Hermione did not rush back to Ravenclaw Tower after the memorial, though she did not dawdle either - it was nearly curfew. A couple of groups of older Ravens were making their way back in the same direction, talking quietly. Roger Davies was walking alone, looking morose. Hermione would've liked to say something to him, distract him a bit, but given the mood she was in, she wasn't sure she could keep herself from blurting out what she suspected about Madam Pomfrey's death. And despite her newfound determination to do something about it, she still wouldn't do anything precipitous without trying to get a better understanding of the consequences from her older self. So she just measured her pace so as to stay behind him, out of his view, and felt quietly bad about it.
As she walked, she tried to decide what her criteria were going to be for acting or not acting, depending on what she learned. When Hermione read fiction, she'd begun to mildly prefer science fiction over fantasy after the age of five or so, when her critical thinking skills had developed to the point of distraction. But in either genre she'd encountered various ideas on the "stubbornness" of changing timelines, in fictional worlds where that was even possible. The mysterious notes had mentioned the term "backlash", which rather implied some consequence. If there was somehow some guaranteed moral consequence that outweighed apprehending a murderer and getting justice for Madam Pomfrey, like someone random dying, or some other murderer going free, obviously she wouldn't choose that. If it was a personal consequence, like her dying...Hermione liked to think she was the sort of person who would give her life to save another, but that sort of thing tended to happen in the moment, in emergencies - she suspected it would be much harder to do in a premeditated way. And she couldn't help wondering about the ultimate outcomes - if she could save more people later, by not dying...but she wasn't at all sure if that line of thinking was morally defensible or just rationalization.
But that was all in the event Older Hermione could convince her that there were guaranteed consequences, and Hermione wasn't sure how likely that was. Given how Time ought to work, with cause and effect still intact even if effects sometimes now preceded causes...either changing Time ought to be simply impossible, because things happening other than the way in which they'd already been observed to happen was just upending the definition of the word "happen", or if the universe was a many-worlds sort, changing Time ought to be utterly unpredictable, with any significant change causing uncountable knock-on changes down the line, some of which might be good and some of which might be bad. But the existence of magic sort of threw those theories into disarray, because now things that weren't organic were allowed to somehow have agency of a sort...Accio, and wands, and Hogwarts itself. Who was to say that fundamental parts of reality couldn't as well? Or - far more to her liking - that there was some hidden metaphysical principle that stabilized Time in a universe that allowed it to be fiddled with, but which might nevertheless be understood if you worked at it? And neither of those theories explained the references to "erasing" a person, which implied that someone had been removed from Time, but in some way that people still remembered them, or how would anyone realize in the first place, and that didn't seem to make any logical sense at all.
By the time she reached the tower, she hadn't come to any particular conclusions - there were still too many things she didn't understand about the situation. And now she had to pay attention to figuring out the mechanics of her "conversation". Most of the Ravenclaws were curious by nature, so just sitting in the common room or her bedroom and repeatedly taking small doses of a potion interspersed by bouts of writing - and possibly visibly nodding off for some length of time - seemed bound to attract questions. She could try to do it under the covers, but she didn't think she could manage to avoid exciting notice that way either. It'd have to be the dorm bathroom - there were three stalls and three tubs for five girls (Hermione had no experience with boarding school, and did not realize how luxurious this was), so even if she took a long time in one stall it wouldn't cause serious problems, and if anyone asked she could just say she was having stomach problems, which was still true. In the end she went ahead with that plan, and added a decision to wait until the rest of her dorm-mates were settling down to sleep to make disruptions even less likely.
It hadn't been mentioned in Madam Wainscott's instructions, but while she was waiting for everyone to go to sleep, Hermione managed to find some references to Liquid Sheep in the Tower Library, and there didn't seem to be a minimum effective dose. So she'd just take two drops in water at first and see how far that got her, extending it if necessary. Possibly also decreasing the amount of water gradually, or the fact that she was doing this in a bathroom would become convenient for inconvenient reasons. She had realized, of course, that if her other self was inclined to, this plan would allow her to just take more drops and extend her own control indefinitely, but she'd already demonstrated she could put Hermione to sleep if she wanted, so it didn't seem like too much of a risk.
