Apologies for the great period of time between posted chapters. I was working on an original novel, which I have just finished first draft on yesterday (December 3, 2014) Now I can turn my attentions back to finishing this one up!
Hogwarts, April 30, 1998
Albus Dumbledore felt one of the wards go off, announcing that a wizard had just crossed the wards. The odd thing was that the ward stated that the wizard was higher than any broom was known to fly.
He headed out of the castle, aware that his movements were drawing attention. He didn't want a large crowd, but neither did he wish to draw a larger one by forbidding the students to follow him. "Sir?" Hermione Granger asked as he passed by her. "Is something wrong?"
"Something passed through the wards in an impossible manner, Miss Granger. I wish to see if I can discern what the truth of the matter is." He began to walk in the direction of the Quidditch pitch, since that would likely give him the best view of who or whatever it was.
As they approached the pitch, he saw an odd object lower itself from the sky onto the ground of the pitch. Miss Granger gasped. "What is it, Miss Granger?"
"I don't know exactly, sir, but that has the look of advanced technology. Extremely advanced. That shouldn't even be able to work in Hogwarts airspace!"
"Curiouser and curiouser, as a friend of mine once said. Let us approach closer and see what we may discover."
"Looks like Miss Granger is approaching with some old man," Chakotay said. "Is it safe to assume that the old gentleman is someone on your side?"
"I hope so," Harry said. "We didn't have a chance to speak that often during my last year here at Hogwarts, so I don't know if I'd done something to make him hate me, or if something more sinister was up. I have trouble with the sinister motives, honestly."
"Can I make an observation here?" 'Annika' asked with a smile. "Have I ever mentioned that my old body was really hot, now that I've had a chance to see it from the outside?"
Harry just snorted. "New one's pretty nice to look at too, darling. Should we open the door and greet the two of them?"
"Works for me," Annika said. "Then Hermione and I can tie you down and have our wicked way with you!" She was grinning when she finished.
Janeway was chuckling softly. "Not exactly the reasoning I'd give for opening the hatch, but yes, meeting with them would be a good idea."
Harry headed to the hatch on the Delta Flyer.
"Sir! It looks like it's opening!" Hermione said, pointing at the object.
"Please stand behind me, Miss Granger, until I ascertain whether or not this is a hostile creature we are about to meet."
He drew his wand and stepped forward slowly. When the door finished opening completely, a tall man stepped from the vehicle. He definitely appeared human, but his outfit was somewhat unusual, being mostly black with an odd geometric pattern in red at the shoulders. He looked at the face and found the man smiling at him. He looked familiar, but -
"Is that any way to greet me, Headmaster?" he asked, and Dumbledore knew immediately who it was.
"Harry? Is that . . . how can I be sure that it truly is you?"
"I can say a couple things that your companion might remember. Those might vouch for me." At his nod, the man who appeared to be an older Harry said, "The first that comes to mind is something she said to a group of us. 'We could have been killed – or worse, expelled.' We had just met Fluffy for the first time. The second one was 'Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - ' In recent years, I always sort of wished I'd known what that last word she was going to say was."
Hermione stepped out from behind Dumbledore. "Love, Harry. The word to finish it was love." She ran toward him, and surprising even herself, she threw herself at him and tried to kiss him.
It was an exceptionally successful attempt, because he had his arms around her and was kissing her as deeply as she was him. She noted another reaction from him, a bit lower down, but decided she was too busy kissing him to think about that at the moment. Although, given the way he was kissing her . . . .
The kiss finally broke, and she snickered softly as she realised that there was an audible POP! as their lips separated. "Now that is a welcome home!" he said happily, making no effort to release her from the hug he was holding her in.
"I'm glad you liked it. I've missed you."
"It's going to take the entire complement of the ship I came here on to tell you how much I missed you, Hermione. So much so that it's going to lead to a very uncomfortable conversation soon." She cocked her head in curiosity. "I'll explain later, I promise. But when you meet someone who's on that shuttle, please don't pull a Ron and jump to conclusions. It'll likely be the wrong one."
"I would like to know how you have been gone for nearly two years and came back four years older," the Headmaster said. "But I gather that it part of what you wish to say."
"Yes sir. May I introduce my companions?" At his nod, Harry motioned to the Flyer, reluctantly releasing Hermione from his grasp. A striking woman with brown hair and a strong resemblance to Kathryn Hepburn stepped off first. "May I introduce Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager?"
