Sorry for the long wait. Between starting the rewrite on my Reading Percy Jackson series, real life, and a bit of writers block on parts of this chapter, this just did not want to get written. Even as I'm writing this my cat is leaning over my touchscreen to 'sneakily' steal my sandwich. It's ham. She doesn't even like deli ham.

Those from the past with an older self. Everybody else.

Parselmouth

Sign language/telepathy

Sadly neither Harry Potter, nor any of his friends and companions belong to me. I really wish it were different, but it is not and likely never will be.

"Let's stop there for the night." Arabella suggested, looking at the shell-shocked expressions on Molly and Sirius' faces, the devastated expression on Hagrid's face, the way both Harrys were being held by Sirius and Remus, and the way the Weasley siblings were clutching Ron like he might disappear on them at any moment.

She didn't think it would be a good idea to continue right now. Everyone was too shocked at how close the two boys had come to being killed, how narrowly they'd escaped. If it hadn't been for that car... Well, she didn't want to think about it, to be honest. The parents would need time alone with their children after a scare like that.

"We are going to have that talk." Minerva informed Hagrid, tone still icy. The large man was in too much shock to protest.

"Now, Minerva." Dumbledore started.

"Don't you dare. You're no better, you knew that colony was there and you did nothing!" She snapped at the aged headmaster, and he shrank back, having hoped she would have forgotten that little tidbit. She swept out the room imperiously, herding Hagrid in front of her for a talk.

Poppy and Pomona wandered off to the kitchen. They had a feeling that neither Molly or any of the Harry's would be up to cooking tonight, not after the chapter they just read. They may not be quite at the culinary level of those three, but they could still cook, and were quite good at it. They could make sure nobody went hungry tonight.

As everyone else started either drifting off or continued calming down frantic parents, Severus slipped away, intent on starting his experiments. He was determined that he would have a working potion to combat Dementor exposure by the time they left these rooms.

"'M sorry." Hagrid mumbled when Minerva herded him into another room.

"What are you sorry for, exactly?" She asked, wanting to know if he really understood what he was even apologizing for. She didn't want there to be any misunderstanding right now.

"I thought they'd be safe. I never thought Aragog woul' ever-" She cut him off.

"That's not just it, though, Hagrid!" She exclaimed. "This is not the only instance of you bringing dangerous creatures! If you lived anywhere but at Hogwarts, I wouldn't care! But the fact of the matter is that you bring dangerous creatures around the students. Students who are not naturally resilient like you are. Students who do not have the training or experience with these creatures that you do. Students who do not have the natural strength that you do! And we have tried to discuss this with you before, but you just don't seem to get it!"

Hagrid wouldn't look up at her, eyes cast down in shame.

"When we return to our time and this war is over, you are going to tell me exactly where that nest is, and then you are going to bring me every single creature you have brought onto school grounds. If I do not find it safe or appropriate to have near the students, it goes. Do you understand me?" She ordered sternly. There were plenty of preserves that would be happy to take the kind of creatures that Hagrid was interested in, thankfully.

"Yes ma'am." Hagrid said quietly, still very shaken over Aragog ordering the boys to be killed. He never, never would have sent the boys in there if he had thought for one moment that Aragog would ever harm them.

"We are also going to have to review your teaching contract, I'm afraid." Minerva said, regretfully this time. "I hadn't even thought about it when Albus first gave you the post, but you never even finished your education, nor are you even legally allowed to hold a wand or use your magic. That's just not safe enough for the students." She looked at his devastated expression. "We'll figure something else out later." She said, and turned to leave. "Do not think the issue with your creatures is over." She said before she left.

"Now, Minerva, I'm sure-" Dumbledore said, having waited for her in the hall.

"I don't want to hear it!" She snapped. "You have deliberately put the students' lives in danger by knowingly allowing Hagrid to keep and grow an Acromantula colony so close to the school, along with whatever other creatures you've allowed! I care more for my students' lives than I do his feelings! Maybe you should think about doing the same!" She glared and left, leaving her old mentor to stare after her in shock.

"There you guys are." Bill said, looking into a room and finding his younger siblings, the Malfoy boys, and the two Dursley boys. Everyone except for the Trio and Percy had made their escape as quickly as possible while the four of them had stayed to try and calm the Weasley parents. Sirius, and Remus down. They'd stayed only long enough to reassure themselves, and then decided to get out of their mothers' way. "What are you doing?" He asked, sitting down on the floor beside them.

"Teaching me how to play exploding snap." Dudley answered. "It's not go-" He cut himself off with a yelp as his cards exploded in his hands. Throwing the remains down quickly, he waved his hands a bit to try and cool them down. "It's not going well." He finished dryly.

"It's a good thing these cards are spelled to not leave damage." Charlie informed his older brother, examining Dudley's hands for a moment. The most damage they could cause was some singed eyebrows, otherwise nobody would ever play the game for all the burns they would get on their hands. The explosion was mostly for effect, really.

