A Matter of Time
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any of the canon Harry Potter characters present in this work.
Antecedents
1991
Harry Potter was having a highly unusual morning. One should note that the young wizard had not anticipated an ordinary day by any means. He intended to take his place in a magical world, which treated him as a hero for something he could not even remember. Harry had been both excited and nervous; now, he was just starting to get annoyed.
This weird woman had been following him around all morning. Normally, the young boy would probably not have noticed, as she was obviously trying to act inconspicuously. The main problem was her hair; it was like having a raging inferno following you around. Until she changed the colour, Harry was quite certain, she would never make a successful stalker.
In the beginning, having the blindingly obvious young lady following him around had been rather amusing. When he noticed that she and his uncle had, coincidentally, arrived at precisely the same platform from Little Whining, where she had first briefly appeared, the wizard had been suspicious. Then she had started, not particularly subtly, glancing out at him from behind a pillar.
Hadn't she seen any good spy movies? Even with the Dursleys, who were hardly enthusiastic about offering Harry any indulgence, he had managed to sneak a few James Bond movies. Couldn't she at least wear a hat? Oh well: he may as well confront her. After all, he had no idea how to get onto the platform after Uncle Vernon left him alone, and, if she cared enough to stalk him, she was probably a witch of some sort.
Not particularly surprisingly, in retrospect, the strange witch gave even stranger advice (he was, by now, fairly sure she was, indeed, a witch). While tacitly acknowledging that she could tell him how to access the platform, the lady suggested that he would be better off asking another red-headed woman who had just bustled in with a gaggle of children in her wake. The bizarre lady had then given him a smile with just the right mixture of longing and affection to completely creep out an eleven year-old who she had stalked all morning. Harry made a mental note to pointedly avoid her, if she ever reappeared anywhere near him again.
The other red-headed woman was somewhat more palatable to the boy who lived. Although clearly preoccupied with her own charges, she spared the time to explain how to get onto the platform for him warmly. Who would ever guess one had to walk through a wall? He may, it seemed, have also made a friend in the process. The older woman's son had seemed to take a shine to him, equally uncertain about walking through a brick barrier. The two, after arriving on the platform, then proceeded quickly to the train, as the boy was worried his mother would get "all mushy." Harry really would not have minded, but as the thought seemed to disturb his acquaintance, he quickly acquiesced, following along to help pick out a compartment.
Ron (the name of the boy whom he had joined) was quickly proving rather unusual as well. He was really nice to Harry, and unlike the wizards Harry had met a Diagon Alley, the gangly, red-haired youth had not yet even seemed to notice his scar. The problem was that Ron was almost too nice. He seemed to be almost compulsively seeking Harry's approval, and, when Harry introduced himself, his arm was shaken so firmly that he worried it might fall off. The other wizard also kept glancing back at Harry every couple of seconds, as if to confirm, yes, Harry was still behind him. Finally, as they sat down in an empty compartment near the middle of the train, Harry decided he had endured enough of Ron's not particularly subtle glances. Whatever the other wizard's problem was with Harry, he could deal with it now.
"Why do you keep staring at me?"
The other boy's ears coloured at their tips as he replied: "I'm not staring at you, just… er… observing the train."
"Don't lie. I saw you looking. What is it? Do you want to see the scar?"
"No. It's just, well…"
For a moment indecision flashed across the taller student's face, before settling into an expression of contrition.
"You're Harry Potter. I mean, it feels like I know all about you, and, I guess I'm sorry. I'll try to stop, alright. You don't have to show me anything."
Harry was quite simply gobsmacked. Everyone he had met in the wizard world seemed to think gawking at him, and taking a peek at his scar was a matter of course, whether he appreciated the attention or not. Ron's looks of worry and concern were what Harry had found strange, as so out of place in his experience. An apology, however, was something he had never been offered before in any sincerity. To be fair, a few wizards had begged his pardon as they peered at him like some animal in a zoo, but Ron seemed genuinely sorry, if the apology was rather awkwardly phrased. Harry almost felt bad for snapping.
"It's okay, I guess. I mean, I understand. Everyone does it, so I guess…"
At these words, the red-haired boy's eyes almost seemed to sharpen. He looked older somehow, as his eyes settled right on the green of Harry's irises.
"No it's not. You're a wizard, Harry, not some bloody hippogriff or unicorn to gawk at, and I shouldn't have acted like you were some fantastic beast. Let's try this introduction thing again. Maybe I won't even bullocks it up this time."
