Harry PotterYou are my Cosmic Connection.

Chapter : 16

"Mister Weasley feels as if he's lost his best friend. I'm not trying to excuse his behaviour, just offer a possible explanation. I'm pleased to see it didn't result in blows or spells."

"I won't lie, Professor, it was close. I'll need to stay out his way for a while. Ron just doesn't seem to get Hermione's my girlfriend, nor that I won't stand for him continually bad-mouthing her."

"I'll have a word with him, and caution you to continue showing restraint. Don't stay up too late."

Hermione didn't consider sitting on Harry's knee inappropriate so hadn't moved when McGonagall entered. She was still sitting there as she answered their head of house. "We'll hear Ron snoring from down here, then it will be time to go to bed. We won't be too late, Professor. Harry's too wound up to sleep just now anyway."

McGonagall went up to the first year boys' dorm, presumably to have a word with Ron. Harry and Hermione were still sitting in the same position when she left.

With the common room practically empty, and their heads so close no one would hear them whisper, Harry began to tell Hermione about something that was troubling him. "I think I know why I'm so poor at protecting my thoughts. You tell me to clear my mind but it's a bloody war zone in here. I have to continually walk away from the boy you tell me was my best friend, otherwise I'm going to punch his face in. At the same time I'm told the boy I thought of as a brother is more likely to do that to me than say hello. I feel like I'm flying a broom blindfolded, unable to see the horizon and even gravity is totally buggered. I just don't know which way is up anymore."

Realising that Harry needed something to focus on, she started giving him some of her future knowledge that wasn't protected by oath. "You like Hagrid?"

A little confused by her change of tack, Harry answered anyway. "Hermione, what's not to like. The man doesn't have an ounce of deceit in his entire body. Considering his size, that's some achievement."

"He's that size because Hagrid is part giant. That is not a mixture welcome in the new magical order. Hagrid's passion for dragons is also well known, he told you about it that first time we had tea in his hut. When he was captured, they recreated a stadium that had been used for an event back in our fourth year. Hagrid was flung into this rocky arena and forced to face a dragon with nothing but his bare hands. The whole school was made to watch, some of them not needing any coaxing. It took over half an hour for the dragon to finally pin Hagrid down and kill him, then it feasted on his body..."

Harry held her close as shivers of revulsion racked her body. "The castle knew I was Dumbledore's protégé, and that Dobby was effectively my elf. Dumbledore granted Dobby access to the castle in a way that another headmaster would need to specifically cancel his access. Since only Dumbledore, Dobby and me knew about it, that access was never going to be cancelled. He was able to pop into the kitchens here and find out all the latest news, no one bothered what an elf heard or saw."

A gentle kiss from Harry saw her reveal more than she'd first intended. "With the dark lord in total command, things went to hell very quickly. The pureblood elite were in charge and they could do whatever they liked with total impunity - so they did. Snape was Headmaster of Hogwarts and it was a criminal offence not to send your children here. With possession of the country's children for most of the year, they had control of any families that might oppose them. Draco didn't just threaten any more, there was no one to stop him doing whatever he pleased. He is one sick little bastard and it takes all my willpower not to gut the blond prick every time I lay eyes on him."

Harry only swore when he was really mad, using words he knew were frowned upon helped. He found it a better, or perhaps safer, release of tension than punching something or someone. That Hermione had started doing the same was an indicator of just how angry she was. Offering her comfort by holding Hermione close kept the revelations coming.

"Susan Bones' aunt was / is head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, she was one of the first people murdered. This left Susan defenceless, and Malfoy had her forcefully moved into the Slytherin dorms. Susan hung herself before Halloween. They buried her body and moved on to their next victims, the Patil twins. Things just kept getting worse. Ron had started dating Lavender, he also has a younger sister. They stuck Ron to a wall and made him watch - you may have gathered that the Weasleys and Malfoys are bitter enemies. Every time Dobby visited Hogwarts I dreaded what he would tell me on his return..."

"And the stuff you're not telling me is worse than this? I need to get a handle on protecting my mind, this is too much for you to carry about on your own."

"Dumbledore intended me to do all this on my own, you coming back too was never part of his plan."

This really caught Harry's attention as Hermione explained. "I hadn't seen Dumbledore since the end of my fifth year. He spent most of that year coaching me on what you needed to know and do, and pointing me in the direction of how to achieve that. I was supposed to travel back in time and begin influencing your decisions as one of your best friends, influence those decisions down a path preordained by Dumbledore. I was never going to play along with that."

Hermione was once more gently caressing his cheek as she whispered in his ear. "To be fair to Dumbledore, I don't think he expected things to start as early, or get so disgustingly bad. I knew what would happen if they caught you, public execution was a certainty. They would have caused you a lot of pain before that though, leaving you begging for the release of death. I couldn't let that happen to you, and neither could Dobby. The access Dumbledore granted him allowed Dobby to take books from the restricted section of the library, and even from the headmaster's personal library. I had my own room at the magical school in France, I spent every spare minute of the two years I attended there working on modifying the ritual. At weekends, Dobby would even bring my meals to that room. Since I was first in almost every one of my classes, the staff left me alone. I didn't make any friends but that was okay, I was too busy trying to save the best one I ever had."

Now that Hermione had started talking about her past, she felt some relief at getting all this off her chest. "My biggest worry was that I wouldn't be magically powerful enough to power the ritual and take both of us back. There's a reason we're not overrun with time travellers, Harry, a few very good ones actually. Firstly, the information needed is incredibly difficult to come by, I had to take an oath to destroy all my materials before attempting the ritual. Then, there's no plan B. It either works or you're dead. That means you would need to have a pretty compelling reason for attempting it in the first place, as well as possessing all the forbidden knowledge. Finally, there's the authorities' reactions to consider. Any ministry discovering a time traveller will obliviate the shit out of them. I'm not talking about the reconstruction that was done to you. This is wiping everything, and not replacing anything. You would be left not knowing who you were - a drooling blank nothing."

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