A/N: Hey all! Get ready for a pivotal chapter! I apologize once again for the long delay between Chapters 4 and 5 and then again between Chapter 5 and this chapter; I promise that I'll be more frequent in my updates from here on out! I'm finishing up my last class for my bachelor's degree now, so I'll have more time on my hands for writing! ^_^ Oh, I forgot to mention that the bolded section about the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane in last chapter was taken from my memories of both the chapter in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and the scene from the same movie of the first Potions class; those copyright to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Studio. Now I'm eagerly awaiting November for when Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens at the movie theater! Anyway, enough fangirling for now, I suppose.
Legal shiz:
-I own Emily Tarleton, Selena Menzel (who will be making an appearance soon), the Ignominia Potion, and any spells or events not found in the books or movies.
-Yana Toboso owns William Spears, Grelle Sutcliff, the Undertaker, Ciel Phantomhive, Sebastian Michaelis, and anything found in Black Butler, like the books about a mortal's life
-J.K. Rowling owns all other characters, places, events, spells, potions, etc.
-Reptilia28 owns the challenge and its rules
To ALPS88, I did read your review and I'm so sorry for the delay! No, I haven't abandoned the story and I don't plan on doing so; I fully intend to finish this story! ^_^ I have to say that Snape is one of my favorite characters to write for. When I was first reading the series, I found his snarkiness amusing but always believed him a villain. However, that all changed after The Deathly Hallows when he gave his memories to Harry. I saw a completely different side of this character, one with compassion and emotion and it gave me such a new opinion of this tragic figure in the franchise! He was originally not going to have quite as much of a role as he does now, but in reflecting back on what's happened so far and where it's heading now, I can't imagine him not having a major role now!
Chapter 6-Telling Hermione, Part 1
Harry stood at the bottom of the staircase leading to the girls' dormitory under his father's Invisibility Cloak with anxiety coursing through his veins. He was terrified of Hermione's reaction to his story.
She's gonna think I went crazy and she's never gonna talk to me again and this is gonna be terrible and-
"Harry?"
Hermione was standing there with a look of concern in her chocolate eyes. Harry took a deep breath before answering her.
"Er, sorry, Hermione. I'm just uneasy talking to you about this. It's a really long story and it's gonna sound so crazy."
"Relax, Harry. Whatever it is, I'm here. I promise!"
His curly-haired friend's gentle smile of reassurance helped settle his nerves somewhat, but his heart was still hammering away with anxiety. By the time the two had donned the Cloak and made their way to the seventh floor corridor, Harry felt like his heart might just explode out of his chest. Hermione was eying the wall they'd stopped at with confusion.
"Harry? There's nothing here."
"Hang on; just a minute," Harry answered, stepping out from under the Cloak and pacing in front of the corridor wall.
I need a comfortable, secret place to tell Hermione about our destinies…
After three paces, an ornate mahogany door materialized in the middle of the wall.
"C'mon, Hermione; come in here."
Surprised by the door's sudden appearance and Harry's lack of a reaction, the young witch followed her best friend through the doorway. The inside of the room looked exactly like the Gryffindor common room but with only one loveseat, which was very velvety and, as the duo found out when they sat down, quite comfortable. Directly in front of the loveseat was a large table with a Pensieve sitting on top of it.
"Well, that will sure come in handy," Harry commented upon seeing it.
"What is that?" the teenaged witch asked, her eyes full of curiosity.
"It's called a Pensieve. It allows whoever's using it to share a memory with someone else, kinda like how Tom Riddle showed me his memory of framing Hagrid for Myrtle's death through his diary," Harry explained.
"Whoa! But how will that come in handy?" Hermione asked.
"You'll see," Harry answered grimly as they sat down. Harry took a deep breath before he began. "Hermione, what I'm about to tell you sounds completely crazy, but it's true."
"Harry, after everything we just learned from Professor Snape and Professor Lupin, I'm sure nothing you could tell me could sound any crazier than that," said Hermione with a gentle smile.
