The Gift of the Knowing
Title: The Gift of the Knowing (2/?)
Author: Caitlinlaurie
Rating: T for language
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Hermione/Sirius
Summary: After being sent into the past, Hermione is on a race against the clock to change a history that has already been written.
Warnings/Notes: This is a different Time-Turner fic, mostly because Hermione is NOT going back to when the Marauders are in school. This is canon through DH, but is EWE.
Disclaimer: All characters and their canon histories are the property of J.K. Rowling.
Chapter Two - The Arrival
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears - Elizabeth Akers Allen
She must be dying; there was no other explanation for the pain that she was in. Her body felt like it had been squeezed through a tube and then turned inside out. All her insides out, and all her outsides in. Hermione’s lungs felt like they were on fire, unable to even think of the possibility of breathing. And her head, oh her head, felt like it had been hit with a Bludger at close range. The Time-Turner, which had been cupped close in her hand, and biting into the skin of her palm, was gone.
Hermione tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t seem to summon the strength. Rest, she needed rest. With a sigh, she submitted to the sweet darkness of oblivion.
When she awoke for a second time, Hermione realized that she was lying on the floor of the Time Room, completely alone. Blinking sleepily, Hermione sat up slowly, looking around in confusion. What had happened? How long had she been asleep? It felt as if no time had passed, and yet, she felt keenly that something significant had occurred.
“Auror Coppertine?” She called, looking around the room. The Time Room was just the same as she had left it, but it looked as if more clocks had been added. They seemed to fill every nook and cranny, as if they were pressed for room.
Strange, that.
Standing on shaky legs, Hermione fought back a wave of nausea. She walked slowly to the door, and saw an inscription on the back of it for the first time. Hermione knew that the words hadn’t been there earlier, but here they were, looking as though they had been etched into the very wood of the door itself.
Stop, lost traveler, take your steps outside with care
Neither answer nor rest will find you there
Beyond these walls lies not what you seek
Be cautious then, of the damage you’ll wreak.
Leave not this space with minutes on the run
A great cost will be levied, one that cannot be undone
What you then do, you can’t later unwind
Pity those who dare to meddle with time!
Hermione’s mind ran rampant at the writing on the door, but she couldn’t heed it. She had to get out of there, the room felt as though it was closing in on her. Her nausea and headache were combining and giving the room a claustrophobic air. With one great breath, Hermione opened the door and made her way out of the Time Room.
Once she stepped into the circular room, it immediately began to spin. Hermione clutched her head, trying to get the motion to stop. After it did, she laid her wand in her palm and whispered, “Show Me the Way.” It was a modification of the Point Me spell that Hermione had developed after the war, but she had never had cause to use it before now.
Once she had the correct door, Hermione quickly exited to the long, plain corridor. She had to find out what had happened. The smartest thing for her to do would be to immediately get back up to her office and get Tristan Boot involved.
“Stop!”
Hermione gasped, looking up into a wand pointed directly at her face.
“What are you doing here?” The voice was firm, yet fearful.
Looking beyond the wand, Hermione could see a beautiful woman just on the cusp of thirty. Her eyes were a shocking, yet familiar, blue and her hair hung down her back in thick, dirty blond coils. Her stomach was heavily rounded with pregnancy, and her free hand was resting on the protrusion.
“No one is supposed to be down here,” the woman said, her voice demanding. “The entire Department is supposed to be closed. Why aren’t you at a breakfast feast?”
Feast? What feast? Hermione was completely confused, and she felt the beginnings of a headache stetting in. For a brief moment, she was tempted to tell the truth, but there was something in this woman’s face that stopped her. “I, uh, got off at the wrong floor. Meant to get off at the Atrium. Rather silly of me, really.”
Something about her face and answer must have comforted the witch, for she lower her wand and gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that. I had no idea anyone else was even in the building. I mean, I know the Aurors are working, but even most of them are out answering calls and picking up stragglers. The rest of the Ministry is pretty much a tomb, well except for the Obliviator Headquarters. They have had a real run of it the last day or so, haven’t they? Owls running at all hours, shooting stars in Kent. They have probably had to Obliviate more Muggles in these few days than they have in these last ten years at least.”
Hermione smiled weakly, not knowing what this woman could possibly be talking about.
