Hogwarts, May 15, 1998
"Hermione, may I talk with you for a minute?" Annika!Hermione asked. "I've had an idea, and I want your input on feasibility. And it involves you, whether or not you're even interested."
"What is it?" the younger one asked.
The elder bit her lip. "Well, I look in the mirror and it's wrong. I mean, yeah, this body is sexy, but damn me if my old one wasn't more so. My pulse still speeds up a little around you. Science or magic can't do it, but I was wondering if a melding of the two might manage the ability to change the Annika Hansen genetics to Hermione Jane Granger genetics."
The younger girl looked at her older counterpart with an open mouth. "Why?" she finally asked. "I think that the current form you're in is sexier than anything I looked like on my best day!"
"Well, I disagree with you, and whether he realizes that I know it or not, Harry thinks that way too. The two of us walk into a room together, he unconsciously looks to you first. Still kisses me to make my toes curl and my pulse race, but . . . we both think you're sexier. And I don't like looking in the mirror and not seeing me."
Hermione nodded. "I understand. We could work off polyjuice, but that wouldn't solve it. As much as I have my problems with him, we might want to involve Professor Snape as well." She paused. "Luna Lovegood thinks that potions will play a large part of it as well, and says so with that odd little smile of hers that seems to say that she knows more than you do."
"Agreed. Shall we talk to McGonagall first, since Transfiguration might play a role as well?"
Arm in arm, the two headed for the Deputy Headmistress.
Wizengamot, June 1, 1998
Dolores Umbridge sneered at him from the podium. "When a citizen of the Biritsh Wizarding world is called before the Wizengamot, Mister Potter, that citizen would do well to respond in a timely manner."
He met her eyes and did not react. "Given other obligations, Madam Umbridge, I did respond in as timely a manner as those obligations would allow. Had there been a greater necessity, I am certain that the Wizengamot would have sent me another missive stressing the need for my earlier appearance. Since such was not sent, the logical assumption is that it was merely a fact-finding mission. As such, I gave the Wizengamot notification that I was free and that I would be arriving today to answer what questions I can."
"Excuse me?" Dolores Umbridge asked him, her attitude quickly matching her surname. "You will answer the questions we ask of you, Mister Potter."
He simply raised an eyebrow to her. "I believe you have heard of something called an oath, Madame Umbridge? During my unexpected time away, there were certain oaths I was required to make. I will give you information within the confines of those oaths."
"You will answer our questions!" she shrieked back at him. "The Ministry of Magic outranks any organization you may have given an oath to!"
Harry turned to the Wizengamot. "I have offered to tell you what information I can. It is Madame Umbridge who is being unreasonable. I am afraid that I cannot, in good conscience, remain at this time. At the point when it can be agreed that I might be permitted to follow the oaths I gave, I will gladly return and answer any questions that do not violate those oaths."
Umbridge chose to prove that it was possible for her voice to go even higher than it had been, and that she had gone clear past umbrage and straight into frothing angry insanity. "If you attempt to leave, Potter, I will have you thrown in Azkaban for contempt of the Wizengamot!"
"I do not have contempt for the Wizengamot, Madame Umbridge," he replied in a soft tone. "I believe that I have shown that by explaining to them my position." His tone hardened. "I will admit, however, to contempt for the woman who chose to use a Blood Quill on students, who used Veritaserum on students, despite it being illegal to do so, and who was attempting to talk herself into using the Cruciatus to get information from a student."
"Lies!" she shrieked.
"There are witnesses to these various actions, Madame Umbridge. I am one of these witnesses."
"You are an unstable child!"
"Then any need for my testimony before the Wizengamot is useless, since it is clearly untrustworthy," he replied with a grin, before going grim. "You cannot have it both ways. Either I can be trusted to tell you things, such as where I was and what I was doing, or my memory is faulty, in which case anything I tell you about where I was is a fabrication. One or the other, Madame. Choose. If I am incompetent, then I shall leave these chambers. If I am competent, then please get to the questioning."