"I hope you still feel that way after this…"
"Go on then, Harry. Tell me your story," Hermione coaxed.
"Alright. Well, I guess the best place for me to start is at the beginning. Hermione, I've lived life six times before this. I've lived up to age 17 but have been killed six times along the way." Harry paused here to see his bushy-haired friend's reaction. Hermione's chocolate eyes were as wide as saucers and her jaw was slack.
"What?! Harry, that's impossible; no one can go back in time!"
"You go back in time several times a day to take more classes than are possible without time travel. I know you're using a Time Turner that Professor McGonagall gave you right before the Start of Term Feast."
Hermione's jaw completely dropped. "How do you know about that?!"
"The first time I lived through third year, you ended up telling me about the Time Turner because we had to use it to save Buckbeak from being executed and Sirius from being Kissed by the Dementors by helping them escape together. You had to give it back to Professor McGonagall after that. Using the Time Turner really wore you down, Hermione, and I don't want to see it happen to you again. That's not to say that using it sometimes isn't good. It would have come in handy many times afterwards; we could have saved a lot of lives and stopped a lot of terrible things from happening." Harry proceeded to give Hermione a brief recap of the events of their fourth through seventh years. "Anyway, you were asking me about why I was so quick to agree to keep Ron in the dark about everything about Sirius and Pettigrew. In my previous lives, there were many times where Ron's petty jealousy and impossible temper caused a lot of problems for us, the last incident being him abandoning us in the middle of the forest because he didn't feel like hunting Horcruxes; he wanted to go back home to his mother."
Hermione sighed. "This sounds so impossible Harry, but I believe you." She gave a half-hearted giggle. "After all, you're not best friends with Harry Potter without experiencing a lot of impossible things."
"Thanks Hermione. I wish that was all there was to the story, but there's more."
I really don't want to tell her the part about us being soulmates. This is going to be really awkward.
William's voice answered in his head, You don't have to tell her that you're soulmates yet if you don't want to. Tell her that you're not allowed to reveal your soulmate's identity until you're ready to tell her.
Brilliant! Thank you, William.
Of course, Harry.
~Meanwhile, at the English Branch of Grim Reaper Dispatch~
"Oh, William, naughty boy, making him lie~" Grelle cooed. William "tsk"ed in annoyance.
"Why are you still here bothering me, Sutcliff? Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Not really, no. Undertaker forbade me from visiting Bassie for the next month because the little brat complained the last time they met, so I'm here to spend time with you! By the way, you've made him telling her she's his soulmate more romantic by making the soulmate's identity such a secret. I knew you had an amorous streak in you, Will!"
"I'm not sure if I should take that as an insult or a compliment, but thank you, in any event," William replied. "Now be quiet and let me see what's going on, or I'll kick you out of my office."
"Yes, sir!" Grelle saluted, giving the stoic Reaper his trademark shark-like grin.
~Back to Hogwarts, Room of Requirement~
"More? What else is there?" Hermione asked.
"Well, after my sixth death, I got to meet William, the Grim Reaper assigned to me. He was rather angry that I'd died so many times already because I kept failing to fulfill my destiny. According to William, I'm supposed to defeat Voldemort, marry my soulmate, and live to be 212. The catch is, if I die one more time without fulfilling my destiny, I go to Purgatory for an unknown amount of time and William gets fired."
"Really?! Oh my God! Did he give you any help for Voldemort or his Horcruxes? Do you know who your soulmate is? Purgatory? Grim Reapers can get fired?" Hermione questioned.
"No, he didn't offer suggestions for Voldemort, but I know how to handle him. As far as the soulmate goes, I know who she is, but I'm not allowed to tell anyone who she is until I tell her she's my soulmate. Apparently there's a 'right time' for telling her. Yeah, Purgatory, so I really don't want to die prematurely again. And yes, William can get fired."
The two teens were quiet for a few minutes before Hermione spoke up.
"Well Harry, it's time to get a strategy about where to go from here. Now that I know about your destiny, you are really stuck with me. I'm going to do whatever it takes to help you take Voldemort down and get your girl. I imagine there's a lot you'd like to change, like making sure Sirius doesn't die."
