Post by Zoe on Jun 28, 2011 23:31:59 GMT -8
Title: A Chance to Change
Rating: T
Warnings: TimeTravel fic, AU, Some questionable morals.
Pairings: HPGW, HGRW (but not until much much later for both)
Summary:Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny decide to go back to change it all. The catch? They won't be able to speak to eachother ever again. Their plan? Divide and conquer, Slytherin Harry, Ravenclaw Hermione, Hufflepuff Ginny, and Gryffindor Ron.
Chapter One:
“We all know what we need to do, what we’re going to have to do. As long as we stick to the plan everything should work out alright...”
Harry could hear the doubt in Hermione’s voice, and he was sure Ron and Ginny could hear it too. What they were about to attempt was unthinkable, and there were so many things that could go wrong. The four of them were risking everything, everything they had ever known for this one chance.
They were planning on going back and changing everything, time travel. The ritual they were using was an old one, one that might kill them if it went wrong. But they had felt it was worth the risk for the chance to try again. The war had not lasted long, only three years after Dumbledore’s death. But it had been brutal.
In the end Fred had died, along with Remus and Tonks. Hermione’s parents had been killed as well, but not as a direct result of the war. Hogwarts had been destroyed, families torn apart. A few of their classmates had been killed, Colin Creevy among them. Dobby had died, and Hedwig as well.
In the grand scheme of things Harry supposed that they got off easy, it could have been much worse. Nevertheless Fred’s death had hit the Weasley’s hard. George would never be the same; he had already attempted to kill himself more than once. Molly Weasley was near catatonic in her grief, and Harry suspected that she would never recover. Arthur was looking into long term care for her.
Hermione likewise had been completely devastated by the loss of her parents, knowing that she would never get to say goodbye and that they had died not knowing that she even existed. She blamed herself, and it changed her.
For his part Harry had never gotten over the death of Sirius, and Dumbledore. To add in Remus had been a blow he wasn’t expecting. For anyone else these reasons may not have seemed enough to take such drastic steps, but for the four of them it was more than enough.
“Harry, you’ll need to lay the groundwork for plan B as you go along. Hopefully it won’t come to that. I know how much Dumbledore’s trust means to you, are you prepared to go through with this? Because even after it’s all over... he’ll never trust you.”
At Harry’s nod she turned to Ron and Ginny. “And you two? What you have to do, it will forever change your family. There won’t be any going back.”
They both nodded and Ron turned to her “What about you Hermione? I know how difficult it’s going to be for you, you’ll be all alone...”
Hermione swallowed. “Yes, I’ll be fine. It shouldn’t be that hard compared to what you’ll all have to go through.” She looked doubtful even as she said it.
Harry looked at the portal, it was almost time. “Is everyone ready?” he asked quietly.
They all looked at each other one last time, tears in each of their eyes. If everything went according to plan it would be thirteen years before the four of them would be able to speak to each other again.
Ginny stepped towards the portal smiling sadly at Harry and Hermione, “Well, I guess I’ll talk to you two in a decade or so...”
After she stepped through Hermione gave Ron and Harry one last hug and a whispered “I’ll miss you guys, don’t forget to do your homework.” She smiled weakly at her own attempt at lightening the mood. “I love you both.”
After she was gone Harry turned to Ron. “Do you reckon we’re doing the right thing? Should we have told Hermione and Ginny?”
“I don’t think we had much of a choice, they never would have agreed to it...”
They nodded to each other solemnly. Ron clasped Harry on the shoulder, “Be seeing you mate.”
After he was gone, Harry took one last look around before stepping through. Then the world went dark.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The plan was both simple and complicated. Overall the general idea was straight forward enough, each of them had a role to play, a job to carry out. In order for them to do this it was essential that they be sorted into different houses at Hogwarts. For Ron and Ginny this meant that they would have to act a certain way long before they ever stepped foot into Hogwarts, so that their family wouldn’t be too shocked. Of course there was more to it than that, the way they behaved now would affect their part in the plan later.
Ron almost didn’t even want to think about it, but he had to. He glanced at Ginny and waited for her to give him the nod that she was here with him. It was disconcerting to say the least; he had forgotten just how small he was at five. Ron and Ginny had perhaps the most life changing role to play, for what they were about to do would tear their family apart.
The portal had taken all four of them back into their five year old bodies, four years old for Ginny. In order for the ritual to work they had to have an anchor that would travel back with them; their wands. It was why Hermione had chosen this ritual; to have their wands with them was essential to their plan. Add in the fact that these wands were now part of a time paradox and technically didn’t exist in their current state, well that part only served to give Ron a headache. What he did know was that their wands did not have the trace on them, because they hadn’t had the trace when they came back in time.
Now the entire point of going back this far was to lay the ground work, and put the first phases of their plan into action. Ron and Ginny had a very important job to do during this time, and that was to find and destroy Voldemort’s horcruxes. Which really is easier said than done, especially for five year olds. It would take them five years to do this, despite the fact that they already knew where each horcruxe was. This was mostly due to their young age; it would take a long time to destroy each one since their magical cores were still developing.
Of course this also meant that they would have to leave home, they obviously wouldn’t be able to do this while living in the Burrow. They would have to run away from home, and they wouldn’t return for five years at least. But in order to carry out the second half of their part in the plan they had an elaborate cover story they would have to put in place before returning to the Burrow.
Hermione had done months of research for them to make their story flawless, and Ron and Ginny had to take months of lessons to get their roles just right. The story would be that they had lived on the streets of London, which at first sounded simple enough. However there were important things they had to learn to make the story believable. They had to learn to steal, pickpocket, street fight, as well use street slang. They had also had to learn about London’s gangs, important places, events, people, and other general information that a child living on the streets would know.
That wasn’t all either, Hermione had researched various potions and spells that Ron and Ginny would have to use before they returned to the Burrow. It was dark magic, but it would effectively give five years worth of memories to selected people. Hermione had researched the people in advance; she had to take those people’s real memories from that time and use them to create a new set of memories that would replace them with Ron and Ginny added in. They had done this repeatedly until she was confident that Ron and Ginny would be able to do this on their own when the time came.
Ron was snapped out of his thoughts as Bill walked into the backyard. They had chosen the day to come back to very carefully, all of their siblings were at home and they were having a family dinner outside. “Oi! Come on squirts, dinner’s ready.”
As he sat down at the table, Ginny right beside him, he felt an overwhelming wave of guilt at what they were going to put their family through. But it was too late to back out now. Right on cue Fred and George started making fun of the “ickle babies Ronnikins and Gin-Gin.” It was exactly as he remembered it, his mother half heartedly trying to make the twins stop while chuckling at her two youngest children grumpy faces.
“Stop it!” Ginny’s childlike protest came, her eyes shining with unshed tears. That was Ron’s cue.
“That’s it! If nobody’s going to be nice to us then I’m running away!” Ron tried not to wince at how corny it sounded, but knew no one would care since it was coming from a five year old. He slammed his cup down and jumped up from the table and started walking towards the shed.
“Won, wait for me! I want to run away to!” Ginny cried as she jumped up and ran after her brother as fast as her little legs would carry her, worried that if she didn’t then she might lose her nerve.
Molly Weasley just chuckled and shook her head. They all “ran away” at some point (usually to the tree fort behind Arthur’s shed), and promptly came back as soon as they got bored. This usually didn’t take long, not more than an hour or two. So she let them walk away, to lick their wounded pride. She was completely convinced that they would be back within the hour, most likely in time for dessert. She didn’t realise then just how devastatingly wrong she was.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
At first all he felt was pain, an intense mind numbing pain throughout his entire body. Slowly the pain started to ebb away and Harry sat up uneasily in the dark space. Well, his cupboard was just as he remembered it at least, he thought as he groped blindly for his glasses only to remember belatedly that at five years old he didn’t have them yet. Instead he let his hand fall to the comforting presence of his wand, glad that he still had it. After all the whole plan would basically have been shot if it hadn’t come through with him. Leaning back against the wall he reflected, not for the first time, on just how he was going to manage everything he had to do. It really hadn’t occurred to him just how incredibly small he was at this age.
