Notes - It's a longer chapter today. If I could I would have made it twice as long, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with information. Any questions you still have after this will have to be answered later on.
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James might have felt differently about Simon, if Lily hadn't been radiating animosity toward him the moment he came through their door. She'd apparently seen something in him that James had missed. To him Simon seemed likable enough. Very strange, but likable.
He had expected him to be like Peter – small, weak, uncertain of himself but not of his goals. Simon was as far from that as he could be. He was a tall, confident and undoubtedly skilled young man. The first thing he'd done when he came into the house was fix one of Sirius' trinkets. Sirius had been staring at the thing for years, and in came Simon who picked it up and moved some of the bars around showed Sirius how to use it. It was a clock, apparently. An incredibly old one. Sirius had found it in the Black family vault so that wasn't really a surprise.
And now it was sitting over on the mantle, spinning away. A clock that didn't look anything like a clock. When they asked Simon how he'd known how to fix it, Lily had gone uncommonly pale and Sirius had swirled his wine around like he already knew the answer.
And what had he said?
'I have one of those at home.'
James might have felt differently about Simon, if he didn't look like he was trying not to laugh every time they asked him a question. It was as though he knew something they didn't. That bothered James, who had already realised that he wasn't a Seer.
A Seer wouldn't know his way around a house the first time he set foot in it. A Seer wouldn't know as much about the future as Harry's letters said he did. A Seer had visions, throwing-your-head-back-and-speaking-in-a-suitably-creepy-voice visions, they didn't just know. And even if he was one, there wasn't any reason for him to be so vague when it came to himself. Simon should have been able to tell them where he lived and what his job was and how he had so much time to be following Harry around.
James thought that he was lying. He liked Simon, but he didn't trust him.
At present they were all sitting around the fire which kept them pleasantly warm. They'd closed all the windows and covered most of them, since the weather had gotten fierce. A few of the lamps that were scattered around had been turned on. The dim lighting should have been menacing but James found it comfortable. It reminded him of New Year's with Harry, when they'd stayed up late and played card games until midnight, drinking the hot chocolate that Lily had made for them. James was useless at it; his always tasted watery or far too sweet. He had done everything with magic before he'd met her. She'd shown him that some things were better without it.
The fire, for example. There was magic on it to keep it from spreading, but it had been lit manually and had to be fed constantly to keep it burning. It was louder than a magical fire would have been, and the flames were more erratic, licking at the walls of the fireplace one minute and clinging to the wood the next. James thought that it was warmer, brighter. It gave him a certain kind of satisfaction to put more wood into it and see it grow. Lily had found magical fires too complacent. She said that a fire was meant to be wild and that they shouldn't want it to be anything other than what it was.
It concerned him sometimes that she never applied that logic to people.
"Is it working for you, Sirius?" Remus asked. He was sitting close to the fire and prodding it every now and then, making sure that it didn't go out and leave them freezing.
Sirius frowned. He'd been trying to get Harry's spell to work on a glass of water, reasoning that it would be easy to change the colour of something that didn't have colour to begin with. He didn't appear to be getting anywhere. "No. It isn't... Corclario," he tried. No change.
"Maybe you should ask Harry about it," James suggested. He was sitting next to Lily. They were on different chairs but she'd leaned over to him and he'd been tracing patterns on her arm until he was sure she was about to fall asleep. It was his way of saying that she could, if she wanted. He'd keep an eye on Simon and take care of them while she did.
"I'm sure I can do it." Sirius shook his head and pointed his wand at the glass, not seeing James and Remus exchange a look.
Harry and Simon were sitting on the floor in the middle of them. They'd started out on chairs, but Harry had found a book he was interested in and couldn't read it unless he was closer to the fire. Simon went down to talk to him shortly after, and now they were sitting and discussing something Harry had read. They had a short table that they'd covered with open books, Harry's attention wandering as Simon answered all his questions. James wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out it was he who was responsible for much of what Harry had learned while he was at school. He hadn't been taught altogether much when he'd been in first year.
"So my Invisibility Cloak is made from the hair of a demiguise?" Harry was asking.
"Actually, it isn't," Simon told him, glancing at James. "It's made of something else. It's special, and you should take good care of it."
"What is it made from, then?"