She was nearly apoplectic at this point, but took a quick look around the Wizengamot chambers. Protection was not forthcoming from the members for her, so she backed off. "Very well. You are competent to stand trial."
"This is no trial, Madame. At no time was I ever notified of such, or else I would have ensured that I had proper representation. This is a fact-finding inquiry, and nothing more."
"The young man is correct," a severe woman with a monocle stated. Harry had to think for a while to remember her as Amelia Bones. "In fact, I believe that in the interests of speeding everyone's exit from these chambers, I will take over the questioning." She stepped down from the gallery and walked to the space before Harry. Dolores Umbridge was now a color beyond the hideous pink of her sweaters, and into purples, but she remained silent. "You've been gone for about two years, Mr Potter. Can you tell us where you went?"
"Honestly ma'am? If I told you, you'd think I belonged in the Longterm Care Ward at St Mungos. I'm really not sure that I'd believe it if I hadn't lived it." He smiled at her.
"Just tell us. You're certainly sounding aware of your surroundings, and don't sound insane."
He frowned slightly. "Can I request that I tell only you, and that you decide who needs to be made aware? You are known to be pretty much incorruptible, and the most trustworthy person that anyone knows of in the Ministry." He laughed. "The Unspeakables might be more trustworthy, but we don't know of them that much, so we can't say, can we?"
She laughed quietly. "I will agree to being told."
He leaned forward after she cast a powerful Muffliato and told her, "You saw the wreckage, correct? Well, with all those time turners, I inhaled the dust and started coughing. When I stopped, I was … elsewhen."
"Elsewhen?" she asked, eloquently raising an eyebrow.
"Years in the future, ma'am. I managed to get some help up there, with the agreement that I not give away data that could damage the past - in other words, those oaths I spoke of - and eventually I returned to here and now. With some help."
"Are you sure that you can't tell us what you saw in the future?"
"Do you want to risk the complete dissolution of the universe, ma'am?" he asked, never letting the smile he wanted to let loose show. "Something I tell you might prevent the future that I went to, thereby altering everything. The problem is, I've already been there and experienced it. So …"
"Your point is made, Mr Potter. As interesting as it might be, I won't ask further."
"Thank you."
The spell dropped and she looked to the Wizengamot. "He has convinced me that he is telling the truth, and that the oaths he has given are for a good cause." She glared around the room. "I will prosecute anyone who attempts to force the information out of him. It is a matter of not only national but international security that he not let the information out. He has managed to convince me that he has a valid reason for disappearing, and that to tell what happened would violate the oaths that he took. Are there any questions for him that do not involve why he was missing for two years?"
Hogwarts, June 3, 1998
"The problem that I see with it, Hermione - and Hermione," Kathryn Janeway said, "is that the Federation is less than sanguine about the sort of manipulations that you both are talking about. It feels like the cause of the Eugenics Wars to them."
"They haven't happened yet," Annika!Hermione said. "Khan Noonian Singh should be appearing on the horizon any day now." She grinned. "Also, I'm willing to have documented what is done to make me look 'right', if you will. I'm not trying to give myself wonder-tits -"
"You've got those already," the original Hermione murmured, but not quietly enough to not be heard by both women.
"Yes, love," Annika replied with a laugh. "The concept I have is more along the lines of what they call plastic surgery in this era. I look wrong when I look in the mirror. I should look like she will in her twenties." She looked at Hermione. "Hell, make me look exactly like her, age and all, and see if we can confuse him."
"Not for long," Janeway said. "You know how intelligent he is." She looked to Hermione of the 20th century. "He admitted once that he was finally being what he should have been because he wanted you to be proud of him." She sighed. "In one of my nadir moments, I caused him more mental stress and pain than any human should have to deal with, and it all came back to you." She proceeded to explain the situation, and Hermione was crying by the end of it. "In all honesty, I think I may put myself on report when we return to our time, and to Earth."
"From how he talks now, Captain, I suspect that the most vocal person in your defense, should you do that, will be Harry himself."
