What If

Apparating home, Hermione found three pairs of nervous eyes glued to her, the bodies belonging to those eyes sitting around the kitchen table. Hermione dropped her bag on the floor and stepped to the table to kiss her husband.

"We should've talk about what you were going to say to the minister." she said.

"Why? What happened? I didn't say anytging wrong, did I? I just asked him if he knew anything about Harry. I'm his best friend! I thought it wouldn't be suspicious-"

"Shh! Calm down, Ron. You didn't say anything wrong. It was me."

"What?" Ron asked totally bewildered. "You never say anything wrong!"

Hermione smiled and sat down to the table. "I got caught."

"WHAT?" came the unbelieving response from three directions.

"The minister suspects something. So we'll have to be extremely careful."

"But you managed to find the Time Tuner and observe the wards." Draco asked, however it sounded more like a statement than a question.

"Yes. Actually, I thought there will be more complicated spells around it. But I only found basic guarding spells and disillusionment charms. The only thing I don't know... Well it's locked in a book. And I'm not sure how to get it out of it."

The other three looked at her. Neither of them said a word. They all sinked into their thoughts.

"Well... When will we go?" Draco asked eventually.

"What?"

"We have to break into the Minister's office. When will we go?"

"Oh. Well-"

"I saw Mr. Johnson when I was about to Apparate home." Ron spoke up. "I think it's him on duty tonight. So... Let's go?"

"But Ron!"

"No, Hermione! We don't have time for more planning and observation. Today it's Mr. Johnson's night. If not now, we'll only be able to go next week, because Johnson's only on a night duty once a week. So let's go now, get that damned Time Tuner and let's bring Harry back!"

Both Ginny and Draco stood up, so now all the three of them looked at Hermione expectantly.

"I... OK. Let's go."

***

It was around midnight. The Atrium was completely dark except for the dim light in the corner, indicating Mr. Johnson's cubicle.

The group carefully stalked to the lift, when Hermione abruptly stopped.

"Wait!" she murmured.

"What?"

"We can't use the lift! It's too loud."

"But how do we get up there without using it, then?"

"Well. We should-"

"I'll do it." Draco said, and headed towards the light to the other three's bewilderment.

"Whad d'you reckon he's doing?"

The two girls didn't have time to respond because then Draco reached the small cubicle and coughed a little. Mr. Johnson's head shot up.

"Ah, it's you again. A really funny ghost, that's you are! Now who did you 'kill'?" the old wizard asked jokingly.

"I'm sorry, mister!" Draco pointed his wand at the old man and before he could realize it, he cast a silent stunning spell. When the old man collapsed in his chair, Draco glanced at him with a bit sense of guilt in his throat and modified his memory, so when he would wake up, he wouldn't remember what happened. When he was done with it, he walked back to the others.

"What did you do to him?" Ron asked a bit malevolently.

"Keep calm, Weasley. Nothing serious. Just a stunning spell and a memory modofier charm."

All the three eased visibly. Deep in their hearts they knew that they can totally trust Draco. But seeing him with an extended wand, casting a spell that causes another man to collapse... well, it made them all recall old, bad memories.

"Let's go. Before he wakes up."

They got into the lift and went up to the top floor. Hermione led the way to the minister's office.

As their plan didn't go as they'd planned, not to mention that they didn't think that they would come back that night, Ron and Hermione couldn't do anything to let the office door left open. So the first barrier was to get through the door.

They cast opening spell after opening spell. They tried everything they could think of but neither worked. They almost gave up when something popped up in Draco's mind.

"Do you know any cutting spells? I mean something that can cut human flesh as well?"

"Human flesh? Why d'you want to cut someone's-"

"I know one. But why do you need it?"

"I'm not sure, but when I was in the headquarters and I had to find Harry's cloak... Well, I needed to break into my father's room. He put Harry's wand and cloak into a drawer of his, which he locked up a spell that only opened if you gave it blood." Draco said slightly trembling. "I know it sounds a bit like some sort of dark magic. Maybe the Minister for Magic would never use such a spell... But who knows? It surely is a powerful locking charm."

Hermione looked thoughtful for a minute, then rolled her left sleeve up abruptly.