"We don't know," James said. "Most invisibility cloaks don't work as well as time passes. After a while they don't work at all. Your cloak has been in the Potter family for generations and it's still as good as if it were new. It's something of a mystery."
Harry considered that. "I'll have to ask Hermione, then. She's good with this stuff."
"Maybe you could send her an owl?" Lily said, startling James slightly as he'd thought she was only half-awake. Of course she'd suggest Harry writing to the girl. She liked Hermione without even having met her – she probably reminded her of herself.
"Could I?" Harry brightened. He'd only been at home a few days and already appeared to be missing his friends.
"We'd have to use a postal service, but yes, that would be fine."
"Brilliant!" Harry grinned. "Do you have anyone you want to write to, Simon?"
Simon hesitated before he answered, something that James didn't miss. He was always quick with his replies, as if he'd had years to think about them. It had made his Seer story that little bit more plausible. "No. My family don't expect to hear from me just yet."
Lily stiffened. James looked between them. What exactly was he missing here?
"It doesn't matter if they expect you to or not. They probably want to know how you're doing-"
"Harry," Lily said warningly. "Not all families are the same. If Simon doesn't want to write to his parents...then that's his choice."
Something flickered in Simon's eyes. He was angry. What had Lily said to make him angry? It was true she wasn't being entirely polite to him, but he could hardly expect her to be when she was a mother concerned for her child. Besides, he'd dealt with it in the hours that he'd been here. James had thought the man was unendingly patient.
"Thank you, Mrs Potter," he said, a sharp edge to his words. Apparently not.
"Corclario!" Sirius sighed. "Harry, could you help me with this..."
"Oh! Yes." Harry scrambled to his feet, bumping the table as he did. Several of the books began to slide off of it but Simon got them before they could. Harry smiled gratefully at him and went over to Sirius.
"Alright, so I'm doing it like this." Sirius proceeded to show him the wand movements.
"No one you want to write to, hmm?" Lily said quietly.
"There's no one I can write to. You know that well enough." Simon scowled. It looked familiar, somehow.
"No, you need to be lifting it more there...like this, see?" Harry took out his wand to demonstrate.
James found himself caught in the middle of two conversations, neither of which he was really able to understand. Over there his son was teaching Sirius how to do a spell while Remus watched them. Over here his wife was arguing quietly with Simon about things that didn't make much sense.
"Right, so...like this?"
"Yes, that's right. Show me it again."
"I'd be surprised if it turned out you had anyone you wanted to write to where you come from, anyway."
"I do. I usually don't have to, since they're all so close to me."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Sirius, it's like you're casting...well, do you know Confugeo?"
"I didn't know you knew that one!"
"Really, what did you mean by that?"
"I mean that I have a family. I have friends. Somehow I don't think you're going to believe me."
"Well, Fred and George teach me some interesting things."
"They would, those two."
"Why don't you explain it to me, then? I'd love to know what you're doing here."
"I'm here, because –"
"It's sort of like that. Just do the last bit differently, with the upwards movement."
"You're here, because? Because what?"
"I think I've got it!"
"Try it, then."
"Because I'm meant to be here," Simon said seriously. "Lily, you're going to have to listen to me. Although I would have thought out of all of you, you'd be the one least stubborn."
"Corclario," Sirius cast. "Wait – how long until it works, now?"
Harry laughed. "You're meant to think about that when you're casting the spell. Just wait a bit and we'll see if anything happened."
"Lily," Simon pleaded. That was the second time James had heard him use her first name. Whatever they were talking about, it had to have been serious.
"Yes!" Lily said angrily. Then she went on, more evenly. "Yes, alright. I'll listen to you. But remember that you're at my home, and if it were up to me I wouldn't have you anywhere near it. I'm only putting up with this for Harry. Remember that, please. And also that my husband has heard this conversation, and he won't let anything happen to me. You'd be best not to try it."
Simon, amazingly, looked hurt. With awful timing the people across from them began to cheer.
"Look at this, James! Look! Isn't that incredible!" Sirius showed him the glass. The water was laced with colour, gold at the base and red at the top. "That's beautiful. Gryffindor, look at that. I was trying to turn it blue and everything."
"I've never seen it manage two colours at once before," Harry said excitedly. "Fred thinks it turns your favourite colour, but George says it's more likely that it turns the colour that suits you best."
