AN: This chapter has been revised as of June 8, 2014 with assistance from The amazing lemon cheesecake. Editing for grammar, spelling and continuity is underway for the whole story, and I will be dealing with issues pointed out by reviewers along the way.
Harry was relaxing on a sofa after sharing a wonderful meal with Hannah and Neville. Daphne was sitting next to him, and they were holding hands, enjoying each other's company as they were getting know each other again after their twenty years of self imposed separation. Jasmine was sitting across from her parents as she shifted in her seat feeling a little uncomfortable watching her mother being so close to this man who despite being her father was mostly a complete stranger to her even after having met him just last week.
Hannah brought out tea for everyone and Neville sat down in a chair in between Jasmine and her parents. Harry looked at his cup of tea and then he arose from the couch.
"I'm not used to proposing a toast with a cup of tea," commented Harry as he stared into the bottom of his cup. Then he looked up at everyone and went to lift his cup as he turned to face Neville. Harry was about to continue when Neville stood up and held out his hand as an indication that he was interrupting Harry.
"A toast?" he questioned. "Well, we can do better than a nice hot cup of tea." With a wave of his hand he banished the tea cups all into the kitchen. There came a sudden crash from the direction of the kitchen, followed by a gasp and a scream from a couple of house elves. "Sorry about that, Hannah," added Neville sheepishly, while his wife merely looked down at her feet and shook her head.
""Where was I," asked Neville rhetorically. "Oh, yes, perhaps some fine brandy would go better for a toast."
A moment later a house elf appeared with a platter with a bottle of brandy and 5 snifters. The house elf glared at Neville and then he poured everyone a glass. Once the five people all had their glasses Harry again lifted his and began his toast.
"To Neville, my dear friend," he began with a huge grin. "You have been by my side since we went to the Department of Mysteries together at the end of our 5th year at Hogwarts. You have been my trusted ally through out the past twenty years, supporting me in everything. But most importantly, you kept my most precious secrets safe," he continued with a nod towards Daphne and Jasmine, "and even helped orchestrate bringing them back to me, and returning our memories to both Daphne and me. You have been more than a friend; you have been my brother, my most trusted helper. And you and your lovely wife have had to put up with me and my boorish visits for the past couple of decades. Thank you Hannah for your continuous hospitality and for allowing your husband to join me on occasion for the some of the adventures or outings we have had over the years."
"I owe so much to the two of you that I know that there is no way I could ever begin to repay you," said Harry as he finished his toast.
Neville walked over to Harry and embraced him with a hug. "You have been my brother, Harry," smiled Neville, "and you know I would do anything for you. You alone had faith in me, even before we went to the Department of Mysteries that night at the end of our fifth year. I'll always be there for you, mate."
Harry returned the smile. Then he looked at his wife and his daughter, "I only wish there was some way that I could have known you all of your life, that I could have been there to be your father, your dad."
Daphne looked away from Harry as Jasmine simply smiled in response. "It's enough for me to know that I have a dad, that you didn't really abandon mum and me, that what you did was to protect me, to protect us both."
Harry shook his head, "No, that's not enough; I should have found a way to do more."
Hannah noticed Daphne's avoidance of looking at Harry. She gently pulled on Neville's sleeve, "I think they need some time alone," she whispered. When Neville did not initially respond, she added, "without us in the room."
Neville raised an eyebrow in understanding and then he and his wife quietly slipped out of the room.
The three people in the room followed the Longbottoms with their eyes and then turned to look at each other.
"There may be a way," said Daphne quietly. "The time travel device, it just might work. It might be possible to go back and change things."
Harry looked up at her. "I know you sad you had finally finished the device, and I know we talked about this before. But is it worth the risk? What if we change the wrong things?"
Daphne laughed, "Oh, now the Gryffindor Golden Boy gets a conscience and actually thinks before leaping into something. Where were these fears of doing the wrong thing when you attacked a troll or a professor when you were a first year? Where was this worry when you faced a basilisk? Where were these concerns when you faced down Riddle how many times?"
Harry furrowed his brow as he thought about all that Daphne had said, and then he looked at Jasmine. "You two should know that I would risk anything and everything for you. But what if something happens and we don't arrange for us to be together as a family?"
Daphne sighed loudly. "If we go back in time, there are so many questions about what would happen? Would you end up together with Ginny again? How do we get our younger selves together in the first place if we change things? Are you going to change the war? Save everyone this time? What if you and I don't get together? What becomes of Jasmine then?"
Harry scoffed, "You're the director of the Department of Mysteries, don't you have any of these answers?"
"Don't be a prat, Harry" commented Daphne. "It's the Department if Mysteries not the Department of Answers."
