Harry Potter and the Veil of Time
Chapter Six: I'm from the Future... No, Really?
By Cybergades
It took forever for the Gryffindor Common Room to calm down, much less empty out. Harry was assaulted with firecrackers, noisemakers, cheers and handshakes the second the Fat Lady swung aside to reveal the entrance. He looked around for Ron and Hermione, although he knew they wouldn't be there. With a small sigh, he resigned himself to an evening of trying futilely to explain that he had not cheated to put his name in the goblet while being waved off, stuffed full of sweets and butterbeer, and hoisted on various shoulders.
When he finally extricated himself from the crowds and bolted up the stairs, he found Ron exactly where he was the last time, with exactly the same strange forced grin on his face. Harry actually paused in the doorway, unsure of how to proceed.
"Oh hello," Ron said. Harry had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He reminded himself that he had almost four years on Ron now, although his body didn't show it, and it was his responsibility as a friend to avoid the awkward jealous rage that had split them for so long in their fourth year.
"So, congratulations," Ron said. Harry could feel the sarcasm dripping off his voice; had it been this obvious before?
"Ron, listen," he began.
"How did you get across the Age Line?" Ron asked point-blank. Harry could hear the unasked question underneath it—why didn't you take me with you? He struggled with various lies and versions of the truth. What would keep Ron from his disbelieving anger?
"If I promise to tell you tomorrow," he said at last, "will you promise to stop giving me that fake grin?" He continued before Ron could protest. "I know, Ron. I understand that you're upset. Just please let me explain tomorrow, at breakfast. We'll bring some toast back to the Common Room or something and I'll…lay it all out for you. It's a bit of a mouthful."
"It must be, if you managed to fool Dumbledore and all the others," Ron said warily, but Harry was glad to note that his smile seemed more genuine now.
"Tip of the iceberg, mate," he said with a laugh.
The following morning, Harry and Ron sent Hermione down to fetch breakfast from the Great Hall, Harry pleading desperately to avoid going down there and facing all the questions and unwanted attention again. Hermione agreed, to Harry's relief; in addition to feeling awkward around the fellow classmates because they so firmly believed he had cheated his way into the Triwizard tournament, it was also difficult to chat amiably with people who he had seen lain out in the very same Great Hall only a few days before, in the calm sleep of death. However, the Creevey brothers, joined by other Gryffindor students pouring in from breakfast, made it impossible to have a private conversation, and so they were forced to vacate the Common Room. They finally settled in the library, because, as Harry explained to Hermione's disappointment, it was where fellow students were least likely to converge and distract them. As Harry had anticipated, his first version of his explanation was met with stark disbelief. It didn't help that he really had two or three different stories to tell, and he had no idea where to start with any of them. At last, he decided to explain about Merlin and the gateway in the Department of Mysteries first, because it explained how he knew so much about what was going to happen this year. However, it proved difficult to even begin to explain.
"You came through what? From where?" Hermione struck like a snake with her questions, barely letting Harry finish his first absurd-sounding sentence about gateways to the past.
"Well it's not that ridiculous, is it?" he asked, fully aware that it was almost completely ridiculous.
"Harry, I know the Department of Mysteries works on some secret stuff," Hermione began, somewhat condescendingly, "but that doesn't mean you can just make up any story you want and throw in an Unspeakable as a plot element and expect it to be plausible."
"I don't think you should be talking about time travel being absurd, though, Hermione," Ron said.
"Thank you, Ron!" Harry said, glad that at least Ron wasn't ignoring or avoiding him.
"Story's still rubbish, mate," Ron added with a grin.
"That was a Time-Turner," Hermione said. "Everyone knows those things actually exist. And it could only send me back an hour at a turn, I don't even think they can send someone back years."
"Well, that's not really relevant, is it, because I didn't use a Time-Turner," Harry said, somewhat impatiently. "Just, let me get the whole story out, and then you can pick it apart."
Hermione raised her hands and eyebrows in mock surrender. "Fine, fine, sorry, go on."
