"Let's." Malfoy answered and nodded to Hermione.
As one the four took a deep breath and followed Hermione as she led them into the so-called Veil of Death and into its darkness.
Neville opened his eyes and looked around. "Oh, crap." He whispered.
Luna opened her eyes and looked around. "Oh, dear." She whispered.
Draco opened his eyes and looked around. "Oh, you have got to be joking." He whispered.
Hermione opened her eyes and looked around. "Oh, bollocks." She swore.
Hermione sat up and reacted automatically, as two things fell towards the floor. Her hands reached out and clutched at whatever the items were, her fingers closing about familiar piece of wood and what felt like a handful of worms. Lifting her hands to where she could see them, her eyes confirmed that, yes, that was her wand and no, it wasn't a handful of worms, it was the strings of her beaded handbag.
A further look around her confirm two more things. One, this was clearly her room in her parents' house in Crawley, and two, there were pictures of her with her parents. But given the décor of the room and the age she was in the pictures, it was more likely that she'd time travelled, than that the obliviate had finally been reversed. As she climbed to her feet, it became obvious that time travel was involved.
Her reflection in the full-length mirror showed that she was back to being a bushy haired and bucktoothed child, again. Even if she was wearing the same clothes she'd had on as she stepped into the veil with Luna, Neville and Malfoy.
"Oh, gods." She whispered. "How do I contact them? I can't use my wand, not now, the underage registry will pick it up." She paced from one side of the room to the other. "What to do? What to do?" She whispered, her shoulders hunched and her head tilted towards the floor. She paced like this for a few minutes, before looking at her desk, with its exercise-book-journal. She began to walk towards it. "Time and date. I need to know what they are, but I also can't be seen, by myself or my paren-…" She came sharp halt. "Wait." She looked at her reflection in the mirror again. "Time travel doesn't change the traveller…" She whispered. "Unless…" Her jaw fell and her shoulders slumped. "Unless Croaker was right. Time Turners turn time around you, but a Time Reverter, reverts time through the wearer, making time reverse and their physical bodies revert in age, while their memories, which are intangible, remained untouched." She reached for the wall, needing something to hold her upright. "Oh, Gods, do we have to live through that again?" Her mind raced. Who was right? Croaker? Or Harry, with his someplace else, theory?
She jerked in shock as a thought ran through her mind. "What if they're both right? What if we've been sent someplace else and Reverted, too?" Her head tilted. "Does that mean… Are there two Hermione Grangers, here? Was there ever a Hermione Granger, here? Have I merged with the existing Hermione? Or… Have I taken her place?" She looked at the pictures on the walls. "I remember most of these, so I can cross off the question of whether she existed. But that leaves me with… am I the only Hermione or are there two?" She glanced at the door. "One way to find out."
She eased the door open and stepped out into the semi-darkened hallway, thankful that dawn was approaching, at least she could see where she was going. As she moved down the hall, she glanced in each room, family bathroom – empty, guest bedroom – empty, second guest bedroom – empty, and finally… Her parents' bedroom. She quietly opened the door a bare crack, unsure of what she would find. A glance, not towards her parents' bed, that would require opening the door further, but towards her mother's dressing table and its mirror-reflected image, answered her questions… And created more.
With her parents' asleep in their bed and her room being the only room to indicate occupation, she would be forgiven for assuming that she was the only Hermione Jean Granger in this… place? time? Which was it? Was it a different world? Or just a time reversion?
How to find out? First, she needed to know the date.
Hermione crept her way down the wide stairs and into a room to the left, across the lushly carpeted floor to a large desk. There she sidled around the desk to stand beside the chair that was tucked slightly into the desk's foot-well. She reached across the desk and as quietly as she could, she slid the day-to-a-page diary towards her. Opening it she studied the date.
Tuesday the 18th of June 1991.
