Summary: 17 year old war veteran Harry Potter embarks on a holiday to 1977, under strict oath not to mess with the timeline. He had not reckoned, however, on Lily Evans falling in love. HPLE & MWPP.
Disclaimer: Blah. I don't own shit.
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In Lust, In Love, In Blood
Prologue: Mama Mia, Here We Go Again
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He had just saved the world - no-one would dare deny Harry Potter anything.
Not his own harem, or continent, or annual day of worship. Certainly they could not refuse their savior a mere holiday, even if the destination (or, more precisely, the time of the destination) did seem a tad unorthodox. The world was at his fingertips, eager to scratch his back it any way it could, and Harry didn't know quite how to handle this newfound freedom - except to run wild.
He was the King of the Castle.
In the first week after Voldemort's defeat Harry was unconscious. In the second, when he awoke, he had never felt more alive, more empowered, more unsure. He walked into muggle-London and bought sixty seven sports cars, sixty eight copies of Abba's Greatest Hits and sixty nine pairs of purple underwear. Just for the hell of it. He demolished Privet Drive and restored Hogwarts to its former wondrous glory. Ron and Hermione went off on their honeymoon to Hawaii, and Harry went through a storm of pretty women. For a while he was content to see just how far the magical community would stretch to tend his every passing whim. He was not disappointed - the give was great, far and wide.
Wedding bells rang, red-faced babies were born and, eventually, the celebrations dwindled. The wizarding folk of Britain slowly settled back into peaceful, harmonious normality.
A month slowly dawdled past. Harry got bored.
It was Minerva McGonagall who decided Harry needed to acquire his NEWT level grading, and it was Remus Lupin who decided he should complete the school year he'd dropped out from in 1977. It was Arthur Weasley who went about filing all the appropriate paperwork, and it was Kingsley Shacklebolt who bribed and badgered all the right people into agreeing with their plan.
They all thought it would be good for Harry, good for him to get away, and somehow the idea had just felt right. All Harry had to do was smile and the Minister of Magic obligatorily approved - and so it was that Harry Potter embarked on his next great adventure, accompanied with a few carefully laid restrictions.
There were four rules to the game. Four facile, temperate rules.
Harry, crossing his fingers behind his back, had sworn to honor and uphold them at all and any cost.
Firstly, he could not tell anyone who he was, or what the future held. Secondly, he could not alter anything that had happened - he was to watch and enjoy only from the sidelines. Thirdly, when he was ready, he'd return to the precise moment he had left - as if he'd never been gone. No-one should ever be any wiser to his travel. Simple. Easy. Lastly, and most importantly, he was in no way to befriend or associate himself with any other. Events should pass just as they were meant to.
He would complete the school year in the shadows, or as much of it as he liked, and he could watch his parents - but all under strict cover of invisibility. He didn't belong in the past, everyone had told him, and they couldn't risk the effects his exposure might have in that time.
Harry, however, had never exactly been one to follow along with all the rules - and he had other ideas entirely concerning his 'holiday'.
He wanted to know them - he wanted them all to know him. He wouldn't change anything drastically and no-one would ever know the difference. He'd just have to be careful, Harry thought, and all should fall as it had already. It was fate after all - the past was out of his hands, wasn't it?
He would meet his parents, and Sirius - and, if the chance arose, certainly throw a good dozen hexes at the old bat Snivellus.
Full of excitement, confidence and a fitfully stubborn determinedness, Harry Potter departed from the present; waving a cheery farewell to the assembly gathered around him, tumbling back through the cracking passages of time and space.
Down ... Down ... Down.
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Time-turner strangling his neck, Harry arrived in Hogsmeade feeling thoroughly nauseous, to promptly kneel over and vomit on his shoes.
The birds were singing, the sun was shining, the grass was greener.
And Biggelsworth was waiting for him.
The Ministry of Magic had a Department for nearly everything - Regulation and Control of Time Paradoxes included.
Bert Biggelsworth was the sole employee. He was short, round, and fell somewhere in between the age of thirty and eighty - the sort of inconspicuous man that everybody knew of but no-one really knew, with a face and personality easily put away and forgotten. Bert didn't get out much. His job was not demanding in the slightest and he spent most days drinking alone in his tiny, cramped office.
