The Time Travel Crew
Chapter 2: Luna is invited
Luna Lovegood had seen and heard many things in her seventeen years of life. She had even been through the most harrowing experiences in the last year but nothing prepared her for this.
As usual, she woke up in the morning and set about her daily routine of helping her father, still recovering from the after effects of Azkaban, with breakfast; writing her beliefs regarding the lives of many Death Eaters to be published as articles for the Quibbler's next edition; helping her father with lunch; and adding a few sentences here and there to her father's article on Crumple-horned Snorkacks and wrackspurts.
But, it was just after she helped her father with the tea that Professor McGonagall's cat Patronus appeared to her and spoke in a crisp and familiar voice, "Please come to Professor Snape's office, immediately."
"What does the Headmistress of Hogwarts want with my Luna?" Luna's father asked her as he poured some milk into his tea cup.
"There's only one way to find out, Daddy."
"Hmmm... then you better get going, dear."
With a final wave to her father, Luna disapperated to Hogsmead and walked up to the castle and down into the dungeons where she met Harry, Professors McGonagall, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick who all looked very dogged.
Neville Longbottom, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Draco Malfoy were present too but they were all wearing confused expressions.
As soon as she sat on the only unoccupied chair around the table, Professor Snape set down a cup of hot tea, made just the way she liked it, in front of her, with a plate of cookies.
Slowly, Professor Flitwick began explaining a bizzare theory of time travel and Luna found herself intrigued. Forgetting about the cookies, but sipping the tea, she listened with utmost attention.
"Let me get this straight," curly haired Justin said. "You want to change the past."
"Yes, Justin." Professor Sprout said.
"Wow."
"Just a minute." Neville said sitting at the edge of his seat. "Do you know what could happen if we make a mistake?"
"We are well aware of that, Neville." Professor McGonagall said. "But as Pomona says, we have to try. If any of you want to back out please say so now. I'm giving you five minutes to think about it."
Luna thought five minutes wasn't really enough to decide something as important as this, but she didn't open her mouth to protest or to back down and neither did Neville, Justin and Draco. Instead, they showed a little more determination and so did Luna.
If there was a way of preventing so much of suffering,then Luna was in for it.
Harry said, "Professors, have you decided the exact day and time to which we will be going back?"
"Actually, Harry," Professor Snape said, "since you have the entire picture painted in your mind, we would prefer that you decide that particular date. What would you suggest?"
Luna found it very strange albeit very pleasant to hear her usually grouchy Professor speak so civilly. But as her father always said, change was good.
Harry sat quietly for a few seconds, "If we're going back, we really need to do a thorough job. Lets go through this backwards, you know, just lets analyse each year separately, starting from last year."
"I don't understand." Justin said and neither did Luna.
"You'll see." Harry said, "Let's backtrack the past years...It's like this...if we go to nineteen ninety seven, we wouldn't be able to save Dumbledore, the curse on his hand would just finished him in the long run, but we might succeed in preventing the battle. But that year is just too... "
"Dangerous?" Draco supplied.
"Yeah, dangerous." Harry agreed, "Let's not forget that both you and Severus were under Voldemort's abnormal nose."
Harry paused for a while and steamed on, "Nineteen ninety six, would prevent the battle, Dumbledore's death as well as Sirius's and Broderick Bode's, the unspeakable who was killed with a disguised Devil's Snare. We could even get Umbridge into trouble with the Minister and make her leave Hogwarts."
"But that year too, will be dangerous." Draco said.
"And Dumbledore would get suspicious if he noticed a sudden change in our attitude." Professor Snape put in.
"Ninety five can't be prevented." Harry said firmly.
There was the second bout of contemplative silence. Luna herself took a moment to realize what happened in that year.
"Why not?" Professor McGonagall demanded after a while. "That was the beginning of all our misery."
"I will explain why a little later, Professor, but the graveyard incident is very significant. I have to face him there...Moving on to ninety four, we need to let Peter Pettigrew escape for the graveyard incident to take place. But we could get Sirius exonerated..."
"Severus," Professor Flitwick said as Harry trailed off into a thoughtful silence, "Please give me some parchment, some ink and a quill. I think we should take down essential, intricate points."
Professor Snape took out a new roll of parchment and a brand new quill and an unused inkpot from a drawer in his desk and passed it across. Professor Flitwick began scribbling on it immediately.
Harry continued, "If we go to nineteen ninety three and two, we can prevent the Basilisk incidents, save poor Ginny from all that misery as well as expose Lockhart. He was a fraud, you know who was well-versed in obliviation charms alone."