"Oh, good grief. I haven't started Hogwarts, yet." She whispered. "McGonagall hasn't even been. That won't happen for another week. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" She looked down at the clothes. "Well I suppose the first thing that needs to happen is to find some age-appropriate clothing. Then work out how to get a message to Luna, Neville and Malfoy." She wandered back up the stairs, muttering under her breath. "Easiest way is to send a patronus, but… de-aging or Reverting, as the case may, usually affects the core, so is mine stable? Enough to cast a patronus? Otherwise, it means waiting until McGonagall's been and visiting Diagon and the post owl office… or…. I could try and recreate the mirrors that Sirius gave Harry… Hmm… That could keep me busy for a fortnight. Mum and dad go to work during the day, that leaves me plenty of time to sort through the marauders' crap." She entered her room before something occurred to her.
"Oh… if mum and dad aren't home, I can apparate to Diagon Alley. And apparition doesn't register as being cast, because while you use your wand as a focus, you aren't so much casting as willing yourself to be somewhere else. And the ambient magic there is enough to mask me if I put up glamours. Then I can send an owl to… oh, hell, why can't I just apparate staright to Luna's? Then we can floo call Neville, who can floo Malfoy… or send him an owl? I don't know, Neville would know which is the safest option." She nodded and surveyed her room. "I need to hide my wand and bag for the moment, I can't afford to have mum or dad find them. At least not until McGonagall's been, then it won't matter so much. But for now…?" She quickly lifted a print of a unicorn, that looked exceptionally like a real unicorn, and balanced her wand on the inside of the rear or the frame. "And my bag…?" The sight of the blue, pink and yellow floral briefcase-like satchel made her wince. "Oh, god, and I thought that was the height of schoolbag fashion? Ugh… Oh, well, it'll do for now. I can get something more suitable and pass it off, to mum and dad, as being recommended by McGonagall." She dropped the satchel on the bed, on top of her beaded bag and went hunting for some clothes.
Ten minutes later she was ready to face the day, wearing denim shorts, a sleeveless button-down shirt and a pair of ballet flats on her feet.
Two hours later, her parents were ready to leave for the day.
"Mum?" Hermione waited until the last possible moment, to ask.
"Yes, dear?" Mrs Jean Mary Granger, nee Sampson replied.
"Can I go to the library? Please? Oh, and the mall? I need a new journal. Please?" She tried to sound like a first year asking for help on an assignment, but she wasn't sure how she came across.
"Of course, dear, but I'd prefer you to spend more time at the library than the mall." Jean answered.
"Thanks, mum." Hermione smiled.
"Have you got enough money?" Ian Granger asked.
"Uh… I don't know… Let me check." Hermione replied, before darting up the stairs and digging into her satchel to find her tiny denim flower-embroidered wallet. Back downstairs, she opened the wallet to find a £5 note and a few odd coins. She had plenty of gold, in a trunk in her beaded bag, but little in the way of muggle money and it was better to leave that untouched, until her parents weren't around to question it.
"Um… I've got £6 and 80p, daddy." Hermione said, counting quickly.
"And while that's enough for a new journal, knowing you, my little love, you're going to want a new pen to go with it and of course, you'll want to drop into The Works and possibly Waterstones." Ian laughed, gently.
"Possibly…" Hermione ducked her head, guiltily, like she'd been caught with a hand in the biscuit barrel.
Jean and Ian both chuckled and pulled out their wallets.
"Here, lovey." Jean handed her two more £5 notes.
"And tuck these in behind your library card. Don't spend them if you don't need to, alright?" Ian held out a £10 note and another £5 note. "Oh, and here…" He trickled some £1 coins into her hand.
"Thank you, mum. Thank you, daddy." She beamed at them.
"You're welcome, lovey. Now, we need to get a move on. Do you want us to drop you at the mall? If so, go grab your bag, a jacket and an umbrella, it's supposed to rain later." Jean frowned as she looked out the window.
"Yes, please." Hermione dashed back to her room to fetch her satchel, with her beaded bag inside it, her wand came out of its hiding place and went into her satchel. As she left her room, she grabbed a denim jacket and the polka-dotted umbrella, hanging on the back of the door.