"Mr Potter?" Bert asked, stifling a belch behind his thick, hairy palm.
Harry looked up, just then noticing the portly wizard looming high above him. He opened his mouth to reply, but Biggelsworth added hurriedly, "Don't say a thing! Not a word!"
Harry nodded; Biggelsworth had already explained the procedure he would be put through. The Ministry would have been alerted of his anticipated arrival an hour ago. Harry knew what to expect - he had the brochure in his back pocket.
"Quickly, get up now," Bert was hissing in his ear. "We haven't been spotted yet." Bert nudged Harry with his shiny boot. "Come on, hurry up!"
Harry bit his tongue, standing quickly on wobbly legs. His vision swam in a dizzying blur, the street dancing, spinning quickly around him in circles. Bile rose again threateningly in his throat. Harry shook the vomit off his shoe in a daze and stumbled blindly forward.
He felt rather peculiar - like he'd been pulled from his body and physically shoved back into another identical shell.
"This way, this way," Bert said, pulling on Harry's sleeve. He lead the younger wizard through the village, behind the main stream of shops into the outskirts where large houses stood tall and proud. Trees lined the pebbled street, white picket fences bordering each property.
They passed by a few people, all of which gave Harry funny looks; Harry amended, as soon as he were home, to kill Remus Lupin in the most painful feat imaginable (preferably in some way involving the hideous spotted suspenders the werewolf had given him, insisting they would be the height of seventies cool). Yeah, right.
They stopped outside of one of the smaller homes.
Much alike Biggelsworth, Harry had barely noticed the house. It was absolutely every essence of the ordinary, dwarfed by the other grander houses surrounding it. Biggelsworth pulled Harry's sleeve again, directing him along the small garden path and up to the front door. It was unlocked. Bert took his wand from his pocket, muttered a spell under his breath, and they went inside. Harry was lead to the kitchen and sat down at the table as Bert gestured. Biggelsworth sat opposite him, flicking his wand and the teapot - which, steaming rising in spirals from its spout, flew down from the bench and landed softly between them, followed by a set of teacups, soursers, sugar and milk.
As soon as they had settled, Bert thrust a hefty stack of papers under Harry's nose. "Read them," he instructed gruffly.
Harry leant back in his chair, wading through the parchment. They were all ones he had seen before, that Remus had shown him earlier - oaths, testimonies, lawfully binding contracts. Such was the norm for all time travelers - a repeat of the very same rules Harry was meant to follow. He preferred to think of them as guidelines, though. Harry grabbed the quill from in front of him and jotted down a hasty signature under each breviloquent paragraph.
History had no reason not to trust Harry, not if he signed their stupid forms. Consequences of defying his own word would be ... bad. Disastrously bad. Painfully bad.
But where there are rules - or guidelines - there is always a loophole. In the case where there is not, well - he was the Harry Potter, and he was above the law nonetheless. They would not, could not, damn him in any possible way - they wouldn't dare. Harry figured the risk of actually meeting his parents, of hearing their ghostly voices and feeling their cold touch, was well worth any gamble.
"Do you realize what has happened, Mr Potter?" Bert asked him sharply, scrunching the papers back into his robe.
"Yes," Harry said, his voice a little scratchy.
"Are you here with permission, then?"
Harry reached a hand into the pocket of his scruffy jeans, pulling out the form the Minister herself had given to him. Time-travel was rarely dabbled in, and more rarely so dabbled in with full Ministry approval. Biggelsworth examined the paper closely and hit it with a long series of spells before he deemed it genuine. Harry tried not to look too smug as the questions resumed, Bert's tone a little kinder.
"You are fully aware of the dangers, the implications your presence could have in this time?"
Harry nodded - the rules had been relentlessly drilled into his head by countless Ministry personnel.
Oh, he knew them. He knew them well ... but he wouldn't follow them, no. Not a chance in hell.
"And what do you hope to accomplish here?" Bert said. He had a clipboard on his lap and was taking meticulous note of Harry's every brittle flinching change of expression, demur, response.
