An unhappy new year
Voldemort was dead. All thirteen horcruces were destroyed: the diary, cup, and shield by basilisk fang; the locket, snake, ring, and wand with the sword of Gryffindor; the diadem, needle, throne, genealogy book, and scrying stone by fiendfyre; and the scar by killing curse. Voldemort himself had been run through with the sword of Gryffindor, hit by a reflected killing curse, and immolated by his own fiendfyre in the span of half a minute. Voldemort was dead, beyond the shadow of a doubt. The trouble was that his legacy was not.
Yes, there had been the failsafes. He had somehow acquired a large quantity of strontium 90 and the technical skill needed to make dirty bombs and scatter them throughout major British cities, to be activated by a dead man's switch in the event of his final death. If he couldn't rule Britain, nobody else could. The bombs weren't the real issue, since an overpowered repairing spell would reassemble the entire casing and payload, except for however much had decayed. It was hard work requiring teams of skilled, powerful wizards and witches, but once they had figured it out undoing the damage had only taken a few hours. As an added bonus, the fact that an ordinary repairing spell can't undo chemical reactions meant that each bomb reassembled in this way was already defused.
The issue was Voldemort's political legacy. Blood purism had spread throughout magical Europe like an ideological cancer. As soon as Harry had removed the last death eaters from the equation, the low-level followers went underground. Known collaborationists at the Ministry were tried and convicted, but the Snatchers didn't keep an organized payroll. Those conservative pureblood houses that had hedged their bets by not declaring their support for Voldemort's cause were able to escape punishment despite their sympathies. Meanwhile, the most impoverished supporters, barely more capable than the Gaunts, would often hide from the aurors in the depths of Knockturn Alley.
Voldemort's defeat had bought Magical Britain three years of peace, but soon newer blood supremacist groups came out of the woodwork. The Sons of the Serpent, the Greencoats, the Blackstaffs and Mugrippers were all very active gangs of mugglebaiting lowlifes. There was the occasional murder, but they scattered like cockroaches whenever the aurors showed up. The main threat was from the Continent: a terrorist organization known as "Der Hallowsbrandgesselschaft".
Centered in northern Germany, the Society of the Sign of the Hallows, or HBG, combined the worst of the blood supremacy movement with the expansionist tendencies of Grindelwald and the fascism of his muggle puppets. Voldemort's old creed, that there was only power and those too weak to use it, was sublimated into an overarching imperative: Muggles, muggle society, those with any trace of impure blood, and anybody who tolerated such weakness must be not merely enslaved but exterminated. Normally, this would alienate even the staunchest blood supremacists. Even the Blacks, Lestranges, and Gaunts had come to recognize that numerical superiority made a war against nonmagical society impossible to win, and so had restricted themselves to isolated hate crimes. With Voldemort's death and the subsequent war crime trials, however, many blood purists felt that they had nothing to lose.
The HBG's modus operandi was to carry out highly public large scale terror attacks against muggles, not merely as catharsis but to actively destabilize. There was never a calling card, and they made sure the attacks didn't appear magical in nature. As the attacks were so big and public, obliviating the witnesses was impossible. As the attacks seemed mundane in nature, the statute of secrecy was not broken, and muggle society was unable to turn against the real culprit. The fear and trauma that would normally be eased by a clear foe or the use of obliviation would fester, turning muggles against each other. The process had already begun with Voldemort's dirty bombs. Repairing them was an easy way to contain the original strontium 90, but the initial effects remained: Muggles knew that there was a radiological terrorist attack but thought that the bombs had used a material that decayed more quickly than strontium, in lesser amounts.
It was a fractured Europe that celebrated the turn of the millennium, and Harry was bone-weary. Just one week before, he'd lead a team of hitwizards to an American missile silo in a panic, acting on a false tip that a member of the HBG intended to use the Imperius to force the site commander to start a nuclear war. By the time he'd noticed that the bunker had been enchanted by the magical branch of the Secret Service to dispel all mind altering magics on anyone within, thus making such a plot impossible, he'd missed Christmas with Ginny and nearly caused an international incident. Harry had been strongly encouraged to take a sabbatical, and so was watching the clock count down to midnight in the Potter family's ancestral home instead of distracting himself with work. Hermione was with him, as she desperately needed some peace and quiet. Between her job as Deputy Minister and the crowded Weasley home, this was the best place to be at the moment.
At 11:39, Harry asked his dearest friend the fateful question: "If you could go back in time and do it all again, would you?"
Hermione, already quite disillusioned with the state of magical society, replied in the affirmative. "I certainly wouldn't sit by while the blood purists used their puppet government to lay the groundwork for genocide. Merlin, what fools we were."
