CHAPTER 4
Before beginning the story of her second year at Hogwarts, Hermione asked for a small break and headed back to the refreshment table, where she helped herself to a small plate of fruit and some more juice. Everyone who had been listening to her story in ever increasing horror took the opportunity to stretch their legs as well. When Hermione turned away from the table, she noticed Severus and Regulus still sitting huddled in a corner, uncertain of their welcome, and watched as Charlus and Dorea Potter headed over to them.
"Mr Snape, I would like to apologise for the behaviour of my son and his friends. Rest assured that this will not be continuing and they will apologise to you," said Charlus firmly. Severus, not used to such courteous treatment, looked supremely uncomfortable, while Sirius and James both looked appalled. Ignoring his brother, Regulus helped his socially awkward friend by politely conversing with the senior Potters and drawing Severus into the conversation as well.
Hermione smiled and headed back to her seat, only to be stopped on the way by Molly and Arthur.
"Twins, huh?" the older woman asked.
Hermione nodded. "Yes, Mrs Weasley. I was closest to Ron and Ginny, but Fred and George were also good friends. The twins are infuriating, exasperating, brilliant and very loyal. I didn't know Bill, Charlie or Percy quite as well, though Bill did become something of an older brother to me during the war. He was married to a Frenchwoman and after the war, they moved to France to be near her family. You went with them and the twins were planning to join you all in France. Bill tried to get me to come with you but I wasn't ready to move on yet. You and Mr Weasley treated Harry and myself like part of the family, you know. I was very close to my parents but you were my wizarding family. I'm sorry that I'm telling you all about your children instead of letting you get to know them for yourself, but because Harry and I were so close to your family, I can't filter you all out of the story."
"That's all right, dear," Molly smiled at her. "And please call us Molly and Arthur. We're not meeting you as a young child coming off the Hogwarts Express; you're a grown woman. If you'd ever like to come and visit the Burrow, you'd be very welcome. I know it won't be the same but you could at least see the children grow up."
"Thank you, Molly. I'd like that very much," Hermione whispered, her eyes watering. "And please call me Maia."
Molly gave her a smile and squeezed her arm, then went over to chat to Andromeda Tonks, whose daughter, Nymphadora, would be in the same school year as Molly's second son, Charlie.
Hermione sat down in her seat again and tried to compose herself. Talking to Molly had reminded her of the loss of Harry, Ron and Ginny. Even watching them grow up would not be the same, although she hoped her younger self would become friends with them again.
Seeing Hermione sitting down, everyone else resumed their seats and they all looked at her expectantly. Hermione took a deep breath.
"None of the staff at school seemed to have noticed how underfed Harry was when he first arrived at school and how shabby his clothes were—either that or they didn't care enough to ask—and he was sent back to the Dursleys for the summer holidays. Apparently, even him asking directly if he could stay at school over the summer wasn't enough to raise concerns either," Hermione said sarcastically.
"At first, Harry didn't mind too much. He said that the Dursleys didn't know he wasn't allowed to do magic out of school, although I'm not sure how that's the case, given that Petunia must have known that Lily wasn't permitted either." Hermione looked over at Lily Evans, who blushed furiously under the scrutiny of most of the people in the room.
"I might have done some magic to annoy Petunia," the red headed girl admitted reluctantly. "I received a few warning letters about it, but nothing serious."
Hermione snorted. "You got off lightly!" she exclaimed.
"Anyway," she continued, looking round, "the Dursleys were wary of him because of that, not that they treated him any better, and all was going fairly well until he was visited by a slightly odd house elf. Lady Hogwarts, if you would?"
Lady Hogwards nodded and a vision of Harry's first encounter with Dobby was displayed, from the little house elf appearing in Harry's bedroom, through him telling Harry that he should not return to Hogwarts and that he had been intercepting all Harry's mail, and then, finally, Dobby levitating and dropping a pudding.
"Harry received a warning letter for that, even though it was house elf magic and not wizard's magic. Doesn't the Ministry ever bother checking these things?" she asked, looking at Amelia Bones and Alastor Moody in exasperation.
"This alerted the Dursleys to the fact that Harry couldn't do magic outside school and they locked him up in his room. They installed bars on the windows of his room and heavy duty locks on his bedroom door. They let him go the bathroom once a day and fed him one can—that's about a bowl's worth—of cold soup a day, which he shared with his pet owl, Hedwig, who was locked inside her cage. Eventually, however, Harry was rescued. My Lady, if you would?"
With a smile, Lady Hogwarts displayed Ron, Fred and George's rescue of Harry. Hermione grinned mischievously and addressed Molly Weasley. "While you were very happy to welcome Harry to the Burrow, you were less impressed by his method of arrival and made sure your sons were well aware of it. However, you and Arthur had also been worried about Harry because he hadn't been answering any letters and had been planning to investigate; the boys only pre-empted you by a few days."
"Well done, those boys!" exclaimed one of the Prewett twins—Hermoine was not sure which.
"We'll have to teach them all we know about pranking and then they'll truly be worthy successors to our name," said the other. Molly hit him on the arm. Hard.
"Oh, believe me, they need no help in that area!" snorted Hermione.
