Changing the Past by PEMDAS
Chapter Notes: Please see my bio in the "Story Updates" section for more info. on this chapter.
“What?!” Ron and Harry exclaimed at the same time.
“I know,” Hermione said. “I’ve known for most of the day that this would happen.”
“How?” Harry asked weakly, as students around them scrambled around frantically, screaming.
“Dumbledore told me,” she said. “I worked out what he was going to do, and confronted him about it. He told me his plan, and I’ve spent the day figuring out how to use everything in our D.A.D. packets.”
“Dumbledore was planning this?” Ron asked. “Blimey, I didn’t think he was that thick!”
“Hush, Ronald,” Hermione said crossly. “Everyone knows Dumbledore’s the most brilliant man to walk this planet since the Founders themselves. His plan actually makes sense.”
“What’s he going to do?” Ron asked, his voice getting progressively higher with fear. “He’s not going to let them attack the castle, is he?”
“Oh, but he is!” Hermione replied. “This is all a trap to capture all of the future Death Eaters! See, he didn’t bring down the defenses to install new ones...he did it to allow the Death Eaters into the school.”
“He’s mental!” Ron said weakly. “Why would he offer up his own students up as bait?”
“He’s not,” Hermione said. “We’ve been volunteered to be offered up as bait.”
Ron moaned, and Harry stared blankly at Hermione. “Hermione, do you even know what the word ‘volunteer’ means?” he said weakly. “It means we choose to do something. Who says we’re going to agree to this?”
“Dumbledore does,” Hermione said. “Otherwise, he’s going to turn you over to the Ministry for second-degree murder and time-alteration, which could earn you a lifetime in Azkaban.”
“That blackmailer!” Ron said angrily, then frowned. “Well...you did sorta get two of his students killed and sent to Azkaban...”
“The point is,” Hermione said quickly, “the teachers are going to bring the students up to the Room of Requirement to hide out while we fight them. Dumbledore’s hope is that the future Death Eaters will join ranks with the actual Death Eaters, and we can capture them.”
“And what makes him think we’ll be able to do that?” Ron asked.
“We have these,” Hermione said, holding up three leather belts. “I took the liberty of creating these belts for all of us with all of our items from the packets he sent us on it. I read up on them, and I think I know how to work them all...”
Just then, McGonagall ran into the Great Hall. “All students, follow me,” she said loudly. “We are going to find a place to hide.” The terrified students, minus the trio and future Death Eaters, ran to form a line behind McGonagall as she walked out of the Hall again, headed for the Room of Requirement on the seventh floor. Harry, Ron and Hermione took up the rear, but stopped short when everyone else rounded a corner to the Grand Staircase, making the future Death Eaters last in line.
“They’ll probably slip away, too,” Hermione said. “According to Dumbledore, the Death Eaters will choose to Apparate into the school, and as soon as that happens, he’s going to put the protections up again, so they can’t Disapparate again.”
“Great,” Ron moaned. “Lock them in with us!”
“Relax,” Hermione said, handing the two boys their belts. “Dumbledore wouldn’t make us do this if he didn’t think we’d survive. Now, Dumbledore told us to go up to the fifth floor landing...” As it turned out, the fifth floor landing was directly over the doorway from the Entrance Hall to the Grand Staircase. It was completely deserted thus far.
“I think I know what we need to do first,” Hermione said, reaching for the grenade-type thing Ron had examined earlier, in the dormitory. “When I was in Muggle boarding school, I and the other girls in my dorm would drop water balloons from the upper-story windows onto the people passing below. Now wouldn’t be a bad time to try it again.”
“Excellent,” Ron and Harry said, grabbing for their “grenades”, as well. “This is like something Fred and George would do...you know, but with hexes or something, not curses.”
Suddenly, there were several muted CRACKS as the Death Eaters Apparated into the Great Hall. “Dumbledore should be re-installing the protections right now,” Hermione commented.
“Wait a minute,” Harry said suddenly, realizing something horrible. “You don’t think...Voldemort...?”
“No,” Hermione said immediately. “He wouldn’t be bothered with something like this...not when he doesn’t yet know that you’re the one that’s out to destroy his Horcruxes. He probably ordered the Death Eaters to kill Dumbledore, not take over the school, like back in our time, in the sixth year.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have a repeat,” Harry said quickly, and the other two nodded. They hushed up as the door to the Entrance Hall opened slowly, and several dozen Death Eaters slipped into the Grand Staircase. Suddenly, another door on the third floor opened, and the future Death Eaters slipped out of it, running down to the ground level to meet the elder Death Eaters.
“You have made the right choice,” one of the older hooded figures said to the teens, who were wearing long, flowing capes and self-made Death Eater masks. “Today will mark a great victory for the Dark Lord.”
“Not if we can help it,” Ron muttered, and he, Harry and Hermione dropped their grenades. They hit the ground between the Death Eaters on the landing, and a huge, multicolored plume of smoke enveloped everyone, and much shouting and swearing followed. Without hesitation, Hermione grabbed the boys’ arms and dragged them back through the doorway onto the fifth floor.
“Don’t you think they’ll follow us, Hermione?” Ron asked nervously.
“I don’t doubt it,” Hermione said, pulling a piece of parchment out from her robes. It was the Marauder’s Map. “Yeah...half of them are still down by the Entrance Hall, probably still recovering from those curses, but the rest of them are searching the castle...uh-oh, here come two of them now...” Hermione grabbed the boys again and pulled them behind a tapestry with a hidden passage behind it as two Death Eaters burst into the corridor, wands drawn, searching for them. To the trio’s pleasure, they were arguing furiously.
“...and I’m telling you, they must have gone this way!” one of them said to the other.
“And I’m telling you,” the other exclaimed, “there’s no way they would still be here, even if they DID go this way!”
