The Time Travel Crew
Chapter 18: An unusual night for Minerva and Harry
Minerva was was woken from deep sleep by loud knocking on her room door. She sat up straight and a wave of dizziness washed over her, leaving her a tad disoriented. When the now pounding of her door started again a lot more impatiently than the first time, she leapt of her bed in confusion, put on the nearby cardigan and rushed to open the door.
What could be the problem? Was it a poor homesick child or worse an ill one? Well, it was something Minerva could deal with. But her late night visitor, or rather visitors, weren't teary little first years at all.
Filius, Pomona and Severus stood out there dressed in outdoor robes.
"Thank goodness, Minerva." Pomona said a second later. "I was about to come in to -"
"No time!" Filius said. "Luna's had some disturbance tonight that simply couldn't wait for a nightly visit so she sent a letter... it doesn't say much, but it sounds mighty important, she wants us there before two and I want us to get there as early as possible."
"Us?" Minerva said.
"Yes!" Filius said impatiently. "If it's that important, I really wouldn't want to waste time coming back and explaining what the call was about! We may need time to act!"
"I'll be ready in three." Minerva said shutting door and looking at the clock that read one o'clock.
Within a couple of minutes she was in her robes, her hair neatly tied up in a bun and within twenty minutes, the invisible professors were disapperating from Hogsmead to the bottom of a hill a little away from Ottery St. Catchpole.
Climbing up the hill, they entered the always so penetrable, unprotected building and headed up to Luna's room. The girl was seated cross legged on her bed, looking pale.
They gave her the customary double wink and she returned it.
"What's the matter dear?" Pomona asked hurrying forward as soon as Minerva cast silencing charms around the room. "Goodness! Your shaking!"
Luna gave her a weak smile and said, "My sixth sense sort of alerted me that something would go wrong and I cast a protection charm around myself and went to sleep, but when I woke up around eleven, I heard someone climb into my room from the window -"
"Are you hurt?" Filius said anxiously. "Severus do you have any healing potions on you?"
"I'm fine!" Luna said in a stronger voice. "Just a little shaken... Anyway I didn't move and made the intruder believe me to be asleep. He had a -"
"He?" interrupted Severus.
"Yes." Luna said. "His voice was very hoarse and rather harsh and, if I stop to remember it more, it might have been a little cold too. He cast the imperio on me -"
Minerva gasped aloud.
"It's alright, Minerva!" Luna said reassuaringly. "My protection charm worked on the imperius, because I wouldn't have told you about the incident. Okay, here goes, this man approached the bed, cast the imperius and told me that, I will be met by Peter Pettigrew in his animagus form one day and that I was to tell him that the man who visited me was Barty Crouch Junior and -"
"What!" Luna was interrupted again by four exclamations of surprise.
Minerva said, "You are very lucky to have remained unharmed, my girl! I am going to put a compelling charm on your parents to increase the security around this place..."
"Did he give you a particular date?" Sprout asked.
"No."
"What happened then?" Severus said.
Luna thrust her hand under her pillow and pulled out a piece of parchment and read from it.
"He also said to tell Pettigrew that he is held captive by his father at their home, that Junior would help Pettigrew resurrect Voldemort, that he escaped his father's clutches for a little while, just enough to imperius me and that he would explain everything to Pettigrew when he met up with him. Then he told me that I wouldn't remember to mention what happened to anyone but Pettigrew."
Luna buried her head in her hands and sighed.
"What do I do? This puts Mummy and Daddy in so much danger! He also told me to sleep well before he left!"
Filius climbed on the bed and put his hands on Luna's shoulders.
"You will follow his last instruction." he said firmly. "A good sleep is exactly what you need."
Luna lifted up her head and looked at him, "But what about -"
"That remains to be decided." Severus said mildly. "Harry will have to be consulted, for this might involve him...Draco too, if his father hasn't changed already with all those charms put on him... Maybe Neville as well - his family could also be involved."
Severus rubbed his face with his hand and gave a tired sigh.