"Ohh... .I'm looking forward to that." Professor Sprout said happily. "I always knew he was a badly shaped melon with a big flabby mouth."
Luna giggled. She had always thought Professor Lockhart had too many wrackspurts floating around his head making his mind seem like a long tangled noodle, but Professor Sprout's description hit the nail on the head.
"If we go to ninety one," Harry said putting an end to the mirth, "all we can do is keep Quirrel and Voldemort away. In nineteen ninety there's practically nothing we can do except begin Voldemort's destruction earlier. However, if we go back to the nineteen eighty nine, we can prevent your mother's death, Luna."
"Oh." Luna said startled out of her trans, "Could we do that?"
"We can, Luna." Harry said, looking across Neville and giving her a kind smile. She had always liked Harry's eyes and she felt really bad for him, but he just wouldn't accept any form of sympathy.
And now that she would be seeing her mother again, in this very world, Luna was so happy she barely missed Harry saying, "There's nothing we can do between eighty two and eighty eight and I don't recommend going back there. And we certainly can't go back to nineteen eighty."
"Why not?" Luna asked her head still fuzzy with wrackspurts... or was it hope? She loved her mother very very much and getting a chance to save her would be very nice.
"Because, at that time," Harry said patiently, "you, Luna will not exist, and if we change the future in anyway, you may never be born."
"I see." she said dreamily as another thought struck her. "But there may be many other people who may not be born."
"That is a risk we will have to take." Professor McGonagall said. "Though I don't think we will stop the existence of many babies all because of our presence in the past."
"That leaves nineteen ninety one." Professor Flitwick said getting them all back on track.
"Yes." said Harry his voice breaking. "If we prevent my parents' deaths..."
"We will not have those thirteen years of freedom." Professor Snape whispered, looking miserable as he put a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder. Did she just see grief and remorse in his eyes?
"Yes," Harry said quietly. He closed his eyes and spoke in a stronger voice "But, if we return to November first of that very year, we could prevent Sirius's imprisonment altogether. We could make it look like Sirius died in the blast too.
"One of us will have to keep him as a pet... he's an unregistered animagus... One of us will have to keep Pettigrew as a pet too, that is until ninety three, when we will expose him and deliberately let him escape.. ..he's an animagus too, a rat.
"And most importantly, we can also prevent your parents' current fate, Neville."
Neville turned his head and looked at Harry with disbelief. Luna gently patted his shoulder, knowing exactly how it felt to have a dream on the verge of being fulfilled.
Professor Flitwick cleared his throat.
"So the date and time we decide to return to will be..."
"The first of November nineteen ninety one, twelve in the morning." Harry said.
"There could be a bit of a problem there." Professor Flitwick said looking slightly abashed.
"What do you mean?" Harry said sharply.
"We may not reach our destination at twelve o'clock sharp, we may be early or late by a few minutes."
Harry closed his eyes and stayed silent for a while. Everyone maintained a respectful silence.
Harry sighed and said, "Alright. I'll give you the facts."
He lifted his wand and said, "Accio velvet bag!"
Then Harry got up and began pacing the floor. "I'll just give you a bit of a grounding of Voldemort's mentality. There is a lot more to be discussed too, but this is very important. You could write this down too, Professor, er, is there anyway we can carry these notes back to the past?"
"Yes, yes, Harry! There is a way." Professor Flitwick squeaked excitedly. "I came across it while searching for the spell that we will be using to go back with...All we have to do is jot these notes down on something that belonged to us back in nineteen eighty one on November the first, at twelve in the morning...
"We need to use a time-freezing charm on the ink on the parchment, first. Then we cast the spell on the parchment or on whatever else we will have to take back...the ink doesn't have to belong to us in nineteen eighty one - it can be recent - we only need one stable, ah, something that belonged to us back then to put the ink on...in this case, it's the parchment.
Professor McGonagall sat up straight. "I have a whole roll of parchment in my office. I remember buying it in nineteen eighty, but I never had anything important to write on it and so I left it unused. It's a particular type of parchment that doesn't let water ruin anything that's written on it. Will it do?"
"Perfectly."
"Accio water-repelling parchment!"
Just then the office door opened to let in a black velvet bag which flew onto the table.
Harry didn't touch the bag. It looked as though he wished to have as little contact with it as possible. And this simple action only peaked Luna's curiosity.
Professor Flitwick said, "Before we perform the spell to take us to the past, Minerva will have to hold on to that parchment roll after it has been properly spelled... You will also have to copy the notes down on the parchment yourself, Minerva. This is to prevent the ink from fading away, and care should be taken that the roll of Parchment is in no way damaged apart from the writings."