"Ready!" She yelled as she bounced down the stairs. Really…? Acting like a child wasn't nearly as hard as she'd thought it was going to be.
Half an hour, Hermione found a spot, obscured behind a tired old truck, and withdrew her wand from her bag. Holding her wand pointing towards the ground, she focused on the odd shape of Luna's house. She took a deep breath and disapparated.
Crack.
She opened her eyes to see exactly what she expected to see. The slightly distorted shape of the Rookery. She trotted up the path and lifted her hand to rap on the door, only to have it open.
"Hermione?" Luna looked the most afraid that Hermione had ever seen her.
"Hi Luna." What else could she say?
"Oh, thank heavens." Luna lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Hermione. "I thought I was going sane. Except, my bag was in my hand when I woke up. I didn't know what to do. Thank heavens daddy is as oblivious as ever."
"Oh, yeah, I know that feeling. We need to find Neville and Malfoy. Get a plan together for finding Harry."
"Oh, dear. That's not going to be easy. Finding Harry, I mean. Come and look." Luna drew Hermione into the house and down into an underground basement. "This is where we keep all the old copies of the newspapers, ours and the Prophet. This is what I found." Luna handed Hermione an old copy of the Daily Prophet.
The headlines took up nearly a quarter of the front page.
VOLDEMORT DEFEATED
Dumbledore victorious again!
Sirius Black, James, Lily and Harry Potter dead.
"Oh, dear…" Hermione whispered.
"There's more" Luna handed over a second Prophet.
CROUCH JNR AND LESTRANGES DEAD!
Executed after found guilty of attacking Aurors' child with cruciatus.
Longbottoms injured but expected to recover, infant awarded Lestrange estate in compensation.
"Oh… oh, Neville… his… oh, my…." Hermione didn't know what to say.
"Yes, form what I can gather from the prophet, Neville was only fifteen months old when Bellatrix Lestrange put him under the cruciatus, but his parents were able to save him. It did, however, drain his core, to dangerous levels. Now, we know that Neville is a powerful wizard, but the Neville that was here before, was little more than a squib, so how that's to be resolved, I don't know." Luna explained.
"How can we contact him?"
"Patronus?" Luna asked blandly.
"No, don't even think it. From what I can figure out we haven't… I think when we stepped through the veil, we were sent to a different universe, but also to a different time, I think we've Time Reverted not Time Turned."
Luna blinked in surprise. "Well, that would answer a lot." She hummed. "A difference universe? That would explain the differences, Neville's parents being alive and Harry not. And also, this…" A third sheet of the Prophet was held up.
DUMBLEDORE DEMANDS ALL SUSPECTED DEATH-EATERS BE GIVEN VERITASERUM
Those found guilty executed.
The innocent set free.
Followed by a list of the guilty and the innocent. And right there in the rather short list of the innocent were two familiar names. Severus Tobias Snape and Lucius Abraxas Malfoy.
"Malfoy's father is innocent?" Hermione gasped.
"According to the Prophet and daddy, Bellatrix put Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black under the imperius while they were still at Hogwarts." Luna answered. "Dumbledore insisted on questioning them all under veritaserum and truth spells. Bellatrix was the one to admit it and said she gave Lucius and Narcissa to Voldemort and that they were still under it, the Unspeakables were called in and they tested all the suspects and found that quite a few were under imperius. They broke them free of the curse and purged all potions, charms, hexes and curses from all the suspects before they went to trial. Dumbledore still offered Snape the potions position, but from what I can find in the Prophet, he's doing a good job, teaching well and is fair to all houses."
"Oh, my."
"Yes. Oh, my, indeed." Luna nodded. "Lucius is still on the board of Governors, but he seems to be working with Dumbledore, even if they don't get along personally, they've returned a number of classes and have put requests to the Wizengamot to permit the WFS to contact the families of muggleborn earlier, but nothing had been approved, yet."
"That's different, alright."
"Yes, it is." Luna agreed.
