Chapter Text
"What the hell is going on here, Amelia?" Scrimgeour asked.
Dawlish was staring at him like he'd seen a ghost. He looked like his brain was five seconds away from short circuiting.
"That's a bit of a long story," Amelia said with a sigh. "Just over a month ago, we were brought here by Mother Magic."
"Mother Magic?" Williamson asked in disbelief. While he certainly believed in the deities, he'd never heard of them interfering in wixen lives quite so blatantly.
"Indeed," Amelia continued. "She brought us here to read a set of books."
"Books? This sounds like hogwash to me," Scrimgeour said. "Sounds like someone is playing a prank on the lot of you. Kidnapped by deities, my arse."
"She said that we were killing magic."
"Killing magic?" Several of them looked concerned now. "Is that even possible?" Dawlish asked.
"Of course not," Scrimgeour said sharply.
"It's the truth," Tonks said. "The deities gave us a task. We have to save magic."
Scrimgeour actually laughed. "You're all deluded. Have you been checked for the imperius?"
Alastor barked a laugh of his own at that. "I'll have you know Rufus, we're perfectly in our right minds."
"Well, that will be a first for you," Scrimgeour replied.
Amelia sighed. "Not that it isn't fun to watch you two bicker, can we get back to it?"
The two aurors nodded sharply before turning away from each other.
"Mother Magic said that the war..."
"What war?" Rufus cut in.
"The war, Rufus. How do you not know about the war!" Dawlish said. "You died in it!"
"I died?" Rufus paled ever so slightly.
"You did," Amelia said. "I don't know the details but no doubt, they'll come up in the books."
"How does Dawlish know about this war and I don't?"
"Because the deities have brought people from two different points in time. Those from the first point in time, haven't lived through the war yet." Amelia was doing her best to be patient. But this would be so much easier if the man would just stop interrupting her.
"So that's why there's two of me?" Dawlish asked. "One from each timeline?"
"Correct," Alastor growled.
"Right..." Amelia began again. "Where was I? The books. The deities wanted us to read these books. They're all about Harry Potter's time at Hogwarts."
"Why would the deities want us to read books about a child?" Scrimgeour asked in disbelief.
"Probably because he's the child of prophecy," Dawlish said. "It was believed he alone could defeat you-know-who."
"But you-know-who has been gone for nearly a decade," Scrimgeour said crossly.
"And that is where you are wrong," Kingsley said. "He wasn't gone. Merely weakened and hiding."
"Well, then... If that's true, we should just destroy him once and for all."
"Voldemort has already been dealt with," Amelia said, ignoring the way they flinched at the name.
"But Kings just said..."
"I know what he said! Mother Magic and Lord Death took care of him. He's... Well, he's been healed."
"Healed? The man should be dead!"
"He wasn't sane, Rufus." Alastor sighed.
"You've all exploded your upper cauldrons," Rufus said gruffly.
"Back to the story," Kingsley said. "Mother Magic was angry with us. She said we had gotten everything wrong. Harry Potter isn't the chosen one or the boy-who-lived, he's her prince."
"Mother Magic has chosen a prince?" Rufus asked, feeling momentarily floored. This time he actually did sit down.
"Yes. And she has charged us with reading the books so that we will be able to help him."
"I want to see these books!" Rufus demanded.
"We don't have them all. Only the first five. We can give you all a copy of the first one so you can get caught up. We have a week before we plan to start the fifth book."
Rufus stared at Kingsley. "You believe this, do you?"
"I do, sir."
Rufus sighed. "But what were you saying about the minister?"
"We're planning a Coup D'état," Amelia said almost blasély.
"This must be a dream," Rufus muttered.
"It makes sense," Williamson said. "Fudge was the reason we didn't have time to prepare for war. He refused to acknowledge that you-know-who was back."
"That and he's also corrupt," Kingsley said with a shrug.
"I'm guessing the evidence of this is in the books," Rufus gruffed.
"Yes." Amelia nodded her head.
"Now will you explain why Sirius Black is in that room back there?"
"He's innocent," Dawlish said. "It was announced after his death in the DoM."
"He's innocent?" his younger self asked in surprise.
"Yes. And we have the real culprit here in the chamber too. Peter Pettigrew," Tonks told them.
"But he's dead!" Rufus barked.
Tonks shrugged. "He faked his death."
"He's not the only death eater in the chamber though," Alastor said. "Lucius Malfoy..."
"Was under the imperius," Rufus said. He'd always doubted it himself. He'd been highly suspicious that gold had exchanged hands to keep him out of Azkaban.
"Augustus Rookwood, Antonin Dolohov, Barty Crouch Junior..."
"But he's dead!" Rufus blurted out. What was with all these people coming back to life?
"Apparently not," Moody said, folding his arms.
"I guess I should be grateful Lestrange isn't here," Rufus muttered before darting his eyes to look at Amelia. "She's not, is she?"
"No."
"Thank Merlin for that." He took a deep sigh. "Right, hand over the first book then. It sounds like we have a lot of reading to do over the next week."
He extended his hand expectantly. Amelia grinned. That hadn't been quite as hard as she had expected.