A/N: This is a continuation of Chapters 7 and 24. As you all know, I have given up on this idea, as I just didn't feel like continuing on with this. However, I did go through the trouble of giving this previously incomplete chapter a decent enough ending. So, I hope you all enjoy the third and, for now, final installment of "Harry Potter and the Days of Future's Past".
Post-HBP. Non-DH Compliant. Time Travel, Dark, Angst. HG/NL.
Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past, Chapter 3: Desparate Times
Neville opened his eye slowly.
"How are things going?" he asked hoarsely.
He was in a cold dank room that felt similar to a dungeon. The only reason why he knew it wasn't so, was for a few reasons. One, he was alive, and two, he wasn't heavily shackled to a wall or floor.
"Not good Nev..." said a woman's voice hesitantly. She handed Neville a glass, which he drank greedily. "Feeling better?"
"A little, but not much..." he answered, "What the hell is going on Hannah?" The blonde haired woman looked down nervously.
"Hermione and Cho are almost done with their research, but... The Death Eaters are getting closer to this place," she said, "Daphne came back alone, with a battered and bloodied Fleur."
"What happened?" he asked.
"Charlie and George were attacked. Charlie was killed, but George managed to escape. Unfortunately, Voldemort sent a large pack of Reapers after him and decimated Viktor's place. Everyone was killed and George and Viktor were captured. Voldemort ripped everything he could from their minds. From there it was just a matter of picking off all of our bases and members one by one. If Fleur wasn't part Veela, she'd have never have made it out alive. Daphne and Anthony were ambushed on their way to find her. From what Daph said, Fleur probably saved her life."
"Anthony?" Neville asked dreading the answer he already knew.
"He... He didn't make it..." Hannah answered, holding back tears.
"I'm sorry..." Neville said sincerely, but Hannah shook her head.
"We all knew the risks... He did the best he could, just as we all do..." said Hannah reassuringly, though Neville knew it was more for her own peace of mind than his. She and Anthony were one of the few couples other than himself and Hermione within the Order, and he could tell she was just barely holding herself together. He knew her composure would not last long, as she had barely held on after both Justin and Susan were killed years ago. He nodded at her and she left him to his own thoughts. She put up a strong front, but she was no stronger than when her mother died all those years ago.
"Glad to see you're finally up," said another familiar voice, this time it was Hermione.
"How long have I been out?" he asked.
"Two days, and Ernie's trying to hold things together, but he isn't you..." she said a bit sadly as she moved into his arms drawing comfort from her husband. "It's over... If me and Cho can't get it working soon, Voldemort will have completely won."
"We can still fight..." he said with conviction, but she cut him off.
"No... No Nev, we can't and you know it..." she sounded tired, and to be truthful, everyone was, including Neville himself. He had never heard her sound so defeated. Not since Ron's funeral. "It's been one futile battle after another. Nightmare after nightmare we've lived all these years. Without Harry we never stood a chance. We both knew it. Everyone knew it."
"We lose more than just the war if we just give up Hermione..." he said wearily.
"Everyone who fought on, when others just seemed to give up... Why did they continue to fight?" she asked him. Neville didn't have an answer for her, and even if he did, he was content to just listen to her voice for a bit. "Because of Harry... Think about it. The leaders of this resistance, everyone of us knew Harry. Each of us Harry trusted at one point in time or another. Even Ernie. Sure we had our own reasons for fighting, but the main thought that was driving every one of us to oppose Voldemort when others had given up fighting, was that Harry never gave up. Even when he the odds were against him. When he had absolutely no chance, he sacrificed everything for all of us. I miss him Nev... I really do... Ron too... and Ginny and Luna..." She finally broke, sobbing into Neville's chest. To say he was stunned was an understatement.
Hermione was the strong one. She never wept, not even in private. She never showed any signs of breaking. She merely pushed on, spurred on by the tragedies around her. She was strong willed and determined. Not once did she lose herself like Neville had in all those years. She had not given up on herself or others. Of everyone, she was probably the least changed of them all and the defeated state she was in now scared even him.
She stayed like that for some time. Over twenty years of repressed grief would do that to a person. It was then that he never found it odd that she had not cried, ever. Not even after the Hogwarts Massacre, when he had been sent into a murderous blind rage. She had always taken everything in stride. Even at Ron's funeral, though she had struggled, she had only shed a single tear. He remembered her eyes when she had visited the graves of her parents right after they had been killed. Her resolve only seemed to strengthen, the flames of vengeance alight in her eyes. And now even after nearly 20 years of marriage and an even longer war, she had barely shed a single tear or grieved a single death since Harry was killed... No, assassinated...
Ron had been rendered unconscious, but Hermione... She had watched the whole thing.
