A/N: Another random plot bunny. Quarantine is giving me too many thoughts and bizarre ideas. (Like, do you guys honestly think trying to start painting a pristine, white cupboard is a good idea? Especially when I have NO art skills? ...Yes? No?)
Anyways. Here's a random time travel fic. Just like TEOW that I've been recently posting, I have no idea where this one is going. *Laugh nervously*
But I hope y'all stick with me through this ride.
Also, disclaimer: I sadly don't own the Harry Potter series. Not the books. Not even the movies. It's sad. I am aware. Thank gods we can still write fanfic! This plot - as much as it is not even complete - is still mine though.
Ok, here ya go folks. Another time travel fic to be added within the countless other time-travel fics in the Harry Potter fanfic realm.
Their latest hideout was not necessarily the best, Harry supposed as he stared up at the missing roof. The full moon shone brightly down into the white walled room, lighting up the runes that decorated most of the floor.
"It's almost time. Once the moon reaches her peak, the ritual would work."
Harry turned to Hermione.
"You have the time turner?"
The brunette witch nodded, her half-burnt face giving away no emotion. Harry stared at his best friend, taking in the way she stood with her chin was tilted up, shoulders pulled back. She had never crumpled, like some other witches and wizards had, as the war had left them with disfigurements and scars. But then again, Hermione never did allow herself time to look after herself. Not when everything and everyone else needed looking after, needed someone to protect them. She had become every bit the weary, spiritless yet alive warrior they had all become since they were thirteen-years-old.
"Alright then, let's – "
"Harry, they are coming."
The party of four tensed. Harry looked at the dark-haired man kneeling on the ground. The man looked up, locking his gaze with him. His palm never left the ground.
"I reckon we have fifteen minutes before they make it though the traps and wards."
Harry's mind whirled, bringing up and cancelling out the options that they had. There were few.
"The moon still has five more minutes to reach her position. And the ritual itself is indeterminate in how long the deities would take to bless it through. We need more time," Hermione whispered, arriving at the same conclusion as him.
Their last companion broke the silence.
"We would need three for that. Or we would lose. Only one is destined to make it through."
Her whispery voice no longer retained the dream-like quality that Harry had often heard in his youth. He stared at his friends as he felt three pair of eyes lock on him.
"Me." He didn't argue with their decision. He had learnt long ago that sometimes his team knew why they chose him as the leader even though he himself still doubted his capability.
Hermione gave a sad smile.
"You are the best for the job, love. And there are some destinies that cannot be altered no matter how much we wish." For the first time in the two years that Ron had died, Harry witnessed his best friend's eyes shine with tears.
"Come over everyone. If we are not going with him, then let's give him the best chance we got."
They huddled over to the brunette witch without questions. She was rummaging through a beaded pink bag. It was worn and dirty but had faithfully served the witch through the years of wars.
Hermione pulled out a piece of paper, slightly crumpled and clearly torn around one edge. It had been ripped from its book from the looks of things. Harry allowed himself a small smile at the sight. This would make it the second time the book-worshipping woman had torn a page from a tome. In his heart, he wished she had not had to have done it. Hermione only ripped pages when things were dire. Like when a hungry basilisk roamed the walls of Hogwarts.
"I found this very old spell. It's meant to make the caster grant the recipient one gift. No matter how impossible, as long as the caster has rights to what he or she gives and gives it willingly, the gift can be given. It can even be the caster's very magic. And I think in this time of parting, this is the best method for us to give you some last help and a proper farewell." Hermione stared at the paper, lost briefly in some thought. "I've changed it to suit our powers since this was originally made for the lords and ladies of the long past. They are said to be only second to Lady Magic in their powers, since they had not wandered from their roots and culture like we have."
She looked up to face Harry. "I'm going to grant you the memories I have. Everything from the moment I was born which would naturally include any knowledge I have learnt."
"Not your intelligence?" Harry joked lightly.
Hermione smiled bitterly. "No. You have plenty of that in you Harry. It's just been hindered by the Dursleys' in your youth. You have conquered most of that barrier over these years. I hope my memories will give you the final push to do it out of interest rather than necessity."
Hermione whispered the spell softly, letting pure magic from her core reach out to bestow her gift onto Harry. She stepped to her best friend and placed a lingering kiss on his lips. Harry returned it gently, holding her form tight within his arms.
"Of course, I hope they will bring you company for some of the lonely times ahead too. Don't forget any of us, alright?"
Harry gave a weak chuckle. "As if I could."
The witch stepped back with a small smile and handed the paper over to Luna.
"I cannot grant you my Sight. And my memories may not bring you the same comfort Hermione's will, considering hers is filled with most of your loved ones. But I shall give you knowledge all the same. The knowledge I have of creatures and the passing thoughts I have had from anything under the sun. They may not help at making you better or provide you with knowledge to protect yourself. But I hope they help you smile. To think of life from a different perspective. To find again the beauty of the things around us even in hardships."