At that last remark, Ron's mouth finally seemed to curve into a semblance of a grin, as his eyes communicated the gist of the jest. Almost against his will, Harry found his mouth curving upwards in an answering smile.
"My name's Ron Weasley. I don't have much money, probably won't make much of a wizard, and the size of my ruddy legs seems to change so quickly that nine days out of ten I can't even keep on my own feet. As an added bonus, as I'm sure you just noticed, I'm such a ruddy tosser that troll bogies won't share a room with me for more than a few minutes. So, wanna be mates?"
He extended his right hand.
Harry simply stared for a moment, and then burst out laughing, taking the extended limb in his own hand, and shaking it.
"Harry Potter," he managed to choke out between guffaws.
Slowly, however, the compartment began to quiet, and the uncomfortable silence attempted once more to reign. Harry still did not know quite what to say to this strange wizard (if unusual in a manner he found highly amusing).
"So, how about them Cannons?"
"Er… cannons?"
"You haven't heard of the Cannons?"
"You mean the big metal things that-"
"No! The Cannons are the finest, er… maybe not. Well, the Cannons are champions among quidditch legends!"
"Er… quid… itch?"
"You haven't heard of quidditch?"
At this, Ron seemed to release a gasp, suddenly deadly serious.
"Well then, mate, I reckon it's time for your most important lessons to begin. I don't reckon there's much more important for a bloke to know about then quidditch."
Thus, the train ride proceeded, Harry battered by quidditch statistics and forced to swear up and down three times that, indeed, he would never dare besmirch the fine name of The Chudley Cannons. Later, other subjects would be broached. Ron explained about his family, displaying his brother's old wand, while Harry made some brief remarks on The Dursleys, and spoke in a more extended manner about muggle gadgets, as Ron insisted his father was crazy about that sort of thing. The entire train ride passed in such a manner without interruption, and, by its conclusion, Harry was certain that he had built a rapport with Ron of the sort he had never previously known.
1991
Ron felt the train ride had been quite successful. Although, he and Harry got off to a fairly rough start (mostly due to his own uncertainty), by the end of the ride, he felt almost as if his best friend had returned from the dead. At times, however, he still stumbled, although, not quite so familiar with Ron's mannerisms, Ron doubted Harry had noticed after the initial awkwardness.
The problem was that, to Ron, Harry Potter was dead. The stupid, heroic berk had gone off alone, and used some sort of sacrificial spell to end You-Know-Who's existence. Ron had seen Harry's body at his best friend's funeral, felt the warring despair and rage at the nearly immaculate sight of the boy who lived's magically cleaned corpse. Whenever he was around this younger Harry, he felt unsure whether he wanted to punch him, scream at him, or cling to him and never let go; it was bloody confusing.
As a result, he had, simply, following his initial errors, pushed those feelings away, trying to pretend that he and Harry were back at Hogwarts again in happier times. Most of the time, this tactic was effective. Due to their years of companionship, Ron had an intuitive grasp of Harry's thoughts, feelings, and reactions. He could head off the boy's darker moods with ease, and keep their moods light for hours at a time. In some ways, he knew his best friend better than Harry knew himself.
Of course, the fact that he knew so much about the future also helped quite a bit. For instance, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy bursting into their compartment would have probably darkened the mood, so he, after the trolley witch had come by, and while Harry had his back turned for a moment, cast colloportus and imperturbable charms on their compartment's door. That bought him time, while giving he and Harry some more much-needed bonding time.
Ron was still uncertain regarding how he should deal with Hermione. The crimson-haired wizard had tried to set aside his emotions regarding her future self because they were too jumbled, but he was not sure how successful he was in that regard. Moreover, he recognized that defeating the troll had played a major role in cementing their friendship, but he was unsure whether he could act sufficiently meanly to have Hermione crying in a girl's lavatory considering that she was, in his mind, one of his best friends. In addition to that difficulty, could he be certain that she would not die? What if the troll managed to kill her? Also, he had started to question whether people who he manipulated into friendship were actually his friends.
Friendship was supposed to be mutual he had been told, and experienced to varying degrees himself. He knew Harry and Hermione well enough to make them his best friends with no difficulty. He could probably even manipulate the course of events so that Hermione fell in love with him: a matter upon which he often fantasized in his sixth and seventh years. If he did take their destinies in his hands, however, were they really his friends? He could not tell them anything important about himself, and might not ever be able to do so. Was he acting any differently from You-Know-Who, even: crafting servants whom he needed for certain tasks? Also, what would happen when he left?
