In This World and the Next Chapter 13
It took a while, but it's finally here. Here we learn exactly why Lord Potter (and by extension the author) thinks that Ron needs to be killed for something his future self did in another timeline. And it's as bad as you think it is.
Muriel had risen bright and early on Sunday morning, bursting with anticipation of the upcoming confrontation, she hadn't anticipated experiencing a confrontation before she set foot in the castle.
As bad as canon!Muriel is, I don't think she'd be celebrating the fact that a member of her family is missing just so she could have a go at someone. Nobody's ever going to find out that Percy was fed to Fluffy by a dickhead, of course, because that might be an interesting source of conflict.
"It makes no difference if you told the headmaster you were coming today or not, until I receive conformation back from him then I can't allow you access to the castle."
Muriel was not about to be thwarted by a mere security guard, "If you were doing your job properly then I wouldn't need to be here, where was this wonderful security when my nephew went missing yesterday?" Her smug expression was soon wiped off her face by a voice coming from behind her.
"That wonderful security was foregoing his day off to accompany a bunch of students on a school trip. I believe two of your nephews and niece were also involved."
Who is this wonderful security, anyway? I can only guess it's meant to be Remus, because he's mentioned by name when the POV inevitably shifts, but we're not given any indication. This is part of why a consistent POV is important: you can show us enough of what Muriel is seeing to make it clear that she's talking to Remus even if he never gives her his name, whereas here the author dives straight into unattributed dialogue.
Muriel spun round to face this new threat, the fact that it had bright pink hair was enough to set her off.
Muriel is an internet troll, apparently.
Totally ignoring the auror robes or the five other aurors with her, Muriel cut loose. "I can assure you none of my relations were on any school trip, they would have needed my permission which would most certainly not have been forthcoming. My niece doesn't even attend this school, it would appear they are letting absolutely anyone wear auror robes these days."
Remus found himself liking this harpy even less after the way she spoke to Tonks, he understood immediately that the twins must have forged this woman's signature and couldn't blame them in the slightest.
Not only has it not been established that Muriel apparently has custody of the twins, it doesn't make sense that she'd accept it. She took Ginny on so she could raise her as the perfect wife for an arranged marriage for the sake of money and/or power; what similar benefit could she get from taking the twins, especially considering the obvious downside? And would they even need a permission slip with Lord Potter on the case?
To divert her attention away from that fact he concentrated on Ginny's presence at the theme park.
"Ginny was present as a guest of Lord and Lady Potter, she and her friend Luna have been spending the weekend with them.
Like so, in fact.
Miss Tonks was there as a ministry auror to assist with security, I can assure you we both take our jobs and responsibilities very seriously.
So seriously that they forget the capital letters in "Ministry" and "Auror".
Your Nephew did not leave the castle while I was in charge of security. The headmaster's answer should arrive any minute, until then you are not allowed access."
Just to upset Muriel more, the six aurors passed straight through. Tonks rubbed some salt in the festering wound by shouting back, "Remember I'll see you Wednesday for the lessons Remus, I'll clear it with McGonagall so I'm allowed entry."
She walked away laughing with the other aurors, leaving behind a furious Muriel and a werewolf who just had his day considerably brightened.
Taking their jobs and responsibilities seriously apparently means trolling a senior citizen who's concerned about her missing nephew.
Draco Malfoy could be considered part seer as he'd made a far more accurate prediction than the resident professor of divination ever did, breakfast that morning was full of still hyper students telling anyone who would listen just how great their Saturday had been.
How does Draco know about Trelawney's reputation? He's only just got there himself, and she wasn't at Hogwarts when his parents were. In canon, Ron hadn't heard of her despite having several older brothers who might have known about her, especially as it was implied that Percy took Divination. In any case, it's a rather bizarre aside since she doesn't appear in this fic.
Logo covered baseball hats, T-shirts, furry stuffed toys and a multitude of muggle photographs, automatically taken of the students on various rides, added an unusual yet welcome touch of spice to breakfast in the castle.
Welcome to whom? We're still in Draco's POV here, so unless he has an epiphany over the course of this single paragraph then something's wrong.
