by Harry Potter
The Ministry is unsure how or why the Death Eaters were in such immense pain. Some believe that these hundred plus Death Eaters offended their master and he punished them (although this theory is not without its debunkers; such a loss of manpower has surely hurt You Know Who and therefore punishment on this large scale could only cripple himself and his aims). Some have speculated that a ritual, intended to raise their power, backfired in some way. Still others believe that it was an attack against all marked Death Eaters.
~*~
The last Harry was charged with taking the Time Turner back to the Ministry.
“Now you have to go back to the day I fetched it,” Hermione said.
“Right, so I’ll meet the past you in the Department of Mysteries and once you take the Time Turner, I’ll put the future version in its place,” Harry summarized. “That way, no one will miss it.”
“Take some migraine relief potion with you,” Hermione added in a serious tone, clearly telling her lover that he should do as she suggested. “You’ll need it.”
Shrugging in acceptance, Harry took both the Time Turner and the potion. After placing the chain of the Time Turner around his neck, Harry spun the hourglass several time. The world dissolved away and he felt as her was flying backwards. Moments later, Harry found himself standing in the Head Students’ quarters alone. Harry glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall to confirm that he had traveled far enough back.
Knowing that since not being seen was imperative, Harry fetched his Invisibility Cloak and threw it over his head and shoulders. Harry then crept out of his room and down to the entrance of the castle. He passed the Great Hall where the past version of himself and Hermione were reading the Daily Prophet article about the Death Eater raid on St. Mungo’s which had originally inspire Hermione to fetch the Time Turner and perform the Morgy Ritual. Quickly and quietly, Harry made his way out of the castle and out onto the grounds. Walking briskly for several minutes, he finally passed the outer gates of the school and its protective wards.
Wrapping the Cloak around him tightly so it would not get lost while in transport, Harry squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on the Ministry building. Harry tried to ignore the unpleasant squeezing sensation as he Apparated.
He opened his eyes and found himself exactly where he wanted; in the alley just a short distance away from the payphone that hid the lift to the Ministry Building. While still safely covered by his precious invisibility cloak, Harry took the lift down into the Ministry. The lobby was packed full of witches and wizards bustling back and forth. Harry was taken back slightly at the lack of noise in the overcrowded room. Normally, he assumed, with that many people milling about, there would be much more noise. Most of the witches and wizards had their heads down, as if they dare not look each other in the face. Only a handful of people were speaking, and their sparse and soft conversations consisted of “excuse me,” and “pardon me,” as they bumped into each other.
Pushing his ponderings to the back of his mind, Harry moved through the lobby to the lifts. He had to get to the Department of Mysteries in order to replace the Time Turner as Hermione picked up the past version of it.
It took a good long while for Harry to find an appropriate lift, well over half an hour. Each time the doors would open, Ministry employees rushed the small compartment, jamming it full with their bodies. Harry realized that he’d have to wait for a less crowded car. He knew that if he entered the lift when it was so full, people would bump into him and realize that he was there. So he waited while lift after lift filled up.
Finally, an empty lift dinged open and there was no one there to enter it. Harry rushed into the compartment and mashed the button. With no one else in the lift, Harry didn’t have to worry about bumping into anyone. Unfortunately, before the doors closed someone entered. And sadly, Harry didn’t need to worry about bumping into this person, because this wizard could easily see Harry under the Invisibility Cloak.
“Potter,” Mad Eye Moody grumbled and hobbled up to the invisible-to-everyone-else Harry. The scarred wizard’s magical blue eye pointed directly at Harry’s face and Moody demanded, “Just what are you doing here, boy?”
“Um... I’m... uh... Just out for a stroll,” Harry lied. He didn’t need Hermione telling him that it would’ve been a bad idea to tell Moody that he was planning to go into the Department of Mysteries.
“Out for a stroll, huh?” Mad Eye asked disbelievingly. “In the Ministry? Under your Invisibility Cloak?”