Although he had no idea how, or even if, he could travel back to the future, he knew he could not stay in the past forever. If he was lucky, maybe he could pull a Harry, sacrificing himself in order to vanquish You-Know-Who somehow, but, if not, he would have to either find some way to return to the future, or kill himself. What would happen to Ron's past self then? What if this task took him years? Ron's only certainty was that this time Harry would survive. In fact, if the time-traveling wizard had any control over the matter, Harry Potter would never meet You-Know-Who at all. Harry would grow up happily with his best friends, having innocent fun at Hogwarts.
Regardless, Ron knew he had to start confronting issues such as how to deal with Hermione now. Thus, he had decided to take the matter out of his hands. After meeting Hagrid again, he stepped right onto a boat occupied by that self-same witch and Neville Longbottom, motioning Harry to follow. As usual, before he even began to contemplate speaking, the bushy-haired with had the first word.
"Oh hello. My name is Hermione Granger, and I am ever so excited to have arrived here. My parents are muggles, you know, so they were quite surprised by the letter, but I feel it is all quite fascinating. Did you know that Hogwarts is considered the finest Wizarding academy in Europe? I read that in one of the books I purchased for background reading, of course. None of the course texts would state something so clearly biased. I'm sure you read them all, as well; one should not make a bad impression in the first year."
Hermione said all these words in her usual brisk tone, sounding quite certain and bossy regarding the entire matter. However, he noticed his reactions were quite different from what they might once have been. Eighteen year-old Hermione could still rile him up with little effort. The manner in which he viewed these confrontations, however, was quite different from the way he dealt with matters at eleven. After almost seven years of friendship, this eleven year-old anachronism seemed some cross between laughable and adorable. However, looking towards his other friend, he saw Harry might need some reassurance after that monologue.
"We were supposed to bring books?"
At this fairly clear jest (at least Ron felt it was obvious), Hermione appeared scandalized.
"What? Of course! You are going to be in so much trouble! I mean, how will you keep up between levitating charms and transfiguration and cleaning concoctions? There's so much to know!"
Spinning she grabbed a copy of the standard book of spells, which, for whatever reason, the witch felt was a necessity for trips across the lake by boat.
"Here," she shoved the text into his hands. "I'm not sure how much it will help, but maybe you can get in some quick revision before we arrive!"
Ron merely peered at the tome in confusion, cocking his head this way and that way in mock befuddlement. "I had thought these were paper weights. What do you do with these… books?"
By this point, Harry had more than clued in that Ron was not serious, and was restraining a chuckle with difficulty, while Neville seemed uncertain whether smiling might not get him a reprimand, but the grin was creeping out regardless. Hermione also, apparently, finally realized that he was joking, his last comments too sarcastic, and distant from the realms of plausibility. However, she looked far less amused than either of his other fellow year mates.
Loftily, she thrust her chin upwards, beginning to reply, "That was in no manner a-"
She cut off. The castle had moved into view. Even Ron seemed to freeze for a moment, as he took in the beauty of a peaceful, nighttime castle, so different from when he had last stood outside Hogwarts at night, the Dark Mark painting the sky with jade terror.
Ron simply smiled at the sight, for a moment forgetting his many cares, failing to notice even as Hermione returned to tearing into him for his cheek. Harry was alive, Hermione was nagging, and Hogwarts was whole. He was home.
1991
Hermione did not feel very guilty about manipulating Percy Weasley. The prefect offered a highly logical method for keeping track of the younger versions of Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. If she had stroked his ego a few times, and, perhaps, did some very minor flirting, to win his confidences, her conscience was not yet screaming foul.
Kingsley had assigned one of the most brilliant witches in Hogwarts history the task of keeping an eye on her old school. Along with Tonks, who would be masquerading as a first year girl, Hermione was entrusted with making certain that events occurred roughly as they should at Hogwarts, while he, Ginny, and Lee worked on locating Ron. She knew that Ginny felt annoyed with her role, but she had agreed to follow Kingsley's orders, and, the experienced auror's choices had, so far, been highly rational.
Somehow, Ron had been evading some of the most potent tracking magics in existence for more than a week. Every time a tracking charm was cast of any variety, it simply reported that Ronald Weasley was at the burrow, which had been true. However, they wanted to find the other Ronald Weasley: the fool trying to destabilize causality. As a result, Carrol had postulated that the charms may have an intrinsic focus on objects occupying their correct place in the context of a spatio-temporal framework; however, that was little more than guesswork. Nonetheless, Kingsley had set Carrol to work, in her spare time, on a modified charm which would account for this purported effect; Hermione doubted anything would come out of such a venture until, at the earliest, the Christmas holidays, if ever. Until then, the team had decided to not bother with spells which clearly were not properly working. Thus, the group was forced to resort to less conventional approaches.
