A/N: Here we go, the final chapter as promised! See the end of the chapter for more notes.
Disclaimer: I still do not own Harry Potter!
1993
A week after Sirius came back into Harry's life, Harry was sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room, lost in his thoughts.
The Common Room was mostly empty, because most of the school was either at dinner or outside enjoying the cool Autumn air. He, Ron, and Hermione had left the Great Hall half an hour before. Hermione had run off to the library - Harry wasn't sure if she was doing homework or time travel research - and Ron had retreated to the dormitory to do homework. Harry didn't mind, as he reclined in one of the overstuffed armchairs by the fire and closed his eyes. He was enjoying the time to think.
When Harry first woke up in 1993, he didn't expect to ever adjust to it. It felt strange in all sorts of ways, and Harry had been tempted to hide in his dormitory instead of actually acknowledging what had happened to him. The task of slipping back into his thirteen-year-old life had been daunting, and third-year classes themselves had been enough to make him want to run screaming. It was hard to pretend that he wasn't four years ahead of his peers. It had been hard to not murder Snape, and Harry had spent all of Potions reminding himself, again and again, that this Snape hadn't killed Dumbledore yet. Sneaking off the grounds to go visit Sirius had been fun, but watching Sirius readjust in his early days out of Azkaban was sobering. Harry nearly cried a few times after leaving Sirius' cave, because the knowledge that this Sirius had barely even met him hurt.
But, in the middle of one of Harry's hardest challenges, Ron and Hermione had been at his side. They barely left him alone, but they gave him space to think when he needed it. Hermione was still prone to pick his brains about time travel, have a sudden moment of inspiration, then run off to the library. Ron, though, was the more tactful friend for once. Ron was content to not talk about time travel at all, or to simply sit back and play a game of chess with Harry.
Harry had decided not to try and go home. He would, instead, use this freak accident as an opportunity to change the past, save lives, and maybe defeat Voldemort before the Wizarding World entered an all-out war.
The problem was, he still didn't know how to do that.
Harry had told Remus pretty much everything. Remus himself seemed almost as overwhelmed as Harry felt, and sometimes Harry felt bad for that, even though Remus repeatedly told him not to blame himself. However, Harry still hadn't told everything to Ron and Hermione. He knew he would have to some day - and he dreaded that day. He wanted to spare them at least some of the details of the war, for as long as he could.
For example, he had not yet told Ron about Scabbers' true identity. All Ron knew was that Scabbers had gone mysteriously missing. In truth, Harry had stunned Scabbers, given him to Remus, and Remus currently had him in an enchanted cage in his office. Harry wasn't entirely sure why Remus hadn't turned the rat into the authorities yet, but he also was okay if he never knew. It was nice, Harry reflected, to be a kid again, and to let the adults take care of something for him every once in a while. Harry had enough on his plate.
One day soon, Harry would have to make a game plan for saving the world. When that day came, he would tell Ron and Hermione everything, because he would need to rely on Hermione's genius and Ron's calm reasoning to make a plan at all. But for now, he sat on a couch in the Common Room, pretending that he didn't have any more responsibility than the average thirteen-year-old.
"Do you mind if I sit here?" came a small voice from above Harry.
Harry's eyes popped open and he jumped. "Oh! Ginny, hi! Of course."
Ginny slowly lowered herself into the overstuffed armchair across from him. Harry couldn't help but study her. Here was Ginny, at twelve years old. This was not the Ginny Weasley who he had dated, who he had fallen so in love with that he broke up with her to protect her. This was Ron's little sister. To her, he had saved her in the Chamber of Secrets only a few months ago. Did she still have a massive crush on him? Maybe she was starting to grow out of it, if she had been brave enough to come sit with him.
"How are you doing?" he asked her.
"I'm fine. What about you?" she asked him, shyly. "I just…I noticed that you seemed a little bit off over the last week."
Harry blinked. Had his behavior been that noticeable? But then again, Ginny was observant. She could always read his mood, even more than Ron and Hermione could.
"I'm…okay," he said, peering over at her. He wondered for a few seconds if he should tell her the truth. He trusted her, in the future, as much as he trusted Ron and Hermione. But how would he explain why he trusted her? They barely knew each other, now. Would he tell her that they had been a couple? How would thirteen-year-old Ron react to the information that Harry had dated (and dumped) his baby sister?
So instead of telling Ginny the truth, Harry simply asked, "Do you want to play Exploding Snap?"
They did. For a blissful hour, Harry was able to forget his age, forget that he was a time traveler, forget that he had to figure out a plan to save the world. Once the ice was broken Ginny's shyness had washed down the drain. He had almost forgotten how easy it was to be around her, how much fun they had when they were together, and it made him miss future Ginny, in 1997, who had had left behind at the Burrow. He wondered, if he was able to change the future for the better, if maybe he and Ginny could date again, and maybe he wouldn't ever have to leave her.