"Pleased to meet you sir," she said in a somewhat smoky voice that made Hermione's pulse quicken just a little bit.
"Commander Chakotay is our next contestant," he said with a grin, which led to a man with odd markings over his right eye stepping off the ship that Harry had landed. "First Officer of the Voyager."
He worried his lower lip. "The last one needs a little explanation, but not out here where anyone can overhear it. The last person on board -"
A tall blonde woman stepped off the ship that made Hermione's heart pound in her chest and her nipples hurt as much as Harry's appearance did, as well as starting a very pleasant thrumming sensation between her thighs. The woman was wearing cobalt coloured spray paint, from the look of her outfit. The blonde walked forward and held out her hand to Hermione. "I have wanted to meet you for some time, given how Harry has talked about you. I don't see the wings, though."
"Wings?" she asked, a little light-headed.
"To him, you're an angel. You're directly responsible for me. The body was born Annika Hansen, but I now use a different name for reasons that will become clear in a more secure location."
"Well, shall we head inside then?" Dumbledore asked. "Is it safe to assume that the reason you have been gone for the last two years is one of those things that needs security?"
Harry nodded and turned back to Hermione. "You have no idea how glad I am that you survived. The last I had seen you, you had just been sliced by Dolohov, and Neville had verified that you were alive. Then . . . what happened, and I finally see that you're alive."
"Unscarred too," she said. Emboldened by his reaction to the kiss, she added, "You can verify that later if you want." She had an impish smile.
"Trust us, Miss Granger," the man called Chakotay said, "he'll want to, and I suspect it will be a very thorough inspection." He had the grin that told you he knew he was embarrassing a good friend, which helped her relax even more about these people.
"It's in the interests of science!" Harry mock protested.
"If you need a nurse to help you, Harry, I'm willing," the girl called Annika added in a voice that sent fire through Hermione's body and straight to her core. If the thrumming sensation got any stronger, she was likely to embarrass herself with a loud orgasm.
"Really?" he asked her, voice asking questions that Hermione could only guess at.
"This castle is beautiful," Captian Janeway said to the Headmaster, clearly attempting to yank the conversation in a less . . . charged direction. "Harry tells us that it's a school for magic users?"
"Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Dumbledore said proudly, motioning to the building before them. "Premiere educational centre in all of Europe for learning to harness magical abilities."
"Spoken like a true salesman," Harry added with a friendly laugh.
"Guilty, I confess," Dumbledore replied, smiling.
'Annika' was intrigued as the entered the castle. She knew it, but she didn't. Her memories led her to the Great Hall. "Miss Hansen? Lunch is happening in there right now. The appearance of the four of you might cause a bit of a stir."
"Word gets out that I'm back and that'll happen anyway," Harry said. "Might as well get the rumours started now. Besides, I need to see who's still alive." He flipped the doors open wide, and the four of them entered.
She was pleased to see that many of the students reached for wands suddenly as the doors shot open. She was even more pleased to note that Ron, Ginny, and Neville were still around. Her eyes slid around the room and found Luna, who was looking back at her, and had actually risen to her feet.
The blonde girl seemed to glide to the group and came to a stop before Annika. "Don't worry, miss. Things will work out the way you hope." She pulled her into a hug and whispered, "Welcome back, Hermione."
Annika's eyes went wide, and Luna giggled. "I'll explain later. Chalk it up to me being weird."
The blonde pulled Harry into a hug as well, and she could hear her whisper, "I like the way you've turned out. Makes me wish you liked me that way."
He was more than a little flustered, which gave Ron, Ginny, and Neville time to run over to the group. "It's really you, Harry?" Ron asked.
"Was last I checked," was the reply, which made Hermione and Annika laugh.
Ginny's eyes sparkled. "Maybe someone should do a more . . . hands-on inspection?"
Harry's answer was to pick her up and spin her around, laughing. Annika could see tears in his eyes, though. "Oh my gods have I missed you guys!" he nearly sobbed.
"I believe that we have the group that I would have gathered to speak with you, at least amongst the students. Shall we away to our meeting? All of you who need it will be given passes explaining your absence from whatever classes you may miss." At Harry's nod, Dumbledore cleared his throat, silencing the room. "Yes, this is Harry Potter. With luck, he will be able to meet with some of you later." With that, he led the procession to his office.
Harry smiled to himself as they entered the office of the Headmaster. As the man sat behind his desk, Harry could see the Headmaster he remembered from his first four years resurfacing, the one who always seemed supremely concerned about him, as opposed to the one who couldn't give him the time of day from fifth year. He noted that Professor Snape was also there.