"That bad?" Bill grimaced. He had a feeling they were using this as a way to keep their minds off things, he was sure that there would be a Weasley-pile tonight when they all went to bed.

"Remind me to teach you how to play rugby later." Dudley decided, knowing he would be a lot better at that than he was at this.

"I love rugby." Charlie declared.

All his siblings turned to look at him, shocked.

"How do you even know what that is?" Bill asked, amused.

"One of my co-workers is Muggleborn, he's a huge fan." Charlie shrugged. The reserve even had it's own mini-league going on, although the 'team captains' were careful to keep the competition from spilling over off the field, they couldn't afford such rivalries when working with dragons.

"You can help me teach the others, then." Dudley decided. Charlie nodded his acceptance, more than alright with that.

"I can't believe that... They came so close." Ginny said after a few more explosions from the cards declared George the winner of the game.

The rest of the group got quiet. "I know. That was a lot closer than Harry's encounter with Voldemort the year before." Bill said grimly. And Ron had been with him this time.

"Anybody want to fly for a bit?" Charlie asked, no longer in the mood for a game of cards, and wanting to get up in the air. The rest of the group agreed with him, so they scattered to get their brooms before meeting back in the massive room the Room had created for them to fly in.

"Sirius? Sirius, we're alright. I'm right here." Harry said quietly, wincing in discomfort at being squeezed so tightly.

"Here." Remus handed him a bar of chocolate to try and give Sirius, having already downed a Calming Draught himself.

"But you almost weren't." Sirius mumbled, face hidden in his godsons' shoulder.

Harry winced at how broken the man sounded at the very thought. If this was how he reacted to their escape from the giant spiders, the fight with the Basilisk was not going to be pretty.

... Or Voldemort's resurrection.

... Or the fight with the Dementors.

... Or- well, pretty much everything else.

His godfather was going to wrap him up in the thickest wool blankets he could find, stick him in a house and get the Goblins to ward the entire thing with the highest possible security wards they could. And then he was going to post guards outside his bedroom.

For starters.

Molly was staring at the wall, clutching Ron tight to her chest. Ron would prefer tears or some kind of scolding lecture to the blank look on her face right now. Harry was almost white at the thought of facing those spiders, but comforted himself with the knowledge that he was never going in that forest if he could help it.

At all.

Ever.

No matter what was going on or what he thought he had to do.

He was relieved when he remembered that he had all the information already, and therefore wouldn't have to go anywhere near those spiders to get it.

Harry and Ron shared a look when Molly and Sirius continued to look and act devastated, especially since Molly was still non-responsive to Ron's efforts.

"Don't focus on that. I'm here. I'm right here." Harry tried to tell his godfather, squirming slightly in protest at the tight grip Sirius had on him.

"Yeah, we made it out. And we are never going near those things again." Ron promised his mother. In fact, he had plans after the war to not shut up about them being out there until somebody went in and dealt with the colony.

That somebody obviously not being him.

There was still no response.

Ron and Harry shared another look, this was going to take a while.

"You never explained WWII or the 'Blitz'." Arthur said quietly as they ate dinner. The entire group was subdued, even after the time some of the group spent flying.

While Molly and Sirius were still quiet and obviously shocked, they had eventually let go of the boys and calmed down enough to come to dinner, so that was something.

Hermione looked up. "That's not exactly meal-time conversation." She said after a moment. "I'll go over it after." She promised. She made a mental note to have some history books ready for them to read in more detail if they wanted to later.

Afterward, she settled on the couch, carefully ordering her thoughts. She didn't want to sugarcoat the war, but she also didn't want to give the wizards here a bad view of Muggles. Plus, there had been quite a bit going on since her summer history class covered World War II.

"World War II officially began in September of 1939, and ended in Europe when Germany surrendered to the Allied forces in May 1945, while the Japanese surrendered in August of that year. For two years the fighting was mostly contained to Europe until the Japanese launched an attack on America in December 1941. Before that, American's would come to Europe to help fight, but America wasn't officially part of the war, they were actually trying to stay out of it." She started, thinking furiously about which books she wanted, and nodding to herself when a copy of each one appeared in front of the Purebloods. "The Blitz was an eight month long bombing campaign starting in September 1940, and ending in May '41, just about every single night the German air forces would fly over, and drop bombs on London and a few other cities. A single bomb of that era was the rough equivalent of one hundred simultaneous Bombarda Maxima's." She said bluntly when she saw somebody about to ask what a bomb was.

"And they've only gotten more advanced since then." Harry murmured.

Hermione nodded in agreement with a grimace. "There was an estimated 28,000 dead and 25,000 wounded in the Blitz alone, there is no way of knowing just how many, though, because search efforts were usually halted at night in expectation of more bombs dropping and a lot of bodies were probably destroyed then."

"Merlin." Draco murmured, shocked. "Fifty thousand! Just in London!"