McGonagall was delighted the day had been such a success. At the staff table Charity was also laughingly showing her photograph of being strapped in next to Sirius Black and apparently screaming her head off. Knowing that rogue Sirius as she did, Minerva thought that was a perfectly understandable reaction.
A quick search of FF.net and AO3 tells me that Sirius/Charity is as rare a pairing as you'd expect. I don't know if anything ever comes of it here, because although I've skimmed ahead there are other things that kind of overshadow it a bit.
She was glad these students didn't have any lessons today, they would hopefully have calmed before classes tomorrow.
McGonagall thought their reaction, or lack of one, to Percy Weasley's disappearance was also perfectly understandable. The boy hadn't been well liked without any close friends, the fact that it took his brother the entire day to notice he was missing told its own story.
This reminds me of My Immortal, where Dumbledore doesn't give a "darn" what happens to Draco because he shagged Enoby. Seriously, though, we've got Minerva McGonagall not caring what happens to one of her students. A Gryffindor at that.
That family's run of bad luck was becoming ridiculous, it almost seemed as if someone had it in for the Weasleys. Minerva would have been deeply troubled to discover just how true that thought was.
Dramatic irony is like any other kind of irony in that it's supposed to be subtle, not delivered with an anvil. And when you break POV in order to drop the anvil, so much the worse.
Several parents were sitting down to breakfast while reading the latest letters from their children, glowing with praise of the muggle world and sharing the same thoughts as Minerva.
This reads less like a coda to this scene than an outline of a different scene.
Amelia didn't need to read between the lines to discover Susan not only had a wonderful day but was very impressed with what she experienced. The head of the DMLE decided there and then that her department would run some combat simulations or practice duels that the kids could observe. She would also speak to some other departmental heads about putting on something a bit more exciting for the students.
You can never have too many test subjects.
Yes let the kids see the nuts and bolts of how the ministry worked but they had to remember they were dealing with kids. With a wry grin Amelia remembered asking Susan what part she liked best from her first ever visit of the ministry. Without any hesitation, the then eight year old replied, "The cafeteria, that cake we had was just brilliant!"
The grief counselling wasn't as well received.
Amelia had made the classic mistake of forgetting her niece was a kid. To an eight year old, cake was way more important than a stuffy Wizengamot chambers or aurors in uniform.
Kids will be kids, of course. I recall when a group of kids at a school I used to work in went on a day trip to Blackpool, and all they'd talk about when they got back is that a seagull had crapped on the teacher.
Brian Davis was also beginning to think he'd made a classic mistake in judging Lord Potter by traditional pureblood behaviour. Reading Tracy's letter again it would appear he really did want nothing more than his daughter's friendship as payment for a life debt.
I think the life debt is influenced by Peter's reaction to Harry sparing his life in Prisoner of Azkaban. The key difference is that with Peter he spared someone he had a very good reason for wanting to see dead, whereas with Tracey he happened to be in the right place at the right time when she fell off her broom. It could have been anyone who caught her. The same dramatic resonance isn't there.
He would reserve final judgement until he'd met Lord Potter for himself, he was honour bound to encourage Tracy to be friends with them now but it really was a duty he would happily perform.
His duty to Lord Potter.
Minerva was waiting at the front door for them, she invited Remus along in his role as security advisor. Knowing the temper Muriel had, he might be needed.
I'm fairly sure Minerva McGonagall doesn't need the help of one of her former students to deal with an irate pensioner.
She barged into Dumbledore's office in no mood for any preliminaries or verbal sparring, she wanted to get straight to the meat of the matter. "So old man, employing one death eater while harbouring another not enough of a balls-up for you? You have to start losing students in your care now. Perhaps you'd care to explain how my nephew was misplaced, and why no one noticed until it was brought to your attention by his youngest brother?"
Albus was well aware the Weasley children were her grandnephews and nieces who she constantly and continually berated at every given opportunity. This manufactured display of affection from the hateful woman was fooling none of those present.
So whose side are we meant to be on? I thought we were supposed to hate Dumbledore, but Muriel is also terrible here.