Luna whispered the spell, a hint of dreamlike quality entering her voice. "Farewell Harry Potter. I thank you for being my friend."
Harry knew kissing was not the best when one or both parties were crying. But he didn't care. He held the petite woman close, brushing a tender kiss onto her forehead when Luna ended the sweet kiss she was giving him on his lips for goodbye.
"Thanks, little moon."
Harry turned to the last friend he had left, not one bit shamed that he was showing his vulnerability for the first time in years.
"I'm afraid I don't know if what I can gift is useful either. But Mione did say this can give the impossible." Neville, unlike the girls, stepped up to Harry before even casting the gift and took the emerald-eyed warrior's face in his hands.
"I give you my blood's inheritance, Harry. The house of Longbottom that I own, it belongs to you too. I know you have your own Lordships but I want you to remember. Even if the people you are going to will not know you or care with align to you, the Magic of the Longbottom House will forever be in your favour, even across time. And I'll have your back that way so don't you ever think that you're alone, ok?"
Neville murmured the spell like the other two but did it wandlessly. His hands never stopped caressing Harry's face. The moment the spell ended, the man bent down and gave his own parting kiss to his friend. Harry smiled through his tears. Like all the other times he had kissed Neville, this kiss too was deep. And full of love.
Harry gave his friends a glance once Neville pulled back. He drank in the sight of the three greedily, knowing even though he hated it, that he would never see them again. And even if I did by some miracle, they wouldn't be the same. They wouldn't be my Mione, little Moon and Nev.
The flare of magic behind him signalled the moon's journey across the sky had reached its peak. Harry knew they had about a few minutes before the ritual would become nullified if he didn't move.
"What if I fail?" There. He had laid out his fear to them. The fear that had always lingered. That had proved itself true over the years when he held the dead form of Ron, Ginny and the countless others in the past three years.
His three friends smiled.
"You won't," Hermione assured.
"In the end of the day, love, it's not even about changing the past."
"It's not?" Harry asked brokenly, wondering what Luna was thinking now.
"It's about escaping it. Preventing it comes second. But escaping it is the most important. Why would we try to leave this present, love, if we could have borne it in our souls to live with it."
Harry laughed weakly at the warped logic in the blonde's words. Neville steered him to the centre of the ritual gently.
"Don't worry too much, if you cannot change a thing, Harry. It's fine. We know you would have tried. And in the end, if you simply give it up and try to live peacefully and take a chance at living the life you have been denied all these years – well we wouldn't care, Harry. If that is what makes you happy and that is what you wish to do, do it."
Harry gave the man a glare. "You know I wouldn't give up! Not after all we've been through!"
Hermione gently helped the affronted man wear the time turner she had created before placing a placating hand on his cheek. "We know you won't. But we are giving you that option too. You have done so much love. It's alright to want something for yourself."
Harry took in the smiling faces of his three friends.
"Idiots. As if I even want that option."
"But it will be there, nonetheless," Luna replied. "You may not want to take it but know that it is there to liberate you all the same. You are inadvertently going to pave a new path, Harry. You are allowed to live it fully. Even while you change the past, you can live happily. Learn to love again. Learn to laugh again too."
Even against his wishes, Harry felt something coiled within his chest relax.
"I will try, little moon."
Hermione grasped his hand in hers.
"Don't try lightly. Give it your best shot, ok?" She frowned slightly at his silence. "Please Harry. Don't go back just to live in misery all over again."
Harry closed his eyes, ignoring the pain that came with the thought at learning to live without his friends who had been through thick and thin with him.
"I'll do the best I can. I promise you guys that."
The other two closed in on the duo and the group melted into an embrace.
"Even if you fall in love with someone who may have once been an enemy or is still an enemy, know that we will never hate you," Luna whispered into the silence.
Neville and Hermione understood that the blonde witch never wasted her breath on words not meant to be spoken. So, they completed the reassurance that the once quirky witch gave without hesitation.
"Yes, we wouldn't care Harry," Neville affirmed.
"As long as you are happy in the end, know you will have our loyalty and blessings. Even across time," Hermione finished.
Harry let out a small smile. But you three already know the road for healing is a long path that will never end. No matter that time may heal some wounds. Living without you three will be a life half-lived for me even after centuries.
"I'll try," he said again, knowing all in the room did not believe him, even his own heart.
"Oh and also – pardon me for my language but – don't let anybody give you shit about anything ok?" Neville added, casually clamping his hand onto Harry's mouth to stop protests. "You are too nice sometimes, Harry. Even after being through wars you haven't lost that quality. If you feel it is something worth fighting for, fight for it," the man said simply. "Don't bother trying to make everyone happy."
The girls giggled lightly at the mock glare Neville sent Harry.
"I'll try you idiots. I'll try."
