15

Al was of two minds about the Professor Strange situation when he returned to his dorm that night. On the one hand, he felt like telling James, Rose, and Scorpius of his discovery right away. On the other hand, he felt like doing so would be betraying someone who'd helped him so much. Al rationalized that there had to be a good reason that the professor was looking into magic that had been forbidden for over two decades. Al's sleep was light and fitful that night as his thoughts chased each other around his dreams. By the time he'd awakened, he'd come to a decision. He wasn't going to tell his friends, at least not yet. First, he wanted to confront his teacher, and he would have the perfect opportunity tonight when he went in for his private lessons.

That evening, Al stood silently outside the classroom they were going to be using for the private lessons. His path had seemed so clear that morning but now, his nerves were starting to get the better of him. Before his courage could falter any further, Al pushed the door open and marched in to confront his teacher. "I know about the time turner," he declared.

As usual, Professor Strange's expression was inscrutable. "I see," he replied evenly as he absently stowed his wand away and steepled his long, thin fingers. "Should I expect the aurors soon?"

Al's unease only grew at the casual way the professor asked the question, as if he had nothing to worry about. As it happened, he didn't. "The authorities don't know," Al replied nervously.

"Very well, what about my colleagues? Will the headmistress be arriving to sack me?"

Al shook his head.

"Hmm. Perhaps you elected to do as your father did and keep this between you and your friends. Are they waiting around the corner to hex me into unconsciousness so you can all claim the same glory of adventure your forebears did?"

Al thought the last one sounded almost like a challenge but at the same time, he thought he detected something else. Was it certainty? "I haven't told anyone," he replied. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Not quite," Strange replied. "But I suspected. When you and Mr. Malfoy came to me for assistance, I sensed something in you."

"Sensed what?" Al asked.

Instead of answering him directly, the professor continued on his own. "When you were sorted into Slytherin, I suspected that the reason you didn't join the rest of your family in Gryffindor had to do with your desire to stand apart from them. Your thirst for greatness in your own right rather than as just another part of your family's legacy. When I first met you and Mr. Malfoy my suspicions were confirmed. But I soon realized that there was even more to you.

"You, Mr. Potter, are an extremely powerful wizard in your own right, once you've unblocked the flow of your magic. Yet you find yourself in a position with few actual friends and the majority of the school against you just because of your house. They don't particularly care for who you are or your achievements. They just see green and silver. Even your own housemates don't see much past your famous surname. They don't see Albus Severus Potter, they see your father's shadow. All this has got to be rather bothersome for an ambitious Slytherin such as yourself.

"The reason you haven't turned me in to anyone is that you still thirst for that greatness, now more than ever. Especially given that the results of our lessons have given you a taste of how it feels to win for a change. You haven't turned me in because, even though you may not consciously realize it, you are trying to decide if you win more by turning me in or by letting me continue."

"That's not true," Al protested weakly, though a part of him couldn't help but tremble at the thought that Professor Strange was right.

"Given your upbringing among 'honorable Gryffindors' I'm not surprised that you're in denial," Strange replied calmly. "So, let me help clear things up for you. I'm going to give you a test. I'm going to tell you why I'm making the time turner, and I'm going to make you an offer. How you decide will either prove that I'm right about your ambition, or that the hat made a mistake in putting you in Slytherin."

Al nervously swallowed with difficulty. He suddenly found his mouth going dry and his palms sweating. In hindsight, he should have prepared himself more for his confrontation with the professor. He'd been expecting some back and forth that would have ultimately ended with him turning Strange in. Instead it seemed the tables had been turned on him and he was about to discover if he really was just a no-good snake, driven by nothing but his ambition.

"The time-turner you saw is of my own design and merely a piece of a larger mechanism I have been developing."

"What mechanism?" Al asked.

"A perfect time-turner," Strange replied. "You see, time-turners were developed by the Department of Mysteries in the fifties after two unspeakables returned from studying what they called 'The Winden Rift' in Germany. I won't bore you with the details of their research at the moment, we can discuss that later. But I'm sure you are aware of some of the limitations of time-turners."

Before Al could stop himself, he found himself answering the professor's implicit question. "They can't go back more than six hours and they only allow pre…" Al struggled to remember the exact term.