The woman continued on, laughing self-consciously. “Awful sorry for pointing my wand at you, dear. I guess none of us need to be quite so jumpy anymore, do we? Old habits, I suppose. Can’t get over the habits of war in a day or two, can we?”
Day or two? Hermione was puzzled. It had been three years since the end of the war. What was this woman on about? “Yes, well, I work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Erm, that’s why I’m here.” Hermione said, running her fingers over the smooth wood of her wand.
“Oh, that explains it then,” the woman said.
Hermione knew she was missing something, and she had to keep this woman talking. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Why are you here, then? Since everyone but the Auror Department is gone?”
“Oh, I came in to cancel an experiment I am working on. Since no one will be here for the next few days, I can’t leave it running.” The woman smiled sheepishly. “I can’t tell you anything else, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, you’re an Unspeakable,” Hermione concluded.
“Yes,” the woman said, nodding. “Or at least I will be, until my little Luna is born.” She rubbed her stomach with a smile.
Luna? Hermione smiled. She was about to tell her that one of her best friends was named Luna, when she looked into the strange woman’s eyes again. At that moment, the words died on her lips.
Shock filled her entire being and Hermione felt as though all the air had been taken from the room. No, it couldn’t be. This woman couldn’t…how…what had she done? The Time-Turner! She hadn’t activated it, no it was impossible! She had no done more than touch it.
Had she traveled through time?
And not just time, years! How was this even possible? Time-Turners were not designed to go further back than a few hours!
When was she?
Mentally, she cursed herself. What had she been thinking? She knew not to touch anything in the Department of Mysteries, and yet she had anyway. Hermione consoled herself with the idea that she had been compelled to do so. There had been something about that Turner that was calling to her. Surely, that was not normal, right?
Quickly, Hermione tried to pinpoint her exact time. “Um, when are you due?” She asked, trying to sound curious, but friendly.
“In about eight weeks, on the Winter Solstice,” the woman, who Hermione could only assume was Luna’s mother, said.
“Eight weeks,” Hermione murmured to herself, nodding. Luna was two years younger than her, born in 1981. She counted back from the due date, and then froze in shock. Suddenly everything made sense. The Ministry was empty. The woman wanted to know why she wasn’t at a feast. Owls everywhere…shooting stars…the Aurors all on patrol. Oh Merlin!
“I have to go,” Hermione suddenly said. “You know, so many feasts to go to by the end of the day.”
The woman smiled at her. “Have a good time.”
Hermione smiled weakly back. “Thanks.” Rushing down the hall, she came to the lifts, which opened right up. Grateful for the ease, Hermione clenched and unclenched her fists and she bit down hard on her lower lip. This couldn’t be happening; this couldn’t be the day she thought it was.
When the lift opened out onto the Atrium, which was nearly deserted with the exception of the guard at the desk, Hermione headed straight to the stand where she always bought her Daily Prophet each morning. She tried not to cry as she passed by the Fountain of Magical Brethren, and saw it as it looked when she first clapped eyes on it when she was sixteen. When she got to the stand, she ripped a copy of the Prophet off the stand and allowed tears to fill her eyes as she read the headlines.
BABY HARRY POTTER DEFEATS YOU-KNOW-WHO! screamed the front page. Hermione scanned the rest of the articles, anxiously biting her lip. THE MAGICAL COMMUNITY REJOICES…MINISTER BAGNOLD SAYS IT IS THE PROUDEST DAY OF HER CAREER…THOUSANDS CELEBRATE THE BOY-WHO-LIVED!
Checking the date, tears now streamed down her face. It was November 2, 1981. Harry had already been with the Dursleys since the night before, and the Potters were dead.
Hermione felt a crushing weight upon her. Why had she been sent back here? To this date? After all that she had seen and witnessed, why was she sent here? Hermione felt as though she was in the midst of the war all over again. As if she was once again helping Bill carry Remus and Tonks’ cold bodies away from battle. This was beyond horrifying.
Hermione looked up at the large clock, and swallowed back her misery. She knew all about the next couple of days. Nothing would get done, all of the Wizarding World was one big party. Hermione supposed she could find Dumbledore and get him to send her back, but she knew these days had been extremely chaotic. In all likelihood, she could be stuck in the past for weeks before being allowed to be sent home.
