1-09

Dumbledore's house was larger than I expected, but in all honesty I hadn't really known where Dumbledore had spent his time outside of Hogwarts back in my own timeline. Matter of fact it had been easier to imagine that he spent all his time in the Headmaster's office.

The house surely wasn't the largest I'd ever seen, but it was large enough that it had a few drawing rooms, one of which was the one we'd been deposited in. I took off my coat and placed and through it in the air—something I'd seen done in some of the older homes—the coat folded into itself before it disappeared with small pop.

"Magic is always the coolest," Dudley muttered as he did the same with his own coat.

"Isn't it just," said a girl who was in the room. Susan Bones. That either meant that she was here because of her aunt, Madame Bones, or it could be because of her mother. I didn't know which yet.

The girl was sitting on a small table with a tea tray on it and finger food, along with her was another boy who had a toad sitting stoutly on his shoulder: Neville Longbottom.

The pair gotten up, Susan moving with far more enthusiasm than Neville until she was in front of the pair of them taking their hands and saying, "Susan Bones, it's a pleasure to meet you both."

"I'm Neville," said Neville. "Neville Longbottom."

"Dudley Evans," Dudley introduced himself.

"Harry Potter," I said.

"Oh I know who you are," said Susan. "And I'm ever so excited to finally meet you. Do you have it? The scar?" She said the last in something of a whisper.

Before I might have been abashed by it, but now the scar didn't have the same weight it had had when I was a child. I raised my hand to my forehead and raised the hair to show it. Susan's hands shot to her mouth, taking a gulp of air in surprise.

I took a step back and looked at her, really looking at her before I looked at Dudley. In that look I could see he had come to the same conclusion I had, that it was all a little too forced, a little too childlike. I got the impression that she was trying to do what Dudley often did with the adults but not to the same level of skill.

She was most likely a time traveller, but could the same estimate be said about Neville?

"It's cool isn't it?" said Dudley, playing along. Until we discovered more we didn't show our hands, even though we both had wands I didn't want a fight in Dumbledore's place. Merlin knew the protective enchantments that were in this property.

We followed Susan bones to the table, pouring our own cups of tea before settling.

"So," Susan began, "which Houses do you guys want to go to? Neville and I were discussing it and I was telling him how interested I was in Hufflepuff. I know it doesn't get the same accolades as the other Houses but the hardworking are more oft than not sorted into House Hufflepuff."

"Gryffindor for me," said Neville said. "Both my parents were sorted there. I'm hoping to start something of a family tradition."

The pair looked between the both of us, though their eyes stayed more on me than my cousin. "I don't know," I said. "I'd be okay with any House to be honest. It's not the House that makes the man."

"Even Slytherin?" Neville asked and I might have been imaging it, but there was a peculiar alertness as he asked that question. I mentally shook my head. If I was really look for it, then I could find a reason for any of them to be time travellers.

"Even Slytherin," I said. "I know the saying, there isn't a single witch or wizard who went bad who hasn't been in Slytherin. But that's not exactly true is it? There were many people in the other houses who served under Voldemort that weren't in Slytherin House."

"I suppose that's true," said Susan. "But you're the Boy-Who-Lived, isn't it like your destiny or something to go to Gryffindor?"

I didn't answer, instead shrugging. I didn't have the same biases now I'd had as a kid and I honestly didn't know which of the houses I would choose.

"I want Gryffindor," said Dudley. "Because bravery is something I have in spades."

"How would you know when you're just a kid?" said Susan. "You haven't exactly done anything that would be termed as brave."

"You're right," said Dudley, squinting and tilting his head to the side as he scratched his chin. "But I think I'm brave and that's worth something at least. It beats being hardworking anyway, that's not exactly something that takes strength of will to achieve."

"It's a good character trait either way," said Susan with an exaggerated huff and a cross of her hands.

"What do you guys thing is going on, anyway?" asked Neville. "Why the meeting?"

"Maybe it's Sirius Black," said Susan. "My Auntie doesn't really believe what's been going on about him being innocent," she confided. "But she says there are rules and they need to be followed."

"How does she explain away that they found Peter Pettigrew?" asked Neville. "Grandmother thought it was a golem at first before Dumbledore mentioned he was part of the team that tested Pettigrew's blood. It's the real him."

Susan shrugged. "I don't know. I was really just eavesdropping when I heard the first part," she admitted. "They caught on to me and when my mother and Auntie talk it's always with an Imperturbable Charm active."

