Summary: Instead of just having Harry, Lily and James Potter had 2 children, Harry and Journey Potter. This has a huge impact on the wizarding world as we know it, along with its saviour.

If you don't want me to spoil any parts of what might be happening in my fic, skip all the bolded parts until you get to the title, but if you want to know what type of fic I plan on writing before you read it, then read on.

Yes this is another Harry-Potter-with-a-twin, but I hope that this can be different than anything that's been read before. There will be no 'wrong-twin-who-lived' and Harry is still the Boy-Who-Lived.

Dumbledore will be manipulative in this story, so if that's not your cup of tea then please turn back rather than read this and flame me for it.

I will mostly follow the books, with the obvious exceptions in some cases since I added a whole other character. In these cases I most often will follow book information or general timelines, as there were several happenings in the books not in the movies that I'll try to keep in. In some cases though I may end up taking some elements from the movie, so be warned :P

On that note, I don't know if I will be using horcruxes yet, I used to hate the idea of them but I've recently read some fics that used them in very interesting ways, and they've slowly changed my mind about them. Whether or not I will use them however, is up for debate (and I don't really need to worry about them for a couple of years anyways)

This chapter is just under 5,000 words, and I think the next will hopefully be around the same, but hopefully they will gradually get longer, that is, if you guys want them to be.

I don't know if I've forgotten anything, but if I have I'll mention them in the next chapter or as they come up.

Disclaimer: I own nothing from Harry Potter, everything you recognize belongs to the wonderful J.K. Rowling.

"talking"

'thoughts'

Journey of the Potters

Chapter 1: James and Lily Potter

"Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Potter, you have two healthy babies, with the girl only weighing slightly less than the boy. We put an extremely weak sleeping charm on them that should wear off very soon so that their body could become adjusted to being in the outside world without being conscious to feel the effects."

Lily Potter smiled tiredly as the short, brown haired healer passed her a small bundle of powder-blue blankets, 'my baby boy,' she thought. She delicately moved the blankets around the baby's face so that she could look for the first time upon her sleeping son. The very thought made her smile even more radiantly, 'my son.'

James Potter shared a smile with his wife from where a different healer had just handed him another bundle-wrapped baby, this time however the blankets were a soft pink and contained his sleeping daughter. When the healer seeing to his wife moved away from the bed and packed up his bag, he quietly walked over to her, his eyes never straying from her positively glowing form. He sat down in the chair that one of the healers conjured for him and brought his daughter-he nearly giggled in delight at the thought-closer to his beautiful wife.

Lily smiled at her husband briefly before looking at her daughter for the first time, mentally comparing the differences between her two children. Her son had black hair, 'just like James,' whereas her daughter had her own fiery red hair along with a smattering of freckles across her nose that her son lacked.

Lily looked up at her husband just as he leaned over to give her a gentle kiss on the cheek. "They're beautiful," he whispered, finally breaking the silence that had fallen upon them before saying so quietly that she barely heard him, "they're perfect."

Before Lily could respond the brown haired healer came up to them and said quietly, "we have their birth certificates, along with the Muggle ones you asked for. You just need to sign their names onto them and sign them yourselves so that we can make copies of them and send them to the ministry."

Lily shared a look with her husband before turning to the healer, "could you give us a minute please?" Understanding passed through the man's brown eyes and he went over to a blonde secondary female healer who was still cleaning up. Lily turned back to her husband, "well it seems that even after nine months of arguing, we still don't have any names for them," just as he was about to say something Lily interrupted him, "and no we are not naming our son James Jr. so forget it."

James harrumphed but smiled anyways, "okay Lils, so long as we can make his middle name James then I'm fine. How about we name him Harry after your father?"

Lily's eyes filled with tears at the reminder of her dearly beloved father who was murdered several months ago. "I would love that," she whispered softly while looking down at her daughter. She thought for several moments on a name but kept drawing blanks. They both thought they were having only one child, which was to be a boy, so they never thought of any possible girl names.