She sighed. "If Dumbledore wasn't so committed to peace, we could have done away with Riddle's political backers and cut him off at the source. Even after he made a new body, you identified most of the death eaters who came to pay him homage. Moody, the real Moody, was an experienced hitwizard. Dumbledore could have had him assassinate them or something. That's the thing, though. Everyone wants to kill baby Hitler after the fact. So, yes. I wish we could do it over. Maybe we could save more people, and maybe we couldn't. Either way, it would be worth a try, and I'd take the chance in a heartbeat."
Some trivia about the Potter home is necessary to give context to the events of December 31, 1999. The small mansion, called the Kiln, is built around a drafty, partially ruined medieval watchtower. The tower itself, unbeknownst to Harry or his friends, had as a foundation a stone circle dating to the pre-roman era. The circle happens to have been dedicated to the worship of a fertility spirit associated with the Spring Equinox, and was thus a place of power for certain related entities.
While the new year is currently celebrated in midwinter, it used to be in early April. In fact, the custom of April Fool's Day is a holdover from a time when it was considered a sign of ignorance to celebrate the new year according to the ancient calendar rather than the modern one. This symbology meant that the new year, the changing over between old and new rather than the specific date of December 31st, was still under the purview of Spring. Wishes, especially deep heartfelt ones made by Harry Potter and Hermione Weasley, have a habit of attracting attention. Combine this with the fact that the wish was made in a place and time that were strongly Spring aligned, and it was like they'd rang a dinner bell or launched a powerful flare. The two mortals, magical though they were, never stood a chance.
It began with a subtle smell of apple blossoms, rain, and something else undefinable. They instantly knew that something was wrong: after all, neither of them had done anything to cause it. As the smell grew stronger, Harry worriedly checked the security spells, to no avail. The wards, already strengthened due to the threats he faced, showed no signs of intruders or any unusual drain on their energy. An unseasonably warm breeze with no particular source began to rustle the papers on Harry's desk. There was a tension in the air that they could no longer attribute to stress or fear alone. Both Harry and Hermione felt, not precisely energized, but something like it. There was an emotional effect as well: A sense of anger at the world's myriad injustices, a sudden feeling of empathy and commonality with all people that was as sharp and piercing as a dagger to the heart, and beneath it all arousal. It was as if some long-dormant part of their brains, the kind last used by the rodent-like ancestors of mammalian life, knew that a magical or spiritual process had reached a tipping point and was accelerating towards an inevitable conclusion like an avalanche.
At long last, as the mental and spiritual pressure reached its almost painful peak, a bell began to ring as though from far away and muffled by an early morning fog. Low and deep it was, yet not mournful so much as joyous and full of youthful strength. Later, they would realize that it was merely the clock striking midnight and wonder at how different it sounded in the waking hours. The terrible pressure ceased as though a mighty hand had pulled a switch controlling some cosmic spotlight, and there was a woman there who hadn't been before. There was no pop of apparition, no whirling blur of an arriving portkey, no burst of emerald fire from the fireplace. Between heartbeats she was there, or had been there all along and had suddenly become visible.
Normally, when you see that you are in the presence of an extremely powerful entity, you expect grandstanding of some kind. A column of flame, or a gigantic human in a shiny toga, or even a writhing mass of tentacles and cloven hooves are all respectable choices. This woman, on the other hand, was only slightly taller than Hermione. Her ears were more leaf shaped than ordinary and she was pretty in a stark sort of way, but if it weren't for the circumstances of her appearance Harry and Hermione would have dismissed her as a witch using glamour charms to make an interesting fashion statement. Even her clothes were ordinary, if somewhat more austere and formal than your typical witch's work clothes. Then she spoke, and all their doubts were erased.
"I know your desires and will fulfill them. In exchange, you will serve as my personal agents in the mortal world."
Before Harry could gather his wits Hermione, always slightly quicker on the uptake, tried to salvage their precarious situation.
"Wait, what? What do you mean? We didn't intend to make a deal with you, and we certainly didn't want to sell ourselves in exchange."
The unknown woman merely smiled and shook her head. "I know you didn't. I'm afraid neither you nor I have a choice in the matter. Normally I wouldn't interfere with your lives, but this second rise of fascism you've been dealing with is actively corroding the very foundations of my existence, and so I have little choice but to conscript you. Let me explain. I recently gained a critical advantage over the courts of Summer, Fall, and Winter when a new group of mortals started celebrating my most sacred day. They don't realize it strengthens me, of course. To them, it commemorates the death of other mortals in a riot over worker's rights."
She was suddenly and very obviously Not Human. Her head was crowned with antlers, her eyes shone with violet fire, and her hair, previously mousy brown but now as black as a raven's wing, flew about as though tossed by a strong wind. Her drab work robes were diaphanous silk, and her body unnaturally beautiful. Harry, though used to Fleur Weasley's presence, swallowed, and even Hermione, who had thought she was straight, felt the stirrings of desire.