Dumbledore was beginning to get seriously miffed at everything in the world being his fault, it was time to show this bitch who she was dealing with.
Now Dumbledore is swearing. This really is turning into My Immortal.
"The castle and grounds have been thoroughly searched by Hogwarts staff and this morning a group of aurors are continuing the search. I'm afraid that at the moment all any of us can do is wait and see what their investigation uncovers."
So thoroughly that they've not found his remains in the Devil's Snare room, because the Transfiguration should have worn off by now.
"Headmaster, we found the boy's journal hidden in his trunk and think this will answer a few of the questions concerning his disappearance. Let me read some of it out to you."
"Sunday 25th January. LOL, I'm such a bastard."
Got my prefect's badge today, phase one of my master plan completed. Now all I need is for some of those prefect rounds to be in the company of Penelope, she really should get to know me before I ask her to Hogsmead.
Percy's master plan to hook up with Penelope: become a prefect, hope she also becomes a prefect, hope that they get put on rounds together. Couldn't he just, you know, talk to her?
Have never been so humiliated in my life, McGonagall ruined my future in front of the entire school. I couldn't even bring myself to look in the direction of the Ravenclaw table. I could never hold my head up in Hogwarts again and definitely don't want to return there.
Lucky that Percy's diary just so happened to have an entry that could be taken as evidence for him running away, really.
They all thought this was Percy's gradual build-up to running away, Muriel now had another target to vent her vitriol on. "Who is this vixen Penelope that ensnared my nephew to the extent he would run away from his family?"
I want to know how what we've been told about Percy and Penelope ever managed to develop into an actual relationship in the original timeline. Remember that everything that happened in the books is still supposed to have happened in ITWATN: the first chapter follows straight on from Deathly Hallows. All that's changed is that Lord Potter managed to get Percy de-prefected (?) which apparently means that Penelope's no longer interested because ITWATN!Penelope cares more about the badge than the person, as she's gone off with Oliver instead. Even though she apparently didn't know Percy at all at this point anyway, and I give up.
Minerva came right back at her, "The girl in question doesn't even know your nephew exists and has done nothing to encourage this fantasy he seems to have built for himself. His own brothers confirmed he hadn't even spoken to the girl. This is no star-crossed lover's scenario, instead a rather unhealthy obsession on Percy's part that quite frankly gives me the creeps."
And makes no sense even in the context of this fic.
Tonks butted in, not wanting to become embroiled in any pissing contest between these two formidable women. She wouldn't have minded a side bet on Minerva though.
Except that apparently she needed Remus along to hold her hand.
Albus just nodded and sat there quietly, that she'd been so shoddily and easily dismissed certainly didn't improve her mood as she stormed from the castle in a rage. She would soon let Molly know what that idiot son of hers had cost Muriel Prewitt, lovesick young fool who was letting his hormones do his thinking. He better hope the aurors found him first because she would bloody castrate him!
Apparently, she hates that he has a cock. That's actually a running theme in this fic, but it's the first time we've seen it applied to Percy rather than Ron. Cut to Hermione back at home.
Hermione realised showing their friends around her home patch was a bad idea the moment she recognised some of the group walking toward them. Melissa, Shauna and Abigail were her chief tormentors all the way through primary school, and of course they had a couple of clueless boys following them around in the hope one of the girls might actually speak to them.
Not content with bashing the canon characters, here we have some OCs who quite clearly exist only to be bashed. I just hope they're not actually based on anyone. Incidentally, Crawley (where ITWATN!Hermione is from) apparently had middle schools until 2002 (link), so she wouldn't have been at primary school before going to Hogwarts. Assuming the author didn't know this, probably a safe bet, how did these three randomers without any apparent redeeming features manage to attract hangers-on so soon after starting secondary school?
Hermione was having difficulty adjusting to the fact that it was only three weeks ago she left here to find a new life, it looked as if her old one was coming back to bite her on the arse. She wasn't in any way worried about her tormentors possessing the ability to hurt her,
Of course she's not. If you want effective antagonists, ITWATN might not be the fic for you.
it was more Harry's reaction to them she was concerned about. He certainly wouldn't take too kindly if they started hurling abuse at his wife!