"Accomplish?" Harry frowned.
"Yes, yes," Bert said briskly. "What is the purpose of your travel?"
Harry shrugged. He didn't think Bert was actually meant to ask him that, but decided to humor the wizard with the truth. "I'm here on holiday. I wanted to see my parents."
Bert paled and scribbled some more on his parchment. "Right. Yes. Right. And when will you be leaving?"
Harry shrugged again. "When I feel like it, I suppose."
"Hmph," Bert grumbled, eyeing Harry with annoyance. "And to what time, exactly, do you come from?"
"1997," Harry said, continuing swiftly, "And I'd like to attend Hogwarts, by the way - your future self said you'd set that up for me."
"Did he now, eh?" Bert asked gruffly, sounding thoroughly like he very much doubted it.
Harry held his breath.
"Right. Yes. I'll see what I can do."
He could have hugged the man - well, hugged or put under the Imperius. Either way, Harry was happy. He was going back to Hogwarts. His parents were at Hogwarts. Sirius was at Hogwarts. "Thanks."
"What are you to be called, Mr Potter? You'll need an alias now, so pick a name - any name you like."
The idea of changing names appealed as nicely to Harry as it did Bert Biggelsworth.
James Bond, Clark Kent and Clint Eastwood were all tempting - but really, Harry only wanted to be himself. He'd come back in time to relax, to enjoy himself and have a little fun. But Potter wouldn't do - he could not couple that with the uncanny resemblance he bore to his father and not expect questions to be asked, suspicion to rise and unrest to unfold. He didn't want a paradox in his lap.
No. He'd keep it simple. Keep it similar, familiar.
"Harry," he told Bert. "I'll be Harry ... Harry Pooper."
Bert started. "Pooper? Are you sure?"
Harry took the question into careful consideration. "Pickle? Is that any better?"
Bert frowned. "Well," he began slowly, honestly. "No. Not really."
Harry's mind ticked with the endless multitude of possibilities. "Prostate ... Potty... Pagan."
"Pooper," Bert said hastily. "Pooper is fine."
"Patricide?"
"Pooper."
Harry grinned.
Bert scribbled some more, mumbling under his breath.
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The next day Bert took Harry up to Hogwarts. It was mid January and the school year had already begun. Harry didn't mind. He had no intentions to do any kind or form of work whatsoever anyway - whatever mad notion McGonagall had in mind - he was there solely for his own joy and entertainment.
"If you get in some sort of trouble just owl me," Bert said over his shoulder. "I'll bring a team of obliviators along to sort it out."
Harry nodded.
"You must report to me monthly," Bert carried on, repeating the words he'd earlier spoke to Harry. "And you must be sure that everything is as it should be, or you're to let me know immediately. Understood?"
Harry nodded again, rolling his eyes.
Hogwarts was the same as he remembered, the same as he'd left it. Older students were littered about the grounds, enjoying the new year's sun. Harry spotted a group of Slytherin's on the quidditch pitch, tossing about a bludger. More sat under the big, ancient trees by the lake. Hagrid was by his hut, in his small garden chopping wood. Somewhere deep in the forbidden forrest a flight of winged-beasts took off, beating through the air, rising up high into the clouds.
Biggelsworth led Harry up the rough, stone steps into the entrance hall. Past the four house hour glasses and they went on, following the winding stairs and sweeping passages of the old, homely castle. Harry's heart thudded harder and harder in his chest, betraying his skittish nerves. They stopped at the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office and Biggelsworth whispered the password. Another lot of stairs fell down and Harry climbed up.
The Headmaster was expecting them.
He hardly looked any different from what Harry remembered. His beard might have been a little shorter, Harry supposed.
"You're Mr Pooper, I understand?" Dumbledore said by way of greeting. Bert had been to see him before, to tell him all about the new Harry-situation. Harry noted wearily the absence of Dumbledore's customary twinkle, and realized just then what Albus would have thought of his 'holiday'. Not much at all, he bet.
"Yes," Harry replied stiffly, careful not to meet Albus' eye.