"Uncle Remus likes doing that too," Dudley groaned. "I'm like, why do you talk about interesting stuff if you're not going to share it with anyone?"

"Right?" Susan said. It was almost like the two were riding off the enthusiasm of the other. Dudley mimicking Susan with the Susan doing the same in return. Before I'd thought it an act, but more and more it was looking like the real thing on Susan's part.

Was she reading me like Dudley did? Seeing how I reacted to certain things and toning up or down her act to facilitate for that. Then there was Neville who didn't act like the meek Neville I knew from my timeline, instead he was cool and confident, assured in his words.

Was that because he was older or a natural consequence of his timeline? I could ask couldn't I?

"So Neville. Who did you come here with, your mum and dad?" I asked, ignoring the heated conversation that Dudley and Susan had on the Hogwarts curriculum.

It was small, but Neville twitched before he shook his head. "I live with my Grandmother," he said. "My parents were casualties in the war against Voldemort."

The word was said with a confidence too it, none that an eleven year old should have been able to emulate especially if they had grown up hearing tales about the man. But more than anything Susan's breath didn't hitch, something the wizarding world was well known for in my schooling days.

Again, was this because they were older and stronger or was it a natural consequence of this timeline?

"Oh," I said. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's okay," said Neville. "I mean. You sort of get how it feels," he said, the words slow and measured.

"Yeah, sure," I said, feeling the pain behind the words edging into my tone. I took a sip of my tea and was quiet, listening to Susan and Dudley who had now switched to talking about which Quidditch team was the best by using various qualitative and quantitative criteria.

Conversation came to a holt when the door opened and in came another girl, she too familiar: Daphne Greengrass. She had an air about her as she walked in, took off her coat and gaily extended her wrist to dramatically let the thing escape he grasp and be taken away by the spell work.

She looked over each of us in turn, grey eyes bored as they looked us over until she was drifting forward.

"Neville," the girl said when she was close. The boy got to his feet, accepted a hug before taking her hand and giving it a peck.

"It's good to see you, Daphne," Neville returned. Every word measured and confident that I felt a sense of wrongness again.

"It's good to see you again, too," she said. "And Susan Bones," she said walking over to the girl. Susan got to her feet, a small smile on her before she gave Daphne a hug and a kiss at either cheek.

Then she turned to Dudley and me.

"I'm afraid I don't know who you are," she said. "Daphne Greengrass," she extended her hand first to me. I got the impression she definitely knew who I was, but whatever the case I took her hand and emulated Neville, giving it a peck before introducing myself.

Daphne showed a little surprise at it, her eyes moving to my forehead before quickly returning to my eyes. As though I wasn't worth any attention she turned to Dudley and expectantly waited for him to kiss her hand.

Susan and Neville hadn't reacted in any oddity in this which made me think that it might be a formality that was shared by all purebloods.

From that point on conversation became a little more stilted. Dudley and Susan tempered down their enthusiasm and Neville was as quiet as I was. Four more kids arrived, though they were from a year higher than us and they knew each other from Hogwarts. They stayed together, discussing things that I had a sense made them sound older than eleven year olds even though from my perspective it was inane.

Three more kids arrived, two years above us and they seemed to think it would be a fun time to impress us without really talking to us about their knowledge of Hogwarts.

Looking at them I didn't have the same thoughts that they were acting as I got from Susan, nor the suspicion that rolled off of Neville in waves. When I looked at them, at their act, how they moved an image of children came to mind while I looked at these three and thought it possible that they were time travellers.

The last child to arrive was Luna who drifted off on her own for a few seconds before Dudley invited her to us and the two and Susan started talking. Again there wasn't that mind that she was older and pretending to be her kooky self. Instead it was as natural as my memory thought it would be for her.

Even though I couldn't be quite sure that Susan, Neville and Daphne were time travellers, I trusted my instincts and with that knowledge more restrictions were being set. If this trend was true, then the people affected by the mass mental time travel were the people that had been in my year at Hogwarts.

I mentally made a list of everyone in my year at Hogwarts and made a note to later put a focus on seeing where their allegiances lay.

The meeting stretched on four at least an hour at which point the doors opened and a troop elves came in bearing trays with confectionaries. It was a short affair after which all of us were moving over the tables indulging our younger selves—the others more than us in this respect.

