Chapter 4: Plan RAT - Summer 1992

Ron opened his eyes to an attack of orange. Several facts popped into his mind as the fog of sleep lifted:

I'm now in my childhood bedroom.

It's 1992. Our younger selves came back yesterday from our first year of Hogwarts.

And today, I'm going to expose a rat.

His hand shot to the wand on his nightstand "Stupefy." A red bolt of light slipped between the wires of his pet's cage.

Step 1 done on Plan R.A.T. - Reveal Animagus Truth. Ron was really the only one in the trio who named plans, but he thought it was a good idea. They had so many plans.

His home's magic would probably hide his spell from the ministry. If it didn't, the magic was simple enough to justify. I had a nightmare that made me afraid of my pet rat!

When Ron was actually twelve, he would have feared his mother too much to try that excuse, but he knew better now. His mum just wanted him and the rest of his family to be safe. Also, her nagging wouldn't actually kill him, even if it had felt like it could have.

He stumbled out of bed, not quite used to the proportions of his younger body. The redhead went over to a mirror, a bit incredulous that the time travel actually worked. What's more, he was already wearing the glasses Time gave him. The shape and color sort of… suit me? Ron thought as he inspected his new look. He recalled that moments ago, he had been able to see his stunning spell before he cast it. Handy.

He trudged down the stairs to the kitchen. His sense of determination was briefly dwarfed by seeing all of his family bustling about the house.

His mother was standing in front of the kitchen sink conducting an orchestra of cooking tasks. His father sat reading the Daily Prophet and would leave for work soon.

"You're up early," his mother observed.

"Nightmare." He studied the now-young faces surrounding him: mum, dad, Ginny, George, Percy, Fred, George, and even Bill. Ron had forgotten that his eldest brother had come for a visit at this time.

Ron suddenly felt lighter than he had in years. Here's my family, safe and happy. He could have cried with relief that he could see them like this. Yet he also felt despair at how hollowed-out they would be within six or so years, without the trio's time traveling.

His mother steered him into a chair. Snapped from his daze, grabbed a few slices of toast and bacon. After a few bites, he said, "The Hogwarts elves have nothing on your cooking, mum."

His mother gave a half-smile and swatted at him lightly with her dishcloth-covered hand.

Ron ate silently and listened to his siblings' arguments. Ginny was upset at Fred and George's limited knowledge of Harry Potter. Ron held back a snort. They're two years older than Harry; what does she expect?

Ginny then turned her attention to Ron. She demanded, "You. What's Harry like?"

Ron cast about for a way to get out of the extended interrogations of this summer in his past. "Honestly, he's my friend, so he's great. But I'd be friends with him even if he wasn't famous."

"Does he do all sorts of heroic things? I read that —."

"Let me stop you right there. Harry's a great bloke. But he's just a kid. Why don't you wait until you meet him to really work yourself up?"

Ginny considered this, then said, "No. He's going to be my savior, I just know it. But how to get his attention… ."

Ron exchanged looks with Fred and George. They shrugged at him as if to say, Your problem, dear brother.

Ron said, "I'm going to tell him you're a stalker if you don't ease up. I'd like it if my friend liked my sister, but he honestly hates the fame he got from his parents' murder. He won't thank you for the reminder."

"Whatever." Ginny stormed off from the table.

(Probably) Fred said, "Ginny is a force. I'm not sure Harry would know what to do with her if she started to cling."

The other twin asked, "Speaking of Harry, those muggles on the train platform were something else. Do you think Harry likes them?"

"They sent him a single muggle coin for Christmas, which he offered to me for Dad's muggle collection."

The twins winced.

Ron went back to his room periodically to check that Scabbers was still stunned, but that was all he did until the next step of the plan. He didn't want to complicate Plan R.A.T. by enacting any sort of personal revenge.

After supper, Ron brought the rat down to Bill when his younger siblings were elsewhere. He pretended to be mildly upset.

"I had this horrible nightmare last night, and I can't get it out of my head. He was, like, a person? Hiding as a rat. Like how Professor McGonagall can turn into a cat." Their dad had wandered off so Ron called out, "Dad, do you know what I'm talking about?"

Arthur Weasley, devoted dad all too familiar with soothing children's fears, said exactly what Ron had hoped for. "There's a spell that can show us if that's the case. That can give you peace of mind."

Ron nodded eagerly.

Arthur nodded at Bill, who performed the animagus reversal charm. Ron faked his shock with a wand up his sleeve. But his eldest brother had it handled: he re-applied a stunner as well as an incarcerous. Ron attempted to memorize how those spells looked with his magic-warning glasses.

The two adults let Molly know that they were leaving before carting the restrained former pet through the Floo to the Ministry.

As expected, Ron stayed behind. All of his remaining family pestered him for every detail. (Probably) George said, "Little Ronnie might have the Sight!"

Ron hated that and many other nicknames his family called him, but he didn't snap at George like he wanted to. Instead he focused on how Pettigrew hiding out in his bed made him feel. He needed to sell his lies.

His anger and discomfort were real enough to inspire his mum to promise him a new pet the moment they could afford it.

Ron's ears flushed. Might have been laying it on a bit thick, he thought. "Maybe we can get a family owl to replace Errol instead? When we can." Their owl was honestly a bit embarrassing, and it had seemed cruel to give him letters by the end of the upcoming school year.

His mother gave him a hug. "I'll talk to your father."

The twins shot Ron matching thumbs-ups before heading upstairs.

Ron knew that he had changed since he truly was twelve. He was secretly a twenty-year-old who had already learned how to fear his family's deaths.

Even with the time travel, Ron carried that fear with him. He knew that he was far less likely to jump into things headfirst than during the first timeline.