She had told no one what had happened that day, not even Ron. Mostly, because they both blamed themselves, though not each other, at the loss of their friend. Something was missing, one piece of the puzzle... Something that Hermione had always been more than a little secretive about.
"Herm... Hermione... H-How... Did Harry die?" he was hesitant, and rightfully so. The only time she had ever shown strong emotions was at any mention of Harry's death. Something that scarred her deeply. She stiffened in his arms and drew back from him slightly. When she didn't answer, he pressed forward. "Hermione, tell me one thing. This... Project... You've been working on it since he died haven't you. Whatever you saw affected you badly enough that you, of all people, would meddle in something as delicate as time despite the possible consequences."
Hermione nodded, confirming his suspicions, but not really answering his questions. He looked at her sadly. "Did... You love him?"
"How could anyone who knew him not?" she asked him. "He was one of the only constants of my life when everything seemed as if it would fall apart. When he died, I lost a big part of me as well..."
Neville nodded in response, his pale face had a grim expression. "I love you, Neville. While I loved Harry, I was never in love with him, we just seemed to have a certain bond. A bond that was formed the day Harry and Ron saved me from the troll in our first year, a bond that was extended to Ginny our second year and to you and Luna our fifth. We're all we have left..." She clutched him tightly, drawing from him all the comfort she could.
"I watched him die... I watched as that thing killed him..." she sniffled.
"What was it?" asked Neville.
"I don't know... I barely saw it, but if I saw it again I would know it in a moment." she shuddered at the memory. "It was fast, brutal even... He didn't stand a chance... But he fought anyway, gave it his all, refusing to leave me or Ron behind. We had been recovering from a nasty scuffle with Death Eaters a few days prior. We had let our guard down enough that it managed to incapacitate Ron before we knew what was happening."
Neville took all of this in as she slowly relived the circumstances of Harry's death.
"Harry and I reacted in a second, but I was too slow, and I was rendered helpless. I had been slammed into the rock wall of the cave we had been stranded in. It was all I could do to stay conscious. I dropped my wand and I was too disoriented to even look for it. I screamed for Harry to run, but he stubbornly refused." she sobbed as she recounted the tale. "No matter how powerful or skilled Harry was, the creature was even more so... But still he fought bravely, and put up a valiant effort." she sobbed into his shoulder. "He saved us. He bloody saved us when he should have run! He killed it and saved us at the cost of his own life because I was too weak to help him!"
Neville let Hermione cry herself out, offering his wife as much comfort as he could. "It's okay, there was nothing you could do to prevent it."
"It knew where we were," she said after her tears had subsided. Neville wasn't sure where she was going with this, so he simply listened. "Harry and I took every precaution possible. For the longest time I couldn't figure out how it managed to track us when it should have been impossible. We couldn't possibly have been betrayed because the Order didn't even know where we were and Harry's occulmency was proficient enough at that point to prevent Voldemort from being able to pick things from his mind."
"So how did it find you?" he asked, "If I know you, you analyzed every last detail and flaw and figured out what went wrong."
"That just it, we didn't do anything wrong," said Hermione exhaustedly, "I checked everything over dozens of times and couldn't figure out what went wrong because nothing had... I was about to give up all hope when I found some residual magic."
"Residual magic from what?" asked Neville.
"A temporal displacement portal. Not only was it sent after us, but someone sent it through time to kill us," explained Hermione, "My guess is that we won, or were winning, so Voldemort or one of his lackeys sent the creature to where they knew we would be at a certain point of time and sent it back in hopes to kill us."
"It didn't work out quite like planned though because you and Ron still survived though," said Neville.
Hermione shook her head in disagreement, "Harry was the main objective, Ron and I were just bonus targets. Collateral damage, if you will. Once Harry was killed, any hope of our winning the war evaporated into thin air. Not only was he the only one who could defeat Voldemort, but he was also a beacon of hope for thousands of creatures around the world."
"So you invented this... Time portal... to save Harry?" asked Neville.
"Not just him Nev, but everyone else as well, as many people as we possibly can," said Hermione, the fatigue setting in, but a glimmer of hope shown through her eyes.
"What about... Us?" asked Neville.
"I don't know Nev, I just don't know... It would be nice if we still got together after everything... But honestly, if there was a chance to change this horrid reality and bring everyone back..." She left the rest unspoken, but Neville understood. In fact, he even agreed. No matter how much he loved Hermione, he knew that given the circumstances, they probably would have never gotten together if they hadn't lost everyone else.
They both sat in silence for a short time, just relishing in the feeling of being in each others arms.
Several hours later they felt themselves being awakened. The klaxon of several alarms were being sounded echoed through the Chamber. Suddenly Cho burst into the room.
"Death Eaters are here and we won't be ready to even test the portal for another half hour!" she shouted panickedly before rushing out fo the room.