"I so badly wanted you all to have a great time and live a real happy, complete childhood that I didn't want to get you involved in all this. I'm sorry that you are in the middle of it all Luna, and I'm sorry that you and the boys will have to discreetly go back to adult mode now. But I can assure you that your and your family will be safe."
"You think so?" Luna asked with hope in her eyes.
Severus nodded, "Trust me...I know so...And if you want, I can place the same alerting charm I had placed on the Longbottoms in eighty one."
"Yes, please." Luna said with a smile. "If it isn't too much trouble."
"I'll do it just now." Severus said with a parting smile and left the room after waving his wand around her.
"Go to sleep, Luna." Minerva said firmly, exchanging a nod of understanding with Pomona. They were going to have a long discussion tonight.
"Filius, Pomona, Severus and I will cast a few protection charms around your house too... Goodnight, dear."
Minerva waited much after the other three professors left, to make sure that Luna fell asleep. She felt sorry for the girl who was in mind twenty seven years of age, she seemed but a young child to Minerva. After finally getting the family she had always wanted, Minerva was most positive of the pressure Luna had been under for the previous couple of hours.
Minerva's thoughts went her brothers and their families. She had lost half of them during the second war...she thought of how often she visited them in this time and how close they had all become. She bowed her head and sighed, things were getting difficult.
She was scared for Harry and Lily and Joyce and worried about the plight of Draco and his siblings once Voldemort came to power. This was a dangerous game that they were playing and they had already made things so unpredictable.
Minerva suspected tonight's event to simply be the very tiny tip of the beginning of a very unpleasant turn and they would all need to be very careful.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Harry woke up with a start to find someone tall standing by his bed and his instincts took over immediately inspite of not needing them for the last ten years. He rolled onto his back and sat up with a speed that would make Snape proud and pointed his wand in persons direction only to find the other light their wand and reveal the pale face of Minerva McGonagall.
"What's happened?" Harry asked.
"We have a problem." she said crisply after giving him two winks.
"Isn't that obvious?" Harry said with a small smiled.
"No time for jokes, Harry!" McGonagall said slightly annoyed, pointing towards the bathroom. "Go on, freshen up and wait for me and Neville in the common room."
Harry, now burning with curiosity and a sense of foreboding that he had finally come to trust, did as he was told and was soon joined by the other two. McGonagall led them out of the tower, after they all made themselves invisible, down to Snape's quarters in the dungeons, where the other Heads of House and Draco and Justin were already present. The clock on the mantle said it was three thirty in the morning.
Harry and Neville gave them all their usual greeting and joined the other two boys on Snape's sofa.
"What's happened?" Harry asked again noticing the forlorn expression on the faces of all the 'adults' in the room.
Flitwick cleared his throat.
"I will not tarry around... Tonight at around eleven thirty, Luna was visited by Barty Crouch Junior."
"Is she alright?" Harry asked immediately only to realize that he wasn't the only one to express his concerns.
"She isn't a Ravenclaw for nothing." Flitwick stated easing the boys' worries. "She had on a protection charm that didn't allow Crouch's imperius to take effect."
"Imperius?" Harry said getting a little uneasy.
"Hmmm." Flitwick said. "He gave her a few instructions along with a lot of information... It seems that Peter Pettigrew will be escaping prison someday."
"What!" Harry said hardly daring to breathe, all the colour running down his face. His mother and sister were going to be in danger if that happened and Harry wasn't even around to help them!
"Oh my God." Harry breathed out.
"Easy, Harry." Harry heard Justin say as he felt a hand squeezing his shoulder reassuaringly.
"You do know," Snape put in, "that your family is safe, with that powerful protection around your home?"
"Oh yeah." Harry said feeling relieved and foolish at the same time, giving Snape a weak smile. "He hasn't given the day, has he, Filius?
"No, he didn't."
"What happened next, Filius?" Draco said.
"According to Luna, it will be on an unknown day...or night, that Pettigrew will come to meet her and she has been ordered to tell him that the former is being held prisoner by his father at the Crouch residence and," Filius squinted at a piece of parchment that he pulled out from his pocket, "that he would help Pettigrew in his obvious mission - resurrecting their Lord.
