Chapter 2
Alternative Paths
written 2007
and originally
published on Ficwad
Harry opened his eyes and realized he was in the hospital wing, and he heard Mme Pomfrey talking to Hermione behind closed curtains, although the sound was muffled by a privacy charm, he still recognized her voice. He sat for a moment, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and stretching the stiffness out. He put on his glasses on and started to head over to the facilities before he killed someone with his morning breath, Mme Pomfrey came out of the curtained area, still speaking. "and after you get dressed you are free to go". She noticed the now awake Harry "Did you miss me so much you came in here without reason, Mr. Potter?" Harry grinned "yes Mme. Pomfrey," She regarded him for a moment, piercing him with her gaze. "Well I do enjoy your company more when you are not injured, but I daresay you were here more for Miss Granger I am sure, Don't think I didn't notice the ring" She smiled at him. "I will speak about your healing methods later?" she looked at him over her glasses, He nodded "Well, I am happy for the both of you" she nodded and went off to her office.
The curtain around Hermione's' bed rolled itself back and showed the young witch gathering up her book bag and accessories, She turned and saw Harry standing and smiling at her. "Oh Harry, you're still here!" He nodded and held his arms open, saying nothing as she walked into his embrace. They held each other tightly and then stepped back, he held his hand over is mouth for a moment, doing a quick fresh breath charm. "Good Morning Miss Granger, Did you sleep well?" Her brown eyes flashed "Oh yes, Mr Potter, I slept very well, I had the most wonderful dream, about a green eyed man on the ceiling who came to me and rescued me" "Oh really, on the ceiling eh?" "Oh yes, I think he may just be taking the laws of gravity and basic physics as suggestions rather than facts" He took her book bag and pulled her arm around his and walked her out of the ward into the hallway, his eyes never leaving hers.
Crookshanks followed his person out the door and up the hall, content to follow along watching her back. He was surprised when they kept walking past the stairs down to the great hall and kept going. He sat at the top step and watched as his girl and her mate kept going across the foyer and over to the other side where they sat in an alcove window overlooking the grounds, and cuddled together, talking, their legs intertwined his arms holding her close. Dobby popped in behind Crookshanks and
spied the couple on the ledge, which just happened to be five stories up in the tower where the staircases were . "They look happy together, Dobby is glad." The kneazle flicked his ears in agreement and settled down to wait, as Dobby crouched next to him.
"What are we going to do about Sirius? Hermione worried about the question as Harry held her to his chest. They were sitting at their tree near the lake watching the ripples on the water. "Well I have been thinking about it, and we can't go back in time, although we have almost 80 hours left since Sirius was killed." " We can't have two of you and me running around , because if we stop us from going to the Ministry, we won't be the same people and I will never get the time turner and .. well you see the problem, no?" She nodded, her mind going furiously. "What we need to do is send a message back in time somehow, and send ourselves a message in a bottle.."
Harry picked up a rock. And held it in the air in front of Hermione's face. "How about this... lets say this rock is the time turner" he let it go and it floated in the air about a meter in front of her at eye level. He waved his hand and a piece of parchment appeared .. "we write out a message on it giving ourselves instructions, and attach it to the time turner" the parchment folded itself into a paper airplane like the memos at the Ministry, and the rock stuck to it "and we send it to us in the past." the plane flew off into the distance and out of sight "Harry that's brilliant" Hermione pulled his arms tighter around herself. "We have to be very careful about what we put in the letter, we cannot create any paradoxes and ...what" ...
He grinned at her, "Don't ever change Hermione"
She twisted around and faced him. "Harry... where did you send that memo plane with the rock?" He smirked. "Right about now it is delivering its payload.. watch" He drew a rune in the air and a scene appeared, the POV was trailing along behind the paper airplane by a few meters.. it was entering the Great Hall where there were people eating lunch.. no one paid it much mind as it swooped in and over the Slytherin table and dropped its payload directly in the soup in front of Malfoy, who leapt back shouting, as he tripped and fell on his ass. The plane circled and Malfoy drew out his wand and fired an Incendio spell at it, and it flashed into ash. As the picture faded Hermione saw Professor McGonnegal taking points off for using a spell in the Great Hall.