"We'll see," was all that Janeway said. "As for what you're thinking of, I'm wondering if perhaps the simplest method might not be simply cloning your body and seeing if your personality can be moved over magically." She laughed that smoky laugh that made both women's pulses jump. "A phrase I never thought I'd say, I must admit." She frowned. "The real issue is that to the Federation - and me, I will admit - your switch to a new body effectively kills this one. You were able to take over Seven of Nine because she had no personality to speak of. I would not want this body killed, because we could potentially bring about a productive member of society."
"No matter what the situation, ma'am," Annika said, "We'll be inventing magic for this. I would worry about the copy errors that appear in clones, but that's really only after you make a clone of a clone. I intend to have offspring the old-fashioned way, so the errors can't really be transmitted." She smiled. "And I understand the worry, and agree. This is why there's research." She laughed.
Hermione looked at them for a moment before shaking her head. "How in hell are you getting copy errors from a cloning process? Does the future use the biological equivalent of a photocopier?" She shook her head to clear it of the image of popping a person in one side, a bright light shining, and then another twenty stepping out the other side, one by one.
Hogwarts, June 20, 1998
"So now we have the photograph that Colin took existing for the future history books," Harry said. "Now we just have that one other picture, and I've no idea when that will be taken."
"I'm more worried about what my parents will say upon seeing you, and the explanation. Or, for that matter, what they'll say about seeing my other self," Hermione said as she settled into her seat on the train.
"I just wish that we could come with you, Harry," Ron said. "But there's too much back here I'm connected to, and … well, it sounds weird, but I've mourned you already. It's been great having you back, but -"
"I understand. As it was, I was trying to figure out how to ask you to stay behind. Admiral Jaaymeson sort of hinted that Bill wasn't the only Weasley from this time to survive and have a family. I'm pretty sure that I heard every name but Percy's and Charlie's mentioned as having children. And it's not that they didn't necessarily have any, it's more that they were never mentioned to me. So yeah, you guys survive what's to come. I suspect that the wizarding world's Statute of Secrecy will be what saves everything in the long run." He laughed. "So much of the technology that we use in the future comes from spells and such that are used today. Once … something really awful is coming, and there will be a dark age of sorts. I suspect that the Statute of Secrecy may simply go away at some point, since they didn't seem to be worrying about it in my -" He paused for a long moment. "Yeah. I've acclimated to then. I was going to say 'in my time' in regard to the 24th century."
"I suspect that more than my family will be coming with us," Hermione said. "Sirius has flat out stated that he'll sign everything over to the Malfoys if he has to, but he's not losing you again."
"We might be able to work something out with the goblins," Harry replied. "They never said, but when I ran into a few of them and they realized who I was, they seemed to be waiting for a specific thing that I clearly hadn't done yet. Maybe they knew I was going to be returning from the past. So I should get with Sirius and see about what he needs to do to make sure the Malfoys don't get the money or properties."
Gringott's, July 1, 1998
"Now that we've got that worked out," Sirius said, "we can take our leave of you, good goblins. Thank you for your assistance." He turned to Harry and the two Hermiones. "Now all we have to do is find that soul anchor of Riddle's and figure out how to make Blondie here look like herself."
"What are the issues involved?" Rendflesh asked. "Perhaps we can help you." The fact that the help would cost was never mentioned - if these humans weren't aware of that fact, let them learn the hard way.
"Well, the soul anchor is simply figuring out what Riddle used and destroying it. The second is a bit more difficult. We need to figure out a method of making the blonde female … they are the same person, through a very unusual method."
"If we were to build a body that was created from material supplied by the one with brown hair," Rendflesh said, "the soul anchor option would work to allow movement from one body to the next. That was the reason that we created them, after all. Your Riddle simply never finished the process properly to move to a new form."
"Then how did he do it?" Harry asked. "I was there for that ritual he did to gain a new form."
"Pah! Chicanery. That form will fail. He will remain until the other half of the process is completed, and the soul anchor is once again inert."