"Anyway, Harry made a point of getting Fred and George to teach him how to pick locks after that, which made things slightly easier during subsequent holidays. Harry stayed at the Burrow for the rest of that summer holiday and here's what happened when you all went to Diagon Alley to get the children's school things. My Lady, please would you start this memory from just before Harry enters the floo? It was his first time flooing," she explained.
Lady Hogwarts showed Harry ending up in Borgin & Burkes by mistake, the conversation between Lucius Malfoy and the proprietor, the visit to Flourish & Blotts, where Harry was accosted by Gilderoy Lockhart, and the fight between Lucius and Arthur.
Molly was looking daggers at Arthur, so Hermione hastened to explain. "That fight was planned by Lucius Malfoy, who had just slipped a Dark artefcat into Ginny's cauldron. Malfoy wanted to divert attention away from his actions, so that all you would remember looking back would be the fight and not him pawing through her school books. The fop who accosted Harry was one Gilderoy Lockhart, a very average wizard who was only competent with the Obliviate and grooming charms. Lockhart roamed the world looking for witches and wizards who had done amazing things against dark creatures, heard their stories, Obliviated them, and then wrote ridiculous books claiming it was all his own doing. It's a shame he didn't just write his stories as fiction, as he would no doubt have been quite successful and possibly even vaguely tolerable if he had, but he was too badly in need of adoration for that; his ego needed people to believe it was all his own doing, which they did, despite the fact that the books were complete nonsense. Lockhart was our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher that year and, unsurprisingly, he was utterly useless. If I remember rightly, Lockhart claimed to have defeated all those dark creatures through a combination of good looks, dazzling personality and a load of mumbo-jumbo claptrap. I'm not sure who hated him more, the professors or the students. Professor Snape absolutely despised the man."
Hermione addressed Severus Snape again. "You applied for the Defence Against the Dark Arts position every year but were turned down. I'm not sure why but I think it may have been a combination of factors. One reason may have been that the curse against the position meant you would have only lasted one year and then you quite likely wouldn't have been able to stay at Hogwarts afterwards—none of our other Defence Professors were able to—and both Riddle and Professort Dumbledore needed you to be at Hogwarts. The other reason is quite possibly that Professor Dumbledore was waiting until we desperately needed to learn from you, until you could be most useful in that position. However, it was undoubtedly infuriating for you to watch inept, incompetent fools like Lockhart year after year. But I'm digressing, so back to the story. My Lady, please could you show everyone what happened when Harry and Ron tried to get onto Platform 9¾ that year?"
Lady Hogwarts projected the image of Harry and Ron finding out that the entrance to the platform was blocked and Hermione asked her to stop as the two boys started debating what to do next. "Both being somewhat heedless and impetuous, it didn't occur to either of them to send Harry's owl for help, or to wait for Molly and Arthur by the car—although, in their defence, I do believe the boys assumed the problem would be two-way and that if they couldn't get in, then Molly and Arthur might have a problem exiting the platform—and they decided to take the car and follow the train, since Arthur had installed invisibility and flying features in it. Neither of them had ever driven a car before but that didn't stop them. They were actually all right until they tried to land in the grounds of Hogwarts and crashed into the Whomping Willow. The car itself, having already been altered magically, absorbed some of the ambient magic in the atmosphere at Hogwarts and summarily ejected the two boys and their belongings, before tearing off into the Forbidden Forest where it lived a semi-sentient life after that. The Howler you sent the following morning was most impressive, Molly."
At that, everyone laughed, grateful for a light-hearted moment and Hermione grinned in appreciation before continuing. "Unfortunately, Ron's wand broke in the crash. He was using Charlie's old wand. I don't want to embarrass you, Molly and Arthur, but you never had much money. You had seven children to raise and educate and you managed to do so on a single salary without denying them anything they needed. Expensive treats were out but their needs were all met. Your children were all aware that there was limited money available for extras, although in general it didn't bother them because they all knew how much they were loved. However, due to that, Ron didn't write home to explain that his wand was broken and ask for a new one; instead he Spellotaped it together and continued using it. As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly reliable.
"During our first week back, Draco Malfoy called me a Mudblood and when Ron tried to hex Draco, the spell backfired. That was the first time I'd heard the term but it certainly wasn't the last. Draco was the Slytherin Prince and they all followed his lead; after that, I was routinely called a Mudblood by them. I think it bothered Ron more than me though, because he'd grown up knowing it was a foul term, but it didn't really have any more impact on me than any other unpleasant epithet would have done, and probably less than some of the Muggle insults I had grown up hearing," she said thoughtfully, as Lily sniffed disdainfully. Hermione mentally rolled her eyes at the red-headed witch and carried on talking.
"Anyway, Harry and Ron both had detention for their escapade with the car and during that detention, Harry heard for the first time a sinister voice that no one else could hear. No, he wasn't mad; there was a reason why he was the only one who could hear it. Harry continued to hear this voice a number of times throughout the year, usually talking about killing Mudbloods, but he didn't tell anyone about it other than Ron or myself. As Ron put it: Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world¹. There were a number of strange incidents during the year, starting on Halloween, with students being attacked and petrified. Mysterious messages were found at each incident, talking about the Chamber of Secrets having been opened and threatening the enemies of Slytherin. Rumours started circulating about the Heir of Slytherin having returned and when it came out that Harry was a Parselmouth, it was automatically assumed he was the Heir and most of the school turned against him, especially as Harry somehow seemed to end up in the vicinity of each attack just after it happened."