Jasmine interrupted, "You two are getting along like an old married couple and you've only been together again for less than two weeks! Obviously mum doesn't have all of the answers. So we will have to figure out just how we're going to do this."
Daphne and Harry both turned to face her. "What do you mean we?" asked Daphne.
"If you two go back in time, and you change the time line, I'm not willing to take the chance that I might just be obliterated out of existence!" exclaimed the young woman. "And don't you think you can tell me I'm not going back in time with you, mum. I am an adult. If you two are going to possibly mess with my birth and my family, I think I have a right to be involved. Besides, any time travel must of necessity create its own paradox. That paradox will keep me alive even if you change things about my birth."
"That makes absolutely no sense," commented Harry.
"Like time travel does," snapped Jasmine. "To a muggle, waving your little wooden stick around and saying silly Latin phrases to make things fly in the air or change a matchstick into a needle doesn't make any sense either, but we al have done that. So don't start lecturing me about what does and doesn't make sense!" Jasmine leaned back into the chair she was sitting on and folding her arms across her chest.
"Well she does have a point," commented Daphne.
Harry stuttered trying to respond. As he was unable to make any intelligible sounds, Daphne continued, "We should talk about this more after we get home. And you obviously have not had any opportunity to take parenting lessons. Our daughter is an adult and quite adept at using magic. She is not a child, she is not incapable of making her own decisions."
At Daphne's family manor the next day Harry and the Greengrass ladies were relaxing over lunch and discussing their options.
"So, you're actually planning on travelling back in time, eliminating the Death Eaters all over again, and taking out Riddle earlier than before," commented Jasmine.
"Eliminating the Death Eaters, yes," explained Harry, "but I do not plan on going to the extremes that I have over the past twenty years. By eliminating the Death Eater threat and Tom Riddle himself then we should be able to avoid the problems that lead to my taking on the role of the Lord Protector in the first place."
Daphne considered what Harry had said, and then she stood up and walked out of the room without saying anything further. Harry turned to Jasmine who shook her head slightly. "Did you think about the ramifications about what you just said? If the events of twenty or more years ago change, then what brings you and mum together?"
Harry whispered under his breath, "Bloody hell," and then he got up and chased after Daphne whom he found walking the gardens in back of the manor.
He called after her, but Daphne did not turn to face him but simply paused and waited for him. Gently he grasped her shoulders from behind with his hands. "Daphne, I think I must not have been clear in what I meant, or at least I think I see what made you upset."
She turned slightly to look at him and he noted the tears on her cheeks.
"What we can do is save lives. But if we go back in time, we can work on getting together sooner, I don't have to be with Ginny." He took a deep breath as he noted her tears were still flowing freely. "I don't want to be with Ginny, I only want to be with you."
Harry reached up and gently wiped away the tears from her face. "I've missed you, Daphne. I know it sounds stupid, how could I have missed you for twenty years if Neville had obliviated any memory of our relationship. But it's quite simple, at least to me. Once those memories came back, I remembered how much we shared in such a short time. You gave me hope when everything seemed to be lost all those years ago. I remembered how much I loved you and why I would go to the extent I did to protect you, to protect Jasmine. When I realized I spent twenty years without you I realized that I missed the times we spent together, I missed seeing your face every day, I missed your laugh and your smile, I missed holding you close. I missed everything we did."
Daphne leaned her head on his shoulder. "I've missed you too, now that I can remember what we had together. But if you, or we, travel back in time, how do we know our younger selves will get together? How can we be sure that if we change some things in the time line that we don't change too much? How do we protect Jasmine?"
"We start small," answered Harry. "We make minor changes. See what happens and then go from there."
Deep within the Department of Mysteries, Harry and Daphne were looking over the time travel device. Harry held the item which looked like an old portable music player, just with several dials on the front. "So, this device should function as a temporal port key, and send me back in time to a pre-selected date. The device stays put in this room," he continued.
Daphne interrupted, "The device stays put in this room or whatever room we use that we can shield from the temporal fluctuations."
Harry raised en eyebrow. "Wouldn't that create too much magic with an unusual signature? It would draw the attention of the Ministry immediately."
"Then we obviously have to use it in this room, as the Ministry does not monitor what I do in here," add Daphne. "We'll have to have a way to enter and leave this room in the past that will go unnoticed by the Department of Mysteries. Our department has special port keys that can do just that."
Harry still had several concerns. "But what about using this room in the past, how will you know no one else is in here?"
Daphne smirked in response. "That's actually quite simple. This is the time room, there has been no one doing research on time for years, ever since the sands of time were placed into the time turners. Then, after you destroyed the racks of the remaining time turners, I was the first one assigned to research them. This room had been vacant since the early 1900s. It should not be a problem."