At that moment, the baby in question opened her eyes to look up at her mother and Lily smiled, 'she's got my eyes.' Lily was about to point this out to James when something caught her attention that made her pause. Looking more intently into her daughters eyes Lily realized that they had small flecks of gray-no silver in them, 'like having mercury in her eyes,' she thought.

Lily turned to her husband and said "Mercury" at the same time he said "Journey." They both looked at each other before smiling. James was about to agree with his wife-after all he did get to name their son-when she smiled at him and said, "Journey sounds lovely. I like the sound of Journey Potter better than Mercury Potter anyways, how about Journey Mercury Potter and Harry James Potter?"

James beamed at his wife, before looking towards the two healers, who instantly stopped talking. The previous healer walked up to James and handed him several papers to sign and an ever-lasting ink quill, before conjuring up a small table for them to write on.

Lily took the papers after her husband had signed his name and the babies' names. Lily quickly read them through since she knew James never would have thought to.

Name: Harry James Potter

Date of Birth: July 31st 1980 11:52 pm

Location of Birth: Godric's Hollow

Father: James Potter

Mother:

They used their house at Godric's Hollow to have the babies simply because it was too risky because of the war to head over to St. Mungo's without apparating, which is a horrible way to travel while pregnant since the possibility of splinching the baby was very risky. Lily signed her name and watched as the paper instantly rose into the air and copied itself. One of the copies disappeared-presumably to the ministry-and the other flew towards the healer's waiting hand. Lily blinked and turned back to the second paper.

Name: Journey Mercury Potter

Date of Birth: August 1st 1980 12:08 am

Location of Birth: Godric's Hollow

Father: James Potter

Mother:

Lily signed her name again and the duplication process repeated itself while she signed the Muggle copies. She wanted Muggle copies simply because she herself had them and she wanted to keep in touch with that part of her heritage, and because if anything happened to her and James… 'no don't think like that.'

The last two papers flew over to the healer just as the door burst open and several people came though led by a good looking man with wavy black hair and mischievous gray eyes, Sirius Black. The healers tutted at him but he paid them no mind and walked, more like skipped, into the room and spoke in a very excited voice, "where's my Prongslet?"

Lily was sure that James' smile was going to split his face in half as he spoke with joy, and not a small amount of pride, "more like Prongslets," indicating to the both babies who were now both awake.

Sirius tripped over thin air when he saw both babies but caught himself on the bedpost. Everyone laughed at him and even the babies gurgled happily. Remus Lupin, a tired looking brown haired man with amber eyes that narrowed after chuckling bit as he walked into the room. Lily frowned when she noticed that Peter wasn't there, but then figured that he must be on a mission and put it aside. Remus looked at both of the babies and said softly, "Congratulations to both of you. Not to spoil such a joyous occasion, but how could the tests have been wrong? It's never been heard of before for a healer scans to be incorrect in either the gender of the baby or number of babies."

Lily frowned for a moment in thought, and even Sirius took a moment to look contemplative. The head healer cleared his throat drawing attention to himself before saying nervously, "we are unsure as well and have already starting compiling information to be presented to the research department, with your permission of course," receiving nods from both Potters he continued, "we will contact you if we find anything but at this moment in time we can only speculate how this happened. There are two papers on the table there that are for you and the children's godparents to sign, which will copy themselves and go to the ministry." With this he nodded to the Potters, then to the other people in the room before exiting the room, the secondary healer following behind him.

Following his exit the last occupant in the room, a slightly taller than average man with short black hair and a pudgy face, stepped out away from the door and spoke, "Congratulations. Alice would have come but she was too tired even with pepper up potions. Neville was sleeping when I left and I didn't have the heart to try and make him go through the floo after being only a day old."

