Chapter 7: The Garus Glitch
Pronunciation note: Haname Garus (hah-nuh-may gair-us).
"Never-Ending Story" by Within Temptation.
"Me and Regulus Black?" Hermione whispered. She sat on one of the old couches in the manor, still in a stunned daze. "In the same classes? Writing notes to each other? How could that be?"
"Sirius told me Regulus was a Death Eater," Harry said. "He said the Death Eaters killed him when he wanted to quit."
"That was ages ago," Ron said, shaking his head. "How could he know Hermione? He couldn't've even known her family, 'cause she's muggleborn."
"And if he knew her, you'd think the others that were in school then would remember her," Harry said. "Dumbledore? McGonagall? Sirius? Remus? Snape? Several Death Eaters? Why don't they remember her being with Regulus?"
Hermione picked up the book they'd found the notes between her and Regulus inside and opened it to the table of contents. "In the notes, I mentioned a 'Glitch' in Flamel's book," she said. "This must be the book that I meant."
"The 'still living ones'?" Harry quoted from the notes, "When you 'get back'? He knows about the note we found with the fake Horcrux before he's written it."
"Sounds like something that might've happened in third year, when Hermione was using the time-turner," Ron said. "Could it have to do with time travel?"
"All the time-turners were destroyed in the fight in the Department of Mysteries," Hermione said distractedly, thumbing through the pages of the Magical Milestones book. "And besides, the time-turners couldn't go that far back in time. They worked by the hour, and they didn't bring you back forward to the time you started in. You had to live the same hours twice."
"There were other time-related experiments in that department," Harry offered.
"Here!" Hermione said, pointing at a page she'd just turned to. "The Garus Glitch. It says here that a witch named Haname Garus, when researching time travel beyond the capacity of time-turners, found a way to transport herself as far as forty years back in time and, after remaining in the past for as long as five months, she could return to the time she traveled from. Upon returning to her present time, the memories of everyone she made contact with in the past simultaneously changed to include her."
"So she changed the past from what it was supposed to be and altered everyone's true past memories?" Harry asked.
"No," Hermione said. "It says here that affected people testified that their memories made more sense than when they didn't include her."
"What?" Ron said, flabbergasted.
"She went several years back in time," Hermione said. "But, unlike what would've happened if she'd used a time-turner, nobody who saw her in the past remembered her until she returned to her present time, their future. Instead, they remembered things that never happened, to accommodate for her absence in their memory."
"So it sort of worked like a Memory Modification Charm," Ron said, some understanding starting to form.
"Exactly," Hermione said. "So she had to go back in time, because she did go back in time, but nobody remembered her until she returned to their future, her present time. A phenomenon that was named after her: The Garus Glitch. It says here that after one of her experiments with the spell, her experiment was confiscated by the Ministry of Magic, because two wizards involved in a violent love triangle with her in the past ended up killing each other. They locked all her notes and supplies for the experiment in the Department of Mysteries.
"That door in the department we couldn't get open," Harry said. "They locked that room because the experiment inside it was too dangerous to continue."
"That has to be what I'm talking about in the note with Regulus," Hermione said. "That's the only way it makes sense. Somehow, I got back to his time using the Garus Glitch, and I helped him destroy the Horcrux. That would explain why we couldn't kill Nagini. Technically, though the Horcrux was destroyed, it can't be destroyed until I go back in time and destroy it with Regulus Black."
"Hermione, it's dangerous!" Ron said, startled by how quick she was to accept her apparent task. "So dangerous that the Ministry seized it and locked it away where no one could get to it!"
"Restrictions like that have never stopped us before," Hermione shrugged. Ron's shock turned to mild desperation. He moved over to where she sat and grabbed both her hands, making her drop the book into her lap.
"Hermione, we're talking about breaking the law, breaking into the Ministry again, with everyonelooking for us, and all going back from the middle of the second magic war, to the middle of the first," he said, trying to coax out the more sensible side of Hermione.
"Not all of us," Hermione corrected. "Me. Harry looks almost exactly like his father and your mother should be a seventh-year, married to your father, and already a mother to a baby Bill. You two would be too conspicuous. I'm the only one of us with no previous relation to the wizarding world. I'm the only one that won't run into my parents in class." Ron stared at her, unable to argue. Harry was staring at her too, stunned by her last statement. The concept of her spending so much time with his parents... it was irony at its most brutal.
"So, the next questions are: How do we get to Garus' experiment? And what are you going to do if we can get you back to the right time?" Harry said, ignoring the sickening sensations he felt in his stomach. Ron stared at Harry, clearly uncomfortable with where this conversation kept heading, despite his resistance. With a heavy sigh, he chose to give in to the inevitable.
"If she's gonna go back, we'll still want to communicate with her," he said. "Didn't you and Sirius use two-way mirrors?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "I still have mine, but I don't know where Sirius kept his. It's probably here somewhere. Kreacher!" Kreacher appeared with a resounding cracking noise and leered at Harry and his friends.
"What does Master want now?" He spoke as though the words burned his tongue.
"Did you ever see Sirius with a hand-mirror?" Harry asked the contemptuous elf.
"Kreacher might have," the elf responded smugly.
"Well, go get it from where you might have seen him put it," Harry said with equal disdain. "And bring it here." Kreacher stalked off, hissing more verbal assaults under his breath.
