What if Harry chose to move on from the King's Cross limbo and it was left to Hermione to activate Dumbledore's failsafe to save the wizarding world? When said failsafe sends her back to 1977 to live out her seventh year with the Marauders, how will she traverse friends and foes alike in order to give Harry the childhood he deserves?
A/N This is my first attempt at anything like this so bear with me. Sorry if some aspects of this seem similar to others, but I love this trope and have tried to combine my favourite aspects of many other stories. This may take a while and will be long.
Chapter 1: The Failsafe
Harry gasped as he resurfaced out of the Pensieve, sinking to the floor and staring at the entrance to the room: Snape might have just closed the door. After all this time and Snape had been good? Not only good, but willing to protect him, even when he knew that Harry eventually must die.
Feeling his heart pounding in his chest, Harry looked up at the Headmaster's desk and considered the last conversation he had witnessed. With aching joints, he rose and staggered around the desk, slumping into the chair that Dumbledore had once so frequently occupied, and opening the drawer.
The box inside the top drawer was tiny and made of a worn wood, as if it had been handled multiple times in consideration. Dumbledore's words from hours earlier spun around his head as he regarded the matchbox sized object resting within his palm.
"Severus, I hoped that it would never come to this point, but with things developing as they are, we must consider alternative options in case of the worst possible outcomes." The Snape within the memory sighed from his viewpoint on the headmaster's chair as he swivelled towards Dumbledore's portrait.
"What are you on about now?" he grumbled, confused after following all of Dumbledore's previously known plans to the letter.
"Harry has just been spotted in Hogsmeade, I am sure you will hear about it in a few moments, but gossip travels fast within portraits. What matters now is that the end is almost here." He replied with a glint of anticipation in his emerald blue eyes.
Snape gasped as he made to jump out of his chair but was stopped yet again. "Severus before you go, you need to inform Harry of a box I have kept safe in the top drawer on the left. It is vital that he knows of its importance and passes it on to someone he trusts. Miss Granger would be the wisest choice in this case, considering all she knows regarding Voldemort, Horcruxes and her previous experiences."
After yanking open the drawer to regard said item, the Headmaster snarled in surprise, "A…a box? What does that matter now? If Potter is stupid enough to come to Hogsmead now, then the Dark Lord is sure to already know of it. We can't be worrying about anything else at a time like this."
The portrait sighed, inclined his head in agreement and continued, "We do have very little time, yet this still must be done in case all else fails. I may be very wise and very old, but even I do not know how the battle that is sure to come will end. Losses will be sustained on both sides but it is impossible to know which side will win."
He paused but continued in response to the Slytherin's incredulous look, "Inside that box is a failsafe which should only be triggered if the situation becomes so dire that all hope seems lost. You must deliver that to Miss Granger with strict instructions never to open in case there is absolutely no option."
Harry looked down at this item that Dumbledore seemed to fear and yet hold in esteem and in disgust. Dumbledore's betrayal of raising Harry with the intent for him to die at the opportune time was nothing compared to the knowledge that he didn't believe in him to properly finish this war. Even after months on the run, years of fighting Voldemort and a lifetime of only knowing half of the story, it would all amount to nothing. Or at least Dumbledore seemed to think so.
He was going to die. The certainty of that fact somehow calmed his anger at the former headmaster. As much as he wished to protect and care for his friends and the other members of the Order, he could now rest. His mentor's lack of faith in him may have been frustrating during the Horcrux hunt, yet now it demonstrated his naivety in believing that he could defeat Voldemort. He was 17 years old, for crying out loud!
The thoughts whizzing around his head somehow seemed to stabilize him as he rose to his feet and walked out of the office for the last time. The beating of his heart became a comforting thrum at the back of his mind and he wandered through the empty castle, stopping only when he saw Neville collecting bodies from the courtyard.
After explaining about the snake and the plan to kill it, Harry forced the small wooden box into Neville's palm, relaying the message to pass it onto Hermione and to not open it unless there is no other choice. Making the same assumption as Harry that it was some sort of weapon of mass destruction to take out the Death Eater forces as well as our own, his eyes widened.
