I do not, in any way, shape, or form, own Harry Potter.

No more Voldemort, no more need for blood wards. Without a need for blood wards, there was no reason why Harry Potter should ever see his aunt, uncle, or cousin ever again. And so, despite it having cost him his godfather, Harry was actually rather happy that Voldemort had managed to lure him to the Department of Mysteries.

And besides, he knew that Sirius wouldn't want him to sit around moping. No, he'd want Harry to take advantage of the new-found peace and live his life as best he could. And so, live it he would, starting by indulging in all the childish impulses he had never been able to bring himself to entertain before. On the rare occasions that he did treat himself to some small piece of the childhood that had been stolen from him, first by the Dursleys, then by Voldemort, he had found it rather difficult to truly enjoy himself: it was hard to appreciate a prank when one's entire life felt like one huge one.

But now, with Fred, George, and Lee Jordan graduated, Hogwarts was wide open for a new prankster, and Harry felt that he was just the man for the job. It was what Sirius would have wanted for him, after all. And so, Operation Sirius Business was underway. The objective? Prank everybody.

Everybody.

Two boys, twin brothers, in fact, were sitting together in the room of their house reserved for their mother's magical experiments. The slightly older of the two, Derick Channing, was screwing around with one particularly complex-looking device while his younger brother, Astor Everett, watched with a combination of trepidation and fascination.

The two of them, despite being fraternal twins, were very nearly indistinguishable; the only obvious differences between the two were their hair and eyes: Derick had inherited their mother's dark grey, nearly black, eyes, while Astor had his father's emerald green ones. While both had black hair, the former's was medium length and messy, while the latter's was a bit shorter and much neater, though it took considerable effort to get and keep it that way. Astor was also a bit paler than his brother, although the difference was subtle enough that few noticed it. Both were already dressed in Hogwarts robes, thus saving them from having to change on the train.

"Alright, so turn that lever there, push this button here, and twirl that knob there."

"I still think this is a bad idea. You know how Mum is!"

"I'm not worried about her," Derick scoffed.

"Neither am I," Astor replied, "but I am worried about these . . . whatever they are. You could be messing with a doomsday device for all we know!"

Derick stopped fiddling with the machine, whatever it was, to look at his brother incredulously. "Seriously? A doomsday device? Why would Mum build a doomsday device?"

"I dunno, why would she have a bunch of empty time turners lying around?" Astor countered. "If there's one rule to live by in this family, it's-"

"The things Mum does only makes sense to Mum. I know, Ash, but seriously, what's the worst that could happen?"

At that moment, their younger sister, Jenna Katheryn, walked in. "Asking that question is asking for trouble," she said, grinning broadly. "Haven't you read any books?" Jenna, named after their maternal grandmother, was a bit shorter than her brothers, had hair that went halfway down her back, and, like Derick, had eyes that were almost black. Like every member of her family, she had black hair, although hers was like their mother's in that it was naturally neat, rather than perpetually messy like her father's and brothers'.

"Rick? Reading? I'm not sure that's possible," Astor replied, also smiling. "Anyways, what're you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be packing?"

"No you two are supposed to be packing," she countered. "I already have. Mum asked me to make sure that you two weren't getting into any trouble."

"Again, I'm not sure if Rick can do that," Astor informed her. Derick, for his part, chose to ignore his siblings in favour of the machine in front of him.

"What do you think it does?" he asked, frustration evident. Most of the time, he could tell, roughly, what something their mother had designed did based on its appearance, but this thing, whatever it was, had him stumped.

The machine was a metal rectangle, about as tall as a normal person, with a control panel a few feet in front of it (connected via what looked suspiciously like a garden hose) covered in knobs, levers, dials, and what appeared to be clocks, though their hands weren't moving. In the exact center of it was a large red button, which screamed, to anyone with any sense, "don't press." To Derick and Jenna, however, it seemed more inviting, and they misinterpreted it as just saying "press."

"I don't think I want to know," Astor said, eyeing the machine with a grudging curiosity, though he tried not to show it.

"Of course you do," Jenna said impatiently, walking up to the box itself and placing a hand on it. "Obviously the inside is filled with something, but unless we know what, we probably won't figure out what it does."

"So we just gotta open it?" Derick asked, stepping away from the control panel to walk around the attached box, looking for any way of doing so. "I'm not seeing any hinges or anything."

"Good! Stop trying to!" Astor snapped, rapidly losing his patience. It was always him looking after the other two: Derick had no sense of caution, and Jenna's was often overridden by her curiosity. "C'mon, Derick, we have to pack. The train leaves in," he checked his wristwatch, "half an hour."

"Meaning that we don't need to leave for another twenty minutes," Derick pointed out. "And besides, we're all packed already, right?"

Unfortunately, this was true: both boys had packed the previous evening, though Derick had done so only grudgingly.

"Fine, so we don't need to pack, but could you two please leave that thing alone? It might be dang- Jen!"

