The Time-Meddlers [Harmione]

1. Prologue

This story begins with a different version of Deathly Hallows where everything went wrong. It contains spoilers from that book, and if you haven't read it, you'll probably be confused during the prologue, but it shouldn't be necessary to have read it to understand the rest of this story. Much of this prologue is summary, although during the course of this story I may do flashbacks of the scenes that I'm only skimming over here. The main story begins after this.

"Hagrid?" Harry desperately pleaded as he struggled out of the debris caused by the crash of Sirius' old bike. He'd been leaving the Dursleys for the last time using a strategy of six Polyjuiced doubles of himself traveling with different guards. Harry's guard was Hagrid, and they'd crash-landed. Hedwig had already been killed in transit, hit by a stray Avada Kedavra. The Boy-Who-Lived was bleeding from his head as he walked out of the muddy water toward the large figure lying on the ground.

Harry had to swallow down the bile that was rising in his throat at the horrid sight that greeted him. The bloody form of his first friend was sprawled out on the grass with a large, sharp piece of wood sticking out of his chest. He'd been impaled when he landed on the wrong spot - right on top of an old wooden fence.

"Ha...rry," the dying half-giant struggled to say as tears began forming in the Chosen One's eyes.

"I'm here," Harry managed to say while kneeling beside Rubeus. He was blinking rapidly to avoid crying.

"I'm...sorry I couldn' carry ye all the way." Hagrid's eyes went dark as his body went limp.

"No! Hagrid!" shouted Harry as tears began falling down his cheeks.

The nearly-seventeen-year-old boy blinked and found himself just outside the Burrow with Hermione, Remus and Ginny. Suddenly, a broom materialized above them and streaked toward the ground. Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere, but the other passenger of the portkey, a tall, young man with red hair, fell flat on his face.

"Ron!" shouted Hermione and Ginny as they ran toward the limp figure. Harry was watching in shock.

"I'm so sorry," said Tonks, who Harry noticed was crying. "Bellatrix got him with a killing curse, and I couldn't leave his body behind.

Hermione started trembling and fell to her knees. As Harry walked toward her, he felt tears beginning to drop from his eyes yet again on this horrible night. He knelt between Hermione and Ginny, putting an arm around each girl's shoulder, as they mourned together for yet another loss on this awful day.

Harry blinked again and found himself standing with Hermione and Neville as a bright white weasel speaking in Arthur Weasley's voice informed them of Charlie's death.

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The images kept coming faster and faster, making Harry relive the worst moments of the past year as he slept.

He saw Umbridge, who he'd stunned earlier, Avada Kedavra Arthur Weasley from behind on the day Harry, Neville and Hermione broke into the Ministry to steal a Horcrux from Delores. Harry had decided to free some muggle-borns that the former Grand Inquisitor had been interrogating. It was yet another death Harry could blame himself for. That was the day Harry learned that stunning his enemies only allowed them to kill more people. He Reducto'd Umbridge in the head, killing her while she was still celebrating Arthur's death.

Harry then found himself reading issues of the Daily Prophet that Hermione had managed to acquire at different points while they traveled the countryside. One described how the Weasleys were all slaughtered as blood-traitors; another said the same thing about the Lovegoods. When both Parvati Patil and Cho Chang were also killed, Harry realized that every girl he'd dated had been targeted and was now dead. That issue declared that all of the former staff of Hogwarts, with the exception of Snape - the new headmaster - had been murdered while trying to stop other students from being killed. Of course, the Prophet presented it as justice instead of the horrifying holocaust that it really was. Another issue said that Remus and his pregnant wife, Tonks, had also been killed, praising the Ministry for its battle against werewolves and their mates.