And so Harry worked his way through the tale, starting with Voldemort's defeat and Merlin's appearance. He mentioned Ginny's death, at which Ron's face grew stony, but didn't have the heart to mention Ron's own demise. Hermione actually scoffed out loud when he mentioned Merlin, but didn't interrupt him. Finally, he explained everything that was going to happen this year- the three tasks he would have to perform, the disastrous results of Hagrid's attempts to breed Blast-Ended Skrewts, Rita Skeeter's unending smear campaign against him, and finally Mad-Eye Moody's secret, and the trap that would be waiting for him at the end of the third task: Voldemort, reborn and as powerful as ever. When he finished, he spread his hands before them, to indicate that he had no more fantastic-sounding tales to spin, and waited for their crushing wave of disbelief. Ron and Hermione were silent for several moments, looking from Harry to one another as though hoping to catch some glimmer of a laugh, something to reveal that this was all an elaborate put-on. When none was forthcoming, Ron finally piped up.
"So, you're saying you didn't put your name into the Goblet of Fire," he said slowly.
"Come off it, Ron, I've only been saying that since the second Dumbledore pulled my name out of the bloody thing."
"No you didn't!" Ron protested. "You said 'it worked,' didn't you?"
"That's true, Harry," Hermione chirped, "I did hear you say that."
"Only because that's when I got put into this- into my body," Harry said. "I'm not going to lie to you, I wasn't exactly sure it was going to work. I mean, let's be honest, this is a pretty weird story."
Ron scoffed. "Bloody right it is. And you expect us to just soak it up, just like that, on your say-so?"
Harry pressed his hands together, scrunching his eyes shut as though in particularly frustrated prayer.
"Ron, why on Earth would I make all this rubbish up?"
Hermione shrugged beside him, but Ron strained to think of a reason. After a few seconds Harry reached forward and gripped his friend's shoulder.
"Ron Weasley, I swear to you that I am not lying. If anything I just told you isn't true, then someone has thoroughly lied to me, and I'm the only one who's been made a fool of, not you." He paused, and then added, for good measure, "I need you on my side, both of you."
"Merlin told you to prepare for some great threat?" Hermione asked, cautiously, testing out the truth of the words for herself. "You mean other than You-Know-Who?"
"Yeah," Harry said, "I mean, at least, I think so. But Voldemort's still out there! Right now, being taken care of by Wormtail! The ritual he's found, it will restore his physical body to him, he'll be just as strong as he ever was, and he doesn't need me to do it! He could use anyone! That's why we can't let on that we know anything, we have to let everything play out the way it did. That's the place where we know for sure that he'll be, at the end of this year."
"And we can stop him then?" Ron asked.
"Right. We'll probably have to inform Dumbledore eventually, the last time it happened there were a lot of Death Eaters showing up, I don't fancy slogging through them all with just the three of us."
"And Sirius!" Hermione said brightly. Harry felt a strange mixture of sadness and elation; he hadn't mentioned Sirius' death to either of them, and the full realization that his godfather was still alive filled him with startling and conflicting emotions. The emotion swelled in him like a great wave, until he felt drunk with it, and actually swayed where he stood, forced to lean against a table to steady himself. He remembered what Merlin had told him, about needing to put himself into a highly emotional state in order to make contact with him again, and felt momentarily disappointed. That wasn't enough? What would he need to experience in order to get the answers he sought?
"You alright, Harry?" Hermione said, and Harry waved her off.
"Fine, I'm fine," he said. "I'm just worried about Sirius, is all."
The two of them looked at him disbelievingly.
"Wait," Ron said. "If you're Harry from the future, how can you be worried about Sirius? Don't you already know for sure how he's doing right now?" His eyes grew wider and he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Is something about to happen to him? Has something already happened?"
Harry shook his head, then stopped.
"In a way, I suppose it's already happened," he said, before telling them the story of the Hall of Prophecy and the Veil. They listened intently, and Harry saw Hermione hide her face when he described how Sirius had fallen into the Veil and been lost forever.
"You great git, Harry," she said. "If you'd only told us that part we would have believed you straight off, we know you'd never make anything like that up." She sniffed loudly, then forced herself to smile. "But that's good, isn't it? If that doesn't happen until next year, then that means that Sirius must be fine right now!"