"So… how do we go about find Neville and contacting Malfoy? I mean Draco, not Lucius."
"I think the easiest way is to just floo-call to Malfoy manor and ask for Draco., then do the same to Longbottom manor."
"And what are we supposed to say? Someone's going to ask why?" Hermione sighed in frustration at her friend.
"Oh, we let them think that I inherited mummy seer abilities."
"Seer? Did you?"
"A little bit, but not exactly the same type of Sight. I don't See. I just Know. I just Knew which issues of the Prophet to dig out to get the answers to questions I just knew you were going to want the answers to. I Knew where to find the answers, even if I didn't Know what the questions were."
"Oh… okay… That might work." Hermione nodded slowly while she thought about it. "But how are you going to explain me being with you?"
"Same. I just Know that you, Neville, Draco and me are going to be friends and I wanted you all to meet. I can say daddy went and collected you because I asked him to. No one will think twice about accepting it, daddy won't remember if he did or didn't and mummy was well known for her Sight, at Hogwarts. It's the reason daddy and his paper were never targeted, no matter what he wrote, even at the height of the war." Luna said.
"Uh…" Hermione "Okay, lead the way."
Luna laughed, her delicate wispy laugh and led the way back into the house upper house and into the kitchen.
"Allow me." She waggled her eyebrows and reached for the floo-powder. She tossed a handful into the fireplace and waited until the flames went green. "Malfoy manor."
Draco leant back against the headboard of his bed, wondering what the hell he'd done to deserve this. Then he thought about how he'd treated Potter and Granger and shrugged. It was kind of obvious. The question was, how did he correct it? He heaved a sighed and picked up his quill again, only to have an elf appear. His mother had sent for him.
"Young Master? Mistress is calling for young master." The little she-elf wrung her fingers together.
"Where is mother?" Draco didn't want to go, it was so painful to see her, but it was also very rude not to answer when called.
"Mistress is in the arrival room, young master." The elf answered.
"Tell her that I'm on my way down." He ordered.
He waited until the elf popped out, before standing up and using the wand he'd brought with him through the veil, to shrink his bag and summon it to his hand. He slid it into his pocket and left the room. Down the hall to the stairs and down the grand staircase to the main floor, along another hallway and around the corner and Draco took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders before entering the arrival room.
"Mother? You asked for me?"
"Yes, darling." Narcissa Malfoy looked, for lack of a better descriptive, bemused. "I shall be leaving shortly to visit your Aunt andromeda, but while I'm gone, Luna Lovegood and Hermione Dagworth-Granger would like to know if you would care to join them and Mr Neville Longbottom, on a visit to the Rookery for the day?"
Draco blinked. "Mother?"
"Draco?"
"You would permit me to visit? Alone?" Draco couldn't recall ever being allowed to visit anyone by himself.
"My dragon, you are due to attend Hogwarts this coming September. If I do not consider you capable of visiting friends for a day, how can I expect you to thrive at Hogwarts for months?" Narcissa replied gently. "But of course, the choice is yours. You may go if you wish, or stay home, if you do not."
Draco said nothing for a few moments, but it was clear that he was thinking hard. When he spoke it was calm and decisive. "Yes, mother. I would like to join them."
"Very well, be sure to leave your lesson wand in your room and don't forget to wear you Heir-Ring, it has a portkey to return here, in an emergency. If you wish to take anything with you, I suggest you go and fetch it, now. Miss Lovegood said the floo would be open for half an hour, but that was nearly ten minutes ago." Narcissa warned.
"I… I think I should take a gift for each Miss Dagworth-Granger, Miss Lovegood and Mr Longbottom." Draco hesitated. "Perhaps a book?"
"May I ask why?"
"Uncle Sev has mentioned Miss Lovegood, but not Miss Dagworth-Granger. He has, however, stated that the Dagworth-Granger line died out. If Miss Dagworth-Granger is indeed descended from Hector, then it will be via his squib son and may result in her not being aware of the niceties of wizarding society. And Miss Lovegood's mother was a Ravenclaw, according Uncle Sev, anyway. The chances are that Miss Lovegood may follow her mother to the eyrie." Draco answered. "And father said that while Longbottom may turn out to be a squib, but he is very gifted with plants."