"NO!" Draco and Ron shouted simultanously when they understood what she was just about. "Hermione, no, not you! It's rather me."

"My blood is the most unworthy of all of us. Take it instead of yours!" Draco said desperately.

Everybody froze in astonishment. The Draco Malfoy really said that his clear and wonderful pureblood is less worthy than a mudblood?

"What?" Draco asked, not understanding why was everybody staring at him. "Just take my blood and go! We don't have time forever."

Hermione slowly pulled her wand and pointed the tip of it at Draco's extended arm. "Are you... sure?" she asked lightly shaking. When Draco nodded firmly, she cast silently a spell.

A red line appeared on Draco's pale arm. It wasn't too deep, however the dark red blood dripping from it painted his pale skin a quite horrifing shade of pink. He palpitated, then pressed the bloody wound at the door.

To all of their astonishment and relief, the door cracked open. Draco let the others to go in. But before he stepped in the office, he cast a cleaning spell so the thin red line indicating that they broke in, vanished.

They all hurried to the bookshelf Hermione showed them, and watched as the bushy haired girl cast a couple spells before pulling off a totally average looking book.

"This is it."

"It's a book."

"Excellent observation, Weasley."

"Oh, shut your mouth, you-"

"Shh! Yes, Ron, this is a book. As I told you before, the Time Tuner is somehow locked into it. I can feel its magic radiating from it. The problem is that I don't know any spells that can get the Time Tuner out of it.

"Let me see." Draco said.

Hermione gave him the book, which he flicked through quickly. He couldn't see anything extraordinary. Or-

"Stop! Stop, I saw something!" Hermione shrieked.

"Words written in it, right?"

"Did you see them, too?"

Draco nodded and started to turn page after page to find the ink-written words they'd seen a second before.

"Do you know what they're talking about?" Ron wishpered in his sister's ear.

"Shut your mouth, and help, Weasley!"

"Fine, fine!"

All four of them was staring at the book as Draco started to flick the pages more carefully.

"Here!" Ginny shouted when she spotted the straggly handwriting on the edge of a particularly crumpled page. "What does it say?"

"Er... 'Who'... No, 'what'... Er. 'What if'. I can't read the rest, it's barely legible."

"Yeah." agreed Ron. "But don't you reckon it's quite familiar? I've definitely seen this handwriting before."

"Yes, actually... You're right, Ron. It's very familiar."

Ron and Hermione stared at the page blankly, when Ginny spoke up rather quitely. "I know that handwriting. It's Harry's."

"WHAT?"

"Merlin's pants! It really is Harry's! How couldn't we recognize it! All the homeworks I'd copied of him..."

Draco suppressed a light smile and Hermione glared at him halfheartedly, while Ginny stepped closer to the book and touched the writing. "What if... I stoo... No, 'What if I shook your hand?'"

They looked into one another's eyes for a second, then abruptly looked down at their own feet at the same time. Draco shifted inconveniently on his feet.

"Khm... Er. Malfoy, I think it's... it's for you." Ron slid the book towards the blond boy.

"But... What should I do with it? Aren't we supposed to get the Time Tuner out of it? And anyway... how could Harry write in this book? It's-"

They all looked totally bewildered.

"Maybe we should... I don't know. Search for other traces. Maybe Harry wrote something else in it." Hermione suggested. "But yeah, you're right. Niether can I understand when and why did Harry write in this book. And how did he do it?"

"Maybe when he worked for the minister. He worked here, in the Ministry, after all. He was one of the best aurors."

"Yeah, but why would he write a single line for Malfoy in a book, before they actually... made up?... And why would he pick this particular book, anyway?"

"That's it, Ron! You're a genious!"

"Am I?"

"Yes! You're right. He didn't write it before he and Draco had met in the headquarters. And he didn't choose this book accidentally. He wanted us to find it!"

"What are you talking about?"

"I think I understand." Draco said quitely. "But how is that possible? I saw him... die... in that shield."

"You said you saw him lying on the ground unmovingly and that you tried to reach for him but you couldn't because of the shield. So how do you know he was dead?"

"I... Well, I thought he was."

"Maybe he wasn't."