"My son is a Parselmouth?" whispered James, aghast.
Hermione nodded. "Yes. Sort of. That will be explained towards the end of my story."
"The staff did nothing to quash the rumours or to help Harry. I'm not sure they even tried to find out where the Chamber was, how it had been opened or what the monster inside it was. After all, there were two very simple things they could have done but didn't: one was to invite Auror Moody to check out the school. By that time, he had lost an eye when fighting dark wizards and he had replaced it with a magical eye that could see through everything—walls, invisibility cloaks, he could even see what was happening behind him! He could have been asked to look for a hidden chamber, or a passage that might have led to one. The other thing was that they could simply have asked Moaning Myrtle."
"That miserable ghost who haunts the girls' second floor bathrooms? Why on earth would she be of any use?" asked Lily incredulously.
"Perhaps because, as I explained earlier, she was the last victim of the monster?" suggested Hermione sarcastically. "Professor Dumbledore was the Transfiguration teacher last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened and he knew that Myrtle had been killed by Slytherin's monster. He also knew that Hagrid had been framed for it by the real culprit, and yet it didn't seem to have occurred to anyone simply to ask Myrtle how she died. Instead, when the attacks seemed to end, everyone was happy just to forget all about it until the Chamber of Secrets was opened again in my time."
Hermione noticed Professor Dumbledore again looking shamefaced at that comment and continued. "Surely that should have been one of the first things you did when her ghost appeared, so that the monster could have been dealt with and Hagrid's name cleared? After all, there was no reason to assume the Chamber of Secrets would never be opened again. So, with no evidence that the school was actually taking the problem seriously, Harry, Ron and I ended up investigating again. We happened to discover an old diary that someone had tried to flush down the toilet, only to discover it was protected in some way. It wasn't water damaged but the pages were blank, so we couldn't understand why anyone would throw away a simple, Muggle notebook. When we tried writing in it, though, the writing was absorbed into the diary and it responded to us. It was the diary that told us the story of what had happened the last time the Chamber had been opened—or rather, what the diary wanted us to know about what had happened, which wasn't entirely the same thing."
"You trusted something whose brain you couldn't see?" Arthur Weasley asked, frowing in disapproval.
"Harry and I weren't raised in the wizarding world, Arthur. We didn't know any better and it didn't occur to Ron that we didn't know, so as we had no problem writing in the diary, he trusted our judgement and didn't object either. That wasn't all we did to investigate, though. We… err, we also decided to brew Polyjuice and use it to question Draco Malfoy," Hemione admitted, blushing.
"You brewed Polyjuice in your second year?" Severus Snape asked in awe.
"Yes. We—well, I—brewed it in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, as no one ever goes in there. Professor Lockhart gave me a pass to the Restricted Section so I could get the instructions, although he didn't actually realise what he was doing," Hermione explained.
"And what about the ingredients that a schoolchild wouldn't have access to?" Dumbledore asked with a twinkle in his eyes.
Hermione blushed even harder. "We stole them from Professor Snape's stores," she admitted. "The potion came out perfectly, though. We put a sleeping draught into a couple of cauldron cakes and left them for Draco's two best friends—Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle—to find. As expected, they ate them and when they fell asleep, Harry and Ron dragged them into a cupboard, took their robes and a hair from each of them and disguised themselves as Crabbe and Goyle. They then went to speak to Draco, only to discover that Draco had no more idea what was happening than anyone else, although he was certainly enjoying it more than anyone else!"
"Why didn't you take the Polyjuice? Didn't you trust your own brewing?" asked Ted Tonks curiously.
By this time, Hermione's blush could have warmed the entire room. "I did, but…" she sighed. "I took a hair from the robes of one of the Slytherin girls but didn't realise it was a cat hair. Polyjuice isn't meant to be used for animal transfiguration and I spent the next several weeks after taking the Polyjuice in the infirmary as a cat-girl, while Madam Pomfrey cured me. The potion was perfect, it was the hair that was wrong."
James, Sirius and the Prewett twins all burst out laughing, while several others around the room stifled their laughter. Even Severus Snape, who had looked outraged when Hermione admitted to stealing from his stores, now looked amused.
"I was very fortunate Hogwarts had such a skilled Medi-witch in Madam Pomfrey and such a talented Potions Master in Professor Snape, otherwise I'm not sure the damage could have been reversed," she admittedly sheepishly. "Anyway, the Ministry felt that it had to be seen to be doing something and so they arrested Hagrid and sent him to Azkaban. That didn't stop the attacks but it didn't seem to occur to Minister Fudge that if the attacks were still occurring, then perhaps Hagrid wasn't the culprit. But then, Cornelius Fudge always did rely on Lucius Malfoy's gold to do his thinking for him and Malfoy wanted Professor Dumbledore out of Hogwarts, which he eventually managed to achieve.
