A/N: Hello again, everyone! Long time no see. I apologize for leaving this story sitting unfinished for so long - I think I just forgot about it! Thank you to all who read and reviewed over the past seven months. I hope this is worth the wait!
This will be the next to last chapter. The final chapter is already complete and I will be posting it within an hour or two!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Writing fanfiction is a lot of fun, though!
1997
It took a week - a long week of hiding out in the cave with the Order. Hermione, Ron, and Ginny quickly realized that, despite the renovations and transfigured kitchen, the cave wasn't much more cozy than their tent had been. The artificial sunlight streaming through the charmed windows grew old and stale after a while, and a damp chill crept through the moss carpet and crawled into their sleeping cots with them at night. The general mood of the place was low, too - though Fred and George tried to lighten the mood with pranks and Tonks joined in with some humor of her own, the thought of who all wasn't there hung heavily over their gathered group.
No one quite wanted to give up hope that the others would arrive. Hestia and Andromeda were convinced that Kingsley and Arthur were in a hiding place of their own, and would come join them as soon as they found a safe way to communicate.
"More like they're hiding out in a Death Eater prison," Charlie had muttered darkly.
But even he was refusing to give up hope that the others were still alive.
Mrs. Weasley, for her part, spent long hours staring out the fake windows, as if hoping that she might see her husband approaching from the distance.
But, even with the somber mood and damp chill, there was so much to be grateful for. They were together - most of them, anyway. They weren't going to take that for granted.
While Hermione hunkered down in a corner, books spread out in front of her and quill scratching frantically across any spare piece of parchment she could turn up, Ron and Ginny sat in the living space with their mother and brothers. Sometimes they spoke in low voices, having serious conversations that Hermione couldn't hear. Most of the time, though, they were talking and laughing like old times. Savoring their last days together as a family.
Six days after they arrived at the cave, Hermione shut her books. She screwed the cap onto her ink bottle and tucked the quill behind her ear. Her fingers grazed over the edges of the parchment, mismatched pages covered in scattered notes. She closed her fingers around the edges of the parchment and tapped the stack against the moss floor, straightening the pile into the neatest stack she could.
Ron saw her movements and rose from his chair, watching her with anxiety written across his face. "What is it, Hermione?" he asked.
Ginny, too, rose from her chair. "Did you figure it out?"
Hermione kept her eyes in the stack of parchment for as long as she could. She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "Sort of," she said quietly.
Ron was at her side in an instant, his hand on her shoulder. He knew her well enough to know that something was wrong. "Hermione?" he prompted again.
She shook her head but forced her eyes away from the paper. His eyes met hers, and she found the strength to say what she had to say.
"I've been researching," she said. "I was hoping to find a safe way to send us back in time. But...oh, Ron…there isn't one."
Ginny was there, too, and her eyes were wide. "We can't go after Harry?" she asked sadly.
Hermione gripped her stack of paper more tightly. "I didn't say that."
Hermione was acutely aware that everyone else in the cave was listening.
"Ron," she said quietly. "Ginny. We can replicate the process, I'm sure of it. We can follow Harry back. But..
There's no safe way to do it. The only way to replicate it is to be hit by the same three spells that Harry was."
Barely a second had passed before Ginny declared, "We're still going."
"But -" Ron's eyes darted back and forth between Hermione and Ginny, and briefly glanced at his mother, too. "One of those was the Killing Curse."
Hermione bit her lip. "Yes."
"It doesn't matter. We're not dying, just going back in time," Ginny said firmly.
"Gin, the Killing Curse…well, it kills people," Ron stammered.
Ginny shook her head. "Not in conjunction with the others, though. Right, Hermione?"
"Well, yes," said Hermione. "If we fire all three of the spells correctly and they all hit us at exactly the right time, then we should travel back in time."
"To the same time as Harry?" asked Ginny.
Ron's eyes were wide. "We don't even know what year he's in, Hermione!"
"I think that the spells will send us the same distance back as they sent him," said Hermione. "So if we go then we should end up where….wherever he is."
"If we go?" asked Ginny, her temper rising. "What do you mean, if? Of course we're going after him!"
