Choices Not Made

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In the mean time Harry had been led over to the castle library by Twinky. He was amazed by the sheer size of the place upon finding it. From what he was able to discern, it took up a large section of the second and third floors in the East Wing, comprising of one very large room surrounded by many smaller rooms on each level. Harry wandered around, skimming through the books to see if they held anything of interest, but quickly learned that Snape had filled this library -- they were nearly all related to potions and the dark arts.

He finally had to ask Twinky to direct him to books covering recent history. He was very happy when he found the Daily Prophet Decade-in-Review book.

“Auror Richard Schacklebolt wins the Misely Award for outstanding bravery in the face of danger.” Announced one headline he found skimming through the book. Below it was a picture of a scowling man who somewhat resembled Kingsley.

Another headline warned animaguses to stay away from muggles; especially those with exotic forms. They reported that an African born witch had been shot near a farm in her panther form.

Skimming through some more pages just showed more of the same -- interesting things, but nothing he was looking for. The 1,732 page book, while doubtlessly informative, was just too long to go pouring through for information on his friends. (Hermione probably would love it.)

He noticed the house elf still standing there. “Twinky do you know what’s covered in this book?” Harry asked, presuming that if she did then he might find the answers he needed a bit faster.

“Twinky does not know everything in the book as Twinky has never read the book.” She looked somewhat distraught at this. “Twinky does know what happened in the news during the last 10 years. Twinky tries to read the newspaper as often as she can,” she added hopefully.

“Uh... even better!” He found it a bit odd envisioning a house elf reading the newspaper. He couldn’t decide where to start his questions, as he knew nothing. It occurred to him that Twinky might find the line of questioning strange, so he decided to start with that. “Don’t you find the request that Snape… Severus made this morning was odd, the idea of us pretending to be ignorant of the last 10 years of our lives? Don’t you want to question whether or not we are taking polyjuice to look like ourselves?”

“No, Twinky is not supposed to question her masters, she is supposed to obey them. Twinky has no reason to question whether her master is really her master. House elves are bound to their masters so that they always can tell if someone is not their master.” Twinky paused. “Master Harry is Master Harry so Twinky obeys him, even if Master Harry forgets Twinky.”

“Ok, that’s good to know. Do we pay you?” Harry asked, wondering whether she would be insulted if he forgot to.

“No. Twinky is not paid. Twinky is a good house elf.” She looked horrified at the thought.

“Sorry, I’m sure you are a very good house elf. It’s just that you wear clothes and the only House Elves I remember that wore clothes were paid,” Harry answered, trying to sound reassuring.

“The house elves here that wear clothes do so because of an argument between you and Mrs. Hermione Weasley. She did not like you owning house elves, but the house elves were from the Castle and did not want to be paid or be set free. You finally convinced her that you would give us the choice and that we could be paid or leave if we wanted to. Also, those house elves that will be seen by humans are supposed to wear clothes,” Twinky explained.

“Alright.” Harry thought about what he needed to ask next. He remembered her earlier attempt to tell them about the company that they had apparenly moved part of the castle to house.

“White Lightening is your company. You established it with Remus Lupin 10 years ago. Remus Lupin gathered nine board members to run the company. The purpose of White Lightening is to improve the lives of all Wizards and Magical Creatures. The company makes most of its money through the entertainment companies that it owns or co-owns,\" Twinky piped up, once again adopting her role as tour guide. \"There are 30 different entertainment companies under White Lightening. The company itself is a non-profit research firm. Mostly medicinal potions and spells research, but it does have a muggle technology department and a product development department. Master Snape is head of the Potions lab.” Twinky looked proud of this.

“What’s happened at Hogwarts in the last 10 years?”

“The Headmistress is Minerva McGonagall. The assistant Headmaster is Professor Flitwick. The Head of Gryffindor is Professor Michael McGonagall of Transfiguration. The Head of Slytherin is Master Snape’s son, Professor Snape of Potions. Professor Lupin teaches Defense against the Dark Arts.” Twinky paused for a minute. “Twinky thinks that is all that has changed in the last 10 years.”

“How about the Weasleys?”

“About two years after the war there was a great dissension in the Ministry of Magic and many arguments over who would become the next Minister of Magic. Somebody -- in what the papers said was supposed to be a joke --gestgested Arthur Weasley. But after the great effort he made in the war against Voldemort and the amount of press his family had received in the following years, the joke was taken seriously and when it came time to appoint the Minister, he was chosen.

As for the rest of the Weasleys; Bill Weasley has married Fleur Delacor. Charlie Weasley was awarded many honors and was much pursued but decided to continue his work with Dragons. Percy Weasley barely escaped imprisonment in Azkaban (many people think that he was saved by his father’s newfound position of power). Fred and George Weasley head Weasley’s Wizarding Wheazes, which is a subsidiary of White Lightening. Ron Weasley died 4 years ago.” Harry’s skin paled, Ron was dead. “Leaving behind Hermione Weasley and their two children. Ginny…”

“Wait…” Harry interjected. “How did Ron die?”

“Nobody knows, Master.” Twinky answered.

“What do they know of his death?” He couldn’t believe that Ron was dead, maybe he was really captured and was still waiting to be rescued.

“He died in the line of duty. He was found in front of the Castle. The investigation indicated that he Apparated here in an attempt to escape whomever was chasing him. They followed him and killed him. He was found by Master Snape who called the Aurors upon finding him, he had been dead for several hours when he was found.” She explained.

“How do they know it was hit cot could’ve been someone else’s body?” The anguish in his voice was unmistakable.

“You ordered tests done. You were very distraught, Ron Weasley was your best friend.” Twinky looked worried at causing her Master grief. “Does Master want any further news?” she asked, hoping to distract him.

“No. I want to know how to get back, how to save Ron.”

“Twinky doesn’t think that’s possible.”

“Can you show me where books that might deal with forms of time travel d bed be?” Harry decided that he had to find a way to get back, to save Ron. There was no way that he had been Obliviated, he would never have allowed Ron to die. He would have died first! Twinky reluctantly led him to a likely section of books while informing him that time travel was highly regulated by the ministry and left him to browse through them.

Harry had finally settled down to read one of the books when a small boy walked in. The boy looked about four years old and rded ded Harry of a younger version of himself. The boy even had his eyes and his messy hair... no glasses, though.

“Hi Daddy,” the boy greeted him shyly.

Harry froze, just managing to squeeze out a cautious “Hi” in response. What was the boy\'s name? What kind of behaviour does he expect from his father? The last thing he wanted to do was screw up and traumatize the poor kid. Harry recalled that Danielle had said that was what the older kids would be doing, and asked “What are you doing up here? I thought you were flying?”

“I stayed with Constance and played with Justin, he was being fussy,” the boy answered. “He’s napping now. I told Constance that I was too old for a nap and came to find you.” He paused and checked to make sure that Harry didn’t look upset. “Papa is in his lab and he doesn’t want me bothering him when he’s there.”

Harry tried to look reassuring. “You can stay with me if you want. Just try to be quiet, I’m reading.”

The boy grinned and climbed onto Harry’s lap, which surprised Harry as he thought the boy would sit in one of the many other couches or chairs in the room. The boy fussed in his lap until he found a comfortable position and Harry was forced to try to re-position himself so he could actually hold the book in such a way as to read it. Finally he gave up and levitated the book and had it stay steady in front of him while he held the child. The boy soon fell asleep.



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