. "And that's nothing to be ashamed of."
Ginny didn't comment on the seriousness of their faces, she simply sat down and took a piece of bacon from the platter, and chewed on it thoughtfully. Harry was still feeling so guilty that he really hadn't spent that much time with her – his focus had been on protecting Hermione's mind as much as possible. Hermione was improving, but she was still a few months away before she could stand up to Snape, and perhaps years away before she could last a few minutes against Dumbledore.
He'd told her they would just have to trust Dumbledore's goodness in that he wouldn't attempt to break into the mind of a thirteen year old witch. Sometimes Harry was so consumed in his madness that he forgot to remember all of the qualities that had made Albus his hero once upon a time. Things were terrible now, but they weren't close to where they used to be. For one he was now surrounded by the most important people in his life – his wife and his best friend. He wished Ron were there; that he could somehow teach Ron Occlumency in a short period of time, but the reality of it was that Ron was too much of a liability at the moment. Simply glancing into the chocolate brown eyes of Ginny made him want to clench the secret in his fists and hold it close to his chest.
All he wanted to do was make her safe.
He could tell she wasn't happy. No matter how enthused she pretended to be about her new bedroom or how much she smiled when he promised to bring her a present from Diagon Alley next time James Evans journeyed there. He often stood outside her bedroom door, pressing his ear against the wood, and listened to her soft cries of anguish over everything – her confusion over Harry, Lavender's death, and the separation from her family. He knew she missed Molly something dreadful, no matter how strong she tried to be when she knew he was watching.
This wasn't the reason he had shot his memories into the past. He hadn't meant for it to cause her so much more misery, more than she had experienced in her first year at Hogwarts. The only thing he had succeeded in was making her more miserable than before and losing another life – one that wouldn't have been lost in the first place.
"Would you like to go back to the Burrow, Ginny?" Harry asked, breaking into the silence.
Her eyes flew up to meet his, and he saw more light in them than in the previous fortnight. "Really?" she asked. "I can go home today?"
He nodded, avoiding Hermione's questioning gaze. "The term is over in another month, so I don't think there's much chance of you being sent back to Hogwarts. If I know Molly, she'll be keeping a close eye on you for quite some time. Either way – I'm sure that either Riddle fled Hogwarts or Dumbledore scared him off."
"I'll go pack my trunk," she said quickly, though he knew for a fact she'd been packed since the day she arrived.
"Ginevra," he said calmly.
She twisted around, frowning at him.
"There are a few things I'd like to discuss with you."
Hermione rose gracefully from her seat, sending Harry a warning look. "I'll just go practice clearing my mind," she said lightly.
He gestured to the open chair next to him, which Ginny took. "I love your family, Ginny, more than anything in the world," he said, silently adding, except for you. "But there are things they can't know."
He could tell it was hard for her, but she put on her bravest face.
"You are not to say anything about my secret or let anyone know that Hermione is learning Occlumency. Professor Dumbledore and perhaps even an Auror will be questioning you, but no matter what they tell you, you won't be able to remember the location of this house because you aren't the secret keeper. Do not mention anything about the Fidelius Charm, though I'm sure Dumbledore will figure it out eventually."
"When will I see you again, Harry?" she asked softly. No matter what they went through, it was immensely comforting to know that she would always hold a special spot in her heart for him.
He smiled. "I promise to be there whenever you need me, for as long as you need me. It's why I'm here. Think of me as your own personal guarding troll."
She giggled and his life made sense again.
# # #
Harry watched as Ginny was tugged into mum's hearty embrace. Molly was fussing already, and Ginny had only just walked out of the woods, dragging her trunk which was resting in a conjured trolley.
Where have you been? Were you with Harry Potter? Where did he take you?
A pang in his heart made him want to accio Ginny back to him, to Apparate away with her, but it was not to be. He turned on the spot, and Disapparated back to the house, where Hermione was currently rereading his autobiography, which had just been released in Flourish and Blotts.
When he entered the roomy kitchen, she looked up from the book, grinning at him.