"I was one of the last students to be petrified before Hagrid was arrested and by then I had worked out what the monster was. I put the clues together: a beast that petrifies, it belonged to Salazar Slytherin and Harry could hear a voice in the walls that no one else could. I was making my way back from the library with confirmation of my suspicion when I was petrified. We—all of the victims—were lucky that we weren't killed. It was only by chance that none of us looked the monster directly in the eyes. Hagrid managed to give a clue to Harry and Ron before he was taken away, namely to 'follow the spiders' and they went into the Forbidden Forest doing just that."
Hermione shook her head in fond exasperation. "Hagrid is fascinated by magical creatures and thinks the dangerous ones are all just 'misunderstood.' Because he personally isn't at risk from most of them, he simply doesn't comprehend the danger to the rest of us. As a student, Hagrid had a pet acromantula. It was only a baby at that point but he let it out into the forest and found a mate for it, and so the colony grew. Aragog, Hagrid's first acromantula, has a fondness for him and so Hagrid is safe from the colony but no one else is. My Lady, if you would?"
Lady Hogwarts displayed Harry and Ron's encounter with the acromantula and their rescue by Arthur Weasley's car. At the end of that scene, most of the people watching were either fuming or in tears.
"I think we're going to want a word about this acromantula colony, Albus," said Amelia Bones through gritted teeth.
"I concur," declared Charlus Potter coldy.
"Now, Amelia, Charlus; there's nothing wrong with the colony. It's an added defence for the school and, besides, the children shouldn't have been in the Forbidden Forest," said Albus patronisingly.
"And what about when the colony grows to such an extent that the acromantula start venturing out of the forest in search of food?" demanded Augusta irately.
"Madam Longbottom, Madam Bones, Mr Potter, while I agree with you all, that's not the most pressing issue right now," said Hermione. "The acromantula had not yet encroached that far when I attended Hogwarts in the nineties. First we need to deal with Riddle and his Death Eaters and then we can deal with the acromantula colony."
"Dealing with Voldmort could take years, young lady," harrumphed Madam Longbottom.
"No, it won't," Hermione assured her. "That's why I was brought back from the future. I have the knowledge to put an end to him."
"Very well; please continue," Madam Longbottom conceded with a slight smile. Hermione got the distinct impression that Augusta Longbottom did not feel that Albus Dumbledore was the infallible, all-wise, all-knowing, heroic examplar that the rest of the wizarding world regarded him as and that Madam Longbottom was, in fact, quite enjoying seeing him get told off by the young chit of a witch that was Hermione.
Hermione nodded at Augusta Longbottom in acknowledgement, with a slightly conspiratorial smile. "Harry and Ron eventually put all the pieces of the puzzle together. When they visited me in the infirmary, they discovered a piece of paper in my hand, which no one else had noticed. It was a text about basilisks and I'd written 'pipes' across it. From that, Harry realised the reason only he could hear the mysterious voice was because it was speaking in Parseltongue—he never could recognise when he was hearing Parseltongue because it just sounded like English to him—and that it was travelling about the school through the pipes. Pipes led him to think of the bathroom and he worked out that the last victim of the basilisk had never left the site of her death. Lady Hogwarts, if you could show what happened from the time Harry and Ron discovered the paper in my hand until after Harry's encounter with Lucius Malfoy? Just the important parts, please."
As requested, Lady Hogwarts showed the boys visiting the petrified Hermione in the infirmary, working out what the monster was, going to tell a teacher but instead hearing the announcement that Ginny Weasley had been taken into the Chamber, the boys challenging Lockhart and forcing him to go with them to rescue Ginny, their conversation with Myrtle, their experiences in the Chamber, Harry's explanation to Professor Dumbledore and the Weasleys afterwards, Lucius Malfoy barging in and Harry realising Lucius was responsible for planting the diary on Ginny, and then finally, Harry tricking Lucius into freeing Dobby and Dobby protecting Harry when Lucius wanted to attack him. It took quite some time to watch all of this and when the final image faded, the entire room was in a shocked silence.
Looking round at her shell-shocked audience, Hermione cleared her throat and said hesitantly, "Perhaps this might be a good time to break for lunch, Professor Dumbledore? It's already quite late."
He nodded silently and then, pulling himself together, called out for his house elf. "Tappy, please could you ask the kitchen elves to serve lunch here to my guests?"
"Yes, Master Headmaster," the elf squeaked. He popped away and a few minutes later, platters of steaming, hot food, and crisp salads appeared on the tables standing at the side of the room.
As everyone went over to help themselves and milled around, talking desultorily, Professor Dumbledore approached Hermione. "Miss Pevensie, I'm curious why you didn't ask for Hagrid to attend this meeting. I'm sure he would like to know he was exonerated."
"Yes, he would love to know," Hermione agreed, "and perhaps we can use these memories to clear his name. However, while Hagrid is a good man, who is very loyal to you and to Hogwarts, he is also constitutionally incapable of keeping a secret and there are things we are discussing that he should not be letting slip after he's had a few drinks down at the Hogs' Head."
"I understand. Well, perhaps as you say, we can clear his name," agreed Dumbledore.
Hermione snorted. "Headmaster, Hagrid is a half giant. I don't think he could have fit into the tunnel entrance in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom even when he was still a teenager, and we know that's the entrance that Tom Riddle used, because that's where he told the basilisk to kill her."
