Tag-Team Fic, Chapter 16
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Title: The Other Turn
Author: blamebrampton
Chapter: 16
Rating (this chapter): G/PG
Pairings (this chapter): none
Warnings: none
Word Count (this chapter): 1630
Author's Notes: You try adding an extra third to the cast of characters and staying under the suggested word limit.
‘He’s barely breathing!’
The panic in Godric’s voice scared Harry, almost as much as Tom’s stillness.
‘What have you done?’ Harry echoed Rowena. He shifted Tom to his right arm and drew his wand. ‘One of you answer me! What has he done?’
‘Is the boy all right?’ Helga called up to him.
Harry paused at the distress in her face. ‘He’s unconscious. What about Slytherin?’
‘He’s near death,’ Godric answered. ‘His breath is shallow, his skin is grey. What has the child done to him?’
‘Nothing! You all saw what happened, it was Slytherin!’
There was silence.
Harry looked at the faces arrayed below him. They weren’t angry, yet, but the friendliness they had earlier contained had disappeared. Harry took a deep breath. He had caused enough damage.
‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘Perhaps it was both of them.’
Rowena nodded first. ‘I agree. Bring him down, they both need help.’
Helga climbed partway up the rocks to give help. As they descended, managing Tom between them, she whispered quickly. ‘I know what to do. Destroy the time device. If my understanding is correct, the device is all that connects the future to now. Break it and both Salazar and the boy will have a chance.’
Harry gaped at her. ‘But we’ll be trapped here.’
‘You know how the school is meant to be built; you can keep us on the right track. Perhaps we can’t stop the war that comes, but at least we know you won it. Who knows what will happen if we allow things to go on as they are now?’
‘And Tom?’
‘If he lives, we can take care of him.’
‘And if they don’t live?’
Helga paused so suddenly that Harry nearly dropped his half of their burden. After a second’s thought, she moved again. ‘Then you will have to take over Salazar’s role, and act as you know he did.’
They were close to the other Founders now, and Harry did not trust himself to talk. He barely trusted himself to think.
‘Put him beside Salazar,’ Helga instructed.
They laid the boy’s body down. Unconscious, he seemed very young. But then, Harry realised, they all seemed young. Salazar could still be in his twenties, and even Helga, the oldest of them, looked under forty. It had taken them years to build Hogwarts, Hermione used to say. They had barely begun.
‘I’m sorry …’
‘It’s all right,’ Helga reassured him. ‘We will think of something.’ She turned to Godric, who held Salazar’s head in his lap. ‘Return the time device to Harry. Salazar was wrong to take it.’
Gryffindor slipped the chain over his friend’s head and passed it to Helga, who gave it to Harry without a word. Rowena watched, frowning.
‘I suppose I should ...’ he gestured at the Time-Turner. Helga nodded vigorously.
‘Harry,’ Rowena interrupted, to his infinite relief.
‘Yes?’
‘Does that thing have a set number of workings?’
‘No, you can use it as many times as you need to.’
Rowena nodded, her lips pursed. ‘I see. Do you remember our agreement?’
‘Yes, I haven’t broken it! It was Tom and Salazar.’
‘Hold your temper, boy, and listen. I am tearing up that contract and enforcing a new one. Go forwards. If the time is not right, then you must bring back what we will need to repair it.’
‘No!’ Helga cried, lunging towards him.
‘GO!’ Rowena held her friend back.
Harry knew it was selfish, but he could not help it: he began to turn.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One thousand and sixteen turns. His own time. ‘Lumos,’ he whispered.
Light welled around him, and revealed, not the Chamber of Secrets, which he had half-expected, but a well-appointed cavern filled with tables and books and small studies.
He blinked. Perhaps this had all been an elaborate hallucination and he was dead, after all, and just in Hermione’s heaven.
Then he saw the statues.
Two women, stern but familiar, stood at the entrance to the cave. He walked to them, and was not surprised that their grim looks seemed wholly directed at him. On the plinths below them, words were carved.
Helga’s statue read: We Did Our Best.
Rowena’s was even more direct: You Must Do The Same.
‘I’m trying!’ Harry muttered, and ran down the long hall behind them.
As he had hoped, it came out inside the school. His school. As he had first seen it: beautiful and whole and unscarred. His breath caught.
There was no time for emotion, he told himself. He could start to disappear again at any second.
‘Harry!’
Astonished, he whirled around. There was Ron, ambling towards him, huge grin on his face. ‘I completely blitzed that exam! What about you?’
Ron was in his uniform. Talking about exams. It didn’t make sense.
Ron stopped a little in front of him. ‘Merlin, what happened to you?’
