Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JKR, anything you don't is mine.
A/N: Thanks Hannahzzz and ixamxeverywhere for the reviews!
Chapter 28
"How should we get Dumbledore?"
"We could send him a letter?" Lily suggested. "The post office is right there."
"No," I said. "I've got it." I cast a patronus and sent it off to Dumbledore with a short message asking him to let us in. A few seconds later, a silver phoenix came back asking me who "us" was.
"Was that a message sent through a patronus?" Remus asked. I nodded as I sent another message explaining what had happened in few words ("Voldemort found out – Death Eaters attacked").
"Do you not know how to do that?" I asked. He shook his head. "You should all learn. It's quite a handy spell that Dumbledore invented."
A few minutes later we saw a lantern bobbing through the darkness toward us. Soon enough, Dumbledore showed up and let us into the safety of the grounds. We followed him up to the school and into the Entrance Hall, where Severus happened to be on his way down to the dungeons.
He stopped when he saw our disheveled appearances; the rip in James' robe, the cut in Sirius' knee, Lily limping, the burn on Remus' arm where the fire had gotten to him before I could, the blood oozing from a cut in Regulus shoulder, the deep gashes on my cheek and upper lip.
Severus ran up to us quickly.
"What the hell happened?" he asked roughly. "I told you to get out of there before – !"
"I tried to!" I relied coolly. "It's kinda hard to get out of the house when it's surrounded by what seems like every Death Eater and they've blocked floo and Apparation."
"They came to your house that fast?" Severus asked, paling. I nodded.
"Oh, and Dumbledore," I said, turning to Dumbledore. "I may have let it slip to Voldemort that we had all of his Horcruxes hidden someplace safe." He sighed and looked away – obviously, I wasn't supposed to tell Voldemort this. "What? All we need to do is find a way to get rid of them and then we can kill him and it will all be over."
"Wait," Severus said as we stepped onto the moving staircase to Dumbledore's office, "Voldemort himself showed up?"
"Did I forget to mention that?" I said jokingly. "Well, Voldemort himself showed up."
"How did you get him to leave?" Severus asked in awe. I shrugged.
"I honestly don't know," I said frankly. "I just know that when he failed to hit me several times, he up and left. Not before starting several fires, smashing every window, and destroying the entire house though."
"Destroying is an understatement," Regulus pointed out.
We entered Dumbledore's office, conjured up enough chairs for everybody, and slumped into them, realizing for the first time just how tired we were after the argument.
"What do we do now?" Sirius asked after a moment of silence. Dumbledore sighed again, looking very stressed as he wrung his hands together.
"We need you, Nicole, and Regulus to find a safe place to stay. There's here and Godric's Hallow with James and Lily. But right now, we need to discuss something else." Annoyed, bored, and figuring that whatever we were about to "discuss" I already knew, I put my feet up on Regulus' lap. He rolled his eyes and pushed them down, and they landed on the ground with a loud thump!
All eyes tore from Dumbledore to me.
"Sorry," I muttered, looking down. "But I'm the youngest here, I have the right to be immature – I'm only fifteen."
"Shouldn't you be eighteen by now?" Sirius asked, his eyebrows furrowed.
Shit, why did I have to go say that?
"That's actually what we need to talk about," Dumbledore said. My eyes widened, and I looked over at him sharply.
"W – What?" I asked, stunned – it wasn't that I didn't think that it was about time to tell them, it was just that I was shocked that he had brought it up so suddenly. "Right now?" Dumbledore nodded his head slowly.
"Right now," he said. He paused for a moment before saying, "Would you like to do it? Or would you like me to?" I looked at my hands in my lap, about ready to ask him to do it, but then I realized that I should be the one.
Finally, I said,
"Er, I – I'll do it." I took a deep breath, preparing myself, but I still didn't know how to say this. I decided it was best to do the "band-aid" method – "just rip" because it causes less pain – but since I thought pulling the band-aid slowly hurt less, I decided to just start slow – like how I was from 1997, it seemed the best place to start.
"I'm from 1997. I'm here to change the future because, I know it could be worse, but everyone in this room is – is dead." I saw Lily, James, Sirius, and Remus all pale and look toward Remus, then Dumbledore, then Severus, and then back to me with wide eyes. I was confused immediately. Why were they only shocked about the deaths of Remus, Dumbledore, Severus, and me?
"All of us?" Lily asked finally, her voice strained. I looked down at my hands, again, and nodded slowly. Maybe I should have had Dumbledore do it...although he probably would have started with "James, Lily...Nicole is your daughter" and I had to work up the nerve to get there.
"Er, yeah, all of us."
"Even you?" James asked quietly. I was shocked by what I heard in his voice – was that pain? There was no way that James was actually upset about my death. It was probably something else – something I was mistaking as pain. Yep, that had to be it.
I moistened my cracked lips with the tip of my tongue and nodded.
"Yeah, even me. That's how I was sent back here – Voldemort himself did it. Nobody understands exactly what happened, though, or howI got sent back here. He sent the Killing Curse at me, and somehow I ended up here."
Nobody said anything, and I continued to stare at my hands. I knew what was coming. I had to do it. Rip the band-aid, I thought, rip the band-aid.
Instead of saying "James, Lily, I'm your daughter" which was very tactless, keeping my eyes downcast, I stuck with,
"My realname is Nicole Lily Potter."