His mind started to wander over what he was going to need to do in the next couple days. First he was going to need to perform a series of spells over his relatives, some of which were on the darker side. It was nothing that horrible really, well depending on one’s opinion of such things. But Harry personally didn’t have too much of a problem with what he had to do, since he knew how the Dursleys would treat him if he didn’t. Add in the fact that if he didn’t do this then he would never be able to carry out the first phases of his part in The Plan, and through cause and effect the later stages of his part in The Plan, which would in turn effectively ruin the entire Plan and well any lingering doubts he had went right out the window.
It was fairly simple really; he was going to cast a series of charms over his relatives, some of which would effectively tweak their memories of certain events, and outright alter their memories of other events. While some of the other spells he would be casting would deal with their emotions, towards magic, his parents, Petunia’s parents, Harry himself, and even each other. It wasn’t just one spell, there were many, and each one was chosen specifically for the fact that they would complement the others and play off each other. The memory charms would only make slight changes in vital memories. Not enough to change the outcome of the memories, or actual events, just minor details that in accordance with the emotion charms would change the way these events were remembered and the feelings that would accompany them.
By changing these things the Dursleys extreme prejudice towards magic in general, as well as Harry, James and Lily, and for Petunia her very childhood, would be changed. Oh they’re personalities would remain the same, rather they would be they way they would have been had they never hated magic in the first place. Now obviously they would never love magic, but they certainly wouldn’t hate it. This meant that they would have no reason to “beat the magic out of him,” the result being a normal childhood and being raised as if he were actually a part of the Dursleys family. Harry was still mostly convinced that this was not going to be a good thing, but it was necessary.
Due to his age, and current lack of magical maturity, it would take Harry the course of several days to complete the charms. During that time he was also going to need to break into Mrs. Figg’s house and make several potions for himself. All of the potions he would be making were going to help in correcting the four years of neglect at the hands of the Dursleys. There would be several nutrition potions, to get him to the levels he should be at for his age and make up for the previous four years. As well as potions to make up for the lack of sunlight he received due to the majority of his time being spent indoors or within his extremely dark cupboard, as well as the standard potions that all children that grew up within the wizarding received. These mostly consisted of various immunizations to various wizarding and Muggle diseases, similar to Muggle immunization shots (which Harry had never received), as well as the standard boosters.
Unlike the Muggle world where boosters were basically a type of immunization, boosters in the wizarding world were a mixture of various nutrients, vitamins, and magical ingredients that would encourage any recessive magical traits or genes to come to the forefront. There was really no grantee that the boosters would do anything other than help the child reach their full growth and health potential. You actually had to have some recessive magical traits for that part of the potion to actually do anything. But fortunately for Harry he did. Boosters were common practice among purebloods such as the Malfoy’s, but people like the Weasley’s hadn’t bothered with them in ages.
Making the potions would take several days as well, and that was provided that Mrs. Figg had all the necessary ingredients. He would have to find a way to get his own potions set and supplies within the next few months since he would need to take the nutrition and booster potions on a fairly regular basis. There would be other immunization potions he would have to take over the years as well. One benefit of all the nutrition potions correcting the years of neglect, and the Dursleys soon to be new attitude towards Harry would be that he would hopefully end up not needing glasses at all. Most of the damage to his eyesight had come from years and years for being locked up in dark spaces, and lack of proper food, and the potions would obviously correct that.
Of course that was only the easy stuff. After he had completed all that within the next week or two he had the small matter of absorbing the horcrux within him. Obviously small being used rather loosely. He had to completely integrate the horcrux to himself, effectively destroying Voldemort’s soul while keeping all of his memories, knowledge, and abilities. The first stage would be simple enough, if excruciatingly painful, however the integrating of Voldemort’s knowledge, memories, and abilities would take much longer and he would be out cold the entire time. But if all went well the Harry’s would know everything Voldemort knew. Every spell, potion, ritual, and random information. He would know Voldemort’s personality and how he would react to any given situation, as well as be able to effectively guess at what he was going to do. Also he would still be fluent in Parseltounge, as well as gaining the abilities of Occlumency and Legilimency.
But still that was fairly easy when compared to what he was going to need to start doing once he had finished absorbing the Horcrux. After all laying the foundations for your own person army of half-bloods was no easy task. Especially when they were all still five years old.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
When Hermione Granger opened her eyes she was greeted with the sight of baby blue walls, and toys scattered across the floor mingled with various children’s books. Bolstered by the fact that the ritual had in fact worked she twirled her wand in her hand. She had chosen this particular ritual for the very reason that it used each person’s wand as a focal point, allowing the wand itself to go back in time with them. The ritual did have its downside, but luckily it played into their plan.
The downside was basically that the magic used to create the portal that took them back in time also made it so that if they were to physically speak to each other for a set period of time or “disastrous” things would happen. Simply put, they would probably die. To open the portal a magical diagram had to be made. This diagram would plot the opening of the portal based on the position of the people and their focal points within it. However Hermione had been able to tweak the ritual just enough to allow Ron and Ginny’s focal points to be at the same place, essentially this would allow them to be able to speak to one another. Since obviously they would not have been able to go any length of time not being able to speak to each other due to their family and their part in the plan.
This still left Ron and Ginny unable to speak to either Harry or Hermione, and Harry and Hermione likewise unable to speak with each other or either Ron or Ginny. The lucky part of this overall shitty situation was that it played into their plan well enough. They would divide and conquer, and in order for that to work in the way they intended it was essential that nobody think that they knew each other or were friends. This unfortunate downside to the ritual only ensured that aspect of the plan. Of course it would have been easier if they had still been able to communicate in secret, but they would make it work.
Hermione had estimated that it would be approximately ten years before the residual magic from the ritual had left them and they would be able to speak to one another again. However they couldn’t be positive, and they had agreed to wait until the end or Harry, Ron and Hermione’s seventh year in before they actually spoke to each other again. Just to be on the safe side.
Hermione slowly got dressed and made her way downstairs, somewhat reluctantly. She was both anxious and excited to see her parents. “There you are sweetheart, would you like pancakes or waffles today?” asked her mother as Hermione entered the kitchen. She bent down and gave her daughter a kiss before directing her over to the table.
Hermione froze in place shocked in spite of herself at the sight of her mother. She was both the same and vastly different, and she felt her eyes start to well up at the sight of her mother. She shook her head to clear it and asked for pancakes in a small voice she barely recognized as her own. Once her father was in the room as well, and her parents were busy talking to each other Hermione took out her wand and steadied herself. She was nervous, and scared. After all, the last time she had cast memory charms on her parents they had died before she could reverse them.
It was only temporary, she reminded herself. And it was different then last time. This time she would only be making them believe she was at camp for a couple weeks. When in reality she would be staying in London and getting various paperwork, research, and motions set up and put in place. She would have to work quickly, and it would be made harder by the glamour she was going to have to put on herself to appear older. But it was necessary, so she steeled herself and slowly casted the memory charms on her parents before quickly making her way out the door.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Ron and Ginny stopped running once they had made their way behind the shed and down towards the creek. If Ron strained his ears he could still hear his family talking and laughing away. He looked at Ginny, “You ready?”
Ginny looked somewhat sick, but determined just the same. “As I’ll ever be.” They silently grasped hands before pooling their magic in a joint effort and appareated away.
It was an hour later when Molly Weasley was getting ready to serve dessert to the rest of her family that she decided to send Bill to go fetch Ron and Ginny. After all they had “ran away” for a whole hour now, and for a four and five year old that was a long enough time. Besides she thought with a slight smile, they would get upset if they had to wait too long before the family came looking for them to apologise and beg them not to run away.