"Calm down, Gin!" It was Fred, striding across the room toward their tiny group. George was at his side. Hermione was surprised that Mrs. Weasley wasn't there, too, but she saw Charlie standing next to his mother, holding her arm as if to keep her from panicking. All eyes in the cave were on them. There was no way that they could discuss this without everyone hearing.
"What?" Ginny snapped at Fred.
"I know you want to go after him, Ginny," said George, grabbing his sister's arm. "But you have to listen to what Hermione's saying. Don't you realize how much of a risk this is?"
Ginny's eyes swam with tears, briefly. "Don't you realize how alone Harry is?" she retorted.
"Ginny," said Hermione calmly. "I want to go after him, too. But if the spells don't hit us all at exactly the same time…well, it would kill us."
Ginny's eyes, filled with tears, flashed dangerously. "I know that!" she said emphatically. Then she turned out to the room, holding everyone's attention. "After everything Harry's done for us, do you lot seriously want to just give up on him? Leave him there alone? Wherever he is?"
"No," said Ron, firmly. Ginny's eyes snapped to his. "I never said that I'm giving up on Harry. I'm going after him, too. But it's dangerous."
Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Don't you dare say that you and Hermione are going, but it's not safe for me to. I'm not letting you leave me behind again."
From the look on both Fred and George's face, Hermione could tell that they had probably intended to say exactly that. But, in these dire circumstances, everyone knew better than to argue with Ginny.
"We won't," said Hermione, and she shot Ron a look that dared him to disagree. "And we won't give up on Harry. We'll find a way."
"I'm going back after him. We all will," Ron said, and Ginny's face lit up with gratitude for her brother. "I just…I'm terrified, Gin. If we can't find another way to do it, our only option is to get hit with the Killing Curse."
"Then we'll set up controlled conditions," Hermione mused. Hope was flooding her again, her brain spinning through possible solutions. "We can get three of us to fire the spells, time it perfectly…"
This time, Remus was the one who stepped forward. He looked at Hermione, the same way he might have looked at her when he was her professor and she had made a logical mistake on a Defense essay. "Hermione," he said passively. "In order for the three spells to work, do you have to cast a full-powered Killing Curse?"
The truth sunk into Hermione's stomach like a heavy weight. "Yes, it would."
"In order to cast a full-fledged Killing Curse, you have to mean it," Remus said grimly, as though he were giving a lecture. "I don't think any of us would be able to cast one at you that would work."
Ginny spun around, her eyes meeting those of each Order member's in turn. She looked desperately at Hestia and Andromeda, as if hoping that maybe someone outside of her own family would be able to cast a Killing Curse at her with intention. A slightly disgusted expression crossed Andromeda's face, and Hestia shook her head apologetically.
"As much as I would love to help you," Tonks said with the faintest of smirks, "I don't particularly want to kill you, so I'm not sure how helpful I would be."
Ginny was visibly deflating, and Ron looked like he was close to doing the same. Hermione sat back down on the floor, set her neat stack of parchment beside her, and cracked open one of the books.
"I'll look for another way," she promised. Hermione wasn't remotely hopeful that she would find one; after all, she had known since the beginning that the only solution might be to fire those three curses at each of them. She had spent the past week trying to come up with an alternative, safe method, and had come to the conclusion that there was none. But she couldn't give up. Not when Harry was lost somewhere in time, alone, and Ron and Ginny were as desperate to find him as she was.
Even so, the most Hermione could do at the moment was to let her eyes skim over the words in the books. She wasn't actually reading, because she knew she would find nothing she hadn't found already. Instead, she listened to the conversations happening around her.
"If we go back in time," said Ron thoughtfully. "Does that mean we can change things?"
A heavy sort of silence hung in the cave for a minute. Hermione stopped flipping pages. The fact that they could time travel and change things should have been obvious, but they had all been so focused on saving Harry that no one had fully processed it.
"We'll do it," said Ginny quietly. "When we get back there, we can change things."
Hermione stopped pretending to read and looked around the room instead. She noticed, once again, all the people that weren't there - not just Mr. Weasley, Bill, Fleur, and Kingsley, but others, too. Others like Sirius, and Moody, and Dumbledore. Others who were long dead.