"We need to go in and get to work" she rose and started to head toward the castle.. "No Hermione, lets stay out here" he held her hand, "Are we not Wizards and Witches?" He got out his wand and created a table with two benches "Lets have a picnic..Dobby" The elf appeared. Yes Master Harry?" "We would like a picnic for four please, and when you get it made, get Winky and come out to have a picnic with us please?" Dobby nodded and popped away. Hermione was speechless, realizing he had house elves bonded to him.. "Harry!" he held up a hand "wait , my sweet woman, and all will be explained" he gazed into her eyes.. she couldn't stay mad at him, and nodded.
Dobby and Winky appeared with a pop.. "Master Harry, we are here."Harry turned to greet the elven couple, for that is what they were, a couple, even Hermione could see that, she could also see that Winky looked clean and health and looked quite happy to be there with Dobby, a major change since the last time she had seen her. She looked at her boyfriend questioningly, and he just made a 'wait' gesture.. "Welcome Dobby, Winky, I appreciate you doing this on your day off, and I thank you Winky for sharing Dobby with us." The little elf curtsied and smiled , but said nothing.
"Shall we eat" they all sat around the table, Harry made the bench that the elves sat on rise up to let everyone sit on an even basis. They ate and talked and joked, and commented on the beautiful day, Hedwig flew in and perched in the tree at the end of the table, Harry pulled out some tasty bits and fed her, since she was part of the family also.. Hermione commented on a dish the elves were eating, asking what was it it. "Miss Hermi would probably not like it, since it has grubs in it, very tasty grubs" Dobby licked his lips, Hermione pondered a bit.. "Well it couldn't be any worse than Gakh, at least it's not moving" she took a spoon and tasted a bit..holding it for a moment and savoring it, then swallowing. "That is quite good, did you cook it? Winky nodded happily. If an elf could blush, she would have..
"We need to talk, since Hermione and I are going to do something which will affect you two greatly, you have been with me for the last year, under the time turners influence, and we intend to make a major change.."he looked at the elven couple. "We are going to send a message back in time to ourselves, and that will change a great many things, the most important of which is saving Sirius' life, I hope.." he looked toward Hermione and took her hand in his. "I propose we send two types of message, both hard copy and memory" she looked at him with a question in her eyes. "It will be easier to show you than explain it" "apparatus penseive chez trunk" an ornate wooden box appeared on the table. Harry tapped the top of the box with his wand, and it folded down and made a platform on which stood an ornately carved stone bowl.
"This is a penseive, which belonged to my great great great..ahh ancestor.. lets just say its been in the family for about 600 years" Hermione had never seen one, but had read about them, knowing that they were quite expensive, at least the stone ones like this. "you can pick up a 'relatively' cheap one like the Ministry and lawyers use for collecting evidence, I propose we send one back with our memories of the fight at the ministry and the evidence we have now, both to convince ourselves of the truth and to give the Order and the DMLE a shot at capturing those deaters" he looked to each of the elves and Hermione, seeing no immediate questions, he continued. "I propose we each write a letter, pull out the memories, and bottle them, and make a package" "this includes you two, because if this changes things, your relationship will be set back by a year, and it is important to me that you are clear on this" the elves nodded seriously , "we understand the risk Master Harry, we are willing to take that risk."
Hermione thought long and hard about the situation.. she would be back to no relationship with Harry, at least not the one she had now. "can the memories we send back from the future be absorbed by the past us? Harry nodded "I think so, since we will not be all that different than our present selves. I am assuming so." "I wonder if we could absorb someone else's memory?" he pondered the question for a moment.. "Do you have a memory you would like to share with me? Hmmm?" she smirked and took out her wand, and pulled out a short memory and deposited it in the pensieve.. "There, this is when I received my Hogwarts letter" Harry stuck his finger in the memory and viewed it from the outside, and then pulled out, nodding, "Alright, lets give it a try" he pulled the memory out and deposited it into his own mind. Suddenly he was with a ten year old girl, reading a letter in green ink, inviting her to Hogwarts, and feeling an immense flood of curiosity about what it meant, and a flood of answers explaining all the things that had happened as a young girl, the incidences of accidental magic, suddenly the memory was ended and he was himself again .
He sat quietly for a moment, separating out the memory and storing it away. He opened his eyes to a concerned Hermione, who slumped in relief when she saw he was all right.
The sun was heading toward the horizon. "We should go in, and write down all our letters and evidence, and get the memories together" she started gathering up the notes she had written so far Harry tapped the penseive with his wand and it reboxed itself. "We need the solicitor's pensieve soon, so I will send Hedwig for one.." he took a bit of parchment and wrote out a note and gave it to Hedwig, who was waiting in the tree "Here you go Hedwig, please take this to the manager of the Staples store in Edinburgh, you remember where it is, you were there last week" Hedwig glared at him as if to say "What do you take me for? I can find anybody anywhere.." she flew away.