Finally, everyone seemed to be settled. Hermione, in her nightgown, slipped as quietly out of bed as she could, fetched all her materials - which she'd taken the precaution of placing into a toiletries bag in advance - then padded into the bathroom. She filled one of the common water pitchers from the sink and took it with her into a stall. Perched carefully on a toilet seat, stall door firmly closed and latched, she wrote out her opening argument.
I'm presuming from what I've already seen that you can see and hear everything I do. If that's not the case, please correct me, and I'll be more verbose, but for the moment, I'm going to continue. I am strongly opposed to letting the matter of M.P. go unaddressed, and in a lesser sense, all the various other similar things that haven't happened yet - which come to think of it I'm not sure you know I know about, since I didn't "see" them per se - what happen(ed/s) to one of the W.T, T the colorful Hufflepuff, and the scruffy man, D the house elf, "M.E", P.D., and the student with H when he talked about V, plus what you did to our parents. I understand there are dangers involved in Time, but it's not illegal for you to talk about it with me anymore since I already know, or at least not more illegal than you not turning me in, in any case - and yourself, since I learned about it from you. So I need you to explain to me your reasons for thinking it better to not do anything - and please, do so assuming I'm capable of understanding, which I ought not to need to mention since you're me, but I honestly am not as sure of your judgement as I might've expected to be under the circumstances.
Hermione reviewed what she'd written, poured a half glass of water, then carefully measured two drops of Liquid Sheep into it and stirred thoroughly. She put everything but the quill and paper down, and held the latter firmly under her hands on her lap, leaning back carefully so hopefully she wouldn't slide or fall as she fell asleep - she wasn't sure if her other self would be able to take over quickly enough. Hermione took a deep breath, let it out, then downed the glass in a couple of gulps. She set the glass on the floor and reached into her bag to extract her watch - a lovely silver spring-wound one her parents had purchased for her when Hermione's early reading had revealed that digital watches wouldn't work properly at Hogwarts - to check the time, then put it back down.
It took a bit longer than she'd expected - maybe because she was using a smaller dose - but soon Hermione felt her eyelids growing impossibly heavy, her thoughts warm and foggy, and then for a time she thought nothing.
o-o-o
When her eyes opened again, she didn't feel particularly groggy, and there was extra writing on the paper. But first things first. She checked her watch - ten minutes, minus maybe three for falling asleep, which was good...even if she had to spend all night she should get at least 50 exchanges, minus a bit for any time she took reading, thinking and writing her own responses. Only after that was taken care of did she read the response.
First, I have to apologize for all of this, sincerely. It isn't precisely my fault - though I ought to have been able to prevent it - but it's definitely not your fault. I can understand the mildly antagonistic attitude you've had towards me, and under the circumstances I can't blame you. You seem a lot more persistent and capable than I remember myself being at your age, but then I had less serious problems to deal with, at least at first. In any case, please believe me when I say that I only want to do what's best for everyone - you included - given what's already happened. I'm going to explain everything I think I can as part of that...there's not a lot of time for anything else at this point.
Second, the odious T.N. is entirely correct, more than he knows. No matter what happens in this conversation, no matter what you decide, I implore you not to give any further hint to anyone that you know anything relating to V other than what an intelligent first-year might read on her own (and obviously, destroy these notes after we're done, but I hope that had been your plan already). Even to any Professors. There is an Art called Legilimency, known - among others - to some former and current D.E., which allows a very skilled witch to read someone else's thoughts. You should also try not to bring such things to mind when you're around other people, particularly not while making eye contact. And yes, I know that will be harder now that I've mentioned it, but there are techniques - look up Occlumency. It's going to take a very long time to learn without a good instructor or someone to practice against - and Hogwarts isn't likely to make one available to you for years without you explaining why you need it - so I suggest getting started now. But Occlumency skills are not common even amongst adults, so anything you reveal could thus be traced back to you, even if an otherwise responsible person fully intended to keep your secrets carefully.
