A Life You Never Knew

Prologue

Harry Potter and his mother, Lily, had just escaped. An hour of idle chatter with the Dursleys was unbearable, so much that James Potter seemed to avoid it completely. Even now Harry was thirty-five, with small children of his own, the monthly visit to his mother's part of the family was still a usual for him; it was a compulsory part of his tight schedule.

Being an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, Harry was constantly on the go, and seeing his family was a rare and thankful opportunity nowadays. However, today's visit was cut short by a rather hasty and rushed letter from Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After seeing his mother safely reach her aging home in Godric's Hollow, he apparated to Hogsmeade, where he could walk up to the school. It was well known that you could not apparate inside Hogwarts. It was times like these that the ancient borders became such a pain in the hippogriff.

Harry smiled. It had been so long since his graduation of Hogwarts that he had begun to forget the spaced out halls and handy crevices. It was even handier when he had his father's map with him. Ah, the Marauder's Map, he thought blissfully. Such a useful piece of parchment.

Fortunately, the Map wasn't needed to reach the headmaster's office, for he had been there many a time for pulling practical jokes with his best friend, Ron Weasley (with a little help from Ron's brothers, Fred and George, of course). When he reached the statue of the griffin, he pulled out the piece of parchment on which Albus Dumbledore had written his letter.

Mr. H. Potter,

I am incredibly sorry for the lack of timing here, Harry, but there's neither a second nor spell to spare. You must hurry, as soon as you can, mind you, to my office at Hogwarts. There is someone important there to meet you. Yes, come now, if you can. Hurry.

Prof. Dumbledore.

P.S. I am particularly fond of Cadbury's chocolate.

"Cadbury's chocolate," chuckled Harry, as the statue moved to reveal a set of stairs. Albus' so called postal scripts were always a dead giveaway to his current office password.

The wearing stone steps made a crunching noise as they ascended, the sound of rock grinding on rock disturbing any tense atmosphere there could be, between angered rivals or mislead lovers.

The door at the top of the flight of stairs was open, and so Harry stepped inside. Sat at the desk in Dumbledore's office was an elderly woman, with warm yet alert brown eyes and grey hair in a loose bun. She wore an emerald robe with a diamond holding it together in the centre, and the way she held herself in the chair reminded Harry of someone, although he couldn't quite grasp who it was from the corner of his mind. The answer taunted him, like a rememberall stuck in a tree that a first year was unable to reach, like catching smoke with your bare hands. She was like someone he knew in a dream, or a past life.

"Who are you?" he said bluntly, Albus sending him a warning look.

"Ginerva Riddle, H- Mr Potter," she replied sharply. "It would be nicer if you could drop that vulgar tone. It's quite unsettling."

For once in his life, Harry was stuck for words. There was something in Ginerva's eyes, a hope, a spark, a love, for all her knew, that made him think she knew more about him that she should. Everything, to an extent. Okay, maybe not what he had for breakfast and how many Wronskei Feints he'd pulled in his life, but all the little things; the way he bit his lip in thought; the way he tapped his phoenix feather wand on his leg impatiently; the way he laughed when someone honestly, truthfully made his day. There was definitely something. He just couldn't figure out what.

Curtly, he nodded his head and sat down on the other chair at the mahogany desk, scooting it as further away from the sharp-minded woman without making his discomfort obvious.

"Ginerva has something of importance to give – and tell – us," started Dumbledore, obviously knowing the two would not talk to each other willingly after their cool exchange.

"Yes, I do, Albus, but are you sure this is the right boy? He is by no means Harry, Sir, look at him!"

"I believe whether he is like you once knew or not, he still deserves to know this. You owe him that much, Ginny." Ginny shifted in her seat, inwardly groaning. She missed Albus as headmaster, but she did not miss his guilt tricks.

"Fine, Sir," she huffed, turning to Harry. "I'm the result of what happens when you mess with time. Don't give me that look! In this life, you've had it damn perfect, Potter. The Harry I knew had been through so much. You're not nearly the Harry you could have been!"

"Ginerva," warned Albus.

"Sorry, Sir. Anyway, you had died a valiant battle, after almost destroying Lord Voldemort, or Tom Riddle, the most evil wizard of all time. He had won – evil had won. I was distraught, I was broken. So I used a spell that Professor McGonagall had made up, not that she knew I had it until I left, and by then, it was too late. The thing was, there was a chance I wouldn't exist in this world ever if I decided to not come back. Not as the person I was anyway.

"So I went. I wanted to come back originally. Determined to kill the Dark Lord when he was in his teens, I went back to the 1940s. Yet, somehow, those life ending words had never been able to slip through my mouth. And something unexpected happened. Something that you'd have to see to fully understand. Just remember this Harry. Whatever you see, about the past word, before I changed it, whatever you see about me; know that I wouldn't change it for the world. I lost everything, but everyone I loved gained something back."

Touching a frail finger to her forehead, Ginerva pulled out a silvery string of a memory, placing it in the pensieve that Albus had placed carefully on the table, pushing other papers to the side.

Harry plunged in, his bright green eyes wide with uncertainty, the defined black-rimmed glasses Ginny once loved no longer on his face.