"I see. I had not considered that. Very well. Fetch the books, but warned… if they are valuable, I may not allow you to gift them away."
"No, mother, I was thinking of a pair of biographies, Newt Scamander for Miss Lovegood and that one on Hector Dagworth-Granger for Miss Dagworth-Granger and I know we have multiple copies of them both. I'm not certain about which book for Longbottom."
"Oh, yes, we do have a few copies of the Dagworth-Granger book. But why the one on Scamander?"
"Uncle Sev said that Miss Lovegood's father was interested in the more… obscure creatures. And it is an interesting read. Also, I would like to loan an etiquette primer to Miss Dagworth-Granger, that and suggest an introduction to the wizarding world handbook, just so that she has an idea of what to expect."
"I would check first, dear, even though she may not have interacted with our world, she may be aware of it. Take the etiquette primer from my… wait. Dilly?"
A popping sound and the she-elf stood in front of Narcissa.
"Mistress is calling Dilly? How can Dilly be serving?"
"From my office, fetch me the etiquette book called 'Etiquette; Manners for the modern witch'. From the main library, fetch me one of the secondary copies of the Newt Scamander biography and one of the secondary copies of the Hector Dagworth-Granger biography. And a secondary copy of Winogrand's Wonderous Water Plants by Selina Sapworthy. Remove the two biographies and the plant book from the library directory, they are to be gifts. Also, fetch a satchel for Draco, he will be taking the books with him this morning."
"Yes, mistress." The elf popped away and while he waited, Draco went to the cloak room and chose a light, summer-weight linen robe in a soft grey with darker grey trim.
Another pop and the elf returned. "Mistress, Dilly has removed three books from the directory and placed four books in young master's bag." She held the bag out and Draco accepted it.
"Thank you, Dilly, you may return to your duties." Narcissa waved the elf away. "Very well, Draco, you may floo to the Rookery, whenever you're ready. But don't hesitate to portkey away, if your do not feel comfortable."
"Yes, mother." Thankfully Narcissa had turned to retrieve her own cloak, otherwise she may have seen Draco roll his eyes and shake his head in amusement.
Five minutes later, he stepped out of the green flames and into Luna's kitchen.
"Oh, good, you're here. Hermione's making tea and I'm about to floo Longbottom manor." Luna greeted him. "Through that door." She pointed a door that led downwards. "We're in the basement. I think explanations should wait until we are all together."
Draco blinked and taking a deep breath, nodded. "Very well. I shall curb my impatience."
'That would be appreciated." Luna nodded back and Draco followed her directions down the stairs.
"Malfoy." Granger nodded.
"Granger." He responded. "Did you ever get around to claiming your Dagworth-Granger inheritance?"
"I did. We had anticipated accessing the veil in May, on the third anniversary of Harry's… veiling, but claiming the estate, put us back a few weeks, so we decided to wait until the anniversary of Sirius Black's veiling."
"The fight in the Ministry?" Draco asked.
"Yes, the Prophet called is the Battle of the DoM, in their series of articles about the war." Hermione replied.
"I see." Draco moved around a table to stand beside a seat. "Not to be rude, but was the estate in a bad way? Just trying to fill in time, until Lovegood fetches Longbottom."
"Ah, in that case… No, not bad, just complicated. A lot of real estate to get through and a massive collection of libraries. Each house had a library, as did each vault and in some cases, more than one. It took us three weeks to empty the houses and add combine all of the libraries together, then Luna suggested that as we are hoping to be in the same place as Harry, I should separate the Potter library from mine. And Neville raised the possibility of Sirius being here, too, and suggested removing the Black library and also storing their things in a trunk dedicated to just their individual estates."
Draco nodded. "Yes, I could see that working."
