Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, I am just playing in her world.

Radical Change

Harry closed his eyes and pushed his head back into the compartment's head rest. Glad at last to be alone. His two best friends had the prefects' meeting and he could allow himself to unwind. Ginny was in a major tiz, due to his break up with her at Dumbledore's funeral. All the head ache and bother from the school could no longer affect him during this moment to himself. Of course he was stuck blaming himself. Surely there had to be something he could have done while frozen on top of the astronomy tower.

Dumbledore was dead, the single biggest deterrent to Voldemort gone, and what was to happen now? Was not Hogwarts safe because the old headmaster had been there? How quickly would the country fall to the dark lord and his death eaters without the only wizard he feared being there to stop him? On top of that he found himself obligated to return to 'Durzkaban'; when he had so many arguments set up to use on the now dead man, as to why he shouldn't have to return to that hell-hole.

Some dark parts of his psyche actually wondered if Dumbledore had deliberately died to avoid the annual arguments they had, each end of Summer-term. Considering he believed he had nearly won the one after his OWL's, he had been confident in winning this one until the other participant of their annual arguments went and kicked-the-bucket, laid-down-six-feet-under, chose to sprout daisies. Then of course, within the year he would likely be joining him, or he would have another friend die because of him.

The compartment door opened and Hermione entered closing it afterward. She then proceeded to fire numerous curses and charms upon the door and compartment walls. Crookshanks looked up from his nap in the seat beside the window, and seeing something in his mistress's eyes chose to close his own again and return to his sleep on the sun warmed compartment seat, as it didn't look like she would be sitting still.

"Where's Ron?"

"He is going to cover our rounds with Ginny. We unfortunately drew the first shift. They are going to give us some space, as I told them I needed some time alone to talk with you. I had to call in some favors from Ginny as she is still ticked with you." Hermione began, then used her hands to stop Harry responding to either explain or excuse why he had done what he had. "Harry, I am not going to get into whether it was the best time. I have important things to discuss with you that we need to get done over the train trip. So please just listen for a moment. The decision to have you return to the Dursley's is a bad one. I swear magicals' are absolutely hopeless with logic and then try to use it in the one area they should not.

"We know that magic is based in belief more than logic and yet they discuss coming of age on your seventeenth birthday when they know it doesn't happen then…"

"What!"

"Please, Harry, just listen a moment to what they do when you 'come of age'. Every few weeks there is a scheduled meeting for all children over seventeen that have not yet 'magically come of age'. We all are taken outside of Hogwarts wards and told to cast the lumos charm. Then they wait to see who still has an active trace. If your trace is still active after your seventeenth birthday, a waiver is filled out and placed on file with the ministry. But this means that the trace is still active, and it can take up to eighteen months for magic to decide upon maturity. Conversely, I don't know if it was due to me using a time-turner but my first attempt showed no trace, meaning who knows how many months prior to becoming seventeen that I had already achieved magic maturity.

"Of course according to magicals' the maturity occurs exactly on your seventeenth birthday. Even though they go through the whole test and waiver filing for those with an incorrect active trace, they ignore that obviously maturity does not occur in different people exactly the same way. No according to the lot of them, maturity occurred exactly on everybody's seventeenth birthday, and any weird glitches that supposedly have nothing to do with maturity, are handled via filed waivers. As they don't explain until the end of the first year that you can't cast magic 'till seventeen most eleven-year-old's, like I did, use their brand new wands right away and get a warning that they are under threat of expulsion for a second offense of using magic before seventeen.

"This stops them from trying again. I think that some people achieve magical maturity up to eighteen months or more earlier. However, as they don't allow the test to see if the trace is no longer active, until after your seventeenth birthday, it is not recorded. From what I have witnessed it is over two thirds that have achieved magical maturity by the first test after their seventeenth birthday.

"So the whole idea of going to the Dursley's until your seventeenth birthday is absolutely stupid. The wards could already have fallen. Or fall any time from now, to over a year from now. The only way to know for sure would be see if a wizard with intent to harm you, can enter number four Privet drive, and I think we can both say that if death eaters' have already entered the premises, it is too late to find out that the wards have fallen.

"In order to save yourself from having an irate Uncle demanding he has wasted time coming to King's Cross to pick you up, have Hedwig take a note explaining this to them and saying they need not come, but must also put forward their departure time too, as there is no way to know when the wards will fall. Further, if they are even still active. Hedwig can then meet back with us at the station."

Having something to do and acknowledging that Hermione's arguments completely explained the need for him to not return, had Harry quickly getting writing supplies from his trunk. The minor fact that agreeing with his best female friend also saw him shot of 'Durskaban' also played into him not arguing with her. The combination of action along with the knowledge that he was free from ever seeing the Dursleys again tore through the melancholy angst that was torturing him earlier, like a knife through butter.