When Bill did not come back right away she felt a slight pit begin to form in her stomach, and a sick feeling begin to take over her. Fifteen minutes later Bill had still not returned. “Arthur...” She was pale and she could feel the horror begin to take over.
“Yes Molly? You look Pale, are you alri-“
She cut him off, and by now the whole family was watching her. “Go find the kids; Bill must be having trouble...” He studied her carefully and seemed to sense that she thought something was wrong because he gripped her hand before heading in the direction of Bill.
But she knew already, and she sat down heavily in the nearest seat and put her head in her hands. A mother always knew when something was wrong with her babies, and right now she knew something had gone horribly wrong. Ron and Ginny...
“Mom? Is something wrong?” But before Charlie could receive an answer Bill was running towards them.
“
They’re gone!”
Several hours later and well into the night found the Weasley household the center of the largest search party in recent history. Nearly half of the ministry itself, combined with most of the staff of Hogwarts, as well as family and friends of the Weasley’s combined with various volunteers had joined the efforts; the Weasley’s may have been poor, but they were kind, well liked, and well connected.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o00
Hermione sat in her room at a cheap hotel in the center of London. It hadn’t been easy to arrange for the room, she had to glamour herself to appear old enough to rent the room and took a great deal of energy for her young body to hold the charm for so long. She had been holding it all day, while taking public transportation to London, and while renting the room itself. Luckily she could rest now, and she let the charm drop. Sighing in relief she tossed her money onto the bedside table before moving to grab a pen and paper out of her bag.
She felt more than a little guilty about taking the money from her parents without them knowing, but she had no other option. Shaking her head of these thoughts she set about making a list. The first thing she had to do was arrange for the muggleborns and halfbloods that Harry and herself had agreed upon prior to move to Surrey. Little Whinging to be exact. This really was easier said than done, she would have to compile compulsion letters to be sent to various companies and employers within Little Whinging and the surrounding area to have the parents of the aforementioned group hired. She would also have to send compulsion letters to the families themselves, to give them the urge to move to Surrey and seek out the employers she had arranged.
Compulsion letters were not terribly tricky in and of themselves. But because of her age and lack of magical maturity it would take her a few days to complete them. Compulsion letters only worked on muggles, basically it was a letter charmed to make the person want to do whatever it was you were suggesting in the letter. They were also charmed to make you forget ever having received the letter, while still leaving you with the compulsions. It was borderline dark magic at best, and against Ministry law.
After she completed the letters, which all told would take about a week, she had a few laws she had to set in motion. Really she just had to plant the ideas in a few select people, and they would carry out the rest. She had chosen them carefully, all were in a position of power enough to do this, and all were the type to keep going until they succeeded. Needless to say this was going to extremely difficult, as it involved some breaking and entering as well as a ton of advanced magic that frankly speaking was far more than her young body would be able to handle. She only had a week to complete this portion of her task before her parents expected her home from “camp.”
Flipping to a new page she began her list of muggleborns and halfbloods;
Katie Bell – 1990 (G)
Dean Thomas – 1991 (G)
Demelza Robins – 1992 (G)
Hannah Abbot – 1991 (H)
Megan Jones – 1991(H) (halfblood)
Justin Finch-Fletchley – 1991 (H)
Terry Boot –1991 (R)
Mandy Brockleburst – 1991 (R)
Su Li – 1991 (R) (halfblood)
Kevin Entwhistle – 1991 (R)
Tracey Davis – 1991 (S) (halfblood)
With the exception of Tracey Davis, Su Li, and Megan Jones they were all muggleborns. Tracey Davis, Su Li, and Megan Jones were all halfbloods that had been raised in the muggle world with no knowledge their wizarding heritage. The year beside each name indicated the year in which they had started Hogwarts, and the letter was the house that they had been sorted into. Harry and Hermione had known that there was a chance the sorting would work out differently for these students this time around, but they had been chosen based on the fact that none of them had known about the wizarding world growing up as well as the house they had been sorted into.
Giving into her exhaustion, Hermione set aside her notes and crawled into the large bed. It still surprised her that she was so small, she had to jump slightly to get onto the bed. Merlin, she couldn’t wait to grow up. Again.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The search had been going for nearly 48 hours straight with no sign of Ron and Ginny. They had been shipped to their Great Aunt Muriel’s house for the duration, and Bill wished he was out helping with the search. At 15 years old he understood better than any of his siblings just how dire the situation was. Ron and Ginny were so young, and there was no way they could have managed to get far in the hour they had been left alone. That meant that either someone must have taken them or they were...
But he wouldn’t let himself think that, not yet. He tried his best to ignore the small voice in the back of his head that was asking who could have taken them? He knew the answer to that already; there was nobody that could have possibly. Not as far removed as the Burrow was, and not with all the wards and muggle repelling charms. There weren’t any wizards nearby that would have either, and Bill wasn’t sure if that was a comforting thought or not.
He hoped they were just hiding somewhere; there were many hard to find places in the wood surrounding the Burrow. But he knew that with each passing hour it was far less likely. If they had been hiding there was no way they would have been able to stay hidden this long, unless something had happened to them. What if they had drowned? What if they had tried to climb a tree, as they had seen Bill do countless times? What if they had fallen while climbing, and hurt themselves? What if they were dead?
He was the oldest, and it was his job, his duty, to take care of his younger siblings. He felt responsible. He should have spent more time with them, told the twins to lay off, paid more attention...
He looked over at Charlie, who was staring aimlessly out the window. Charlie was two years younger than him, and at 13 years old he certainly shared Bill’s worry. Percy was sitting in front of the fire, aimlessly tracing patterns on the floor. Percy was three years younger than Charlie, and had just turned 10 last week. Bill knew that Percy understood to some degree just how bad the situation was, but he also knew that Percy hadn’t given it serious consideration, thinking it more an inconvenience than anything, convinced that their parents would fix it. Bill longed for the days when he still believed his parents capable of fixing any situation.
Bill shifted his gaze to Fred and George. They were both on the couch, facing each other. They looked upset, they way they usually did when they had a nightmare and came running to Bill to make it go away. Fred and George were young, two years younger than Percy; they were only 8 years old, having just had their birthday a few months ago.
Bill tried not to remind himself that Ron was two years younger than the twins, and only 5 years old as his sixth birthday was in a couple months. He tried even harder not to think on the fact that Ginny was only four. Bill’s head snapped to the door as his Aunt Muriel bustled in with a plate of sandwiches.
Without saying a word she left them on the corner table, along with a pitcher of water before hurrying back out of the room hastily covering her eyes as she did so. It was completely unlike her to cry, or to be so silent. Usually she was quite vocal with her opinions. Bill knew it must mean that something had happened, something bad.
“Bill?” asked George meekly. “Do you think that Ron and Ginny will forgive us when Mum and Dad bring them home?”
Bill didn’t have the heart to tell him that he didn’t think Ron and Ginny would be coming home.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Harry couldn’t help but snicker to himself as he watched his aunt and uncle fight. It was quite the sight, Aunt Petunia was standing with her hands slammed down on the table and her torso leaning forward slightly as she screamed at Vernon, who was seated at said table his face turning a lovely shade of puce while all four of his chins warbled in anger. Dudley’s head was whipping back and forth between his parents so fast that Harry was sure he was going to give himself whiplash. But what really made the argument so entertaining was what they were saying.
“-totally barbaric! It’s completely unacceptable! I don’t know what we were thinking making a child sleep in a cupboard!”
“Then put him in Dudley’s second bedroom! Why on earth does he have two bedrooms anyways?!” Vernon’s chins gave an angry warble and spittle came out of his mouth as he shouted the words at his wife.
“Vernon! Are you suggesting we make my Dinky-Diddyums give up one of his bedrooms for that –that freak?!”
“The boy needs a proper bedroom! We can’t just go around denying him necessities! We can’t just... just beat the freakishness out of him, it’s barbaric!”