"Harry it is excellent to see you healthy and happy. Where have you been?" the Headmaster asked once all were inside the room.
"I would prefer to keep that to myself until Professor Snape is no longer here. I know of his role as a spy for Voldemort -"
"Do not say the name, you stupid child!" the hook-nosed man hissed.
"No one has ever told me why it's taboo, Professor. Until I am given a valid reasoning for avoid the name, I see no reason to give in to fear and not make certain sounds."
"I assure you, sir, that Lieutenant Potter is anything but stupid," Janeway said in a clipped voice. "I fully expect him to be in command one day."
"God help your people, then," Snape said quietly.
Harry just started laughing. It started small, and grew until he was nearly falling from his chair. He was gasping for breath near the end of his laughing jag. When he was able to, he climbed into his chair and wiped his eyes. "Ah, Headmaster, you still trust him, don't you, even though he makes his loathing of me clear?"
"He has given me good reason to trust him, yes."
"What is it?" Chakotay asked.
"That is between the Headmaster and I," Snape replied imperiously.
"Headmaster and me," Harry corrected. "You should have used the word 'me' in that sentence. But the point is that you demand that we trust him in everything. You can hear that he is abusive to me. I have been missing for twe . . . two years, and he immediately falls into his old patterns."
"Personally," Janeway said, "if it weren't for the sense of obligation that he feels for you, I'd suggest that he simply leave again."
Harry grinned maliciously as the Headmaster's eyes widened in shock. "Given the prophecy, you can't have that, can you?"
"How do you know it?" Dumbledore asked.
"Make him leave or explain why he's completely trustworthy and I'll tell you. Otherwise we make our own plans, sir. I do not trust him. It's that simple."
"Severus?" Dumbledore asked. "His role is that important. He needs to know."
Snape sighed and sneered at Harry. "I was the one who heard the beginning of the prophecy. I had been friends with your mother while at this school. When I realised that he intended to kill your parents, I chose to rebel."
"You're not telling the whole story," Annika said. "There are a lot of holes in that."
"And what would you know of the situation, girl?" he sneered at her.
Harry was staring at the ceiling. "Okay, we know that he knew my mother, assuming that the memory I saw in fifth year is correct, where he told the 'mudblood' that he didn't need her help. I have my doubts since he has a memory of a werewolf talking about his condition in a public place, where anyone could overhear him.
"The base story is true," Harry continued. "He overheard the prophecy and told his master, which means that he is directly responsible for the fact that I grew up with a family that thought a cupboard was a proper bedroom. He knows this because of the mind rape he did in the name of lessons." Harry focused on the headmaster. "Interestingly, you can lay my disappearance directly on his shoulders as well. When I was given proper Occlumency training that didn't involve brute force, I learned in two weeks."
"I doubt that," Snape sneered. "You -" He suddenly stiffened and fell over, twitching.
Harry grinned. "He was about to state that I hadn't noticed the intrusion into my mind. Illegal in this day and age, and highly frowned on where I was." He looked to Janeway. "I believe that your security chief would think very poorly of a culture that permitted what Professor Snape was doing." He turned back to Dumbledore. "He ran afoul of one of my mental wards."
"Be that as it may be," Snape said shakily, "I was in your mind. You were nowhere special, you were at the beach for much of your time, ogling young women of low morals."
"Borrow the headmaster's Pensieve and go look at those girls, Professor Snape. Take a very close look at their faces. I think you'll discover that it was a constructed memory, unless you think that Daphne Greengrass and Pansy Parkinson would wear so little in front of someone who wasn't a husband." He turned back to the Headmaster again. "We're looking at a man who detests me, and who caused Riddle to come after my parents. What could he possibly have done to prove his loyalty to the side of light, sir?"
Hermione was looking at Snape. "I suspect that he was in lust with your mother, Harry. If so, he probably wanted her left alive, in the vain hope that she'd fall for him."
Snape was on his feet and pointing his wand at Hermione, but never managed to cast whatever he had planned, because Harry had pulled his phaser and stunned him. As he fell to the ground, Harry looked at Dumbledore and said, "If you wish him to be part of this, you will find a way to control him, Headmaster. I have the upper hand in this, as you know. I do not trust that he will not run to Voldemort with whatever I tell you. My whereabouts for the last . . . two years are part of that."