They were interrupted by the sound of feet on the floor above them. Feet that appeared on the stairs and slowly descended.
A chubby-faced Neville joined them, followed by Luna, who was carrying a tray of cauldron cakes.
"Hermione. Malfoy." Neville nodded to each of them. "This isn't our world, Hermione."
"I know. Luna's been catching me up. The differences are… significant." Hermione answered.
"In what way?" Draco asked.
"Well, to start with… my parents are both alive and well, and still in the Auror corps." Neville said, looking a little wild around the eyes.
"Excuse me?" Draco blinked at them. "You said… what…?"
"My parents are still Aurors."
"I see. Lovegood? Can you fill in the gaps?" Draco asked.
"Did I ask you to call me Luna?" The blonde girl asked. "I thought I remembered that, but given everything else, I could be mistaken."
"No, Lov- Luna, you did. I apologise for ignoring your request."
"Oh, that's alright, I just wasn't certain. And yes, I can fill in the details." She pulled out a number of copies of the Daily Prophet and laid them on the table. "Here we are. As near as I can figure, there are two main points that our world differs from this one. One? In our world Voldemort made horcruxes, in this one he didn't. And two? Dumbledore. Either the prophecy differed, or Dumbledore wasn't as focused on it. Regardless, when he placed the Fidelius for the Potters, he also placed wards to alert him to anyone with a DarkMark entering the wards. That let him get there in time to stop Voldemort. Unfortunately, it wasn't in time to stop him from killing Sirius Black, James Potter, Lily Potter and baby Harry. But he did manage to stop Voldemort. He fronted the Wizengamot and demanded that anyone that bore the DarkMark or was suspected of sympathising with the Death-Eaters, be questioned under veritaserum." Luna poured herself a cup of tea and turned to Draco.
"This is where things change for you, personally. Bellatrix Lestrange was one of the first caught, when she, her husband, his brother and Bartemius Crouch Jnr, attacked the Longbottoms. While Alice and Frank fought with the men, Bellatrix cast the cruciatus on baby Neville. But the men were up against highly trained Aurors, who'd been expecting just such an attack. The Longbottoms won, Alice blew Crouch's hand off, Frank shattered Rabastan's wand arm and then went after Rodolphus, blinding him, while Alice took on Bellatrix. The details weren't given to the public, but Alice prevailed, and Bellatrix was arrested, she was the first to be tried. Under veritaserum, Bellatrix admitted that many of Voldemort's army were actually under the imperius curse. The Unspeakables were called in and every one of those due to stand trial were assessed for curses, potions, charms and hexes and where necessary the curse-breakers and healers were called in." She took a mouthful of cauldron cake and munched on it, swallowing a mouthful of tea to wash it down with, before continuing.
"Bellatrix admitted to casting the imperius on both Draco's mother and father, while they were still at school. Her plan was to hand the two of them over to Voldemort, while at the same time having Arcturus Black killed, leaving Lucius as Heir Black. With them under Voldemort's control, that would give him access to the Malfoy and Black finances as well as the Lestrange, Avery, Goyle and Crabbe estates. Things didn't go the way she planned. Arcturus survived her assassin, as did Abraxas Malfoy and Radastian Lestrange, leaving Voldemort with the significantly lesser fortunes of the Crabbe, Goyle and Avery families. Then of course, he went after the Potters, personally. And paid the price for it."
"Well, shite." Neville exclaimed.
"Yes, precisely. Due to Bellatrix's attack on you, Neville, and her lack of remorse for it, the Wizengamot had her executed, along with any other Death-Eater they found irredeemable, which was most of them. Less than a dozen were spared." She tapped a folded page of one copy of the Prophet. Radastian made you his heir and swore that on his death, the name Lestrange was to become extinct. He died three years ago."
"Okay…" Neville grimaced. "Not sure I want it, but I suppose I can always use it to do things the bitch wouldn't have approved of."
"Good man. Bella was nuts." Draco nodded sharply. "Only time I have ever been grateful to a Weasley, was when Molly Weasley rid us of her."
