Chapter 3 : Priorities

When they had all settled themselves comfortably in the living room, Harry looked over to Dan and raised an eyebrow.

"By all means, Harry; this is your show, so to speak," Dan waved him to start the discussions.

"Right, well, Hermione . . . and Emma," he added with a smile. "What have you two been doing all this time?

"Just collecting some basic supplies, then we went and spoke to Ginny, had tea and also Emma met Lily and the boys." Hermione summed up.

"We didn't even hear you leave." Rupert laughed and then wrinkled his brow, his eyes popping open. "Whoa! Don't tell me you two 'Apparated' out of here!?"

"Too right we did; to my place and then to Harry's house," replied Emma, smugly.

"Wicked!" Rupert exclaimed. "What did it feel like?"

"Like you were wrapped in a tight blanket and were spinning slightly. Not as scary as you would think. I did have my eyes closed, mind." She shrugged.

Dan turned to Harry. "Where do Ginny and you live, Harry? Or is it the obvious choice."

Harry smiled and nodded. "#12 Grimmauld Place. We've spent a couple of years fixing it up."

"It is TOTALLY different looking than our set; you two have done a wonderful job, Harry. And your children are adorable. That Lily is a handful, though, isn't she? Tears down those stairs with no fear at all." Hermione gushed, making Harry blush.

"It's that Gryffindor/Potter overload in her brain, if you ask me," volunteered Draco.

"Oh, and Scorpius isn't tearing around the Manor gardens on his little broom, challenging you to Quidditch every time you walk outside?" Ron snorted.

"I would expect no less from my son; born Seeker, Scorpius." said the proud Papa.

"Anyway," Hermione interrupted, steering the conversation back to the point. "We know we have to do this at Grimmauld Place, in order to get you four to the right place at the right time. Molly is collecting the children for the afternoon, so we've got about six hours, if we start at one o'clock. However, knowing what's coming in the books, we believe we may have to literally kidnap a few people, to have them join us in reviewing the future."

"Your mother and you, correct?" Tom smiled at Draco. "I bet THAT will go over well."

"She'll be thrilled, you just wait and see if I'm not right." Draco snickered, earning him a raised eyebrow from Tom and smiles from the others. "If all goes well, nobody will be any the wiser that we're anywhere but the Manor. I've been working on the calculations for months and this should be fairly simple."

"You might find it funny," Ron looked around at Rupert, Emma and Dan. "We actually got the idea from a Muggle movie, 'Back to the future'. Have you seen it?"

"Sure we have, but I hope you watched all three of the movies, as it showed what happens when you mess with the "Space/Time Continuum," Dan asked, as he eyed the satchel Draco had lifted off the floor onto his lap. "If there's a Flux Capacitor in there, I'm going to be seriously worried about you lot."

"No, tempting as it was to use that name, it's just a modified Time Turner." Draco reassured him.

Opening the leather bag, he removed a black lacquered box, not much bigger than a shoe box, and set it on the coffee table. Unlatching the lid, he opened the box and everyone drew in their breath. Sitting on a bed of velvet were three Time Turners; one that looked like Hermione's from Year Three, sitting on a little stand/holder. The second one looked like a sleeker, modern version and it, too, was on a little stand. The third and largest one was multileveled, with numbers, dials and levers sticking out of the sides.

"Whoa! That's some serious equipment, Draco! Do you know how to run that thing?" Rupert asked, leaning forward for a better look.

"Rupert! you wound me to the quick!" gasped Draco, hand over his heart. "I don't know about Tom, but I really was a good student, best in Slytherin House and second in the school . . . as if we have to guess who always had top grades . . ." he grumbled and then swung around to gaze at Hermione, who sat blushing and giggling next to Ron. "And I'm still bitter about that, mind you!"

"You are not, Draco!" Hermione sputtered. "I may have been good at studying but I'm rubbish on a broomstick, to this day, so you're way ahead of me . . . stop being foolish!"

"Right . . . anyway." Draco winked at Tom and continued. "The major improvement to this new Time Turner is that instead of having to do one spin for one hour of travel, and trying to keep track of how many spins you have done or would need, with this little darling," pointing to the gleaming instrument sitting in front of them, "you can enter, on the dials, the date and time at which you would like to arrive, to the minute!"

"That's bloody brilliant!" Emma smiled at Draco. "Well done, Draco!"

"You made this yourself, did you?" Dan was admiring the trio of Time Turners, but looked up at Draco to hear his answer.

"Yes. That's my job in the Department of Mysteries. Started out by helping to repair all of those Time Turners that Harry and his 'posse' managed to smash all those years ago." This statement was greeted with muffled boos, hisses and snickers which Draco ignored, carrying on with his explanation. "Then Hermione came to me with the idea for the trip back to our past, so I've been focused exclusively on this little beauty," pointing to the third one, "for almost eight months, now."

