Chapter 1
This was going to be the best year ever. His first year at Hogwarts. No longer would George and Fred tease him, no more of Percy treating him like some little kid. Then there was Ginny, while he would miss her, he really wanted to be his own person. Since Ginny was born he felt invisible unless he was just grouped in with her.
He was a little upset his dad wouldn’t be coming when he had for the rest. Ron knew for a fact that his dad wasn’t going to miss sending Ginny off next year. After five boys he knew nothing he did was new or the first, but it still made him sad sometimes.
“Would you hurry up Ron, we’re going to be late,” his mum yelled.
She always yelled the morning before going to Kings Cross. Ron knew that because usually it wasn’t aimed at him because he and Ginny only had to put their shoes on. Now he had a trunk, a rat, and his wand to get from point A to point B.
When they got to the train station the excitement was causing his mind to wander. Because of that he lost track of his mum and siblings. Not a big deal, he knew where they were going.
As he pushed the trolley he felt someone grab him. The hand gripped his shoulder so much it hurt. Turning around he saw a man that looked like him. Like really looked like him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The man didn’t answer but grabbed Ron’s wand from on top of his trunk and put it in his pocket. He then pointed his own wand at Scabbers cage and whispered a spell Ron had never heard of before. The cage changed from leather and wood to metal.
The man wasn’t dressed like a wizard, but clearly he was. Then something caught his attention. A very pretty woman was dragging a girl his age, they were heading towards Ron and the man. The girl looked like the woman except her hair was frizzier and the woman’s teeth weren’t bucked.
“Let me go.”
Ron turned and looked the other direction, a man with black hair and glasses was dragging a boy with black hair and glasses. He too looked like the man. Both the woman and man couldn’t be older than his brother Charlie so they couldn’t be the kids’ parents.
“Harry, you’ve had some stupid ideas before, but this one takes the cake,” the woman said, pushing the girl in front of her.
The man with glasses rolled his eyes. Ron was too scared to say anything, and it looked like the girl was too. The other boy seemed to lose his fight now there were three adults.
“Look, we don’t know where he is. We can’t risk him killing us before we’re us,” the man with glasses said.
“We can’t keep them. We’re already damaging their psyche,” the woman said. She then pulled out a book. “I need you to touch the book at the same time. I know you’re scared but please you’ll have to trust us.”
“What will happen to my owl?” the boy with glasses asked.
“And my rat?” Ron asked.
The three adults turned their eyes on Scabbers and Ron felt really scared for his rat.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be taken care of…that I promise,” the redheaded man said. Ron didn’t like the way the man was looking at his rat.
“Touch the book, we aren’t here to hurt you,” the woman said.
Why wasn’t anyone looking for them? Where were his mum and brothers? Without any choice, scared to be hurt or worse, the three reached out for the book as did the three adults. Everything was spinning around him. He had never traveled by portkey before but knew what it was. Ron felt like he was going to be sick. He fell to the ground and landed with a thud. As did the girl and other boy. The adults landed on their feet but were a little shaky.
“Never getting used to that,” the redheaded man said.
“Same.” The woman looked at each of the kids. “Now what are we going to do with them? This was your genius idea.” She was talking to the redheaded man.
“Hey, this was all Harry.”
“Ron,” the man with glasses hissed. “No names.”
“You just used mine.”
“Idiots,” the woman groaned.
“Who are you? What do you want with us? My mum is going to be ever so worried,” the girl said.
“We can’t tell you any of that. We need to hide you until we’re able to catch a criminal. A time jumper,” the man with glasses said.
Ron had never heard of a time jumper before.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s someone that is in this time that shouldn’t be. We’ve been chasing him for a while,” the man with glasses said.
“I know who you are but how?” the girl asked.
“Bloody hell, Hermione do you always have to be such a know-it-all?” the redheaded man said but not to the girl, to the woman.
“Well genius, now they definitely know who we are,” she said glaring at the man.
“I don’t,” Ron said.
The man with the glasses laughed, that made the redheaded man and woman laugh. Ron looked at the boy and girl, they were looking just as worried and confused as him.
“Might was well tell them the truth. We don’t want them thinking they lost their minds,” the man with glasses said. “It might make them not think right.”
“So, no difference for you Ron,” the woman said but she wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to the redheaded man.
The adults moved until they all were standing in front of them. They were standing on the beach, something looked familiar about it, but he couldn’t place it.
“We are you in nine years,” the redheaded man said.