So you're introducing three new antagonists, only to have the real antagonist in the scene be Lord Potter's impulse control?
Luna and Ginny's reactions were also unknowns, the couple's story of having been friends since primary school wouldn't stand up to too much examination.
Much like the plot.
"Oh look, Granger's parents must have bought her some people to hang out with!"
"Well we all know they couldn't be her real friends."
"Yes, who'd want to be friends with that?"
The round of hollow laughter that followed the synchronised verbal assault was as phony as their hair colour. Their routine though was slick and well honed through many years of diligent practice, they just didn't know this was a totally different Hermione Granger they were dealing with.
This string of utterly generic insults might very well be what passes for a slick and well-honed routine in this universe, those not being the first words that come to mind to describe anything in ITWATN. Canon!Hermione could outsnark this terrible trio without even trying. Even ITWATN!Hermione manages, however inelegantly:
Calmly Hermione answered her long time tormentors, "Oh, you would be surprised Melissa. Without bitches like you, Shauna and Abigail around, my life is actually quite pleasant now."
This was too much for Steve, no one spoke back to Melissa.
Who the fuck is Steve? Isn't it generally a good idea to introduce someone before we hop into his POV in the middle of a scene?
Here was his chance to show the girl of his more pleasant dreams just what he was made of, he pushed his way forward to confront Hermione before a cold voice caused him to hesitate.
"I seriously wouldn't do that if I were you!"
Steve took one glance at the stature of the boy he was faced with and instantly dismissed Harry as any threat, "Why? What are you going to do about it?" He challenged.
"Oh nothing, I was just giving you a friendly word of warning. My Hermione is more than capable of taking care of herself."
"Unless there's a shit wizard about!"
In a take-down almost identical to the technique first used by Mrs Potter on Ron Weasley, Steve found himself kissing the ground while his tackle sent messages of unbelievable pain to his brain and his nose coloured the pavement red.
How the fuck does Steve know who Ron is? Or that Hermione is apparently "Mrs Potter"?
They walked away from the stunned group, their original intention was to have a nice walk and then stop off for a burger.
The author's habit of run-on sentences is bad enough when the sentences logically follow each other. Sometimes they don't run on so much as teleport.
Hermione wasn't feeling hungry anymore, whether from the confrontation or the look of absolute hero worship in Ginny's eyes was debatable.
Probably not from the confrontation, considering how little threat the three straw bullies actually posed. We're being told what a hard time they gave her, but haven't been shown. I'm not convinced.
Luna spoke to Harry, "I'm beginning to understand your comment in the restaurant, it would seem neither of you has an easy childhood."
I don't know. The terrible trio seemed pretty easy to deal with to me.
Harry had his arm around Hermione's waist and realised he needed to answer this, Luna was a very smart girl who he didn't want to lie to. "Hermione is a brilliant young lady, it's rather plain to see that crowd could easily be considered 'intellectually challenged'.
So in other words, you're picking on disabled people. Lovely.
Hermione was quiet as they made their way back home, heading directly for their room the moment she entered the house. Harry excused himself from the two girls and followed his wife up the stairs. As he entered the bedroom, she was standing with her back to him and facing out the window.
Her voice was shaky as she spoke without turning around, "Harry, I don't know who I am anymore. What I just did is so out of character that I don't know what came over me!"
Well, it's only taken her thirteen chapters to realise that she's OOC.
Harry had his arms comfortingly around her as she leaned back, resting her head on his chest. "Hermione love, I knew exactly what you were going to do today, remember I was there when you smacked Malfoy silly back in third year. You are the same Hermione who told Hagrid's giant brother off in sixth year. You my love are a formidable woman, unfortunately in the body of a twelve year old girl."
It's a bit too late to be relating Hermione's character back to canon now. In canon, yes, she was all that. In ITWATN, she might occasionally get a chance to demonstrate it in ways other than hexing unarmed people and kicking them in the knackers.
Harry could see that got her thinking so decided to speak about a subject that they'd danced around for three weeks.
