Chapter : 4
"I have two, Harry, both very risky. I entered the country by plane and using a false French passport. I took a potion to make me look exactly like the person I stole the passport from. Getting into Britain though is a lot easier than getting out. All forms of magical transport out of the country are blocked, leaving us only normal methods. Now that they are actively looking for you however, I don't know if we could slip past them. With your core bound, taking that potion might do you serious harm. And then there's this..."
Hermione held her hand out and a leaflet appeared in it. Harry thought this must be the mysterious Dobby's doing again but his attention was far more focused on what Hermione now handed him. It was an old photograph, clearly of him, that he'd never seen before. He was probably about fourteen and seemed ready to take part in some kind of sport, but this picture moved. That wasn't even the most disturbing thing though, plastered across the top in bold letters was Undesirable Number One.
"Okay, I can see how that might be a problem."
"It's even worse than you think. Harry, this evil wizard wants you dead. He's not going to stop coming after you even if you get out of the country. You'll be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life, and not even know who you're looking for."
"If this is risky plan A, I'm assuming you've kept the best 'til last?"
"Plan B is even riskier, but it could possibly save hundreds, if not thousands of lives. In its most basic form, the plan is we go back in time and fix things."
"Hermione, that's a hired Ford Fiesta you've got parked out there. Even if this Dobby friend of yours can drop a flux capacitor in your lap, I doubt that little car could reach eighty eight miles per hour going down hill."
She just smiled at him as if he was being silly. "Tomorrow is the Winter Solstice, we perform a ritual at Stonehenge that will hopefully send our spirits back to our younger bodies."
"Ritual? As in witches and wizards dancing naked around a bonfire?"
"Yes, a ritual. No to the bonfire. Yes to being naked but, unless your dancing has improved dramatically since I last saw you, that's a no too."
"Why do we have to be naked?"
"We're trying to send our spirits back in time, a difficult enough task without something like clothes possibly getting in the way. Why are you picking on that one thing? Does the thought of seeing me naked seem that bad?"
"Quite the opposite. We're in the middle of winter however, and the cold has been known to affect certain parts of a male's anatomy…"
This had Hermione laughing before throwing her arms around Harry and soundly kissing him. "Now there's the man I love. We could meet our end tomorrow night and all he's worried about is disappointing me."
"You love me?"
"I have since I was twelve, nearly told you a couple of times too. Apart from my parents, I can't think of anyone else I would have returned to Britain for - far less attempt what I'm suggesting. If we go back in time, it will certainly unbind your core. Your memory we're not sure of."
"We? You and Dobby?"
This again had Hermione in fits of laughter before she could answer. "No Harry, me and Professor Dumbledore. He was one of the most brilliant wizards who ever lived. When that happened to you at your trial, I still had to attend Hogwarts for another year and sit exams before I could legally leave. That was a terrible time for me but Dumbledore took me under his wing. He actually set me on this course, knowing I might need it one day. Being Dumbledore though he would never come straight out and tell you something. He used to leave clues and make it like a treasure hunt, he'd been murdered by the time I figured everything out. He got my parents out of Britain to France and arranged for me to complete the last two years of my magical education there too."
"Can't we just unbind my core? Then you could train me in what I need to know to fight back."
"I asked Dumbledore the exact same thing. He said that for all intents and purposes, the procedure was irreversible. You have been living without magic now for three and a half years, to suddenly flood your body with the stuff by unblocking your core would kill you. It can only be reversed in the first few weeks and the ministry kept you locked away for that, supposedly working on altering your memories."
"It seems to me that this government went to a lot of trouble to take me out the picture, I just can't get my head around why. I'm just plain old Harry Potter, a bit of a bookworm and totally nothing special."
"You are special, Harry, and not just to me. I am a powerful witch and academically in the top one percent. You have power that others could only dream of. Harry Potter defeated this evil wizard as a baby. You repeated that feat when you were eleven, again at twelve and in front of his own followers when you were fourteen. That's when he got smart and used his followers' money and connections to get the government to do what he couldn't. Dumbledore was murdered the following year with the country falling not long after. I was barely out the country a month when it all happened."
"If I banished him all these times, how come this guy is still around?"
"That is something I can't tell you yet, for two very good reasons. There are magical people who can read your thoughts, I need to teach you how to hide them before I can pass on what are effectively state secrets. I was taught by a master and it took a couple of months, that's the sort of timescale we're talking about."
"And the second reason?"
"As I said, we're not sure if doing this will unlock the memory block they performed on you. If that's the case, I don't want to give you any preconceived ideas about the people you're going to meet. I'll always have your back but I want you to be Harry, be who you are now, not someone me or anyone else tries to mould you into. I love you, Harry, my best friend who I'm hoping will be so much more. Those are my motives, plain, simple and right upfront. Others that you will meet won't be so clear or obvious."
Harry thought carefully for a moment before answering. "If we do this, and I mean if, there is a condition that is simply non-negotiable."
Hermione waited to hear this condition so Harry laid it out for her. "If we manage to go all 'back to the future', Miss Hermione Granger must give me her solemn promise that she will be my girlfriend if and when we get there."