The woman rolled her eyes. “We are after a man who got his hands on a wizarding artifact, one that is very dangerous to have. It’s our job to find him and get him back to our time. The thing is his goal is to kill us before we’re a threat to him. We’re lucky we found out he was coming to this time.”
“We have a place to hide you, but you have to do what the people say. You can’t run away or try to get back home. We will come and get you and try to return you,” the man with glasses said.
“Where are we going?” the girl asked.
“We’ll tell you soon,” the woman said.
“Hey, I know we talked about it, but we could save Sirius,” the man with the glasses said.
“We’ve been over this; we can’t mess with the timeline. We’re going to have to obliviate them as it is when it’s all said and done. Anyway, we couldn’t get into Azkaban. Also, we can’t break the contract even if we wanted,” the woman said.
“She’s right mate, you think I don’t want to make sure Fred lives?”
“Fred dies?” Ron asked. He didn’t want his brother to die. Yeah he was tired of his teasing, but he wouldn’t change him for the world, he loved all his siblings, even Percy.
“Great Ron, look what you did.”
“I don’t want my brother to die. He’s the only one that plays chess with me when the others give up. He never even gets mad that he doesn’t win.” He couldn’t help it, he started to cry. He didn’t want Fred to die.
“Bloody hell.”
“Would you shut up Ron,” the woman said angrily. Ron stopped crying; he didn’t want her to be mad at him. Her eyes softened. “Not you, I’m talking to my idiot boyfriend.”
The girl turned and looked at him, then the redheaded man and the woman and then back to him.
“Him? I date him. But he has dirt on his nose.” The girl sounded upset.
“I didn’t miss this,” the man with glasses said.
There was a noise and they all turned. It was a tall, blond man, his hair was so blond it was almost white. He was wearing very expensive robes; the three other adults were in muggle clothing.
“Why did I let you idiots drag me along for this? And how did I become the babysitter?”
“Where’s the kid Malfoy?” the redhead asked angerly.
The blond lifted up his wand and a boy that looked like a younger version of himself came floating over. It looked like he wanted to say something, but a spell was keeping him quiet.
“That’s you. How can you treat him like that?” the woman said.
“After the fifth time he told me to wait until he tells his father, I just got tired of it.”
The other three adults laughed.
“Oh, the poetic irony,” the woman said.
“Shut up Granger.”
The redheaded man pulled out his wand and pointed it at the blond wizard. The blond wizard let the blond boy fall to the ground and pointed his wand at the redheaded man.
“YOU ARE AURORS! Stop acting like children,” the woman yelled.
“Yeah, I’m an auror. Why am I stuck babysitting?” the blond snapped.
“Well, you’re and auror in training actually,” the man with glasses said.
“Granger’s not even in magical law enforcement.”
“Yet she’s taken you down over and over and over again,” the redheaded man snarled.
“Fine. I’ll watch them.”
There was something unsettling about the way he said that. Ron had heard his father talk about the Malfoy family. They were dark wizards. Lucius Malfoy was one of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Name’s right-hand men. Ron had seen his picture in the Daily Prophet, this wasn’t him.
“Umm…one second,” the man with the glasses said.
The woman, man with glasses and redheaded man huddled together a little ways off. It was clear they were arguing.
“NO!” the woman yelled.
“FINE!” the redheaded man yelled.
“I am never going on another mission with both of you. I can’t believe I did this for seven years.”
The man with glasses stomped back over to them. All four adults looked very angry.
“Since you don’t want to do your JOB, we’ll take them to someone else,” the woman said.
“Who? There is no one in the magical world we can trust,” the man in the glasses said.
There was a loud crack from right behind him, Ron turned around. He wanted to scream but his voice wouldn’t work. Three more cracks, three more people, one behind each of the first years. The grown-ups looked at them in horror but a second later, everything changed.
Ron felt like he was being ripped apart, he didn’t know what kind of magic this was. It didn’t seem like a side-apparation because he had seen his father take his brother Bill like that once. Bill said it was dizzying but not painful. This was painful and by the screams of the other three kids with him, he knew they felt it too.
The portkey was only seconds, whatever this was it was going on forever it felt like. Finally, he started to see light and fell down on the ground, a hard ground. He felt something break, he thought it might have been his arm. His head then slammed into the ground, and everything went dark.