Chuckles greeted Frank Longbottom's statement before Lily cleared her throat, "well since the healer brought it up, we might as well decide godparents. Sirius, James and I wanted you the be the godfather for Harry even before he was born if that's okay with-"

Lily stopped speaking when Sirius looked at James with tears in his eyes. Looking between the two of them, you could see how they weren't just best friends or even brothers, the connection they shared went beyond the bond of brotherhood. Lily didn't have a name for what they shared, but she knew that it almost rivalled what she and James had-without the physical attraction or anything of that nature-and she knew that James would die for either one of them.

Lily smiled as she watched Sirius walk over to James and pull him into a crushing embrace, well as crushing as he could without harming his godson. "Thank you," he whispered fiercely and Lily strongly suspected that a few tears had fallen but didn't say anything not wanting to break their moment. Sirius pulled away from James and looked into the face of his godson for the first time. Before Lily could do anything, James handed baby Harry to Sirius, showing his deep trust in his best friend. Sirius gently stroked Harry's cheek, his gray eyes full of wonderment. "He's got your eyes Lily," he whispered.

Lily smiled at him before turning to James, "would you like to hold your daughter?" Before she had even finished the sentence James was at her side and gently taking Journey from her arms. She smiled as Harry gurgled happily in Sirius' arms and Journey snuggled into her father. After watching the interaction for a few moments she turned back to Remus and Frank, who were also watching the interactions with smiles on their faces. "Frank?"

Frank slowly tore his eyes away from the sentimental scene in front of him and looked at her before asking, "Yes Lily?"

"Before we ended up having twins," Lily began while figuring out how to word this without offending Remus, "we were going to ask Alice to be the godmother but since we have two babies now I was wondering if both of you would be godparents to Journey? Remus we would have asked you but the ministry-"

Remus smiled at her, "don't worry about it Lily, the fact that you considered me, even with my condition is more than enough."

Frank walked up to Lily and laid his hand upon hers, "we'd be honoured to be Journey's godparents." Looking into Frank's brown eyes Lily saw tears threatening to spill and she smiled back at him. Pushing on despite the tears threatening to fall Frank continued, "Alice wanted to ask you if you'd be the godmother for Neville, but she couldn't make it so she asked me to ask you in her stead."

Lily couldn't help the tears that came to her eyes when she responded, "I'd love to."

All the now-named godparents signed the documents (Lily signed the one the Frank had brought with him just in case she said yes) and just as the last copy disappeared to the ministry, the door opened again unexpectedly. Everyone sharply turned to the door, and those who had their wands with them were in the process of drawing them mid-turn when they realized that the man in the doorway was none other than Albus Dumbledore in neon green robes with dancing snitches on them and a tall pointed hat.

Lily frowned, 'it's rather odd of Dumbledore to be here, he never went to any of the other Order's member's after they had their children, not that I'm aware of anyways. What's he doing here?'

Dumbledore smiled in a grandfatherly way and pulled out a wrapped mint from his pocket, "mint anyone?"

James and Sirius both hurried over to Dumbledore and took several mints each, while everyone else responded with a "no professor." When Sirius came close to him Dumbledore looked at the boy in his arms curiously, "so this is your son?"

James smiled proudly, "Yes that is Harry James Potter, and this here," he indicated to the baby in his arms, "is Journey Mercury Potter."

Dumbledore spared a brief glance and a jovial, "so they got the scans wrong did they?" at Journey before going back to observing Harry. No one else seemed to notice this strange fixation he had on Harry, but it made Lily feel uneasy for some reason. 'Why is he taking such an interest in Harry?' Looking around again at everyone, she caught Frank's eye and realized that he too noticed this and found it odd. Lily realized that the same thing could have happened with Neville.

Dumbledore was interrupted from his observations when Harry sneezed right in Dumbledore's face, and got snot right on his glasses. Everyone laughed at this including Dumbledore as he took off his gasses to wipe them off. When he was finished he turned to Sirius and said, "I need to have a word with James, Lily and Frank alone if that's okay."