Dumbledore looked at him for a long silent moment before speaking. "I have always felt that it was up to him to explain, but he was very incomplete. He did in fact overhear the beginnings of the prophecy, when I was interviewing Professor Trelawney -"
"Trelawney! Sybill P Trelawney! Of course!" Harry shouted. "I suspected, but . . . sorry for interrupting, sir. The globe simply had this tiny ghostly figure that I couldn't be bothered to examine, since I was paying more attention to the words."
Dumbledore chuckled slightly. "Quite all right, Mr Potter. I have had the same reaction before, and understand it all too well. He did go to Voldemort and tell him, and when he realised that your family was slated to die, he came to me, trying to save Lily."
"Not Dad or me, just her?" Harry asked carefully.
"Precisely. It was only after he swore an oath to me to do everything in his power to keep you alive that I was willing to deal with him. It was a magical oath - if he breaks it, he dies."
"I note that it doesn't prevent him from being a royal son of a bitch to me, just that he has to keep me alive."
"Very true, unfortunately. I have tried to get him to realise that you are not your father -"
"To my detriment, to be honest. I'm going to want an oath that he simply will not take this information from this room. I do not trust him, and am smart enough to know that I don't know what Voldemort might be able to do with the information." He pointed his phaser at Snape and grinned. Another beam shot out, and Snape sat up suddenly.
"How did you manage that?" Chakotay asked. "I've never seen one do that before."
"I'll tell you after I get an oath out of Severus Snape not to reveal anything that he hears today without permission."
"And why would I swear to that, especially to you?" sneered the man.
"Because you'll be out of the loop, Professor," Harry said. "Right now, some of your Slytherins – Draco Malfoy, for example – are firing owls at their homes, probably with Haste spells on them, telling their Death Eater daddies that Harry Potter has returned from wherever he disappeared to. Voldie is going to want information, and I don't want him to have it. Either you basically give up spying and swear to make no effort to pass information to Voldemort in any fashion whatsoever in regards to my whereabouts, or you face the consequences of going before the insane half-blood and telling him that you have no information to give him. I can't imagine he'll like that very much, and might even kill you."
"You sound so worried for my survival, Potter." The sarcasm was unmistakeable.
"Have you ever given him reason to care?" Janeway asked suddenly. "If what I've heard from you since we arrived is any indicator, you've given him no reason to care for whether or not you live or die. And to be honest, if I have to choose between someone who has saved me and many others, and you, who seem constitutionally unable to do anything even resembling a positive emotion, I choose to keep my friend alive."
"So I can remain in the loop if I promise not to tell the Dark Lord anything?"
"A magical oath that you will pass no information regarding me to him through any means that you can conceive of, unless I give you permission. That means no giving Draco a note to pass to Voldie. No telling Draco that being in a specific corridor at a certain time would be a good idea. No means of communication at all."
"You carefully remove most of my usefulness to the Dark Lord. And he will realise this. You know that I am a spy, for example. He will know that Dumbledore knows that you know."
"And your Occlumency is supposedly good enough to keep the Dark Idiot out, isn't it?" Annika asked. "You let him know that Harry knows that you're a spy. I'd imagine that he's got you spying for him as well. You pass unimportant information to him, much as you pass what information you can to our side." She sighed. "Look, you're an intelligent man. I'm sure that you can turn the magical oath into something to help you, and make you look good in Voldie's eyes. Perhaps tell him of the exact wording of the oath, so that he and his smarter people will spend time trying to work past the wording, rather than simply coming out and attacking people to make his point about still being here."
Snape's eyes widened at that, and he actually smiled. "I believe that I like the way you think. Perhaps later we could talk?" It was obvious that he was trying to be as smooth as he could be. He turned to the Headmaster. "I believe that I am willing to take the oath requested. If we place the entirety of this conversation under it, I can even help you with the wording of the oath, in order to make it as unbreakable as possible, and hide my involvement from the Dark Lord.
He turned to Harry. "I do not like you, but I wish the Dark Lord removed more than I dislike you."
"I can accept that, sir. One thought comes to mind, though. Be it tomorrow or a hundred and fifty years from now, someday you will die and see my parents again. You say that you cared for my mother." Snape went white before Harry could finish. "Precisely, sir. I doubt we can ever be friends, based on the past. But can you please remember that half of the genetics in my system are hers, and do your best to ignore the parts that are James Potter's?"
"I . . . shall try, that is all that I can promise." Harry nodded and held out his hand. Snape nodded and shook it, albeit as rapidly as he had once shaken Sirius Black's hand.
