The Red Skies Above

Chapter IV

We weren't in the room with the cauldrons and Time Turners, but in a much larger room that lead to another through a pair of solid oak doors. The second room had lines of tables and a ceiling that reflected a blood red sky above, a few stars coming out to play.

Packed into the staircases of the large room that was more of a hallway then a room, were children, all around seventeen years of age. A cluster of children in black robes caught my attention. They had formed a sort of protective clump of about ten people, the majority of which were ginger haired.

Looking closely, I could see my head, extending far above the others. Next to me was Hermione, brown hair down. Ginny was on my other side, but it wasn't her that caught my attention. It was a boy with messy black hair and glasses.

Harry.

Harry Potter was standing, wand out, looking just like I remembered him. Hermione was on his left, and the younger version of myself on his right, at the forward most edge of our clump. With one shout from Harry, we all charged down the staircase and into the thick of masked Death Eaters and Slytherins helping their parents in the fight.

Jets of every color met their attack, while we continued on with countless shouts of, "Protego!" and "Stupefy!" Hermione yelled out more advanced curses while Ginny and young Ron tried to make sure no one in our group got hit by any oncoming spells.

Suddenly, a figure clad in black and green robes stepped forward with a Death Eater and shot a jet of green straight at where Ron had been a moment ago. Draco.

Jumping out from the cluster of people, Ron shot a black jet at Draco, who narrowly avoided it. It was then that I became aware that the Death Eater that had stepped forward with Malfoy was indeed his father, Lucius and was currently attacking Harry and Hermione.

While Ginny ran over to help the younger me, I heard a high-pitched scream, and saw Harry fly through the air and into the Gryffindor house table in the Great Hall. Hermione and the young Ron took off at the same time, chasing after Harry, blocking spells as they went.

Upon catching up to him, we discovered that he had a small trickle of blood and what seemed to be a broken arm, although he gave them no mind. The teen Ron bent over to examine Harry while Hermione took his back.

Harry sat up and began to whisper something to them, after assuring Hermione about fifteen times he was fine. They were to meet him in the Astronomy tower while he tried to locate Dumbledore and hopefully destroy Voldemort, preventing even more deaths in the future. Ron nodded his head in approval, while Hermione continued to ask questions and doubt his plan. When Harry had finally had enough of her questions and stood up, Hermione asked but one more thing.

"How on earth are you going to get to Dumbledore without someone guarding your back?"

Harry just shook his head. "I'll be fine, okay, Hermione? See you guys later!" With that, he turned around and in the blink of an eye, assumed his animagus form of a stag, bowling over Death Eaters as he went. The young Ron watched him go, not knowing that that would be the last he ever saw of Harry alive.

Hermione sighed, and Ron turned to her and she nodded. "Come on, mates! Fall back to the Great Hall! Once everyone's in, seal the doors!" he ordered the students and remaining teachers. To his surprise, they obeyed him and the doors were sealed. But the moment they were, a huge force hit the doors, rattling them to their very hinges. The force continued to hit, until all too soon, the carved head of Morgan le Fay appeared, sending splinters everywhere. The head retracted, and a swarm of Death Eaters took its place.

Drawing his wand, the young Ron gave Hermione a kiss, and they both charged forward into the waiting Death Eaters.

As the image faded, I caught the sight of one very surprised Death Eater run into a giant blue floating hand, that after making a rather rude gesture, swatted him away.

*~*~*~*

As we immerged from the Pensieve, Hermione turned to me, and I caught the sight of a single tear slipping down her cheek. I brushed it away with my thumb, and rounded on Dumbledore.

"What was the point of that?" I asked furiously. "To make us remember what happened the night that Harry was murdered?"

Dumbledore turned to me. "That memory was not placed back into your minds so you only sit there in despair. It was so that you could remember just what killed Harry Potter."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "I knew what killed him, and I didn't need your little show to remind me. Bellatrix Lestrange used 'Avada Kadavra' on Harry while he had his back turned, fighting off another Death Eater. The spell met its mark and killed him."

Dumbledore just shook his head. "No, who really killed Harry, Ron?"

The old man was really testing my patience. Did he think I was stupid? "Bellatrix Lestrange," I replied through gritted teeth.

"Who really did?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange!"

"Who-really-did?"

"I already bloody told you: Bellatrix Lestrange!"

"No, who really killed Harry Potter?"

"BELLATRIX LESTRANGE!"

"Who really did?"

"BELLATRIX LESTRANGE!" I screamed, my hands balled painfully into fists, breathing deeply, my teeth clenched and snarl beginning on my face. I seemed to echo around the room, bouncing off of the cauldrons and hourglasses. I knew the answer now. I had known it all along, but I didn't want to admit it in front of Hermione. Hermione came over to where I stood and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. She tried to get me to sit down, but I wouldn't listen, not to her, not to anyone.

