I Own Nothing! With thanks to Hermionewiz for the inspiration of this chapter :D
Poppy Pomfrey, mediwitch to the entire population of Hogwarts, didn't even wait to be acknowledged, and got straight to her point. "I was in the hospital wing, in your third year, and I personally saw to it that you three were locked in there- because honestly you three together are harder than Minerva to keep safe and healthy- and I was in my office for the next couple of minutes. The only other key to the door was with Dumbledore himself, and I specifically saw him leave. I would've heard him come in, and I can't imagine you being able to sneak past the wards at that age…So my question is… how in Merlin's name did you manage to help Sirius Black escape?"
Poppy looked quite frustrated, and continued on with her rant. "Because I left for two minutes, to go into my office and I came back to find you two" At this she pointed furiously at Hermione and Harry "with more bruises and scrapes than when I left! Then I heard that he had escaped, right after you'd been declaring him innocent, and for some reason when Severus blamed you Albus didn't look him in the eye. I asked and asked Albus to tell me how you'd escaped my care, but he remained as tight lipped as a clam!"
By the end of her speech McGonagall was staring at the two with eyes like hawks, and her eyebrows were rapidly contracting along with her lips. The two cautiously inched away. "I had better be wrong with my assumption Hermione." The younger girl tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. She looked to Harry and saw that his 'innocent' face was also failing dramatically. 'I'm in trouble. Well…more trouble.'
None of the three argued this time, they knew that it had to be Hermione who told, at least part of the story. She stood up, and moved as far away as she could from Molly, McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey as she could without looking suspicious.
"I'm going to assume that you all already know the gist of everything. So I'll start from when Harry and I woke up in the hospital wing after being attacked by dementors." There were a few gasps and tuts from around the room. "Ah, well we heard Professor Snape and Fudge talking about Sirius, and after when you came in Madame Pomfrey you told us that Sirius was about to be kissed. We panicked and tried to convince you all otherwise, but no one would listen because Snape had told you all that we were confunded." At this both Harry and Ron glared. "Then, when you'd…given… us the chocolate Professor Dumbledore came in telling us that he believed us. When you all left he gave us a hint, and told us we needed more time."
At this Professor McGonagall stood up. "Albus! I swear if that man was not already buried I would curse him to death! How could he consider telling a thirteen year old pair of trouble finders to go back in time an acceptable thing to do?" She seemed to be breathing fire as she raged across the room and many inched back from her paralysing glare. "You could have been hurt, or killed! Telling a child, to do this, when he easily could've just gone up there and released Black himself!"
"Minerva perhaps it would be best to calm down and let Hermione continue?" Throwing her hands up into the air in exasperation, Minerva again collapsed back into her chair and glowered. Sprout smiled, and turned back to Hermione. "You can proceed dear; I don't think Minerva will interrupt for a while. She's brooding."
"Oh. Well after he left I used my time turner to take us back in time, and we took a while to figure out all that he meant. We learnt that he wanted us to save Buckbeak- Hagrid's Hippogriff- as well as Sirius. So we went down to his hut, and had to time the whole thing perfectly so that the minister would see Buckbeak before we set him free, that way Hagrid couldn't be blamed." Nods of approval were going about the room, but Bill still looked confused.
"Wait, how did you get a time turner? They're very rare."
"Professor McGonagall had to write loads of letters telling them that I was an exemplary student and I'd never use it for anything… else." At this she looked down guiltily and Pomona looked on in pity.
"You did it to save a friend, and really it all worked out for the better didn't it? Hmm? Now carry on sweetie, I'm interested to know the rest."
Hermione blushed at the endearment, which made her feel very young, and continued. "When we stole Buckbeak we had to wait for ages because Sirius needed to be captured, and we needed to be in the hospital wing. Harry…" She paused at this, unsure whether she should reveal something so personal about her best friend. Harry caught on and piped up.
"Then we had nothing to do but talk, so I told Hermione about before I fell unconscious, I thought I saw someone conjuring a patronus, and told her…I thought I saw my dad." There were a lot of sad smiles around the room, and Hermione intertwined her hand with his. "I tried to convince her to interfere and catch Pettigrew, but-"
"-But she told you straight." Ron snickered. "Whipped."