“ARE YOU SUGGESTING WE BEAT MY NEPHEW?! I will not allow it! He’s a growing boy and needs his own bedroom -he can have one of Dudley’s- and he needs new clothes! And toys!” Petunia’s eyes bulged dangerously as she said it.
“GIVE HIM DUDLEY’S SECOND BEDROOM? ARE YOU MAD?!”
The argument continued on in that fashion, going in circles. One minute they would be horrified at their treatment of Harry, and the next they had reverted to their old ways. It was what made the argument so amusing to watch as it seemed to be happening to each of them at different times. As amusing as it was Harry couldn’t let it go on much longer. He was only half way through with the charms he had to put on the Dursleys to alter their memories and feelings toward magic, and he only had a couple days to finish before he had to get started on his potions.
It was draining for his young body to perform such complicated magic, but he was already behind and he had to finish. Discreetly slipping his wand into his hand he quietly aimed towards his aunt and started softy murmuring the correct incantations. Ten minutes later found all three Dursleys sitting at the table, staring blankly in front of them. It then took Harry the better part of an hour to carefully recite and implant the alterations to their memories.
He had already dealt with Petunia’s jealousy of her sister by carefully altering select events in her memoires and using the correct charms to change the feeling that went along with each memory. He had done the same with Vernon. Today he was focusing on their impressions of him, and their hatred of magic along with Dudley and their attitude towards him. He was doing this so that Dudley didn’t grow up to be the spoilt, obese, bully that he had been originally. By altering Vernon and Petunia’s attitude in this regard they would not spoil Dudley the way they had, and Harry and Dudley would be treated equally.
By the time he was done, he felt nearly ready to collapse but he forced himself to do the emotion charms. It took him far longer to do this, not because they were more difficult but because he was already so exhausted and his body couldn’t take much more. Three hours later he was finally done, and feeling decidedly sick. He watched through tunnelled vision as the Dursleys resumed what they had been doing, completely unaware of the lapse in time.
“Aunt Petunia?” he asked weakly, too dizzy to care just how small his voice sounded. Which he supposed didn’t matter anyways since he was five years old...
“Yes sweetheart?” If he wasn’t on the verge of collapsing he would have done a double take at the fond tone of voice his aunt had used.
“I think I’m going to pass out.” The words were barely out of his lips before he slipped into darkness.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Ron and Ginny had apparated from the Burrow directly to the old Gaunt home, and it had left them immediately unconscious. Apparition took a great deal of magic, which was why the age limit for learning was seventeen. It had almost completely depleted what small magical reserves their young bodies had, and they had been unconscious for nearly twenty four hours afterwards. That was why they wouldn’t be able to use apparition as a method of travel in their quest for the horcruxes, they would have to settle for muggle means.
By the time Ginny started to come around it was morning the next day, and the first thing she noticed was that Ron was still knocked out. The second thing she noticed was just how creepy the decrepit shack before her really was. Shaking her head to rid herself of the thought, she attempted to roll over and immediately moaned in pain. The grass underneath her was little more than scattered patched with far more rock and dirt then actual grass, and the ground was still damp with morning dew. At least she hoped that was all it was.
Slowly moving into a sitting position, and being very careful so as to not jar her already aching head, she glanced around her. There was a scattering of trees, which was why they had chosen the back of the house to avoid being seen (not that it was likely anyone would be around anyways), and off in the distance she could see what must have been a local neighbourhood. Quickly scooping up her wand and the leftovers she had managed to steal before they had left home she moved to gently shake Ron.
When he didn’t wake up right away she couldn’t help the panic that slowly started to take hold of her. She took a deep breath and to calm herself and tried to remind herself that this was normal, and he may be unconscious for a while. She stood slowly and took a pile of cloth napkins from her pocket (also salvaged from the Weasley dinner table) and started to transfigure them. One was made into a simple tent; two were made into small foam mats, another two into the best sleeping-bags she could manage in her depleted state. The last two were transfigured into pillows. She was so exhausted by this point that she was almost unable to drag it all inside the tent. Dizzily she collected some wood that was scattered around and piled it up a short way away from the tent, and spelled some fire onto it.
Once she had regained her balance she turned towards Ron and quickly realised that there was no way she was up to dragging him into the tent. She decided there was nothing for it and she would just have to levitate him. Ginny knew it wasn’t the smartest idea, her body was that of a four year old and could barely cope with the magic she had already done. But her worry for Ron overrode her common sense, and she settled him inside his sleeping bag. Her headache was nearly unbearable at this point, and her legs felt like they were made of lead. She crawled over to her sleeping-bag, unable to stand, and was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Hermione grinned in triumph as she looked over her stack of completed compulsion letters. She had finished the letters to the families yesterday, and had just finished the ones to the various companies and employers today along with the one to the school. It had taken a lot out of her, but she was glad to be done them. She was quite tired and decided to take a nap before continuing on with anything. Moving over to the bed she once again had to jump a bit to actually get on, and she cursed her age for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. Once she had successfully manoeuvred herself onto the bed, she reached over to the small alarm clock and set it for later that afternoon.
Yawning widely she crawled under the covers and made a mental checklist for what she still had to do. First she needed to mail the letters, and then she needed to make her way to the ministry of magic. She had to find Amelia Bones and somehow plant the ideas for the changes she needed to make, without her noticing. Much easier said than done, but she decided to worry about it later as she felt herself slowly drift off into an easy slumber.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
When Ginny woke up next she was greeted with the sight of Ron’s decidedly unhappy face. “Ginny, what were you thinking? You shouldn’t have done all this by yourself; you should have waited for me to help you!”
“You weren’t waking up Ron, I tried! Besides who know how long we had been laying outside? We can’t afford to get sick or freeze to death, so I did what I had to do!”
“Yeah well you’ve been unconscious for near twelve hours! I was worried...”
Ginny sighed and rubbed a hand up and down her face. “Let’s not argue alright? I was worried about you, you were worried about me. I just don’t have the energy for this right now.” Ron nodded slowly, and tossed her some of the food she had nicked for them. They both ate in silence, suddenly very aware of just how hungry they both were. By unspoken agreement they tried to eat as little as possible, they didn’t have much food and had no idea when they would find more.
Once finished they talked in low voices, although Ginny wasn’t sure why exactly since there was nobody around, and discussed how to tackle their first horcrux. It would take them weeks just to get past the outer wards, and weeks to get passed whatever obstacles were inside. Once they finally had the horcrux it would take them months to destroy it, and Ginny felt anxious just thinking about it. They decided to rest for a few days, and try to find some more food, before starting on the wards since they would need every ounce of energy their young bodies could provide to do this.
Not for the first time Ginny wished they could just owl Dumbledore and tell him everything he needed to know about the horcruxes and let him take care of it. Of course it was impossible because the moment they did that he would want to know how they got the information, and they would be unable to tell him. The ritual was designed so that the secret of time travel would be kept; it was similar to that of an unbreakable vow. If they told Dumbledore the truth (or anyone for that matter) about their time travel then they would inevitably die. There was a lot of death involved with this stupid ritual, Ginny thought bitterly.
Of course there was no other explanation they could have possibly given Dumbledore, and if they had then he probably wouldn’t have believed them anyways. He most likely would have thought it meant that Harry’s horcrux was becoming active or something. So needless to say, despite how much she wished they could just pass of this task; there was nothing they could do. It would have been so much easier; Dumbledore could have gotten the horcrux within a matter of hours, whereas it would take them months due to their age.
So as her and Ron lay in their sleeping-bags, she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to just go home, and be with her family. She could only imagine what they were feeling right now. Her mother would be completely devastated, as would the rest of her family. It broke her heart to think about, so she tried to shake off the thoughts and think of something less depressing. It was then that she realise she had nothing but depressing thoughts and the vague hope that one day it would all be worth it. She had nightmares that night, nightmares of funerals and death.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
Rating: T
Warnings: TimeTravel fic, AU, Some questionable morals.
