Change the Future

DH 26

"Potter!" Aberforth Dumbledore stood blocking the corridor ahead, his wand held ready. "I've had hundreds of kids thundering through my pub, Potter." 

"I know, we're evacuating," Harry said, "Voldemort's"

"attacking because they haven't handed you over, yeah," Aberforth said. "I'm not deaf, the whole of Hogsmeade heard him. And it never occurred to any of you to keep a few Slytherins hostage? There are kids of Death Eaters you've just sent to safety. Wouldn't
it have been a bit smarter to keep 'em here?" 

"It wouldn't stop Voldemort," Harry said, "and your brother would never have done it." Aberforth grunted and tore away in the opposite direction.  And then Harry skidded around a final corner and with a yell of mingled relief and fury he saw them, Ron and Hermione, both with their arms full of large, curved, dirty yellow objects, Ron with a broomstick under his arm. "Where the hell have you been?" Harry shouted.

"Chamber of Secrets," Ron said. 

"Chamber—what?" Harry said, coming to an unsteady halt before them.

"It was Ron, all Ron's idea!" Hermione said breathlessly. "Wasn't it absolutely brilliant? There we were, after you left, and I said to Ron, even if we had the other one, how are we going to get rid of it? We still hadn't gotten rid of the cup! And then he thought of it! The basilisk!"

"What the?"

"Something to get rid of Horcruxes," Ron said simply. Harry's eyes dropped to the objects clutched in Ron and Hermione's arms, great curved fangs, torn, he now realized, from the
skull of a dead basilisk. 

"But how did you get in there?" he asked, staring from the fangs to Ron. "You need to speak Parseltongue!" Ron made a horrible strangled hissing noise.

"It's what you did to open the locket," he told Harry apologetically. "I had to have a few goes to get it right, but," he shrugged modestly, "we got there in the end." 

"He was amazing!" Hermione said, "Amazing!"

"So" Harry was struggling to keep up. "So"

"So we're another Horcrux down," Ron said, and from under his jacket he pulled the mangled remains of Hufflepuff's cup. "Hermione stabbed it. Thought she should. She hasn't had the pleasure yet."

"Genius!" yelled Harry.

"It was nothing," Ron said, though he looked delighted with himself. "So what's new with you?" As he said it, there was an explosion from overhead. All three of them looked up as dust fell from the ceiling and they heard a distant scream.

"I know what the diadem looks like, and I know where it is," Harry said, talking fast. "He hid it exactly where I hid my old Potions book, where everyone's been hiding stuff for centuries. He thought he was the only one to find it. Come one." As the walls trembled again, he led the other two back through the concealed entrance and down the staircase into the Room of Requirement. It was empty except for three women, Ginny, Tonks,
and an elderly witch wearing a moth-eaten hat, whom Harry recognised immediately as Neville's grandmother.

"Ah, Potter," she said crisply as if she had been waiting for him. "You can tell us what's going on."

"Is everyone okay?" Ginny and Tonks said together. 

"Shouldn't Tonks be with the baby" Andromeda asks looking at her daughter. Rory looks down unable to look at Ted or Andromeda.

"'S far as we know," Harry said. "Are there still people in the passage to the Hog's Head?" He knew that the room would not be able to transform while there were still users inside it.