For a first time, in a long time, Harry was smiling. So what if there was a daft-dark-death-defying-tosser out to get him, 'Moldyshorts' could take a number. He, Harry was going to start to live. Finishing up his quickly scribbled note with blotches that he couldn't be bothered to blot, he cast a drying charm folded up the letter and had it attached to Hedwig's leg, in no time flat. "Here you go beautiful. Drop this on them, so you don't have to get to close. Though I need you to fly there quickly, so they haven't left; you can take your time to return to the station as we won't get there 'till the early evening."

After Hedwig playfully nipped him and barked understanding, Harry opened the compartment window and watched his snowy owl take off on the straight path to Little Winning at her top speed of nearly a hundred miles per hour. A speed in the magical snowy owl significantly faster than a normal snowy owls that cruised around thirty mile per hour, and could only exceed fifty miles per hour for extreme flying. Hedwig's direct flight was also going to be undertaken at a speed that left the slower steam train behind quite quickly. She would arrive at Privet Drive in plenty of time to stop the Dursleys leaving home. After closing the window he turned to see a nervous Hermione twisting her hands and shifting. "What's wrong?"

Harry watched in growing alarm as Hermione bit her lip, a habit that Harry liked normally, but the worry cascading from her was now causing Harry to fret. "What haven't you told me?"

"Please sit Harry. It is not something I haven't told you, but rather something you didn't pay attention to previously. Now Hedwig taking the letter solves the case if your maturity is earlier than your birthday we need to now solve it if it was going to be the worst case the opposite way; namely the situation where the trace is still active eighteen months after your seventeenth birthday."

"I don't see how that is a problem."

"Harry, Dumbledore is dead, who knows how infiltrated the Ministry is? If the Ministry belongs to Voldemort then even if there is a nice waiver filing system for witches and wizards that are seventeen but still have an active trace, it is a moot point. If you still have an active trace then you can't hide from the Ministry except behind a fidelius charm or a few other strong wards. With Dumbledore dying we are no longer sure Grimmauld place is secure. Aside from Hogwarts, we also don't have access to a location with any of the other strong wards, and we don't have access to Hogwarts during the summer as its wards are worked on.

"I have a plan though, and it was something I learned from second year. You remember my polyjuice disaster?"

"Hermione, I quite recall you hiding in a stall in Myrtle's bathroom due to mistaking a cat hair for Parkinson's."

"It was a half-kneazle's hair, Pansy's half-kneazle to be exact. What you don't know was that I had to wait a year until I could take a potion to change myself back. Madam Pomfrey stated that though she could change me back, a change of species, or partial species change to a human-half-kneazle-hybrid was such a shock to the body that it was safest to wait at least a year until changing back. I used a glamour, that due to the kneazle's hair belonging to a mature cat, I could cast at home as the trace was not active for that year. When I was changed back the trace re-activated. For three holidays I was able to cast magic and show my parents what I had been learning at Hogwarts. I think if they hadn't seen what I could do with magic they never would have signed off on me using a time-turner to go to all the lessons in third year.

"So we have Crookshanks, a mature male half-kneazle, napping over there. I have brewed polyjuice potion once more and have it here. So you will just pick-up Crookshanks. You then pluck a hair and place it into the potion. Drink and become a human-half-kneazle-hybrid that has no active trace. Stay that way for twenty or so months, or until we have resolved everything to ensure you are definitely magically mature. Then we heal you to human. While being the hybrid you wear a glamour. I can teach it to you, and if the Ministry falls you can't be found as there is no active trace on you."

It seemed a typical Hermione designed, sensible, completely thought through plan that could not have any chance of failure. Of course both had forgotten to factor in Harry's natural curse that ensures normal is avoided. As this plan would not usually be considered a normal solution to begin with, his curse had plenty of room to really go to town. The fact Crookshanks acted the way he did should have been the first clue that this was not going to end well.

Crookshanks awoke from a nap fearing something bad was about to happen and seeing his mistress's clueless mate that was often busy chasing the wrong lass, stalking toward him like a predator, he knew his sixth sense was not wrong. Yowling he leapt for protection from whatever nefarious designs the other male had and clawed his way up Hermione and hid within her bushy mane, around the back of her neck. Hissing and snarling his claws getting through both blazer and blouse, then drawing blood.

"Harry, hurry up grab a hair, take the potion from me and drink it! Then help me get Crookshanks off! I am about to drop the potion!"

Harry grabbed at Crookshank's hair accompanied to a yowl and cry for the clawed retaliation, and grabbed the vial of polyjuice potion, before Hermione dropped it. Worried about his best female friend he was paying little attention to the hair added to the potion. Ensuring he had a hair sticking out of the vial he pushed it into the potion, swirled and swallowed. Dropping the empty vial on his earlier seat, he started to help tease the claws out of Hermione's clothes, but suddenly he dropped to the floor in excruciating pain.

When the pain finally receded and he was able to note that Crookshanks was backed up in the corner of the compartment his hackles raised hissing, and his friend no longer in pain but nervously looking at him he wondered what had happened to her. She obviously now no longer had the cat digging claws into her shoulders.

Hermione noticing him finally aware, faced her fear of what her friend would do and said, "Harry we have a big problem."