Third, you do not - or at least I did not - turn 'evil' at some point in the future. What I did for our parents was to protect them, it was almost certainly necessary, and everything was fixed later. Please take that into account when evaluating my moral compass. I am not sure what's going on with O. - I don't approve of what he did to you, but I've known him to be a moral person, and it seems all wandmakers are a bit peculiar, so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Try not to hold it against Memory Charms in general - yes, they can be used in abusive ways, but likewise the opposite - like almost any magic, they are a tool, and any moral weight comes entirely from the user.
So, on to actual arguments. Meddling with Time is dangerous in two ways. First, the H.R.C. (on which the T.T. is based) works in a very specific way, which is actually in some sense consistent with the muggle laws of physics. You haven't read it yet, but owl your parents to get you a copy of an issue of Physical Review D from last year - 42 (6) - the paper you're looking for is "Cauchy problem in spacetimes with closed timelike curves" - I looked it up myself, years later, for various reasons. The gist is, for areas of space-time where the future and the past are allowed to interact, no physical solution is possible which is not self-consistent (i.e. you can't "cause" anything retroactively that wasn't going to have happened already, there are no "changes"). A naive person might think that makes it safe, but it really, really doesn't. The end result of a situation like that is that if you try to change something, you are going to fail, you just can't necessarily predict how or why. The normal laws of probability don't apply, because any ostensibly possible outcome where you make a change isn't possible anymore, and thus all the otherwise unlikely things that are left get "promoted" to inconveniently likely indeed. Think about it, I'm sure you can imagine some examples.
Even then, in practice these events tend to be more unpleasant - even fatal - than you'd expect from appropriately adjusted random chance, which is why they're called "backlash". The stock explanation you get in the Ministry T.T. pamphlet is that Time doesn't like meddling, and "punishes" people for trying it. Myself, I think it might just be a sum over lifetime probabilities...if you're the kind of person to try it in the first place, one very unlikely event that nips things in the bud right off - by killing you or scaring you sufficiently - is actually more likely overall than a combined series of slightly implausible events that are forced to keep you from succeeding over and over again. But regardless of the explanation, backlashes are verifiable, and well-documented.
Now, as you've no doubt just objected while reading the first part, none of that may necessarily apply here, because changes have already happened, plus you've read the anecdotes about Erasure. This is where I get onto less solid ground, but that'll have to be in the next response, because you're starting to wake up, and I'm honestly not sure what would happen if I took more Liquid Sheep while I'm the one steering - better to stick with your protocol.
It was her own handwriting again, and it sounded like her. She hadn't been certain about her theories, but this did seem like confirmation. Unless it was someone else successfully pretending to be her, which given the whole mind-reading thing she'd just been informed about was actually more likely than she'd have thought previously. But if that were the case, then whoever it was ought not to have told her about it, since it made her more likely to question it. Unless that was just to establish trust and help sell the ruse…
Hermione frowned and abandoned the train of thought. She decided to set aside theories of deception unless something specifically made them seem more likely, since it was clear she couldn't logic her way to a conclusion without some actual evidence - and she'd read The Princess Bride.
The bit about the Hour Reversal Charm seemed to make sense, though Hermione wasn't sure what happened to free will in a universe like that. While she certainly could imagine an infinite number of ways for attempts to change the past to fail "coincidentally", there were certain self-referential situations that didn't seem to fit...like seeing a future version of yourself doing something, and then deciding quite specifically not to...what would then make you do it? Maybe you simply couldn't make that decision, because any situation in which you would have actually decided to wouldn't have been allowed to happen in the "first place" - you just wouldn't have cast the spell for some reason in the future.