Tearing away from Hermione's grasp, I continued to shout at Dumbledore, letting all of the rage and anguish I had kept bottled up for eight years come spilling out. "BELLATRIX LESTRANGE HIT HARRY WITH 'AVADA KADAVRA' WHEN HIS BACK WAS TURNED, AND DESTROYED ANY AND ALL HOPE OF THE FUTURE, DUMBLEDORE. YOU KNOW THAT. YOU KNOW, WHEN HARRY WAS ALIVE, HE SAW YOU AS ALMOST HIS ROLE MODEL, THINKING YOU WERE WISE, THINKING YOU WERE KIND, THINKING YOU WERE A WONDERFUL PERSON. I NOW KNOW THAT ALL OF THAT WAS FAKE AND THAT HARRY'S FALSE IMAGE OF YOU AND WHO YOU WERE WAS NOTHING BUT A DREAM!"

Dumbledore was working in a cauldron with his back turned to me, yet I could see him cringe slightly at my words. "SO WHAT DO YOU SAY, OLD MAN?" I asked, kicking over a chair and advancing even more, so that I was less than a three feet away from him. I heard Hermione say my name, but I was too preoccupied with Dumbledore. "WILL YOU CONFESS THAT YOU ARE NOTHING BUT AN ACT, THAT YOU WERE JUST A FANTASY TO THE STUDENTS OF HOGWARTS?" I waited about thirty seconds for him to respond.

When he didn't I spat at his feet, yelling in frustration and turned towards the door that I noticed had actually just shrunken to the size of a hand instead of disappearing. I became a dog and began to run towards it. How was the Pensieve's display supposed to help us in any way? All he was trying to do was hurt us, and it had worked.

Just then, a voice washed over me. "Ron." Hermione sounded like she was in tears. I couldn't resist turning to her, shifting back to human form and looking her in the eyes. Despite the quiver in her voice, her eyes were filled with what seemed to be a mix of determination, frustration, guilt, joy, and misery. I couldn't understand how anyone could feel all of those emotions at the same time. When I had been much younger, I understood that feeling once, but after so many years of the same emotions every day, it was hard to believe that joy still existed.

When our eyes met, Hermione recoiled slightly at the rage in my normally calm blue eyes, and looked down. "Dumbledore was talking to you."

I felt the familiar sensation of hatred come over me, controlling my thoughts. "Hermione I don't care what this-this ba-" I sighed. "Hermione, I'm sorry, but I can't deal with having to see the last few moments of Harry's life again. I had spent years trying to get it out of my mind, and I almost had when Dumbledore took the liberty of shoving it very much so back into place. I-I just wasn't expecting it."

"Ron, tell me now," Dumbledore began. "Who is responsible for Harry Potter's death? Who caused it from the start?" Dumbledore asked me.

I sighed again, and faced the truth. Lowering my head, I let the words roll off my tongue just loud enough that Dumbledore could hear me, and the second they were spoken, I had to fight back tears.

"I am."

Hermione gasped, and I lowered my head, a clump of hair that had escaped my ponytail hanging in front of my face. "Harry said that he was going to meet us in the Astronomy Tower, and I allowed him to while Hermione tried to stop him. That's when he was killed, on the way to the Tower and to meet us," I whispered, biting my tongue to prevent myself from entirely breaking down in front of Hermione.

Looking up, I saw that Hermione looked rather nauseous, and I could tell she was fighting the urge to back off slowly. Dumbledore was just smiling at me. "I thought you would never admit it, Ron. Now that you have, how can we fix it?"

I stared at Dumbledore like he had three heads, my tears momentarily forgotten. Fix it? "Fix it? We can't. Harry's dead, and that's all there is to it."

I turned to Hermione who had a look of comprehension stamped onto her face. "The Time Turner! We used it in our third year. Oh, Ron, you wouldn't remember because you were unconscious in the Infirmary. Harry and I went back three hours to save Sirius and Buckbeak then, but the amount of time between Harry's death and now is much greater than that. Professor! When we first arrived here, you said that you had found a way to go back in time years, rather than just hours. Would eight years work? I mean, I know it's a fool's mission, but would it work?"

After a minute or two, I realized I was slightly gaping at just how smart Hermione was. This wasn't just some lesson at Hogwarts where she could have read the answer in a book, this was life.

Dumbledore smiled, "Fifty points to Gryffindor, Miss Granger! You're exactly right. To fix your dilemma, I've discovered that by adding four dragon scales to a Polljuice Potion, you can change into yourself, only eight years younger, and to help even more, I sprinkled some otter noses into it so that you don't have to keep on drinking the potion every hour. You just take one dose and then the antidote to make you normal. It's quite simple really. Try!" Dumbledore lifted up two mugs of a steaming substance that looked worse than normal Pollyjuice Potion and handed us each one. "Drink! There's no need for hair in this."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, remembering the last time I had tasted the horrid potion. I tipped my head back, feeling the lumpy, almost gelatinous substance creep down my throat. My first reaction was to vomit and rid my system of the potion that tasted like blood, vomit, and peppermint all at once, but I coaxed myself into swallowing.