His friends didn't reply, they simply let go of him and raised their wands silently, smiling their sad yet happy smiles as they started to chant the words to a ritual in Harry's stead. Harry knew that they knew he had no strength to do it himself. He did not want to leave them in their last moments.
Because I know the moment I vanish, your last moments will begin their countdown, you silly, loyal idiots. You three would take them down, I know. But you will do it at the expense of your own lives. Harry looked down at the slowly strengthening magic around him. For this is our last resort and what more do you have to live and try for when the last desperate measure is tried and gone?
Harry looked the three in their eyes, drinking in the image of the last living magicals in the world. Three warriors who he knew he was never going to meet again.
His heart gave a painful lurch.
Lord Death, I beg you, allow my friends a fair death. Allow their souls to find peace when they enter your lands. Allow them remorse for the murders they have been forced to commit in this cruel, cruel world. Allow them a second chance. Please…
The faint sounds of armed men reached the four. Harry closed his eyes, feeling the magic in the circle strengthen. A white glow emerging from the time turner signalled that their ritual had passed the test.
He would be going back in time.
He gave his friends – his comrades – one last look. And a beat later, with whispered words of "Love you", Harry Potter vanished into nothingness.
A sob escaped from Hermione's trembling lips. The remaining two magicals in the room scooped her up in an embrace, placing comforting kisses on the crying witch's forehead. They stayed that way together, uncaring of the growing sound of men closing in on them in their no longer secret hideout.
Hermione gathered her composure in a minute or two and simply remained limp against her friends' arms.
"You know," Luna started conversation casually, as though she were discussing the weather while catching up with old friends, instead of counting her last moments on the planet. "I've heard that a magical opening their core with the intent of death is capable of causing massive destruction in an old folk lore. I wonder what will happen when three do it, after merging their cores."
Hermione and Neville gave weak chuckles at the witch's comment. But still they opened up their magic to each other, letting the energy twine around tightly before travelling towards the now humming blonde witch's core. Luna's magic welcomed their combined energies happily, twining itself around theirs till it was impossible to recognize whose magic was which.
The three let the ball of pure energy grow between them, uncaring of the blistering heat that was caressing their forms. Right before they all were engulfed, the three chanted in one voice.
"To the deities above, we give our apologies.
We are sorry Lady Magic, for using your gift for this desperate act.
We are sorry Lord Death, for seeking entry to your land without invite.
Forgive us universe, for our saddened souls' last act."
The three stood with hands clasped as their magics engulfed their bodies. For a moment, all was still. Then an explosion of monstrous proportions took place, travelling to almost four kilometres in radius. It took down the armed forces of fifty men outside the no longer secret hideaway and many more lives within the vicinity, though mysteriously enough no life that that was non-human in nature was affected.
And in the spot where three friends had huddled together in their last embrace, only ashes remained.
But a wind that passed by in the calm that followed the destruction would steal away those last pieces, erasing the evidence of three magicals' final acts.
Harry was not sure who was more surprised. The goblins or him.
Judging from how none of them had yet pulled out their weapons at him, Harry supposed the goblins were more shocked.
Then his eyes fell onto the young creature that was nearest to where he had appeared.
His mind went blank. Deep down his heart and somewhere in his mind, he knew that he should not be careless about his true past. But in the moment where his mind recognised the young green face before him to be the same as the older, grumpier version he had known since he was eleven, Harry lost his composure.
The wizard's movement however, triggered the frozen goblins around the room into action. Instinct kicking in, the creatures called their weapons to their arms and as one, each of the remaining goblins moved with the aim to take out the perceived threat to one of their younger kin.
But the sight of the mysterious wizard sweeping said younger one into a hug while crying hysterically had most of them stilling again.
"You're alive! By the goddess! You are ALIVE!"
A/N: So...what do yall think? I am legit giving goblins a long, long lifespan for this fic...
If there are grammatical errors, I APOLOGIZE. I've read it so many times man. If I didn't see the error then. I won't see it now. Or until after I post this at least. (That's when the errors in spelling and grammar start laughing at me from the screen. The jerks.)
Too much screen during quarantine, tbh. Sometimes i don't even want to open my laptop or phone.
PS: Do you want Harry to end up as a DADA professor later on in the story OR as the History of Magic Professor... I'm personally leaning on HOM instead of DADA.
Huh. Look at me. Discussing details as though I have any clue where this story will go. What would Harry even teach as a HOM instructor lol. Hopefully he is better than Binns. No offence to Binns but he wasn't really good after the whole dying incident.
PPS: Coming back to random things, about my cupboard. Honestly yall, do you think drawing *cough-vandalizing-cough* on my white cupboard in the name of art and boredom is going to be worth it during quarantine?
Ok I'll stop. It's too late into the night for me to be thinking so much. Stay safe all of you! Try and spread positive vibes to those around you as much as you can during this tough period! But stay home and stay safe while you do that.