Sirius started to protest but Remus beat him to it, "Okay Professor. Let's go Sirius."

Sirius pouted but reluctantly handed over the now-sleeping Harry to Lily. As the door was closing on his way out, Lily heard him say, "how come Frank gets to stay and not us?"

Dumbledore popped another mint into his mouth, but his smile was slowly fading, making him look much older than he already did. He turned to Frank and said in a surprisingly sad voice, "you may want to pull up a chair for this Frank."

The three of them shared looks, but Frank did what was recommended and summoned a red leather recliner and sat down in it. James looked at his plain wooden chair then at Frank's before whispering, "prat."

Dumbledore smiled faintly-apparently he heard that-before it quickly diminished again into the previous sad, aged look. He quickly put up several wards to prevent eavesdropping (Lily heard Sirius curse before the last one went up) before turning back to the three other people in the room. He gravely began to say the words that Lily just knew was going to change all of their lives altogether, "I hate that I have to say this, and I wish I could spare you all of this, but some things cannot be helped they say.

Earlier this month, when I was interviewing a potential divination professor, she made a prophecy, pertaining to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. The prophecy goes like this: 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … born to those who thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives … the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies … '"*

Lily could barely hear Frank's gasp or James' stuttered, half-formed questions over the pounding of her own heart, 'my babies…' He head pounded rapidly as her mind put together numerous in several milliseconds, 'Severus joined right after he was hired-or rather that was why he was hired last year-which means he would have heard the prophecy…that means he was the one who gave Voldemort the 'valuable information' …he knew he would come after me…that's what upset Dumbledore so much and made him increase the Order's activities…to keep me and Alice safe...that's why he would watch us so closely after he found out we were both having boys…he was watching out for the safety of the prophecy…for his weapon!'

Anger swelled within Lily, but it was quickly replaced by fear a few moments later, 'he's going to go after my babies! The prophecy may be a load of bull but Voldemort won't take any possible chances…the prophecy was referring to a boy but even then both of my precious babies will be in danger! They aren't even an hour old and already their life hangs by a thread…'

Dumbledore cleared his throat, bringing Lily's attention back to him. He looked at them all sadly and spoke gravely, "while I do not know if the prophecy will come to pass, Voldemort has already come to know part of the prophecy," Lily nodded her head in confirmation to what you already knew but James and Frank looked thunderstruck, "He does not know all of it, but he knows enough that he will know that it refers to either young Neville or Harry. He will more than likely come after them, which is why I had asked you to keep your pregnancies secret so that he would have less time to go after you specifically. However now the documents are in the ministry and he will find them and come after all of you so that the potential threat to his power is eliminated."

Lily couldn't help it, tears poured down her face. She cried tears for her children, who were going to be the target of a very powerful insane man, no monster. She cried for the fact that they were even living in times like these, where no end was in sight and the chances of them ever living a normal childhood were likely zero. She cried because she knew, deep down inside, that she would likely never see her children grow up either because Voldemort would kill them, or because she would be killed protecting them. She cried tears for her family, even Petunia and her horrid husband, for all the losses they had suffered and were still suffering. But most importantly, she cried tears for her children, who were likely never going to know their parents and were going to be among the hundreds of children who were missing one or both of their parents.

Looking around she noticed that Frank and James were both crying as well, even Dumbledore shed a tear before speaking again, "It is my suggestion, though I loath to say it, but I think that both of your families should go into hiding, preferably under the Fidelius Charm."

James was the first to respond, "Absolutely not. We are needed, you know this Dumbledore. We are losing fighters, fast, and you need everyone you can get." Frank nodded in response.

Dumbledore sighed, "I know that you believe this, but if one of your children are really the only way that Lord Voldemort will be defeated, then it is better for everyone if they are protected."

