Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no claims to ownership.
Notes: Swearing. OOC-ness because it's hard to portray CC-Albus without wanting to bash my head against the wall.
Canon world is CC, unfortunately, but the AU world has all of the same pairings. There's certainly no Panju Weasley.
Harry scanned each of the children in front of him. They were completely different from his own children. James was tall and lanky like Ron, and with his red hair and brown eyes, looked hardly anything like Harry. In comparison, Harry pitied Albus for looking like his own clone. Lily seemed to be a clone of Ginny, too. All three of them must suffer quite a bit for their appearances, which made him think that fate was an even bigger bitch in their universe.
"Let me get this straight," he said, only briefly wondering why that made Albus wince, "you decided that you'd steal your aunt's… universe-jumping device… which was for some reason easily accessible to a teenager. And when James and Lily tried to stop you, it somehow activated and brought you here."
"There's no stopping Al's hubris," James sneered.
"It's Albus," his brother snarled.
Harry's brows rose. His own son often grew sulky if someone called him Albus, and insisted that he be referred to as Al.
"Well," Harry said, rubbing the area between his eyebrows, "I suppose there's nothing else for it. You'll have to stay with us until we can get things figured out."
"James and Albus can't share a room," Lily said immediately.
For the first time, Harry felt a touch of amusement. "Al's a pyromaniac too, eh?"
"No, he's a mopey little git and I can't stand being in the same room as him."
Harry's mouth opened and closed. He knew that he should be reprimanding James, but technically this wasn't his son. He was saved from having to answer, though, by the door to his office slamming open and two men striding into the room. Behind them, Harry could see his secretary doodling at her desk, completely ignoring their forced entrance. Sometimes Harry thought the security system was very lacking at the Ministry, although he knew that wasn't actually true. After having the same group of teenagers break in on two separate occasions, the security had been very much improved. The real problem was that no one cared if Draco Malfoy and Aries Black kidnapped Harry Potter on a regular basis.
"Not today, guys," he sighed. "It's a bad time."
Aries raised one eyebrow, looking at the three strangers who had turned in their seats to stare at the men. "Yeah, I can see that."
Draco's head tilted to the side. "Do we need to reschedule?"
"There's a schedule to this?" Harry asked, genuinely curious.
"Not really," Aries answered with a shrug, his attention shifting away from the children in a casual dismissal. Harry frowned at that and extended his senses. His eyes widened when he realized that James, Albus, and Lily had very weak magic in comparison to their counterparts here. "Mostly it happens when we're bored."
Harry shook his head. "I know Aries doesn't have an actual job, but Draco, this is shameful for you."
Draco gave the same shrug as Aries. "I'm semi-retired now." He grabbed onto Aries' sleeve. "Come on, Black, I have a craving for ice cream."
"You're paying," Aries said as he let himself be pulled from the room.
"Don't forget Scorpius' birthday, Potter," Draco called.
When the door closed again, all three of the children swiveled around to look at Harry with matching expressions of shock.
"Did he say Black?" said James incredulously.
Harry frowned. "You mean you don't know Aries?" They shook their heads. "Odd. Must be another difference."
While interrogating them, he hadn't thought of mentioning Aries' family. The Potter and Black families had met shortly after James was born. After the Healer commented on seeing James' unusual middle name only a few days prior, for Sirius was three days older than James, Harry searched out Aries Black. It turned out that Aries was the son of Alphard Black, whose wife had decided to run away when she discovered she was pregnant. Alphard and Claire's marriage had been arranged, and she didn't want the Black family to have any influence on her children. In order to hide Claire's location, Alphard then committed suicide.
Puzzled, Harry flipped through the quick notes he had jotted down.
"You said your father never returned to school?" he asked.
"No, he became an Auror," Albus said proudly.
"And never received therapy," Harry muttered, staring at Albus' middle name.
He was surprised that the other Ginny even allowed their son to be named after Snape, but then, from the information he had received, she was much more passive than his own wife. That extra year in school together seemed to have changed quite a bit. When Harry went back for his seventh year, along with Ron and Hermione, he had been in the same class as Ginny, and it brought them closer together.
Hermione also had the idea of introducing psychological therapy to the wizarding world and forced Harry to attend a few sessions, which he would readily admit helped him quite a bit. Dumbledore had made mistakes, but at least he had apologized to Harry, so Harry could forgive him. Snape, however, didn't regret any of his actions except for his treatment of Harry's mother. When Harry reviewed Snape's memories again, it was quite clear that Snape was a horrible person. Harry thought that his father might have bullied Snape because Snape bullied other people – after all, Snape bullied his own students as an adult, so he was probably worse as a child – but James, despite being chivalrous, was a show-off, and took it too far. Snape's actions couldn't be condoned, though. He was certainly a sociopath, at least, having attempted to kill both Petunia and James.
The other Harry clearly had accepted Snape's biased view at face value, though, and the other Albus had suffered the consequences for it from what Harry understood. Names could have profound and lasting implications on a person's life. Being named after Severus Snape had led to Albus becoming a sociopath himself.
