Chapter One
Summer break was both relaxing and intellectually challenging. I enjoyed the break from school, hanging out with my friends and the four of us shadowing Andromeda in her Wizengamot sessions and meetings.
“I had a nightmare last night,” Harry said one morning over breakfast.
“I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, giving Harry a one armed hug.
“I don’t think it was a regular nightmare. It was really realistic, it was about Voldemort and when I woke up my scar hurt,” Harry said.
“Oh, that kind of nightmare,” I said, pulling out a notebook. “What can you remember?”
“There was the back of a chair that I think Voldemort was in and two Death Eaters. They were both wearing hoods and masks, but I think one of them was Malfoy’s dad. Voldemort was talking about regaining his strength and some Ministry witch who they memory wipes and some sort of competition. It might have been the Quidditch World Cup, which they also talked about or the Triwizard Tournament or something else,” Harry said.
“Got it. Okay, time for a big conversation. I’ll go apparate and grab Hermione. You get Ron, I think he’s talking to Percy. Let’s go to the attic hang space,” I said, putting away my notebook and grabbing the plate to go.
I apparated to the end of Hermione’s street, far enough away that the Trace on her wand wouldn’t pick up my apparition and walked to her house. Dr Granger opened the door and invited me in while she went to get Hermione. Hermione grabbed her backup wand and we walked to the end of the street before apparating back to the Burrow.
“So what’s this about?” Ron asked, munching on a plate of snacks that Dobby had gotten.
“Our plans for the next few years. So, I’m from the future, this is all a book series. That is the original timeline. This, where I showed magically appeared on Platform 9 ¾ in our timeline, or the altered timeline. We’ve been over time travel and the implication of changing stuff before. Already, a lot has changed but generally this timeline is running parallel to the original timeline,” I began.
“But things are about to change and we need to figure out our strategy,” Ron said.
“Yeah. So in the original timeline, the Order wins, Voldemort dies, but so do a lot of other people. If we change too much, the main problem is that we will no longer be able to rely on my magic future knowledge as our not so secret weapon. Things change too much, I don’t know what to expect. We could try to kill Voldemort here and now, but it’s risky. Things stay the same, a lot of people suffer. And there is the fact that things have already changed. So we need to decide what to do, preferably unanimously,” I said.
“So there is a range of options, but three main ones, way I see it,” Ron said. “One, we try to get things as close to the original timeline as possible because that is the closest thing to a guaranteed victory, but that doesn’t mean that we will win. Two, we change just enough to save the maximum amount of people but don’t diverge from the original timeline too much. Three, we try to kill Voldemort now and run the risk of us failing, dying and everyone else has less of chance of success.”
“And we’ve already been doing option two for the most part,” Hermione said. “There’s been some unexpected things, but we’ve managed to figure things out,”
“So option two then? We all agreed?” Harry asked.
“Yep.”
“Yeah.”
“Now, the Triwizard Tournament. Happening at Hogwarts. Each school gets a champion, chosen by a flaming cup. Three champions face deadly challenges. Winner gets some pocket money and probably a newspaper article. Important information is that this was discontinued after several hundred people, the spectators and champions, died.”
“I’m in the tournament aren’t I?” Harry asked with a resigned sigh.
“Yup. So original timeline, with a get a disguised Death Eater, Crouch Jr., as our DADA teacher, surprise suprise. They put Harry’s name in the goblet despite the age line blocking underage wix. Then Harry comes out as a fourth champion in addition to a champion from each school, which causes chaos. Everybody believes he puts his name in, which we will be preventing if nothing else. Third task, he gets kidnapped to a creepy graveyard via portkey, and Harry’s blood is used in Voldemort’s dramatic resurrection ritual. Also, the other Hogwarts champion dies. Then Harry escapes, the Ministry doesn’t believe Voldemort is back,” I summarized.
“So do we want to follow the whole me getting kidnapped for a resurrection ritual?” Harry asked.
“If we are trying to keep the timelines close, so we know the factors in play, that would be best,” Ron said, toying with a chess piece. “Sorry mate.”
“We’ll get you an emergency portkey necklace as a backup plan,” I said.
“Or if we get Crouch Jr. arrested before school, there’s a good opportunity at the Quidditch game. Harry said Malfoy Sr. was speaking with Voldemort in his dream. Voldemort would probably have Malfoy, who has access to the school as a student parent, enchant the portkey to kidnap Harry. Then we get Malfoy arrested, take out one of Voldemort’s main financial and political supporters,” Hermione proposed.
“I like the idea of getting Malfoy’s dad arrested,” Harry said.
“How confident are you that Malfoy would be the one to enchant the portkey Zo?” Ron asked.
“93 percent certain. Of that there is approximately a 52 percent chance he gets arrested and convicted, 14 percent chance that he gets arrested but wiggles out of Azkaban and a 27 percent chance he doesn’t get caught,” I said thoughtfully.
“So let’s arrest Crouch Jr and try to get Malfoy’s dad arrested,” Harry decided.
“What about the Hogwarts champions? Could we get Harry as the Hogwarts champion?” Ron asked.
“The Goblet of Fire automatically knows which school each student is from and is supposedly impossible to trick, so I’m not sure how Crouch Jr got Harry in,” Hermione said.
“What if we don’t trick the Goblet of Fire?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Hermione asked.
“Well it’s supposedly sentient. What if we write a note explaining the situation, throw it into the fire along with a piece of paper entering Santa Claus or something as a champion. We cross our fingers that the Goblet of Fire spits out Santa Claus as the Hogwarts Champion, then Harry as a fourth Champion. Obviously Santa isn’t real, so Harry becomes the Hogwarts Champion, the other schools don’t put up a fuss about two Hogwarts Champions then we kick up a storm about how fourteen year old Harry got entered against his will,” I proposed.
“That’s crazy, but it might just work,” Hermione said.
“We’d need a backup plan,” Ron said.
“If all else fails, just knock out the other Hogwarts Champion the day before the third task,” Harry said.
“Also, let’s not do Santa Claus. That’s a muggle god. Let’s do some famous dead person like Beedle the Bard,” Ron said.
“Santa isn’t a god. The legend of Santa is derived from Saint Nicholas, so there is an argument to be made for Santa being a saint, but saints are entirely different from gods. Also, Santa is part of the Christian religion and Christians only have one god with a capital G,” Hermione told Ron.
“Yeah, that. Still a muggle thing,” Ron said with a shrug.
“Beedle the Bard it is,” I said.
“What about preparation for the war?” Hermione asked.
“Dumbledore’s definitely plotting something. He outright told me to get a bunch of spies and start helping people defect. I’m not sure what he’s doing though,” I admitted. “So I’m storing up resources, getting safehouses and preparing to help those with Death Eater families run away and/or defect to the Order. I also found a squib who can make really good muggle IDs and wixen genealogy records. He’s one of Tonks’ punk rock friends,” I said.
“We can also do a bunch of subtle insinuations at all of the summer parties Andromeda is having us attend so people know they can talk to you,” Harry said.
“Or not so subtle insinuations. I mean the whole point of this is so everyone knows to come talk to me if they want to defect. We can’t outright say that at a garden party, but we can say as much discreetly and then it will spread to everyone,” I said.