"You make a good point, Miss Pevensie," Albus twinkled in response. "Mr Harry Potter seems like quite an extraordinary young man," he observed.
"Yes," Hermione agreed, tears brimming in her eyes. "He truly was."
"Was?" the elderly wizard queried gently.
Hermione wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and shook her head. Seeming to understand that she was too emotional to discuss Harry further at that moment, Professor Dumbledore changed the subject.
"Err, the basilisk?" he asked.
"I believe it's dormant at the moment," Hermione said, grateful to be discussing dangerous creatures instead of Harry, whose loss she still mourned.
'There's probably something wrong with me if I prefer talking about dangerous incidents and beasts than my dear Harry,' she mused wryly.
Speaking aloud, she continued, "You should probably wait until the holidays to deal with it, when the students aren't around. I imagine we can dismantle the sink hiding the opening to the Chamber, in lieu of finding a Parselmouth to open it for us. I don't think Lady Hogwarts has access to the Chamber of Secrets, or she would have helped you or Headmaster Dippett when it was opened, either when Tom Riddle was still a student here or in my time. The problem will be getting into the inner chamber and, of course, we don't know exactly where the basilisk is and if it can hear a rooster's crow in its nest from the inner chamber. Is there a portrait of Salazar Slytherin who could open the inner chamber for us? Or perhaps we could project the memories of Harry and Tom Riddle to open the chamber and summon the snake? Or Fawkes might be able to transport you and whoever you wish to join you in and out of the chamber?"
"Indeed, Miss Pevensie. You make some good points. I shall have to consider how best to deal with this," Dumbledore said, combing his hand through his long beard thoughtfully. "It might be best to wait for young Mr Potter to be born and ask him to help us when he's older."
Hermione shook her head. "Harry isn't going to be a Parselmouth this time. Not if I have anything to do with it," she declared resolutely. "Oh, I have no problem with the concept of a Parselmouth, Professor, and Harry certainly wasn't evil. However, the means by which he was able to speak Parseltongue is something I intend to prevent happening."
"How can you prevent that, Miss Pevensie?" asked Charlus Potter curiously. He and his wife were standing beside Albus, listening to the conversation.
"Harry didn't gain that ability naturally, Mr Potter. I'll explain it all later in the story," Hermione said sadly.
"Miss Pevensie, what punishment did Lucius Malfoy receive for planting that diary on young Miss Weasley?" asked Amelia Bones, who had just come up to them.
"Nothing. He was removed from the Board of Governors of Hogwarts, but that was it. You have to understand, Madam Bones, that Lucius Malfoy was one of a group of marked Death Eaters who avoided Azkaban after the downfall of the Dark Lord by claiming they were under the Imperius Curse. Some gold in the right pockets and they were all pardoned. After that, Malfoy soon had the next Minister in his pocket as well, and Cornelius Fudge basically let Malfoy—or his gold—do all his thinking for him. Minister Fudge therefore thought Lucius Malfoy was a fine and upstanding member of our society."
Hermione smothered a snort of laughter at the look of disgust and scorn on Amelia's face. "And it only gets worse, Madam Bones."
With that cheery thought, Hermione excused herself and returned to her seat. Soon everyone was sitting down with plates of food in front of them. Seeing them looking at her expectantly, Hermione decided to carry on the story as they ate.
"When we went home that summer, Harry wasn't locked up by the Dursleys again. Instead, even worse, Marge Dursley, Vernon's sister came to stay."
"How could that possibly be worse than being locked up?" demanded Lily, aghast.
"Hmm, now let me see… just like her brother and sister-in-law, she spoiled Dudley rotten while treating Harry like dirt," Hermione said acerbically. 'Honestly, if Vernon and Petunia couldn't stand Harry, why would Lily think that Vernon's sister would be any different?' she thought to herself. Hermione was having a hard time reconciling the Lily Evans of reality to the much-vaunted Lily Potter she had heard so much about. Either Lily became less shallow and vain with age or else her death had caused people to forget her flaws and magnify her good points in their minds. James, the only Marauder she had not met in her previous life, was much closer to her pre-conceived expectations.
"Unlike Vernon and Petunia, however, Marge wasn't content if Harry just kept out the way but insisted on him being under her eye all the time so that she could berate and belittle him at every possible opportunity. Marge also had no compunction about physically hurting him. She raised bulldogs who she seemed to have trained to be vicious. One of them attacked and bit Harry when he was about five and no one did anything about it. Harry ended up climbing up a tree to escape from the dog and was trapped there by the dog until after midnight, while the Dursleys just laughed at him. No one called the dog off or treated Harry's bite, even though dogs that attack people are supposed to be put down! Marge also continually insulted and denigrated you and James to Harry's face, despite not actually having known you—at the very most, you would have met briefly at Petunia and Vernon's wedding. My Lady, please could you show what happened on Harry's last night in Privet Drive that summer?" Hermione looked round the room. "Please remember that this was the culmination of a solid week of unrelenting abuse from Miss Dursley."