Harry answered weakly, “Yes. Good for the constitution.”
With his normal eye still fixed firmly on where Harry stood, the electric blue eye swiveled in Moody’s head and back, apparently, at the buttons on the wall behind him. The magical eye snapped back to Harry and Mad Eye asked, “You’re not planning on making a trip to the Department of Mysteries by any chance, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Because that would be stupid,” Mad Eye continued. “Ever since the war restarted, the Ministry has beefed up security around the Department; loads of wards and traps. Besides the traps that’ll turn you into dust, there are sensor wards that’ll spot you the moment you approach the Department. You’d need some sort of Legendary-Super-Invisibility Cloak that no one could see through to pass by them. And since you don’t have one of those,” he said and patted ‘invisible-to-everyone-but-Moody-and-Dumbledore’ Harry on his shoulder, “you shouldn’t go mucking about in there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why don’t you head back to Hogwarts boy,” the old wizard more ordered than suggested.
Nodding his head in defeat, Harry walked out of the still opened lift. Harry meandered through the lobby, lost in thought. How was he supposed to get into the Department of Mysteries with all the added security? Obviously, Hermione was able to pass these wards somehow because she was able to retrieve the Time Turner. Harry came to the conclusion that he’d have to wait for Hermione to show up. That way she’d be able to figure out a way into the Department. She was, after all, the smartest witch in their generation. With this new plan, Harry headed to the lift that would take him to Muggle London.
Without using his cloak to hide within, Harry waited for Hermione; he stood just a few feet away from the payphone that hid the lift to the Ministry lobby. Shortly after twelve noon, he saw Hermione trot toward the lift.
“Hermione,” he called out.
“Harry, what are you doing here?” she asked while walking up to him. His girlfriend seemed quite surprised to find Harry waiting for her. “I thought we agreed that I’d do this on my own?”
“I’m here to bring back the Time Turner so no one will realize we took it,” he said.
“So it worked?”
“Brilliantly,” he said with a smile. ‘Harry, Jr.’ began to stir at the thoughts that swarmed in Harry’s mind; so many breasts, so many flowers, and those bums...
“So let’s go fetch it,” suggested Hermione.
“Hm?” asked Harry who was still deliciously distracted.
“The Time Turner,” Hermione pointed out. “Let’s go get it so you can put it back.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, trying to push the wonderful images out of his mind. “We may have a problem.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I ran into Moody. He told me that the Department has loads of wards around it,” he answered. “Really tough ones.”
“Well, obviously we were able to bypass them because you have the Time Turner,” Hermione said aloud.
“Yes, I’ve got it right here,” he said and pulled the golden device from his pocket, holding it in front of himself.
“Well, then, clearly we were able to figure out what the wards were and how to slip by them,” she said. Hermione worried her lip and went into one of her ‘deep thought modes.’ “What kind of wards are we dealing with? Clearly a number of Major Repelling and Detection Wards along with Defensive and Offensive ones.”
As Hermione tried to work out a plan, Har
ry eyed the Time Turner dangling from his fist. Hermione was right, they had somehow gotten the Turner, but how did they do it? He held the evidence that proved that whatever they did had worked. They were able to face anything the wards threw at them and they had not been captured. But what had they done?
Hermione’s face began to grow pale. “We’re dealing with top ward casters, the best the Ministry has to offer. That means we have a major problem. It’ll take hours, maybe even days, to try to figure out what types of wards they have, much less bypass them. Obviously, time isn’t an issue. Since we got the Time Turner, we can always go back in time. But it still can take us days.
“And then there’s the normal security,” she added nervously. “We’ll have to deal with patrols of witches and wizards so we’ll have to remain under your Cloak the entire time. And what if Moody is one of the ones patrolling? I mean, he has no trouble at all in seeing through your Cloak. Oh, goodness, how will we ever get the Time Turner?”