Harry looked around. Fawkes was not at his perch, but Dumbledore's office was as it should have been; a few trinkets missing here and there, a table where is wasn't as Harry had known, letters and papers strewn over the large oak desk. Harry was reminded instantly of Voldemort's presence, of the terror he would still be reeking at that time. His stomach plummeted somewhat, but Harry was very determined - this would work. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and he would make the most of it.
Two chairs had been arranged in front of Dumbledore's desk. Harry took one, leaving the other for Biggelsworth.
"And which," Dumbledore started -
"Gryffindor," Harry cut in quickly. "Definitely Gryffindor."
"I see," Albus said, his voice low. "I take it - "
"I can find the way myself, yes," Harry said. "I know Hogwarts well."
Albus looked flustered. "You'll be rooming - "
"With the seventh year girls, I presume ..." Harry tried hard to look serious.
Albus clicked his tongue to the roof of his mouth impatiently. Harry harbored no doubt the Headmaster rather loathed him on impulse - Harry had never been particularly good with first impressions. "No. The boys dormitory, thank you, Mr Pooper."
Biggelsworth shuffled in his chair. "And remember - "
"Yes, Bert," Harry interrupted again, fidgeting with his tie - which, at Dumbledore's command, had turned it's usual Gryffindor scarlet-and-gold. "I know, I know. I'll owl you."
Bert huffed indignantly.
"Then good day to you, Mr Pooper," Dumbledore said crisply, handing Harry a standard timetable. He guessed he could attend whatever classes he wanted to - all he meant to do was trail the Marauders anyway. "The story is that you have recently been expelled from Beauxbatons, and we were kind enough to give you a placement here. I hope you settle in well. If you have any trouble, seek out your - "
"Head of House," Harry finished. "And, yes, I know who that'll be."
Dumbledore's eyebrow twitched and he nodded curtly.
Harry stood up, brushing off the brash dismissal and moving quickly towards the door. Seeing Dumbledore again was unnerving, and not in any slight way pleasant. Dumbledore didn't trust him - not at all.
"Good luck, Mr Pooper!" Bert's voice rang after his retreating back.
Leaving the office, Harry didn't know what to do. Following habit, he began to aimlessly wander through the halls. Trouble did usually have a way of finding him, after all. Most of the students were struggling though their last class of the day, and for the most part he was alone with his treacherous thoughts.
Rounding a corner towards the bottom of the North Tower, Harry's pace wavered - there were footsteps padding lightly behind him.
Harry paused, standing in the darkest part of the still, shady corridor. Slowly, carefully, he began to turn around.
Someone - a student, he thought - leapt out from around the corner and launched themself at him head on. Arms wrapped around his chest, one thin limb curled behind his back, fingers raked into his hair. Lips met his own, moist and sucking.
Harry opened one eye and saw red. Deep red hair, striped red tie.
The face looked oddly familiar.
Strange, Harry thought. Most strange ...
Hold on -
"Wait - you're not James," the girl assaulting him panted, quickly pulling away. A flush crept up her neck, staining her cheeks, and she just then properly took in Harry's full appearance. She was clearly, devastatingly embarrassed. "Oh, bugger! I'm so sorry."
Harry had seen her before. In memories, in graveyards ... every morning when he woke up and looked at his bedside table, at the photo residing there of his parents on their wedding day.
A Head Girl badge glittered on her chest ... her chest? Harry was looking at her chest?
He closed his eyes shut tight.
It didn't happen. It had never happened.
Lily? Lily Evans? Lily Potter?
Harry was horrified, simply put. By his teenaged mother kissing him (tongue and all) or his own terrifying pleasure from the deed, he couldn't quite be sure. He didn't want to be sure. Harry began to laugh, more because he was so very confused than because he had found the introduction in any mild way amusing. Lily punched him hard in the stomach.
"James Potter!" she shrieked, glaring fiercely. "What the hell have you done to yourself now?"
She thought he was his father.
Harry laughed harder, playing along to his mother's mislead assumption.
"I'd have to say, though," she carried on, ruffling his hair and linking her own arm in his. "It's not a bad adjustment. I do like the eyes."
"They're your eyes." Scratchy words left his mouth without thought.
