Chapter 4
Alternative Paths
2007
edited 2013
All the characters herein described are owned by their owners, not me.
This includes JK Rowling, George Lucas, The Wachowsky brothers. and the folks from Tomb Raider.
thirty seconds later...
"In all my years as an Unspeakable, I have never seen the like... "the old man paused, and turned to pick up his
notes. "I knew your parents Mr. Potter, wonderful people,... your mother worked for me.." he turned and sat heavily in his chair. "She worked for me on a part time basis, doing spell research, ..."Harry leaned forward, hungrily wanting to know more, know anything about his parents. Croaker noticed this and smiled.. "I will give you copies of any memories I have of her for you to look at later". "it is actually quite appropriate, because I know that she left some of her memories here on file as part of her research." Harry practically jumped out of his seat, and almost danced in front of the desk in excitement. "I have to have those, or copies something, I NEED those .. please?"
"Yes Mr. Potter, you shall have them.. at this point it makes no sense to keep something like that classified, least of all from you, and Miss Granger" he paused as Harry calmed down a bit "After all you two are coming to work for me..."
"What?!" both teens were dumbfounded.. "why? how?" Harry snagged the sleeve of his Luke Skywalker outfit on the arm of the chair. without even noticing, he waved his hand as if erasing a blackboard, and both of their outfits reverted to school work robes. Croaker noted this, and also the fact that both teens had what looked like Luke's Light saber tucked into their belts.
"Of course you will, you are after all probably the most experienced people and with the use of time manipulation devices, using the time turner that Dumbledore had as a tool for justice, figuring out how to do these things without creating a paradox, or as you say destroying the universe as we know it".. "You have seemingly manipulated time well enough to get yourself some extra training, based on your actions so far," he gestured toward the shiny weapons in their belts, "You seem to have created some new uses for other's magic, I believe" "would you care to demonstrate?"
The young wizard looked to his girlfriend and the conversation was silent and instantaneous. "Yes sir" the young couple stepped out into the open area of the office, "The initial idea was based on the weapons used in the Star Wars films, the original spells were created by Industrial Light and Magic, as a prop for Mr Lucas, we just continued the idea a bit" with that, Harry flicked the weapon on, and it acted just like in the movies. Hermione conjured a pile of objects, wood, steel, a rock. She levitated them and they floated around attacking and dodging around Harry. She then set about shooting spells at him, and he deflected them all, even when being fired upon at high speed. Hermione gestured to Croaker, indicating that he should join in firing spells. The old man joined in and tried to sneak in spells that were subtle, and was somehow not surprised that along with the straightforward physical attacks, Harry was also deflecting gas with a shield,apparently cast wandlessly.
Hermione quit firing spells, what was left of the orbiting objects fell to the floor in little bits. Harry snapped off his sword with a "snikt' sound. He held it out to the elder man. who looked it over, seeing the subtle and mysterious runes inscribed on it, He lifted his glasses and peered closely at the writing on a ring around the base. "Copyright 1977 ILM inc."You even put the copyright notices on it?" "Sure, we based it on a toy bought in a fantasy shop in Edinburgh, where they sell fantasy swords and costumes, and the like." Croaker nodded. he held it out and pushed the button, nothing happened. He pushed it again, again nothing..He looked up with a question in his eye. "Its keyed to me and Hermione only, but if you want, we can make you one too., What color would you like? He took the item back, and flicked it on, and cycled it through several colors, red,orange,yellow,green,blue,violet. "If you want, we can also do one in pink, but we thought that was just a bit...poofty"
Harry started to turn around and noticed that the office was trashed, smoking bits of furniture and debris from direct attack and reflected spells.."umm ..sorry about the mess.." he took out his wand and held it straight up."a priori" a pulse of light, and the office was returned to its former arrangement.
"We have no intention of giving or selling this technology to anyone, because it will be useful to us in the battle against Tom and his followers, and we need every tool we can get" Hermione continued "We have developed some ideas, with the help of Harry's business partners, Fred and George Weasley." she opened her robe and indicated a seemingly ordinary belt slung around her jeans. "In the muggle world you can get by with simple misdirection, depending on what you wear." she pushed a bead on the belt and suddenly she was wearing a skintight top and shorts and armed with a matching pair of Desert Eagles and some cool round sunglasses, her hair tightly braided down her back "Say, your partner needs to do something in a public place and not be noticed", she indicated 'Harry , who had turned into the most anonymous, Grey man, with no distinguishable features whatsoever. "I make an entrance, and strut down the middle of the street, drawing every eye to me" she demonstrated her strut "While Harry blends into the background and makes off with the desired goods." she pointed to Harry who was sitting in Croakers Chair with his feet up on the desk. The old man shook his head, he had not realized that he had gotten up to follow the young woman across the room.