Could they save those lives, too?
Hermione knew, then and there, that even if she couldn't find a safe alternative to sending them back in time, they would take the risk and go anyway.
"If you could change the past, though," said Hestia slowly. "Wouldn't Harry have already done it?"
They all thought about that for a minute. Hermione shut her book with a loud clap, and leaned back on the heels of her hands, looking at her companions.
"This book I'm reading," she said, gesturing toward the book that Luna had provided on various time travel theories. "It suggests the idea of multiple parallel timelines. So maybe when Harry went back in time, he actually went to a new timeline."
Charlie's brow creased. "Does that mean that you can't go back and find him, then?"
Hermione shook her head, considering. She tried to send Ginny a reassuring smile, because she saw the worry in her friend's eyes. "I don't think so. I think it means that when we go after him, we'll just go into the timeline where he is."
"But if we're still here even after Harry's gone back in time, then that means this timeline will still exist even when you all go back in time, too, and change things."
Hermione met Remus' eyes. She couldn't bear to meet Mrs. Weasley's. "That means that even if we save some people's lives in the past, then it won't bring them back here."
Remus looked downcast, but he nodded in acceptance.
Ron leaned forward and looked around at everyone. "If we're doing that, then all of us should come back in time!"
There was some discussion, some consideration, and Hermione let her thoughts wander back to the pile of books in front of her.
"If we do that," said Tonks quietly. "Then this timeline will still exist, and there'll be no one left to fight Voldemort."
"Voldemort's already won, hasn't he?" said Ron darkly. Hermione was caught off guard by how downtrodden he sounded. It was like Harry's disappearance had been the blow that finally knocked the hope out of Ron. "We can't win without Harry."
Hermione wasn't sure if everyone in the room knew about the prophecy, but no one disagreed with Ron. Even if the Order could defeat Voldemort without Harry, then, well…there wasn't much of the Order left.
"Come with us," said Ginny, pleading, looking at Fred and George.
"If we come with you," said Fred quietly, and he trailed off.
"Who's going to stay and fight for this timeline?" George finished.
"You'll lose," Ron said again.
Tonks stepped forward, shaking her head. "We might lose," she admitted. "But we're the ones who are supposed to defend everyone else affected by this war. We've got to fight for the light. It doesn't matter if we can't win. We can't abandon everyone else here."
Around the room, everyone else seemed to take her words to heart. Remus's face glowed with pride for his wife, and he reached out to take her hand. Charlie nodded his agreement, as did Andromeda and Hestia.
"What she said," Fred said with a smirk.
"But…not all of you have to stay," Ron offered feebly, looking at his brothers, dismayed.
"Mum?" Ginny pleaded.
But even Mrs. Weasley shook her head. "If your father and brother are still alive, out there," he voice cracked. "I have to be here waiting on them."
Charlie's grip on his mother's shoulder tightened. Ginny went flying across the room to throw her arms around her mother. Ron was close behind.
"You three will do an amazing job of changing the past," said Mrs. Weasley, and her voice shook with tears. "You and Harry."
"We'll hold down the fort here," Fred promised.
"But we'll miss you," Ginny said to her mother and brothers.
"Ginny," Charlie said gently. "You'll have a younger version of us."
"Poor Ginny," said George with fake chipperness in his voice.
"Having to put up with our younger selves and Ronniekins," Fred tutted.
Ginny pulled away from her mother, grabbed each of the twins by one arm, and yanked them into the family hug.
Remus and Tonks, surveying the happy family scene, slowly made their way over to where Hermione still sat on the floor. "You really think it would work that way, Hermione?" asked Tonks. "That you could make the past better for another version of all of us?"
Hermione nodded, and flipped the time travel book back open. "I think so," she said. "But none of that matters if I can't figure out a way to get us back in time at all."
Just then, a loud, blaring noise echoed shrilly throughout the cave. It sounded like a muggle fire alarm.
"What is it?" asked Ron, pulling away from his family.
Tonks cursed under her breath. "It's the wards. The death eaters have found us."
The alarm changed pitch, becoming even more shrill. Hermione clapped her hands over her ears. Mrs. Weasley buried her face in Charlie's chest. "That means they broke past the wards, now," she whimpered.
