Chapter 2: The bond of blood-

Everyone gaped. The boy that resembled Harry so much, turned and looked at Dumbledore and then a double take. "Professor! What are you doing here?" He suddenly seemed very panicked. "I-I can explain." He began talking very fast, "You see, Sirius dragged Peter and I with him to easedrop on the sixth years' lesson- and then Evan's came along- man, she is so pushy sometimes! I mean, not that that doesn't mean she's beautiful, she is! But pushy, like this one time-" Dumbledore quickly raised his hand for silence and the boy immediately obeyed. Dumbledore slowly walked over to him and put his hands on his shoulders, peering down into his eyes… his not green, but hazel eyes. That's when he knew. "It is you." The headmaster whispered very quietly with a look on his face that was quite unreadable.

The boy named James cocked his head, "of course it's me. I just spoke to you a little while ago, don't you remember? Professor McGonagall just sent me to see you, about the detention, remember?" James pulled a crinkled note out of his robe pocket and handed it to the old professor. Everyone was watching intently, uncertain of what was going on. The headmaster slowly took the note, and almost found it a shock to be staring down at his own writing. It was a note addressed to Professor Slughorn, the potions teacher in James's 5th year. Dumbledore looked back up at James as an old memory tugged at his mind, longing to be remembered. Suddenly, it was as though a door in his head had opened and everything came flooding out. He remembered writing this note. "I wrote this to your potions teacher… to reschedule your detention so you could attend your Quidditch practice…"

"Yea. Because my captain is threatening to throw me off the team if I miss anymore practices." Said James, " and Old Slughorn wouldn't listen to McGonagall. He's a nutty, old bat, he is…"

Dumbledore stared at James. It was all coming back to him, from all those years ago. "You got the detention for bothering Miss Evan's during his class."

"Yea." James looked down bitterly. "He always favors her." He suddenly looked back up, his eyes twinkling brightly and gave a thoughtful sigh, "but, who wouldn't favor her. She's perfect." His expression became dreamy, "what I wouldn't do for Lily Evans…"

Dumbledore remained silent, studying him intently. James looked around uncomfortably at all the staring eyes. "well," he finally said, coming out of his reverie, "you never answered my question, what are you all doing at Sirius's house?"

"I will answer your question, but first, I think it would be best if you answered some of mine." Dumbledore kindly gestured with his hand towards a chair at the table. James got the hint and took a seat. Slowly, Mr. And Mrs. Weasley, Fred and George sat down as well, still staring avidly. Ron and Hermione sat down reluctantly at the other side of the table as though fearful that James would attack. Remus Lupin on the other hand remained standing in the corner, not speaking, just watching. All the eyes upon him made James very uncomfortable. He smiled broadly, "well, this is cozy." Dumbledore sat down beside James. "James," the headmaster began very seriously, "how did you get to Sirius's house."

James's expression changed instantly. His smile turned from happy, to a nervous grin. "yea… about that." He began pulling at a loose thread on his robe and wouldn't meet the headmaster's eyes. It was hard admitting you had done something wrong to Dumbledore when he stared at you with those deep, twinkling eyes. Why did they have to talk about this in front of all these strangers sitting at the table? Why wouldn't Dumbledore just take him back to Hogwarts and sit him down in his office? "Well… Sirius kind of had this idea… okay, well, Sirius and I kind of had this idea…" the longer the headmaster stared at him, the more he felt like he needed to be honest. "We thought it would be fun to easedrop on the sixth year's apparating class, you know, to get a head start on it and to… maybe test it out a little bit. Have a little fun with it."

"You wore the invisibility cloak, I presume?" said Dumbledore casually.

"Yes- hey, how do you know about that?" Asked James, surprised.

"I have my ways. We can discuss that later, go on." Ushered Dumbledore.

James eyes Dumbledore questioningly before he continued, "Well, after we got back to the dormitories, we decided to test it out while everyone else was at lunch." He said a bit shamefully. James dared sneak a small glance at the headmaster, who, to his astonishment, didn't look angry, but also looked as though he was not in the least bit surprised. "Go on." He ushered again.

"So, I volunteered to go first. We just randomly picked something to concentrate on. Which ended up being Sirius's house. Not that any of us would ever want to come here. His family's nuts. But we picked it anyway, getting a good laugh because, well, we didn't actually think it would work." James looked up at Dumbledore with a hesitant smile. Fred and George smiled broadly and looked at James in astonishment, "wicked."

Dumbledore however seemed to be in deep thought. Suddenly he muttered, "You went missing."

"Er, what?" James asked, confused.

"I remember Minerva telling me later in the staff room that you didn't show up for her class and no one else had seen you." James could almost hear the cogs in the headmaster's head turning. "We assumed you may have been ill." He looked back at James. "But, you were here… the whole time."

James looked at him, lost.

Finally, Arthur Weasley, who had been silent for quite some time, spoke, "Dumbledore, what's going on?"

Dumbledore pulled his gaze away from James and addressed Arthur. "I believe, Arthur, we have a visitor from the past."

All was silent for a moment, before Dumbledore returned his gaze back to James although he was still talking to Mr. Weasley, "He splinched."

"you mean he left part of himself behind?" Hermione said in horror. Ron and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley's all gasped, Fred and George's reaction on the other hand was "cool!" James turned pale. His mind raced frantically as he tried to think about what parts of himself he may have not realized he was missing. But he wasn't in any pain. It didn't feel like he was missing any limbs or an ear, eye or nose. Or maybe he was still numb from his strange apparation that had gone all wrong. He began to panic and looked at Dumbledore frantically. He was surprised to see amusement in the professor's eyes.

"No, I assure you, he has all of his limbs. There is a rare form of splinching, which, I'm sure, Arthur, you may have heard about working in your department within the ministry." Dumbledore now addressed James once more. "You splinched, but not physically. Through time."

Mr. Weasley spoke up immediately, "Dumbledore, that can't be possible. Concentrating on the Black house wouldn't have been enough to jump him ahead this far. He would have needed some kind of-"

"-connection." Finished Dumbledore.

"Well, yes." Stammered Mr. Weasely. "Some-some of connection residing on the place he was focusing on-"

"He does have a connection." Intervined Dumbledore very calmly as though this sort of bizarre thing happened everyday. "A blood connection." Said the headmaster, "Harry."

James looked around at everyone, "Who?"