Harry couldn't help but laugh as the Pensieve banished itself to a cabinet on the other side of the room and a large roll of parchment with a quill and ink set materialized on the table. "You know me better than anyone else does, Hermione. Yes, I want to save Sirius. I want to save Cedric, and Remus, and Tonks, and Fred, and Professor Snape, and Dobby, and, well, anyone else who was killed, really. I'd also like to change Ron and Draco. Ron has been such a prat because of his pettiness and jealousy, and Draco didn't stand a chance with his father and his family's association with Voldemort."
Hermione shook her head fondly. "Always a hero, Harry. Well, we have a lot of work to do. We need to find the Horcruxes and destroy them. We need to figure out how we can help Ron and Mal-Draco. We also need to recall the circumstances surrounding each death and stop them from occurring."
"What the Horcruxes are is easy, and remembering the locations. Getting to them and destroying them is what's hard."
"Well," Hermione began, picking up the quill and pulling the first roll of parchment closer to her, "let's get started. What are all the Horcruxes? You said there were seven?"
"Yes, although one was already destroyed," Harry reminded her.
"Oh, yes. Tom Riddle's diary," Hermione recalled as she wrote "DIARY-DESTROYED" on the parchment.
"The other one's were Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem, Slytherin's ring, Voldemort's snake Nagini, and me. Well, my scar, more specifically."
Hermione shuddered. "I still can't believe Voldemort made you into a Horcrux, intentionally or not." Her brown eyes became glassy. "How do we rid you of the Horcrux without killing you?"
"William said that there were books on ways to destroy Horcruxes in the Black library at Grimmauld Place, so for now we'll have to find a way to collect some of the Horcruxes. We were using Basilisk venom before, but that also destroys the object. Of course, I don't much care about Nagini, but I don't want to die, and it's a shame to destroy some of the Founder's possessions."
Hermione sniffled and took a deep breath to compose herself. "Ok then. Where were the Horcruxes?"
"Slytherin's ring was inside the Gaunt family home, Hufflepuff's cup is in Bellatrix LeStrange's vault in Gringott's, my scar, Nagini is with Voldemort, Slytherin's locket should be with Kreacher right now, and the diadem was actually in this room."
As Harry finished this statement, he got an idea. He stood up and paced around the room saying, "I need Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem and a safe way to store a Horcrux." After the third repetition of this statement, another table appeared next to the one Hermione was using, this time bearing a wooden box with a padlock, the key being already inside the lock. At the other end of the room, a mannequin head appeared on top of the fireplace wearing a familiar silver tiara. Harry and Hermione looked at each other.
"Is that the diadem?" the witch asked, awe in her voice.
"Yes. I can't believe that worked…" the wizard responded, blinking rapidly.
Hermione turned to the box, unlocking the padlock and lifting the lid. "Harry! The box is lined with dragon hide, and it looks like there are Runes carved inside the lid."
"Great! What do the Runes say?"
"Um…I'm actually not sure," the brunette admitted, cheeks pink in embarrassment. "Two of them look similar to ones that I've seen in class, but these appear to be very complex. I wonder if Professor Tarleton would know what they are?"
Before Harry could give his opinion, Hermione frowned and asked, "Harry, you never mentioned Professor Tarleton when you told me about your previous lives, but Professor Lupin said that she was listed as a guardian and that she was one of your mother's best friends. Why is that?
"Professor Tarleton is new to me; I never knew an Emily Tarleton in my previous attempts at life, nor did anybody else. Sirius and Moony never mentioned her at all. I don't know what's different about this time, but whatever the reason, she's here now, and her connection to my mother tells me that she'll probably play an important role moving forward. I'll have to ask William sometime."
"You can communicate with your Reaper?" Hermione asked with amazement.
"Sometimes," answered Harry.