Chapter Three – Dumbledore's Plan
I never harbored any lasting resentment against Albus Dumbledore because I know it was not his intention to cause me any misery or kill my childhood, as it were. Be that as it may, I can't say that Dumbledore leaving me on the steps of my Aunt's house was a positive step in making my life as normal or as full of love as possible.
Life, for me, went in the saddest, most miserable direction it possibly could have gone. I lived shut up in a broom cupboard in the house and my cousin would beat me up on the way home from school. No one had ever said 'Happy Christmas' to me until I was eleven years old, when I finally found friends and a family at Hogwarts School. At home at P----- D----, my mere existence was enough to provoke verbal abuse on the part of my Uncle, and a steady indifference from my Aunt. There were times I honestly wondered why no one cared enough to come and rescue me from my own personal version of Hell…
"This is magnificent!" Hermione said. "I can just see thousands of old witches sitting in the Leaky Cauldron, crying over this! The diction may be a bit too impressive for a twelve-year-old, though."
He grinned at her. "No worries there. I told Mr. Lovegood that I hired someone to 'punch it up' for me. He thinks I basically dictated to a ghostwriter."
"I wouldn't put it past the Editor of the Quibbler to be gullible," she said haughtily. "But I doubt people are really going to care either way. You're the Golden Boy of the entire Wizarding world."
"Unfortunately, that's the last thing I'm good at," he replied.
She gave him a quizzical look. "How so?"
"I was pretty much anti-social my entire life, until I fell in love with Ginny, when I realized that no matter what I did and where I went, there would never be any 'I' any more. It would always be about where we were going and what was best for us. And then, when she died, I went crazy for a long time."
"I'm not sure I understand."
He propped his feet up on the table. "I… It was like something broke inside me, you know? And it was like, all of a sudden, I was back to being that kid who didn't want to talk to anyone anymore. You were really great for me back then, but publically I was known as something of a recluse."
She was still frowning, but she seemed to understand his meaning.
"Does it hurt that Dumbledore distrusts you?" she asked, frankly.
He thought about it for a second, and then took his time, responding slowly. "I suppose it does, though I know I fully deserve it. I can't blame Albus for wanting to protect his cause – because I know I wouldn't hesitate to eliminate him if he were the one threatening my objectives. So in a way, he's right about me. As it is, he's so passive that he's basically harmless."
She shook her head. "You didn't answer the question. I asked you if you're hurt by Dumbledore's suspicion, not more battle strategy."
His shoulders slumped. Just when he thought he was actually opening up, she bluntly pulled the façade away. Sighing, he put his feet back on the ground, and leaned over the table. "Yes, it hurts. It's like… I dunno, my father or something, telling me he's disappointed in where I've chosen to take my life. And I want to tell him – so that he'll maybe love me again, but then, when I really think about it, I realize that Ginny is more important than Albus being my mentor again. There's also…"
"Also?" she prompted.
"I'm also so angry with him."
"Why are you so angry with him?"
"For starters, he left me! I had to deal with it all on my own – Voldemort, the Order, dying! And then this dreadful time travel, it's all because he wasn't strong enough, didn't know enough to fix everything! And I know that if I tell him differently, that he'll still think he knows best, that his ideas for the 'greater good' are still going to seem more important than the lives of my family. I know that Ginny and I and you and Ron are all expendable to save the Magical world.
"And I'm not okay with that."
She smiled at him. "I think you can do both, Harry."
# # #
The next phase of the plan was breaking Sirius Black out of Azkaban.
Harry obviously wasn't in touch with the Weasley family and he didn't know if they were still going on their family trip to Egypt.
Though Sirius would have no trouble breaking out of Azkaban, Harry was sure that the escape could be orchestrated differently, more efficiently, as to kill two flobberworms with one stone. If Harry's new Order was going to be up and running by the time Voldemort was interested in the Prophecy... which Harry supposed would still be around fifth year, he needed to start right away.
Tom Riddle was going to have a lot more trouble getting started than before. First of all, Harry was going to take care of the extra Azkaban security, so he was going to be without his most faithful servants – plus Pettigrew, who Harry was pretty sure he was going to kill with his bare hands. He'd need to sneak into the Burrow before Dumbledore leaked the news of Voldemort's return to the Prophet to get rid of the rat, but it didn't seem like it would pose too much of a problem.