Pairings: HPGW, HGRW (but not until much much later for both)
Summary:Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny decide to go back to change it all. The catch? They won't be able to speak to eachother ever again. Their plan? Divide and conquer, Slytherin Harry, Ravenclaw Hermione, Hufflepuff Ginny, and Gryffindor Ron.
Chapter One:
“We all know what we need to do, what we’re going to have to do. As long as we stick to the plan everything should work out alright...”
Harry could hear the doubt in Hermione’s voice, and he was sure Ron and Ginny could hear it too. What they were about to attempt was unthinkable, and there were so many things that could go wrong. The four of them were risking everything, everything they had ever known for this one chance.
They were planning on going back and changing everything, time travel. The ritual they were using was an old one, one that might kill them if it went wrong. But they had felt it was worth the risk for the chance to try again. The war had not lasted long, only three years after Dumbledore’s death. But it had been brutal.
In the end Fred had died, along with Remus and Tonks. Hermione’s parents had been killed as well, but not as a direct result of the war. Hogwarts had been destroyed, families torn apart. A few of their classmates had been killed, Colin Creevy among them. Dobby had died, and Hedwig as well.
In the grand scheme of things Harry supposed that they got off easy, it could have been much worse. Nevertheless Fred’s death had hit the Weasley’s hard. George would never be the same; he had already attempted to kill himself more than once. Molly Weasley was near catatonic in her grief, and Harry suspected that she would never recover. Arthur was looking into long term care for her.
Hermione likewise had been completely devastated by the loss of her parents, knowing that she would never get to say goodbye and that they had died not knowing that she even existed. She blamed herself, and it changed her.
For his part Harry had never gotten over the death of Sirius, and Dumbledore. To add in Remus had been a blow he wasn’t expecting. For anyone else these reasons may not have seemed enough to take such drastic steps, but for the four of them it was more than enough.
“Harry, you’ll need to lay the groundwork for plan B as you go along. Hopefully it won’t come to that. I know how much Dumbledore’s trust means to you, are you prepared to go through with this? Because even after it’s all over... he’ll never trust you.”
At Harry’s nod she turned to Ron and Ginny. “And you two? What you have to do, it will forever change your family. There won’t be any going back.”
They both nodded and Ron turned to her “What about you Hermione? I know how difficult it’s going to be for you, you’ll be all alone...”
Hermione swallowed. “Yes, I’ll be fine. It shouldn’t be that hard compared to what you’ll all have to go through.” She looked doubtful even as she said it.
Harry looked at the portal, it was almost time. “Is everyone ready?” he asked quietly.
They all looked at each other one last time, tears in each of their eyes. If everything went according to plan it would be thirteen years before the four of them would be able to speak to each other again.
Ginny stepped towards the portal smiling sadly at Harry and Hermione, “Well, I guess I’ll talk to you two in a decade or so...”
After she stepped through Hermione gave Ron and Harry one last hug and a whispered “I’ll miss you guys, don’t forget to do your homework.” She smiled weakly at her own attempt at lightening the mood. “I love you both.”
After she was gone Harry turned to Ron. “Do you reckon we’re doing the right thing? Should we have told Hermione and Ginny?”
“I don’t think we had much of a choice, they never would have agreed to it...”
They nodded to each other solemnly. Ron clasped Harry on the shoulder, “Be seeing you mate.”
After he was gone, Harry took one last look around before stepping through. Then the world went dark.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The plan was both simple and complicated. Overall the general idea was straight forward enough, each of them had a role to play, a job to carry out. In order for them to do this it was essential that they be sorted into different houses at Hogwarts. For Ron and Ginny this meant that they would have to act a certain way long before they ever stepped foot into Hogwarts, so that their family wouldn’t be too shocked. Of course there was more to it than that, the way they behaved now would affect their part in the plan later.
Ron almost didn’t even want to think about it, but he had to. He glanced at Ginny and waited for her to give him the nod that she was here with him. It was disconcerting to say the least; he had forgotten just how small he was at five. Ron and Ginny had perhaps the most life changing role to play, for what they were about to do would tear their family apart.
The portal had taken all four of them back into their five year old bodies, four years old for Ginny. In order for the ritual to work they had to have an anchor that would travel back with them; their wands. It was why Hermione had chosen this ritual; to have their wands with them was essential to their plan. Add in the fact that these wands were now part of a time paradox and technically didn’t exist in their current state, well that part only served to give Ron a headache. What he did know was that their wands did not have the trace on them, because they hadn’t had the trace when they came back in time.
Now the entire point of going back this far was to lay the ground work, and put the first phases of their plan into action. Ron and Ginny had a very important job to do during this time, and that was to find and destroy Voldemort’s horcruxes. Which really is easier said than done, especially for five year olds. It would take them five years to do this, despite the fact that they already knew where each horcruxe was. This was mostly due to their young age; it would take a long time to destroy each one since their magical cores were still developing.
Of course this also meant that they would have to leave home, they obviously wouldn’t be able to do this while living in the Burrow. They would have to run away from home, and they wouldn’t return for five years at least. But in order to carry out the second half of their part in the plan they had an elaborate cover story they would have to put in place before returning to the Burrow.
Hermione had done months of research for them to make their story flawless, and Ron and Ginny had to take months of lessons to get their roles just right. The story would be that they had lived on the streets of London, which at first sounded simple enough. However there were important things they had to learn to make the story believable. They had to learn to steal, pickpocket, street fight, as well use street slang. They had also had to learn about London’s gangs, important places, events, people, and other general information that a child living on the streets would know.
That wasn’t all either, Hermione had researched various potions and spells that Ron and Ginny would have to use before they returned to the Burrow. It was dark magic, but it would effectively give five years worth of memories to selected people. Hermione had researched the people in advance; she had to take those people’s real memories from that time and use them to create a new set of memories that would replace them with Ron and Ginny added in. They had done this repeatedly until she was confident that Ron and Ginny would be able to do this on their own when the time came.
Ron was snapped out of his thoughts as Bill walked into the backyard. They had chosen the day to come back to very carefully, all of their siblings were at home and they were having a family dinner outside. “Oi! Come on squirts, dinner’s ready.”
As he sat down at the table, Ginny right beside him, he felt an overwhelming wave of guilt at what they were going to put their family through. But it was too late to back out now. Right on cue Fred and George started making fun of the “ickle babies Ronnikins and Gin-Gin.” It was exactly as he remembered it, his mother half heartedly trying to make the twins stop while chuckling at her two youngest children grumpy faces.
“Stop it!” Ginny’s childlike protest came, her eyes shining with unshed tears. That was Ron’s cue.
“That’s it! If nobody’s going to be nice to us then I’m running away!” Ron tried not to wince at how corny it sounded, but knew no one would care since it was coming from a five year old. He slammed his cup down and jumped up from the table and started walking towards the shed.
“Won, wait for me! I want to run away to!” Ginny cried as she jumped up and ran after her brother as fast as her little legs would carry her, worried that if she didn’t then she might lose her nerve.
Molly Weasley just chuckled and shook her head. They all “ran away” at some point (usually to the tree fort behind Arthur’s shed), and promptly came back as soon as they got bored. This usually didn’t take long, not more than an hour or two. So she let them walk away, to lick their wounded pride. She was completely convinced that they would be back within the hour, most likely in time for dessert. She didn’t realise then just how devastatingly wrong she was.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
At first all he felt was pain, an intense mind numbing pain throughout his entire body. Slowly the pain started to ebb away and Harry sat up uneasily in the dark space. Well, his cupboard was just as he remembered it at least, he thought as he groped blindly for his glasses only to remember belatedly that at five years old he didn’t have them yet. Instead he let his hand fall to the comforting presence of his wand, glad that he still had it. After all the whole plan would basically have been shot if it hadn’t come through with him. Leaning back against the wall he reflected, not for the first time, on just how he was going to manage everything he had to do. It really hadn’t occurred to him just how incredibly small he was at this age.