Immediately after the stuff had gone down my throat, I began to feel like the mighty Basilisk itself had hatched within me and was wrestling with my organs. A burning sensation began and I felt as if it was making me melt away like a candle in too high of a flame.

I was shrinking slightly, and I could feel the weight of my long hair going away, as I resumed my hair cut of my youthful age of seventeen. My ponytail had shrunken to about six inches long and the rest of my hair was straight and cut in a straight line about four inches long. The world around me began to grow as I shrunk about five inches to my former height of five foot eleven. The burning grew worse and I doubled over in pain, my vision becoming red. Feeling as if my body would fall apart, I fell to the ground, cursing Dumbledore.

And then it all stopped.

I opened my eyes and painfully lifted myself off of the dirty rock floor, bumping my head on something that immediately gave a small squeak of pain. I brought my eyes to it and yelped. There was Hermione, standing before me with the bushy hair she had finally managed to tame a few years ago. She was slightly shorter than her normal height and her clothes were barely baggy, in contrast to mine, which were huge. When she saw me she let out a laugh.

"It-it worked!" she said looking surprised the minute her high-pitched voice escaped her lips. "It really worked!"

"Yeah, I noticed," I replied, rubbing my head where we had bumped into each other. "It feels so odd to be back in a body that's eight years gone."

"Well, you don't 'ave much time t' get used t' it," Barney stated. I had forgotten that he had been standing there since we had arrived. He had been so quiet. Maybe it had something to do with the man who had tortured him.

"Wait," I said. "That man who tortured you, Barney. Do you know who he was? If he was in the past, I'll take him down for you."

"Erm, that man was, er, well," Barney stuttered.

"Me."

I turned to Dumbledore, in shock. "What? You-you wouldn't have done that to him! Dumbledore that-that was one of the Unforgivable curses! Years ago you would have gotten a lifetime sentence in Azkaban for that! You-"

"Ronald," he cut me off. "I did not use the Cruciatus curse but instead a curse that was meant to look like it. Barney's job was to attract a crowd and pretend to be being tortured. How else would I have gotten your attention?"

I gaped at him, unsure of what to say. He was truly the most brilliant wizard in all of England.

"Anyway, you'd best be going. Now, take this with you," Dumbledore ordered handing a brown rucksack to Hermione. "Inside is an extra dose of Pollyjuice, two antidotes, and some Sickles. I hope those items will serve you well."

"Dumbledore, thank-" Hermione began.

"Now you must really be off. Here, Ron. This is a Time Turner. You use it by turning it upside down for the number of years you wish to go back, but before you turn it, make sure to push this lever right here," Dumbledore informed me, pointing to a little golden arm coming from the top. "Right now it is set for going back in time. To come home, simply flip the switch and turn it eight times. Understand?"

We both nodded and I took the Time Turner and placed the cord over our necks. "Look, Dumbledore, I don't understand! How are you here? I know the Daily Prophet lies, but what happened? How did you escape You-Know-Who?" I asked as Hermione took hold of the Time Turner.

"I didn't, Mr. Weasley."

"What?" Hermione asked the question before I could comprehend what he had said.

"I didn't escape the Death Eaters. In fact, I should be eight years back in the time stream by now. You see, I had developed the Time Turner that could travel years long ago. I finished it the night of the First Battle. Once the Death Eaters broke through, I slipped forward in time to summon you two, for Professor Trelawny had made one last prediction: Harry Potter would die that night," Dumbledore explained.

"I-I don't get it," I stated.

"I decided to come and get you two to save him. Once you are off, I will be back at the attack and I will die shortly after the First Battle, after I make the announcement that Voldemort has indeed returned to full power to the school. I will be helping you one more time when you go back, but after that, I will be gone. It's quite an odd thing, knowing that you're dead. The oddest bit is that when I came into this year, I saw my own tombstone. 'A beloved and great headmaster. We shall miss you greatly,' is what it said. Now, enough. You must be off." With that, Dumbledore reached over to the Time Turner and flipped it eight times and quickly stepped back. "Good luck."

The world around me began to swirl and blur as the Time Turner took us back in time, but I caught sight of Barney waving at us. Different people walked in and out of the room, some of them I knew, and others were strangers. The walls of the room Dumbledore had been in crumbled and disappeared as the walls were being built in reverse. The study disappeared completely and in its place came something quite familiar.

The last thing I saw before my surroundings were unrecognizable was the room Harry and I had shared in fifth and sixth year.