Lady Hogwarts showed Harry blowing up his aunt like a balloon and leaving Privet Drive, much to the amusement of the Prewett twins and the three Marauders. She also showed Harry catching sight of Padfoot, accidentally calling the Knight Bus and using it to reach London, the explanation from Stan Shunpike about Sirius having escaped from Azkaban and Harry arriving at the Leaky Cauldron and being met there by Minister Fudge.
At the end of the memory, James, Sirius and Remus, who had been laughing at the sight of Marge Dursley blown up like a blimp, all looked at each other with raised eyebrows. Hermione was watching them in anticipation and sure enough they turned to her and asked the question she had been waiting for.
"Err, that dog that startled Harry—wasn't that Sirius?" asked Remus.
"Yes, but Harry didn't know that at the time. It was quite some time until Sirius approached Harry again. Sirius was only in Privet Drive that night because he wanted to catch a glimpse of Harry before he headed north to Hogwarts. As for the reason Sirius escaped from Azkaban… Sirius was surprisingly sane after all these years. He wasn't completely unaffected but he hadn't gone mad from so many years in the proximity of the Dementors. Cornelius Fudge had recently paid a visit to Azkaban and when Sirius asked for his newspaper, Fudge gave it to him. On the front page of the paper was an article about the Weasleys winning a Daily Prophet Prize Draw for seven hundred galleons." Hermione smiled at Arthur and Molly. "You used the money to buy Ron a new wand and to take the family on holiday—you all went to Egypt to visit Bill, who was a Gringotts curse breaker there. The story in the paper had a picture of the entire family, including Ron's pet rat, Scabbers."
"Rat, did you say?" asked Sirius, sitting up with a bang.
Hermione nodded. "Yes. Percy had found him in the fields near the Burrow some years previously and had been allowed to keep him as a pet. When he was made a prefect, Percy got an owl and gave Scabbers to Ron."
"Percy was a prefect?" asked Molly with a pleased smile.
"Actually," laughed Hermione. "Bill, Charlie, Percy and Ron were all prefects. Bill and Percy were both Head Boy and Charlie was the Quidditch Captain. I never saw him play as he left Hogwarts just before I started, but apparently Charlie was good enough to play for England, if only he hadn't preferred his dragons."
Molly beamed in delight at hearing how well her older sons had done at Hogwarts, however, Hermione very sensibly moved on before Molly could ask about the yet to be born twins.
"Harry spent the remainder of the holidays on his own at the Leaky Cauldron, although just why the Minister thought this would be safe for him when a man who was supposedly responsible for the deaths of his parents and a number of Muggles was thought to be coming after him, I don't know."
Hermione smiled sadly. "It was also the only time in his life, from the moment that Lily and James were killed, that Harry had any sort of freedom. Even at the Burrow or at school, despite Hogwarts being a refuge for him, there were always expectations on him as The Boy Who Lived. This was the only time he ever managed to be just Harry, especially as he wasn't told at this point that it was believed Sirius was after him. This, of course, turned out to be an erroneous assumption, although that I'll come back to that in a bit. The Weasleys, Harry and I all met up at Diagon Alley the day before school started. Harry had already done his school shopping by this time but Ron and I still had to do ours. Ron's rat was looking a bit peaky, so he took him to the Magical Menagerie to buy a tonic, when I went to get a pet. I had thought to buy an owl but, well, you'll see what happened. My Lady?"
Lady Hogwarts showed the incident with Crookshanks attacking the rat and Hermione buying him, much to Ron's disgust.
"May we assume there's a reason why you buying that ugly furball is important?" asked Kingsley Shacklebolt with a grin. Until now, he had been sitting quietly, just observing. Hermione, who had always got on well with Kingsley, grinned back, pleased to see him again.
"He's a half-Kneazle and, like all Kneazles and part-Kneazles, he's very good at detecting when someone or something is suspicious or deceitful. Crooks absolutely hated Scabbers and was after him from the moment he saw him. The night before we went to school, we were all staying at the Leaky Cauldon and Harry overheard a conversation between Mr and Mrs Weasley talking about Sirius supposedly wanting to kill Harry. It had been decided not to tell Harry in case it inspired him to go after Sirius but that really wasn't the best way to deal with Harry." Hermione looked at Professor Dumbledore and spoke severely.
"I know you were only trying to give Harry as much of a childhood as possible, sir, but it was very obvious by now that he was a magnet for trouble and, to be honest, he was safer knowing what was going on than being kept in the dark. Mr Weasley did give him a warning the next day before we boarded the Hogwarts Express but he didn't tell Harry why Sirius was supposedly after him, which turned out to be quite important information. I can't tell you how upset and betrayed Harry felt that he was left to find out by accident instead of being told that Sirius had apparently betrayed the Potters to Riddle. The whole wizarding world knew Harry's story and yet he himself knew nothing of his past, or of his family history and the Potters' place in our society. When this is all over and Riddle has been defeated, then I would like to discuss with you the integration of Muggleborn and Muggle raised students to the wizarding world, Professor; I have a few ideas about that."
Hermione paused to take a drink to wet her throat, which had become dry from all the talking, and to gather her thoughts. "Despite the fact that Sirius had never even been tried for any crime, let alone convicted, Cornelius Fudge issued a Kiss-on-Sight order after Sirius escaped from Azkaban and he insisted on stationing Dementors around the school to 'protect' the students." Everyone could hear the inverted commas Hermione had inserted around the word 'protect' and a few eyebrows were raised.
