Breaking the rules

AN - I know it\'s commonly accepted that the magic used in time turners only allows the user to go back five hours. I couldn\'t leave Fred dead (if you don\'t like that, tough). I also couldn\'t figure out a way to kill everyone off and then have Ron & Ginny get back all within five hours, so I had to tweak things a bit...



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Ginny, Ron, Arthur and Kingsley stood silently around Harry\'s bed as Healer Singh carefully checked his pulse. She had called them all into the room about ten minutes earlier, informing them regretfully that she thought he was slipping away. Sure enough, a few moments ago he had let out a long, rattling breath and had failed to take another. Ginny clung to her father\'s hand so tightly her own fingers ached.



"He\'s gone," Healer Singh confirmed needlessly. "I\'m so sorry for your loss. Feel free to stay with him as long as you\'d like," she smiled sympathetically before quietly leaving the room.



Ron let out a choked sob and threw himself across his friend\'s chest, mumbling incoherently in his grief.



Ginny let go of her father\'s hand and bolted for the hallway. Dropping into one of the stark wooden chairs, she lowered her head to her knees and wept. Her heart hurt so badly she\'d begun to wonder if a person really could die from a broken heart. How could she have lost so many people who were so close to her in just one day? It just didn\'t seem fair to have technically won the war but lost so many of the people who had made it possible. And now Harry. The boy who lived, and lived and lived again...but only until the war was supposed to be over.



The world wasn\'t supposed to work like this.



They were supposed to be free from all the fear and sadness that ruled their lives for so long.



This made her think of Draco, his life literally cut short just when he might finally have been able to show his true self to the world. Murdered just because his mum had helped Harry.



And Hermione, dying so horribly, all alone with a madman who\'d killed her only because Harry had loved her. Maybe Harry hadn\'t been so full of shit when he said he didn\'t want Ginny to be targeted as his girlfriend after all.



Sighing heavily, Ginny wrapped her arms around her knees and huddled on the uncomfortable chair until her father and brother emerged from Harry\'s room several minutes later. Kingsley had slipped out past her a few minutes earlier, apparently lost in thought.



"Are you-" Arthur\'s voice cracked. Clearing his throat, he tried again, "Are you ready to go home?"



Ginny grimaced at the thought of facing the rest of her family with more bad news in the aftermath of Fred\'s death. It was just too much. However, she had no other options. She had no reason to stay in this dimly lit, sterile hallway with it\'s infernal torture devices for chairs. She certainly didn\'t want to be here to see Harry\'s body taken down to the morgue. "Not really, but...yeah," she shrugged, unfolding herself from the chair with a groan. "Gods, can I just sleep for a year?" She grumbled tiredly as her father gave her a warm hug, smiling sadly when he clung to her quite a bit longer than she normally would have allowed.



Just then, Kingsley\'s voice rang out, echoing in the long hallway. "I hope maybe you can put off that sleep for a while longer." Looking toward the lift, Ginny spotted the Minister stalking toward them with an excited look on his face that seemed completely inappropriate in light of recent events. "I need to speak to you in absolute secrecy," he spoke urgently, motioning for them to follow him to Healer Singh\'s nearby office. Once the door was closed, locked and cloaked in a silencing spell, he leveled each of them in turn with a steady, piercing gaze. "This conversation can\'t leave this room."



"Okay," Ron agreed immediately.



"Is it about Harry?" Arthur asked, then added, "Of course I won\'t say anything."



Ginny raised an eyebrow, then impulsively said, "It\'s about Hermione and the Malfoys, too, right? Dolohov killed them all, didn\'t he?"



"Very perceptive, Miss Weasley," Kingsley smiled approvingly at her, "However, I still need you to promise to keep this conversation between us."



"Of course," Ginny nodded agreeably."Should we all take a wizard\'s oath?"



"Not yet," Kingsley shook his head. "I might require it later, but it may be necessary for you to let a few others in on the plan before you\'re done, so for now I\'ll just take your word."



"What is this about, Kingsley?" Arthur asked a bit impatiently. He looked exhausted, and seemed to have aged ten years in the last 24 hours. Ginny glanced at Ron and noticed he was also frowning worriedly at their father.



Kingsley smiled faintly, "I\'ve discovered something. I have been toying with the idea ever since Harry was found injured, but I didn\'t think it was possible..."



"Didn\'t think what was possible?" Ron cut in impatiently.



"Time travel," Kingsley said, a smile slowly creeping across his face.



"But all of the time turners were destroyed during the fighting in the Department of Mysteries," Arthur reminded him ruefully. Ginny shifted guiltily at the reminder.