"I was once the Queen on the Hawthorn Throne, worshipped by hundreds of mortal cultures under thousands of names. More beautiful than my supplicant's wildest imaginings, able to destroy any man or woman's mind with lust or madness, the sole bringer of prosperity and plenty. I faded, of course. We all did, as monotheistic religions starved us out. I'll never be as I was in Willendorf, Mesopotamia, and Rome. Even this shape of mine is a mere shadow of what I could once be. Nonetheless, we reached an equilibrium and kept the rest of our strength. Even devout monotheists celebrate the coming of spring, a successful harvest, and the winter solstice, when the cold begins to recede. That was enough for us, even as we became mere proverbs to you. I was content to be Venus hidden inside the mountain, the prototypical Dame Verte of medieval France, the May Queen to the British."
As she assumed her less conspicuous form, she continued.
"Haymarket's commemoration was on my special day, so naturally I was interested. Suddenly I realized I could become stronger than my sisters, and I pressed the advantage by adopting the trappings of the new May Day. Of course, it took a while to incorporate it as a full aspect of my being. I've always changed to reflect mortal beliefs, but this was much more significant than merely shifting with the local standards of beauty. I had to give up a great deal. I don't call myself Queen of anything anymore- monarchy isn't proletarian, but the advantages to changing my nature are worth it. Behold!" And she seized a poker from beside the fireplace with her bare hand. "None of my sisters or brothers could do this. I have aligned myself with the working class, to whom iron is a symbol of industry rather than a poison. I gain energy from the inevitable march of social progress rather than ancient belief, and therein lies the problem. It isn't progressing anymore."
The ancient being sighed.
"The fall of the Soviet Union was troubling, of course. China has become capitalist in all but name, and North Korea is more fascist than anything else. Despite these challenges I remained, if not as strong as I was before, at least stronger than my sisters. Anarchists also celebrate May Day, and Marxist-Leninism is not the only form of Communism. What's killing me is, ironically, a lack of faith. Your blood purist movement has terrorized the world at large, even those who don't know about your hidden society. Reactionary politics are ascendant, the ubiquity of neoliberalism has discouraged any attempts to move beyond capitalism, and of course there are the effects of rampant environmental exploitation. It has tested mortal peoples' beliefs that life will be better in the future and taken away the real source of my new power. I acted rashly when I abandoned most of my old domain. I am dying, and I do not know what will replace me."
Harry knew at once what she was after. "You think that you can save your own life by sending us back in time to end Voldemort's reign of terror before it can give rise to the Hallowsbrandgesselschaft?"
"I'd do it myself, but I am bound to this world, as are all my kindred. Only mortals can break free from the tapestry of Fate." At this Hermione interrupted, saying that that particular turn of phrase was lifted directly from Tolkien's writings, and how could they tell the May Queen wasn't a fraud if she kept using other people's words? This actually broke the May Queen's train of thought for a few moments. "For your information", she replied with some indignation, "Tolkien learned that by way of my former protégé!" She continued. "I cannot change the past, and neither can you unless you use something besides a time-turner. That's where I come in."
To say that Hermione was concerned would be an understatement. "I can accept that if you really are who you say you are, you probably did gain power from May Day's new connotations. C.S. Lewis used to be socialist so I can see a plausible connection there. But there is absolutely no way to change the past."
She continued, completely terrified now. "The risks are unimaginable, and we know for a fact that anyone who tries winds up vanishing completely. Every time travel ritual known to man uses the same magic as an ordinary time-turner, but without the paradox safeguards. I toured the Department of Mysteries when I became Deputy Minister, including the old Time Room. I saw the scorch marks, spatial discontinuities, and event horizons around their old ritual circles. I know the risks, and they are not worth it!"
"Nonetheless", said the woman of Faerie, "Both of your souls will be headed backwards in time by the First of May. I am acting not only for my own sake, but for the sake of all that you hold dear. I would give you proof that it won't cause a paradox or erase you from existence, but even mundane physicists are centuries away from the mathematical language needed to express that proof in a quantifiable way. I am a creature of Magic and thus know it intuitively, but if I shared that intuition, you wouldn't be able to tell if it was right or if I was pulling the wool over your eyes. Say your farewells by the end of April."
Harry started up in anger from the sofa where they had been sitting. "Would you really do this to us? Force us away from the Ginny and Ron we know and love to live with younger versions? Do you have any idea how awful that will be for us?"
The May Queen nodded, a look of pity on her face.
"Despite my considerable strength, I am not all powerful. I am bound by certain rules, and it is only your wish in a place once sacred to me, in a time that's tangentially associated with the Spring that gave me the ability to do this. If your loved ones had been here and made the same wish, I could have sent them back as well. They were not here, and the window of opportunity has already closed. I will not apologize, as that would put me in your debt. I will, however, say that I deeply regret the circumstances in which we met. I would bring them all if I could."
With that, she vanished as suddenly as she appeared. The Potter house was empty, except for the furniture and two good friends who were only just beginning to come to terms with the task they had been burdened with.