"The Dementors stopped and boarded the train to search for Sirius. It's fortunate that the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor was travelling on the Hogwarts Express that year or all the students would have undoubetdly been Kissed on the way to school, because there weren't any Ministry officials accompanying the Dementors and none of the students knew how to cast a Patronus. Professor Dumbledore tried to protest the use of Dementors but Minister Fudge had an unhealthy belief in them as guards and insisted on stationing them at the school gates. As they were technically outside the school, there was nothing Professor Dumbledore could do about it.
"The full moon had been the night of the thirty-first of August, which, I assume, is why Professor Lupin was not yet at Hogwarts and ended up travelling with us on the train." Hermione smiled at Remus when she saw his surprise at her addressing him as Professor. "I'm not sure if Professor Dumbledore offered you the position that year in spite of your friendship with Sirius or because of it, but you were an excellent teacher. Professor Snape was understandably livid at your appointment and spent the year predicting that you were assisting Sirius and would sneak him into the school.
"As I said earlier, Harry had a lot of problems when near a Dementor and he begged Remus to teach him the Patronus Charm. Harry's Boggart was a Dementor, so Remus used one to help teach Harry the charm under simulated conditions, as his Boggart had the same effect on Harry as a real Dementor did."
Here Hermione looked disapproving."You were a good teacher, Remus, but you needed to remember that you were a teacher and no longer a student who was indulged by the Headmaster when you bullied others. Neville Longbottom was terrified of Professor Snape. I'm sorry, sir, but your attitude towards Gryffindors was pretty appalling and you let your grudge against James spill over onto his son. I know that Harry was the personification of everything bad in your life—Lily choosing James over you and your failure to save the Potters—but it wasn't fair of you to take it out on Harry. You weren't exactly fond of Ron, Neville or I either, as the students closest to Harry, not to mention the fact that we were all Gryffindors.
"Neville's Boggart was Professor Snape, Remus, and you had Neville dress the Boggart Snape in woman's clothes, like Madam Longbottom's. The story got around the entire school very, very quickly and of course all the students thought it was hilarious. I rather suspect you would also have brought it up in the staffroom, causing all the staff to laugh at him as well. As soon as Neville told you what he most feared, you should have had someone else do the demonstration with the Boggart instead or suggested a different transformation to deal with it. You could have suggested that Neville picture it changing into something else altogether—a cauldron, perhaps. Certainly, something that wasn't so humiliating for Professor Snape. Of course, apart from Harry, our fears were all childish then—mine was Professor McGonagall telling me that I'd failed my end of year exams!" Everyone laughed. "I dread to think what it would be now, and I'm not particularly keen to find out," she reflected.
"Sirius did actually manage to sneak in twice. He tried to get as far as the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room and dorms during the Halloween Feast but the Fat Lady wouldn't let him pass and he slashed the portrait in frustration. Her portrait was temporarily replaced with that of Sir Cadogan, who kept changing the password every day. One of the students, who didn't have the best memory for the common room password, had got Sir Cadogan to give him the passwords in advance and had written them down. Crookshanks had met Sirius in his Animagus form and had formed a friendship with him. Even more than that, Crookshanks actually helped Sirius and gave the piece of paper with the passwords to Sirius, who sneaked in one night to try and catch the rat, only Ron woke up and screamed blue murder when he saw Sirius, thus waking the entire tower.
"That was a hard year for me," Hermione admitted. "After that, Scabbers disappeared and we all believed Crookshanks had eaten him. Ron didn't speak to me for months because of that. Then, during one of the Gryffindor Quidditch matches, the Dementors invaded the pitch and Harry, who always had an extreme reaction to their presence, fell off his broom, which smashed into the Whomping Willow.
"Next, Harry received a mysterious Christmas present of a new broom, the very best one in existence at the time, and I was worried it might have been from Sirius, trying to hurt Harry by sending him a jinxed broom. Harry was too wrapped up in the fact he'd received a present of a world class broom to care about that—it's the model that most of the international Quidditch teams used the following summer at the World Cup—so I went behind his back to tell Professor McGonagall about it. She confiscated it for tests and Harry stopped talking to me as well after that. I may have gone about it the wrong way but I'd do the same thing again to protect him," Hermione ruminated.
"On top of that, because I was taking every single elective, the only way for me to be able to attend all my classes was with the use of a time-turner." Hermione ignored the gasps from various people around the room. "I was overwhelmed by my workload, my two friends weren't talking to me—in fact, Ron was quite unpleasant when he did acknowledge me—and I was also helping Hagrid, who had been made the Care of Magical Creatures professor that year. In his first lesson, Hagrid introduced us to Hippogriffs. Draco Malfoy—who else?—ignored everything Hagrid told us about being respectful towards them and walked over to one and insulted it. Buckbeak lashed out and slashed Draco's arm. It was only a slight scratch, which Madam Pomfrey healed in moments, but Draco milked it for all he was worth and Lucius made an official complaint about Buckbeak, asking for him to be executed. So in addition to my school work, I also helped Hagrid prepare for the hearing—pointlessly, as Lucius had already paid for an order of execution before the hearing even took place.