He treasured his moments with his family more now. Futhermore, all of the gestures of care that he saw now were familiar to him. The hugs, the nods, and the shared looks. They've always liked me, even when I couldn't see it. Even when I felt like the useless sixth child.

What's more, they liked me even before I was a war hero. Ron hadn't quite put that particular insecurity into words before, but he felt the hidden wound scab over.

The summer before Harry's second year was tense and deeply unpleasant in both timelines. This was the first summer after Harry had been amongst his kind. It was more obvious to Harry's adult eyes that Vernon and Dudley were hiding their new fear of him behind the anger and minor violence he'd always been aware of.

Now, the unwelcome preteen wizard reacted with a cool boredom he could never have pulled off before. He repeated various phrases in his mind: I am unflappable. Their challenges mean little to me. Don't stare, or do anything else that could be seen as agressive. Mercifully, that seemed to take the wind out of their sails.

His aunt was more complicated. Petunia isn't quite afraid of me, Harry mused, she's almost afraid for me. It showed in how Petunia jumped at noises, like attackers would burst into their house at any moment.

Harry wondered how much she knew about the first wizarding war, or anything else about her sister's life before Harry was born. While Harry still detested Vernon and Dudley, knowing that his aunt's emotions were not all negative (and maybe not all about) him thawed some small part of his heart.

On their third day back in 1992, Harry saw the agreed-upon signal. Torchlight moved slowly across the front window of the Dursley's house at 3 AM. Hermione is here.

Harry snuck out the back door, crept around the edge of Number 2's fence, then headed towards the park. They exchanged hugs and a few muttered pleasentries as they found a suitable spot in a shadowy part of the small park. Once the pair were sitting cross-legged in the dirt and facing each other, Harry flung the notice-me-not-scarf so it looped around both of their necks.

Hermione smirked at the silliness of the garment but quickly straightened her face and caught Harry up on her progress. They couldn't put up a privacy ward, so the details were as sparse as could be.

"Only minimal protection." Hermione found no blood wards on Privet Drive. Harry was frustrated by that for several reasons. At least there was some magic already, meaning that they could add more wards themselves without drawing attention.

"I was able to get 6."

Harry translated that as Hermione bought six wands from Knockturn Alley with no trace attached.

"Surveillance could be attached to anything. Our friend might trigger that, if we're unlucky. That also may prevent use." Hermione was saying that Dobby's magic might have become known to the ministry in their past because Harry himself had magic-tracking on him, which was not typical. Drat. Harry might not be able to do any magic outside of school, even with a different wand.

After a few minutes to think, Harry replied, "Understood. Later then." Don't give me a wand now.

"I took care of dad." Hermione was able to destroy Voldemort's father's bones in the Little Hangleton graveyard. She was going to move some other bones to put in their place to conceal her destruction if she could manage it. They expected this to weaken any body that Voldemort would generate.

"I'll see about our friend. Wait here." She would cast the elf ward since they weren't sure if Harry could do it undetected, he reasoned. Harry wasn't quite sure why Hermione wanted him out of the house for that, but he went along with it.

Harry saw Hermione creep to the Dursley's house. There wouldn't be a lot of explanation they could give if they were noticed by the wrong person, so she leaned into a twelve-year-old's idea of sneaking. They would say something close to the truth if caught: Harry's friend from boarding school wanted to see him, and his relatives wouldn't allow it.

While he waited in the park, Harry thought about the blood-wards. Dumbledore told Harry that was why he had to live with his mother's relatives in his 5th year. When planning for their current adventure in time, Hermione enumerated various possibilities to Harry: Dumbledore may have lied, told a partial truth, told what he believed to be the truth, or told what was true before but isn't now.

They had talked through what it would mean for them if they existed at all or in part.

Harry came down on the side that it didn't matter to their plans if the blood wards were real or not. He was certain that, for at least his second and third year, he wouldn't want to draw Dumbledore's attention. Worse, he didn't want to cause an unexpected change to the timeline by being somewhere else during the summers.

He told his friends that he could wear his scarf when his family's ire got to be too much, or if he needed to complete a task unobserved.

Hermione was not pleased with this approach, to put it mildly. She had told him flat-out that his relatives were abusive and that he deserved better. "Really, Harry. You're going back in time to do things better. Don't you deserve better too?"

Ron had said, "Should be Harry's choice. Staying with them while he's young is safer for the plan. He can change his mind later, 'Mione."

Seeing an impasse, the determined witch had pivoted to a plan to check on the ward situation in general. "We don't know that Voldemort, his followers, or a lowlife like Rita Skeeter can't find you. We only know that they didn't."

Ron noted, "We're planning on changing quite a bit of the timeline."

"A house-elf ward, a basic dark magic ward, an ill-intent ward… We can do a lot with a few spells that would seem innocuous to anyone who noticed them later." Hermione threw in, "While I'm there, I can try to get a read on the blood wards. Just in case."

Harry still hadn't made peace with the idea Dumbledore presented: that his suffering at the Dursleys was for his own safety. He wouldn't want his friends to suffer like he had. They taught him that they felt the same way.

But, if Harry wasn't actually protected by magic when he lived with blood family, he could have lived with Sirius, or the Weasleys, or Lupin, or Andromeda Tonks, or some Canadian family.

Harry worked himself up with half-formed thoughts about Dumbledore's manipulations, his still-living mother, and family as he continued to wait. Filled with defiance, Harry said aloud, "I have no home. My home is not with the Dursleys."

There was no fizzle of magic. No attacker jumped out of the bushes.

Confident that Hermione would have started towards her own London home by now, Harry made his way back to the Dursley's.

Harry didn't see the figure concealed by the shadow of a nearby house. Long after Harry left, the figure got into a parked car and drove away.