And the last bit was also correct, in that Hermione had immediately noticed the HRC part was instructive but not relevant, since - at least from Older Hermione's perspective - changes had happened. She bit her lip a bit in concentration as she added another note of her own.
I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. I suppose if you hadn't been through what I had, Memory Charming our parents wouldn't seem so bad if you had some good reason. But don't think I haven't noticed you haven't actually given me any demonstrably relevant reasons yet. Oh, and what good is not telling people about V or guarding my thoughts when Mr. Odious (thank you for that, I shall think of him as nothing else from now on) already knows and indeed has a written copy of some of them?
Hermione added three drops to slightly less than a half-glass of water this time, and waited. Sleep came more quickly this time, but slowly enough that she had time to marvel - a bit wearily - at how bizarre her life had become, even compared to a week ago, let alone three months.
o-o-o
After waking again and checking her watch, Hermione saw about twelve minutes had passed that time, and more writing had appeared. She swiftly read the new lines.
Thank you, I'll take what I can get.
I'm not sure how smart Mr. Odious is, and thus how likely it is that he's taken what we'd consider logical precautions against theft and/or Memory Charms, but it's probably not worth the risk. Considering his family, and his House, I'm afraid to say that what P suggested might actually be safest - find some counter-leverage on him and make it in his own interests to keep quiet about it. He might even admire you for it, if it's done well, not that I think you ought to be making friends with him, or any Slytherins for that matter.
Continuing on with the previous discussion - the H.R.C. (and T.T.) is not the only means of interacting with Time, it's just the only one even hypothetically predictable enough to be considered sane to use. What happened to me - and in turn you - is one of the other ones. And I admit I don't understand it at all - it involved some non-human magic, plus I think another thing the Department of Mysteries studies beyond Time. I am not an Unspeakable - I thought there were better uses for my time than research which by definition almost no one ever learns about or benefits from, although I admit I'm questioning that decision now even more than I used to. Though if I had gone down that road, I wouldn't have found myself in this situation anyway. I also don't understand how Erasure works. It doesn't seem to make logical sense, but a lot of magic doesn't, I'm afraid. It's admittedly possible the reports of Erasure were entirely fabricated by the Ministry in another effort to discourage the use of Time magic - it wouldn't be the most questionable thing they've ever done by far. But I will note that there have been a discouragingly large number of Dark wizards and witches throughout history, many of them quite obviously psychotic, and not a single one has been recorded to have meddled with Time, not even to prevent their enemies from being born or similarly obvious things. If someone like that thinks something is too dangerous to use, that really ought to say something, don't you think? In the end, the safest assumption seems to be, if you attempt to use Time in anything but the simplest and most predictable ways, it will not go well. I obviously can't prove it...but ask yourself, does the magical world look like it ought to if people were able to change Time safely?
Hermione didn't particularly approve of the remark about not making friends with Slytherins, though it was hard to argue in Mr. Odious' case. And she was surprised how much ignorance her older self was admitting with respect to non-standard Time magic. But even if it made her trust her honesty a bit more, it did not seem like a strong argument. There were too many unknowns. Besides which, even if you accepted something like the "perversity of Time", the details of how it even worked were unclear ...for example, Hermione wasn't from the future, wasn't trying to change her own past, it was all still ahead of her - couldn't that just as well mean anything she decided wouldn't apply in the same way? Or was everything "infected" by the initial disruption, whatever it had been, each event in turn, ad infinitum?
She jotted down her response.
That still doesn't seem good enough, there's too much uncertainty. And the fact that Time doesn't appear to be getting changed is almost entirely meaningless...if Time were changed properly, safely, you wouldn't expect to see anything at all. Yes, I suppose I might hope the world would look better than it does, but we don't know how it might've looked otherwise, maybe this is much better...plus, suppose Time is being used by multiple people with different opinions on what's ideal, couldn't you end up with some sort of consistent vectored average?