Lee Jordan had been put in charge of safe-guarding Voldemort's horcruxes. To Hermione's surprise, the prodigious prankster had been working to design security systems for The Ministry since he graduated from Hogwarts. Apparently, between the recommendations of Fred and George (who already designed all kinds of standard issue equipment by that point, such as their shield hats) and quite reasonable NEWT scores in the requisite areas, Lee had been placed on a team responsible for protecting Minister Scrimgeour himself.
Nonetheless, when Hermione first heard Lee would be protecting Voldemort's soul, she had briefly wondered about their leader's sanity. She understood now that those were places Ron needed to go in order to achieve his objectives, but, nonetheless, the notion of even better guarded horcruxes was chilling. Even if they could remove the various snares and alarms before they returned to the future, Voldemort's traps had been more than well enough designed as she recalled.
Ginny was, in essence, combing all of the places Ron might have traveled, with Kingsley providing back-up, in case she needed help out-dueling her brother. Of course, Auror Shacklebolt was also active at the Ministry of Magic. Apparently, seven years had not aged him too significantly. Thus, whenever possible, and they were certain the current version of Kingsley Shacklebolt was elsewhere, he had taken to masquerading as his past self, acquiring all manner of resources, as well as information, from the auror department. They were each doing all they could, but, thus far, the Ministry's handpicked team remained no closer to finding Ronald Weasley. Ron's effective disappearance was, in large part, the reason underlying her choice of pseudonym. If Ron was monitoring Hogwarts information sources, or in the school proper, he would likely have his memory jogged by the name Wazlib (an identifier only she, Ron, and, perhaps, Harry might have known), particularly in combination with her pointedly shoddy disguise.
While, hair drenched with Sleekeazy's hair potion, front teeth reduced in size, and facial structure slightly altered with a charm, she looked little enough like her eleven year-old self, Hermione's appearance would give the Ron Weasley she was familiar with, at the very least, a huge case of déjà vu. Hopefully, the combination of her appearance and hair would be enough to draw him out of hiding place. If not, the name was, minimally, not one which would require considerable effort to recall.
"Helen, are you quite all right? I hope I am not boring you; I admit, my family is not always the most intriguing."
Not needing to force a grin at the half-familiar uncertainty, Hermione smiled reassuringly at Percy, not needing to force any additional warmth into her voice as she replied, "Your family sounds wonderful. I can only hope you and yours are always so happy."
Percy seemed pleased with the reassurance, as he seemed to see something beyond her for a moment. This sight was fortunate for Hermione, as, just then, she caught sight of a colossal, pitch black torso, supported by proportionately massive bat's wings, through the coach's window, just behind Percy's head: it could only be a thestral. For a moment, forgetting she did not believe in omens and signs, the chestnut-haired witch shivered. It was going to be a long year.
"I wonder, Helen, how your OWLS went last spring? Clearly, you passed well, as you were admitted to Hogwarts, but I must admit a concern regarding my own future trials. You know, my brothers have no regard for…"
Percy's passing similarity to Ron seemed to gradually dissipate as he spoke. It was going to be a very long year.
1991
"Phineas?"
"Our thief appears to have returned, Albus."
"Interesting… What was taken this time?"
"Nothing: however, I believe he did intend to steal something originally. He certainly spent long enough searching the mansion before he left."
"Did you view his appearance this time?"
"Yes, Albus. The man looked about twenty years old, black, and had rather distinctive dreadlocks. I do not believe there should be any difficulty locating such a character."
"Hmmm..."
"Albus?"
"So there are two then, or our wizard is using polyjuice potion, although why the return then I cannot fathom. Either way, your information is quite useful, Phineas. Thank you."
"I do not quite understand your insistence upon opacity in speech. Speak clearly, Albus, or confine your thoughts to your own mind."
"You did not understand, Phineas?" Albus Dumbledore replied, raising an eyebrow, while a smile twitched at his lips. "Then I suppose I could repeat myself: thank you. Now, I have a sorting to attend to old friend. Good evening."
With that, Albus Dumbledore strode out of his office, and towards the great hall. This promised to be a very interesting year indeed.