Anything in this chapter taken directly from the books is written in bold.
The Time Travel Crew
Chapter 5: Harry makes a change
Two months later...
Harry couldn't draw the finest line between excitement and nervousness. Tonight would be the night that they would go back in time. It was only morning and yet every member of their crew who was at the castle was making a mess of themselves.
Harry, for one stirred two full teaspoons of salt in his coffee; McGonagall came to the Great Hall still in her tartan nightdress; Sprout looked cleaner than she had looked on Dumbledore's funeral and Flitwick seemed to be muttering to himself...And Snape was humming.
So, after upsetting his inkbottle twice on his table and trying to write with a sugar quill that he dipped in his refilled inkbottle, Harry decided to sit in a corner and close his eyes and recollect the entire plan along with his role in the plot.
He along with the rest had sat up late into the nights discussing their moves without the knowledge of the other staff. Flitwick had taught them to cast Wandless Magic after they finished their dinner, every night. An hour of that, followed by an hour of strenuous Occlumency training and finally the discussions. It wasn't an easy task, for every person affected by the war had to be taken into account.
They even had to try and remember the status of their own knowledge at that particular time and what else they learnt after ninteen eighty one in sequence. That was followed by recollection of their attitude towards the others. Severus would just start teaching then, so he was no problem. The problem lay with McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick.
It was after two in the morning that the team went to sleep, only to wake up at six to practice what they'd learnt the previous night, and then after breakfast they would read books on Wandless Magic and Occlumency, followed by Harry, Neville, Luna, Justin and Draco making a detailed inventory on as many people killed and injured before and during the second war as possible.
Harry had to make sure he returned for his meals to keep the other members of the staff from getting suspicious. But the person who had the most difficult time, keeping his parents from even the tiniest amount of doubt, was Draco.
So when Harry finally opened his eyes, he noticed that it was time for lunch. Putting on his best shields of Occlumency so far, Harry headed to the Great Hall. And so the day went on and at eleven o'clock, Harry left his quarters to head down to the Great Hall with his charmed, poison coated blanket under his good and only arm.
He reached to see the house tables set at the side of the Hall and Flitwick enlarging a flat round clock with nine uniform minute hands on the floor, right in the centre of the Great Hall, the clock was white but it's hands and border were brown. On top of the screw holding the hands together at the centre, there was a time turner hourglass that seemed to be stuck on the screw.
He looked around and saw McGonagall holding on to big roll of her waterproof parchment filled with notes and diagrams. She was pacing a quarter of the length of the Hall, her entire demeanor tensed. If their journey went well, this would be the last time Harry saw Hogwarts for ten years and the fact pained him deeply.
Neville looked nervous and Harry knew he was worried about his parents in the new time. Luna, Justin and Draco were calm, of course, they would be babies without a care in the world. Sprout looked as nervous as McGonagall. Snape, however, was missing.
Flitwick looked up and said, "Come, come, Harry! We've still got an hour though. Have you got everything?"
"Yes, Filius." Harry said smiling slightly. "Where's Severus?"
"He's with the stone on the grounds." Luna said, smiling.
"Oh."
The stone was none other than the Resurrection Stone that Harry summoned from the Forbidden Forest a week ago just so the Professors wouldn't make the same mistake Dumbledore made when he got that Horcrux from Little Hangleton. It was decided that the teachers would see to the ring as soon as they got the chance and when they were sure that the coast was clear.
Harry didn't want them to get tempted by the stone so he gave them a chance to speak to their loved ones for the last time for even after the Horcrux was destroyed, the curse on it would still linger on the ring and touching it was out of the question. They would simply have to destroy the ring as soon as the soul in it stopped existing.
Harry turned around to head for the grounds when the doors to the Great Hall opened and Snape entered carrying the small pocket sized recorder he had shown the crew a few days after their first meeting. The recorder now had, in Parseltongue, the word "Open" and the proclamation that got the Basilisk out of the mouth of Slytherin's statue.
Snape saw Harry and gave him a small smile. Harry grinned in return.
Sprout cleared her throat, "Right! Now that we're all here, does everyone know what they have to do once they reach their destination?"
"Yes, Pomona" was the answer.
Minerva stopped pacing and looked at Harry, Neville, Luna, Justin and Draco with a stern eye and said, "Just because you are going to live your childhoods again doesn't mean that you slack down on your work. It may be your second chance but for everyone else, including your parents, it is your first. Use your mental age as an advantage. You will have to work harder than what you did in this time. I will not stand any form of laziness from any of you. Am I understood?"