His mind started to wander over what he was going to need to do in the next couple days. First he was going to need to perform a series of spells over his relatives, some of which were on the darker side. It was nothing that horrible really, well depending on one’s opinion of such things. But Harry personally didn’t have too much of a problem with what he had to do, since he knew how the Dursleys would treat him if he didn’t. Add in the fact that if he didn’t do this then he would never be able to carry out the first phases of his part in The Plan, and through cause and effect the later stages of his part in The Plan, which would in turn effectively ruin the entire Plan and well any lingering doubts he had went right out the window.
It was fairly simple really; he was going to cast a series of charms over his relatives, some of which would effectively tweak their memories of certain events, and outright alter their memories of other events. While some of the other spells he would be casting would deal with their emotions, towards magic, his parents, Petunia’s parents, Harry himself, and even each other. It wasn’t just one spell, there were many, and each one was chosen specifically for the fact that they would complement the others and play off each other. The memory charms would only make slight changes in vital memories. Not enough to change the outcome of the memories, or actual events, just minor details that in accordance with the emotion charms would change the way these events were remembered and the feelings that would accompany them.
By changing these things the Dursleys extreme prejudice towards magic in general, as well as Harry, James and Lily, and for Petunia her very childhood, would be changed. Oh they’re personalities would remain the same, rather they would be they way they would have been had they never hated magic in the first place. Now obviously they would never love magic, but they certainly wouldn’t hate it. This meant that they would have no reason to “beat the magic out of him,” the result being a normal childhood and being raised as if he were actually a part of the Dursleys family. Harry was still mostly convinced that this was not going to be a good thing, but it was necessary.
Due to his age, and current lack of magical maturity, it would take Harry the course of several days to complete the charms. During that time he was also going to need to break into Mrs. Figg’s house and make several potions for himself. All of the potions he would be making were going to help in correcting the four years of neglect at the hands of the Dursleys. There would be several nutrition potions, to get him to the levels he should be at for his age and make up for the previous four years. As well as potions to make up for the lack of sunlight he received due to the majority of his time being spent indoors or within his extremely dark cupboard, as well as the standard potions that all children that grew up within the wizarding received. These mostly consisted of various immunizations to various wizarding and Muggle diseases, similar to Muggle immunization shots (which Harry had never received), as well as the standard boosters.
Unlike the Muggle world where boosters were basically a type of immunization, boosters in the wizarding world were a mixture of various nutrients, vitamins, and magical ingredients that would encourage any recessive magical traits or genes to come to the forefront. There was really no grantee that the boosters would do anything other than help the child reach their full growth and health potential. You actually had to have some recessive magical traits for that part of the potion to actually do anything. But fortunately for Harry he did. Boosters were common practice among purebloods such as the Malfoy’s, but people like the Weasley’s hadn’t bothered with them in ages.
Making the potions would take several days as well, and that was provided that Mrs. Figg had all the necessary ingredients. He would have to find a way to get his own potions set and supplies within the next few months since he would need to take the nutrition and booster potions on a fairly regular basis. There would be other immunization potions he would have to take over the years as well. One benefit of all the nutrition potions correcting the years of neglect, and the Dursleys soon to be new attitude towards Harry would be that he would hopefully end up not needing glasses at all. Most of the damage to his eyesight had come from years and years for being locked up in dark spaces, and lack of proper food, and the potions would obviously correct that.
Of course that was only the easy stuff. After he had completed all that within the next week or two he had the small matter of absorbing the horcrux within him. Obviously small being used rather loosely. He had to completely integrate the horcrux to himself, effectively destroying Voldemort’s soul while keeping all of his memories, knowledge, and abilities. The first stage would be simple enough, if excruciatingly painful, however the integrating of Voldemort’s knowledge, memories, and abilities would take much longer and he would be out cold the entire time. But if all went well the Harry’s would know everything Voldemort knew. Every spell, potion, ritual, and random information. He would know Voldemort’s personality and how he would react to any given situation, as well as be able to effectively guess at what he was going to do. Also he would still be fluent in Parseltounge, as well as gaining the abilities of Occlumency and Legilimency.
But still that was fairly easy when compared to what he was going to need to start doing once he had finished absorbing the Horcrux. After all laying the foundations for your own person army of half-bloods was no easy task. Especially when they were all still five years old.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
When Hermione Granger opened her eyes she was greeted with the sight of baby blue walls, and toys scattered across the floor mingled with various children’s books. Bolstered by the fact that the ritual had in fact worked she twirled her wand in her hand. She had chosen this particular ritual for the very reason that it used each person’s wand as a focal point, allowing the wand itself to go back in time with them. The ritual did have its downside, but luckily it played into their plan.
The downside was basically that the magic used to create the portal that took them back in time also made it so that if they were to physically speak to each other for a set period of time or “disastrous” things would happen. Simply put, they would probably die. To open the portal a magical diagram had to be made. This diagram would plot the opening of the portal based on the position of the people and their focal points within it. However Hermione had been able to tweak the ritual just enough to allow Ron and Ginny’s focal points to be at the same place, essentially this would allow them to be able to speak to one another. Since obviously they would not have been able to go any length of time not being able to speak to each other due to their family and their part in the plan.
This still left Ron and Ginny unable to speak to either Harry or Hermione, and Harry and Hermione likewise unable to speak with each other or either Ron or Ginny. The lucky part of this overall shitty situation was that it played into their plan well enough. They would divide and conquer, and in order for that to work in the way they intended it was essential that nobody think that they knew each other or were friends. This unfortunate downside to the ritual only ensured that aspect of the plan. Of course it would have been easier if they had still been able to communicate in secret, but they would make it work.
Hermione had estimated that it would be approximately ten years before the residual magic from the ritual had left them and they would be able to speak to one another again. However they couldn’t be positive, and they had agreed to wait until the end or Harry, Ron and Hermione’s seventh year in before they actually spoke to each other again. Just to be on the safe side.
Hermione slowly got dressed and made her way downstairs, somewhat reluctantly. She was both anxious and excited to see her parents. “There you are sweetheart, would you like pancakes or waffles today?” asked her mother as Hermione entered the kitchen. She bent down and gave her daughter a kiss before directing her over to the table.
Hermione froze in place shocked in spite of herself at the sight of her mother. She was both the same and vastly different, and she felt her eyes start to well up at the sight of her mother. She shook her head to clear it and asked for pancakes in a small voice she barely recognized as her own. Once her father was in the room as well, and her parents were busy talking to each other Hermione took out her wand and steadied herself. She was nervous, and scared. After all, the last time she had cast memory charms on her parents they had died before she could reverse them.
It was only temporary, she reminded herself. And it was different then last time. This time she would only be making them believe she was at camp for a couple weeks. When in reality she would be staying in London and getting various paperwork, research, and motions set up and put in place. She would have to work quickly, and it would be made harder by the glamour she was going to have to put on herself to appear older. But it was necessary, so she steeled herself and slowly casted the memory charms on her parents before quickly making her way out the door.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o
Ron and Ginny stopped running once they had made their way behind the shed and down towards the creek. If Ron strained his ears he could still hear his family talking and laughing away. He looked at Ginny, “You ready?”
Ginny looked somewhat sick, but determined just the same. “As I’ll ever be.” They silently grasped hands before pooling their magic in a joint effort and appareated away.
It was an hour later when Molly Weasley was getting ready to serve dessert to the rest of her family that she decided to send Bill to go fetch Ron and Ginny. After all they had “ran away” for a whole hour now, and for a four and five year old that was a long enough time. Besides she thought with a slight smile, they would get upset if they had to wait too long before the family came looking for them to apologise and beg them not to run away.