More evidence that there might be more adults in our midst. But then it was possible that I was using the information around me to future prop up the theory I had in mind. Hermione had said there was a fancy name attached to but I forget what it's called.

Not that it mattered. I needed more concrete stuff to see whether or not there were any adults here and something of an idea hit.

"If you'll excuse me," I said to the table I sat in. "Nature calls."

"Yeah, sure," said Dudley, absently and the others gave me nods. I got to my feet, walking through the room. My Auror training ensured that I could see every glance being shot my way—it also helped that all except my table were sloppy, with too much eagerness behind the turn to 'accidently' face me. I ignored them and I was out of the room.

I pulled out my wand, quickly drawing line in front of the door before muttering the incantation of the Age-Line. Blue mist spilled out of my wand, collecting into a line on the ground before a twist of the wand made the line disappear.

I was just completing the spell when I heard footsteps. I stowed my wand away and started walking through the house, in the direction of the coming footsteps. I turned a corner with childlike heartiness and smacked into one of the taller men I'd ever met.

"I'm sorry," I quickly said. "I wasn't looking where I was going but this house is too big and I thought I would get lost while I'm looking for the toilet and I wasn't paying attention and—"

"Calm down young Harry," the tall man said, his voice just as I remembered it. When I looked up, blue twinkling eyes were looking down at me and a genial smile spread across his face.

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore; Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; Grand Sorcerer; Supreme Mugwump; and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot.

Before I had been acting. Dudley had taught me how to seem a little more childlike and though I hadn't quite mastered it, he'd told me that speaking without pausing often helped. But this wasn't acting. Looking at Dumbledore I felt fear, that he could slip into my mind without my notice and pilfer all the information from it or cast me down with the Elder Wand in his possession.

Both were highly unlikely to happen, but there were highly possible even with the knowledge of the future that I had. It was even worse if I tried considering that he might also have future knowledge and his alignment might be different from what I knew—though all evidence pointed otherwise.

"You're—" I started, noticing that I'd been quiet for a long time.

"Your future Headmaster, yes," said Dumbledore. "And frat not, young Harry, you're not in trouble. But I'd make sure to keep that wand out of sight from your aunt. It's not supposed to be in your possession yet."

I felt a chill rise up my spine, my eyes bulging and my mouth drying. He'd seen that? He couldn't have. But then, this was Dumbledore, who knew what he could do, the spells he'd ingrained in his house.

"I—"

Dumbledore chuckled. "It will be our little secret," the man said with an absent gesture. "A prank or two never hurt anyone." He gave me a tap on the shoulder. "The toilet is just down the hall, third door to the right."

"Th—" I cleared my throat. "Thank you, Headmaster."

"Quite a pleasure, Harry," he said and then he was walking off. I stared at him, watching as he passed the room where the kids were in and I noticed as his arm moved in something of a pattern.

There was no reaction, but I trusted my instincts and right now I felt more than anything that Dumbledore knew the spell I'd cast was an Age Line and that he would be wondering why an eleven year old could cast it.

I'd royally screwed this up.

I followed his directions and spent five minutes in the toilet just looking at myself in the mirror, my mind running a thousand miles a minute trying to figure out where I went from here and what Dumbledore was most likely going to think.

Hermione had already sent message of the Horcruxes to Dumbledore. The man would no doubt figure out that a piece of Voldemort's soul was stuck in me, but what he would be wondering would be the amount of pull that piece had in my actions. More than I ever he would be watching me, noting the similarities between me and Voldemort, and eventually seeing which way I would lean morality wise.

Of course this was all if he was good and had no knowledge of the future, or if he was good full stop. If he was bad and had knowledge of the future then it was possible that he would try and tempt me, induct me into his side—but then again he could do that even if he was good as a test.

He'll most likely have a test in place whatever the case, I thought remembering my first year. Maybe a choice between saving people or achieving something I really wanted.

I took a breath and washed my face before drying it, returning to the room. We spent another thirty minutes in the room before a message was sent that the adults were done with their meeting. We started leaving and I watched as it started, there was a ten second lag and then all at once everyone who had been over the age over twenty but still younger that forty—my and Dudley's mental ages—their hair turned white.

There was an uproar from the older kids as the looked at those of us with white hair and I had the presence of mind enough that I could be abashed by it. I hoped that the others would think it was one of the older kids, especially since it was the future first years that had been targeted, but I now had an answer.

Neville, Daphne and Susan were mental time travellers.