"Oh, do you like green then, Harry?" Sirius asked. Harry's smile disappeared and he went faintly pale. "Don't worry about it, really. I don't like the colour myself but it's not so bad. The colour of grass, after all..."
"The colour of Muggle money..." Remus offered.
"That's right. Do you remember that holiday when we had to use Muggle money and we couldn't work out how many Galleons were in a dollar? Green's a perfectly fine colour," Sirius said. "Although red and gold...they're very perfectly fine. I'm quite happy with that."
"Maybe I should try it. See what colour I get," Remus mused.
"You should. Harry, will it work again on the same glass?"
Harry shrugged. "I suppose. We haven't really tested it yet. It still needs a bit of work."
"Then we can help you by trying it." Sirius put the glass in front of Remus. "Go on, Moony. I bet it turns purple..."
"Why would it turn purple?" James asked.
"Why, what do you think it'll be?"
As they were talking Lily stood up. "I'm going out to check on the garden. Simon's coming with me," she said. James nodded and she kissed his cheek. She left the room and Simon followed her.
James moved over to sit with the others, putting an arm around Harry's shoulder and telling him all of the reasons why Remus would certainly not turn the water purple. His friends caught on quickly and Sirius went back to encouraging them to try the spell. Remus looked concerned, but didn't say anything. As Harry showed them the wand movements again James tried his hardest not to worry.
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Lily wrapped her scarf around her neck and tucked it into her collar. It was colourfully patterned and not the kind of thing she would have chosen for herself. Harry had picked it out for her when they'd been shopping once in London. Now she wouldn't wear anything else.
Simon eyed it, and she frowned at him. "I forgot you had that. I like it. It's nostalgic," he explained, and she frowned harder. She didn't want to think about how he knew her well enough to tell one of her scarves from another.
"We're going outside. Don't you want to put on anything warmer?" she asked.
Simon blinked. "You can see what I'm wearing?"
"Of course I can. I assume those robes are fashionable where you come from?"
What he was wearing wasn't unattractive, just different. His robes were cut from black material that was thinner than James normally wore. They didn't hide what he was wearing at all, opening up at his shoulders to show a black suit shirt. The sleeves were long, ending just before the shirt's cuffs. There was embroidery at his chest, in a dark thread that blended into the material, with buttons making up part of the intricate pattern and holding the robes together. They cut off at his mid-thigh and tapered out, showing his trousers which were again black.
They looked expensive and Lily didn't doubt that they were. Wearing all black made his skin glow and the colour of his hair more striking. You can always count on the Malfoys to take pride in their appearance, she thought wryly. Even if it means they catch a cold for vanity. Maybe I should get him to wear my scarf, though he'd probably try to wear that just as well.
"Sorry. Most people can't see them. I think it's so that I don't stand out. They're quite normal where I come from, but they must look strange here," Simon said. "And I'm quite warm, don't worry. I don't feel much difference in temperature, which is just as well with what it looks like outside."
"I wasn't worried," Lily said quickly. "Come on."
Simon held the door open for her and closed it carefully behind them. It was cold outside and there was snow all about them, but the weather had calmed down and there wasn't much of a breeze. The sky was overcast. In a couple of hours it might rain. Lily was tempted to ask Simon if it would, just to see him falter. He was as much a Seer as she was a mermaid.
"I wasn't kidding. We're really going to check on the garden. Are you sure you're not feeling cold at all?" Her breath steamed in the cold air, and she put her hands in her pockets to warm them. She couldn't be wearing gloves when she looked at some of her plants.
"I know." Simon smiled. "I'm fine, really."
Lily studied him for a moment and then marched over to her begonias. They were at one corner of the house, near the shed that her husband was constantly climbing on. "Alright, then. Talk. Why are you here?" She looked over her flowers, noting that snow was beginning to creep in. Some of the barrier spells needed to be cast again.
"I believe you invited me here," Simon said easily.
"How are you here?"
"I Apparated."
Lily glared at him and he smiled back at her. She took her wand from her pocket and cast a shielding spell on the begonias that would protect them for the few minutes that the barrier spells were down. "You might as well answer my questions."
"Might I." Simon wasn't paying her much attention, looking around the house with that irritating smile on his face.
She put a hand on her hip. "I could use Veritaserum on you."
"Harry really does take after you, doesn't he?"
"I could," she persisted.
