Chapter 1
“I…I found something.” “a…a ritual.”
“A ritual?”
“In one of the books Dumbledore had on—that talked about horcruxes.”
“What?! Hermione, are you crazy?”
“Ron, I—”
“No! Those books are all Dark Magic. The darkest of the dark. Blood magic, curses, sacrifices—”
“Sacrifices?”
“Yes, Harry.”
“And this one you want to try…”
“Would involve a sacrifice, yes.”
“No bloody way, Hermione. You’re not dabbling in—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ronald! Not all of the magic in these books is ‘dark’! Just old—ancient and archaic, even—and fallen out of practice, but not inherently evil. Not all of it!”
“But—”
“Just hear me out!” Hermione was well and truly on her way to losing her temper, her hair growing frizzier by the second. But it was the almost desperate gleam in her eye that had the boys hesitating. When she was satisfied that they were going to let her speak, she began. “I found a ritual to…to go back in time. It’s old, dangerous magic, and we wouldn’t be able to do it alone, but…considering…” she faltered then, but they all knew what she’d left unsaid.
At this point, they had very little left to lose.
Even if they still somehow managed to kill Voldemort?
The war was already all but lost.
“What’s the sacrifice?” Harry finally asked softly. Hermione made a soft noise of distress at the resignation in his voice, but swallowed it back to answer.
“A life.” She winced as the words left her mouth and Harry’s shoulders hunched. Ron, meanwhile, surged to his feet.
“What? One of us has to die? How can you even—” But Hermione was on her feet in and instant, too, holding her hands out in entreaty.
“No! Ron, listen to me—”
“I’ll do it.” Harry’s soft voice silenced them both.
“What? No, Harry,” Hermione objected, the desperate gleam returning. “We might not have to,” she blurted out quickly. Both boys frowned, mouths gaping as they struggled to find the words to ask what she meant. Swallowing thickly, she paced, her hands wringing together as she plucked up her Gryffindor courage as she gathered her thoughts. Finally she turned to Harry.
And her eyes flicked unconsciously up to his scar.
She knew the moment he put the pieces together.
“It is a Horcrux, isn’t it.” Mutely, she nodded.
“I think so.”
“What are you talking about,” Ron burst in angrily. “What Horcrux! We already destroyed the ones we fou—”
“My scar,” Harry cut him off softly. And Ron’s complexion turned the colour of curdled milk as it suddenly clicked for him too. They both looked to Hermione.
“We’ve got to—”
“The ritual,” she said softly, interrupting Ron’s panicked insistence that they had to do something about Harry’s scar. Both Ron and Harry frowned in confusion again. Hermione nearly huffed in exasperation. But then comprehension began to light behind Ron’s eyes. He looked between Hermione, Harry and Harry’s scar.
“You want to sacrifice the Horcrux?!”
“Is that even possible?”
The hope in both their voices was almost painful.
“It should be? But—” she hesitated, nibbling at her lip nervously.
“But?” She sighed almost dejectedly before sitting again, pulling the book open and flipping to the right page. She pointedly didn’t look at Harry.
“The ritual takes the life offered both at the time of initiation and…and at the time of destination.”
“So?”
“The life being offered needs to exist in the destination time. And…and I think because the Horcrux is, for the most part, a separate entity from You-Know-Who, now…” She didn’t need to wait long for what she said to sink in, or for Harry to grasp the implication.
“We can’t go back far enough to save my parents, can we.” It wasn’t a question. Hermione’s eyes glistened as she shook her head, the first of her tears spilling over.
“I’m so sorry, Harry,” she whispered. He nodded jerkily. But then he seemed to shake himself.
“But we can save everyone else, right? Sirius? Remus? Dumbledore, the Weasleys?” Hermione nodded vigorously as desperate hope began to bloom in Ron’s eyes.
“We can make sure the war ends for good with the attack at Godric’s Hollow.” Hermione said almost wistfully. “We can end it for good.”