“Here, take it,” Harry said offering the Turner. Hermione looked at him suspiciously. “Listen, I already have it. We don’t have to risk ourselves trying to nick it. This is the safest way.”
“Your right,” she agreed and took the Time Turner.
Then, an odd thought came to Harry.
“Wait, I just gave you the Time Turner,” he said and Hermione nodded. “But that was the Time Turner you gave me, or will give me, to return...”
“Yes,” said Hermione.
“But where did it come from?” he asked. “I mean, it turns out I gave you the Time Turner that you gave me so that I could give to you.”
Pressure and pain started to form behind Harry’s eyes as he continued on this train of thought.
“The only reason you have the Time Turner is because I gave it to you. You never took it from the Department because I gave you one instead. But the one I just gave you is the one I got from you, I mean; you’ll give to me so I could give it to you.”
“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” Hermione tried to comfort him.
“But where did this Time Turner come from?” he asked as the pain in his head grew rapidly. “It didn’t come from the Department. It came from me... but I got it from you... and you got it from me.”
“It’s okay, Harry.”
The headache began to pound wildly, almost rattling his skull. The perplexing question of how the Time Turner came to be racked his mind. When he started out on this little trip into the past, he assumed that he would be standing next to Hermione in the Department of Mysteries, then, the moment after she would’ve picked up the past version of the device, Harry was going to place the future version in its place. He had reckoned that there’d be two copies of the Time Turner, one that Hermione picked up and the one Harry replaced. But now, he was realizing that there was only one Time Turner: the one Harry took in the past and gave to Hermione... the same device that Hermione gave to Harry so that he could go back in time to give to her... to give to him... so that he could give to her...
“How was it made? Did someone make the Time Turner? You didn’t make it and I didn’t. No, but it’s still here, as if it just popped into existence. But that’s not possible. So it can’t exist. But there you are, holding it in your hand.” Harry babbled.
“It was created by a time paradox,” Hermione explained while she tucked the Time Turner into her pocket. “A fluke in time caused the Time Turner to exist; our actions created this item.”
“But if you’re right, we couldn’t have done the things we did to create the Turner if we didn’t have the Time Turner in the first place,” he argued. He felt as if his eyes were about to melt because of the massive headache. “How could we have used the Time Turner if it wasn’t real when we used it because we created it?” Harry was suddenly reminded of the old puzzle about the chicken and the egg but to an extreme level.
“I know it’s very confusing, but just accept the knowledge that the Time Turner was created by a paradox.” Hermione tried to explain.
“That’s right, you, and a few other versions of you, said something about it all happened from a paradox,” Harry said and he rubbed the sides of his head. “ow.”
“Go back to Hogwarts, see Pomfrey and get a headache potion,” commanded Hermione.
“No, I have one,” he said and pulled the glass vial from his robes. “You made one for me because you knew this would happened.”
After downing it in one gulp, Hermione asked “Do you feel any better?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, now let’s head back to the castle,” she said and took his arm in hers. “Once we get there, I’ll go back in time an hour so no one will miss me and you hide in the spare room until we’re all done. And try not to think about the how the Time Turner came to be.”
~*~
Several days later, Harry was enjoying dinner in the Great Hall with Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny, and Neville.
“So, Harry what are your plans for Christmas?” Ron asked, again, with his mouth full of partially masticated food. “We’re going to have a big one. Charlie and Bill will be there, along with Fleur and her folks, Luna and her dad’ll be there too.”
“Well, I think he should come with me to my folks this year,” Hermione offered.
“Hey, you and your folks can come to the Burrow, too,” suggested Ron. To which Hermione just rolled her eyes. Oblivious to many things including Hermione’s disapproval, Ron turned to Neville and suggested “Why don’t you and your Gran come to our place?”
“NO!” Ginny blurted out a response. Trying to recover, the red haired witch quickly added, “I mean, no, it’s too soon in our relationship to have our three families over for Christmas dinner.”