"What?" Jenna asked innocently, her finger mere inches from the button on the control panel. Astor glared at her for a few seconds, and she eventually relented, opting instead to twirl more dials.

"It's fine, Ash. Seriously, lighten up!" Derick admonished, grabbing his brother's hand and pulling it towards the box itself, placing it on the smooth, metallic surface. "See? Nothing to worry about."

"Not just by touching it, maybe," Astor argued, wrenching his hand away. While he spoke, Derick shrugged and leaned against the offending box, grinning at his brother's scowl. "But why would we-"

"There's something weird about these clocks," Jenna interrupted, tired of her brother's paranoid ramblings. One of them had the current time, which she moved ahead several hours just to see what would happen. When nothing did, she moved to spin a dial from its current position at "G H" (whatever that meant) to "M A," but Astor grabbed her wrist before she could.

"Why can't you two just let this lie?" he demanded, now seriously annoyed, though it was mostly due to worry. "If you really wanna know what it is, why not just go downstairs and ask Mum?"

"But then what's the point?" the others asked in unison.

"I wanna figure it out ourselves! Otherwise we'll never be as good as Mum." Jenna said seriously.

"And I don't wanna cheat," Derick added.

"So there's obviously only one thing to do," Jenna stated firmly, trying, and failing, to pull her wrist out of Astor's grip. With that, she pushed the button in the center of the control panel with her free hand, Astor shouting at her to stop while Derick, still leaning on the metal box, was grinning from ear to ear.

The entire room was enveloped in a blinding white light, and when it faded, the three of them were gone.

"All I'm saying is, I just don't see anything there," Harry said tiredly.

"But she did come with us to the Ministry," Hermione argued stubbornly.

"Would you two please give it a rest?" Ron snapped. "That's my sister you're talking about!"

Sure enough, Harry and Hermione had been debating Harry's supposed future with Ginny the entire train ride back to Hogwarts. The thing that really confused Harry about it, though, was that the subject had never once come up over the summer, despite his having spent the entire thing at the Burrow.

"Exactly, she's off limits," Harry said, as though that settled the matter. In truth, Ginny being Ron's sister had nothing to do with their conversation as far as Harry was concerned. He quite liked Ginny, and he certainly respected her, but he just didn't have any romantic feelings for her. "Besides, you and Luna came, too. You don't see me throwing myself at either of you."

"Well of course not," Hermione said impatiently. "Luna is . . . well . . . she's very . . . Anyways, now that you don't have to worry about Voldemort anymore, you can't use some noble excuse like," here she paused for a second and spoke in a low voice to imitate Harry, "'he'll use you against me.'"

"And what about you?" Ron asked sharply, suddenly interested.

"And that's my cue to leave," Harry said, standing up and wandering down the table to sit with Neville, instead.

"Did he just . . . ditch us?" Ron asked, rather more confused than Hermione felt the situation warranted.

As far as she was concerned, what Harry was doing was completely obvious, as well as brilliant and infuriating: distracting her from her attempts to meddle in his love life by giving her an opportunity in her own.

Bastard.

Meanwhile, Harry was explaining to Neville what had led him to flee Hermione and Ron's company.

"And she's sure that you two should get together?" Neville asked, not a little confused.

"Seems like," Harry said dully. "She just won't take 'I don't like Ginny like that' for an answer."

"Is there anyone you do like?" Neville asked hesitantly. "If you ask someone else out, she'll probably leave you alone."

Harry considered this. Pretty much all the Hufflepuffs were out after the way they had treated him during the Tri-Wizard, Parvati wouldn't even consider going on another date with him after the Yule Ball the same year, Lavender was . . . not worth considering, Sophie Roper and Fay Dunbar rarely spoke to anyone but each other if they could avoid it, and he barely knew any of the Ravenclaws. That left only . . . the Slytherins! Perfect! Why actually date a girl when he could make a deal where he pretended to date one instead? And who better to make a mutually beneficial deal with than a Slytherin?

The only question was, which one? Parkinson and Bulstrode were both out, no question. Blood purists who had supported Voldemort (albeit quietly) and disliked Harry because of something his mother had done before he was old enough to speak were hardly ideal candidates for anything (other than a good pranking). Davis had many of the same personality problems as Lavender did, and Greengrass was, in a word, terrifying. Harry chuckled slightly at the memory of what she had done to Zabini when he had asked her out. Poor bloke still gave her a wide berth, not to mention trying to shield his crotch whenever she got too close for his comfort.

That left only Lilith Moon, and the only things Harry knew about her were that she was a half-blood and she kept a low profile. Perfect. Unlikely to blindly follow the pureblood agenda and probably kept her head down because half of her Slytherin year mates' fathers were Death Eaters.

Harry was pulled from his musings by Neville snapping his fingers in front of his face repeatedly. "Sorry," the once-timid boy said, not sounding particularly sorry at all, "but you weren't answering when I tried to call to you."

