Chapter Text
Hermione Granger sighed as she stepped off the Hogwarts Express. After the war, Hermione decided to return to Hogwarts for her 8th year and prepare for the NEWTs. She just finished the first half of the year and it was now the beginning of winter break.
Hermione has always prided herself on being an academic, but she was starting to regret returning to Hogwarts.
The halls of Hogwarts were full of awful memories. For every corner Hermione turned, she saw the face of a fallen friend. Fred, Remus, Tonks, Lavender, and Colin hunted her in the through halls. Hermione could deal with the dead and their memories. However, dealing with the living was a whole other matter.
Every student that returned struggled. It hurt Hermione to see younger students jump at dropped books. Her heart bled the first time she saw Parvati break down crying in the hall that Lavender was killed in. And Parvati was not the only student who broke down in the halls and classrooms. Every student was affected by the war, even the first years. The first child sorted into Slytherin begged the hat to re-sort them. They afraid that by being a snake they would be considered evil. And with all the scars Hogwarts students wore, Hermione could not understand how prejudiced and retaliation was still apart of the Hogwarts culture.
Hermione broke up fights between other houses cursing Slytherins for being sorted into the Death Eater house. And the Slytherins were not the only ones targeted. In the eyes of some students, Hermione and other DA members were held responsible for imprisonment of family members. Curses and hexes were sent their way as payback. Even children of neutral families who stayed on the sidelines of the war were attacked for being bystanders by both sides.
Hermione was tired and people’s antics on the platform did not improve her mood. Slurs and threats and accusations were thrown throughout the platform. Death Eater became a slur just as bad as Mudblood. Half of the Aurors stationed at the platform were arresting anyone who sent out hexes and curses, while the half were busy blocking spells for unaware people.
Hermione threw up a shield around Ginny, Luna, and herself as they moved along the platform. Upon reaching the apparition point, they apparated to the Burrow. After promising the younger girls that she will see them at Christmas, Hermione apparated herself to the building across from 13 Grimmauld Place.
Hermione walked up the steps of 12 Grimmauld Place. When she pushed open the front door, the smell of Chinese food assaulted her nose. Walking in Hermione smirked as she passed a hole in the wall that used to house Walburga’s portrait. That had been a particularly fun Saturday night.
The trio had gone out to a pub to celebrate Ron’s and Harry surviving their first week of Auror training and ended up drinking themselves into a stupor. They left the bar following a fight involving a drunk Harry and Ron against a equally drunk wizard. It started when the unknown wizard called Harry a Death Eater synthesizer for asking for leniency at Narcissa and Draco’s sentencing. When they stumbled into Grimmauld Place, the woke up Walburga started swearing at them. Upon the fifth or sixth Mudblood whore, Harry lost his temper and sent a blasting curse at the portrait. When the smoked cleared, the portrait remained untouched with a hole in the wall above the frame. Giggling at the results, Hermione pointed her wand to the wall and carved the portrait out of the wall, vanishing the cutout when it was free. With Walburga finally gone, the trio fell to the floor laughing.
Laugh at the memory, Hermione walked out the entry way as she called out Ron and Harry’s name.
“We’re in the study ‘Mione,” Ron yelled, and Hermione made her way towards them.
Upon entering the study, Hermione flopped down into the couch next to Harry. She let out a long-tired sigh as Harry wisely passed her a plate of food.
Hermione ate as Ron and Harry told her about their Auror training. As they explained their training regimen, Hermione noticed that both wizards were building muscles on their lean frames. They were taking training seriously, she noted.
“Being an Auror isn’t what I expected it be like,” Harry confessed, his shoulders dropping low.
“Too much hard work?” Hermione asked as she took a second helping of the sesame chicken.
“Yes, but it’s not that. Its…” Harry trailed off looking for the words to convey his feelings.
Ron knowing what Harry felt, finished his statement, “The department is full of bigoted idiots. We’ll go out on assignment, searching a house for Dark Artifacts with absolutely no evidence. And when we ask why we’re searching with no evidence; we’re told that the family has ties to Death Eaters. But it’s all bloody lies!” Ron overcome by anger threw his empty plate at the wall, shattering it in the process.
Hermione ignored Ron’s outburst. “It’s the bias and prejudice. It never went away. I don’t know how it is possible, but it feels worse than how it was during the war.”
Harry threw out a Repairo at the plate and sighed. “This is not what I expected when we won. This is not what I fought for.”
Harry’s statement dampened everyone’s mood. Ron still simmering with anger, made his way towards the liquor cabinet. Removing three glasses he poured Firewhiskey with a heavy hand. He passed a glass to Harry and Hermione and retook his seat on the armchair.
“Cheers to shitty ending to bloody horrible war.” Harry raised his glass mockingly before taking a long sip. Ron followed with his own salute.
Hermione only could stare at her drink. After a moment she quietly said, “What are we going to do about it?” Upon hearing silence, her voice became full of emotion, “The hatred is deep rooted! It has gripping society too long. The first year Slytherins are mocked and targeted, all because they wear green. It’s awful! They’re only elven,” Hermione cried into her hands.
Ron sighed, looking at the downtrodden frames of his best friends, “If only we could go back in time to stop the hatred, the blood purity, the house divisions. Or at least prevent it from spiraling out of control.”
An idea formed in Hermione’s mind. Her resolve strengthened and Hermione jumped up from her seat grabbing Ron into a hug, “You genius! There is a way. We could go back in time. I’ve seen some time rituals in books, we could do it!”
“We could save Sirius? Tonks and Lupin? Fred? My parents?” Harry inquired, his eye’s glistened with sadness but there was a spark of hope in them.
