A quick glimpse into the writer's mind

[Bob Schroeck]

I was on a long drive earlier today, and a song popped up in the shuffle on the player in the car, and it reminded me of a very early concept for the beginning of DW8, one that I came up with well before I had settled on Year 5 for the setting and framework.  The idea was interesting enough that I figured, since I had started this thread, I might as well share it, however sketchy it might be.  I never actually wrote this down before, so what you're seeing is essentially the 0.5 draft, created for your reading pleasure (?) right now.

The story opens on Doug, Ron and Hermione, all crammed on his motorcycle, making a hasty near-crash-landing at Stonehenge, just about sunset.  "We've got to hurry," a teary-eyed Hermione urges, "it won't take them more than a few minutes to figure out where we are." 

Doug strides over to the Altar Stone.  "I just hope this works the same way the one back home does, or we're screwed."  His hands dance across the surface of the rock, and bursts of colored light flash under each touch.  "C'mon, c'mon..."

"What are you doing?" Hermione demands as a stoic Ron looks out into the fields surrounding them, his back to the setting sun. 

"Hermione," he says, "I think they're..."

The distinctive cracks of multiple Apparitions sound... just before Doug yahoos and the altar stone burns white -- and at the same moment a dome of shimmering blue light encloses the entire stone circle.

Hermione looks around with wide eyes at what can only be a forcefield -- and the furious Death Eaters just beyond it.  "What did you do?"

Doug grins.  "It accepted the admin id and password that I knew."

Hermione blinks.  "It what?"

Doug begins jogging from standing stone to standing stone, hands dancing over the rough surfaces and leaving pulsing traceries of multicolored light behind.  "Never mind.  You two, stay in the center of the circle with my bike.  It's going to be close... the dome has to come down before the circle can activate, and that'll give the baddies a very brief window.  I'm trying to make it as short as possible, but if I get it wrong the circle will just shut down instead of activating."  He ran to the next stone,

Hermione and Ron just watch the Death Eaters attacking the dome -- to their shock and gratification it even stops what look like the Unforgivables.   Then the crowd of Death Eaters parts, and Voldemort appears, to fling his own magic uselessly at the dome.  "Doug..."

"Almost...." he calls from the last standing stone.  "And... now!  Down!"  He hurls himself at the pair and they fall into an untidy heap as the dome drops and a barrage of hostile spells rocket through were they just were.  "Three..." Doug murmurs, "two...  one!"

And a whirlwind of power swirls into existence just inside the circumference of the bluestone horseshoe.  The Death Eaters are driven back by its immense power, which is as unperturbed for its brief lifespan as the dome was before it.

And when it vanishes, the circle is empty and dark.

One year earlier...

A whirlwind of power explodes into existence in Stonehenge, lasting just a moment before vanishing, leaving behind two students, a teacher, and an improbable motorcycle.

"What just happened?" Ron asks.

Doug grins as he helps them off the ground.  "What would you say if I told you that among the many other things Stonehenge was designed to do, it's a time machine?"

Hermione whirls on him.  "It's what?"

Doug grins wider.  "We've just gone back in time a year -- we now have the time and the intelligence to stop Voldemort and save Harry's life."

And basically from there, the three of them head off into a "make right what went wrong" plot... except unlike the usual Peggy Sue, it's three of them, and they haven't taken their younger selves' places -- there are two of each of them.  And it's going to stay that way even if they do something that disrupts the timeline.  Imagine the brainpower of two Hermiones working together...

Oh, and when Doug meets Doug:

I looked at the guy with my face.  "Huh.  Well, can't say I haven't anticipated something like this."

He nodded.  "Right.  'Biff has the almanac.'"

I blinked and said, "'Oh, fuck.'"

He grinned.  "Code and countercode given and accepted."

Hermione -- his Hermione -- looked at us incredulously.  "You had a prearranged signal in case of this situation?"

Other-Doug looked smug.  "Hermione, in the circles I... we... travel in at home, the arrow of time is at most a general guideline instead of a natural law."

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.