When Bill did not come back right away she felt a slight pit begin to form in her stomach, and a sick feeling begin to take over her. Fifteen minutes later Bill had still not returned. “Arthur...” She was pale and she could feel the horror begin to take over.
“Yes Molly? You look Pale, are you alri-“
She cut him off, and by now the whole family was watching her. “Go find the kids; Bill must be having trouble...” He studied her carefully and seemed to sense that she thought something was wrong because he gripped her hand before heading in the direction of Bill.
But she knew already, and she sat down heavily in the nearest seat and put her head in her hands. A mother always knew when something was wrong with her babies, and right now she knew something had gone horribly wrong. Ron and Ginny...
“Mom? Is something wrong?” But before Charlie could receive an answer Bill was running towards them.
“
They’re gone!”
Several hours later and well into the night found the Weasley household the center of the largest search party in recent history. Nearly half of the ministry itself, combined with most of the staff of Hogwarts, as well as family and friends of the Weasley’s combined with various volunteers had joined the efforts; the Weasley’s may have been poor, but they were kind, well liked, and well connected.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o00
Hermione sat in her room at a cheap hotel in the center of London. It hadn’t been easy to arrange for the room, she had to glamour herself to appear old enough to rent the room and took a great deal of energy for her young body to hold the charm for so long. She had been holding it all day, while taking public transportation to London, and while renting the room itself. Luckily she could rest now, and she let the charm drop. Sighing in relief she tossed her money onto the bedside table before moving to grab a pen and paper out of her bag.
She felt more than a little guilty about taking the money from her parents without them knowing, but she had no other option. Shaking her head of these thoughts she set about making a list. The first thing she had to do was arrange for the muggleborns and halfbloods that Harry and herself had agreed upon prior to move to Surrey. Little Whinging to be exact. This really was easier said than done, she would have to compile compulsion letters to be sent to various companies and employers within Little Whinging and the surrounding area to have the parents of the aforementioned group hired. She would also have to send compulsion letters to the families themselves, to give them the urge to move to Surrey and seek out the employers she had arranged.
Compulsion letters were not terribly tricky in and of themselves. But because of her age and lack of magical maturity it would take her a few days to complete them. Compulsion letters only worked on muggles, basically it was a letter charmed to make the person want to do whatever it was you were suggesting in the letter. They were also charmed to make you forget ever having received the letter, while still leaving you with the compulsions. It was borderline dark magic at best, and against Ministry law.
After she completed the letters, which all told would take about a week, she had a few laws she had to set in motion. Really she just had to plant the ideas in a few select people, and they would carry out the rest. She had chosen them carefully, all were in a position of power enough to do this, and all were the type to keep going until they succeeded. Needless to say this was going to extremely difficult, as it involved some breaking and entering as well as a ton of advanced magic that frankly speaking was far more than her young body would be able to handle. She only had a week to complete this portion of her task before her parents expected her home from “camp.”
Flipping to a new page she began her list of muggleborns and halfbloods;
Katie Bell – 1990 (G)
Dean Thomas – 1991 (G)
Demelza Robins – 1992 (G)
Hannah Abbot – 1991 (H)
Megan Jones – 1991(H) (halfblood)
Justin Finch-Fletchley – 1991 (H)
Terry Boot –1991 (R)
Mandy Brockleburst – 1991 (R)
Su Li – 1991 (R) (halfblood)
Kevin Entwhistle – 1991 (R)
Tracey Davis – 1991 (S) (halfblood)
With the exception of Tracey Davis, Su Li, and Megan Jones they were all muggleborns. Tracey Davis, Su Li, and Megan Jones were all halfbloods that had been raised in the muggle world with no knowledge their wizarding heritage. The year beside each name indicated the year in which they had started Hogwarts, and the letter was the house that they had been sorted into. Harry and Hermione had known that there was a chance the sorting would work out differently for these students this time around, but they had been chosen based on the fact that none of them had known about the wizarding world growing up as well as the house they had been sorted into.
Giving into her exhaustion, Hermione set aside her notes and crawled into the large bed. It still surprised her that she was so small, she had to jump slightly to get onto the bed. Merlin, she couldn’t wait to grow up. Again.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
The search had been going for nearly 48 hours straight with no sign of Ron and Ginny. They had been shipped to their Great Aunt Muriel’s house for the duration, and Bill wished he was out helping with the search. At 15 years old he understood better than any of his siblings just how dire the situation was. Ron and Ginny were so young, and there was no way they could have managed to get far in the hour they had been left alone. That meant that either someone must have taken them or they were...
But he wouldn’t let himself think that, not yet. He tried his best to ignore the small voice in the back of his head that was asking who could have taken them? He knew the answer to that already; there was nobody that could have possibly. Not as far removed as the Burrow was, and not with all the wards and muggle repelling charms. There weren’t any wizards nearby that would have either, and Bill wasn’t sure if that was a comforting thought or not.
He hoped they were just hiding somewhere; there were many hard to find places in the wood surrounding the Burrow. But he knew that with each passing hour it was far less likely. If they had been hiding there was no way they would have been able to stay hidden this long, unless something had happened to them. What if they had drowned? What if they had tried to climb a tree, as they had seen Bill do countless times? What if they had fallen while climbing, and hurt themselves? What if they were dead?
He was the oldest, and it was his job, his duty, to take care of his younger siblings. He felt responsible. He should have spent more time with them, told the twins to lay off, paid more attention...
He looked over at Charlie, who was staring aimlessly out the window. Charlie was two years younger than him, and at 13 years old he certainly shared Bill’s worry. Percy was sitting in front of the fire, aimlessly tracing patterns on the floor. Percy was three years younger than Charlie, and had just turned 10 last week. Bill knew that Percy understood to some degree just how bad the situation was, but he also knew that Percy hadn’t given it serious consideration, thinking it more an inconvenience than anything, convinced that their parents would fix it. Bill longed for the days when he still believed his parents capable of fixing any situation.
Bill shifted his gaze to Fred and George. They were both on the couch, facing each other. They looked upset, they way they usually did when they had a nightmare and came running to Bill to make it go away. Fred and George were young, two years younger than Percy; they were only 8 years old, having just had their birthday a few months ago.
Bill tried not to remind himself that Ron was two years younger than the twins, and only 5 years old as his sixth birthday was in a couple months. He tried even harder not to think on the fact that Ginny was only four. Bill’s head snapped to the door as his Aunt Muriel bustled in with a plate of sandwiches.
Without saying a word she left them on the corner table, along with a pitcher of water before hurrying back out of the room hastily covering her eyes as she did so. It was completely unlike her to cry, or to be so silent. Usually she was quite vocal with her opinions. Bill knew it must mean that something had happened, something bad.
“Bill?” asked George meekly. “Do you think that Ron and Ginny will forgive us when Mum and Dad bring them home?”
Bill didn’t have the heart to tell him that he didn’t think Ron and Ginny would be coming home.
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Harry couldn’t help but snicker to himself as he watched his aunt and uncle fight. It was quite the sight, Aunt Petunia was standing with her hands slammed down on the table and her torso leaning forward slightly as she screamed at Vernon, who was seated at said table his face turning a lovely shade of puce while all four of his chins warbled in anger. Dudley’s head was whipping back and forth between his parents so fast that Harry was sure he was going to give himself whiplash. But what really made the argument so entertaining was what they were saying.
“-totally barbaric! It’s completely unacceptable! I don’t know what we were thinking making a child sleep in a cupboard!”
“Then put him in Dudley’s second bedroom! Why on earth does he have two bedrooms anyways?!” Vernon’s chins gave an angry warble and spittle came out of his mouth as he shouted the words at his wife.
“Vernon! Are you suggesting we make my Dinky-Diddyums give up one of his bedrooms for that –that freak?!”
“The boy needs a proper bedroom! We can’t just go around denying him necessities! We can’t just... just beat the freakishness out of him, it’s barbaric!”