"Edinburgh?..Staples?" Harry replied as he watched Hedwig fly away to the west. "Edinburgh is a lot closer than Diagon Alley in London, and Staples is a Muggle office supply chain that has a magical division, quite handy actually." he turned to his girlfriend, who pulled him into an embrace and kiss, which momentarily surprised him, but he got into it rather quickly. "Rather Forward there aren't you Miss Granger?" he grinned at her , while holding her waist. "Maybe, I want to get this memory in place before we reboot our reality and change history, we have..." she pulled out a small pocket watch and checked it, "thirty four hours to deadline, and I want everything to be ready."
They gathered up their belongings and sent them ahead with the 'apparatus to' charm and walked to the castle holding hands.
They spent the next several hours writing down the evidence, an account of everything that happened at the ministry, a hard copy of the prophecy, and what their plans were.
Harry included a list of all the things he had studied for the 8000 hours he was ensconced in the room of requirement, and tips on how to overcome some of the problems he had come across in his studies.
Hermione spent as much time writing as Harry, and while writing she was making plans. When Harry went to the loo, she made a couple quick requests of Winky, who nodded and popped out, and back a few minutes later, with a bundle, which Hermione quickly put out of sight. She sent Winky out again to the library for a specific book, which the young witch consulted and wrote down a spell or two, and then sent the book back. Harry returned just as Hedwig flew in, depositing a package in the middle of the table. "How did you get in here Hedwig? Is there an outside window in the RoR?" "The owl nodded and then flew away.."Hm.. I never would have guessed that" he muttered and opened the package.. pulling out four coffee mug sized pensieves, a couple dictation quills and 3 gross of memory phials in a compartmentalized boxes.
Hermione returned from depositing her bundle and asked "Did Hedwig come back already?, that was fast" Harry nodded, "Edinburgh is only over the hill by comparison, London is 500 or so miles south of here" he unpackaged two of the small pensieves, and handed one with the instruction booklet to Hermione, "this is yours to keep," also handing her a gross of phials.
It's best you calm yourself and meditate a while before you start extracting memories" he sat quietly and centered himself before drawing his wand and pulling out a memory and depositing it in the first phial, which he numbered and labeled, while also writing a description on a log sheet.
He did it again, and again, and again, twenty seven more times, and then he set down his wand and quill, and folded the logsheet in with the bundled memories.
He sat quietly watching his girlfriend nee fiance' writing something, and then setting a spell over it, and the words vanished from sight. She sighed and sat back in her chair. "this saving the world stuff is tiring, isn't it?" she asked as she stretched.. "Maybe we should take a nap, and start fresh.. I think we have all the evidence down, and I have almost all the memories I am going to send back done.." Harry nodded in weariness, I have one more letter to write, to, of all people Neville's uncle Algie".. "Why him?" "Because he is Algernon Croaker, the head of the department of mysteries, the discoverer of the Cognivores, you know, the brains that got Ron," she nodded wearily. "I suppose that he would be the best qualified to use the information"
The young witch stood and took her fellow by the hand.. "You spent almost a year studying here in the RoR, right?" he nodded, wondering what she was getting at. "So, technically, you are over the age of consent, right?" she took his other hand and walked him into a darker corner of the room, and as they passed by a Japanese paper screen, they entered an area lit by candles and moonlight. there was a pool, very similar to the bath in the Prefects private bathroom,
Hermione drew her love into a kiss, and then pulled back, looking him in the eyes, as she reached up and started unbuttoning his shirt. "Hermione.." "Hush, we are going to change the world, and change the outcome of great events.. the us we are now will no longer exist.." she tossed his shirt aside and started on her own.. "no matter what we do, 'we' will no longer exist, we will be us, from right before our OWLS, still under attack from Voldemort, but, we will have a chance to fix so many things.." she dropped her skirt on the floor. "I want to be your love in every way possible, because I can't take the chance that I will not be your love in the future.. the other future"
He thought about it for a few moments, and nodded.. "alright then" he took her hands in his and got down on his knees in front of her. "Hermione Jane Granger, will you be my love forever until the end of time, will you be my Lady Potter, will you be my wife?"
She sank to her knees with him and lost herself in his eyes.. "Yes"