Would you please explain exactly how this whole thing happened to you, to the best of your knowledge? And in your notes, you mentioned someone else possibly having "come back too", T.D. - is this my partner from Defence? Won't she change too much even if I don't?
She took another dose and impatiently waited for sleep.
o-o-o
I see what you mean...the observable evidence could have a selection bias, because Time may affect what's actually observable? But I still think the risk is too great, since the scope of harm is effectively infinite.
And I'm sorry, but I'm not going to give you the details...given your arguments, I can't conscience the risk of you trying to replicate them. All I will say is that there was an accident involving an unfamiliar magical substance. Someone else was present at the very end who I think was that T.D., but I'm not certain, it all happened very quickly and I hadn't seen her for a few years - and regardless, I don't know that she was actually included, that was just speculation. And knowing myself, I'm sure that you could probably research it even without any other details, but I urge you not to. It was powerful, barely controlled magic, triggered in almost certainly the wrong way, and the odds of it going the same way twice are beyond astronomical. It's entirely possible it killed me, and I suspect it may have somehow done even worse damage on top of that - but I won't explain that either, so please don't bother asking.
In my opinion, Miss Davis shouldn't be relevant to your decision - even if a similar thing did happen to her, I've taken certain steps to minimize changes as a result. Steps which weren't options in your situation. Again, I apologize, I know this is going to frustrate you and not help our relationship, but it's not up for debate.
Hermione stared at the writing, frustrated almost to the point of saying a rude word. She'd sworn to herself that when she was older, she would never, ever treat someone like some adults - her parents included, on occasion - had treated her...as if her thoughts, her opinions, were of no conceivable value, because she was a child. And now here she was, doing it to herself. True, it wasn't quite the same...if anyone had the slightest chance of holding that position and it actually being accurate, it'd have be a future version of herself...but even so, it didn't feel good at all.
Her quill stabbed at the paper.
Wow. Nice to know I grow up to be a hypocrite. I hope whatever you convinced yourself was okay to do to Tracey wasn't unduly influenced by your opinions of Slytherins in general.
In any case, you still haven't convinced me. Of course, since I'm only a child, it wouldn't be surprising if I got all petulant and just stopped listening to you entirely, but I'll go ahead and try to set an example of reasonable behavior for you and let you keep trying anyway.
Hermione stirred more drops into another glass of water with such vehemence that she almost spilled it, and with her bristling thoughts, it took a good five minutes for her eyes to droop closed.
o-o-o
Hermione rubbed her eyes as she awoke - they felt puffy and bleary. She also actually felt a little sleepy still this time, and looked at her watch curiously. Over half an hour? It didn't look like that much extra writing had appeared on the paper. Maybe she'd just been giving it extra thought? At any rate, the nap seemed to have helped Hermione's irritation, and now she was just deeply weary, rather than angry. She was sure she could work herself back up if she wanted to, but she recognized that wasn't a helpful impulse, and she suppressed it, instead returning to reading the new notes.
Very well.
Given that what I've already said isn't enough, I do have a more consequentialist argument - specific to Madam Pomfrey, but indirectly applicable to everything else I'm sorry you're now burdened with. The situation with V is deadly serious. We managed to come through it with honestly a lot less loss than we had any right to expect. Certainly, we owe our success to skill, hard work, and sacrifice. But also a great deal of luck. The more things change from how I remember them, the more likely it seems some of that luck won't go our way. The person I strongly suspect is responsible for Madam Pomfrey is, and will be, responsible for other things - some very bad, but others which influenced other critical people in critical ways. Leaving him to continue much as he might have, with Madam Pomfrey on top of everything else...yes, it's horrible, there's no other word for it...but it's still the best I can think of, and in that case, he should receive his just desserts in the end.