"Sorry about that, mate," Harry said. "I just figured something out, though. What do you know about Lilith Moon?"

"Why do you-" Neville started to ask, but he was cut off by Harry.

"I'll explain in a minute, for now, just answer the question."

Neville cocked his head slightly and was silent for a moment. "Well, I know that family was neutral during the war. Her mum's a muggle, her dad's a pureblood, and she hasn't got any siblings. That's about it."

"Perfect," Harry said, smiling evilly. "I'm not looking to start anything right now, but I can make a deal with her where we pretend that we're dating. That'll get Hermione off my back and give me a chance to develop my Slytherin side."

"I'd be careful if I were you," Neville warned quietly. "There's no way to make that offer without it being really obvious that you'll benefit from it a lot more than she will; she'll negotiate for everything you have if you let her."

"Then I won't let her," Harry said decisively, finally directing his attention to the feast he had been neglecting. Just as he was spearing a piece of potato on his fork, and just as Neville was saying, "your funeral," the entire Great Hall was bathed in a soft white light, which seemed to be coming from its exact center.

When the light had dissipated fully, there were three figures standing in the middle of the Hall, in between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables, who certainly hadn't been there before. Two of them were boys, the exact same height as each other, the third a girl who was slightly shorter than them. All three were dressed in Hogwarts robes, the girl's having blue trim, one of the boy's red, and the other's green.

"Jen! What did you do?" demanded the boy with Slytherin robes.

"I dunno," the girl, evidently named Jen, answered. She was looking around the room curiously, the Gryffindor boy looked impressed, and the Slytherin panicked.

"Looks like it was just a teleporter," the Gryffindor stated. "I told you it wasn't anything dangerous, Ash." With that, he began walking towards his house table before Ash caught his arm the elbow.

"Quit being stupid, Rick," he said sternly. "It's only 10:30, and the Hall's packed. If it were 'just a teleporter,' it'd be empty."

"Which means that the clock I set to 7:00 . . ." Jen said slowly.

The boys shouted, in perfect unison, "Mum built a time machine?!"

The three of them had seemed completely oblivious, or simply indifferent, to their audience up to this point, but were now looking around the Hall smugly. Their expressions only lasted a moment, though.

"Um," Jen said hesitantly.

"Do either of you . . ." Rick started before trailing off.

"Recognise anyone?" Ash finished.

All three of them turned to face each other before Ash turned to face the head table, in the center of which sat a very confused Albus Dumbledore. "What . . . year is, sir?" Ash asked hesitantly.

"What year do you come from?" Dumbledore asked, rather than answering the question.

The three exchanged nervous looks before Ash turned back to Dumbledore. "2016, sir."

Dumbledore, surprisingly, smiled. "Well, it is currently September, 1996. Perhaps your parents are in school now. May I ask your names?"

"I'm Astor Everett Potter, and these are siblings: Derick Channing Potter and Jenna Katheryn Potter."

The Hall was deathly quiet for a full ten seconds, every faced turned to stare at one person, who was sitting in absolute shock. Finally pulling himself together, Harry said, rather unenthusiastically, the first word that popped into his head.

"Hooray."

AN: I know that the whole "Harry's kids from the future travel back in time" thing is pretty overused, but I figured that here, it was doing something very different from what it usually accomplishes: normally, the kids'll talk about the war and there's some brief "I end up with Ginny? Sweet!" on Harry's part and some "I end up with Hermione? Gross! (Girls have cooties, jk, doh, Hermines, I luv yah!)" from Ron, and that's about it. Sure, it saves Harry a lot of grief, having some kids who know how the war went down explain stuff to him, but it borders on Peggy Sue territory, and that's not a genre of which I'm especially fond.

Here, the kids can't reveal much other than the eventual death of Lisa's mother (which is the reason why Jenna is named after her), Harry's relationships with various other adults in his life, and the fact that the Death Eaters continue to be mildly irritating throughout his adult life. What I was really interested in here was Harry being thrust into a situation where he's basically told "hey, here's some girl whom you've never really known despite having gone to school together for five years, here're the kids you'll have with her in the future, and here's a suite for the five of you to share. Have fun!"

Moving on, I really want to continue this story, but I just have way too much on my docket at the moment. I wrote this chapter about a week ago during some down time when I didn't have internet access, and I figured I might as well upload it, since there was no way I was ever gonna continue it. That said, I am putting it up for adoption, though its adoption is conditional on writing the story so that it complies with the notes I wrote for it. I've outlined what happens over the course of the timeline the kids come from, Lisa's family, the careers of Harry and his friends, the way the time machine the kids used works, and a few other odds and ends, so it's not like I haven't got a pretty clear indication of what led up to this point. What I'm a little iffy on is where the characters go from here, so hopefully the adopter will be able to write this convincingly.

So, with all of that said, thanks for reading! Duke out!