"Since the break-in in fifth year, they've tightened security all over the Ministry," Ron said once Kreacher was out of sight. "Leave it to the auror-turned-Minister to keep to his roots."
"There has to be a way to get in that room," Hermione said. "We saw the note. I did make it back there, so I will."
"Mirror?" The trio jumped as one. They hadn't seen or heard Kreacher come up behind Harry. Kreacher was holding the second of the two-way mirrors out to Harry, though his eyes were on Hermione. "What room, Miss?" Kreacher asked her, making another very Umbridge-like attempt to seem friendly. "Back where?"
"It's none of your business, Kreacher," Harry snapped, losing the last of his patience with Kreacher's games. He took the mirror from Kreacher and immediately tucked it inside his jacket.
"That's one of the mirrors you can see another wizard through," Kreacher continued, still trying to seem innocent and of good intentions. "Master already has one. Why does he need the other? Are Master and his friends going to part?" Harry glared at Kreacher.
"Kreacher, you are forbidden to tell anyone you ever saw me, Ron, or Hermione. You cannot repeat anything you heard said here, or anything that you said yourself. You are not to tell anyone you were ever here, at all." Harry recited the proper commands to force the elf's silence, under any and all circumstances. Kreacher's falsely kind demeanor was gone in a flash. He opened his mouth to spew a comeback when Harry interrupted.
"Remember, Kreacher, no more insults, or you get to stay in your little storage room." Kreacher was silent, though staring daggers at Harry. "Go back to Bellatrix, Kreacher," Harry told the elf coolly. "If she goes as far trying to get you to talk as she did with the Longbottoms, you'll be no worse off." The elf gave the trio one more glare, then he disappeared.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione couldn't sleep that night, back in their Knockturn Alley hideout. The discoveries of the day left them stunned, sickened, and searching for answers. Though they had the two-way mirrors, would they still work in different times? How would they get to Garus' experiment in the Ministry? What would Harry and Ron do, if they were able to get Hermione back to the time when their parents were their age, while she was gone? What would happen to Hermione? The concept of having to separate from each other for an indefinite amount of time was almost more than they could take. They all sat bolt upright in bed when a sound like a clap of thunder echoed through their room.
"Kreacher?!" Harry blurted, blinking at their elf intruder. "What are you doing here?!"
"Mistress Bellatrix ordered Kreacher to deliver a gift to Master and his friends," the elf answered as though Harry's question was a shock to him, his narrow eyes gleaming wickedly.
"Bellatrix sent you here?!" Hermione asked anxiously, pulling her covers higher up around her. "How did she—"
"Master ordered Kreacher to say nothing about where he'd been. Kreacher didn't." The elf continued, "But Mistress guessed who he'd been with, and she ordered him to return to Master with a gift. Kreacher can't refuse an order to do good for his master. Kreacher brings Master this." Kreacher held up a large crystal that instantly began radiating a glaringly bright purple light. Hermione squinted at the inscription on the crystal's face.
"Harry, it's a power beacon!" She screamed, "They've activated it! They know where we are!"
"GRAB THE BAGS!" Harry shouted, throwing himself from his bed. As soon as he grabbed his bottomless bag, he pulled a sock out of it that he threw at Kreacher. "You're dismissed, Kreacher!" He shouted over his shoulder as he, Ron, and Hermione charged out the door of their room, in their pajamas, their bags slung about their shoulders and their wands clutched tightly in their hands. They expected they'd left things behind, but every extra second they spent in that room could be fatal.
A couple of wizards were entering the inn as the trio reached the lobby. Unable to slow down in time, the trio collided with the two men. All five lobby occupants fell to the floor in a tangle of bodies and bags. The two men pushed themselves up and one growled, "Watch where you're going you... Bloody Hell, it's them!"
Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked toward the men, startled, and they saw a bright flash of light from a camera instead. It was the camera of a professional photographer. "How many people are going to find us in one night?!" Ron shouted, throwing an arm up to cover his face and pulling Hermione up with his other hand.
"Ignore it!" Harry yelled, "Just run!" He dodged around the photographer and the other wizard, Hermione at his heels and Ron behind her. More flashes of light burst from the photographer's camera as they fled. Too tired to safely Disapparate, and knowing the Knight Bus was too obvious, they just ran as hard as they could.
Harry shoved an arm in his bag as they headed in the direction of Diagon Alley. He pulled his Firebolt out at an awkward angle. Ron followed his lead and pulled out a Nimbus Two-Thousand Fred and George had gifted to him. Harry glanced at Hermione.
"Hermione, ride with me," Harry called to her. He would be able to fly with her better than Ron would.
As soon as the trio reached the more open area of Diagon Alley, they mounted the two brooms and took flight. Just as they were flying over Gringotts bank, a jet of red light shot past them, barely missing Ron's head. As Harry and Ron broke into maneuvers they might use in a quidditch match, Hermione twisted around and showered the pack of Death Eaters on the ground below with Stunners. More of their curses focused in on her in retaliation, but Harry dodged them with relative ease.
The Death Eaters' attacks continued to chase them for what seemed like an endless distance, but the airborne trio had the advantage. They finally lost their attackers when they flew over the top of a dense cluster of trees the Death Eaters couldn't aim through.
"Now where do we go," Hermione said breathlessly in Harry's ear, her voice hoarse from shouting defensive spells. Harry couldn't answer. He had no idea.