"What?! How?" screeched Ginny.
"They're desperate," said Charlie. "People do crazy things when they're desperate."
Ginny looked at Hermione. "Crazy things like time travel?"
"It won't work even if we try," Hermione reminded her, although with the sirens blaring in her ears, she wished they could time travel, right now, all of them. "None of us can cast the Killing Curse well enough."
"But then there's no harm in trying, since it wouldn't kill us, would it?" asked Ginny.
Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but just then the sound of a giant explosion rocked the cave. Rocks rained down from the ceiling.
"They're going to bury us alive if we don't get out!" shouted Andromeda.
"That's exactly what they want!" Charlie shouted back.
But then a second explosion rocked the cave. This time, it was enough to make a corner of the ceiling cave in.
The corner right above the Weasley's heads.
"No!" shouted Mrs. Weasley. In one, breath-taking shove, she managed to push all five of her children away from her.
"MUM NO!" Fred and George screamed as a boulder cam crashing down on Mrs. Weasley, knocking her to the ground.
Ginny was instantly kneeling down at her mother's side, oblivious to the rocks raining down around her. Mrs. Weasley lay, limp, on the mossy carpeted floor, both legs trapped underneath a small mountain of rocks. A trickle of blood ran from underneath her curly red hair.
With the cave-in, a hole had opened up in one of the cave walls, the peaceful meadow view out of the fake window blown to smithereens, revealing the real world outside. The rocky, grassy hill looked the same as it had when Hermione had first been welcomed into the cave, but it was no longer peaceful. At least a dozen death eaters had invaded the hillside, standing with wands drawn. Flashes of light lit up the dusk as the death eaters took aim toward the newly exposed cave.
All four Weasley boys charged through the opening.
"Ron, no!" Hermione shouted. But she leapt over a fallen boulder, skidded on a pile of gravel and broken pieces of rocking chair, and ran after him.
Outside the cave was pure chaos. The death eaters had them surrounded. Through the hole in the cave wall they had only been able to see about a dozen, but there were many, many more than that. In fact, as Hermione pressed her back against a boulder and peered through the settling dust, she thought that maybe Voldemort's entire army had come out to that hillside.
Voldemort wanted to finish this. Now. He was going to win the war today.
Hermione tightened her grip on her wand, swung out from behind the boulder, and fired off a round of stunners. Then she ducked back behind it, narrowly avoiding the green light of a Killing Curse.
"RON!" she bellowed, because she had completely lost him in the chaos.
Tonks was at her side a minute later, pressing her back into the boulder. One hand held her wand; the other rested protectively over her bulging stomach. "Great spot, Hermione," she said with half a smile.
"Dora!" Remus was at their side, too, practically glaring daggers at his wife. "Go back inside the cave! You're in no shape to fight!"
"In case you haven't noticed, there's not much of a cave to go back to!" Tonks shouted right back.
For a moment it looked like Remus might protest again. But instead he flattened his back against the rock, and leaned as closely as he could into his wife's side. He reached his free arm protectively across her.
"I'm not leaving you, then," he said.
"You'd better not, Remus," she snorted. But their eyes met with a tenderness that would have brought tears into Hermione's eyes in any other setting.
"RON!" she bellowed again.
"Hermione!" came his familiar shout. He was there, just five feet away, and as the dust settled she could see the grim look on his face.
"They got Charlie!" Ron shouted, anguished.
He took a step toward the boulder. But before he could reach safety, Hermione caught sight of an acid green Killing Curse, headed straight at his back.
She could have shouted his name again, desperately. She could have leapt out from behind the boulder and tackled him to the ground. Or she could have frozen, done nothing at all.
But she was Hermione Granger, and she was desperate, and her mind worked at a million miles a second.
She pointed her wand directly at Ron's heart.
"Sectumsempra."
The purple cutting hex collided with Ron at the exact same moment as the green Killing Curse did. So did, as it turned out, a spell from just inside the entrance to the cave.
Ron disappeared into a flash of light.
Hermione slumped against the boulder, feeling exhausted.
"It worked." Ginny, who had evidently fired the Impedimenta, stood in the new opening to the cave, her wand raised and her hand trembling.