"Ronald." Ron's ears turned red.
Harry grinned again, and muttered into his friend's ear "What was that you were saying?"
Hermione coughed, and both boys snapped to attention. "As we were saying, after a lot of talking we saw ourselves come out from the Whomping Willow, but we realised that soon Remus would run towards us so we hid in Hagrid's cabin." Molly moaned.
"Remus…I'd forgotten, you didn't get hurt did you?"
"No! But we couldn't see anything, so Harry went outside while I hid with Buckbeak…" Hermione hastily added.
"And I went to go see my 'father'. I waited until the last possible moment and realised that it wasn't him who cast the spell, it was me. I'd seen myself…" He smiled sadly and drifted off into his thoughts. Hermione picked up where he left off.
"So he cast it and saved us. After we realised that we needed to get to the tower to rescue Sirius, and so we flew with Buckbeak all the way there."
Madame Hooch looked delighted. "Oooh what was it like? A hippogriff… I'll have to ask Hagrid someday. Was it fun?" Hermione shrugged, and said that Dragons were more fun. There was a moment of silence where Hooch opened and closed her mouth. Hermione saw McGonagall's eye twitch. Waiting for the inevitable, she stepped behind Harry.
"A DRAGON? HOW THE HELL DID YOU FIND A DRAGON? THAT IS IT! WRITE THIS DOWN MINERVA!"
Bill stood up. "Calm down mum, it's not as if it's that bad…"
"NOT THAT BAD! YOU ASK YOU BROTHER WHAT HE HAS TRAVELLED IN ALONE OVER THE YEARS. ASK HIM!" Molly was incensed, and McGonagall's lips were no longer visible, Ron himself was slowly getting smaller and smaller.
"…Ron?"
Ron's voce came out as a high pitched squeak. "Ah…well, there was the train, Buckbeak, the dragon, my broom, and a thestral. Dad's car…" Bill's jaw dropped and Arthur ran his hands through his hair.
"The car…you stole it and you're still alive?" Arthur frowned, realising he had forgotten about that after all of the other incidents that year had brought.
"Actually Ronald, I had wanted to talk to you about that." Arthur started, but was cut off by Molly's deadly low voice.
"And there will be consequences for everything." With that the helpless Ron was dragged out of the room by his parents.
There was an awkward silence left in the room, where Flitwick suggested that they continue the story.
"Oh okay….Well we flew Buckbeak up to the tower, and I unlocked the window to the room he was kept in and Sirius ended up flying away on Buckbeak. With that done, we had just enough time to get back to the wing, with everything in order." She looked thoughtful. "It all fitted in really well actually, and I think that maybe Dumbledore knew that it would happen because it already had." She cast a hopeful look at McGonagall who stared frostily back, causing both Harry and Hermione to wince.
'We are so not coming out of this with social lives.' It was a highly uncomfortable realisation, considering her newly budding romance. So she resolved to lessen the strain in any way she could. And right then, that meant apologising to McGonagall. Harry suggested they take a break, which gave Hermione ample opportunity. So she headed over.
Relax, she is not going to eat you…the others would stop her…Harry might. When she was finally face to face with the stern woman, Hermione found it hard to look her in the eye; she would've gladly faced a hundred more dementors than have to speak to her head of house when she was in that mood. Her throat felt dry, and she was terrified that the older woman would refuse her apology. Nevertheless, she pulled herself together and gained her Professor's attention with confidence and eloquence. "Er…Professor?"
"Yes Miss Granger?" Still upset then.
"I…I wanted to apologise, for betraying your trust. I promised you that I would only use my time turner for classes, and I broke that, breaking your word in turn. I am deeply sorry, and if it makes you feel any better, they didn't know about it until then…." At this she gave a half-hearted smile and McGonagall's face softened slightly. She beckoned Harry over, and sat them down.
"I'm not mad with either of you two. I understand what you did and why you did it." They both let out breaths. "I am on the other hand furious with Albus, for putting you two in that much danger at all. It is bad enough that you had already been attacked by those dementors, but asking you to break the law!"
"But professor, it had already happened. If we weren't there at all, then we would've been subjected to the dementor's kiss, Sirius would've been kissed too and Buckbeak would've died." Hermione pleaded.