“We could, we could prevent everything from happening,” Hermione glanced down at her uncovered forearm, her Mudblood scar stared back. “We could make it so kids would never know the hate and pain we went through. There is a lot we would have to figure out. Like when will we go back? How we are going to change the future?” Hermione glared at the two boys pinning them down were her stare until both wizards nodded in agreement with her.
The rest of the night and the next few days were spent throwing ideas at each other.
“What if we killed Voldemort as a baby”
“Doesn’t fix the bigotry.”
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“What if we go back to our first year?”
“Too late in the timeline. Doesn’t save Harry’s parents either. We should prevent the first wizard war.”
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“No matter what timeline we pick, can we kill Umbitch? I need payback.”
“I got us the payback in the forbidden forest, Harry”
“Not ‘nuff.”
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Two days later, the trio finally came up with a solution during breakfast.
“What if we raised Tom? Adopted him from the orphanage?” Harry asked as he cracked eggs into a frying pan.
“Won’t work. It still doesn’t take care of the blood prejudice. And we’ll lose the person that amassed all the blood purists together. It was so easy to know who believes what when they identify themselves with silly names like Knight of Walpurgis or Death Eaters.” Hermione explained, pouring coffee into three mugs, and passed them around.
“Wait! What if we went back to when Voldemort was at school and we target him and the Knights of Walpurgis,” Ron asked. Suddenly he no longer felt tired even though Harry made him rise early. His idea was energizing him.
Hermione shook her head at Ron’s idea. “As in kill them? I thought we already establish that that wouldn’t solve the blood purity problem.”
“No. Hear me out on this. We don’t kill them but change them. Like their views or something. Tom’s Knights are the influential purebloods, right? They’re the ones who raised the future Death Eaters by teaching them to hate muggleborns and love Voldemort. They have all the power and money. We control them, we control Ministry and basically the whole wizarding society,” Ron reasoned. “Anyways it was never about blood for Voldemort, it was always about power. We just have to sway his powerbase to loving muggles and Voldemort will follow.”
Harry and Hermione were silent as they processed the idea. Ron’s ears turn red in embarrassment and continued to redden as time passed. When both nodded in agreement, Ron let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
When Hermione saw Ron release his breath, she bumped her shoulders into him, “Don’t forget you are the strategist in our trio. Of course, you’re going to come up with the best plan. It’s good.”
“Should we target them when the graduate from Hogwarts?” Harry asked as he slid eggs on to plates at the dining table.
“No, he already made two horcruxes before then.” Hermione said.
“We have to save Myrtle?” Ron whined with his mouth full of food.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. And yes, we are going to save Myrtle.” Hermione snapped as she glared at Ron.
“So latest his fifth year.” Harry used his bacon to do some calculations “When is that, 1942?”
“Hm. We could join the same year as him. It’ll be easier to keep an eye on him and the Knights if we share classes with them. What about going back to his first year?” Hermione threw out.
With twin shouts of no, Ron and Harry vehemently rejected being eleven again. Everyone agreed that going through puberty again sounded awful. Harry brought up that being transfer students would look suspicious.
However, Hermione reminded them that a war was going on in the 40s, and transfers were normal. “I mean look at everyone that transferred out of Hogwarts in our 6th and 7th year. They had to go somewhere, Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, Ilvermorny. With Grindelwald’s war is going on in the 40s, we would be transfer students escaping a war. Not too hard of a role to play for us.”
Harry smiled in agreement. “When are we going to do this?”
They sat in silence until Hermione said, “End of the school year at earliest. We need a lot of information to plan our strategy.”
“What else do we need to figure out,” Harry asked unsure of what other information they needed.
Hermione just started at him in disbelief. “A lot.”
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On Christmas morning, the Trio floo’ed to the Burrow. When Ron tumbled out of the fireplace, he saw George’s wide grin. Ron paused and held back Harry and Hermione from further advancing into the room.
Ron narrowed his eyes at his brother, “Where’s the prank, George?”
“Why dear brother, you read my mind. But you should know me by now. I’m not telling you anything about the prank,” George smirked at his brother and bounced out of the room.
An idea formed in Hermione’s brain. She grabbed the boys and whispered, “Tom and Dumbledore are legilimens. We’ll need to learn occlumency to keep our secrecy.”
Harry let out a laugh, “Me and Ron are already leaning that during training.”
Hermione sighed and mentally added that task to her to-do list.
“We should learn more about the Knights, so we can form an attack plan.” Ron added.
“I thought we were befriending them,” Harry looked at his friend in confusion.
Ron waved his hand to dismiss Harry’s confusion, “Attack plan to befriend them, mate. Come on, lets go get some coffee to wake you up.” Ron dragged Harry into the kitchen with Hermione following them.
Christmas for the Trio was peaceful and full of merriment. George’s prank caused chaos during the gift exchange. Somehow, he managed to switch the name tags on every gift and the Weasleys naturally went with the chaos. Charlie ended up wearing a dress meant for Fleur. Everyone laughed as Ron opened a gift revealing a book on runes and curse breaking. George model his Mother’s new earrings on his only ear. Molly snatched her gift when George tried to make the other earring into a nose ring.
Hermione and Harry smiled at each other. Even though they no longer had any family left, Harry and Hermione felt kinship with the Weasleys. They both agreed that giving up the Weasley family was going to be painful, but hopefully going into the past would be worth the pain.
The rest of the break was spent researching and creating a plan for when the trio enters the past. They agreed that learning more about the members of the Knight of Walpurgis was a top priority. Also on their to-do list was figure out how to permanently de-age to 15, create fake identities, trick Hogwarts into accepting them as transfer students, and the list continued on and on. The next six months were going to be busy for the trio. But they defeated Voldemort and all his Horcruxes, research had nothing on the Golden Trio.