Lily huffed, her previous anger returning, "so we are just going to trust a prophecy that has less than a five percent chance of coming true? We are going to make children, who are not even a day old, fight the worst monster that the wizarding world has seen in a hundred years?" She would have gone on but Dumbledore interceded.

"Of course not Lily," he said in a grandfatherly tone, a tone she did not trust for one minute, "I am just saying that Voldemort believes the prophecy so we should not put you or your children in unnecessary danger."

Lily knew that Dumbledore wasn't being completely truthful or thinking entirely in their best interest, but he did raise a good point. Before she could say anything Frank spoke up, "how about we think about it?"

Dumbledore nodded, "that's all I can ask for," Lily barely restrained a snort, she knew the Dumbledore would endlessly badger them until they caved into his request, or they told him exactly where to shove it in a very public manner. She'd seen Mad-Eye Moody do the other day when Dumbledore kept asking him to stand guard outside a low risk safe house, a safe house that was currently completely empty.

Dumbledore continued speaking, breaking Lily out of her thoughts, "well I must get back to headquarters, I really am sorry to have dropped this onto you, but please think about going into hiding. If you wish I myself will be the secret keeper for both of you. Well then," he said as he popped another mint into his mouth, "hopefully you will all be able to have a restful morning," and with that he turned and strode out the door where Lily could faintly hear Sirius and Remus still arguing.

Despite all that had happened James was still able to snort and whisper, "restful morning my arse."

Lily couldn't agree more.

A year and several months later, Halloween to be exact, Lily and James were sitting in the living room after having just put the twins to bed. They had eventually agreed to go under the Fidelius Charm-as had the Longbottoms-and were using Peter Pettigrew as their secret keeper and Sirius as the decoy. They visited the Longbottoms once a month, and saw Sirius and Peter every other week. They didn't see Remus anymore since he had started to become withdrawn and Peter was afraid that he'd switched sides with all the promises Voldemort was giving werewolves.

Dumbledore had stopped by twice, to put up the charm and then on the twins birthday, and both times he had looked at Harry in ways that gave Lily-and James once she told him her suspicions and he started putting things together- the creeps. Both of their children were in danger and yet Dumbledore only ever focused on Harry, which infuriated Lily to no end. She kept quiet though, knowing that she would not be able to make a difference about how one of the most powerful wizards operates.

Speaking of powerful wizards…

"Harry and Journey are both going to be very powerful one day," she said to James with a hint of pride.

James put down the paper he was reading with a big grin, "I know. Did you see the way that Harry summoned that chocolate today from across the room? Or the way Journey changed his hair pink after he took her chocolate? Journey is going to have my talent in transfiguration I tell you."

Lily smiled, "just like Harry will be good in charms. I wonder if either of them will be good in potions like me? Or maybe they'll be good at ancient runes or defense or-"

Lily was cut off when James laughed at her, "Lils I'm sure that they'll both be brilliant, they have two of the brightest students to ever pass through Hogwarts as parents! And 4 Marauder 'fathers'…"

Lily rolled her eyes at James first proclamation, then narrowed them when he said the second, "you will not be teaching either of our children any pranks. Do you underst-"

She was cut off by a shrill scream from upstairs, followed by two loud wailings. Both Potters stood up in a millisecond and were halfway up the stairs before the scream had even finished. They barged into the nursery to see both the babies in one crib, crying their little hearts out. She ran to the crib, a little confused how Harry got out of his but decided to think about it later, and grabbed Journey, hugging her tightly, just as James grabbed Harry and did the same.

Harry started to calm down but Journey was still wailing. Lily rocked her, sang a lullaby and even tickled her, but nothing worked. She loosened her hold so that she could look into Journey's eyes…and nearly dropped her in surprise.

Journey's eyes had turned almost completely silver, with only flecks of green here and there. When Journey saw that she had her mom's undivided attention, she started to make sounds, no words Lily realized, words that startled and scared Lily.

