DISCLAIMER:I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER.

Chapter Seven

Aparecium

This spell makes invisible ink appear.

Recap from Ch2

"My parents are Lily Evans and James Potter," Harry said slowly, a cloud passing through his face. "They died when I was one years old." There was another collective intake of breath. "I'm not sure about the other one though. I tried to tell Dumbledore just now; me and Hermione had just saved Sirius and Buckbeak, and he locked us back in the Hospital Wing. Madame Pomfrey had given us, I mean Ron, Hermione and I, a bunch of Chocolate Frogs to eat. I took the last one from Hermione's table – she didn't want it – and I accidentally swiped all her stuff onto the floor because Ron woke up just then and Hermione had shrieked his name. I accidentally stepped on her Time-turner, and I fell on Ron's bed, and then the next thing I knew, it was dark and there was an awful siren."


There was an awkward air about the drawing room, but plenty of communication was still being made as the Order, the alleged Death Eater, and the unknown teenagers waited for the arrival of the Potters. The room was shrouded in darkness, with only the two opposite ends of the room dimly lit by two tall serpent candelabras.

Marlene McKinnon had left after Charlie to fix a snack. Harry slid into the chair opposite Ron. "No talking!" Moody said abruptly when Ron opened his mouth. "If I hear a sound from the two of you, you will regret it."

Harry had jumped at the harsh tone, but Ron just gave a bleary look around the room and yawned. Without much to do at the moment, he sank into his chair, trying not to think. About his apparent Death Eater membership, about his family's coldness. Least of all, about Hermione.

Harry looked at Dumbledore, remembering his earlier conversation with James Potter. His father! Harry caught Ron's eye, and the latter shrugged back. There was nothing they could do. They sat in silence, taking comfort – as much as the two young outcasts could – in each other's presence.


Dumbledore stood in front of the broken cupboard, leaning in slightly as he examined the pieces of Black family heirlooms stashed in it. Moody, who was still standing at attention with his magical eye on Ron, muttered under his breath, "Albus, what are you planning to do with that Weasley if he is a Death Eater?"

"You were never one to believe the ideal," Dumbledore said, and he straightened up. "However, if that is the case, it would provide an opportunity." There was certain heaviness behind his words, and Moody pretended to ignore it. The fact that Voldermort had managed to turn an impressionable child into a Death Eater was another mark of his cruel power and ignorance of the innocent.

On the other side of the room, Bill said incredulously, "So Dumbledore thinks Ron –uh, this Ron – is from, where?" He frowned. "This is because he doesn't act Dark enough?"

Though Bill had just returned from Egypt that very morning, and was probably exhausted, he was the type of person that had his wits about him always. That made him invaluable as a Curse Breaker, who had to perform under highly stressful conditions, and maybe even explained his Head Boy position. It was the reason why Arthur paused to mull over his son's words, instead of ignoring the slight accusation at Dumbledore.

"Legilimens shows someone's true memories," Arthur said, pushing his glasses up his nose uncannily like how Percy did when he reached answer. "What we know about Ron, for example being with Malfoy for a year and a half-" he unconsciously spat the word "-this Ron has no memory of that. Albus caught a memory of him being in Diagon Alley meeting Lockhart in a bookshop."

"Lockhart?" Bill repeated blankly. "Isn't that idiot teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts in Hogwarts since last year?"

"So this Ron," Arthur said, his expression only revealing a little of how he felt objectifying his son, "has a memory of buying his second year books with Lockhart with us. And we know he didn't." Bill turned a little to look at the red-haired teenager, sitting opposite the black-haired stranger. "He has a complete set of memories, Bill. It takes someone of extraordinary power and imagination to plant that vast amount of memories in a boy, with little reason to. He's not our Ron."

And which is worse? Bill thought. The Death Eater brother or the stranger?

Barely three minutes had passed since Charlie had left the room.


It took additional voices echoing in the corridor for all conversations to break off. "You really shouldn't rile Tonks," advised a woman's voice. The sharpness in tone was blurred by the drained-sounding voice as if it was all it took for her to speak.

"She'll get over it," a male voice replied. "She's probably forgotten about it anyway. Good old Tonks." Each word was thrown with a careless air, of a man who thought he had years yet to live and enjoy. Harry jerked his head up, his jaw slack. "Sirius!" he blurted out.

"Huh?" Ron looked blank for a moment. "Isn't Sirius locked up in the castle?"

Harry looked as startled as the rest of the occupants of the room. "No," Harry said cautiously, glancing at Moody's stormy face. "Hermione and I, we set him free."

"What?" The door opened.