"Whoa! That's a lot of effort, mate!" Tom patted Draco on the shoulder. "I know I wouldn't have the patience to do that kind of detailed work for so long."

"Oh, I'll be the first to admit it was a royal pain in the arse, but I had a better motivation than most."

"Yeah, to save yourself from being remembered as a total git for ALL of your years at Hogwarts . . . sounds about right to me," Ron agreed, nodding solemnly, then breaking out in laughter, along with the others, including Draco.

"Okay, random thought here." Dan sat back with a scowl on his face. "Why aren't you all going back, why are you asking us to go in your stead. Harry and Hermione went back in Prisoner of Azkaban without any trouble, except for the bit with Professor Lupin."

"That's the bad news, Dan. It was discovered, as the Time Turners were being repaired, that they had become unstable and sensitive to too much magic and when they were being tested, we found out that it was actually dangerous, if not deadly, for anyone magical to attempt to go back more than twenty-four hours. We're still trying to figure out why that's happening and how to adjust them. The good news is; Muggles can use the Time Turners with no adverse effects."

"And that's where we come in?" Rupert asked.

"You all are the perfect ones to go; you know the story, you know the people involved and although you did play us in the movies, the fact that you are . . . but aren't . . . us will help with the psychological aspect of your visit." Hermione told them. "Remember how distracted we became at certain points, Harry, when we went back. I kept saying 'we must not be seen!' This way, we can get the message back without the confusion and chaos seeing our real selves might cause."

"But," Emma raised her hand, then, realizing what she'd done, put in down in her lap, blushing. "Sorry, but, we've already spent a couple of hours on this, won't we meet ourselves when we come back? Do you think we'd react any better than Wizarding folk when faced with a duplicate of oneself?"

"Actually, we've already taken measures to assure that does not happen." Hermione took out her wand and pointed it toward each of the Muggles, whispering an incantation.

Dan, Emma, Rupert and Tom looked from one to the other and then Rupert shrugged. "You lot feel anything?" Dan and Tom shook their heads but Emma gasped, looked down at her blouse, clamped her hand on her chest and then reached up to her neck, grabbed a chain and pulled out a tubular, glass, wire wrapped pendant, which she showed to the others. The guys immediately realized they, too, were wearing an identical necklace.

"What are these and how did they get around our necks?" Dan asked, peering closely at his.

"These are what is keeping all of this above board with the Ministry of Magic. They really are still not comfortable with letting too many people know about our world, but when Hermione and I approached them with our idea, they gave their approval with the stipulation that you all would not remember any of this."

"These are to 'Obilivate' us." Emma asked in a small voice?

"No, no, we will need you to remember a bit of this to get it done right, but then, you'll start this visit at Dan's as if nothing out of the ordinary happened . . . at that point, you won't remember . . . Sorry." Hermione reassured her. "We're wearing them, too, so we're all synchronized."

Harry looked at Dan. "Remember looking in the mirror in the bathroom and that glint of sunshine coming through the window and hitting you right in your face? You closed your eyes against the glare for a second, didn't you."

"Yeah," Dan answered slowly.

"I was there, using my 'Invisibility Cloak', froze you for a second or two, slipped the necklace on you and then, let you continue out of the bathroom, and down the stairs. I 'Apparated' to the front steps and waited for Ron and Hermione."

"We were around the corner, doing the same thing to Tom and Emma," Ron continued. "The big lorry that passed and that belch of fumes that made you two stop, close your eyes and give in to a fit of coughing?" He smiled at them and waited, as realization came on their faces.

"And I got Rupert's on his neck as he was getting off the Tube." Tom looked at the red head and laughed at the expression on his face. "Care to guess when?"

Rupert took a moment and then looked at the blond wizard sitting opposite him. "When I came around the corner and hit my forehead on the sign? That smarted a bit, mate!" They all laughed.

"Why didn't we feel them around our necks?" Dan asked, beating Emma to the question, making her huff.

"Ah, they were charmed to be weightless and you were charmed not to notice - just in case you turned us down or panicked or in any way were too frightened to even listen to us, THEN we would have really had to do an "Obilivate" charm on you four, snatch the necklaces back, "Apparate' out of here and start searching for another way to get this done."

"Right, so we passed our quiz when we started asking practical questions, eh? But when this is over, we won't be any the wiser." Tom summed it all up, with nods from Draco and Hermione confirming his analysis.

"As you four can see, with Draco and Hermione working on this together, not much was left to chance, but we still need your input, just to cross-check our thoughts as to what needs doing." Ron concluded.