"Get down!" Hermione shouted as a volley of spells flew at Ginny's head.
Ginny dropped to her knees, then crawled rapidly back into the cave. "I need help!" she called back out to Hermione.
Hermione stayed low, darting out from behind the boulder and back into the ruined cave headquarters. Ginny had managed to levitate the boulder from her mother's legs and, to Hermione's great surprise and relief, the woman was sitting up.
Hestia had joined the fighting outside, but Andromeda knelt by Mrs. Weasley, helping prop her up. Her face was anguished. "Have you seen my daughter?" she asked Hermione as soon as she was in the relative safety of the cave.
"She's outside with Remus," said Hermione.
"She should be inside!" Andromeda cried out.
"Remus tried to tell her the same thing!"
Andromeda, like Remus, seemed to think that the cave was still a safe shelter. It obviously wasn't. The walls that were still standing were riddled with cracks, and Hermione was afraid that they might cave in at any second. The Order members outside seemed to be drawing most of the death's eater's fire, but the occasional stray spell flew through the hole in the cave wall, flying over their heads and creating a crater in the opposite wall. A fake window, with an image of a beach and gently lapping waves, stood in denial amidst the chaos, its tattered curtains flapping in the wind.
Ginny, at least, seemed to realize that the cave wasn't safe. "We need to get her out of here," she said to Hermione, grabbing one of her mother's arms.
Mrs. Weasley, though alive, was not well. The trickle of blood that had run down her forehead initially had turned into a steady stream that now soaked the shoulders of her robes. She looked dazed, her eyes halfway glassed over. She was muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like Arthur.
"C'mon, Mum," Ginny pleaded, attempting to haul Mrs. Weasley to her feet. "Get up."
Hermione knelt by Mrs. Weasley's other side, and together, they managed to get the woman standing.
"Can we apparate?" asked Ginny, even though the thought of leaving the others to fight seemed like the worst idea in the world.
Andromeda bit back a sob. "No! I tried before Nymphadora ran off. The death eaters put up anti-apparition wards."
Ginny was not one to be easily discouraged. "We'll sneak out the front entrance, then."
Hermione shook her head this time. "The death eaters have the entire place surrounded. I…I think Voldemort brought his entire army."
Ginny only faltered for a second before gritting her teeth and hefting her mother's arm farther around her neck. "Then we'll have to fight our way out."
Their chances weren't good, and they all knew it. But if this was the final battle, they had no choice but to fight.
Slowly, painstakingly, Hermione and Ginny led Mrs. Weasley to the caved-in entrance.
"Ron's gone back in time, hasn't he?" asked Ginny, her small voice somehow audible over the cacophony. "That's what that explosion of light meant?"
Hermione gritted her teeth and nodded, hope filling her chest. "I think so. I doubt we can replicate it again, though."
Ginny's eyes tilted downward. "I would have liked to join Harry, too," she admitted. "But at least he won't be alone with Ron there."
"No," said Hermione. "No he won't."
They crossed the threshold, with Andromeda right behind them. Remus and Tonks had - probably against Remus' will - left the relative safety of the boulder and went out to join the fighting. Hermione couldn't see them through the haze of spells and dust. She couldn't see the twins, either, or Hestia, and she hoped that they were all still alive.
Andromeda, though she seemed too weak for battle, ran into the fray, spells flying rapid-fire out of her wand. Hermione and Ginny lowered Mrs. Weasley to the ground behind the boulder.
"She'll be safe here," said Ginny.
Hermione knew there was no use in pointing out that safe was a very relative concept.
For a long, selfish-feeling second, Hermione and Ginny allowed themselves to catch their breath. From the other side of the boulder, the sounds of fighting died down.
"Did they…?" Ginny whimpered.
But, before they could so much as get to their feet to determine whether or not the battle was still going on, a tall, snake-like figure had stepped around the side of the boulder.
Lord Voldemort, his eyes slit like a snake's and practically gleaming with victory, stood just six feet away, leering down at Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley.
"We meet again," he said slowly. He held the elder wand delicately between his two hands, as though he had no intention of using it, only of having a nice chat.
"You won't win," Ginny spat at him.