Lily paused. "Oh? Yes," she smiled, and eery green caught eery green. For a moment they were still again, held in each other's cutting gaze - then Lily frowned, and they kept walking - heading back towards the Gryffindor common room, Harry realized.
Harry could hardly believe it was real - that he was walking through Hogwarts arm in arm with his mother. For all the mental preparation he had taken, nothing could compare to the real thing. He thought he should tell her he wasn't James, that impersonating his father was just stupid, but he held back - the truth would only succumb to awkward apologies and more awkward explanations, and that wasn't what Harry wanted at all just then.
A guilty curiousness lurking inside his mind swung back, and Harry felt he just needed to know how his parents relationship had worked, how comfortable they'd been together, what they'd spoken of, what they'd got up to. He wanted to know anything and everything.
"Where's Black?" Lily asked, her tone reproachful.
Harry shrugged. "I haven't seen him," he said.
Lily gave him another odd look, like she didn't believe it. "What are you up to, then? Shouldn't you be in Transfiguration?"
"Shouldn't you be too?" Harry asked, put out by the query.
Lily glared, again. "I don't do Transfiguration, Potter! I haven't done it since fifth year."
"Yeah, I know," Harry said, lying. Oops.
Lily's eyebrow rose, disbelieving. "So tell me, James. What's the cause for such a disguise?"
"You do like it, don't you?" Harry asked. He wasn't sure why this would be important to him - but, just as suddenly as he'd decided to play his father, Harry felt an overwhelming desire for his mother to like him, to think he was handsome. For her to be impressed, to be proud.
Lily looked up, critically analyzing Harry's face. Harry felt uneasy under such careful, clinical scrutiny. "You've done a good job," Lily said, grinning. "You might pass for a cousin, or maybe a bastard son."
Harry choked. "Your bastard son?" he asked, the only one of them to see the irony in her statement.
Lily pretended to laugh. Harry pretended he wasn't so unexpectedly unsure of his venture through time.
They'd reached the common room.
Harry hadn't been able to bring any belongs with him but the clothes on his back and the wand in his pocket. The Ministry forbade it - Harry knew they had their reasons. A Firebolt in the seventies, for one, could lead to terrible consequence in the wrong hands. Biggelsworth had set him up with everything he would need; uniform, cauldron and all. Harry supposed his new trunk would have been placed in the dormitory already, beside a fifth bed. He wondered if he'd be sleeping right next to his father.
The fat lady in the portrait swung back as Lily muttered the password, Marmalade, and Harry got his first look into the common room. It was exactly the same as he knew it was in the future - but, for some peculiar reason, everything was purple. Everything - the walls, the ceiling, the furniture and fireplace.
"What's with the color?" Harry said.
Lily started, giving him that look once again -
"Taken one too many tumbles off your broomstick, Potter?" a voice jeered behind them, having heard Harry's question.
"Are you okay, James?" Lily asked, obviously worried. "Do you feel alright?"
Harry shrugged. He supposed his father should have known why the room was purple, really -
The portrait was swinging open again behind them, emitting a tumble of students. The last class had ended.
Harry rolled his shoulders, collapsing into an armchair. Lily followed, sitting on the chair's armrest, and Harry decided quickly he'd had enough of the pretense - he wished his mother would rather not lick her lips like that, smile, lean so close or look at him so hungrily, or reach for his hand, entwine their fingers -
Harry cleared his throat. "Look, Lily," he began, trying and failing to keep his calm. "I'm not - "
"Oy! Evans!"
Harry looked up towards the voice, adrenaline pulsing, his heart in his throat -
And there he was. James Potter, the one Harry had always looked up to so much, had so much wanted to know - the other half he had travelled so far to greet.
"Hey, Lily! What in Merlin's name are you doing with him!?"
James was furious. Lily was confused. Harry was panicking.
"Who the hell is 'him', by the way?" Sirius asked suspiciously, sliding up next to James, glaring at Harry. "And what is 'him' doing here?"
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A/N: Hey. This is just a teaser - if anyone likes it, I'll write more. If everyone thinks it's shit ... well, then I wont bother. Thanks for reading :)
xxoo