The Third Time is a Charm

Posted: 06 November 2009

Chapter 43: Meeting Old and New Friends

It was Saturday December 30, 1979 and Harry was waiting for the others to arrive so they could get started on lunch. He was looking forward to seeing Remus again and Regulus was always fun to have around. After the last few weeks of his life completely turned upside down, what he really wanted was to go on a vacation and relax. Perhaps they could go somewhere for New Years, just a short trip to get out of this place. Not that this place wasn’t nice, and big enough for ten families. He just wanted to see something different. He remembered about what happened at Diagon Alley and was thinking they could do something muggle. It should be safer and they would attract less attention. For now, he had to focus his attention on the gathering at hand.

About a half hour before everyone was to arrive, Harry, Becca and Sev got together to discuss what they would be able to tell every one and what they wanted to do. It was still a rule that they could not save Lily and James, but it was getting harder and harder to keep this one promise. Becca had been adamant about it but Harry wondered how much of the past had already changed with their arrival to upset the balance of time. He had to admit to himself that he didn’t know anything about time travel other than the time turner incident and that was only a few hours. He did know that he was not supposed to be seen. This was different, Becca had said, because they were using the charm to correct history.

In her original plan, they were to come back on October 31, 1981 when the Potters were attacked, but because of Evan, they had changed the plan and now parts of the original plan were moving faster allowing them to change other things like saving Regulus and getting the werewolf’s cure to Remus much earlier than before.

When the others started to arrive, they had to conclude their small meeting to start lunch and speak with them.

As everyone else came in, Harry noticed it was Remus (who was looking much better), Regulus, Gorbink, Griphook, Shashi, and three of the healers he had met before; Doc, Kyia and Acubi. Harry assumed that the healers knew everything about why they were here since Becca had told him they came from her time line.

As they sat at the table and munched on sandwiches and juice and tea with scones and biscuits they agreed to keep the conversation light and about neutral things until everyone was finished eating.

As soon as the table was cleared, Severus started the meeting. He first thanked everyone for coming and then got down to business.

“Today we need to discuss Harry’s education. He has completed what would be considered his fifth year at school and it is now time to prepare him for his NEWT’s. Also, if I am not mistaken, Regulus needs to take his NEWT's." Severus paused in his speech in case anyone wanted to ask questions. Reg nodded but said nothing.

Remus took advantage of the pause to ask, “So you want us to tutor Harry for his NEWT’s? I know there are several subjects I could help him with, but wouldn’t a Master be better?”

“Actually, I would like you and Regulus,” Severus waved a hand in Reg's direction as he was speaking, “to consider training with Harry and getting your Masters certification in any subjects that you feel you would want to teach. We will be developing several new textbooks for the publishing company and the better degreed you are the better the books sell.”

This was the story they had come up with so they wouldn’t have to explain about coming from the future and about Hogwarts and Dumbledore. It was difficult enough with the amount of people that already knew and they weren’t ready for Remus to know too much about the future as he may want to tell his friends.

“But that will take at least two years. Why not hire someone else that already has a Masters to help you with the books.” This time it was Regulus that spoke, they had never told him about the time displacement room. The previous night he just went to sleep and didn't think about the time.

“The fewer people that know about us and work for us, the safer we stay. It won’t take two years, only about two months at the most. We have a way to sort of accelerate the learning process. When you have completed your training, you will have to take the tests with the Ministry Educational Department as if you home studied. The test is a little harder and longer for home study students, but you will be prepared for it.”

Doc spoke up and asked, “What do you want from us and how soon? We have schedules at the center that need to be adhered to. We have patients that are starting to come in for treatment and we feel that soon we can accommodate the magical community in the efforts of magical core regeneration.”

“I have seen the reports,” Severus answered him; “they are very impressive.” The Professor looked at the other healers sitting at the table. “All I ask is that you teach us some of your techniques. Maybe take one day a week to help in the training rooms. You know how we will be accelerating the teaching so you can adjust your schedules accordingly. However you can help is fine with us. We basically wanted you to know that this is starting on the first Monday of the New Year and we will be ready for you after a week from there.”

“Is there anything else you need from us today? We have a young wizard coming in this afternoon that his parents say is a squib. We are hoping to explain how we can help him and hope to educate them about squibs and muggleborns. I hope you get some more books published soon. It is easier to hand them a book to read, rather than relaying all that information in person.”

“Wait” Remus butted in, “you mean there are more books than the one you distributed for Christmas? I have only seen a few children’s books and the one about You-know-who.”