Neville seized his wrist as Harry made to move on, "We're all going to keep fighting, Harry. You know that?" In response Harry gulped, unable to reply for a moment as a feeling of despair suffocated him, but Neville seemed to understand and made to move away from him.
Feeling the need to say something so that Hermione would understand his choice, and activate the failsafe if needs be Harry choked out, "T..Tell Hermione…" He swallowed as Neville turned back to him. "Tell her that I love her a..and that she is called the brightest witch of our age for a reason, whatever choice she makes I am behind it 100%. Even if this all works out, I want her, Ron, Ginny, and everyone else to be happy, no matter the cost."
An understanding seemed so pass between the teenage boys as Harry pulled the invisibility cloak around him once more and loped away into the Forbidden Forest.
Hermione's body stood ramrod straight as she stared at the lifeless body cocooned within Hagrid's arms. The only part of her body that seemed to move was her index finger as it trailed over the outline of a box in her pocket and her mind that was moving at a hundred miles per hour.
Last resort, Neville had said, only if all hope seems lost. Well it looked bloody close to that right now. Not able to put to words the state that her friend was in, she felt a tear roll down her cheek. First Fred, then Remus and Tonks, Harry, and now…..oh no Neville. Coming back to herself she suddenly became aware of her once cowardly first friend standing up against the most powerful monster alive.
But then she realised that he was no longer standing, he was held rooted to the spot, the hat upon his head aflame as well as the man himself. She could almost no longer bear it; if only the Death Eater army were closer she could open the box and take them all out, assuming that whatever was in this box would not reach too far considering the size of it.
But suddenly everything seemed to happen at once. Grawp began to battle with other giants, the centaurs appeared and Neville, brave Neville, broke free of the Body-Bind Curse, drawing the sword of Gryffindor to take off Nagini's head in one fell swoop. Yet throughout all of that, Hermione's eyes were still locked on her friend's lifeless form, unknowing that if he had made another decision, he would be the one to protect Neville from the killing curse that was heading his way.
Even throughout the chaos of hundreds of people rushing to take shelter inside the Entrance Hall and Great Hall, Hermione could still distinctly hear the crunch of what was left of Neville hit the rubble-strewn floor.
An aerial attack from various creatures hindered the confused Death Eater ranks, which gave Hermione the time to catch up with Ginny and Luna in the doorway. All around her people somehow found the energy to fight and for a second it seemed as if all was not lost, until she appeared.
The Bellatrix of her nightmares was nothing to the Bellatrix in real life and Hermione tried not to focus on the crazed look in her eye or the cruel words that left her mouth as she began to duel, Ginny and Luna at her sides. When Mrs Weasley knocked her to the side she couldn't help but be astounded at the ferocity that the woman who had acted as a mother to her for so many years exhibited in order to protect her children.
The cheer of elation that arose when the madwoman finally fell was stopped short when Voldemort blasted back anyone in his path and cast the killing curse at Mrs Weasley. No one cast a shield charm, or jumped in front of the woman fast enough and Hermione was forced to watch as the light left her eyes. Voldemort cackled evilly and proceeded to murder those he has previously been fighting. Still incapacitated by that blast that Tom had emitted before killing the Weasley matriarch, McGonagall, Kingsley and Slughorn stood no chance.
What advantage the light had seemed to have gleaned was lost as the tide turned. Around her Hermione began to see her friends die as the Death Eaters rallied. Searching for Ron, Hermione glanced to her left only to see Dolohov snap his neck. Ron had clearly been attempting to get to her in order to protect her when Dolohov intervened; using muggle forms of murder when the satisfaction of spell cast pain evaded him. It was common knowledge that the monster that had attacked her from within the Department of Mysteries had since developed an obsession for her, and it seemed as if he were about to collect the debt that he seemed to think he was owed.
One last glance at the mutilated face of Dolohov, slashed apart by courtesy of Flitwick, she glanced down into the face of her best friend and first love. The once joyous and mischievous blue eyes were now empty and void of all feeling, and that was the last thing she saw as she took out the box from her pocket and opened it. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for oblivion.
Up next is Chapter 2: A Change of Scenery