"Oh, but I already have, haven't I?" Voldemort drawled. "I do believe that Harry Potter is long dead and gone, is he not? Or is he simply too cowardly to show his face to fight me himself? Hiding behind his friends again?"
He was wrong, and Hermione knew it. But she said nothing.
Voldemort turned his poisonous gaze to Ginny instead. "And I haven't seen any of your little blood traitor family around for a while, have I? My death eaters have killed them all. I wasn't paying enough mind to tell you who killed who. In fact, I believe that all of your friends are dead now. You three are the only ones that remain."
Ginny looked ready to lunge at Voldemort, but Hermione held her down.
"There is still this one, isn't there?" Voldemort continued, and in the blink of an eye his wand was gripped tightly, pointing directly at Mrs. Weasley. "Pity she didn't die the first time."
And then Voldemort was saying the words Avada Kedavra, almost as though he were simply commenting on a fluffy cloud in the sky. And Ginny was yanking her arm free of Hermione's and launching herself in front of her mother.
Hermione's wand work rivaled Voldemort's as she pointed it at Ginny. "Sectumsempra," she whispered.
It shouldn't have worked, since everyone else in the Order was probably dead, and there was no one to cast the Impedimenta. Ginny should have fallen, dead and bleeding, to the ground in front of her mother.
But, as it turned out, sometimes Voldemort is a liar.
"IMPEDIMENTA!" came a shout like a war cry from their left. Hermione barely processed that Tonks was staggering to her feet, covered in blood and looking almost like a zombie, her wand held firm and pointed at Ginny.
The three spells struck Ginny at the exact same moment. Ginny disappeared in an explosion of light.
"What?" cried Voldemort.
"Hermione!" shouted Remus from behind the boulder, his voice gravelly. Hermione didn't - couldn't - turn around to see him, but she knew that he probably looked at least as bad as his wife.
It wouldn't work. Lightning might strike three times, but there was no way it would strike a fourth. Especially when there was no one else to fire the third spell.
"Her…Hermione…" Her name drifted toward her from her right, so quiet and weak that the breath could have been blown away for good on the tiniest breath of wind. Hermione turned her head and was met with the gaze of Mrs. Weasley. The woman still looked dazed, and if the amount of blood running down her temples was any indication, she might not survive much longer. But her eyes were clear, just clear enough that Hermione listened raptly to whatever she was about to say.
"You can save them," Mrs. Weasley whispered. "Save…save them all…"
"I will, Mrs. Weasley," Hermione whispered back, tears filling her eyes.
Mrs. Weasley barely seemed to have any strength left in her, but her wand was still in her hand, and she tilted her hand, just slightly, so that her wand pointed at Hermione.
Voldemort watched this all and laughed. He looked above Hermione's head, and she knew, even without looking at Remus and Tonks, both had their wands fixed sharply on Voldemort.
"You think you can fight me, still?" Voldemort shouted over the still battlefield. "Fools, all of you! At least the mudblood knows her place. At least she knows when to give up to my power!"
His expression was filled with pure glee, because Hermione had just tucked her wand into her pocket.
"Go ahead, Lupin!" Voldemort shouted, and he laughed, again, and again. "If you won't take the mudblood's lead, then do your worst!"
Remus did exactly that.
"Avada Kedavra!" Remus Lupin screamed. And Hermione knew that he meant it. The spell was aimed at Voldemort. But that didn't mean it couldn't hit someone else.
Voldemort threw up a shield charm, but he didn't need to. Hermione lurched to her feet and directly into the spell's path. From her left, she heard Tonks' tough, determined voice shout, "Impedimenta!"
From her right, in a voice so feeble that Hermione expected the spell to fail, Mrs. Weasley whispered, "Sectumsempra."
Hermione closed her eyes. One way or another, she was about to leave this nightmare forever.
A/N: Duhn duhn duhn! That may be the darkest chapter I have ever written. Being an evil author is fun! Don't worry though, I won't leave you on that cliffhanger for long. The next (and final) chapter will be up within an hour or two.
What did you think? Please leave a review! How did I do writing Voldemort? I've never written his character before so it was an interesting challenge!
Be back soon!