"mumma …" – hiccough- " bad man … red eyes … scary…" –hiccough- "…green light … mumma sleeping …"

Lily looked at James in surprise and fear, to see the same look directed right back at her. Not knowing what to do, she turned back to Journey and said soothingly, "it's okay Journey, there is no bad man, mummy will protect you." With these words, Journey seemed to be somewhat calmer, and the silver started to fade from her eyes, before they were almost completely green again with only small flecks of silver.

Lily placed Journey in the crib, who then started reaching for Harry, so James put Harry down in the same crib, "just for one night," he said before turning back to Lily for permission. Lily smiled shakily and nodded, before turning and heading out of the room.

As she walked down the stairs Lily thought about what her daughter had said, 'Red eyes…that can only mean Voldemort, but why would Journey dream of him? And the green light…was that the killing curse? I don't think Journey saw me sleeping if that's what it was…"

Lily continued to mull over her thoughts as she sat down on the couch. James came in behind her and sat the couch with her, wrapping his arms around her. "It'll be okay Lils, it was just a dream."

Lily turned to him, "I don't understand it though, Journey has never even heard the name Voldemort mentioned, not even as You-Know-Who or the Dark Lord. How could she have thought that up as a dream? And the green light? There is only one type of spell that is green that Voldemort would use, and she saw me…" tears started to form in her eyes.

James hugged Lily fiercely, "it's okay Lily, nothing is going to happen, we're safe here."

Lily hugged James just as fiercely, "I love you," she whispered.

Tears started to form in James' eyes as well as he whispered, "I love you too, you, Journey and Harry. You are the lights of my world."

Just then a tremendous bang was heard outside the house. Both Potters quickly stood up with their wands drawn. Comprehension dawned on James, "Peter betrayed us, he's the spy," he whispered. Lily's eyes widened. James turned to Lily who was backing away from the door in fear, "LILY IT'S HIM!" he shouted, "TAKE THE KIDS AND RUN!" Lily looked about to deny him at first, but at the mention of her children nodded slowly, tears streaming down her face. She ran up to James and kissed him fiercely, likely for the last time. James kissed her back just as passionately, tears spilling out of his closed eyelids as he tried to pour all of his love, passion and every bit of his being into his last kiss. It lasted only a few seconds, but to them it seemed like a lifetime and a millisecond all at once.

Another blast forced James to pull away, "LILY GO!" he shouted, "I'LL HOLD HIM OFF! TELL THE KIDS I LOVE THEM!"

They held eye contact for what seemed like forever, taking in every bit of the love of their life that they could, before Lily forced herself to look away. She turned away from her husband, even though every part of her was demanding to turn around and fight side by side with him to the end, and ran up the stairs to the two other most important people in her life, the ones she actually had a chance at saving.

James watched his wife run up the stair, heard his wailing children who had awoken from the attack on the house, and felt as if his soul was being ripped out and going with his wife. Every fibre of his being was telling him to go after her, but he knew what he was doing was right. He knew that he would not survive this encounter, but only hoped that he would buy his wife and children, his lights in this dark time, time to escape. If he could do that, then he could go into the afterlife and meet his parents and ancestors with pride, knowing that he defended his family to the end, so that they could live. It would be worth it. His life was worth it.

James faced the door, wand drawn and waited.

* Taken from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, page 741

amethystdreamstar: So whatcha think? I would really love any reviews you guys could give me, even if it's just to criticize it. If that's all you are going to do, please don't just go raving on and on about how bad you think it is with nothing constructive. If you think it's bad, give me a reason and I'll see what I can do about it. Other than that I'd love to know what you guys think.

Also, I don't have a beta (as you can probably tell), but if someone was willing to be my beta, send me a message. If you guys think my fic is so bad that it's not even worth a beta, then well, I guess I'll work on my own then.

This is just the first chapter (obviously) so there will (hopefully) be much more to come! :D

Also, I plan on updating once a week, which I think is pretty reasonable, unless something comes up or life gets in the way.