Harry smiled as he listened to Daphne's explanation.
"So, what is to stop us from going back and killing Tom Riddle before he even made his first horcrux then? We could save my parents' lives. We could change so much!" exclaimed Harry.
Daphne shook her head. "That's the problem, it could change so much. It could completely change what happened in school. Would we ever meet? What would really happen? We don't know what that would do to the time line."
Harry paused for a moment in thought. "Then we need to be very careful how we plan this all out. We can't take the chance of being found by the ministry or by anyone. I need to establish myself with an alternative identity, one that neither Dumbledore nor the Death Eaters will suspect as being anything other than whom I claim to be."
"Who would you claim to be?" asked Daphne. "And what about me? Or Jasmine? We'll need to have some way for us to travel with you."
"The easiest way to create a new identity is to do what I do best," replied Harry.
Daphne raised an eyebrow at the comment. "Oh, and what exactly would you say that you do best?" she asked with a slight smirk.
Harry grinned back at her. "I have become quite skilled at hunting down others. Even those who know I am coming after them. I go back in time and become a bounty hunter."
"A bounty hunter? And how exactly would you go about doing that?" Daphne asked
"Quite simply by researching when various magical or even muggle criminals were apprehended by the various authorities," Harry explained confidently. "Show up the day before and apprehend them myself. No one would be expecting me. We wouldn't be changing the time line very much if at all."
"It seems that you have thought about this already," challenged Daphne.
"I have been thinking about this possibility," he readily acknowledged. "Pick a name, set up a home in the past, far away from the magical world, use that as our location for time travel and our base of operations. The trick is to create a name for myself somewhere where there will be little or no questions, before taking that reputation and arriving in England. The more of a back story that I can create, the easier it will be to prevent Dumbledore or Riddle from figuring out just who exactly I am."
Daphne glared at him slightly. "You are not doing this on your own," she stated firmly. "I gave you up for the past twenty years. I am not doing that again. I thought that I had made that clear."
"Yes dear."
"Now that you understand that," continued Daphne, "do you have any more of a plan than those generalities that you have mentioned?"
Harry grinned again. "We will need to meet with the goblins first. See if they have anything that can help us with travelling to the past. We will need galleons when we get there so we can create our home, our base. I am sure it will cost us plenty to get their help, but we have to start there. Then we need to begin to travel back in time. Far enough to find a home that will become our base of operations, and then plan the bounties that we will collect. I figure if we start in Australia, that would be far enough away from England that some mysterious bounty hunter arriving on the scene, say back in the 1970s, would not too suspicious, at least to those in England. Once I create a name for myself there, then move on to America in the 1980s. Then we can have more of a legend built up about this mysterious bounty hunter by the time we arrive in the 1990s in England."
Daphne was puzzled. "Why arrive in England in the 1990s? And what name would you take, oh dark and mysterious one?"
Harry laughed at her question. "The first part is simple, I need to be in England so that in 1993 when my godfather escapes from Azkaban, the Minister For Magic, Cornelius Fudge, decides to hire me to hunt him down. The second part is a little trickier. I was thinking of various bounty hunters from muggle movies and mythology. Jubal Early, Boba Fett or Django Freeman."
Daphne frowned at him. "I have never heard of any of those people."
Harry laughed again. "And probably no pure-bloods will know those names either. Particularly if I go back in time far enough before they were used in popular culture. Then the muggle-borns might think that the character in the movies was named after me."
"I like the sound of Django," commented Daphne.
"Then Django I will be," declared Harry. "And then we head to Gringotts tomorrow to see what they can possibly do to help us, and then we begin to establish ourselves in the past."
Harry and Daphne arrived at the Gringotts branch in Diagon Alley early the next morning before many customers would deem it an appropriate time to begin the business of the day. Harry calmly walked up to the counter and greeted one of the tellers in Gobbledygook.
"Kind sir," he said in the goblin's native tongue, "may your gold flow freely and your enemies lie crushed at your feet."
The goblin gave a slight toothy smile in response, but before he could reply, harry continued. "Would you be so kind and see if Steelclaw is available for some private business with the Lord Protector."
The goblin looked more closely at the hooded man with the greying goatee in front of him and then he noticed the fading scar on the forehead that was partially obscured by the dark hair.
"I will do so at once," exclaimed the goblin teller in English. He nearly fell off the stool he was sitting on and quickly disappeared down a hallway behind the where his desk was located.
Daphne lightly tapped Harry's boot with her own and then she quietly commented to him, "Don't you think you would have startled him less if you had your hood removed?"