"Pre-destination paradoxes," Strange finished for him. "Yes. They're also one way. If you go back two hours, you have to live those two hours over again. You can't go back forward. But the research from the Winden Rift indicated that the first and last of these limitations wasn't a fact of nature but a problem of design. The Winden Rift allowed travel in both directions and ran on cycles of thirty-three years rather than one hour. Additionally, the question of pre-destination paradoxes being a fact of nature was never settled."

"So, this 'perfect' time-turner is supposed to do what?" Al asked. "Go back further than six hours, let you move forward or backward, and change history?"

"That's the goal," Strange answered.

"But why?" Al asked. "Why make it at all?"

"I'm not sure if you read the news Mr. Potter, but the wizarding world is not in the best of shapes at the moment. We've buried our heads in the sand for too long while the muggles have continued to advance technologically. Such advances are rendering many of our protections useless. The barriers that divide our worlds are essentially—"

"Breaking down," Al cut in. "I know."

Professor Strange nodded approvingly. "Then you know that the world is once again becoming unsafe for our kind."

Al nodded. "But my Aunt Hermione's working to fix that," Al pointed out recalling back to the conversation they'd spied on over Christmas. "She and Mr. Malfoy are gathering support to change things, so things happen on our terms."

Strange cocked an eyebrow. Clearly this was news to him and truthfully, Al hadn't expected any different. It was supposed to be a secret after all. The only reason he'd told the professor was in the hopes of dissuading him from whatever plan he had in mind for the perfect time-turner. Unfortunately, Al soon found those hopes dashed. "If what you say is true, while their efforts are indeed commendable, I'm afraid they'll be too little, too late. At this point in our history, when the muggles have had weapons that could wipe out this entire school in the blink of an eye for nearly three-quarters of a century, any attempt at reunification is much too risky and would likely result in either our extermination or our exploitation."

"So, your answer is to go back and change history."

"Yes."

"But that could have all sorts of bad consequences!" Al argued.

"Not if we do it right," Strange insisted. "I've done the calculations and studied the history. If we intervene in Grindelwald's War—"

"What?" Al couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You want to help Grindelwald?"

"I didn't say that," Strange replied impatiently. "Gellert Grindelwald may have been a flawed and complicated man but so was Albus Dumbledore and they both wanted the greater good of humanity. Grindelwald's only problem was that he needed better guidance."

"So he could win his war you mean." Al couldn't contain his contempt. He'd thought Professor Strange was a good man.

"So that he wouldn't have to," Strange answered forcefully. "A different approach could have resulted in a fair and peaceful reunification of our worlds, one that avoided the conflict and bloodshed of Grindelwald's War and could have prevented the muggles' second world war." Professor Strange was starting to become impassioned. "Imagine how many lives would be saved, both wizard and muggle, if things would have gone right. Think of how many more will be saved by averting the looming conflict between us and the muggles."

"Grindelwald wanted to enslave the muggles," Al argued firmly only to find his certainty faltering as he watched his professor shake his head sadly. "Didn't he?" Al added uncertainly.

"History is often written by the victors Mr. Potter. The truth of Grindelwald's ideas has been suppressed and scrubbed from most of the 'approved' histories," Strange replied. The professor drew out a slip of parchment and a self-inking quill. "If you want to know the truth, you should focus on primary sources. All of those will be in the restricted section." Strange scribbled something on the parchment before offering it to Al.

Al cautiously accepted the parchment. Upon reading it, he saw that it was a permission slip for the restricted section of the library.

"Spend a week reading through them," Strange said. "If you're still not convinced, you're welcome to turn me into the headmaster. Or even your father, if you'd prefer to expedite things. Otherwise, come back to me and we can save the world together. That is my offer."

Al hesitated a moment before defiantly declaring, "No, Professor. I'm turning you in now." He then ran off before Strange could do anything else. Only, Al didn't turn him in. Instead, he ran straight for the dungeons and the following morning, he found himself in the restricted section, searching for the history Professor Strange had insisted had been censored.

As Al poked through the various primary sources from the time of Grindelwald's War and the time leading up to it, he discovered that he didn't like what he had seen so far. It wasn't so much that the reading material had been awful and abhorrent, quite the opposite in fact. Al had found that most, though not all, of the writings of Grindelwald and the witches and wizards who'd wound up following him actually made a lot of sense. And that was what Al didn't like. He'd taken Professor Strange's restricted section pass with the expectation that he'd only find more proof that what the professor had planned was wrong. Instead, he'd found reasons to agree with him.