He now understood the maniacal look of rage in Sirius' eyes the night Pettigrew got away on the Hogwarts grounds. He had said that Harry's dad wouldn't want for Sirius and Remus to become murderers, and perhaps that was true. However, now Harry knew exactly how tempting it was to forget about what his parents would want, and simply give into his desire to quench his thirst for revenge.
Harry was positive the Order of the Phoenix had already been reconvened, which meant that the most important contact Harry would make was at the moment in touch and allied with Dumbledore. Mad-Eye Moody was a necessity if Harry was going to make progress quickly, so three nights after leaving Ginny at the Burrow, Harry Apparated just outside the wards of Moody's current residence.
The house was small, built with grey stone, and framed by a spacious front lawn. A crab apple tree grew over the dirt pathway, and there were no neighbors to speak of. Harry wasn't sure what sort of security system Moody had in place at this point in time, and decided to take his chances. He had to have a serious discussion with the man about things that he wasn't sure were one hundred percent believable. Perhaps if he went in there and calmly knocked on the door, Moody would be more receptive to an adolescent pseudo-fugitive knocking on his door in the middle of the night.
That idea was shot to hell because as soon as Harry stepped in to the unkempt lawn his mouth opened involuntarily, and he let out an unattractive yelp. And another.
He jumped back onto the lane, cursing inwardly. A fucking intruder charm. Deciding that stealth was going to get him nowhere, he braved the noise again, and headed for the door.
"Confringo," he heard a gruff voice shout, and the front door flew off its hinges, burst into flame, and hit Harry directly in the chest. The wooden door was massive, and, in his twelve—almost thirteen—year old body, Harry was momentarily trapped underneath it.
"Aguamenti," he shouted, trying to quell the embers now embedding themselves in the skin of his stomach. "Wingardium Leviosa." The door sailed gracefully off of him, the flames crackling in protest. There were spots on his shirt that had been burned into his skin.
Harry was still panting, wishing he were a hardened Auror again. Yes, magically he could still hold his own against a giant like Moody, but there were things he couldn't control, and his stamina and muscle were going to be diminished for a while yet.
He called out to Moody, but the sound was muffled by the groan he released as a result of the burns throbbing on his abdomen. He took a hesitant step forward; Moody hadn't used anything that could be categorized as lethal, but he didn't want to be on the receiving end of some of the curses he knew Alastor used to use.
"Diffindo!"
"Oi!" Harry's torso was slashed roughly. It was deep, bled profusely and stung so badly that he pressed his right forearm into his side.
"Maybe that'll teach you not to break into other people's homes!"
"This is Harry Potter, Moody! I need to talk to you, you bloody git," he added in an undertone.
Moody didn't seem in the mood to talk, sending a hex that Harry remembered with a wince from his Auror days. He dodged barely, but let out a gasp as a simultaneously cast Stinging Hex left an angry bruise on his left knee.
"Furunculus," Harry retorted, catching Moody by surprise, if the grunt of protest was anything to go by. Obviously Moody had thought before that he was facing a far more lethal opponent, one that wouldn't use something as elementary as a boil inducing curse.
Moody was feeling aggravated, Harry could tell. The spells shooting out at Harry were becoming more frequent, and quickly becoming more vicious. A spell singed the ends of Harry's hair, and his eyes widened. The next spell hit him before he could process the near-miss.
"Incarcerous!"
Ropes bound Harry's arms to his sides, creating painful friction over his still bleeding wound. Of course, he thought, mentally kicking himself. The curse hadn't been meant to hurt Harry at all—it was a distraction so that Moody could catch and question him. He fell on his back, his head hitting the debris covered walkway. "Relashio!" The ropes burst, and Harry rolled over on the walkway, breathing deeply.
He sent his own Stinging Hex Moody's way, making contact—or so he thought, it was a moonless night and very dark—and then paused to catch his breath.