‘I … I …’
‘You look like you’ve just done three rounds with the Giant Squid, mate!’
‘I …’
‘Are you all right? Do you need to see Madame Pomfrey?’
Harry shook his head. ‘There isn’t time.’
Ron laughed. ‘Of course there is. Transfiguration isn’t till Tuesday. You’ve got all the time in the world!’
Harry blinked. For once, Ron was absolutely right.
‘Ron, I can’t explain yet, but I need you to do two things for me. Can you show me to our dorm and then can you go and find me something to eat?’
Some things did not change, Harry told himself fifteen minutes later. Ronald Weasley was one of those things. Now that he was clean, and in fresh clothes, he tried to answer Ron’s questions between bites of pie and glasses of butterbeer.
‘So you came forward in time to fix things, and then you found out they were fixed?’ Ron summed up.
‘Apparently,’ Harry replied with a grin.
‘Sounds crazy.’
‘I know, I think we’ll need Hermione to explain it to us before I understand it, and I was there.’ Harry began to laugh, but stopped quickly when he saw Ron’s confusion.
‘Who’s Hermione?’ Ron asked.
‘Hermione Granger - smart, brave, your girlfriend.’
Ron shook his head. ‘Don’t have a girlfriend, mate. Mum would kill me, I’m doing my NEWTs. Never heard of a Granger here.’
‘But they let Muggle-borns in!’ Harry insisted. ‘They must! My mother and father met here!’
‘Yeah, of course they did. Your Uncle Severus and his mum vouched for her.’
Harry spat out the mouthful of pie he had unwisely consumed. ‘My what?’
‘Your mum’s best friend. Potions Master. Grumpy old bastard, but he’s nice enough to you.’ Ron rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘So did this Granger bird know any witches or wizards? Because if no one would vouch for her, maybe they never sent a letter. You have to be careful, you know.’
Harry shook his head. ‘This doesn’t make sense. Aside from anything else, if Hermione isn’t here, how on earth are you blitzing exams?’
A pillow hit the side of Harry’s head, followed by an annoyed voice. ‘The same way you two always do.’
Harry recognised the voice, but it didn’t lessen the shock of seeing Draco Malfoy appear from between bed-curtains wearing Gryffindor robes. ‘He followed the revision tables I set for you. And now you need to tell me if you’ve suffered a head injury, are having a lend, or sincerely believe all of the rubbish you just spouted.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harry would say one thing for this Malfoy: he was quick. After going over his story several times (albeit a version that was sketchy on the details of Malfoys in Harry’s own time), Draco had seemed satisfied that Harry at least believed himself to be telling the truth.
He had come up with the locator spell for Hermione with only a minute’s thought, and had automatically taken hold of Harry’s arm.
Harry looked at him in confusion. ‘Are we friends here?’ he asked. ‘Just friends,’ he added hastily.
Malfoy rolled his eyes. ‘Get over yourself. I’m assuming now we’ve found her, we’re going to Apparate there.’
‘You can’t Apparate from inside Hogwarts,’ Harry said automatically.
Ron and Malfoy frowned at him.
‘Of course you can!’ Malfoy huffed. And, grabbing Ron by the arm, too, he did.
The three boys stumbled to a stop before slamming into the brick of Keble College. Happily, they weren’t noticed. And, more luck, a number of students crossed the lawn in front of them wearing academic dress, so Ron’s robe didn’t stand out.
The last of those students had her hair pulled back into a bushy ponytail.
‘Hermione!’ Harry shouted and ran after her, with Malfoy and Ron following.
‘I’m sorry, have we met?’ Hermione asked politely.
‘Yes,’ Harry told her, tapping the chain of the Time-Turner and forcing it to expand. ‘I’ll explain in just a minute.’
He threw the loop of chain about their necks and pointed his wand at the turner, shouting a number. Seconds later the four of them staggered to a stop in the marketplace of a small Saxon town. Before the townspeople could even register their presence, Harry Apparated them north to Scotland.
‘He’s back! He’s brought help!’ he heard Godric shout, but it was all a haze …
‘Catch him!’ Ron cried.
‘What’s happening?’ Hermione demanded.
The world spun, and a firm grip caught Harry’s arms and helped him sit down gently. ‘Put your head forward,’ Malfoy’s voice instructed. ‘Apparating four people that way; are you mad, Potter?’
Harry took a few breaths, then looked up. Malfoy was looking about the room, peering closely at the figures in mediaeval dress. He turned to look at Harry, and smiled. ‘Are they who I think they are? And why do I understand Old English? More to the point, just what mess are we in this time, Harry?’