"With the help of a Time Turner and a hippogriff apparently," James Potter replied dryly, cutting in. "So you are Harry's Ron."


James stood behind his wife anxiously, but nevertheless was eyeing Ron with wariness.

"What are you going on about, James?" Sirius's wand was out, produced from nowhere, and pointing to Harry. "That's the boy we caught trespassing earlier!" he said, all warmth dropped from his voice.

Lily took out her wand too, but she was staring at Ron in confusion. "Ron Weasley?" she recognised in astonishment. "You mean, Lucius Malfoy was telling the truth?"

"Malfoy-" began Moody sharply.

"Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and Yaxley infiltrated our wards about ten minutes ago," James reported, looking straight at Dumbledore. "They got summoned by Voldermort when Kingsley and Tonks arrived. They're making reports to Scrimgeour." The last part was directed at Moody.

"How can they have gotten through your wards as well?" Bill said. "That's two attacks in one night."

"He could have weakened the wards," Sirius said doubtfully, still wielding his wand in Harry's face. "Who are you by the way?"

Benjy, who was standing behind them, rolled his eyes at Sirius's blunt manner. Bill, Arthur and Moody all shifted slightly – they too did not know Harry.

Harry stared at his youthful godfather. His hair was well-cut, his face was clean and shaven, and there were laugh lines around his lively grey eyes. It did not matter that they held suspicion at the moment. His cheeks were not sunken, his teeth were not yellow, and his demeanour did not appear like he spent the last thirteen years in Azkaban.

This was his Sirius. Yet it was not.

Ron looked from Harry, who seemed shocked into silence, to James and Lily Potter. There was something fascinating in looking at a friend's parents for the first time. Instinctively, he sought for similarities between Harry and his parents. When Ron had met Hermione's parents at the end of first year, he thought he could see a vague resemblance between Hermione and her mother, though her mother had straighter teeth. Hermione's father had the unruly hair, but it looked tamed with its short length.

It took no genius to figure out that James and Harry had to be related in some way. Ron heard talk of how Harry was just like his father. With sudden recalling, he remembered the pure excitement in Harry's voice when he found the Mirror of Erised. "Come look at my parents, Ron!" Harry had yelled.

Here they were in the flesh. Except James was treating Harry like someone else's kid, Lily was holding her wand into her son's face, and Sirius looked ready to kill him.

Ron felt sick. Everything was so wrong.

"We might as well make everybody comfortable," Dumbledore said, acting oblivious to the deep confusion in the room. He had more of an air of a headmaster just then, settling some misunderstandings, rather than the Secret Keeper of the Order of the Phoenix. He waved his wand, and eleven cushioned seats hovered in the air before landing around the table. "Oh, I don't think the boys will harm us," he added reassuringly when all the Aurors in the room made no move to sit down.

With a last suspicious gaze, Sirius shook his head and walked to the end of the table. Lily pocketed her wand at Dumbledore's reassurance, and James pulled her away gently.

"You alright, mate?"

There was something unreadable in Harry's face. "Yeah."

Ron ignored the too obvious lie. "So what happened to you today?"


"We're missing a few people," observed the ever-meticulous Benjy. "I'll fetch them. Who are they?"

"Charlie," Bill said. "And I think Marlene."

"Molly Weasley too, Benjy," Dumbledore said. Arthur nodded. "I'll go with you," Arthur added. "When she comes in…" and sees Ron, he completed the thought in his mind.

"Questions," Sirius noted, leaning back in his chair to stretch his legs as Benjy left again.

"Wait, Sirius, it'd be more efficient if everyone was here," Lily replied. She sat at the other end of the table on Harry's side, so she would not have to see the boy who looked like James. She could not even glance at him in the distance at the door without being hit by the resemblance. Opposite her Sirius sighed, a bit too used to Lily's retaliations.

"I do apologise for earlier, but I see Arthur has brought you up to speed," Dumbledore said to the man on his right. "So how was Egypt, Mr. Weasley? I believe you just arrived this morning."

Bill started. "Things have been kept busy in England still," he replied with the usual Weasley humour, before he caught himself. War made little material for jokes. Still, Dumbledore chuckled, pressing his thumbs together.

One or two empty seats down, Harry was giving Ron a very brief summary of his day quietly, albeit distractedly. James and Lily Potter are sitting there, a confused yet cautiously excited voice kept saying at the back of his mind. Moody still refused to remove his unwavering gaze on them.

"That's Sirius? With your Dad?" Ron said, thunderstruck. He leaned forwards and looked down the table. James was smiling slightly at Sirius's newly-launched argument with Lily.

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "I asked him," he admitted, and Ron's eyes nearly bulged out. "He thinks I'm addled by a Dark curse."