"You won't," Simon said. "You hate it. You think it takes away a person's freedom, and that everyone should be able to choose whether or not to be honest. You've been prevented from doing so much, with the prophecy and Voldemort, that you couldn't take something away from someone else. You know too well what that feels like."
Lily stared at him. "That's...true."
"It would be." And then he was smiling again. "You told me so yourself."
Incapable of doing much else, Lily turned back to her begonias. She replaced the barrier spells and removed the shielding spell, satisfied with her work. Then she walked past the shed to check on the next plant. "If you're not going to tell me anything, there's not much point in you being here," she pointed out.
"Lily, I'm going to tell you everything." Simon's voice was so serious that she stopped where she was and looked back to him. "And you're not going to like half of it."
A minute passed in silence, with them holding each other's gaze in a strange sort of battle.
Lily glanced away first, at the pansies she'd been about to tend to and back to Simon. She gave him a small smile. "Well. I suppose we should introduce ourselves properly, then."
Simon grinned at her. "I suppose we should," he agreed. He stepped forward and reached out one hand to her. She took it. It was surprisingly warm.
"Lily Potter."
"Draco Malfoy."
They shook, and her own hand went back into her pocket before her fingers got cold again. "I'm glad you got rid of that horrid gel," she told him.
"Oh?" Simon pulled a strand of hair in front of his face, as if he'd forgotten what it looked like. "Yes, I stopped using it in second year. Harry didn't like it. He's the one that got me to grow it long, as well. I don't think I mind either way really."
"Hmm. Are you going to answer my questions, now?"
"It depends on what they are," Simon said, and then laughed at Lily's exasperated expression. "I will, really, just ask them."
"Where do you come from?"
"I live in Hogsmeade, and have done for about two years. I lived here for a while, actually." He gestured at the house.
Lily desperately wanted to know how he could have managed that, but there were more important questions to ask. "What year did you come from?"
"2002."
"Is Voldemort defeated?"
"Yes."
Lily felt more relieved to hear that single word than she thought she'd ever been in her life. In a matter of years, Voldemort would be gone. The man who had terrorised her family and made it so hard for her son to live a normal life, would be gone. She closed her eyes for a moment and opened them to find Simon watching her with concern. "You mentioned Harry. He's okay?"
"Yes. He is."
Something about the way Simon said that set off warning bells in Lily's head. She decided to ignore them for now. "How did you come back?"
"Harry works for the Ministry. They recovered an artefact in one of their raids, but no one could work out what it was for. By then we'd worked out that it was me. You know, I looked like Simon, not to mention he'd actually told you who he was. We started to prepare. I spoke to all of you about when we'd met and what we'd done, trying to get all the facts straight so that I could come back and do what I was supposed to. I went into a Pensieve for longer than I think any person should." He smiled at her. "You wouldn't let me see your memories. That's why I really have no clue what I'm meant to say. It's rather intimidating."
Lily took a moment to think about that and nodded. It fit what she'd already worked out. "Do you know why you came back?"
"No. All I can think is that I must have changed small things to make the future the way it was," Simon said. "Harry thinks I came back for the reason I – Simon – told him. To be his friend. His years at Hogwarts weren't the easiest."
More warning bells. "And you're friends in the future."
Simon hesitated only for a second but Lily didn't miss it. "Yes."
"Did you make it that way? Did you come back and push Harry and yourself together?"
"No!" Simon said quickly. "I didn't. I didn't have anything to do with it. It just...sort of...happened."
If he's telling the truth, why does he look so guilty? He can hardly look me in the eye. There's something he's not saying. "You can tell me the truth, Draco. You're enemies, aren't you."
And again, he managed to surprise her. Simon laughed. "That would have been a whole lot easier. But no, we're not. We, uhh, we're somewhat more than friends." He seemed to gather himself, looking her straight in the eye. "Harry and I are together."
Lily frowned, and then her eyes widened. "You're..."
"Yes." Simon ran his fingers through his hair. Harry did that. James did that. "Shit, this is harder than the first time..."
Together?
Well, it explained why he wasn't sitting comfortably in a mansion with the wife and the haughtiness and the riches, the way she'd thought he should be. It explained how he'd lived here at Godric's Hollow. It explained Hogsmeade – honestly, when was the last time a Malfoy had lived there? He had to be the first.
