Title: Code of the Griffin
Author: Knife Hand
Feedback: Constructive feedback appreciated, flames unappreciated
Spoilers: Nothing Specific, general for first few books.
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I do not own Hermione, or Luna, or Ginny, or Cho, or....... I would buy them all but I am broke.
Summary: From a war ravaged future, someone is sent back in time to change the course of the war.
"Come on, everywhere else is full." Harry said.
Harry, Hermione and Ron entered the almost empty carriage of the Hogwarts Express. Harry and Hermione sat in the rear facing seats while Ron sat on the door side of the front facing seat, as far as possible from the figure curled up by the window with his cloak pull over him.
"Who is he?" Ron asked, not really expecting an answer.
"Professor Remus J Lupin." Hermione replied.
"You know everything. How does she know everything?" Ron asked, the last to Harry.
"It could be because she's from the future." Harry said, "Or because it is written on his Suitcase."
Hermione sat back, her eyes closed as she half listened to Harry and Ron talk, letting her mind drift and savouring in the absence of that ache of being parted from Harry, an ache that had been so much a part of her for so very long. After a few hours the train shuddered to a stop and Hermione's eyes snapped open.
"We can't be there yet." Ron said.
'Oh shit!' She thought.
She had forgotten about the Dementor on the train. She had not prepared herself. As the cold feeling crept over her, she was pulled into her memories.
Images flashed through her mind. Blood, death, pain. Countless battles on hundreds of worlds spanning thousands of years.
A coastline so covered with bodies that the water ran red for six months.
A flaming scar through a jungle filled with the smell of burning flesh where a transport had gone down.
Stacking the bodies of friends ten high to create a barricade to hold off the next wave of the enemy.
A single body, face down in a pool, her hair in a halo around her head and an orange sky reflecting in the water.
Then came the most painful memory.
Kneeling in a small garden, the back door of the house open. The remains of a meal sitting on the outdoor table. A bird sang as the sun, now painfully bright, shone down. His head was resting in her lap, his emerald green eyes now lifelessly staring up at her. A fist sized hole in his chest. One hand absently running through his hair, while the other clutching at her abdomen. That should have been a protective hand, not one trying to stem bleeding and feeling her future seep through her fingers. Something glinted off his hair, and she tried to brush it away, but it moved with her hand. Distractedly she decided it did not matter, he would fix it when he woke up.
With a mental discipline that even Dumbledore would have been amazed at, the part of her mind that recognised that this was a Dementor's influence, stopped the memory in its tracks. Knowing she needed her most powerful memory she focused on the three words she had spoken only minutes before this disaster.
"Expecto Patronum." She whispered as the Dementor entered the cabin.
The silver mist spouted from her wand and coalesced into a form. Every recorded full bodied Patronus in history was in the form of an animal. This one however was in human form, encased entirely in armour that resembled a medieval Knight, completed with a long sword and kite shield, the figure made a slash at the Dementor which fled the compartment. When the Patronus reached the door, it looked left then right and then did the second impossible thing. It split in two, one taking the left and the other the right. The sliver glow faded as the figures moved down the train and finally faded completely, accompanied by a slight sigh by Hermione.
"Here, have some chocolate." A voice said from behind them.
The trio turned to look at the now awakened Professor Lupin, who handed them all chocolate, while warily eyeing Hermione.
"Now I must speak to the driver." Lupin said, once he had made sure they all had their chocolate, and he exited the room.
"No questions." Hermione ordered.
Ron nodded enthusiastically while Harry sat, quite by contemplative.
The three words she had focused on ran in her mind. 'Harry, I'm pregnant.'
She absently rubbed her hand over her abdomen, along the now non-existent scar. That attack had ended that dream forever. Killed her husband, killed her baby. 'Unable to conceive due to extensive scar tissue intrusion' had been what the doctors and medi-witches had concluded in the aftermath, not that it had really mattered with Harry dead.
Things would be different this time around. She would save him, whatever it took.
Harry, Hermione, Ron and Neville hopped out of the carriage as it pulled up in front of the castle.
"Harry. Can I have a word." She said, patting the Thestral that had pulled the carriage.
"What is it, Mione?" Harry asked.
Her heart skipped a beat. It was the first time he had called her Mione since she had come back. She revelled for a second but then brought herself back to what needed to be done.
"Harry, be wary of Professor Dumbledore." She said.
"Why? Isn't he helping us?" Harry said confused.