Ron watched in horror as his younger self and the rest were taken by four unknown wizards. Ron didn’t recognize them, but they had to be linked to Yaxley. They had been chasing the ex-head of magical law enforcement for months. They were finally able to get a lead on Yaxley, which led them back to 1991. They had to get special permission to come back and get him. All the Time Turners had been broken so they had to use more risky ways. They still didn’t know how Yaxley got the artifact he used, but they knew what his plans were. Kill the four of them. Draco included because Yaxley hated Lucius for running away at the end.
Draco was the reason they were able to get the permission to go together without the head Auror. They didn’t actually hate each other like they had at one time, but Ron actually had fun rowing with Draco. Just like with Hermione, he gave as good as he got. Now that they were adults and everything they all had been through Ron knew life was just too short. Did he still get a little salty over the stuff Draco did? Of course, but he still got salty about things Hermione and Harry did in the past too. Just like they still got annoyed with him for past transgressions.
But now their younger selves were missing and could be killed at any moment. The repercussions from that could change everything. They had to sign multiple contracts so that they weren’t going to change anything. The plan had been to take their younger selves and Draco would watch them. When they caught Yaxley, they would obliviate the kid them. They also decided just not to do anything about what they knew would be a massive manhunt. By tonight Dumbledore will know Harry isn’t at Hogwarts, Ron was sure his mum had just assumed he got on the train without saying goodbye. Hermione and Draco’s parents though will probably be putting up a fuss right now. Draco being mummy’s little man and Hermione’s parents being muggles.
“My mum is going to kill me,” Draco said.
“We’ll split up. Two will go look for kids and the other two will go find Yaxley,” Harry said.
“I’ll go with Hermione, we’ll go after Yaxley,” Ron said.
“No way, you two will end up arguing the whole time,” Draco said.
“Fine, I’ll go with Harry,” Ron said.
“No,” Hermione said. Ron knew how much she hated Draco still. The mudblood comment still hurt her worse than anything he had ever done to them.
“We’ll end up killing each other,” Ron said knowing they were going to tell him to go with Draco.
“What did you do with Hedwig?” Hermione suddenly asked Harry.
“Let her out, no telling how long she’d be in there if I didn’t. Wormtail?”
“Sealed the cage, he won’t be getting out. But left him on the trolley because we promised not to change anything. Even if it’s to let the traitor live to go back to his master.” They were bound by the contract; they couldn’t break it even if they wanted to.
“We’re wasting time. Ron and Draco you go after Yaxley, me and Harry will go after the kids and the unknown wizards. Here take these. If one of us runs into trouble, use the coin to call the others.” Hermione handed them coins she had made so long ago. Draco looked at it curiously. “We meet back here if you’re able.”
“I really hate you; you know that right?” Ron said to Hermione.
“I know, that’s what keeps it fresh,” she said. Ron leaned down and kissed her; she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Harry and Draco made retching sounds. Ron pulled away and glared at them. “If we don’t find them in a week we meet back here and plan something else. If any of us starts to fade away, our younger self may be dying,” Ron said.
“Do you think that could happen?” Hermione asked.
“I don’t know but if we die in the past there is no way we’d be here now.”
“We will find them,” Harry said determinedly.
“Maybe they’ll use their wands. They all have trackers on them. Maybe we won’t even have to find them, the ministry will,” Draco said.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron all pulled out their younger selves’ wands. All the wands had been replaced over the years, Ron’s before his third year, Harry after the final battle and Hermione when she got angry and threw her wand at Ron who ducked, causing her wand to fly into the fire on their first Valentine’s day because he forgot they had a date. Truthfully, he didn’t forget, she just wouldn’t let him take her to Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop, saying it was for kids.
He had to cancel the flowers, wine, and everything else, Madam Puddifoot was not happy. He had only done it because Hermione had said one night while they were hunting Horcruxes that she wished someone would have taken her there. Sometimes it’s hard to remember she wanted that kind of stuff. He thought she would like it, but she refused to even go with him, saying that a last-minute plan to go there was not romantic. It wasn’t the last minute though; he had planned it for weeks. He couldn’t really blame her because leaving it to the last minute would definitely be his style, just not that day.
“Didn’t you take mini-Draco’s?” Ron asked Draco.
“No.” A flash of hope built up in Ron until…” He fell on it and broke it when I was trapping him.”
“Let’s go, we started this mess, we need to fix it,” Hermione said before giving Ron one last kiss before her and Harry joined hands and disapparated.
“I’m not holding your hand,” Draco sneered.
“You know you want to you’ve always been obsessed with me.” Ron grabbed Draco’s hand and they too disapparated.