There was comfortable silence for a few minutes before Hermione pulled the Horcrux list back in front of her and wrote CONTAINED next to DIADEM. "I'll try to find out what the Runes mean on my own, but if I can't figure it out, I'll ask Professor Tarleton what they mean. I would imagine they're probably protective Runes or Runes meant to contain Dark magic since the room provided it when you asked about the Horcrux, but it would be best to know exactly what we're dealing with. As far as getting rid of the Horcruxes, we are waiting until we have access to the Black family library at Grimmauld Place?"
"Yes," Harry agreed.
"Excellent! Now, onto the next order of business," Hermione continued, rolling up the Horcrux list and pulling another roll of parchment towards her. "Let's write down the people we're trying to prevent dying this time around and the manner in which they died before so we can avoid it this time."
"Perhaps we should go as chronologically as possible?" Harry suggested.
"Yes, that's a great idea!" Hermione complimented with a smile.
Harry grinned at the compliment before sobering and beginning, "the first to die that I want to save is Cedric. He was murdered by Voldemort at the end of the Triwizard Tournament at the end of fourth year after we both grabbed the Portkey disguised as the Triwizard Cup."
Hermione wrote CEDRIC DIGGORY, FOURTH YEAR, MURDERED (TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT) at the top of her list. "The simple solution would be to ensure that Cedric doesn't touch the Portkey," said she.
"Basically," Harry agreed. "I'd like to avoid the whole Triwizard nonsense, but just in case Pettigrew escapes this year, although I sincerely hope not, I want a contingency plan in place to make sure I can stop him sooner and get Sirius cleared without him having to be confined to a house that he hates and then killed."
Hermione nodded her head in agreement as she wrote down their solution to preventing Cedric's murder. "Speaking of Sirius, he's next, isn't he?" she asked in a somber tone.
Harry merely nodded as his hellish memories of his godfather's death came to the forefront of his mind. "He was killed when he fell into the Veil in the Ministry's Department of Mysteries during his battle with Bellatrix LeStrange."
"Well, since we know that Sirius won't be in danger, we won't have any reason to be at the Department of Mysteries. Also, William told you that there's no truth to the prophecy Voldemort wanted you to find, so there's even more reason to avoid the Ministry of Magic on that day. We just need a conceivable reason to doubt the validity of your vision when it happens without raising suspicion that we know what's going to happen," said Hermione as she wrote SIRIUS BLACK, FIFTH YEAR, DEATH VEIL underneath Cedric's information.
Harry thought this over for a few minutes before he got another idea. "Sirius gave me a hand mirror at the beginning of fifth year so we could communicate while I was at school, but I'd completely forgotten about it until after Sirius died. Maybe I can just use the mirror to talk to Sirius after Voldemort plants the vision in my head."
"Oh, splendid!" said Hermione, writing these details down.
The two friends spent quite some time going over the rest of the people they wanted to save and how they would accomplish this feat.
"I'd love to do more tonight, but it's already so late. We need to call it a night," said Hermione as she stood and began collecting the lists they'd made.
"You're right as always, Hermione," Harry replied, stifling a yawn.
"Will everything be safe here if we leave it?" Hermione asked as she placed the lists in a drawer that materialized in the table holding the box for the diadem.
"Yes," Harry reassured as he Banished the diadem to the box.
"Good! The last thing we need is somebody coming across the Horcrux or our plans!"
Once the twosome had everything where they wanted it in the room, they donned the Invisibility Cloak once more and scampered back to their dorms, tiredly bidding each other good-night before they made their way up their respective staircases. Both young Magicals were asleep as soon as their heads hit their pillows.
~Grim Reaper Dispatch, English Branch~
"They are clever little things, aren't they?" Grelle commented.
"Yes, indeed they are. With them working together, I believe that Harry Potter will achieve his destiny," William concurred.
"I hope! Oh, I can't wait for them to get together! I can already imagine how cute their children will be!" said Grelle as he began to fangirl over Harry and Hermione.
William shook his head at his colleague's antics, but he couldn't help but also be anticipatory of their upcoming relationship. But of course, William wouldn't dare ever admit this to Grelle. This was a detail that Grelle just didn't need to add to his arsenal of things to gush about.