Harry and Hermione reverted their costumes and sat again. "in spite of these tricks and gadgets, we still need your help." "we assume that you got our first letter, which actually was sent by future us, in the original time line, lets call them OTL." "We here are the 'New Time line' or NTL. You should have had time to put some security in place, because Voldemort wants that prophecy. "The prophecy was one of the only two that Sybil Trelawney ever gave". "A spy, who shall remain Snape heard the first half of the prophecy, but was caught." "As soon as he could get away, he scurried off to his real master and delivered my parents into Tom's hands, My parents, and Neville's, as a matter of fact." Croaker frowned. "we'll get back to that, the fact appears, the Ministry and possibly the Department of Mysteries has spies or sympathizers in here, because the Death Eaters couldn't get in without help."
Harry sighed. "here's the way I see it. Dumbledore and Snape are directly responsible for the death , no murder of my parents, and for the attack and it's outcome on the Longbottoms." "on those two events alone, the both of them deserve life in Azkaban." Hermione nodded in agreement. "Thursday night, there will probably be an infiltration of the DOM". "Snape has been giving me 'occlumency' lessons at Dumbledore's command.", where the actual truth is he has been opening up my mind to assault from Voldemort". he indicated his scar. "Since we have escaped into the Room of Requirement, I have had the mental assaults blocked, so I have been able to actually think". "My Godfather Sirius Black is innocent of the charges set against him, and he spent twelve years in Azkaban, in the company of dementors." "This I also lay directly at the feet of Dumbledore", who is keeping Sirius prisoner in his own house.."
"The vision sent to me in my dreams is Sirius being tortured here in the Hall of Prophecy, and that's why the me in the OTL 'came to the rescue'." "I had no way to check for the truth I didn't remember the communications mirror I had in my trunk, in short in the OTL I got Sirius killed, when he came to rescue me and my friends." "another death I lay at the feet of Snape, Dumbledore, Tom Riddle." In the OTL it was Bella who stunned him as he fell into the Veil, but she is only partly to blame. "
"I want to stop this from happening, I don't believe that this action will cause a paradox, just an alternate path, a parallel time line as it were. I owe it to the people of the OTL, to at least try." "I need to be trained properly in occlumency, both to keep people out, but to be able to shield my secrets."
Harry sighed.. "Also...In the mundane world, dangerous objects like The Veil are guarded and protected.. wouldn't putting a gate or fence in front of the Veil be a good idea?"
"Mr Croaker, we have opened ourselves up to you, given you information that would probably send US through the veil, we are trusting you." "Part of that is because you have the reputation as an honest man, and you don't back down from Fudge or anyone." The other reason, is that your nephew, Neville is a good friend of ours and he said you would be honest with us."
Algernon Croaker had been an Unspeakable for a great many years, He still missed his mentor and friend Bode, and thought about what Bode would say:
Audaces fortuna juvat: Fortune favors the bold
"Mr Potter, Miss Granger, I will do everything in my power to help you, because if I help you, I am helping all of us."
Harry and Hermione looked at each other and sighed in relief. "Good, because I would hate to think of the alternative" "What was the alternative?
Harry looked at him and said with an utter calm "If you didn't help us I would have had to kill you, Fudge, and taken over the Ministry tonight, and install Amelia Bones as minister.." Croaker was shocked, this kind of statement out of a not quite sixteen year old boy..but the evidence was there, he was deadly serious,he glanced at the young witch, she nodded slightly.
"How would you do that?" he kept his hands still and in plain sight.
"feel around your neck...feel that? What you have there is a band of Mithril. Impervious to magic, it can be formed or machined, but the tooling is damned hard to find and expensive to boot. It is ties to a runeset, here" he indicated a similar neck piece. "If I die, or Hermione dies, that ring constricts to a zero point, in short you will lose your head." "Don't mess with it, it cannot be removed by magical or physical means, only by me, when I chose to do so."
"How?"
"you were watching Lara Croft strut across your office, and I slipped it on with a mild confundus charm."Harry manipulated the runes on his neck ring, the ring unzipped itself and fell off, Harry accio'd it and slipped it in his pocket.
Now, Lets go to the Hall of Prophecy and gather up whatever prophecies, yes, multiple, that concern us. Harry and Hermione stood and touched their belts, their costumes converting to for Harry , a black leather trenchcoat over black pants and shirt, for Hermione, a skintight black leather jumpsuit, glossy and almost painted on, they were both wearing Haro sunglasses. Her hair was straight and black. They both looked deadly.
"Its from a film to be released in about 2 years, you'll love it."
The group of three, went from Algie Croakers' office and no one notices that as the two younger people walked, spiders dropped off the hem of their coats. A steady stream of spiders, which scurried into the cracks and hidden spots around them.