"Yes, Professor." was the exasperated response.
"That's good." Flitwick said absentmindedly, going through his rolls of parchment that contained the directions of the charm that would take them back in time.
After half-an-hour of tensed silence, Fliwick looked up and said, "Ah, Minerva, Severus, Harry, come here, will you? Please leviate the parchment roll, the recorder and blanket into the air, wandlessly."
Harry, Snape and McGonagall did as they were told.
"Excellent!" Flitwick squeaked happily. "Now, hold it there for me, please. And make sure you keep it the charm throughout, for, there will be a time where your possessions will behave abnormally and even then, make sure your charm is still working."
Flitwick moved his wand without any further ado in an extremely complicated manner while muttering a long string of Latin words at the same time. Both, the parchment, the recorder and blanket began glowing blue for a while. Soon they seemed to throw off the leviation charm and fly, on their own accord, into their owners left hands. The moment the blanket touched Harry's hand he felt something like current flowing through him and then found himself glowing blue - so were McGonagall and Snape.
After a minute, all three, Harry, Snape and McGonagall found themselves in the midst of a strong wind that circulated around just the three of them, making their robes and hair flutter with great intensity.
And it was just as Harry thought he would be knocked down by the powerful force of the wind, that it stopped. Everything stopped and the blanket, recorder and parchment roll left their owners hands and continued to float in the air and he, Snape and McGonagall were no longer glowing.
Flitwick clapped his hands with glee and on his instruction Harry dropped the charm and grabbed hold of his blanket as did Snape and McGonagall with their recorder and parchment roll respectively..
"Now for the next charm... Everyone please stand on the free end of any hand of the clock... One hand per person. Minerva, Severus, Harry, please hold on to the things you will be taking back. Alright, you have a little time to say goodbye..."
After a quick round of hugs and farewells, everyone stepped on a hand of their choice. Harry found himself between Draco and Sprout. Flitwick stood on the hand opposite to the one on which Harry stood. On Flitwick's right were McGonagall, Justin and Draco and on his left were Snape, Neville, Luna and Sprout.
Then with a flick of his wand, Flitwick set the hands of the clock, on which the crew stood, spinning anticlockwise at a very slow pace...and after a minute the dial began spinning in the clockwise direction. Harry began to feel a trill of excitement and anxiousness as this happened
As the dial twirled, it increased in size and as it increased in size, the hands on the clock grew too and every person began moving further away from the other. The hands started to spin faster and Harry realised that the soles of his shoes were stuck to the clock hand, preventing him from falling off, but this couldn't prevent his heart from increasing it's pace of beating.
The walls of the Great Hall faded away and so did the people around him. Harry could only see a mass of dark blue surrounding him, above, below and around, and that dark blue slowly began to get covered by a thin layer of haze.
Out of nowhere, many smaller white clocks with gold borders and three black hands each appeared and the hands were moving rapidly in the anticlockwise direction. A number of calendars popped into Harry's view on one after another, their pages flipping from December to January as though some strong wind was messing with the calendar's pages.
As this was happening, the clock on which Harry was stuck to gradually increased its pace. There was a loud whooshing sound that lingered around his ears preventing him from hearing his own yells.
Faster and faster the clock moved until finally, a very dizzy Harry felt his his feet getting unstuck from the clock's hand and he lost his balance. He tried to grab onto something, but his hand could find nothing to hold on to...And Harry found himself toppling off the clock and falling into space...He kept falling and falling and falling... and as he fell into the ocean of dark blue, the thin curtain of fog converged on him, blinding him, deafening him and rendering him mute...
Slowly, he felt his body disappearing, dissolving in that haze... And then Harry felt felt himself being carried like a small child as his ears were filled with screams, familiar screams... his mother's last screams...
The dark blue started dissolving and Harry found himself in his mother's arms, in the nursery as she stood facing the door that had a chair and a few boxes piled hastily against it.
It was then that Harry realized that his father was dead and soon, his mother would be too. The chair and boxes moved to the side and the door opened revealing Voldemort who had a purposeful gleam in his eyes.
This hadn't been midnight leading to the first of November, but thirty-first of October itself. Harry had made it back in time all right, but right into the middle of it all... For a tiny second, Harry could have strangled Flitwick!
Lily immediate dropped Harry into his crib and threw her arms wide in her last bid to protect him.