"Perhaps," he answered slyly, "but I would rather the few customers who might be here at the bank be left to wonder just who I am."
As he was answering the goblin teller returned, still seeming to be out of sorts. "Right this way, if you would please, your Lordship," commented the goblin as he waved for the two to follow him.
Harry and Daphne followed the goblin down a series of corridors and then were shown into a room with a large stone doorway. As the door silently slid open to reveal a rather ornately decorated office and conference room, the teller indicated for them to have a seat. "Steelclaw will be with you shortly, your Lordship."
Harry gave a simple thank you in Gobbledygook as the teller left. Harry and Daphne sat in silence for only a minute before another stone door opposite from where they had entered opened into the room. A slightly taller than average goblin with a scar over the left side of his face and thinning hair limped into the room.
"Greetings, Lord Potter," began the elder goblin. Then he turned to Daphne, "and to you as well Lady Greengrass. To what do I owe the pleasure of this meeting my friend?" asked Steelclaw as he once again directed his attention to Harry.
Harry smiled slightly, showing his teeth briefly. "I have a proposition for you , that may help you more than you could imagine, but it would require some extremely confidential assistance from yourself and the cooperation of the whole of Gringotts Bank."
Steelclaw was both intrigued and confused by this statement from Harry. "You seem to be proposing a business deal to me, yet your words are still not clear. You know you can trust us to be discrete in all things, but do explain yourself further."
"I might need some advice and assistance with some upcoming travel plans, my old friend," commented Harry.
"Where will you be planning to travel?" asked Steelclaw, still not sure where Harry was heading with this conversation or why he needed to have it with him.
"You know that my trust in you is unparalleled after you assisted me with my debt to the bank after the defeat of Tom Riddle. So I feel that I can trust you with the information that I am about to share with you, information that may just lead to a sizeable profit for you."
"Please continue, my friend," added Steelclaw. "As I said, I am already more than intrigued."
Harry smiled and then he began to explain himself "I find that I am in need of a vault that I may have access to, not just now, but perhaps 40 or 50 years ago."
Steelclaw did well to hide his reaction from Harry, for although Harry noted a barely detectable flinch, there was no other outward sign of the goblin having any sort of reaction.
"It is good then that we meet here, where the prying eyes of your own ministry cannot discern anything about which we are to speak," explained Steelclaw. "I assume it would perhaps be too much of a thing for you to explain more about the how or even the why but I may be able to help you with the means to solve your dilemma."
The goblin then stood and proceeded to sit down behind the large oaken desk that was located at one end of the room. He reached into a drawer in the desk and pulled out an ornate box that held a stone basin. The basin appeared to be not particularly valuable with a handful of scratches along the service. Steelclaw placed the goblet in front of Harry and then he pulled out a blank parchment from the box that contained the goblet.
Steelclaw returned to the desk, and withdrew another box, this one smaller and more ornate. Placing this on the table next to Harry he then opened it and revealed an ornately carved knife with various runes and also a small vial of a clear fluid.
"Now, we are almost ready to begin, my friend," said Steelclaw as he handed Harry the knife. "We are about to have you perform an inheritance ritual, which will determine the magical families to which you belong. Usually, we only require a few drops of blood as we are looking for simple lineage. However, as I am expecting that our goal here is to find a relation to which you could claim a long sealed vault for a presumed extinct family line. To be as thorough as possible, we will require more than just a few drops of blood for the test."
Daphne paled at the comments from the goblin. "Does he have to fill the goblet with his own blood?"
An odd noise emanated from the goblin, which could only be understood as a form of goblin laughter.
"No, milady, he only needs to put about thirty drops of blood into the goblet, ten times the usual amount for this test. But the silver liquid solution will also need to be ten times the volume, which is why this test becomes so much more expensive to perform." He turned to Harry, "normally we charge 100 galleons for this test."
"You're going to have to pay 1000 galleons to do this test?" asked Daphne, allowing her shock at the idea to show through.
The goblin laughed again which was becoming most disconcerting to both Harry and Daphne.
"I will choose to waive the fee if Harry can simply provide some tidbits of information about muggle investment opportunities from the time he travels back to. I presume that the profits that we here at Gringotts could stand to make could more than cover the cost of this test." Turning to face harry once again, he continued, "Now, just make a simple slice across the palm of your hand, then we will count thirty drops of blood as it falls into the goblet. Once we have collected that we will mix in 30 drops of the silver liquid, then we will have you use the tip of the knife to stir solution then write your name across the top of the parchment using the knife as a quill. Are you ready to begin?"
AN: a mini cliff hanger...