"Eventually, I stormed out of Divination, because it was a waste of my time. It's a useless subject, made worse by the fact that our professor used carnival gypsy fortune-teller tricks to compensate for her shortcomings as a seer. Either you're a seer or you're not. You can't be taught to become a seer, only how to refine the gift if you have it. At the end of the year I also gave up Muggle Studies, so that I could have a normal timetable again.
"During Harry's Divination exam, Professor Trelawney made the second of the two prophecies I'm aware of her making. Lady Hogwarts?"
After watching the prophecy, the two mouthiest people in the room piped up again.
"What a load of nonsense," said Sirius.
"What did that mean?" asked James.
"Again, this is going to be quite a long memory so if you could only show the important parts, my Lady?" Hermione suggested to Lady Hogwarts, who then played for them the key points of Harry, Hermione and Ron visiting Hagrid after the exams; finding Scabbers; Ron being dragged to the Shrieking Shack by Padfoot; the confrontation between the children, Sirius, Remus and Snape; Sirius and Remus forcing Peter out of his Animagus form and Peter confessing; them all going back to the school; Remus transforming; Snape jumping in front of them to try and protect them; Peter escaping; the encouter with Harry, Sirius and the Dementors; Sirius being locked up waiting for the Dementor's Kiss with Fudge refusing to listen to the children; and then it all playing again while Harry and Hermione went back in time to save Sirius and Buckbeak; Sirius' escape on Buckbeak; Harry and Hermione sneaking back into the infirmary and the confrontation with an incandescently furious Severus Snape.
Once again, there was stunned silence but this time Hermione was angry herself and rounded on Professor Dumbledore. "I was fourteen years old and Harry was thirteen. Harry had not yet managed to produce a corporeal Patronus and I had never even been taught the charm, and yet your older self sent us out the into the grounds with a horde of Dementors and a transformed werewolf roaming free! Even if you had reason to think Harry would survive, I didn't have the protections that he did. You employed a werewolf as a teacher but didn't have anyone supervise to make sure he didn't forget to take his damned potion!"
"What potion is that?" asked Severus, looking interested.
"Wolfsbane. It will be developed by Damocles Belby during the eighties, I believe. It allows a werewolf to retain full possession of their faculties during the transformation. It's an extremely difficult potion, which very few people were capable of brewing—and, no, I don't know how to make it. I'm sorry, Remus, I never had the opportunity to study it. Professor Snape provided it for Remus every month. However, despite his being a teacher and supposedly a responsible adult, Remus should always have been supervised to make sure he took it and there were no slip-ups," Hermione said curtly. "Professor Snape accidentally-on-purpose let slip the following morning that Remus was a werewolf and, although he did it because he was so angry about Sirius getting away, I had to agree with what he did, since it was extremely irresponsible of Remus to forget to take his potion that night.
"Professor Dumbledore, you are Headmaster of Hogwarts, where you have complete autonomy and the Ministry has no authority to interfere. You are also Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. Your older self could have overruled Cornelius Fudge and called for Sirius to be given a trial. You could have given him sanctuary in Hogwarts and arranged for him to be interviewed under Veritaserum in the presence of reliable witnesses, such as Madam Bones, who was the Head of the DMLE at that time. Madam Longbottom would also have been an impeccable witness; given what happened to her son and daughter-in-law, she was hardly likely to give leniency to any Death Eaters."
Hermione took a deep breath to calm herself down. "I appreciate that if Harry and I hadn't gone back those three hours, Harry and Sirius would both have been kissed by the Dementors, however, that doesn't alter the fact that your older self put us both in unacceptable danger, sir."
Many of the people in the room were looking furious, clearly agreeing with Hermione. Professor Dumbledore himself was yet again looking rather shame-faced, while Minerva McGonagall and Dorea Potter looked ready to rip his head off. Remus and Severus were both looking thoughtful, no doubt contemplating the Wolfsbane Potion, while Sirius was white from shock, due to seeing the reality of Peter's betrayal and how close he himself had come to receiving the Dementor's Kiss. Charlus Potter and Andromeda Tonks had moved over beside the boys and were doing their best to calm and reassure Sirius.
Hermione could see that Sirius badly needed a break to compose himself. "I realise it's getting late but I'd like to try and cover fourth year as well, if possible. Or at least part of it," she said. "There will be a lot more to cover each year from now on and it would be best if I could finish telling you the entire story this weekend. I don't think we want to drag it out any more than we have to. Perhaps another meal and then I'll cover fourth year?"
Professor Dumbledore agreed and another meal appeared, courtesy of the Hogwarts house elves. As they were eating, Sirius, now recovered from his shock approached Hermione. "Thank you for saving my life," he said.
"You were innocent," she shrugged.
"Nevertheless, you gave me a second chance and I'm going to try to be worthy of it."
"You could start by apologising to Professor Snape and trying to make up with your brother," Hermione suggested.
"I will, after you've finished your saga," he agreed.
"I'm glad. You have it in you to be a good man, Sirius Black, and I'd like to see you realise your potential," Hermione smiled.
.o.O.o.
¹ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by JK Rowling, Chapter 9.