"Harry. Both Dumbledore and I have two major immediate goals. To defeat Voldermort and to keep you alive. I would never sacrifice the second to achieve the first. He would, in a heartbeat, if it even occurred to him that it was an issue. He may even be planning on it."
"Why would he do that?" he asked, confusion in his eyes.
"Why would he leave you with the Dersleys?" she said, and saw she struck a nerve. "He is trying to help, in his own way. Just be careful to consider if what he asks is good for you, because he may not have."
Harry nodded and then went inside and through to the Great Hall. As she mounted the entrance steps, Hermione saw Professor McGonagall heading towards her.
"I'm dropping Divination and Arithmancy." Hermione said as the professor approached, and proceeded into the Great Hall for Dinner.
As she entered the Great Hall she saw Harry and Ron facing off against Draco and his two lackeys, Crab and Goyle.
"Heard you fainted on the Train." Draco sneered.
"Heard you pissed yourself when the Silver Warrior came." Harry replied.
Goyle tried to throw a heavy haymaker at Harry but the blow never landed. In less than two seconds, Goyle went from on the offensive to on his knees with his arm wrenched painfully behind his back.
"Back off Draco. Unless you want to die." Hermione growled, as she pulled on Goyle's arm.
Draco saw the look in her eye and backed off, so Hermione let Goyle go. Draco and his goons went back to the Slytherin table as they proceeded to the Gryffindor table. The rest of the welcoming dinner proceeded as normal.
Hermione stood and stared at herself. Or more accurately, her selves. The three Hermione's stood in a room that seemed to be part military command centre, part library and part living room. The centre of the room contained a massive holographic table, now switched to standby mode and covered with papers, and a series of monitors in a cluster suspended above. Off to one side of the room was a wooden desk ringed by chairs and surrounded on three sides by towering bookshelves, while the other side of the room had several comfortable chairs, a coffee table with a few magazines on it and a television.
The three Hermione's were as different as the sections of the room they inhabited. In the library sat the thirteen year old Hermione, dressed in her Hogwarts uniform with her hair still frizzy and her eyes filled with innocence. The living room area was occupied by an older looking Hermione, dressed casually in jeans and a slightly loose white blouse. This Hermione's hair still fell in graceful waves over her shoulders but had none of the unruly volume of her younger self, and she radiated a sense of contentment and love. A shining white gold ring adorned the third finger of her left hand.
In the central area stood the Grand Marshall. Dressed in a clean cut uniform of burnished gold and mahogany red reminiscent of her armour, she stood at the holographic table, hands spread wide on the edge of the table as her eyes surveyed the papers in front of her. Her hair was shorter, barely should length, and kept back in a neat ponytail. A convenience for donning her armour. All three, knew what this place was. It was the dreaming representation of her own mind.
"Was it really necessary to threaten Draco in that way?" Married Hermione asked.
"Yes." The Grand Marshall replied curtly.
"Harry is our friend. We must look out for our friends." Young Hermione added.
"It was a tactical move. Like warning him about Dumbledore." The Grand Marshall replied.
"Yes. Well I agree with you on that one. Dumbledore never thought of the cost. Plus his blind trust is Snape is worrying." Said Married Hermione.
"Never trust a traitor." The Grand Marshall growled.
"Is it enough?" Young Hermione asked.
"I doubt it. Dumbledore always did love to keep information to himself." Married Hermione added.
"In some cases 'need to know' is necessary. Unfortunately the old man was never any good at making the call as to when it was necessary. He used it as SOP, and that is never a good approach." The Grand Marshall summarised.
"What about the Order of the Phoenix?" Married Hermione asked. "Will they be of any use?"
"On the whole, unlikely." The Grand Marshall concluded. "Sirius and Remus will be helpful, so may Tonks be in time, but the rest just cling to their past achievements and are too much under the thumb of the old man."
"Then we have only one choice." Married Hermione concluded.
"The Order of the Griffin?" Young Hermione asked.
"Yes. We will have to form it now." The Grand Marshall concluded.
Married Hermione and Young Hermione nodded and made their way to the holographic table. On the table all the previous documents disappeared, replaced by four stacks of folders.
"Let's get to work. Everyone take a dossier, I want this whittled down to a few good candidates before we wake up." The Grand Marshall ordered.
"What about the Slytherins?" Young Hermione asked.
"Review them. I don't hold out any hopes that they will fit the bill but we won't rule the out just because they are Slytherin."
The three Hermione's got to work on selecting the core of a new force that could change the face of the planet.
TBC….