Harry frowned. "Actually, since he's terrified of death, I suspect that he never intends to complete that ritual. We may need to figure out how to destroy it, if we can ever find it."
"If he is perverting our science, then we will help you locate the anchor he made. He is bad for business." The nod he gave them was severe, and clearly put paid to the situation.
"We thank you. What would you require in payment?" Harry asked.
"Money we have. Can you supply us with crafting materials? Gems of as high a quality as possible, and various metals?"
Harry grinned. "Give me some requests and I'll see what I can do for you. I've got resources most wizards don't."
The Granger home, July 15th, 1998
"Isn't that cheating, though?" Rachel Granger asked. "Your ship can make tons of whatever you need."
"Not really," Harry replied. "They aren't using it for currency, but for crafting things. It's materials that they can't get easily, but that are child's play for the computers to replicate. I was even honest with them about where it was coming from, and they didn't care."
"Still, I … it just seems wrong," she said.
"I understand where you're coming from," Harry replied, "but if they don't mind, then I'm not going to complain about having a method to be able to get some of the information we absolutely need."
He turned as he heard footsteps coming down the stairs and turned to face the two Hermiones. They were both brunettes now, and in matching sundresses. He groaned slightly, since the view was causing a somewhat insistent redirection of his blood flow.
The solution to their problem had turned out to be an oddity with Polyjuice, and the way that it interacted with the transporters. Polyjuice had simply changed Annika, and somehow worked around the Borg implants - no one was sure on how, and they weren't about to go experimenting to figure it out. She had reverted at the end of the hour, while Madam Pomfrey and the Doctor had been doing their own scans of her. The Doctor had decided that he would like to scan her in Sickbay after she had tried another dosage, so the group had beamed aboard Voyager.
Scans reported no agent of alteration, which his scans on planet had reported.
And then she hadn't reverted when the hour was over.
She was currently working on her tenth day of looking like the brunette Hermione, only with Borg implants. It appeared to be permanent.
"How are you, Harry?" the original asked with a smile, knowing that the sundresses were, if not accentuating the curves they both had, certainly ensuring that Harry knew they were both quite female. It still thrilled her to know that Harry found her so sexy that she could short circuit his intellect for a while.
"Habwah?" he asked, proving her point before shaking his head. "You two are lethal to my ability to concentrate, love."
The two girls grinned and slapped a high five. "Yes! Our nefarious plan worked!" Rachel laughed brightly as her seventeen month old daughter toddled into the room to see why everyone was laughing.
"Minee!" she yelled and ran helter-skelter toward her sisters, and both knelt. The little girl stopped and looked at both with that serious mode that only the very young can get away with, then leapt into the arms of the one who used to be Annika. "Nebber hugged dis Minee bafore!" she stated with solemnity. Harry smiled at the tears that appeared in her eyes, knowing that she was truly accepted.
"I don't know if Carson and I have properly thanked you, Mr Potter," Rachel said as she watched, her voice a bit thick at the beauty of the scene. "You give us a method to keep our daughter alive after a horrible incident - yet again. I mourn that we can't explain what's coming, but understand why we can't, and have been as careful as possible in our dealings with others. On top of this, you give us another Hermione, that we can get to know and love as much as the one I gave birth to."
"You have no idea how much it means that you're willing to accept me," said the Hermione holding her young sister. "The only real memories I have are the ones Harry knew to give me. We're working on a way to give me some of her memories, if we can do it in a manner that won't end up giving me a split personality or simply drives me insane."
"You're already crazy," Harry said with a laugh. "You're in love with me."
"Just proves we raised our daughters to be intelligent ladies," Carson Granger said as he came in from the back garden. "The coals are ready. Shall we men once more prove our mastery of fire by causing meat to become tasty over flame?"
Harry took on a Lockhart pose. "We shall," he said in a pompous voice.
"My hero!" said the Hermione without a child in her arms, in a severely over-acted fawning manner.