"For the most part." Hermione nodded. "There are far, far more Muggles than there are Wizards." She said seriously. "The entire war itself claimed over seventy-five million lives total, only about a third of which were even military personnel."

"Some war experts estimate that Germany would have won the war outright then and there if they had kept bombing England instead of shifting their focus towards Russia." Harry said quietly, having read up on war history soon after Voldemort returned. "At one point during the war they had almost all of Europe conquered, it was really only England that the German forces never gained a foothold, and I think that was mostly because England is on an island. Because they stopped bombing England, they gave the British military a chance to recover, gave the British something to fight about, and left a staging area behind for the Allies to use later."

"Wait, Tom Riddle was at Hogwarts during the Blitz." Ron said slowly. "He wouldn't have been part of that."

"No... but he would have seen the aftermath when he returned for the summer. Some of the other kids in the orphanage might have been lost to the bombs, and a lot of buildings would have certainly been heavily damaged or destroyed still." Harry said. "The Blitz ended in May, he would have returned in June, search and rescue efforts were probably still going on, too. Blackout conditions would have still been in effect at night just in case the bombers came back. They would have probably still gone to the shelters at night. The fear would have still been there. For that matter, a lot of the kids in the orphanage were probably still evacuated, if the orphan kids were evacuated at all." He glanced at Hermione, who nodded in agreement.

"There was a call for families to send their children out of the city, into the country somewhere that wasn't being bombed. I think the final numbers were over four million...? Some families were able to send them away to relatives, but for those that didn't have relatives or friends they could go to, I think the government found people willing to house some of them. But for those children who's parents stayed behind..." She trailed off.

"Oh those poor babies." Molly murmured. They must have been so scared, not knowing what was happening, if they were ever going to see their parents again...

"What happened with the Japanese, you said that they didn't surrender until months after Germany did?" Fred asked.

"America dropped a couple of bombs on them." Hermione said bluntly. "During the Blitz, hundreds of bombs were dropped, but Britain did not fall. Two bombs were enough to make Japan fall."

The Purebloods were visibly horrified by this comparison.

"What was so special about those two bombs?" Arthur asked, shaken that his beloved Muggles could be capable of such things.

"In August '45, the American's dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima..." She hesitated. "That one bomb completely leveled a majority of the city, I think it was somewhere around ninety percent...? Three days later, they dropped another bomb on the city of Nagasaki. Between the two bombs, there was an estimated 130,000 to 225,000 immediate deaths. Afterward, people started getting sick and dying from the poison the bombs released into the air... that part was unintended. Nobody knew that was going to happen, but..." She shrugged. After a moment of thought she gave them another book that went into the dangers of nuclear radiation and a basic timeline of when those dangers were actually discovered.

"Japan surrendered a few days later." Harry finished.

"I would say so." Draco said quietly. "The possibility that the Americans would drop another was probably too much of a risk for the Japanese government to take." And wizards thought that the war with Grindlewald was bad.

"They had a third bomb ready to go." Hermione commented idly.

"Not helpless little children, are they?" Harry asked sardonically, well aware of Arthur's habit of talking about and treating Muggles like they were helpless children who couldn't do anything for themselves. Arthur shook his head, horrified by what he'd heard.

"These books can go into more detail behind the politics and such of the war, and more detail on the different battles and who exactly was involved, but when it was called a global conflict, they mean a global conflict. There were few countries who weren't involved in some way, and even those that did manage to stay out of it were effected." Hermione pointed to the books she'd given them. "I even included some history books and accounts from the German side of things, and one written by a Muggleborn who studied Grindlewald's involvement in the Muggle side of things." She said.

"And you didn't even touch on the Holocaust." Harry muttered to her. She grimaced, but didn't say anything.

"Some of it can be quite graphic." Severus warned. He knew about WWII, but it had been even longer since he learned about it in school then it had been for the two teens.

On that note, the group broke up solemnly. Some went to start reading their new material, others went to have some time to themselves, and others went to find something to do to take their minds off the horrible information they had just learned.

Arabella looked around at the different groups and nodded as she decided something. "Let's get a late start tomorrow, No reading until after lunch." She announced firmly, eyeing the Weasley's, Sirius, and Remus. They seemed like they were going to need some more time to process the Acromantula attack, plus she had no doubt that Sirius and Remus at least would be dealing with nightmares.

"Good idea." Minerva agreed, and watched as the Weasley boys and Ginny practically kidnapped Ron out from under his mothers nose and disappeared with him into Bill's room.

"You can stay with me tonight." Neville quietly informed the Dursley boys, who nodded in agreement. Ron looked over and agreed before going back to trying to escape his mothers clutches for a second time that night.

I am not a history buff or an expert on WWII. I did do some research, mostly on dates and casualty numbers, but I am not an expert. I forget where I heard or read that bit about stopping the Blitz being a big mistake on Germany's part, but I think I got that part right.