"Yeah, he's alright," Harry said, waving her off. "It's just weird, you know."
"Yes, 'weird' is definitely a word that I would use to describe this," Ron said, waving his hand in a circular motion to encompass "this."
"Oh, shoot!" Hermione said suddenly. "I'm late! You boys'd better hurry too! We'll talk later!" She shouted over her shoulder as she scampered out of the room. Ron leaned back in his chair, resting his feet on the table and resting his hands behind his head. He and Harry exchanged glances, and for a moment Harry could almost forget about the future.
"Oh. Shoot," Ron said in a deadpan, a wide grin on his face.
"We're late," Harry added with a knowing smile.
It wasn't until Double Potions that afternoon that Harry realized that maintaining the school year as he remembered it was going to be difficult. The red flags first went up when he entered the dungeon classroom to find the Slytherin students sporting their "SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY" badges. He scoffed, waving them off as they pressed them to change the message to "POTTER STINKS." It would be easy to ignore them, he knew, but for some reason he couldn't quite remember it seemed like it wouldn't be that simple.
"Oh very funny," he heard Hermione saying behind him, "really witty," and then it hit him. This was the day that Hermione fixed her teeth! He was about to get into a fight with Malfoy, and then…
"Want one, Granger?" Malfoy's voice cut through the air. "I've got loads. But don't touch my hand, now. I've just washed it, you see; don't want a Mudblood sliming it up." For a split second Harry wished that Malfoy was still dead. That hatred made it easy to do what he knew he had to, and he leapt to his feet, glad that the anger on his face was real, for Hermione's benefit.
"Go on, then, Potter," Malfoy said quietly, and Harry stared at him intensely, wand at the ready. Malfoy's lips kept moving, spouting off some quaint nonsense of a taunt, but Harry had no ears for that. He was focused intensely, trying to pick out the exact moment, the perfect instance in time when their curses would—and there! The nearly-imperceptible twitch of Malfoy's wrist!
"Furnunculous!" Harry screamed, just as Malfoy's "Densaugeo!" echoed against the damp dungeon walls. The curses crackled and spat out of their wands, clashing into each other and ricocheting away, towards…
"Hermione!"
Harry breathed a strange sigh of relief as he heard Ron's shout of alarm. He saw Hermione's startled face, her front teeth growing out of control, and he tried his best to look the part of the concerned friend, trying not to let on that this had really all been for her benefit. He also took a good long moment to savor the look on Goyle's hideous face, now made even more hideous by the inclusion of several welts boils and pustules, now already swollen to bursting and still growing. He noted with a small chuckle that his skill at cursing had improved somewhat since the last time he had subjected Malfoy's lackey to this particular jinx. He had properly composed himself by the time Snape entered the dungeon, and pulled off the outraged argument with Malfoy without a hitch. He was a second late to start yelling at Snape with Ron, but luckily he managed to begin screaming before any of the obscenities Ron was shouting became intelligible. For the rest of the period he reflected that getting detention, even when you have foreknowledge that you are going to do so, for the benefit of your friends, is still a less than ideal experience.
The worst part of being sent back in time, Harry had decided, was that he already knew all of the material being taught in his classes, and so he was unable to focus properly on the material. That meant, of course, that the only thing left to pay attention to was the chattering, whispering, murmuring and pointing of his classmates. There was so much rumor mongering happening around him at all times that Harry was certain he had changed the timeline already, and that he had somehow made himself even more the center of attention than he had been the last time around. Harry was actually glad to be able to leave class when Colin Creevey came for him, even if it meant going to the photo shoot with the other champions…even if it meant seeing…
"Rita Skeeter!" Bagman was boasting, gesturing towards the curvy witch in the hideous robes. "She's doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet…"
"Maybe not that small, Ludo," Rita said, and Harry felt a wet shiver slither down his spine as her eyes passed over him. He could feel it in his gut; there was no way he was going to be able to stand it. Taking a detention for Hermione's sake was one thing, especially if he got to curse Goyle in the process. But this…
"I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start?" he could hear her asking.