I can imagine your counter to that, because I've considered it myself - all of the advance knowledge I have, in the hands of the right people now, ought to be able to make up for that uncertainty. Who needs luck when you can cheat? And if this were just a Prophecy, I might say yes...though there are dangers in relying on prophecy too - you really can end up causing what you're trying to prevent - but most prophecy seems to have some uncertainty "designed" in, and ignoring them would be foolish.
But this is where everything else comes back in. Relying on unknown Time magic, and the very strong possibility that because of it events will go in the opposite direction we want, even perversely so? We'd be responsible for all the consequences, and things could have gone much, much worse than I remember them - suffering for all of Britain, maybe the entire world, muggles included. Do you really think you can live with that on your conscience? I don't think I could, and I've had to do worse things than Memory Charms.
Even given your feelings on this sort of thing, if I could just safely wipe all of this from your mind and hope for the best, leave you as I "found" you, I probably would. But I can't. Besides, it's only barely more morally defensible than me just taking control completely, which I'm also not going to do, no matter what you decide. In the end, this is your life, not mine. I'm just trying to give you the best advice I can and hoping you make the correct decision...which may not be the logical thing for me to do, but feels like the right one.
I truly wish I could help more, but that's all I can tell you, really, and I sincerely hope it helps more than it feels like it has. Either way, I wish you the best of luck, and as happy a life as you can find.
The new section ended with her full name, signed with an elegant flourish. Hermione leaned back and set her head against the cool stone of the bathroom wall, closing her eyes.
This is really, really unfair, she thought, more plaintively than angrily. There should be a decision which was both right and best, but instead she seemed to have only two choices, equally uncertain and full of risk, not just because she wasn't allowed to have all the information that seemed necessary, but because some of the information simply didn't exist.
She could do what felt right to her, to help people now - in every way she knew about - and risk unconfirmed but legitimately terrifying temporal consequences. Or do nothing as, somehow, the Gryffindor version of her was advocating. And try to live with the secret, the regret, as bad things inevitably happened and she wondered if she might have prevented them. All in the hopes that Time would somehow of its own accord get back on track so, best-case, things "worked out" and only a few good people ended up dead, but which given the changes already, honestly didn't seem at all guaranteed either.
Hermione's heart sank as she suddenly realized why the decision was being left to her. What her other self had said about there not being a lot of time, not taking control completely, what the notes had said about her slipping. She was going to go away, to let herself "die", for lack of a better word. Which on the face of it appeared extremely ethical, brave...even noble, and was probably intended that way. It was what Hermione had thought about earlier, sacrificing herself to save someone else, but in a deliberate, premeditated way. It made her feel humbled, and guilty, since she still wasn't sure she could do the same thing, even if they were technically the same person. But in which case her older self wouldn't have to live with any of the long-term consequences either way, because she'd be gone, which meant ethically, it genuinely ought to be Hermione's decision.
But the other reason, that she'd grasped in the same moment, was the chilling suspicion that her older self, despite who-knew-how-much more education and experience, despite her seeming confidence in her opinions, knew there was no good decision in practical terms...if she had, despite the ethical issues, wouldn't it have been worth taking over permanently? Even if it effectively "killed" her younger self, to make certain things went as they should, if the stakes were as high as she believed? So, lacking enough justification for taking the responsibility herself, her older self was abdicating the whole thing to her, and in that light, the act didn't seem very noble at all.
The not-quite-twelve-year-old girl found her cheeks were wet again, but unlike at the memorial, this time she was almost certain she was crying for both of them.
o-o-o-o-o
A/N: I know, so gloomy! I promise this is just the darkness before accepting hero's call, and from here on out will be climbing upward, tooth and nail, slide rule and wand. ;)
Edit: Thanks to /u/rational_username for catching a doubled word!
And /u/nikic for the "Letters" that snuck in to Physical Review D, despite my explicit check. I blame Gregory Benford. ;)