An hour of work developed an oath that both Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore thought would stymie Riddle for a while. Then Harry was able to tell his story.
"Maybe it was breathing in the sand from the broken Time Turners or something else. I don't know what caused it, and I doubt anyone will ever learn what caused it. When my eyes cleared, I was alone. I ran through the bowels of the Ministry, screaming for the group that had come with me, because the last I knew, Hermione was near death. Instead, I found an empty building, one that I found out later was actually a tourist attraction. I headed to the surface to see if I could get back to Hogwarts and see what had happened. The local police stunned me.
"I awoke to discover myself 362 years in the future. Everyone I knew was dead. They helped bring me up to speed, and I joined Starfleet, which is where I got this nifty uniform I wear. The red announces that I'm in the command branch of the organisation, and the pips on my collar announce that I'm a Lieutenant, which is odd, given some of my recent escapades.
He turned to Snape. "And the wonderful thing was that I earned it, sir, rather than all that stupid crap in this day about surviving some damned curse and being held up as a saviour. To be honest, when all is said and done, I'm going back to the 24th century. It's become my home." He looked to Annika for a moment.
"What about me?" Hermione asked softly. "I'd like it if you stayed."
His eyes filled with tears. "I can't tell you, but that's . . . that's not an option."
She thought for a moment, and then sat back hard. "I'm going to die soon. You're crying, and you never cry, at least not where people can see. You can't tell me. That means you don't want to change the future, because if you do, it causes a paradox.
She started to chew her fingernails, her brow furrowed. "I don't give a damn. Tell me exactly what you know. I want to live, but I won't erase the future. If I can find an escape from my fate that doesn't change the history books of the future, then I'd like to take it."
Harry and Annika looked up suddenly and their eyes met. Harry grinned widely, followed almost immediately by Annika mirroring the look. "Captain Janeway?" he asked. "Permission to explain what I know about Oxford, and the Granger family? We might get three new crew members."
"Four," Hermione said with a small laugh. "Although I don't know what duties my fifteen month old sister could perform on your ship."
"Congratulations!" he said.
"You have my permission, Harry," Janeway said softly. "As I understand it, that would easily allow for the history books to remain unchanged."
He looked to Hermione. "On August 1st of this year, something is going to happen in Oxford. It will vaporise the university, and a goodly portion of the surrounding city. Oxford will never be rebuilt – it will stand as a monument to man's inhumanity to man, even more than Auschwitz or Hiroshima. The university will be rebuilt and called Oxford, in memory of the old one, but it's actually going to be placed in Coventry."
"I'd be home by then," she whispered.
"Precisely. History states that many bodies were never found, simply because there was nothing left to find. The entire Granger family was one of those groups of bodies."
"Would it change the history books if the four of you saved us? I'd ask if we could save more people, but I don't think you've got the room in that ship."
Harry grinned and looked at Janeway, who smiled and nodded. "That ship on the Quidditch pitch isn't the Voyager, Hermione. That's a shuttlecraft sent down from the Voyager." He looked to Dumbledore. "Sir?"
"Yes Harry? Apologies. Yes, Lieutenant?" He smiled. "You earned it on your own merits; it should be used."
"Thank you, sir, but I give you permission to call me Harry if you want to. After the students leave in June, may we have permission to land the Voyager on the Quidditch pitch and perform some much needed repairs, if the captain deems it necessary?"
"Certainly. If you desire, you may allow the crew access to the grounds, with the notification of certain areas being off limits."
"Yeah, I can't imagine that the centaurs will take kindly to Starfleet tramping about their woods. They might appreciate Commander Chakotay, though. He might speak their language better than I do. And meeting spiders as big as the Delta Flyer? Not fun."
Ron muttered in the back, "No kidding."
Harry laughed and continued. "There's a lot I can't tell you, for obvious reasons. But I can tell you that part of the reason I was in Starfleet was to make my return to this time easier." He laughed. "There is a picture – yet to be taken – of me with my arm around Hermione's shoulder, standing next to the Delta Flyer. It was taken by Colin Creevey. That's what let Starfleet know that we had to return." He turned to Janeway. "It's also why I pushed for the creation of the Delta Flyer as early in our trip as I did."
"I can understand that," she said. "Back when you thought that it would be at any moment during our trip, you wanted it ready."
"Precisely." He paused. "I still wonder about that other ship, though. It was Federation design, but nothing we've seen yet. And that photo was taken this year."