“What do you mean ‘our three families’?” Luna asked. Ginny balked, realizing that she had just hinted that she was carrying Neville’s baby and that she had referred to her family, herself, Neville, and the baby, along with the Weasleys and Longbottoms. Luna pressed “Did you mean the Weasleys, Longbottoms, and my family? But Fleur’s family would make four.”
“YES! That’s it exactly!” cheered Ginny, thinking that Luna had provided a way out of her faux pas. “I’m just a dunderhead for forgetting Fleur.”
While their friends continued to talk amongst themselves, Hermione asked Harry, “So, I can take it that you’ll be coming to my parents’ home this holiday?”
Remembering the horrific time he had during dinner with Hermione’s parents, where both her mum and dad disapproved of their relationship, Harry tried to find a gentle way of telling his girlfriend that he had no intention of voluntarily going though that again. But before he could voice his protest, Professor McGonagall stood and made an announcement.
“Attention everyone,” she called out. “I know there have been a number of rumors flying around about a student returning. Many of you are concerned, but let me assure you that this young wizard has changed.”
Harry gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists until his knuckles turned white. He didn’t think McGonagall truly understood what she was doing. Despite her reassurance that Malfoy had changed, Harry didn’t agree. Malfoy was a Death Eater; he helped kill Dumbledore and nothing could change that in Harry’s mind.
“I ask that you all give him a chance,” continued McGonagall. “And I know his reintroduction into the castle will be... unconventional. But he requested it and I felt obligated to fulfill his wish,” McGonagall paused to look over the crowd, and gave her saucy wink directly at Harry. The young wizard shivered over the notion of what that wink could mean.
“Let’s all welcome Draco Malfoy back to Hogwarts!” announced McGonagall.
Suddenly, red, green, yellow, and blue lights flashed from the ceiling in rhythm to a thundering low bass beat and rapid high screeching beeps. The doors to the Great Hall flew open and smoke billowed in. All the flashing lights pivoted and pointed at the now open door. Then Draco walked in. Well, danced into the Great Hall in tune to the music, more correctly.
> The blond wizard shook and swayed his hips as he hopped and spun down the center of the Hall. Throwing his arms up in theatrical triumph, Draco beamed a glorious smile. The flashing lights reflected and sparkled off of the jewels stitched into the fabric of his shimmering pink robes.
“Goodness,” muttered Hermione. “When’d he become gay?”
Harry looked at Draco in disbelief. Malfoy wasn’t gay. Why would Hermione think such a thing? Then the blond Slytherin turned, looked directly at Harry, winked at the raven haired wizard and blew him a kiss. Harry thought it was some sort of elaborate joke, that Malfoy was mocking Harry. But then Harry recalled McGonagall’s statement that Draco had changed. And her saucy wink. At that moment, Harry realized that Draco was not joking nor was his wink and blown kiss done out of mockery.
“Holy shit,” he muttered in fear.
“HELL-O-O-O-O EVERY ONE!” Draco shouted with a lisp, which was odd considering there were no “s” sounds in his greeting. “I’M BACK!” To emphasize this point, the former Prince of Slytherin shoved out his bottom. Of course, his buttocks were pointing straight at Harry.
“Holy shit,” repeated Harry.
“I’m inviting everyone,” Draco said flamboyantly and eyeing Harry, “to stay over the Winter Holiday here at Hogwarts. I’ve planned a welcome back party. We’ll have games and punch!”
Somehow, Harry knew that Draco’s ideas of games involved getting Harry alone in a cupboard with some body-oil and introducing ‘Draco, Jr.’ to Harry’s ‘no-go-hole’’.
“That’s a brilliant idea,” Harry said to Hermione. “Let’s go to your folks for the break.”
Harry suddenly realized that he’d rather face the ire of his potential future in-laws than spend a night in the same castle as Draco.