It explained how he knew them, and how he knew his way around. It hadn't escaped her notice that he walked around her house like he'd been there countless times before. It explained how he'd fixed the clock. It even explained why Harry liked him. Not to mention he was constantly writing home about Draco this and Draco that...when Lily had shown her disapproval he'd started writing about 'Malfoy' to her instead, although he kept on about 'Draco' in his letters to James.
It explained a lot of things.
But to her, Harry was an eleven-year-old boy who got into trouble every now and then and thought that flying was the most amazing thing a person could do. To her the Malfoys were the enemy. They'd sided with Voldemort, they were cold and ruthless, they were raising their son to be just like them. Draco fought with Harry at school, and with his friends. The nice ones. The Weasleys and that girl Hermione. It was hard to think of him as the same person who was standing in front of her now, trying to explain to her that he and her son...
"You love him?" she asked quietly.
"Quite a bit," Simon said, grinning like a fool. God, he looked like James. He looked like James did when he was talking about Lily, the way he'd always been smiling when they began to date, the way he still smiled when he saw her and had promised that he always would...
"Okay," she said.
"What?"
"Okay. I believe you. It's a bit of a shock, but..." Lily smiled weakly, and was surprised when Simon stepped forward and hugged her.
"Thank Merlin," he breathed. "That may well have been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I mean, Harry's young here, he's...what, eleven? To make you think of him that way...I'm sorry. And I don't – I promise you, I really don't think of him strangely at all, you don't have to worry. My Harry's different, he's older and has this thing with his hair-"
Lily began to laugh. She'd never thought of a Malfoy as likable before, but once she'd resolved not to hate him she found that it wasn't that hard to do. It probably helped that Draco was falling over himself trying to explain things to her.
After a bit Simon started to laugh too, pulling away from her. His hair was mussed. He looked as much like a Malfoy and not like one as she thought a person could. "Well, this would be why you wouldn't show me your memory," he said. "We're friends in the future. I thought it was odd that you wouldn't let me see it when even James showed me his."
"You don't get along?"
"He didn't like me much at first. Trying to do the whole 'protective father' thing. He's much nicer to Simon, actually," he frowned.
"He's probably a little distracted by Corclario," Lily offered.
Simon grinned. "True. Hey, do you want to know the secret to that spell?"
"There is one?"
"Oh yes. Whatever liquid you cast it on will turn the colour you identify most with yourself. Sirius turned it red and gold, he sees himself as a Gryffindor. Remus...well, he's interesting. It's like that. If it turned black, you'd have a bit of a problem."
"Draco," Lily said suddenly.
"Yes?"
"Why are you telling me all of this?"
"I don't actually know," he admitted. "The you in my time heard all this from Simon the day they first met. It must change something, although I don't know what it could be. It did give you a few years to get used to the idea of your son ending up with a Malfoy, I suppose. It might just have made things easier on you. But Lily," Simon became serious suddenly. "You can't tell anyone what I've told you. Remus, James...Sirius, they can't know any of it. Because they don't remember knowing any of it. I didn't tell them, for whatever reason. Do you understand?"
"I understand." Some of it, at least. There was a lot of this that she was going to have to think over before she had any idea of what it meant, and even more that Lily didn't think she would believe until it happened.
"Good. Because there's a lot more that you have to know."
And Lily stood there as Simon told her the rest of 'everything' and kept standing there and listening even as it began to rain and she began to cry.
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Notes - Credit to purplestargirl and BeenBitten for getting it right, to RRW and bookworm19065 who came pretty close, to littlemechan who seemed to work out who it was, and especially to TheBlondeWeasley for pointing out that he was a little bit like Snape. I thought that was the best guess I heard, even if it was the wrong one. I also loved the theory that he was Harry and Draco's son. You guys are wonderful.
Two spells in this chapter, the first is Corclario which comes from the Portuguese 'cor' meaning 'colour' and 'claro' meaning 'clear'. When cast on a liquid it will turn the colour that the caster associates with himself, and the effects are delayed by however long the caster intends. The second is Confugeo which comes from the Latin words 'confundo' meaning 'confuse' and 'fuga' meaning 'flight'. I actually have no idea what it does. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe a spell that confuses birds in mid-air, or something? If you leave a review telling me a good possible use for it, I'll put it in the story.