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Chapter 150 - The Weight of Small Changes

"Not immediately. His supporters who don't go to Azkaban will just lay low, but yes eventually it will probably come back," Hermione replied. "You were right you know," She said to Harry. "What you said to Dumbledore about him allowing the bigotry to happen in the school," She nibbled a bite of sandwich and followed it with a swallow of pumpkin juice before continuing. "As long as children are allowed to display their bigotry and hatred not to mention be lorded over unfairly by professors like Snape nothing will truly change."

"You really think Hogwarts can make that big of a difference?" Neville asked.

"Students spend nine months of the year inside these walls," Hermione explained. "More time than they spend with their families during their most impressionable years. If it changes here; if Slytherins are held accountable for their actions; if the Ravenclaw bullies..." She looked over at Luna and put her hand on her friend's hand, "were held accountable, yes I think it would go a long way."

"So next year that's something we can work on," Harry said. "Starting with the bullies in Ravenclaw," He also looked at Luna.

"Please don't..." Luna started suddenly withdrawn into herself. "Not because of me."

"Luna, you're stronger than that," Hermione said emphatically as she grasped Luna's hand tighter. "It's different now; you have friends who will back you up. If they try to make it worse, they will not like the fight they're in. When they bully you, they bully all of us."

Luna nodded and relaxed slightly. She seemed to relax even more when Neville put his arms around her. "I will be there," He said. "Nobody is going to bully you again."

"We thought that we'd get Dobby and Winky to find your stuff," Harry said. "They can do it discreetly, but I want to know who's had it. I won't do anything this year, but next year they'll be warned and if they try it again..."

When Luna nodded again Harry called the two elves and had them start on retrieving Luna's belongings. As they finished their lunch the topic once again came back to the wizarding world after Voldemort.

"All we can really do is be ready to deal with it," Hermione said. "I don't think there's much we can really do. Nothing from our future knowledge is going to be the same, I hope anyway," Though the words 'future knowledge' kicked off an idea in her mind. She frowned but then murmured. "No...we can't do that...it wouldn't be right."

"Do what?" Neville asked.

"Nothing...just..." Hermione said and then seeing all eyes on her she continued. "As I mentioned the biggest obstacle we are going to face in the future is the money the Purebloods control," Neville and Luna nodded, but Harry had already picked up her thoughts and was sitting back thinking. "Well we do know some things that could help us get money...but...but it's cheating."

"What is?" Luna asked looking confused.

"It's too dangerous anyway..." Hermione said but then continued. "I first thought of that since we know things like who won the Quidditch Championship and such we might make money but even if it wasn't cheating it would be too dangerous because of the butterfly effect."

"What's the butterfly effect?" Neville asked.

"Obviously it's something to do with coming out of a cocoon," Luna said. "Daddy said that.."

"Actually no, it has nothing really to do with butterflies," Hermione replied as felt she needed to explain before Luna got started. "It's a representation of something called 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions'," Now everyone looked puzzled. "It just means if something small changes in the starting conditions it can have major effects later on. The reason it's called the butterfly effect is that there is a possibility that even the flap of a butterfly wings, though originally it was described as seagull's wings, can change the weather in an entirely different part of the world."

"So...what does that have to do with this?" Neville asked cautiously.

"We KNEW who won the Quidditch Championship but what if because of something we've already done, it changes."

"But how could it?" Harry asked. "We haven't done anything that would affect Quidditch."

"Haven't we?" Hermione responded. "Do Quidditch players read the newspapers? What if one or more of the players spent more time reading the new articles about us and was late for a practice and because they were late the practice was different. Now the players are not exactly mentally or physically prepared as they were the last time. In the game itself that would affect what happens, what decisions they makes and so on. That's the whole basis of the butterfly effect, unintended consequences of actions even with very small changes."

"So there's nothing that we can do?" Harry asked.

"Not unless it happened in the next week and away from the magical wor..." Hermione started then her eyes flew open. She quickly pulled out her planner and looked. "It's June 23rd...it starts tomorrow," She murmured to herself. "Can we do it in a day?"

"Do what?"

"There is a muggle sporting event starting tomorrow called Wimbledon," Hermione explained. "It's one of the premier events in England every year in a sport called tennis. It's a sport played with a ball and racket."

"Yeah, I heard of it," Harry said. "But..."

....

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