Anarchy would reign as the Ministry tried to hide the Wizarding World from the Muggles, and the DMLE tried to capture any and all suspicious people. The Aurors would round up as many Death Eaters as they could, and no one would come back to work until Monday.
With the newspaper clutched in her hand, Hermione walked over to the Fountain and sat down on the edge, not noticing the strange looks she was getting from the guard.
So many things would happen in the next few days that would decide and define the course and direction of the Second Wizarding War. Crouch, Fudge, the Lestranges…they all would play a part in the next few days, insuring the events of the years to come.
Hermione sighed as she thought about all the arrests that would happen. How much easier the Second Wizarding War would have been if they had been able to make the charges stick on Lucius Malfoy and some of his cronies. So many innocent lives could have been saved. If those monsters had only been forced to pay for their crimes now, so much could have been avoided. Instead, innocent people like Sirius…
She froze at that moment, and then frantically checked the time. It was ten in the morning on November 2nd. Hermione’s heat beat fast as she realized what was about to happen.
In one hour, Sirius was going to be arrested and, soon after, sent to Azkaban.
* * *
Her entire world seemed to slow down as she contemplated her next move. Sitting in the Atrium, Hermione had never felt so lost. She knew where to go; of course she did. When Harry had become an Auror one of the first cases he pulled from the endless file cabinets had been his Godfather’s. He had brought it home to Grimmauld Place where he, with bottle of firewhiskey, had read through it from cover to cover. Later, after he had been passed out, Hermione had studied it thoroughly. She had read all the minute details, remembering witnesses and places. She knew the exact name of the street in Bristol Peter was going to blow up. She even knew the exact moment it was going to happen. None of that was a problem. If she wanted to, the how to stop Sirius’s arrest was clear.
No, the question was…should she?
Hermione had no false modesty about the War and her place in it, but more than that had helped Harry. He, for better or worse, had been defined by his experiences. And one of those experiences had been Harry being raised by his aunt and uncle and losing his Godfather. It had been awful and wrenching, but in the end it had made Harry that much better, that much stronger. For a brief moment, Hermione contemplated not doing anything. Of going straight to Dumbledore and getting herself sent back as quickly as she could.
But then she thought of Sirius. She thought of his wide welcoming smile, and that amazing barking laughter he had. She thought of how lost he had been, how much he had missed James, and how much he had needed Harry. She thought about how kind he had been to her, even after she had lectured him about Kreacher. She thought about how much Harry had mourned for him after he had died. And most of all, she thought about how lost he had been when he thought no one was looking, and the way his grey eyes would darken and become vacant as he allowed himself to remember the horror of Azkaban.
And then she thought of what he was about to face. She was certainly no stranger to the agony that he would have to endure over the next few days. Ignoring the deep pain he felt at James and Lily’s deaths, he was about to be put through the wringer by the Aurors at the behest of one Bartemius Crouch. Hermione had been sick when she discovered what the notation “enhance interrogation” meant in Sirius’ file. It started with simple interrogation, then interrogation with the Cruciatus (which Aurors had been authorized to use), then interrogation with the Cruciatus, punctuated by potions and illusions of James and Lily meant to drive Sirius insane with guilt and wrench a confession from him.
And in the end, it had worked. He had admitted to being responsible for their deaths, but not the how of course. In the end, Sirius’ own guilt worked against him.
It was a fate Hermione wished on no one, especially since she knew what the Cruciatus felt like. She couldn’t do that to him. Not to mention the years he would spend incarcerated in Azkaban for crimes he never committed. After the intense rounds of torture, Sirius would be practically begging to be sent to Azkaban, desperate for anything to make the pain stop.
Hermione had always thought ill of Crouch, how could she not considering what he did to Winky? But once she had read Sirius’s file…she thought the way he had died was much too good for him. The man was a monster, plain and simple. She had once thought him much different from his son, misguided rather than evil, but after she read Sirius’s file…she knew then that there was little difference between the two Bartemius Crouches. One merely had the Dark Mark, the other didn’t.
Hermione wondered just how many people had turned a blind eye to the man, allowing him to get away with near murder. Perhaps in their minds, anything could justify the capture of Death Eaters…and pity the poor fools that became collateral damage.