"Stupefy! Stupefy! STUPEFY!" Harry yelled. Moody was dodging respectfully for an old man, but a non-verbal Tripping Jinx from Harry dropped him like a tree. Harry stood up fully, breathing deeply, before he quickly bound and stupefied Moody. Bending down, he took Moody's wand and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans, and then levitated him into the house, muttering a brief spell to conjure a shoddy looking front door.
Moody's house looked exactly like you would expect the home of a paranoid Auror to look. The furniture was minimal, the lights dark and walls bare. Harry felt as though Moody had performed a Freezing Charm—he had broken out in goose bumps the minute he entered the house.
He laid Moody on the lumpy old couch in the sitting room – though Harry wasn't sure whether or not he was doing Moody a favor. It looked uncomfortable and worthy of competing with Mrs. Figg's couch in smell.
Harry looked himself over, surveying the damage from his impromptu duel. His shirt had been white, but it now looked closer to pink in some areas, and dark, blood red in others. His wound from the Severing Charm was still bleeding freely, and his burns were bubbling at his navel. Scratches from the wood and bruises from being crushed under the door stung when the cold droplets clung to and burned them.
He did what he could with the wound, which only consisted of binding the outermost layer of skin. It was still tender and hurt when he applied a bit of pressure on it.
Pointing his wand at Moody, he murmured, "Ennervate." The Auror's eyes snapped open, and he glared at Harry.
"Potter, eh? A kid beat me in a duel?"
"Not exactly," Harry said coolly. "Can I trust you enough to remove your bindings and give you back your wand?"
Moody coughed. "Never trust an opponent, Potter, it's a fundamental rule. But I'm not going to attack you, if that's what you're asking."
"We aren't enemies, and all I ask is that you hear me out, Alastor."
"On a first name basis, now, are we?" the man chuckled, taking his wand from Harry and stretching.
"Well, after I graduated from the Academy you said I had earned your respect."
Moody didn't say anything. He muttered something and the sleeve of his green button down shirt split down the middle, revealing a wand holster. He tucked his wand away, and limped into the house's tiny kitchen, where tea was already prepared.
"Can I interest you in a cup of tea?" Moody asked gruffly. "I wasn't expecting company this time of night."
"I'm fine, thanks," Harry said, hiding a smile.
Moody nodded. "Whoever's been teaching you's done an okay job. Never eat or drink anything an enemy offers you," he said approvingly.
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Harry asked, leaning against the wall. "I'm not your enemy, and you aren't mine. At least, not yet."
"I'm not sure what you want from me, Potter."
Harry looked at his teacher intensely. "You once told me I could be greater than Voldemort or Dumbledore."
The old man opened his mouth to protest, but Harry cut him off. "You told me that Voldemort was missing a heart—the passion—to ever be truly great, and you told me Dumbledore was running on plain nobility. You said that nobility wouldn't sustain an entire army, but I had what it would take."
"I'm not following you," said Moody, a curious look on his face.
"I have Voldemort's ruthlessness and I have Dumbledore's compassion – but I also have what neither one of them has, something, or perhaps more importantly someone to fight for. On my wedding day you told me that the redhead was going to win the war singlehandedly.
"You were right, Moody. You're always right, and I need your help."
Moody raised a bushy eyebrow. "I'm guessing you've gone and bollixed up time or something of the sort. It'd have to be, for me to have taught you. I honestly doubt it's Polyjuice."
Harry let out a laugh. "If I hadn't come back, you'd be intimately familiar with Polyjuice by next summer."
"I don't want to know about what might happen," Moody said sternly. "What I do want to know is why you're here, what you plan on doing to stop it whatever it is, and what it is you think I can do to help you."
That was Moody—straight to the point, every single time.
"Do you know about the prophecy made to Dumbledore when I was born? The one given by Sybll Trelawny?"
"The Divination professor at Hogwarts?" Moody asked. "Ruddy crackpot if you ask me."
"Most of the time she is," Harry said. "But this was a real prophecy, and it said that the person Voldemort marked his equal would have a power the Dark Lord didn't have, and that this person—me—would either kill Voldemort or be killed by him. Neither of us could live while the other survived."