One wizard had written "The muggles, in their relentless march forward in technological advancement, will inevitably eclipse our own abilities if we do not advance with them. The statute of secrecy holds back our development by freezing our society in the seventeenth century and this achieves the opposite of its claimed purpose. There shall come a time when the muggles discover us once again and we shall be defenseless when they do, thus ensuring the extermination or exploitation of our kind unless we act now to avoid disaster." Another witch argued that the statute unjustly prevented relationships with those "no-majes" who were "perfectly reasonable and good men." Others argued about the positive side of reunification and how commerce and standards of living would grow astronomically. They even argued that the more politically unified magical world could help unify the non-magical world and achieve world peace.

True, Al also found the rather darker elements of Grindelwald's organization. These witches and wizards argued for the enslavement of muggles to "prevent their arrogance from ending all life on earth," and while Al disagreed with the method, he had to concede that the muggles had developed some rather dangerous and potentially world-ending weapons.

Soon it was Friday and Al still found himself conflicted, though he was leaning more toward joining with the professor. If they did it right, they could change Grindelwald's mind and the minds of everyone else who wanted to enslave the muggles. They could rejoin the worlds and do it peacefully. If he did it right, Al could not only save the world, but he could make it exponentially better. It would be a feat even greater than the defeat of Voldemort.

It was with these thoughts chasing each other around his mind that Al found himself mindlessly paging through a potions textbook as he sat in the library studying with Rose, Scorpius, and Andrew. "You going to tell us what's on your mind?" Scorpius asked pointedly without looking up from his own textbook and parchment.

"Huh?" Al replied dumbly.

"You've been flipping through your potions text since we sat down and the potion we're supposed to be preparing for was ten pages ago," Andrew replied by way of clarification.

Al glanced down at his text, truly seeing it for the first time since they'd sat down, and he realized that Andrew was right. "Oh. Just thinking," he replied eventually as he flipped back to the potion they were supposed to study and tried to force himself to concentrate.

"About?" Rose pressed.

"Nothing," Al answered. Scorpius seemed like he was going to throw out a witty comeback but before he opened his mouth Al spoke again. "Have you guys ever thought about how things would be different now, if history had gone differently?"

"You mean like alt history?" Andrew asked, looking up from his work for the first time. "Like what if the Nazis had won the war or if William the Conqueror had lost the Battle of Hastings?"

"Or if Grindelwald ended the Statute of Secrecy," Al added, still staring off into space.

Al was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice the strange looks that earned him from his friends. "I imagine all the muggles in the world would be living under his boot, or the boot of whoever took over from him," Scorpius replied sardonically.

"Probably Riddle," Andrew added, nodding in agreement.

"No," Al put in. "I mean, what if he did it, but without the war, without trying to subjugate the muggles?"

"Sounds like you're asking Grindelwald to not be Grindelwald," Scorpius replied.

"Maybe," Al conceded. "But what if someone who knew better, someone from now, could go back in time and explain it to him? What if they could change his mind? Hypothetically speaking."

Andrew finally looked up from his text and spoke directly to Al. "Even if it were possible to go back that far in time and change history, chances are Grindelwald wouldn't change."

"How do you know?" Al asked, not noticing how Scorpius's expression had turned suspicious.

"Because Dumbledore already tried that," Andrew answered easily. "I mean, they used to be best friends. Do you really think he wouldn't have tried to win Grindelwald over, even after their ill-fated duel?"

"What if we got to him before then?" Al pressed, not wanting to let this go.

"Even then, there's just too many other variables to consider," Andrew replied. "Grindelwald may have led the war to end the statute but he there were plenty of people who followed him who agreed with the war and the idea of enslaving the muggles."

"Where's this coming from Al?" Rose asked suddenly. Al shifted his gaze from Andrew to his cousin's concerned expression.

"Nowhere," he said dismissively. "Just something that popped in my head," he replied. Al glanced over and caught Scorpius's suspicious expression. "You know, I don't think I'm going to be much help tonight," he said as he turned away from Scorpius's narrowed grey eyes and began packing his things back up.

"But we need to be prepared for tomorrow!" Rose protested.

"I'll be fine," Al assured quickly.