But for now none of those thoughts mattered. For now the only thing Harry had to worry about was keeping the cards from exploding in his face.
Ginny slapped down a card on the table, waggling an eyebrow at Harry. Harry smirked back, and slapped down one of his own.
With a bang and a small burst of smoke, the pile of cards exploded.
Harry laughed out loud. So did Ginny, especially when Harry reached out to touch the cards and burned his fingers on the remnants of smoldering paper, and had to dart to the bathroom to run his hands under warm water. But when Harry returned from the bathroom, his fingers stinging significantly less, Ginny was no longer laughing.
"Ginny?" called Harry across the otherwise deserted Common Room. "Ginny? Gin!"
Ginny had fallen over sideways as though she had fainted, and she was halfway falling out of the chair. Harry raced forward and caught her before she could fall completely. He lowered her onto the carpet, onto her back, and shook her shoulder anxiously.
"Ginny!" he said in a harsh whisper. "Gin, what happened? C'mon, wake up!" When her eyes stayed glued shut, he turned his face upward. "RON!" he bellowed, hoping that his friend would hear him from the dormitory above.
He looked back down at Ginny, who started to convulse, almost like she was having a seizure. It only lasted for a moment, luckily, but it was enough to make Harry panic as he attempted to keep her head from bashing into the floor. Had Ginny had any sort of health scares the first time in 1993? Would Harry have even noticed?
As soon as Harry was sure that Ginny had stopped convulsing, he started to stand up, to run get Ron, or maybe even Madam Pomfrey, for help. But before he could, Ginny's hand had shot upward and grabbed Harry's wrist.
"Harry?" she gasped. "Is it really you?"
He looked down at her, and her eyes were wide open. He couldn't pull his eyes away, because there was something intense about her gaze. Something familiar. Her eyes looked anguished, like she had seen war, like she had seen death.
The eyes looking back at him were not the eyes of Ron's twelve-year-old little sister. They were the eyes of Ginny. Sixteen-year-old Ginny, who Harry loved.
"Ginny?" he gasped.
Ginny sat up ramrod straight, grabbed Harry, and yanked him into a hug.
"We found you," she whispered, and tears started to pour down her face.
Harry couldn't help but hug her back, even if his thoughts were spinning completely out of control. "Ginny - what- how -?"
Ginny pulled back, and her deep brown, mature, war-torn eyes seemed very out of place in her twelve-year-old body. "It is you, right?" she asked him. Her eyes scanned him, and he knew that she was taking in how young he looked, too. "From…from 1997?"
"It's me, Gin," he said.
Ginny's face flooded with relief, but she was a warrior, so she pushed him back, searched desperately for her wand, then snatched it off the coffee table. She pointed it at his heart. "What was the first thing that Bill said to you when we told him we were dating?"
Harry looked longingly into her eyes. "That if I hurt you, Voldemort would have to fight him to finish me off."
Ginny burst into a new wave of tears, and Harry held her tightly.
"How did…how did you…?" he stammered.
"Luna and Cho figured it out, Harry! Hermione saw the spells you were hit with, and they figured it out. We didn't think we could come after you, but…but…"
"Hold on, we?" asked Harry, his heart hammering loudly. "Did someone else come back?"
"I think Ron did," Ginny said. "And Hermione was going to…but…oh, Hermione! They're dead, Harry! They're all dead!"
Ginny was the strongest girl that Harry knew, and he could tell that, whatever had happened since he left 1997, it had almost broken her. Just hearing her words broke him a little bit, too.
"Hermione's dead?" came another voice, from the direction of the stairwell.
Harry and Ginny spun around to see Ron, standing on the second step from the bottom, looking at both of them with a shell-shocked expression on his face. His hair was rumpled and he still looked very much thirteen, but Harry knew without asking that Ron, too, had just come back from 1997.
Ginny disentangled herself from Harry's embrace and flung herself at her brother. "Oh, Ron!" she shouted.
"You made it too?" Ron's voice cracked. "Gin, I didn't think you would be able to -"
"Me neither," she said, wiping at her eyes. "But Voldemort tried to kill Mum -"
"What?" both Harry and Ron shouted at once.
Ron's head spun toward Harry, and a grin blossomed across his face despite the dark news bombs that Ginny was dropping. He leapt over Ginny where she sat sobbing on the steps and flung his arms around Harry. "It's really you! We were so hoping we'd find you, mate -"
"What happened?" Harry asked again.
"First of all, what year is it?" asked Ron.
"1993," said Harry.
Ginny choked back a sob. "They're all alive."