Yes, people, this is it. We're about to address the core point of the story, finally seeing Hermione's own perspective on the traumatic experience that kicked the whole thing off. It'll be masterfully handled, forcing me to concede that I was wrong when I said that using such a serious issue for what on the face of it seems like character bashing couldn't be justified. And maybe after that we'll ride the flying pigs to Jupiter.
"Hermione, why didn't you tell me what that bastard had done to you that morning in Hogwarts?"
He felt her body immediately stiffen in his arms but continued to gently hold her, trying to express what he felt for her through his touch.
Eventually she answered, "Harry, I know exactly what you would have done and didn't want you to get into trouble."
Even back then, Hermione was resigned to the fact that Harry was going to take revenge on her behalf. In fact, this was revealed way back at the very beginning:
He now understood discovering Hermione that fateful morning after the battle, crying outside the castle was the pivotal event that changed his life, at the time he wanted nothing more than to go and rip the lungs out of the prat responsible for his best friend being out here. She begged him not to but if he'd seen the bruises before they got on that plane to Australia, no force on this Earth could have kept him from extracting revenge on Ronald Fucking Weasley.
Hermione's shaky voice indicated just how troubled she was, "I understand where you're going with this Harry, we should deal with our problems before they can become worse. I mostly agree with that but there's a part of me screaming I don't have the right to make these decisions. I'm scared Harry, I'm scared of losing who I am by acting this way." She attempted to offer up an explanation, "The Ron we're planning to murder hasn't done anything to merit it yet, I look at the changes in Ginny and wonder if he doesn't deserve the same chance."
Hermione finally asks the question I've been asking from the very beginning: why go after eleven-year-old Ron for something his possible future self might do?
Harry had moved her hair and was now gently kissing her neck in between speaking softly to Hermione, "Can I ask you something? Do you think me or Neville would ever have done that to you?"
He's clearly never read Hogwarts Exposed.
"NEVER!" was her immediate and loud reply.
Harry continued what he was doing, speaking softly to her. "There's your answer love, Ron came back for more and only me getting there in time stopped the bastard. Something like that has to come from within, as you so rightly said Neville or me could never do it. Ron accepted that as a pureblood you were his plaything, not something you can change or I will ever allow to happen."
So apparently pureblood supremacy is an inborn trait that no amount of education or experience can alter. Except, as in the case of Ginny and the twins, when it isn't. In fact, the way they made an enemy of Ron as soon as they got back in time is likely to turn this into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and neither the characters (even momentarily insightful!Hermione) nor the author seem to realise this.
He gently turned her around to face him, "For us it's only been three weeks since he broke into this house and took you away, anyone trying that now is in for a very nasty surprise courtesy of our goblin friends.
The goblins seem to be the author's favourite plot device, considering that one of his other fics is 700,000 words about what if Harry had been raised by them.
"We can do anything we like love, I have no intention of saving Britain if the cost is my wife suffering a breakdown.
And does she get a say in this?
"You my dear are a genius! We can discuss it with the family on Tuesday, I vote we take the entire day off school and check the new house as well. I wonder if our builder has any contacts down under, or would fancy a little working vacation."
Hermione wore a quizzical expression, so he gave her the answer she was looking for. "We've already designed the perfect house for us, let's have one in Australia and one in Devon. I have no intention of forgetting our friends so there will be a lot of visiting no matter what our final decision is."
Considering that there doesn't seem to be a magical way of travelling between Britain and Australia in ITWATN, hence the plane in Chapter 1, this seems like more trouble than it's worth.
Harry could see the determination back in her eyes and was greatly relieved, he would have hated to go behind her back to deal with Ron. He would still have done it though, that image of him standing over a bruised and battered Hermione was burned into his brain. Only Ron's death had any chance of allowing it to fade.
Because of course this is all about how Harry feels. After all, he's the real victim here.
... I hate this fic.
Molly Weasley thought her new life sucked!
"This sucks!" - Molly Weasley. I think not, somehow.