"Albus could easily have gone back himself. He could've sent one of us back to deal with it, and you would've been fine. I won't hear any more of it." Her voice was firm. But, upon seeing their expression she gave them both a pat on the hand. "Don't worry, I shan't do anything too destructive, and I will eventually forgive him, but in my view he put you in unnecessary danger. That is not something I would ever want." The two nodded, quite touched.
Suddenly Hermione remembered Ron, and hoped that Molly had calmed down enough to listen to reason. She looked around, hoping to speak to Bill or George about how Molly would react when she noticed that George was nowhere to be seen.
~~~/~~~
"Explain now."
"There was no other way! There was always no other way! We had to escape Gringotts on the dragon to save our skins, the thestrals were to get to the department of mysteries because our brooms were taken, and I had nothing to do with Buckbeak!"
"…What about the car? Why did you steal the car?" Arthur asked softly.
"Yes Ronald! Answer. Now."
Ron's whole face was now magenta, and he muttered something about Dobby and the wall.
"That explains nothing young man because, you may have had a good reason all of those times, but what about when you visited Harry before school?- In fact, Arthur go and get George here." And Molly pinned Ron to the spot with her gaze, making him shake.
"Hi mum!" George's cheerful voice came out.
"Don't you 'hi mum' me young man! Sit down!" Both boys obeyed automatically at the tone of their mother's voice. Arthur strode up behind her, and the unusual solemn look on his face silenced both boys.
"Now boys I want you to tell me why you deemed it necessary to go and fetch Harry from his relatives in the dead of night, driving halfway across the country when none of you were old enough to even take your OWLs?" Ron shifted; something about the way his father looked gave him the impression that he knew something Ron didn't.
"Harry wasn't answering any of our letters, and we once you said about the warning I got really worried. I knew that his fa-relatives didn't like him, and I wondered if…They put bars on his window dad! They locked him in and fed him rubbish." His pleading look clearly showed he was serious.
Arthur put his hand on the bridge of his nose and sighed. "I'd hoped not…" Molly was still almost growling.
"Dad?" Ron's voice was full of trepidation, and he was scared about what his dad would say next.
"George…Ron…Something Harry had said a couple of weeks ago left me and your mother very worried about his home life. We did some investigating and well…"
"We think Harry was abused."
For a moment Ron's world stopped. Sure, he'd always known Harry disliked his family, and they didn't get on, but he always figured Harry joked when he talked about them so emotionlessly. He'd never considered the possibility that Harry was ever neglected or...beaten. "How bad?" He managed to croak out.
"We know from his neighbour that they'd hit him once or twice. Never to a point where he'd go to hospital, and not often though. Mostly we think they neglected him…"
"Merlin's Balls…" It was a testament to the seriousness of the situation that Molly didn't comment on the use of vulgar language. Well…I guess this explains why mum's been so touchy…
"Who else suspects?" George's voice was void of any humour.
"Minerva and we've involved Poppy as well." Explains even more.
"Why are you just telling me? When are we going to confront Harry?"
"Your mother and I thought we would wait for the right time, we don't want to make Harry too upset."
"But why ask us now then?"
"We needed to know whether we were right or not. Your mother wanted to confront him straight away but I insisted we gain more evidence for if he denies it. The conversation in there reminded me of this particular incident, and I had to ask."
There were a few moments, and Ron asked what Hermione thought of it all.
"We haven't told her. We think something is bothering her too, but we're not sure and we didn't want to bother her." Concern instantly invaded Ron's mind. How had he not noticed anything wrong with either of them? Was he that bad a friend?
Resolve to do better welled up and when Ron strode back into the other room, he gave his girlfriend a quick peck on the cheek, and his best friend a good punch on the arm before whispering to them how it went. "It's alright. They're gonna let me live." Laughter bubbled up in them and Ron once again felt warm as he watched the two most important people in his life have fun and be happy, but doubt now lingered, and Ron felt himself check the sincerity of their words, or their body language for signs previously missed.
He was so lost in his thoughts he didn't even blink as the next question was asked.
This chapter, I figured Ron already overcame his demons when he came back and destroyed the Horcrux. Hermione and Harry however…Also, the involved adults are a bit on edge, I figured I'd give them another excuse for all of their over reacting.