"Oh, yes, I heartily agree." Luna nodded.
"Anything else?" Draco gestured to the strewn-out papers.
"Just that muggleborn numbers are increasing. In 1989 Hogwarts had five, in 1990 there were six. In 1991, in our world there were five. Here? It's estimated that there should be eight. In 1992, they're expecting ten and in 1993, twelve. And the numbers are likely to reach as high as twenty by 1998."
Draco exchanged a look of astonishment with Hermione.
"Are you serious? Twenty muggleborns in one year?" He asked.
"Oh, it's not just the muggleborn numbers rising. Registrations for Hogwarts are increasing by 10% per year." Hermione sighed. "It's a magical baby boom. The Weasleys are not the only family with large numbers of children. Neville's got two younger siblings. The Greengrass' have three girls, now, and a son. The Diggory's have three boys. The Fawcetts have a son and daughter. The list goes on. 1998's intake should be almost double 1991's."
"Oh, shite…" Neville breathed.
"So how the hell do we find Potter?"
"The only chance we have is Hogwarts." Luna said. "I tried to send him an owl this morning, but Phillip, daddy's owl, just looked at me. That means that either Harry's not here or, more likely, he's changed his name, magically and possibly his appearance. Hogwarts…? Well…? DADA and quidditch are our best chances of identifying him, particularly if he's changed his appearance."
"And that's where you come in, Malfoy. You teased, tormented and made Harry's life at Hogwarts miserable, but to do that you pretty much stalked him. Between the four of us, we should be able to identify him, even if he's hiding." Hermione said and watched as Draco spluttered.
"I didn't-" He started.
"Yes, you did." Hermione and Neville said together.
"Mind... he reciprocated by stalking you in fifth-year." Hermione laughed.
"Which reminds me." Luna put both her hands on the table. "I need help. I need to be in your year and the only way I can see that happening is with a permanent aging potion." The other three gasped. "I have the recipe, mummy created it, but I'm not in Draco or Hermione's league when it comes to actual brewing."
"And how are you going to make people understand what you did?" Neville asked.
"What I did? What did I do? It wasn't me, it happened in Diagon, someone must have put something in my drink…" Luna used her big innocent blue eyes to their full extent and let her chin wobble, while tears began to form.
"Oh, hell. Stop, stop, for god's sake, stop!" Draco held his hands up in front of his face, anything to block the sight of Luna's tears.
"Alright, then…" Neville chuckled. "No one's going to question that."
"No, I highly doubt it." Draco huffed. "Do you have a lab? And the ingredients? Or do we need to go shopping?"
"Lab's over there." Luna pointed to a dark shadow within a shadow. "The ingredients cupboard is full and under stasis, daddy restocks it every year, on the spring solstice." She handed over a carefully written out potion recipe for Draco to read.
"Oh, this is easy. Bewtween us? We can do this in an hour. Granger? You get this part. Longbottom? You and Luna get to do our running and some cutting." Draco pulled out his wand and conjured a chalkboard and chalk. "See here?" He copied the recipe to the chalkboard and circled various sections in different colours. "Luna? You get the blue section. Granger the white, Longbottom the red, I'll take the green and when we get to the yellow, Granger and I will work together." He looked at the other three. "We can have this done inside the hour, then it's up to Luna when she does this."
"Daddy mentioned going to Diagon tomorrow, I'll go with him." Luna shrugged.
"You know you're going to end up in St. Mungo's for tests, right?" Draco asked. "Once they work out it's irreversible, they're going to have to amend your WFS file. They may ask you to give an oath that you'll accept the alterations."
"I can do that." Luna smiled.
"Alright, let's get brewing." Neville laughed. "I never thought I'd be voluntarily involved in brewing potions with a Malfoy."
"Can you imagine the expression on Potter's face." Draco snorted and the others laughed.
"Oh, I hope we find them." Hermione fretted as she followed Luna and Draco into the lab.
"We will. Potter can't hide from us." Draco assured her.