She was irritable, sweating buckets from working in the intense heat and starting to get really pissed-off at the way the local men ogled her as if she was the tastiest thing on the menu. Molly would be the first to admit she had never been what traditionally could be considered beautiful, even as a teenager her most flattering description had been that 'pleasantly plump' girl. Unused to the attention, the stares of these men annoyed her even more, it was as if they were calculating how many camels she was worth.
Yes, of all the ways of setting the scene for Molly's trip to Egypt, the author went for "locals want to buy her with camels". I don't know why I'm even surprised at this point.
Bill's contacts had led them to a bar in Cairo, a bar that the owner was considering selling. It had a three bedroom flat above the bar and plenty of room for an extension out the back. They had haggled for hours before reaching a compromise, they would run the bar for six weeks with the option to buy at the end of it.
Molly was now working wherever she was needed, be it in the kitchen or behind the bar. All three Weasleys could see this was a terrific opportunity to earn a living, with accommodation already available. Financially it would take all they had and require a massive effort from the entire family but here was their way back to being able to hold their heads up again. Owning your own business was not to be sneezed at, even if it was just a bar in downtown Cairo.
The owl that arrived from Muriel highlighted exactly how tenuous their position was.
We're not even told whether this is a magical or Muggle bar, though I'm guessing magical from the fact that nobody seems surprised by an owl swooping into the building in the middle of the day.
"But Arthur, we have to go back or at least I do! How can we sleep at night not knowing what happened to our son?"
Arthur was not for moving, "Our son who chose to run away over a stupid badge and a girl he hadn't even spoken to! We're barely managing here with the three of us working flat out. When you take in the expense of a trip home and hiring someone to replace you then I have to say no."
The Percy thing is all far too convenient. He had a thing for Penelope, depicted as though he was an inch short of killing her and having her stuffed and mounted, yet we're supposed to believe that this was going to develop into a real relationship in the other timeline. He just so happened to write it down in a way that would make it seem as though he'd run away in his grief. And Lord Potter knew none of this when he fed him to Fluffy. Meticulous planning!
Molly was now crying as Arthur further explained his decision, "The future of our whole family now rests on this venture. We need to save enough gold to bring them all here for the summer and pay their next year's tuition at Hogwarts, a year that will see Ginny joining the boys. I'm really sorry Molly but it has to be this way, I'll write to Charlie and see if he can get a couple of days off, he's much closer anyway."
Hogwarts tuition fees are one of those fanon things like the Head Boy and Girl's private quarters (I wonder if ITWATN!Percy's master plan involved having himself and Penelope assigned to them) that have little or no support in the books, but appear in fanfic without even needing to be introduced.
Molly could see their point of view, the mother in her didn't agree with it for a second but she could still see it. One of her babies was lost and she wouldn't be happy until she was crushing him in her arms again, closely followed by the rollicking of his life! She asked her husband for the only thing she knew that could bring her some comfort.
"Arthur, could we ask Muriel to ship my clock out to us. We can tinker with it and try to get it working properly again. I would feel much better if I could at least see their hands on the clock."
They're going to find out that Percy is dead but think he had an accident or something when he "ran away", or (like Muriel) that the clock just so happened to break in a way that might imply that the missing person was dead. I just know it. Anyway, back home:
Dan and Emma didn't benefit from the kids using Hermione's new portkey to Hogwarts, they still had to drive Ginny and Luna to the Leaky Cauldron so the girls could floo home. They had just entered the bar when Ginny let out an ear-piercing scream before pouncing on a redheaded man, cries of 'Charlie' left no one in any doubt who this was.
I think it might be Bill.
Charlie instantly liked these people, anyone who could make his sister smile like that got a big thumbs up in his book. "Yes, on a dragon reserve in Romania. I'm in London to see this little one before heading up to Scotland and visiting Hogwarts. We're trying to discover what's happened to Percy."
Emma felt terrible and didn't know what to say, "Oh we haven't met him yet, Fred and George are a lot of fun though."
What could have been a brilliant piece of dramatic conflict (she knows what happened to Percy - her daughter and son-in-law killed him!) is reduced to a single bland sentence. Why? Because ITWATN.