Professor McGonagall said, "I'll write on it, once we have all the notes needed to be put down."
The door opened again and in flew a roll of heavy parchment that plopped itself down on Professor McGonagall's lap. Now everyone turned to Harry, looking expectant. Professor Flitwick even had his quill poised above Professor Snape's parchment.
Harry cleared his throat, focussed his eye on the floor, lowered his speed of pacing and said, "Alright here goes... Voldemort despised love, he could never understand it and he underestimated it...He never liked having anything in common with anyone...
"He liked to steal and collect important, valuable artifacts... He had an amazing control of his magic even before he turned eleven... He liked to connect himself to certain places that were memorable or connected, in some way, to him...
"He was very eloquent, very cunning and very ruthless and went through any means to get what he wanted... He was a parseltongue... He trusted no one save for himself...He hated depending on anyone or anything... And most importantly, he was afraid of death.
"Now you need to understand, Voldemort wanted power. He wanted to take over the world, but there was a catch - he didn't want to die...The solution to the problem was to link himself to life as firmly as possible, so Voldemort decided to make something called a Horcrux."
"What's that?" Everyone in the office asked at once.
Harry frowned, "I'm getting there. I'll just give you some background first... You all know Voldemort was a half-blood. His father was a Muggle and his mother was a pureblood whose surname was Gaunt. She lived with her father, Marvolo Gaunt and brother Morfin Gaunt, all three cross-eyed and insane thanks to marrying among cousins for generations to maintain the purity of their blood.
"The Gaunt family owned two heirlooms, a ring from the Peverells and a locket from Salazar Slytherin, their ancestor. The Peverells and the tale in Beedle the Bard about the three brothers who acquired the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Invisiblity Cloak from Death are one and the same.
"The story's true?" Neville and Draco spoke at the same time.
"Sort off...the Peverells didn't meet Death, they made the artifacts themselves." Harry said absentmindedly, "Merope Gaunt, a poor, ugly girl, the daughter of a tramp, fell in love with the squire's very handsome son, Tom Riddle who was already courting a girl called Cecilia -"
"What's a squire?" Luna interrupted.
"Yes, that." Draco said, "And what's a tramp?"
"A squire," Harry said, "is a person who has a high rank in the Muggle society and a tramp is a poor, usually homeless person.
"Alright, let's get back... When Merope's father and brother were arrested for attacking a Ministry official, she stole the heart of Tom Riddle senior with some love potion and they ran off together and got married and that most predictably created a great scandal in Little Hangleton.
"Merope constantly fed him with love potion, until one day, she was so deeply in love with him, that she couldn't bring herself to give him the potion anymore. When Riddle came round, he left her and returned to his parents saying that he was bewitched. The fact that his wife was going to have his child, meant nothing to him.
"Merope was so heartbroken that she either couldn't perform magic anymore or she didn't want to have anything to do with magic anymore...well...that's for us to assume. She went to Borgin and Brukes in Knockturn Alley and sold to the shopkeeper her locket, one of the two very valuable family heirloom, for only ten galleons, just enough to keep her going.
"She then went to an orphanage in London and gave birth to a boy and and asked that he be named after his father and after her father - Tom Marvolo Riddle. Then she died after expressing her wish that her son resemble his father in looks."
Luna was startled out of her trans by a sniffle. It was only then that she realized she was completely taken by Harry's story. She turned just in time to see all the professor's except for Snape blowing their noses. The Potions Master was rolling his eyes at them.
"Oi!" Harry said indignantly. He had stopped pacing and was looking at them with a scowl, which looked quite comical with one eye.
"I'm sorry, Harry." Professor McGonagall sniffed sadly, a lone tear rolling down her cheek, "But this story is so..."
"I am not telling you a story!" Harry exclaimed, sounding even more indignant. "I'm just giving you a simple background."
"It is very romantic." Luna said gently.
"And you are a brilliant storyteller." Justin said sounding mildly amused.
"Oh, alright." Harry said exasperated. "Let's get back to Voldemort."
"Of course." Professor Snape said smiling slightly.
To be continued...
Hello Everyone,
I would like to thank everyone who reviewed my first chapter. It certainly made my day!
It took me quite a while to get this down and I'm quite sure I've missed a few things here and there.
If, by chance, you come to realise what I've missed or if something doesn't sound right, please let me know in the reviews.
There will be another two more chapters of discussions and in the fifth chapter, we will go back in time...
Take care!