"That is what we thought," Kingsley grinned. "But it turns out, one of them was a fake. Which means there is one still at large." At this, he turned and pinned Ron with a penetrating stare. "Do you have any idea where it might be?"



Ron blinked. Then blinked again, and an excited smile flashed across his face. "\'Mione returned a fake? She still had hers?!"



"I think so," Kingsley nodded, smiling hopefully. "Do you think you can find it?"



"What are you talking about?" Ginny asked confusedly.



"He thinks we can save Harry and Hermione! " Ron exclaimed excitedly. "\'Mione had a time turner hidden somewhere, and if we can find it, we can save them!"



"You\'ll need to find it fast. You can only travel back twelve hours, and even going back such a relatively short time will likely have consequences," Kingsley said. Biting his lip, he added, "I shouldn\'t even be having this conversation with you, but I cannot just stand by and let things go as they stand right now." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a folded sheet of parchment, "This explains everything that has happened today. If you get into trouble in the past, give it to me, or ask someone you trust to give it to me," he said, handing it to Ginny, who shoved it in her pocket. "Most importantly, try not to do anything to interfere with Harry killing Voldemort. It\'s best to avoid direct interaction with anyone until Voldemort is dead." He gave Ginny and Ron each a commanding look and they both nodded obediently. "Also, you might find that you start to have trouble remembering some things that happened last night and this morning once you start changing things. If you get confused, try keeping the time turner on your person,but it shouldn\'t be too much of a problem. Time travelers usually remember most of their original timeline. Though normally the point is to try not to change anything." He grinned sheepishly.



"As opposed to trying to change almost everything?" Ron chuckled and Kinsley nodded.



"So...you\'re saying we can save Harry and \'Mione?" Ginny whispered dazedly. Then another thought occurred to her. "Fred...what about Fred?" She asked hopefully.



Kingsley frowned thoughtfully and looked at his watch. "The time turner can only go back twelve hours. You\'d have half an hour to find it, use it and get to Fred in time to save him." He opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed and continued, "From what Narcissa told us, the Malfoys were taken from the courtyard near the bridge at around 5:15, shortly after the last fight began. If you don\'t find Dolohov there, check the older dungeons. Obviously, he\'ll end up in Gryffindor tower by 7:30 or so, because he turned Harry over at eight o\'clock. Obviously the sooner you stop him the better."



" We have to get back before Fred dies. Let\'s go," Ron said abruptly. Not waiting for a response, he grabbed Ginny\'s hand and she felt the awkward tug of Apparation behind her navel before finding herself at the massive gates of Hogwarts. The metal was twisted and the ancient gates hung crookedly from broken hinges. "Come on," Ron tugged on her arm and began running toward the castle.



"Do you even know where it is?" Ginny asked, struggling to keep up with his much longer strides as they picked their way around large holes, piles of rubble. They came across far too many bodies from both sides of the battle that hadn\'t been recovered yet, and she wondered how many deaths might get away with preventing.



"Where does \'Mione keep everything?" Ron panted as they finally reached the courtyard and jogged up the steps.



"Her bag!" Ginny gasped as they dashed inside.



"I know she had it here last night, so it has to be here somewhere..." Ron started up the main staircase, slipping on a pile of broken glass. "Bloody hell, we\'ll never make it..."



Ginny smirked. "Did you forget we have wands?" Pulling out her own, she shouted, "Accio Hermione\'s handbag!" then looked around expectantly.



"It can\'t be that easy..." Ron muttered just before the little beaded bag flew down the stairs and smacked him in the head.



"Ha!" Ginny squealed excitedly. "C\'mon...you find the time turner...I\'ll lead the way up to the seventh floor..." she grabbed his arm and pulled him along as she made her way up the stairs to the remains of the seventh floor corridor where Fred had been killed. Her heart was beating so hard she felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. As they skidded to a stop near the crumbled wall where Fred had died, she glanced at her watch. It was already 1:08 pm and she knew their brother had died around 1:10 am. "C\'mon...is it in there?"



"I don\'t know...she\'s got too much crap in here!" Ron exclaimed. Growling frustratedly, he turned the bag upside down and began shaking it. Harry\'s invisibility cloak fell out and Ginny pounced on it. "Fuck this...accio time turner!" Ron yelled frustratedly.



Ginny was about to point out he wasn\'t holding his wand when there was suddenly a light tinkling sound from the depths of the bag. A long, delicate gold chain fell out into Ron\'s hand and he hooted excitedly. Throwing the chain around both their necks he mumbled, "Get that cloak over us!" And began fiddling with the hourglass pendant on the end of the chain.