"Probably in order to ease any suspicions our rat might have, he told Luna to also tell the rat that he escaped from his father long enough to imperius her, Luna, and he would explain everything to the rat when they finally met. Then," Filius said, finally looking up from the parchment, "he gave Luna a direct order - she wouldn't remember to tell anyone about their meeting, except Pettigrew."
"And it hasn't worked?" Draco said.
"The imperius?" Pomona said.
"Yes."
"It hasn't."
"Why did he come to her, now of all times?" Draco said.
"I believe," Snape said, "He was able to break off from the imperius today and in the short span of time he had to act, he found use in what he took to be a harmless, unsuspecting child. Somehow, he got a message through to Pettigrew not aware that Voldemort is currently at Hogwarts."
"His plan," Harry said, focussing on a particular dent on the stone floor, "is probably designed to come into action once either he or most probably Pettigrew get wind of Voldemort's location... or even, some news of him..."
"What do we do?" Neville said, his eyes wide and apprehensive.
After a moment of silence all eyes turned to Harry and through his nervousness, Harry felt a wave of amusement wash through him. When in a state of insecurity, turn to Harry Potter. Harry suppressed the urge to chuckle and instead, he let the gravity of the situation weigh down his shouldersshoulders like a backpack overstuffed with stone.
He cleared his throat.
"First things first, keep as many people as possible protected."
From the corner of his eye, Harry saw Filius hastily scribbling the instructions down.
He shook his head and continued, "Luna, her family, Draco, his family, Neville and his family need the protection the most. When we go home for Christmas, make sure to magically compel your parents to put up powerful wards around your home.
"The next thing we must do is ensure our security. Severus, get in good terms with Quirrel and then put in a few suspicions about your burning dark mark everytime you are around him. Try to praise Lord Voldemort and get Voldemort's attention and give some subtle excuses for not going to search for him. We may not have much time, so please begin immediately.
"Then, when Barty Crouch and Pettigrew go about meeting Voldemort, there is a one chance out of a thousand that he may ask for you. Go and help them out... I feel for you, Severus and I'm sorry about it...I know it will be gross, but it will keep you safe. When the time comes, like the last time, just keep mentioning to Dumbledore that your mark's getting darker and nothing else and during the nights, go pay Voldemort a visit.
"Our next move is to try and keep Crouch senior out of danger... Maybe kidnapping him and the elf from danger zone moments before Pettigrew pays them a visit and a compelling charm on Junior to keep matters quiet."
Harry rubbed his nose.
"There is a ninety percent chance that he will want to use my blood and -"
"No! We're not allowing that!" McGonagall fiercely interrupted him.
Harry sighed. "It needs to be done, Minerva, but like you, I really don't want to do it. Thanks to our position and Luna's presence of mind, we have an upper hand. It. Will. Be. Fine. Trust me, please. You can tell Luna that I gave her a green signal to go ahead and carefully carry out Crouch's instructions when the time comes.
"Filius, if it isn't too much touble, I want you to keep something like an undetectable spying machine or a charm on Barty Junior and, if possible, on Pettigrew."
"I can do it on Crouch." Flitwick said, frowning slightly. "How do I do it on our rat?"
"The same way I think Barty Crouch gave the rat instructions... Confund or imperius one of the wizard guards of Azkaban."
Flitwick's eyes widened and he put on a crafty look.
Then Draco's stomach rumbled and he turned a delicate pink. Severus chuckled and set a kettle to boil with a flick of his wand and a cupboard opened to let out a tin of cookies.
Neville said, "I am just wondering how Crouch Junior was able to get out of his father's hold this time..."
"We can't waste time analysing it, Neville." Harry said, picking up a cookie.
"But it may be important." Neville insisted.
Flitwick said, "I could find that our as I place the spying charm on him."
"How does it work?" McGonagall asked. "I haven't heard of such charm."