“ARE YOU SUGGESTING WE BEAT MY NEPHEW?! I will not allow it! He’s a growing boy and needs his own bedroom -he can have one of Dudley’s- and he needs new clothes! And toys!” Petunia’s eyes bulged dangerously as she said it.
“GIVE HIM DUDLEY’S SECOND BEDROOM? ARE YOU MAD?!”
The argument continued on in that fashion, going in circles. One minute they would be horrified at their treatment of Harry, and the next they had reverted to their old ways. It was what made the argument so amusing to watch as it seemed to be happening to each of them at different times. As amusing as it was Harry couldn’t let it go on much longer. He was only half way through with the charms he had to put on the Dursleys to alter their memories and feelings toward magic, and he only had a couple days to finish before he had to get started on his potions.
It was draining for his young body to perform such complicated magic, but he was already behind and he had to finish. Discreetly slipping his wand into his hand he quietly aimed towards his aunt and started softy murmuring the correct incantations. Ten minutes later found all three Dursleys sitting at the table, staring blankly in front of them. It then took Harry the better part of an hour to carefully recite and implant the alterations to their memories.
He had already dealt with Petunia’s jealousy of her sister by carefully altering select events in her memoires and using the correct charms to change the feeling that went along with each memory. He had done the same with Vernon. Today he was focusing on their impressions of him, and their hatred of magic along with Dudley and their attitude towards him. He was doing this so that Dudley didn’t grow up to be the spoilt, obese, bully that he had been originally. By altering Vernon and Petunia’s attitude in this regard they would not spoil Dudley the way they had, and Harry and Dudley would be treated equally.
By the time he was done, he felt nearly ready to collapse but he forced himself to do the emotion charms. It took him far longer to do this, not because they were more difficult but because he was already so exhausted and his body couldn’t take much more. Three hours later he was finally done, and feeling decidedly sick. He watched through tunnelled vision as the Dursleys resumed what they had been doing, completely unaware of the lapse in time.
“Aunt Petunia?” he asked weakly, too dizzy to care just how small his voice sounded. Which he supposed didn’t matter anyways since he was five years old...
“Yes sweetheart?” If he wasn’t on the verge of collapsing he would have done a double take at the fond tone of voice his aunt had used.
“I think I’m going to pass out.” The words were barely out of his lips before he slipped into darkness.
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Ron and Ginny had apparated from the Burrow directly to the old Gaunt home, and it had left them immediately unconscious. Apparition took a great deal of magic, which was why the age limit for learning was seventeen. It had almost completely depleted what small magical reserves their young bodies had, and they had been unconscious for nearly twenty four hours afterwards. That was why they wouldn’t be able to use apparition as a method of travel in their quest for the horcruxes, they would have to settle for muggle means.
By the time Ginny started to come around it was morning the next day, and the first thing she noticed was that Ron was still knocked out. The second thing she noticed was just how creepy the decrepit shack before her really was. Shaking her head to rid herself of the thought, she attempted to roll over and immediately moaned in pain. The grass underneath her was little more than scattered patched with far more rock and dirt then actual grass, and the ground was still damp with morning dew. At least she hoped that was all it was.
Slowly moving into a sitting position, and being very careful so as to not jar her already aching head, she glanced around her. There was a scattering of trees, which was why they had chosen the back of the house to avoid being seen (not that it was likely anyone would be around anyways), and off in the distance she could see what must have been a local neighbourhood. Quickly scooping up her wand and the leftovers she had managed to steal before they had left home she moved to gently shake Ron.
When he didn’t wake up right away she couldn’t help the panic that slowly started to take hold of her. She took a deep breath and to calm herself and tried to remind herself that this was normal, and he may be unconscious for a while. She stood slowly and took a pile of cloth napkins from her pocket (also salvaged from the Weasley dinner table) and started to transfigure them. One was made into a simple tent; two were made into small foam mats, another two into the best sleeping-bags she could manage in her depleted state. The last two were transfigured into pillows. She was so exhausted by this point that she was almost unable to drag it all inside the tent. Dizzily she collected some wood that was scattered around and piled it up a short way away from the tent, and spelled some fire onto it.
Once she had regained her balance she turned towards Ron and quickly realised that there was no way she was up to dragging him into the tent. She decided there was nothing for it and she would just have to levitate him. Ginny knew it wasn’t the smartest idea, her body was that of a four year old and could barely cope with the magic she had already done. But her worry for Ron overrode her common sense, and she settled him inside his sleeping bag. Her headache was nearly unbearable at this point, and her legs felt like they were made of lead. She crawled over to her sleeping-bag, unable to stand, and was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
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Hermione grinned in triumph as she looked over her stack of completed compulsion letters. She had finished the letters to the families yesterday, and had just finished the ones to the various companies and employers today along with the one to the school. It had taken a lot out of her, but she was glad to be done them. She was quite tired and decided to take a nap before continuing on with anything. Moving over to the bed she once again had to jump a bit to actually get on, and she cursed her age for what felt like the umpteenth time that day. Once she had successfully manoeuvred herself onto the bed, she reached over to the small alarm clock and set it for later that afternoon.
Yawning widely she crawled under the covers and made a mental checklist for what she still had to do. First she needed to mail the letters, and then she needed to make her way to the ministry of magic. She had to find Amelia Bones and somehow plant the ideas for the changes she needed to make, without her noticing. Much easier said than done, but she decided to worry about it later as she felt herself slowly drift off into an easy slumber.
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When Ginny woke up next she was greeted with the sight of Ron’s decidedly unhappy face. “Ginny, what were you thinking? You shouldn’t have done all this by yourself; you should have waited for me to help you!”
“You weren’t waking up Ron, I tried! Besides who know how long we had been laying outside? We can’t afford to get sick or freeze to death, so I did what I had to do!”
“Yeah well you’ve been unconscious for near twelve hours! I was worried...”
Ginny sighed and rubbed a hand up and down her face. “Let’s not argue alright? I was worried about you, you were worried about me. I just don’t have the energy for this right now.” Ron nodded slowly, and tossed her some of the food she had nicked for them. They both ate in silence, suddenly very aware of just how hungry they both were. By unspoken agreement they tried to eat as little as possible, they didn’t have much food and had no idea when they would find more.
Once finished they talked in low voices, although Ginny wasn’t sure why exactly since there was nobody around, and discussed how to tackle their first horcrux. It would take them weeks just to get past the outer wards, and weeks to get passed whatever obstacles were inside. Once they finally had the horcrux it would take them months to destroy it, and Ginny felt anxious just thinking about it. They decided to rest for a few days, and try to find some more food, before starting on the wards since they would need every ounce of energy their young bodies could provide to do this.
Not for the first time Ginny wished they could just owl Dumbledore and tell him everything he needed to know about the horcruxes and let him take care of it. Of course it was impossible because the moment they did that he would want to know how they got the information, and they would be unable to tell him. The ritual was designed so that the secret of time travel would be kept; it was similar to that of an unbreakable vow. If they told Dumbledore the truth (or anyone for that matter) about their time travel then they would inevitably die. There was a lot of death involved with this stupid ritual, Ginny thought bitterly.
Of course there was no other explanation they could have possibly given Dumbledore, and if they had then he probably wouldn’t have believed them anyways. He most likely would have thought it meant that Harry’s horcrux was becoming active or something. So needless to say, despite how much she wished they could just pass of this task; there was nothing they could do. It would have been so much easier; Dumbledore could have gotten the horcrux within a matter of hours, whereas it would take them months due to their age.
So as her and Ron lay in their sleeping-bags, she suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to just go home, and be with her family. She could only imagine what they were feeling right now. Her mother would be completely devastated, as would the rest of her family. It broke her heart to think about, so she tried to shake off the thoughts and think of something less depressing. It was then that she realise she had nothing but depressing thoughts and the vague hope that one day it would all be worth it. She had nightmares that night, nightmares of funerals and death.
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