"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" she screamed.
"Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside, now." Voldemort ordered.
Harry couldn't bear it... Not Lily... Not his mother... Not now... Stop! Stop! Stop!
"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead —"
No, no, no, no, no...
"This is my last warning —"
The reason he came back was to try and save as many deaths as possible... Wasn't it...
"Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy. …"
His mother's death led to him being saved, but what if she meant to die but didn't... Just as Harry did in nineteen ninety eight...
"Not Harry! Not Harry! Please — I'll do anything —"
It could work... It was worth taking the risk... If he died, there were others who would complete the mission for him... But if he he let his mother die, he would be a murderer...
"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"
Harry was determined... He shielded his mind...Here goes nothing...
"Avada Keda-"
Harry used his wandless magic to create a powerful invisible magic absorbing barrier in front of his his mother and then to drop her down with a sleeping charm...
"-vra!"
His mother's collapse and the green light occured at almost the same time, but Harry was positive that his mother hadn't been hit.
He stood up on his small feet, holding on to the bars of the crib for support, shielding his mind very carefully, his little heart pounding faster than he could ever remember...
If Lily's sacrifice hadn't worked, Harry would die...But Harry wasn't afraid to die... It wasn't so scary now that he'd done it before in his time...
Voldemort pointed his the wand at Harry's face... very close to Harry's face, his red eyes gleaming with unsuppressed urgency...
Harry remembered from the vision he had while he and Hermione were on the run that he cried at the time, so Harry started to cry, it wasn't so hard, he had a lot to cry about... His father had just been killed... His mother was alive! Harry's emotions were in turmoil.
Voldemort's face showed displeasure as he said "Avada Kedavra!"
The green light that washed over Harry like a warm breeze, changed direction and hit Voldemort destroying a large part of the house in the process. The monster fell back.
Without missing a beat, but still screaming, putting his complete trust into Flitwick, Harry wandlessly took of his first shield and then lifted the familiar blanket that lay by his side and opened it, throwing it over himself and casting a new powerful shield on his sleeping mother at the same time.
A loud, inhumane scream told Harry that the piece of soul, his head had harbored in the previous time, was destroyed by the Basilisk venom on the blanket, before it touched Harry.
Harry conjured a blanket resembling the first in colour, design and size and vanished the first, magically folding the duplicate. With a soft sigh, he took the shield and the sleeping charm off his mother.
Harry just realized he wasn't crying anymore, he was so focused on his task... He started crying again, this time with even more feeling then before.
Harry's heart was still pounding when he realised that he hadn't changed the days events, yet still saved his mother's life. He felt terrible about his father and the guilt that rose up in his chest was overwhelming.
It was only after a smaller part of Harry's conscience said it wasn't his fault he arrived at this time was when he was able to breathe again. He was supposed to arrive at midnight, give or take a few minutes, not hours ago! And he had done what he could. James had already been dead before Harry, this Harry, had arrived back into his mother's arms.
Still screaming his lungs out, Harry heard his mother groan and then gasp and jump up immediately. Her very pretty face was mingled with pure horror as she saw Voldemort's body and then relief when she saw Harry.
Harry felt her shaking terribly as she lifted him up and after showering him with kisses, held him close. "Harry, oh, Harry. Your alive, Darling! Oh, Harry!"
Harry let his cries die down and he listened to his mother sob, clinging to her like there was no tomorrow.
They heard four loud sharp cracks just then and Lily held Harry closer to her. Harry knew that hopes of her finding her wand in all the rubble were next to nil.
There was a gasp and then Harry heard McGonagall say, "Oh no! James!"
Harry's heart started pounding all over again. Judging by their footfalls, McGonagall and her companions started heading upwards. Lily, too exhausted to fight, slid to the floor and arranged herself so that she faced the crib and rested her head on it with Harry in her lap, her back was towards the door at an angle that would keep her baby safe, but wouldn't let her out of any danger.
Then she gasped and whispered, "James!"
It had probably occurred to her just then that her husband was dead. She closed her eyes in pain and waited for the worst.
Dumbledore's portrait told Harry that he used to call his father, 'Da'.
"Da!" Harry said happily to the approaching footfalls. He was an innocent child after all.
To be continued...
Hello Everyone,
I hope I did justice to this chapter and I really hope you liked it!
But before anyone says it, Severus and Lily will not be pairing. Severus will simply remain a good friend to Lily.
Take care!!!