"This is a nightmare more likely," edited Ron darkly. "Me, a Malfoy?" Then, warily he said, "There's something you need to know Harry. I killed Hermione."

"What?" Harry gave a confused frown. "No-"

"Ron dear," Molly Weasley's voice came. The two boys looked up, and then Harry looked away. For that moment, she had eyes only for her son. She looked slightly fearful that Ron would not answer.

Unsure what to say, her son just said, "Hi Mum." It was rare that Molly treated him as something… fragile. The only time he had ever seen her like that was when Ginny woke up after being in the Chamber of Secrets.

"Take a seat, Molly dear," Arthur said to her, but Molly resolutely stayed where she was. Lily and James exchanged uncomfortable looks. After the Prewett twins died trying to protect their son, Lily always had a guilty conscience when she met Molly. They were not close, but salvaged a friendly, protective relationship.

"Are-are you okay?" Molly frowned. "Why is he on a wooden chair?"

"He can have another chair some other time," Moody said bluntly. "He's still a suspected Death Eater, Molly."

"Suspected?" Charlie said from behind Molly. "That's an upgrade, isn't it?"

Benjy whacked Charlie lightly on the head, and Marlene failed to smother a smile. It broke the moment, and Molly allowed herself to be walked to a chair. Benjy sat next to Harry, and Molly and Arthur sat beside him. Marlene slipped into the chair next to Ron.

"By the way, I refuse to acknowledge you as my brother," Bill said to the man on the right. Sirius laughed and clapped Charlie Weasley on the shoulder.

Dumbledore wore a sober expression on his face. "Let's begin. Do you mind telling us who you are?"


Ron and Harry exchanged glances.

"I'm Harry," the said boy said, "and Ron." He looked at Ron, who made a face at the bizarreness of the situation. "We're third years at Hogwarts."

"Hold on," James interrupted. Harry's heart jumped to his throat. "You're not telling it right. Start with where you've come from; tell everyone about the time turner."

"I thought you didn't believe him," Marlene voiced out.

"We just want the story laid out properly, so we can make a proper judgement," James replied seriously. Lily squeezed his hand under the table.

"Yes, yes, let's move on," Moody said impatiently.

"What time turner?" Ron said frowning. "The Ministry doesn't let people use them, do they? I mean, it's mostly experimental."

"You seem very well informed," Benjy noted. With his straight face, it was hard to tell whether it was an accusation or praise.

"Dad mentioned it once." The shrugged comment, frequently attached to wizarding explanations to Harry and Hermione, drew many glances at Arthur.

After prompting from Dumbledore, Harry continued, telling the exact same version of the story he told Marlene and James.

Dumbledore nodded in understanding, while Harry's explanation merely made the adults more confused. "Now, were you in physical contact with this… Mr. Weasley when the time turner broke?" he asked.

"Yeah he did," Ron nodded, "He banged his hand on my arm."

Suspicion cleared from Dumbledore's wizened face.

"I don't understand," Lily admitted, and several heads nodded. Benjy let his guard down for a tenth of a second to smirk at Charlie's relieved face, that someone had voiced his exact thought. No one saw him. The promising Auror, who headed a team with Aurors several years his senior, would never live it down.

"This is a guess," Dumbledore said again, "Time Turners, as Mr. Weasley has mentioned are highly experimental. The fact that a 'classmate' of theirs has procured one means that from wherever they come from, they have connections."

"That makes them dangerous," Charlie said, but it was more of a question. He did not sound daunted nevertheless; although that might be because he worked with dragons. He lived dangerous.

"We're not dangerous-" Ron repeated indignantly but Dumbledore cut across.

"Hold the thought," the headmaster said, but his eyes started to regain its spark at the good insight displayed by his youngest Order member to date. "From what I know, Time Turners have not been fully tested on. Though a traveller is most likely to land in the past, there are cases where the travellers have never been seen before." He indicated Lily with his hands. "Maybe our Unspeakable could enlighten us on this subject?"

"Your Mum's an Unspeakable?" Ron said in awe, but Harry gave him a blank look in return.

"There are theories," Lily said. She took a deep breath, still looking pale. "The most debated accounts say they vanish off the time plane, or they step into an alternate dimension, or they have created a complex time paradox causing their existence to cease, that is to say, they didn't exist at all in the first place."

"Albus, you can't be saying these boys aren't from our- our time plane," Sirius said in disbelief.

Dumbledore gave a serene nod. "At the present moment, we can assume that this boy is not Ronald Weasley, Death Eater, and Harry-"

There was a pause, and Harry filled it in absent-mindedly. "It's Harry, sir, Harry Potter."