"Quite advanced." Flitwick said. "I discovered it in ninety six. A complex charm on a small mirror is how it works, then another charm on the person you wish to spy on and he's yours to keep under surveillance. I just don't fancy being around the dementors, but I suppose I will need a patronus... Remain invisible, imperius the guards, cast the patronus, follow the guards to Pettigrew's prison, and done."
"That's good." Harry said as the weight on his shoulders kept getting heavier. "Have I missed anything?"
"The other Death Eaters?" Sprout said as Snape instructed the kettle to pour out it's contents into eight mugs.
"We can't control them." Harry said. "We can however keep watch over them, but it's of no use actually."
"What about the prophecy?" Neville said.
Harry's eyes widened in alarm. He had forgotten about that bit. He closed his eyes and thought for a minute.
"The prophecy..." he said slowly, "One of you Professors will have to secretly blast apart that prophecy, then take off that particular curse leading to permanent insanity and in it's place put this..."
Harry trailed off with a smile as an idea formulated in his mind. He changed his appearance to that of Peeves by some clever transfiguration and simply blew a long raspberry and after a moment conjured a white luminous orb, took out the cropped memory of the raspberry and made sure he was the only one anyone would see and fed it to the orb.
Then he changed back to himself again and handed the orb over to an amused McGonagall and accepted a hot mug of chocolate in return.
"Oh, I just remembered," he said. "We didn't finish the topic of Voldemort's need of my blood." McGonagall shuddered, but remained silent. "The moment you get the chance plant the idea of an illegal portkey into either Death Eater's head, or even Voldemort... No one should notice."
"But what happens after that?" Sprout said.
"That's where we all come in."
"All?"
"Yes. Voldemort will surely make one more Horcrux and to make the Horcrux, he simply needs to believe that he just committed a deed, unimaginably evil. We need to keep watch at different hours of the day, one person cannot do it all by himself. Then we will all need special portkeys to take the person watching at the time to that place when he knows a murder is about to take place. Not that hard, is it?"
The others gave him a sceptical look.
Harry chuckled. "This is the hard part. The person will need to be invisible when they reach there and they will have to know how to stun the victim before he reaches the danger zone and how to make a hologram, a muggle thing, that you will have to read up on, for I am not in touch with it at the moment and they will have to make the hologram behave like the person.
"You will understand more about it once you read. For now I can only tell you that it's something not real, it isn't solid and it doesn't think on it's own. It's just a something that deceives the eye and in some cases the ear too."
"Don't you think eight portkeys will draw the attention of the Ministry to Hogwarts?" Flitwick said thoughtfully.
"Not if we do it at different places and at different times." Snape said simply. "We have the whole world to make the portkeys in."
Harry nodded.
"The next thing is my, I quote, kidnap, unquote...Pomona and Severus, I just thought of something. Could you - in the limited time you have - come up with a poison, a very deadly poison that kills a large living being a couple of seconds from the moment it enters their system?'
"Limited time, Harry?" Snape said skeptically. "The last potion the two of us invented and perfected took years.
"Who needs to perfect a poison?" Harry said incredulously. "The more deadly, the better, besides, it won't be immediate... it will be more around a year before Voldemort needs me to be physically present."
"Harry," Snape said patiently. "Poison is a dangerous thing, I thought you of all people knew that!"
"I know that." Harry said stubbornly. "And I also know that Basilisk poison itself takes a while before it actually kills it's victim -"
"You want us to increase the time of activity of Basilisk venom?" Sprout said.
"To five seconds max, yes." Harry said wondering if it was too much to ask of them.
"We'll try." Snape said after exchanging a quick glance with Sprout, "But we don't promise."
"That's okay." Harry said with understanding. "Thanks."
Snape let out a heavy sigh.
"I've got a lot to do."
"I'm so sorry Severus." Harry said sympathetically. "But this war resolves around you as the earth around the sun... You are more important to the Wizarding World and to us than you will ever know."
The crew were up till five-thirty in the morning getting as many things in detail as they could and then headed up to their respective dormitories or quarters to get dressed for their first day of school.
To be continued...