Moody didn't look particularly shocked. "It figures. I mean, the Boy Who Lived saved Britain once, there had to be something special about you. But what went wrong? How did you lose?"
Harry sighed. "I defeated Voldemort in the last timeline."
When he met Moody's eyes, he flinched at the outrage displayed there. "Are you bloody daft? If you made it out alive, why the fuck would you come back?"
"The Weasleys died, Dumbledore died, Tonks died, Remus died, Sirius died… There were too many casualties," he finished brokenly.
"Don't give me that shit, Potter," Moody growled. "You came back because your bloody girlfriend died, dinnt she?"
Clenching his jaw, Harry said, "My wife died."
"So suddenly the fucking world revolves around you? I take it back—I didn't teach you. If I had, you would have known that there are sacrifices you make for the—"
"For the 'greater good?'" Harry asked derisively. "That's shit and you know it! Dumbledore kept too many secrets and almost everyone I loved died because of it. So I thought that maybe there was something else I could be doing instead of wallowing around in constant misery. I could not only save the lives of the people I love, but I could save a lot of other peoples' lives too."
Moody was silent for a moment. "Well, what's the plan?"
He felt relieved that Moody seemed to be following his lead, but kept his expression neutral. "Sirius Black is my godfather and he is about to escape Azkaban. I need you to make it easier on him, take him to my safe house."
"It'll be risky, I'm pretty high profile. And I'll be expected to investigate, as a member of the Order. I assume you already know the Order has been reformed?"
"I knew the consequences of removing Ginny and Hermione from Hogwarts. But when I failed to control the circumstances of Voldemort's return, I ran out of options."
"So it was fumbled?"
Harry frowned. "It wasn't my intention, but it seems that the Chamber of Secrets was fated to happen—this time I had paid more attention to Ginny Weasley, and that changed the course of time. Lavender Brown got involved accidentally."
"Albus is very concerned about you. He won't tell everyone in the Order the details of his suspicions, but he did tell me that he's worried that you're going to become as terrible and arrogant as Voldemort."
"I'm not really all that worried what Dumbledore thinks at this point," Harry said shortly. "Will you do me this favor?"
Moody seemed to think things over. "I'm with you, Potter. Every step of the way, from here on out."
Harry let out a breath in relief. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Also—I'd like to have a meeting with Nymphadora Tonks. I know you're probably going to be recruiting her for the Order when she makes it through training, but I'd prefer to recruit her right out of the Academy."
"Recruit her for what?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "My new organization," he said. "It's going to be independent of Dumbledore, the Ministry, and Voldemort."
"I'll set it all up," Moody said, giving Harry a twisted smile, which stretched a few of the scars on his worn face. "Where are you living at the moment?"
"I'll have to get my Secret Keeper to write the address. I'll send it to you by a snowy owl tomorrow. The parchment will look blank when you get it, but tap it with your wand and say, 'I solemnly swear I am up to no good,' and the words will appear. Sirius will break out of Azkaban at the beginning of the summer, so you'll have to infiltrate immediately."
Moody's eyes widened. "You can do the Fidelius Charm?"
Harry crooked an eyebrow and grinned. "I was taught personally by you and Remus Lupin, not to mention Dumbledore. If I can't do it, then who can?"
His ally gave him a toothy grin. "I have a feeling things are going to get pretty interesting around you, Potter. But I hope you know what you're doing."
"I didn't know what I was doing last time, and I defeated Voldemort," Harry said, deadly serious. "Can you imagine what I can do when I know all the facts?"
"You and Dumbledore could do a lot of good work together," Moody said absently.
Truthfully, Harry had had the same thought many times over the past few weeks. With all of Dumbledore's experience and his sincere desire to better the world, he and Harry could accomplish so many things so much faster than while working against each other. Perhaps when Harry assured Moody he knew what he was doing, Harry had been wrong. Maybe if Harry was really wise he would put aside all of the anger and ally himself with Dumbledore, and put his trust in the man.
Too bad Dumbledore had made the same mistake not trusting Harry seventeen years ago. Now, things were going to have to get much worse between them if they were ever going to get any better.