"You mean Mr. Whos-its-whats-it." Harry said.

Severus smirked at Harry and every one else just looked at him as if not understanding what he said. “I forgot you have been out in the field. There are a whole series of books and several of them go into more details about squib and muggleborns. They have made a fascinating impact on the wizarding community. I expect some of the Death Eaters will have quite a few surprises as the upcoming year unfolds.” Severus informed not just Remus but everyone around the table.

“Gorbink and Griphook, we will need schedules on when we can get training from you on Business Management, Finances, Weapons Making, Blood Wards and Language. You also know how we can accelerate the training; you just need to let me know if we need to come to you or if you want to come here. Please take your time and let us know at your convenience.”

Griphook had never seen such cooperation between the several different species sitting at the table. He actually could not ever remember hearing about such a meeting before; where dark elves and light elves and goblins and wizards were all in the same room pleasantly conversing with the same respect for one another. He looked at Gorbink to see if the older goblin would show any of the surprise that Griphook felt, but the older goblin was conversing with these people as if this was a daily occurrence and would find it strange if everyone weren’t courteous to one another.

Severus was looking at the younger goblin that was looking around the room. He imagined the younger being was quite untrusting of the reactions from everyone. Wizards did not treat goblins well and he couldn’t blame the little being for his disbelief. Hopefully, before the training, Gorbink could convince him that this was essentially a new order of the magical community and this is why the cross training was so important. He gave a brief pause in his musings to remember what Becca had said about his children doing great things for the magical world and wanting to train the younger Harry to be the ‘self confident and knowledgeable wizard he was born to be’.

“Who is going to train us in the other subjects?” Remus wanted to know. “I would love to study Charms, Transfiguration and maybe DADA. Those were my best subjects at Hogwarts and where I did the best in my NEWT’s.”

“We have those teachers already available and waiting.” Severus replied with a smirk on his face. “In fact why don’t we go to the training rooms right now?” He turned to the healers and the goblins, “You may join us if you wish or if you have more pressing matters, we have concluded our meeting. I appreciate your coming to see the students and thank you all for giving up your valuable time to help us.”

The goblins took their leave, wished everyone a good day and left for Gringotts. They had other duties to see to and wanted to work on a training schedule immediately. The healers did the same as they had patients to see to and were looking forward to collaborating on their training schedules as well. Severus was then left with Remus, Regulus, Harry and Becca. The young woman declined as well saying she had other things to do. Actually they had spoken about this earlier and nobody knew what spending time in that room would do to the delivery date of Evan. They had come back in time at precisely to the day for the normal gestation period of the fetus to be born on July thirty-first, and didn’t want to risk changing that. There were already risks in early or late delivery but they wanted to keep things as accurate as possible.

So Severus, Remus and Harry went to view the training rooms on the middle floor of the manor. Remus had never been given a tour and Regulus, although he had seen more than Remus, had yet to see all of it. As they made their way to the elevator and to the second level they were discussing all the subjects that would be available to them and what they would need to do first.

Finally, they passed the pool and proceeded to the part of the facility that was under number three Privet Drive and the street itself. Severus turned to the three younger men and said. “Through this door gentlemen is a time displacement area. The training you will receive here is going to be more intense than you would receive anywhere else. The hour that you would spend outside this door is the equivalent of twenty four hours inside.”

Severus opened the door as he noticed the confused looks on the faces of Remus and Regulus. They didn’t understand how that was possible. Inside the door, there was first a little reception area or common room with three leather couches with side tables in deep mahogany and a matching book shelf with many old tomes on its shelves. There was a perch in the corner for Fawkes. There was also a large fireplace with a mini floo at its side and they noticed six empty frames for portraits.

There were three doors off to the side to get into the remainder of the areas. The first door was the training room. It was basically a large empty space with the acromantula building substance surrounding the room. The floor, walls and ceiling were all made from the same material. The room must have been about twenty meters long and about fifteen meters wide and looked to be completely empty except for a few battle armaments on the walls. Again there were six frames for portraits and again they were empty.

“This is obviously where you will study spells and DADA. This room is completely magic proof. If a spell hits a wall, floor or ceiling it will not break or harm it in any way. Also, any spell or magic used in this entire facility is undetectable by the Ministry. They will not know magic is being used here. This is also the room for physical training and where you will learn martial arts. I will be joining you for those classes.”

After a few more minutes of gawking at the room, they went back through to the common room and then through the second door.