Hermione pulled herself from Neville's embrace and went after Cho. Neville meanwhile rubbed the sleep out of his good eye with his left hand. After he got up, he stretched and with a flick of his wrist he opened his hand and out shot his wand. He rubbed his sore muscles with his non-metallic arm. Once he was satisfied that he was in good enough condition to fight he went after the two women.
Hermione Longbottom and Cho Chang were working furiously doing their best to speed up the process of opening the portal. Daphne Greengrass was carving runes into the Gateway while Hannah Abbott and Fleur Weasley were frantically going over Arithmatic equations and formulas. Hermione and Cho, were doing the spell work, chanting as fast as they safely could in hopes of having everything ready by the time Daphne got the last of the Runes in place.
"How much longer?" Neville asked.
Hannah spoke up first. "With a few modifications and borderline 'safe' short cuts fifteen minutes." she said not sounding too convinced.
"Make it ten, and I'll see if we can't hold them off for twenty," Neville said firmly, before storming out of the room. It wasn't long before the modifications to the ritual that Fleur and Hannah had made were beginning to pay off, especially when Fleur and Hannah joined Hermione and Cho with the spell work.
Not long after he left the whole structure was rocked by an explosion. Sounds of battle were drawing closer.
"They need me," said Fleur looking up, a feral gleam in her eyes. She rushed out of the room , her transformation already well underway. Despite being only a quarter veela, Fleur was still able to transform into the aviary form customary of all full and some half-blooded veela.
"The portal, should be ready..." Daphne trailed off. "The runes were rushed and rudimentary at best, but it should still work," she informed them appraising their work. She then drew her wand. "Looks like the boys and Fleur are going to need some help," she smirked confidently, "Wish me luck..."
"I hoped to go and see my mother and everyone again... But... After losing Anthony... I'm not sure if I can handle it... I'm going with Daph... Hurry and finish it, we don't have much time..." said Hannah sadly. She drew her wand and followed Daphne out.
After the last bit of chanting Hermione and Cho were exhausted.
"Damn... we're no good to them now..." said Cho panting heavily. "Let's get this thing turned on..." She and Hermione then began to use the various potions and materials they had gathered and started spreading them on the runes.
"Don't forget the wristbands..." Hermione reminded Cho. Another explosion rocked the structure. "They're much closer..."
"Why do we need these wristbands?" asked Cho.
"Time travel is a tricky concept at best... Mostly theory and guesswork... Some say only one version of you can survive at any given time, so the stronger one will push the weaker one out of existence. Another is that the two entities will merge to become a single being with a single identity. Both the younger and the older versions would effectively cease to exist and in their place would be a single consciousness."
"What about time turners?" asked Cho, "Nothing I've ever heard says anything like that has ever happened."
"That's because Time Turners can only go back a few hours at a time, and it is imperative that you avoid your past self or else one might kill the other or one will drive the other insane.
"We must be all that's left if they're pushing us back with these sort of numbers," yelled Neville as he burst into the room. "Snake face himself decided to show up too! How much longer?"
"Not long, we just have the activation sequence..." said Hermione nervously.
"Don't worry, I'm sure everything will turn out fine!" Neville tried to reassure her, "Now hurry, because they've broken through all of our defenses and they've pushed us back into the main antechamber."
They had only coated the portal ring and a little over half of the wristbands with the activation potion, now they just had to activate them. Hermione started on the portal while Cho activated as many of the wristbands as she could. Another explosion knocked them all off of their feet as a hole was blown through the wall. Neville was the first to recover carelessly and rapidly throwing curses and hexes through the hole. Hermione resumed chanting, just a few more moments and it would all be ready.
As the dust cleared they could see most of the fighting had stopped. Only a few members of the Order Remnant were still fighting, all the others were dead. Neville's curses were bouncing harmlessly off of a shield erected by Voldemort as he casually approached them.
"Give it up Longbottom, you can't win... I finally have my victory at last!"
"You'll have to kill me first!" Neville shouted.
"Obliged," Voldemort said curtly. He motioned with his hand and the Death Eaters began to start firing all at once at Neville who was barely blocking or deflecting curses.
There was a burst of magical energy nearby, he could see that Hermione and Cho had gotten the portal open. Quickly he summoned one of the wristbands to him and slapped it onto his wrist. As he did this he was caught with a cutting curse in the leg.
"Damn..." Neville cursed. "Get out of here!" he shouted to Hermione and Cho, the latter had placed a wristband on both of their wrists and shoved the bushy haired woman through the portal, jumping in behind her by a few seconds. As she was engulfed by a bright, white light, Cho turned to see Neville destroying all the rest of the Time Displacement Bands before being struck down by several curses.