Hindsight

Compatibility

The last week of February went by quickly. With Rita Skeeter in Harry and Hermione's pocket, they had been able to use the Prophet to drum up support for a Ministry-wide purge of Death Eaters, their supporters, and anyone who had taken a bribe from them. Now, nearly every witch and wizard in Britain, and more importantly, in the Wizengamot, that was not a Death Eater or otherwise a pure-blood supremacist was calling for Amelia to take some kind of action.

In the previous timeline, Harry had hated mass hysteria like this, for it had always tarred and feathered him. First it was the Heir of Slytherin in his second year, then it was the whole wizarding world thinking that he was some sort of attention-seeking lunatic in his fifth. Now, for once, the public outcry in the fallout of Lucius's arrest and sentencing was actually playing right into Harry's hand.

Hermione was excited, too. 'When Riddle returns, he'll try to gather his followers,' she whispered excitedly to Harry at breakfast one day, 'When he realizes that he has fewer followers than he would have liked, he'd probably try something dramatic earlier. That'll force him into the open sooner than in the "old timeline".'

'But when he's forced into the open, he'll start killing indiscriminately,' Harry pointed out.

'That could happen,' Hermione replied in a concerned voice, 'But he won't be able to strengthen his forces in secret, nor will he be able to plant moles in the Ministry.'

'And he'll be weakened on top of that by the botched resurrection ritual.'

'Exactly. All this is assuming, however, that you can't finish Riddle right in the graveyard. If we can destroy the Ring before June as we're planning to now…'

Harry nodded. 'Assuming. There're so many things that could go wrong, though. We might not be able to destroy the Ring by then after all. Or he could…call the Death Eaters to attack me and I'd be forced to retreat.'

'However many remaining Death Eaters he has,' Hermione reminded him, 'Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Avery are gone already.'

'But Amelia says a lot of them had already gone into hiding,' Harry said, worried.

Hermione trembled nervously and pulled Harry tight to her. 'I…I'll hate waiting when you're in that graveyard – '

'You're not going with me!'

'But – '

'Hermione, Riddle wants me alive so that he could perform the ritual, but he wouldn't think twice about murdering you. You're less than cattle to the Death Eaters, remember? Please, don't even think about it.'

'Harry,' she protested, 'It's not like I won't be able to hold my own. I can fight as well as you can.'

'I'll be fine on my own,' Harry pleaded. 'You don't need to come with me. Please, Hermione.'

She shot him a look that clearly said 'we'll discuss this later' before continuing with her breakfast.

Neither Dumbledore, nor Ron, nor Draco Nameless bothered them in the last weeks of February and the first weeks of March. Though they had an uneasy feeling that all three were planning something, Harry and Hermione simply kept their heads down and continued going about their daily business, studying Ancient Runes and Arithmancy secretly during all their regular classes. Hermione determined that Harry was now as good as a mid-sixth-year student in both subjects.

'Keep going at it, Harry. You've got this!' she constantly egged him on. Harry was feeling more confident as the days went by at their plan to get the Ring before June.

They were training Ginny, Neville, Luna, and Susan harder than ever. They demonstrated the infamous Organ-Liquefaction Curse on a transfigured rat – Harry did not miss the irony that they had chosen to demonstrate the Curse on Wormtail's Animagus form – which received loud gasps of horror and disgust.