“Here are the classrooms you will be using.” Here they actually went down a hall and peered into six rooms outfitted with eight desks and chairs and with bookshelves that were already packed with books and reference materials. The same six empty portrait frames were hanging on one wall in front of the desks in each classroom. They were all surprised to see that in one room each desk had its own laptop computer. Remus and Regulus looked at the small slim box on the desk and wondered at it.

“What is this?” Regulus finally got the courage to ask. He didn’t want to seem unknowledgeable but he had never seen one before.

“Muggle technology, future muggle technology.” Harry answered with a smirk. “We get to use computers! Wicked!”

“I thought muggle technology couldn’t be used in a magical facility?” Remus queried.

“This is not a magical facility run on magic. It is more a muggle facility run on computers and a little magic. Yes we do use magic here but we do not depend on it to do everything. You will learn more about that during classes.” Harry was the one to explain this. He, Severus and Becca had already had long conversations about the subject and he knew he actually understood more of it than Severus.

“Is that how you hide it from the Ministry?” Remus wanted to know.

“Partly, remember the acromantula shells that this facility is made with are impervious to magical destruction. That’s one of the reasons we use it. Have you seen the trunks that the building department has started making?”

“Yes, I gave one to the Potters for the baby. It was a demonstration model and James and Sirius took it outside to try and destroy it. They had fun for about half an hour but lost interest when they exhausted their list of spells. It was intact when I left there.”

This was an interesting fact that Severus didn’t know. Later he would have to think about what the impact of that would do to the future. Then again, it probably wouldn’t do anything except give baby Harry a few belongings that were previously destroyed from the blast.

“That is basically the same premise. This facility is made the same way. One of the things that protect us is the acromantula shell and the other is the runes imbedded into the shells. This allows us maximum security.”

“Why do you need all this security? I mean, this is pretty extraordinary even for the war. No one has this kind of protection that I know of.” Remus asked.

“That is no one knows how to make this kind of protection, but that doesn’t mean it is not needed.” Severus responded. “Voldemort,” Severus began and smirked as the two younger men winced while Harry smiled.

"You mean Mr. Whatchamacallit." Harry said and watched as Severus frowned at him for his interruption.

“has attacked us before. Do you recall the story about three people in Diagon Alley that were attacked by Death Eaters and put up an impenetrable shield? It was a story in the Daily Prophet trying to find out who the three people were.”

Both Remus and Regulus knew about this and nodded then waited for Severus to continue. “That was us,” was all he said by way of explanation.

Regulus who already knew about the Dark Lord’s recruiting tactics just nodded and simply said. “Forcible recruitment.”

“That’s right.” Then changing the subject he continued, “Let’s go see the remainder of the facility.

They looked into the other classrooms. Each one outfitted with eight desks, each one with the six empty portrait frames facing the desks and each classroom with one wall of bookshelves filled with books for further study. One classroom was obviously for potions as the cauldrons were already in place and there were potion ingredients as well as books on the shelves. The other classroom looked to be more for Transfiguration and Charms judging by the books and then the next was full of finance and business management books as well as some on weaponry making and warding.

When they left that area and returned to the entrance room they went through the third door; this lead up some stairs and made Harry feel like he was back in Gryffindor tower. The stairs stopped at another common room with yet more bookshelves and comfortable cushioned chairs and a huge fireplace with yet again another mini floo. Once through the common room there was another hallway that led to eight bedroom suites.

Each living suite had a small sitting room, a bedroom and a large bath. They each were in a different color as if representing a different house similar to Hogwarts. One room was royal blue with beige accents, another was gold with red accents, another was green with silver, the others were crimson red with white, purple with silver, brown with beige and the last one was sea foam green with darker green and white accents. In the green and silver room the suite was slightly larger than the others with a king size bed instead of the other queen size beds in the other rooms.

Harry looked at this and turned to Severus, “This must be our room. You had to have Slytherin colors didn’t you?”

“Why would you think that? I didn’t come in here and decorate. It was already here when I came to look around last week. It is the bigger room however and we would be more comfortable in it.”

“As you can see gentlemen, these are your living quarters while you stay here and study. It will be difficult for you to go back and forth from the time displacement area to normal time. This will allow you to feel more like in school and give you the extra time to study so that you can finish faster.”

“How long will we be in here?” Remus asked. “I have some appointments with the foreign werewolves that will need to be put off if we stay here too long.”