"What about us?" Scorpius asked, though he didn't sound like he was complaining to Al. The suspicion in his tone matched his expression.

"You've got Andrew," Al replied as he picked up his bag and made his way out of the library, perhaps a bit too hastily.

It wasn't long before Al heard hurried footsteps following after him, echoing off the stone corridor along with his own. He picked up his pace but halted when Scorpius called his name. "Potter!"

Al cringed. While Scorpius had recently taken to calling Al by his first name, he noted that the Malfoy scion still sometimes used his surname instead. It was usually when he was angry about something. This time Scorpius sounded particularly angry and Al could guess why. "Scorpius?" Al asked uncertainly.

When Scorpius reached him, Al decided that he wasn't angry. No, he looked livid. "Your cousin may have been willing to let you go without answering where this all came from but I know." Scorpius jabbed a finger at Al's chest on the last word. "This is what Strange is up to, isn't it?"

Al took a deep breath and steeled himself. "And what if it is?" he asked.

"If it is then that means you've known what he's been up to. I don't know for how long, but long enough," Scorpius replied angrily. "And you haven't told us, or anyone else for that matter which means you're on his side."

Al shook his head. "You say that like it's a bad thing," Al said.

"Of course it is! He wants to use that big brain of his to create an illegal time-turner that's somehow going to break all the rules of time-turners and then go and help Grindelwald win—"

"He's not going to help him win," Al interrupted.

"Oh, that's right. He's going to 'change his mind'," Scorpius retorted sarcastically. "So, what did he offer you?"

"What?"

"It had to have been pretty tempting for goody-two-shoes Potter to suddenly decide it's okay to suddenly go full Slytherin on us," Scorpius replied.

Al resented the implication. "Slytherin doesn't mean evil," he bit out. "Though you would think so, wouldn't you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I bet that's why it took so long for the hat to sort you," Al replied. "I saw you with it on your head. It looked like you were arguing with it. I bet it wanted to put you in Slytherin but you just had to distance yourself from all us 'evil snakes'. Well guess what Malfoy, not every Slytherin is like your family. Some of us try to achieve greatness by doing good things."

"And this is good?" Scorpius asked incredulously. "You want to literally change history to help probably the evilest wizard in history and for what? So you can satisfy your ambition? So you can stand out from your family? Well you know what Potter? You'll definitely stand out."

"It's not like that Scorpius," Al replied. "We're trying to fix things. It's too late now to reintegrate with the muggles but if we go back and fix things then…"

"Merlin, you really believe that don't you?" Scorpius said disbelievingly.

"That's because it's true," Al insisted before continuing more gently. "Look, Scorpius. You're my best mate so I know you've got your own problems with your family. What your grandparents did, what your dad did. If we fix things in the past, that might never happen." Then a thought occurred to Al. "If you help us, you could even change that legacy. The Malfoys have always been known for being kind of sinister and into dark magic, even before Riddle. If you help us, that can change. You'll be known as one of the people who helped save the world," Al said enthusiastically.

Al was so sure Scorpius would accept. After all, as much as the other boy tried to hide it, Al knew how much it hurt him to be judged for his last name rather than for himself. That's why Al was so surprised when Scorpius shook his head and, despite his deflated appearance, defiantly answered, "No, Al."

"Why not?" Al asked in confusion, feeling more than just a hint of betrayal.

"Because," Scorpius said more forcefully this time. "There is all the difference in the world between seeming good and actually being good." Scorpius didn't say anything more but instead spun around and trudged off despondently.

Al was rooted in place for what felt like hours but had to have been mere moments. Was that what all this was about? Was he really just worried about seeming good rather than being good? Was he just as caught up in appearances and theater as everyone else in the school had been all year? Al decided that wasn't the case, at least not entirely. But Strange's plan was another matter. Was it really doing the right thing, trying to go back in time and manipulate history that way?

Al thought back to their conversation in the library, and to what he'd read about Grindelwald and his followers. Could he honestly say that he believed Grindelwald's mind could be changed? Even if it could, could he say that Grindelwald's followers would still follow him if he stopped wanting war and muggle enslavement?

It was these thoughts that led him to the gargoyle that guarded the base of the spiral stairs that led to the headmistress's office. Even as uncertain as Al was about Professor Strange's plan being right, after thinking about it, he knew that his decision was the right one.