As they fought, Hermione took a long object with sharp points on both ends from her belt, motioning for Harry to do the same. Harry did so, and counting to three quietly, flung open the tapestry as the Death Eaters were just passing it and flung them at the men. The objects suddenly began spinning rapidly, like helicopter blades without a helicopter, and cut into the men’s sides. The Death Eaters howled with pain and ran from the area as the blades chased them the whole way.
“Wicked!” Ron exclaimed. “I’m going to use that one next!”
“Let’s go,” Hermione said. “Dumbledore told me that we should head up to the Astronomy Tower next.”
“Why?” Ron asked, but Hermione was already running off. Harry and Ron looked at each other quizzically, but followed her anyway.
They ran along the corridor for about a minute until Hermione pulled them into a doorway to the side...but too late, as the Death Eater running towards them had seen them. Smirking, Ron took the same double-sided blade that Harry and Hermione had used, flinging it at the approaching Death Eater, who ran away howling as well.
“Dumbledore must know what he’s doing,” Harry remarked. “We haven’t even had to use our wands!”
“You don’t have your wands, do you?” Hermione asked worriedly. “Dumbledore asked me to leave mine in the dorm, in case we do get overcome and captured.”
“Brilliant,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Because the first thing we’re going to worry about if we get caught is our wands, not our lives.”
“Would you like to spend a lifetime in Azkaban if they scan your wand and find out you don’t even exist for another four years?” Hermione asked quietly, which shut Ron up for the time being.
They made it to a staircase through a side hall, where they ascended two floors to the seventh, where the entrance to the Astronomy Tower awaited them at the end of a long passageway. As they made a run for it, however, the trio looked back to find about half a dozen Death Eaters running behind them, firing spells. Without speaking, Hermione drew a flat, disc-like object from her belt and dropped it on the ground behind her. It expanded into a large, flexible wall that filled the whole corridor behind them, deflecting the spells back towards the Death Eaters, hitting some of them and causing others to dive out of the way. Harry and Ron dropped theirs, as well, for extra safety, and they ascended the stairway to the Astronomy Tower.
To their surprise, when they arrived at the top of the stairway, Dumbledore was waiting for them. “I’ve just finished putting the protections back in place,” he said to them, smiling. “The Death Eaters are trapped in the school.”
“Are you mental?!” Ron burst out, surprising the headmaster mildly. “Don’t you think someone could be killed?”
“As you may have noticed, no close-range combat has occurred tonight,” Dumbledore said calmly. “Nor will it. I have contacted the Ministry already, and they should be arriving shortly. Ah, there they are now.” As he spoke, he pointed out onto the grounds: several Ministry officials ran up to the school, wands drawn.
“I think some close-range combat is about to occur, sir,” Harry couldn’t help but say.
“No students will be harmed, however,” Dumbledore said. “It is the Ministry’s prerogative if they choose to fight; I will lose no sleep over it.” They watched the Ministry officials run into the school, where the sound of yelling and fighting met their ears as the front doors closed behind them.
“I believe now is the time to use the remainder of your devices,” Dumbledore said. He handed them each a broom, which had been sitting in a corner, waiting for use. “Fly into the Entrance Hall, throw your belts to the ground, and fly away as quickly as possible. I do not doubt that you can be in and out before they realize you are there.”
“Yes, sir,” Hermione said before the boys could protest again. She took off her belt, and mounted her broom, which the boys also did. They flew over the battlements and down to the front doors, where Hermione quickly unlocked with her wand. They then flattened themselves against their brooms and flew straight through the battle raging inside the Entrance Hall, dropping their belts as they did, not stopping to see the damage they’d done. They flew into the Grand Staircase, where they flew straight through the center upwards to the seventh floor, where they landed on the landing and dismounted.
They ran to the Room of Requirement, where they found the door waiting for them. They went through and found the students and teachers huddled together, cheering when they saw the three teens run in.
“The battle is over,” Hermione announced. “We’ve won.”
Everyone cheered louder still as they all piled out of the Room of Requirement. “Everyone stay away from the Entrance Hall!” Hermione yelled over the turmoil, but everyone ignored her. They ran straight towards the Entrance Hall to see what had happened. Fearing the worst, the trio mounted the brooms again and flew back to the Entrance Hall ahead of everyone else, and what they saw relieved them.
The Death Eaters had gone, but the future Death Eaters were chained to the wall. Dumbledore was speaking with Ministry officials as the kids watched from the wall in stony silence. “Professor, the other students are coming,” Hermione said breathlessly to him as they ran in.
“Very well,” Dumbledore said. “Gentlemen, if you will kindly dispose us of these treasonous children, you can be on our way.” The Ministry officials nodded, lifting the future Death Eaters from the wall with magic and walking out of the school, off to Azkaban.
The other students ran in just a few seconds later, asking what had happened. “Everyone, please go back into the Great Hall for explanations,” Dumbledore said to the crowd. Then quietly, to the trio, he said, “I think you three have earned some rest.” As he led the other students into the Great Hall, the trio ran up to Gryffindor Tower.
“We did it, Harry!” Hermione said happily.
“Yeah...we showed those Death Eaters!” Ron cut in.
“Not that, Ron,” Hermione said. “We got rid of everyone you wanted to, Harry! Now, all we need to do is modify the memories of everyone you told, and we can leave!”
As this fact registered with Harry, a sickening feeling swept over him as he thought of James, Lily and Sirius, and how much fun he’d had here. Although he rather thought Ron and Hermione deserved to get back as soon as possible, he only had one thought in his mind.
I don’t want to go back.
Author’s Note: Okay, guys, I need to say a few things regarding the next chapter, which may take a while, so please take a moment to go to my author's page and read the "Story Updates" section. Thanks, and please review below!