Chapter One: Visitors

One hour after Juliette Weston's body was removed from the office, Albus Dumbledore had gathered the future coalition leaders together in Minerva McGonagall's office. Along with Minerva stood Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, and Walter Weston, the older brother of the deceased.

Sitting, head in hands after he apparated, Walter Weston was the first person to speak. "My sister's just a kid, Professor," he said, directing his confusion to Dumbledore. "She's at Durmstrag studying. I can't understand it, I can't! Are you telling me she's going to die in eight years?"

"No one is saying that, Walter," Dumbledore said calmly, looking at the young man's contorted face. "This is one possiblity of a hundred. The future is a precarious thing, my friends. You knowing this information may be enough to change the future and let Juliette live."

Walter looked up hopefully after that, and Dumbledore sighed. He hoped this one small lie would be the only one he would have to tell tonight. For though there was no way to change the evitable death of Juliette Weston, there was a good possibility that her death might save the lives of the others. It was a pity, but Albus Dumbledore recognized the courage of the frail figure he had found in his office. She had knowingly given her life so that others might live.

"So what do we know from Juliette's recordings, Professor?" Lupin asked. Juliette Weston had recorded several conversations between Death Eaters, and the group assumed this was the reason she was hunted down and killed.

"Mercifully little," Dumbledore said. "The less we know of the future, the better. From what is heard Voldemort is dead, as we all hoped and prayed, but his evil continues. There is someone leading the Death Eaters now, the person who killed Juliette Weston. I have no idea who it is. The rest of Juliette's tapings were . . . were of a personal nature."

"A personal nature?" Walter Weston repeated. "What sort?"

"Your sister was a friend of Harry Potter, most of the tapes are of them talking, with others," Dumbledore began, slowly. "She was part of a group of Aurors in London who were sworn to protect each other against the Darkness. Juliette died knowing a secret, Walter. The secret of where Harry Potter lived."

"Wait," Severus Snape said, asserting his place in the group. "I thought the reason for Juliette's death was the information on the taping."

"Partly, Severus," Dumbledore sighed. "Only partly. Juliette and the other Aurors were not only protecting themselves, but Harry Potter as well. It seems that the Death Eaters were looking for vengeance, in any form they could take it. Harry's life was in danger and so it seems he was taken to a safehouse of sorts. Few people knew the location, from the tapes, and it seems Juliette was the last of the aurors to be discovered. The others-- the others killed themselves to assure that the Death Eaters would never be able to extort the information."

"Great gods," Minerva McGonagall said, putting a hand to her mouth. "Those poor children, Albus!"

"Yes," Remus Lupin said, running a hand through his hair. "But if Juliette lived, she may have told the Death Eater. And if she did, it could be guessed that Harry and whoever else were in the safehouse are now in danger, in the future."

"Quite right, Remus," Dumbledore said. "I believe she did this to warn us. The Death Eaters were searching for Harry, but their reign of horror was not going to end there, it was every last wizard who had defied Voldemort who was going to die, and then who would be next: Muggles? their dreaded 'mudbloods'? squibs?"

"Still," Snape said, after the intial shock and mumblings had died down, "I hardly see how Harry Potter would be able to stop them all, alone."

"If Harry defeated Voldemort," Walter Weston said, suddenly gaining strength from his grief, "he could knock out a few aging Death Eaters as well."

"It is not just Harry who is danger on that night," Dumbledore said, "he has a partner with him, perhaps the second best wizard in the world. And for private reasons, this Death Eater wants him dead as well."

"Who is with him, Albus? And who is the Death Eater?"

"Juliette does not say," Dumbledore looked at Professor McGonagall. "She seems to have assumed we would know this, I believe she might have sent herself too far back into the past. But she does leave us one other piece of information: the safehouse could only be entered and exited by certain persons for protection's sake. It was done by such powerful magic that they are still, past, present, or future, the only ones who can enter the safehouse."

"Who are they, Albus?"

"Harry Potter, of course," Dumbledore began, "Juliette herself, Hermoine Granger, Ronald Weasely, and Draco Malfoy."

"Draco Malfoy!" The chorus was nearly complete.

"It seems quite a bit has changed in the future," Albus Dumbledore chuckled to himself as if in a private joke.