Ron's eyes lit up, processing memories that Harry had missed, apparently. "Dad and Bill and Fleur…"
Ginny sunk onto the lowest step. "It was all of them, Ron. All of them. And I knew you were alive, but I still saw you get hit by the Killing Curse -"
"What?" Harry repeated.
"Yeah, about that, mate," Ron said to Harry. He might have been in shock from Ginny's revelations, but he laughed incredulously. "You're not the only one who's survived the Killing Curse now."
"What?" Harry screeched again. This time, they actually seemed to listen.
Sitting there in the deserted Common Room, with Ginny slumped on the steps and Ron pacing the room anxiously, they told Harry everything that had happened in 1997 since he had disappeared. He felt the weight lift off of his shoulders, ounce by ounce, until he realized that he, too, was crying in relief.
By the end of Ginny's explanation, though, they all felt ready to melt into a puddle of grief.
"Hermione's dead, then," Ron whispered, running his hands over his face.
"Maybe she survived," Ginny offered feebly. But Harry could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew that there was no way that Hermione had survived. And if she did, then it wasn't much better, was it? According to Ginny, all of the Weasleys except for them were dead in the future, and the entire Order was, too. Voldemort had won.
"But none of that still exists, right?" Harry said, his voice shaking. "We're in the past now, we can rewrite whatever happens, right?"
Ron was shaking his head slowly. "She…she explained it to us. That was in a different timeline, which means it's still happening, too, which means Hermione is actually dead."
Harry knew that the thirteen-year-old Hermione was in the castle right now, safe and sound and probably completely unaware that anything had happened in the Common Room at all. She was alive. But what would it be like, when Ron and Ginny saw her? Would they be able to accept that this was the same Hermione they had always been friends with, as Harry had? Or would they be so overwhelmed with grief that they couldn't bear to look at her?
"I'll be right back," said Harry quickly. He backed away from his friends, the ones who had time traveled to come back and be with him, and headed toward the portrait hole. He needed to find young Hermione in the library, and warn her of what had happened. She needed to know that Ron and Ginny, too, had come back in time, and that they might not react well to seeing her.
He would have to warn her that she, in their memories, was dead.
But before Harry could push the portrait hole open, it had swung open from the outside. Standing there, framed in the opening, was Hermione.
Her eyes lit up. "Harry," she breathed.
Before Harry could do anything but stare at her, Ron had stepped up beside him. His eyes took in every inch of Hermione, from her bushy hair to her buck teeth to her eyes, to the awestruck smile on her face.
"Her…Hermione…?" he whispered.
She leapt through the portrait hole and stormed up to Ron, staring directly up into his eyes. "What were you thinking, Ronald?! Running out of the cave like that! If Ginny and I hadn't seen the curse and fired those spells you would be dead! Are you even listening! I could've lost you!"
Ron reached forward, grabbed Hermione's face, and kissed her.
Harry's eyes widened. Ginny looked up, and her tear-stained face morphed into a exuberant smile. Then she was laughing, and so was Harry.
Ron and Hermione pulled away from each other after only a second, and even they seemed to realize that a passionate kiss between two thirteen-year-olds was a little weird. But they didn't waste a second before hugging, instead, and when Harry and Ginny both ran forward, they swallowed them up in the hug, too.
"You came after me," Harry breathed into the huddle, amazed.
"Of course we did," said Ron. "We couldn't let you be alone."
"I never was," said Harry with an incredulous laugh.
But, there with the three people who mattered the most to him in the world, he knew that nothing would ever be impossible for them. Nothing, not even war, death, feuds, breakups, or time travel, would ever separate them.
Harry couldn't find it in him to worry about the future. If they had survived even this, they could survive anything.
The End
A/N: And so, after almost two years, we come to the end of our twelve-chapter long adventure. I hope the ending was satisfying! I know that this may feel a little bit unfinished...from the beginning, I intended this to be a different kind of time travel fic. The point of Even This was to write a story in which Harry travels back in time and decides to trust his friends. The intense 1997 plot was not planned originally, but I am very happy with how it turned out. This story was never intended to be about Harry and co fixing the future, but about them adjusting to the craziness of time travel and learning to lean on each other all over again. The ending is intended to be open-ended. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny are filled with hope, even though they have a long road ahead of them still.
That said, I have considered writing a sequel to this fic! The sequel would follow along the lines of most Harry Potter time travel fics - Harry and co working to fix the future, alongside their many allies. A sequel would feature Dumbledore (I won't do any bashing) as well as the Weasley's reactions to finding out that two of their children have traveled from the future. Some cannon couple romance will also likely be involved. I have no clue how that plot would go, exactly, so I won't write it for a while. Please let me know if you think I should continue this story and write the sequel!
Thank you all so much for reading! Writing my first fanfiction has been a blast and I've loved all the comments, views, and support that this community has to offer. I hope to post some more fanfiction in the near future!