A Paradox In Time

Her Name is Hermione

AUTHOR NOTE

As I am just in the process of completing this story I have decided to update and improve some of the existing chapters. This wont have a significant bearing on the finale but it allows me to refresh my memory to make sure I get the conclusion right and tie up loose ends. By all means re-read in you are inclined, but keep an eye out for the concluding chapter in the coming days if you are interested to see how this one ends.

*** 

Sometime in the 1980's...

That evening, at around seven pm, was when James Potter learnt the date that he and his wife were going to die.

It was a strange thing, to sit there in the cosy living room of their home in Godric's Hollow as the fateful news was delivered. The enormity of the disclosure hung in the air as the words faded, an air thick with a solemn silence permeated only by the occasional crackle of a log settling in the idling hearth.

October the thirty-first. Halloween. That was the day the Potter's would die.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lily took the news better than James. She had always been the cooler, more logical and practical sort. So there were no histrionics at the news, just steely resolve as Lily quested for understanding.

"Why us? Why now?"

Lily asked the question, demanding the silence be broken as she sought to move the situation on. The wizard she'd addressed, who was leaning on the ornate fireplace as he cleaned his half-moon spectacles, turned his eyes on her. His gaze startled the young witch. She was used to seeing energy and vitality there, or boyish excitement as they tackled alchemy problems as her Mentor in the Art.

But now, there was none of that vibrancy. Just sorrow, tinted with a shadow of anger behind his ancient stare.

"Both are good questions, both with answers that have evaded me until the last few days. Pursuing the truth can be an arduous task, as she tends to be a flighty temptress. But, alas, I believe I have now caught her. Or has she caught me? Such things can be difficult to define."

"You have just told us that we will soon be killed, Albus!" James riled from his seat behind the coffee table. "This is hardly the time for riddles."

Albus Dumbledore considered the irony of that statement, but kept his stunted chuckle brief and confined to the outskirts of his beard only. The Potters were rightly distressed, and the old wizard's penchant for whimsy was best stayed checked for now.

Despite James' outburst, Lily retained her stoic composure.

"Forgive my husband ... his passions often run away with him," Lily cut in in semi-admonishment. "Please tell us what you have learned."

Dumbledore, mildly aware of something bothering the spurs of his steel-buckled boots, turned to look at Lily once again. "Voldemort and his Death Eaters have become very specific in the witches and wizards that they have been targeting for murder. They have not being going after particularly prominent people ... senior politicians or powerful Aurors or people involved in the war effort. The targets are just regular folk, ones that seem unconnected from the outside. But I know our enemy well, and I refused to believe that these murders were random or isolated.

"So I have been looking more deeply at them, trying to unearth a pattern. There did not appear to be one, with the only commonality being that each victim had a young son of around a year old or less. I did not see how this could be important, knowing as I do the high value that Lord Voldemort places on magical blood. He would not randomly kill the next generation of wizard boys ... not unless he had a very deep and imperative reason to do so.