Harry let out another sigh. This day was shaping up to be much more exhausting than he thought it would this morning.
DtD
After arriving at the house, Harry directed Albus and his siblings to the living room while he went to inform his own family of the news. Left alone to examine his surroundings, Albus joined his sister in gaping at the painting hanging above the mantel. The three people depicted were obviously Harry's children, but they were completely different from Albus and his siblings. The boy in the middle had his arms slung over the other boy and girl's shoulders. He was grinning and wore Slytherin Quidditch robes. The other boy wore robes for the Gryffindor Quidditch team and seemed to be pretending to mope, but he kept biting his lip to keep from smiling. The girl, who wore red in support of Gryffindor, seemed to be laughing at them.
"Look," Lily said, pointing to the corner of the painting where her own name lay in bold curves that was unrecognizable as her own handwriting.
Harry's voice drifted into the room from the open doorway.
"Are Rose and Scorpius not here anymore?"
Albus perked up at the mention of his boyfriend. He crept slowly toward the doorway but remained out of sight of the people in the hallway.
"No," a boy replied irritably. "They were making out on my bed. My bed, Dad!"
The hair lifted on the back of Albus' neck. Instead of his counterpart dating Scorpius, it was Rose. That was one of Albus' greatest fears. He knew that Scorpius still had feelings for Rose.
"Obviously the solution is to invite Violet over to Malfoy Manor and make out with her on Scorpius' bed," said Harry.
"Dad! I told you, I'm not dating Violet."
"But he wants to," another boy sang. "Al is officially over Scorpius, methinks. The amazing thing is that Violet did it completely unintentionally."
The first boy let out a huff. "Firstly, that was a crush that lasted less than a year. Secondly, we're not talking about this. Thirdly, you and Ivy need to get a move-on."
"Ivy?" the other boy said, sounding surprised. "We're just friends."
Albus recognized Ginny's tinkling laughter, and his stomach fluttered. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard his own mother laugh.
"Typical Potter obliviousness," she said fondly. "Al's right, though. You need to ask Ivy out before she gets over you, James."
"But she doesn't…"
"Mum, something's burning!" a girl called.
"Let's move this into the kitchen," Harry suggested, "before Ginny manages to ruin our lunch again."
As footsteps hurried down the hall toward the kitchen, Albus let out a quiet exhale. At least that was one thing that didn't change across the universes. It seemed that Ginny would never achieve her mother's skill at cooking.
Quietly Albus sank into the couch and closed his eyes. He was aware of James and Lily moving around the room, examining different affects and murmuring to each other, but he ignored them. He didn't move again until he heard a voice from the doorway.
"Whoa."
Two boys stood there, and a girl was leaning around them to peer at Albus, James, and Lily. The boys were fairly close in height, although the one with untidy black hair was a bit shorter. He had the trademark Weasley smirk and bright blue eyes. The other boy would have been identical to him if it weren't for their different coloring; he had dark auburn hair and brilliant green eyes, along with the long nose that most of the Weasley family possessed. Although the freckled girl didn't look much like her brothers, she also wore spectacles, with hazel eyes shining from behind them, and her deep red hair also looked unmanageable.
Harry and Ginny appeared behind their children. Ginny seemed to be biting her lip in an effort not to gape, but it only made her look comical with her wide eyes.
"This is going to get confusing," said the boy with auburn hair. "They have the same names, right?"
"For the most part," Harry answered. "The other Albus is named after Snape instead of Hagrid, though."
"Really?" The boy looked deeply interested. He stuck his hand out to James. "Al Potter. It's nice to meet you, Other Albus."
James blinked at him. "I'm James."
The boy with black hair snorted. "Someone fucked up on names." Then he brightened. "Hey, that rhymes."
"Great," said the girl. "Now James is a poet and Louis is still making horrible puns."
Ginny interceded before a fight could begin. "We do need to come up with different names, though." She paused and then addressed Albus and his siblings. "If that's alright with you three?"
Albus scowled at the floor, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother and sister shrug carelessly.
"Jase," the other James suggested. "It's 'J' and 'S' combined. And your Lily can be 'Lina.' Your middle name is Luna, right?"
"Yeah," Albus' sister said. "Lina works."
"That still leaves Al, though," said Lily, looking thoughtful. "I can't think of what to do with his name. Maybe Sev?"
"Absolutely not," Harry said with a grimace.
Al's forehead wrinkled. "I guess Albus could work. Everyone knows I prefer Al, so we can't get mixed up."
Albus almost slumped with relief.
Ginny clapped her hands, forcing a stiff smile. "Excellent. Now how about we go enjoy the lunch Harry somehow managed to rescue?"
AN: To recap: AU James = James, AU Albus = Al, AU Lily = Lily. CC James = Jase, CC Albus = Albus, CC Lily = Lina.
AN2: Updates will be slow on just about everything for the remainder of the...well, probably until summer.