"Certainly," Ludo Bagman replied, "that is, if Harry has no objection?"
"Of course not," Harry said with an enormous fake grin plastered to his face.
"Lovely," Skeeter said, wrapping an arm around Harry's shoulder and whisking him into a nearby broom closet.
"Ah, yes, nice and cozy," she began, while Harry picked up his feet to avoid stepping in a spilled puddle of All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. "Now, Harry, you don't mind if I use a Quick-Quotes Quill do you? It leave me free to talk to you normally."
Harry didn't even bother replying, simply watching as Rita reached into her heinous looking crocodile skin bag, producing the vibrant green lie-fountain that was the Quick-Quotes Quill. Harry maintained a small smile on his face as she sucked on the tip for a moment before placing it upright on the parchment she laid out before them. He could feel the excitement building inside him as the quill began to scroll across the parchment. He was looking forward to changing this particular aspect of his history.
"Attractive blond Rita Skeeter, forty-three, whose savage quill has punctured many inflated reputations…"
"Lovely," Rita Skeeter said. "So, Harry…what made you enter the Triwizard Tournament?"
Harry sat silently for a moment, as though trying to think of the perfect answer. All the while the quill skritch-skritch-skritched along the parchment, doling out purple prose about everything but what was actually occurring in the broom closet.
"Ignore the quill, Harry," Rita said, an edge of annoyance in her voice.
"Just a minute," Harry said, almost sweetly, and he reached forward, grasped the quill firmly, noting how it wriggled like a fish in his hands, and very neatly snapped it in half with a satisfying crack that was echoed in a small peep from Rita Skeeter, who was momentarily speechless. He breathed in a breath of fresh broom closet air, gesturing with his hands as though to indicate the new found flow of fresh energy.
"There, now, isn't that so much better?" he said, placing the quill back down on the paper, where it began shakily scratching out narration once again.
"After months of loyal service to the queen of investigative journalism, the faithful quill had meet its end, un-dune by the very champion of Hogwarts himself, the cruel-voiced and scar-browed tyrant Harry Po-"
At this the quill seemed to have finally worn itself out, and after stumbling a blotchy black line of ink around the parchment, finally keeled over, twitching melodramatically before it finally lay still.
"How dare-"
"Don't speak, please," Harry said, all traces of civility gone from his voice "And for God's sake, don't write."
"Oh, I think that I shall be doing a very good bit of writing!" Skeeter said with a harsh laugh. "I'm sure my readers will be very eager to read about this new unseen side of their hero Mister Potter!"
"And yet, somehow, I think that they'll be disappointed," Harry said coldly.
"Is that a threat?" Rita said with one raised perfectly-sculpted eyebrow. "You just keep making this story juicier, Harry, really now."
"You want to hear a juicy story?" Harry asked. "I think it would make for a pretty good tale if people were to learn that there was an unregistered Animagus using her talents to spy on people so that she could advance her career as a hack journalist. I think this person knows that she's just a vile scandal maker, and that she only has the attentions of the crowd as long as she's able to keep herself from becoming the next scandal. And I think if someone leaked this little story, she'd find her own readers tearing her reputation apart before she knew it."
While he spoke, the color drained from Rita Skeeter's face, her lips fading into a thin line as her eyes darted around the interior of the broom closet, as though she had realized that she was trapped in here, trapped with the boy who knew her awful secret. She forced herself to laugh.
"That's a fascinating story, born of a fanciful imagination, Harry," she said with a false grin. "But you haven't any proof. There's no reason for anyone to believe you."
"I think you know better than anyone how little that matters, you pretentious hack," Harry spat out, and watched the new found grin on her face fade into a grimace. At the vehemence of his insult the Quick-Quotes Quill lying on the parchment gave a single jolt, like lightning passing through a corpse, before lying still once more. "Write your scandalous little lies about me, or my friends, and I'll see to it that your career as a journalist is over. And if you don't think I have the resources to do it, have a chat with a mountain of Galleons in my bank vault." He reached behind him to grasp the doorknob, watching Rita clamber to compose herself.
"Now then," he said sweetly, a sparkle in his eye, "let's take some pictures, eh?"