“I didn’t know you had contacted them already.” Severus said. “You will need to clear your calendar for the next month or two depending on what you are willing to learn. If you think someone else can handle it, you may want to appoint someone to take your place to continue the work without interruption. If they will take an oath, because they will be virtually unsupervised for as long as you are here, but of course you will not need the house elves so they can keep an eye on anyone you wish to assist you." Severus thought about what he said and added. "We can however give you a few hours outside the room by using time turners. We are in possession of several."

"I would now like to introduce you to your teachers. They are waiting in the common room.” Severus informed them. He was really going to enjoy this; even Harry didn’t know who would be teaching them although he might have his suspicions.

They followed Severus to the common room that was just down the hall, but when they entered they didn’t see anyone there. Severus went over to the six empty portrait frames and tapped on each one twice with his wand to get the missing occupants to come forward. They had wanted to let the young men tour the area before revealing themselves. The six frames soon filled with people and the three men looked in shock as they started to recognize who was there.

“Oh, Merlin.” Regulus said as he looked at some of the occupants of the frames. He didn’t know all of them but he knew most.

As the sixth frame filled with a man and a woman, the old man answered. “Hello, my dear boy, what can I do for you?”

HPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHPSSHP

In another part of the country…

“Narcissa, dear, please get me today’s paper. I seem to have lost a day with all the meetings I have been having.” Lucius said at breakfast to his beautiful wife.

“Lucius, darling, that is today’s paper. Today is December 30, 1979. There is no other paper.” She was puzzled at his actions. First he came back last night apologizing for being gone a whole day when he was away only three hours. Now this. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well.

“No, dear, I am sure today is the thirty-first. Severus and I were in meetings all day yesterday and tomorrow we have a report to make.” He didn’t need to tell her who they had to make a report to.

“Lucius, are you feeling alright? If you do a tempus totalis you will get the date and you can see for yourself.” Narcissa was getting worried.

Lucius did the spell and watched as the date and time floated through the air. He then excused himself from the breakfast table to floo call Severus Snape. Maybe he could shed some light on this conundrum. Narcissa watched him leave, with a frown marring the features of her beautiful face.

As Lucius Malfoy threw the floo powder into the flames, he redid the spell and still got the same answer. Today was December thirtieth not the thirty-first. How can that be?

As Malfoy was on his knees in front of the fireplace, he remembered the conversations about the mini floo that would allow him to stand in dignity instead of going to his knees to have a conversation with someone. Those people were right; this had the potential to double the use of the floo network and he would be the first to have one of those things installed as soon as possible.

As Snape’s face appeared, Lucius did not bother with small talk. “Are you aware of the fact that today is the thirtieth and not the thirty-first?” Lucius asked. “Do you have any idea how this happened?”

“Stand back, I am coming through.” Snape appeared in front of Lucius, and then doused the fire. No one could easedrop that way.

“I don’t know Lucius, but I don’t think we ought to say anything. We are either having an illusion, a psychotic episode, or these people are so powerful they threw us back in time so we wouldn’t be missed. Either way, it doesn’t look good for us.” Lucius agreed with this assessment.

Lucius looked thoughtful. “The older one had a strong resemblance to you, are you sure you don’t know him?”

“I have never seen these people before, but I do agree; there seems to be some sort of family resemblance.”

“We will either be frowned upon for delusions or will make those Prince people mad. They command snakes and basilisks, seven of them, better than the Dark Lord and they don’t seem to think we are a threat. I imagine they have ways to keep tabs on us. I don’t want to take the risks.” Lucius told Severus in a whispered voice. “There were three, three, parslemouths in that room. Who has that kind of power? I don’t want to alienate them; they are the only ones I know that could possibly help us.”

“Agreed.” Severus replied and relit the flames to return back to his home. They didn't need to discuss what help they needed. Neither one would speak of it aloud, but they didn't like bowing and scraping to a mad man. Before he left however he turned back to the aristocratic blonde. “We will have to meet later, before the other meeting so we can put all our facts together.” Lucius nodded and Severus went back to his own home.

A/N I want to thank everyone that has reviewed. You guys are really great and I appreciate you letting me know what you like and don't like. Even the criticism is welcome. Thank you to all those who have recently reviewed, Kim, nari-chan, terrimelfi, Nefari, kaasan, Vincavec, mithrilandtj, and MrsCakeAkaJane. Next chapter will be up by Sunday. I first put this up of AFF on 9/7 so this is my two month anniversary. Thanks for all the encouragement.