"Okay, so what messages should we take back? Who gets killed and how to stop that from happening. That's the big one, I suppose. Then there's the Horcruxes: we know where they are and how to get and destroy them, but we'd have to stay under Voldemort's radar about those. We can't have you all do too much too fast or you'll give away the fact that we know something he doesn't. And then there's Dolores. Do we let her continue through that school year and get rid of her as it happened in the books, so she won't leave early and tip off Fudge. We need a list." Rupert had been ticking things off on his fingers and looked up, only mildly surprised, to see Hermione and Emma handing out pieces of paper.

"Oh, you two have been busy." Harry laughed.

"Ginny helped, too, Harry," Emma patted him on the shoulder as she walked across the room, took the DVDs from their storage box and put them in her tote bag. "Ron, you're the strategist, what do you think, did we cover everything?"

Everyone was going down the lists, reading names and events and trying to think of any detail that might be important.

'People we might be able to save:' read Dan to himself, running a finger down the names. 'Broderick Bode, Sirius Black, Emmaline Vance, Amelia Bones, Mad-eye Moody, Albus Dumbledore, Remus Lupin, Nyphadora Tonks, Mrs. Abbott ( Hannah's mum ), Rufus Scrimgeour, Bathilda Bagshot, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Dobby, Hedwig.'

"Where's Cedric Diggory's name?" Dan looked at Harry, who drew in a breath before answering.

"Yes, Cedric's name did come up, before, when I first had the idea of using a 'Time Turner' to go back and try to do things differently . . . . but after talking to Albus . . . "

"What?" Rupert yelped. "But he's . . . oh, right . . . portrait . . . never mind." He ducked his head, cheeks nearly as red as his hair. Ron patted him on the shoulder, grinning.

"Believe me, it was a tough call. We've gone over this and over this, from every angle . . . even if we could get the word back, somehow, for me to grab the Cup before Cedric, it wouldn't help us by saving his life, because his death was the only sticking point in the Ministry's propaganda that Voldemort had not returned, as I was declaring when I was Portkeyed back from that cemetery with Cedric's body. It would have made things worse, actually, because then everyone, meaning the Ministry and the Daily Prophet, would be declaring that I was making it up about Voldemort and did it to get the Cup for myself, Mr. 'Always has to be the center of attention'. Cedric wasn't a witness so much as evidence."

"I didn't really think of him like that, just as the first casualty of the war." Dan replied.

"Sounds as if you all have been doing a lot of talking about this had what could have been done differently, is only you'd known about what was really going in that maze." Rupert said, shaking his head in wonderment.

"At one point we thought of launching an attack on the graveyard, just as Cedric and I landed there, catching Voldemort and Wormtail, killing Nagini and ending any chance him coming back, but then the subject of the Horcruxes and the Prophesy came up and . . . that wouldn't have worked, either . . . I still regret Cedric dying, but we can't think of any way to prevent it, without really screwing up our chances " Harry looked at Dan and shrugged his shoulders, Dan nodding his understanding.

"Remember the argument you got into with Dolores that first class the next September. How you and she were yelling at each other, practically nose to nose. Even she didn't have any way to explain Cedric's death. " Hermione reminded them and they all nodded, Dan and Harry both rubbing the backs of their right hands, without realizing they were doing it.

X

"So, according to you, Cedric Diggory dropped dead of his own accord, did he?" Harry asked, his voice shaking.

There was a collective intake of breath from the class, for none of them, apart from Ron and Hermione, had ever heard Harry talk about what had happened on the night that Cedric had died. They stared avidly from Harry to Professor Umbridge, who had raised her eyes and was staring at him without a trace of a fake smile on her face.

"Cedric Diggory's death was a tragic accident," she said coldly.

"It was murder," said Harry. He could feel himself shaking. He had hardly talked to anyone about this, least of all thirty eagerly listening classmates. "Voldemort killed him and you know it."

X

"Actually," Dan spoke up, as he looked at others, sitting, lost in their thoughts. "That was one of my favorite scenes in that movie and one of the hardest to do; working up the righteous indignation to yell at Professor Umbridge, not caring about the consequences, because Emilda is such a sweet, funny woman . . . but when she was in costume and in the moment of that scene, it was like . . . I could have gleefully strangled her!" Dan smiled and shook his head. "I know this is still a raw wound on your heart, Harry, especially because you know you can't prevent Cedric's death, even with this new Time Turner." Harry nodded his understanding. "But, I think if we get our plans straight and everyone does their best to beat Voldemort at his own game, we can pull this off! And Cedric really will not have died in vain. So. What do you say?" Looking at Emma, Rupert and Tom, who all smiled and nodded, Dan turned to Harry and put his hand out. "You have a deal, Harry. Let's kick some Death Eater butt!"