There is noise; then there is pandemonium.


The wizards and witches leapt to their feet, protesting and arguing in raised voices. Molly Weasley turned her emotions into a fury that startled Arthur and scared her two grown sons and Ron. "Dead people don't come back to life!" she said angrily, staring accusingly at Dumbledore.

"Mum-" Bill tried to reassure her.

Arthur covered Molly's hand with his. In a quiet voice only she could hear, he said, "This isn't Harry. Fabian and Gideon died protecting an innocent child." He said it in an almost pleading way. She was seeing the teenage boy, a healthy albeit skinny boy with intelligent green eyes, alive with memories of her brothers, buried six feet under the ground.

It was like a physical blow to Harry, to see Molly treat him like a stranger that displeased her with his presence. He almost expected her to purse her lips in disgust like Aunt Petunia. Merely comparing the two in his head made him duck his head. But it was nothing compared to his parents' reactions.

"That isn't funny!"

James had to fly from his chair to grab his best friend's arm. There was a dark look on Sirius's face, and his wand was already halfway raised. "Stop it, Sirius!" he shouted. "He's just a child!"

Alone among the adults – the strangers awkwardly quiet or trying to calm everyone down, the grief-stricken family, the angry friends – Lily sank back down into her chair. All colour left her face. "Harry?"

He was staring right at her. Messy black hair fell into his green eyes. His arms were wrapped around himself, in a sort of lonely hug.

Benjy Fenwick raised his wand to his throat. "Sonorous," he muttered. "EVERYONE, JUST STOP."

Authority rang in his voice. Movements ceased, and only breathing could be heard in the silence. Benjy spared a moment to look over his shoulder. Moody gave a nod.

"Good," Benjy said brusquely, "these boys are not Dark. They are not from our world." Someone moved, and the touchy Auror snapped, "We have no choice but to accept this bizarre turn of events."

"The Potters and Weasleys should remain here for the night," Moody cut in. "Until the Order recasts the broken wards in the houses."

A mutter was passed, and Moody exploded. "DEATH EATER ATTACKS! YOU-KNOW-WHO RISING! CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Silence followed again, and Dumbledore sighed.

"I believe our Aurors have summed up the situation well," Dumbledore said. There was heaviness again behind his words, acknowledging the emotional turmoil in the room. "We will find a way to return the boys. And we mustn't forget that two Death Eater attacks have occurred tonight. I need to leave. There are things at Hogwarts that needs my attention."

He stood up. The meeting was adjourned.


The Order was not one where its people lingered after meetings. Moody had to check in with Kingsley, on the Death Eater attacks. Marlene left for St. Mungo's on night shift duty. The younger Weasleys were being too well-behaved, and Arthur had sent Charlie up. Sirius had to complete his report on East London.

After ten minutes, the numbers in the drawing room dwindled down to seven. Harry, having been awake for two days technically after the time travel, had closed his eyes and did not stir. Ron had nodded off after Dumbledore left. "There's no point fussing now, Molly," Benjy said, looking at the two boys without sentiment. "This isn't your Ron."

"But they have no homes! No family!" Molly retaliated.

"We can take care of them," Lily said quietly.

"Lily-" started James, startled. "You don't understand-"

It was the wrong thing to say. "Don't understand what?" Lily snapped. "That today is my baby's death anniversary and another version of him is sitting right there? That we have been attacked personally by Death Eaters again? That Ron Weasley isn't a Death Eater? What is it, James? What don't I understand?"

There was a silence. "As long as we're clear that we're not this boy's parents," James said seriously. "That we need to return him to his parents."

As soon as he said that, he froze. "My parents are Lily Evans and James Potter," Harry said slowly, a cloud passing through his face. "They died when I was one years old."

"We're looking after the boys," Molly agreed. "We need to stay here, until the wards at our homes are intact again."

"What are we going to tell the boys, and Ginny?" Arthur said, taking off his spectacles to wipe the frames.

"A watered-down version of the truth," Benjy said firmly. An advocate of the truth, the brazen Auror often clashed with the Ministry, and sometimes even Dumbledore, when keeping something in the dark from the public.

James looked at his look-alike, sleep erasing all the frowns from his face. "Let's get some sleep," he suggested. "We'll deal with this again tomorrow."


A/N: Like it? Hate it? Review! Help me push the number 250!

I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am. Got into a new school. Just finished the exam season, moving to the next. I won't leave you hanging so long again!

Am I the only one who hasn't watched HP7 yet? I'm waiting for the cinemas to be empty, so I can yell/cheer/weep in peace. A whole childhood of Harry Potter comes to a close soon!