But forgetting all that, ignoring what agony Sirius would have to suffer over the next few days…could she really do this? She knew the laws regarding time travel just as well as the next person, if not better. You CAN’T change the past. To do so can cause the collapse of the entire universe. She could do this one good deed, and end up damning mankind for years to come. If she did this…if she meddled in time, everything would be lost. All that Harry had accomplished would be sent down the drain. His fight to the finish, the search for the Horocruxes, the year on the run; they all would have been in vain. If Hermione changed things, who knows what would happen. Voldemort might win. More people might die.
Hermione’s mind stopped at that point and considered the counter. Perhaps, just maybe, more people might live. If she could rescue Sirius…who knows what might happen. She could save him, give him a couple of hints, and then make her way back to the future. Perhaps she could give the side of the light years and years of a head start. The Second Wizarding War could be won before it was begun. Fred, Tonks, Remus…Dumbledore! They could all live.
Could she really do this?
Oh, fuck it, she thought. Her obligation to follow the rules had ended the night Bellatrix Lestrange used her for target practice.
The question was not could she do this. The question was…how the hell could she not?
* * *
The scene was absolute chaos. Hermione felt as though she had been transported into the middle of a natural disaster. Cursing to herself, she realized she was too late to prevent the first part of the tragedy. All that was left was finding Sirius, which was easier said than done.
The city street in Bristol which, moments before, had been calm, was now in an uproar. A huge whole had been blown in the middle of the street, rubble and pavement disturbed, exposing the sewer below. People were crying and screaming, and one of the fire hydrants had exploded and was expelling a huge curtain of water. The smell of death was thick in the air, along with fire and blood. As Hermione took in a breath, her lungs were filled with smoke. A coach had been turned on its side, and at least twenty passengers were trying to escape from it, crawling out the window in the back. Two cars were on fire, their windows blowing in a crunch of glass as the fire licked and fed on the interior of the cars. The ground was littered with blood and body parts, no doubt belonging to the Muggles that had died moments before. And in the middle of it all stood Sirius Black, with nothing but a pair of bloody robes at his feet.
And he was laughing.
Bent over, clutching his knees for support, tears were streaming down his face as Sirius let out howls of fanatical laughter. There was no mirth in the sound, nothing more that dark madness expressed in pain. His wand was clutched in his hand, but Hermione doubted he could even remember how to use it at this point. No, he was too far gone for that.
There was nothing in this man that Hermione recognized. He was too young to be familiar to her, too rabid to remind her of his older self. And yet, even if she had not known where he would be, even if she had not known how he would look…she would have recognized him anywhere.
He called to her.
Much in the same way he always had in her youth, there was something about him that seemed to summon her to his side. Staring at him, as the world went mad around her, Hermione was reminded of all those times she had fallen silent in his presence. She wanted to scream, to yell, anything to let out the rush of emotions that she felt in seeing him again after all this time. But she could say nothing, and make no sound. For all the chaos around her, she could only hear the thud of her own heart and the rush of blood in her ears.
Wasting no more time, Hermione made her way across the street, deftly dodging the litter and debris. Sidestepping a man’s leg, Hermione rushed to Sirius’s side. When she neared him, Hermione yelled his name.
“Sirius!”
He didn’t respond.
“Sirius! You have to go now!” Hermione screamed, now next to him and grabbing his arm. “Go! The DMLE and the Aurors are on their way! You have to go, now!”
Nothing she said seemed to reach him, though. He looked up at her, hysterical sounds bubbling up from his throat. His grey eyes looked dead, causing her to sharply draw in her breath. He carried on laughing, as if the world hadn’t just gone to hell. As if he hadn’t just lost his best friend.
“Sirius!” Hermione pleaded, yanking on his arm, trying to get listen to her, though he was too far gone for that. “The Department of Magical Catastrophes will be here any moment. Disapparate! You have to! There is no time!”
But he wouldn’t move. There seemed to be no thought of self-preservation in his mind. It was as if he was merely waiting for what came next.
Maybe it simply wasn’t possible to change time, Hermione thought frantically. Maybe she couldn’t do anything but let everything happen the way it was meant to. No, Hermione cut that thought process off immediately. She wasn’t going to just sit back and accept this. Nothing was set in stone. Not if she could stop it.
There was nothing else to do. If Sirius wouldn’t save himself, then she would do it for him.
The second Hermione heard the crack of the Ministry employees arriving, she locked her arm with Sirius’s and Apparated them both away.
Chapter Three...