There was silence – just as I had expected.
Then, suddenly, I heard footsteps. There were only a few before the feet showed up in my reign of vision – I was still looking down. The feet stopped directly in front of me and then, after a pause, the person they belonged to knelt down. I still couldn't tell who it was, though, and didn't risk looking up to see.
A hand reached out and cupped my chin, forcing it upward, and I was shocked to see that it was James who was in front of me.
Our eyes met, and he dropped his hand and took mine in his.
"Nicole," he said softly. "Nicole, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He didn't need to explain what he was sorry for – I already knew. "And I'll understand if you won't forgive me – "
"I forgive you," I interrupted quietly. He looked stunned.
"W-What? You do?" I nodded.
"In my time, there was somebody who was in a similar position as me – he was really on the Order's side and was a spy for Dumbledore as a Death Eater and Dumbledore 'had his reasons' for trusting him, which he wouldn't tell us. Only difference is that he isn't from the future." I paused, turning to Snape. "Right, Severus?" I asked jokingly. He smiled and nodded.
"That's right."
"Well, he ended up being on the Light side, and we wouldn't know this if he hadn't died trying to protect my brother." To my surprise, James didn't even act surprised that I had a brother – then I realized it was obvious, because Lily was carrying a boy.
"Harry, right?" he asked. "That's your brother's name?" Confused – how did he know that? Last I had heard they had said they were now not too sure about Harry – I nodded.
"Yeah," I said slowly. "But how did you know that?" James licked his lips, looked at Dumbledore for a second, and then explained,
"When we were in Snape's office making the potion for Lily yesterday – man, that was only yesterday? – well, anyway, there was a unclosed vial of time sand sitting on the shelves, and it got dumped into the potion – short version of the story, we got sent 16 and half years into the future."
Unable to stop myself, I started to giggle, and then the giggles turned into laughing uncontrollably – I don't know why, it really wasn't that funny.. James looked more confused than I had ever seen him – at least, until Severus yelled accusingly at me,
"I told you to put the lids on everything when you were done!" Finally, I managed to calm myself down enough to retort,
"Hey, we were called to a battle! I got distracted! You should have realized that it didn't have a lid on it later after the battle. You always noticed things like that back in my time!"
"I'm confused," Sirius said. I looked over at him to find him looking like he was deep in thought. "Were you the one who put the vial of the sand on the shelves?" I nodded.
"I took half of it, just in case, y'know? And, well, after that it was left – unclosed – on the shelf." I paused. "What time did you go back to?" I asked suddenly. "Like, what month and year?"
"September of 1996," Remus answered.
I knew that I paled at that – I would have to tell them about the last year and a half that I had spent in my time, and that wasn't something that I wanted to do.
"What?" Lily asked, kneeling down beside James. "What happened in the last year that you spent in that time?" I sighed, looking at my hands.
"Well, Dumbledore was killed – "
"What?" Sirius asked, his eyes widening. "How?"
"Because of my own stupidity, Sirius," Dumbledore answered. "I touched a very Dark artifact. Severus managed to save me, but only for about a year, and then we planned to have him 'murder' me after that year so that an innocent 16 year old wouldn't have to." Sirius seemed shocked – I had been after his death too – of all ways for Dumbledore to die, he died because of that.
"Well, after that, Mad-Eye took over the Order, but was killed as well during a battle when we were moving Harry to the Burrow." I sighed – time to tell them of the last couple days of my life in that time. "You know Bill Weasley, right?" When I saw them all nod, I continued. "Well, he got married in August of that year – a week or so after Mad-Eye's death.
"But during the reception, the ministry was infiltrated and Death Eaters came to the reception looking for Harry or me."
"You?" James asked, his eyes wide. "Why did they want you?"
"Because they could get to Harry if they had me," I answered quietly, still looking down. "And I was a much easier target – I was only fifteen while he was seventeen." I sighed.
"They showed up at the wedding. Harry, Hermione, and Ron had already gone. I never saw it coming, and I couldn't Apparate because I was underage."
"They got you," Lily stated, paling – it wasn't a question, it was a statement.
I nodded slowly, and James' grip on my hand tightened.
"How long – how long did they let you live?" he asked quietly. I swallowed and suddenly noticed that Severus, Regulus, Dumbledore, Sirius, and Remus had left the room to give us some privacy.
"Nine days." James eyes widened, and I noticed that I had never seen him look so upset before.
He pulled me down beside him, so I was now kneeling on the ground as well, and pulled me against him, hugging me tightly.
It didn't need to be said what happened in those nine days – Lily and James understood without me having to tell them that not only did I not want to talk about it, but it was obvious what had happened.
"That's why you aren't afraid of Voldemort, isn't it?" Lily asked – she hadn't joined the hug because her protruding stomach was in the way.
I nodded.
"That's exactly why."
"What happened after you were – were killed?" James asked, looking me in the eyes once again. I swallowed again.
"I sort of went into the after-life – or maybe it was purgatory, like the Catholics believe, I don't know – but everyone that had died was there – Dumbledore, you guys, Sirius, Mad-Eye, and Regulus.
"I got to stay and watch what happened until that May, when Harry finally defeated Voldemort. Every time somebody that was important died, they would join us – Peter, Dobby the house-elf, Crabbe, Fred, Collin Creevey, Remus, Tonks, Severus, Bellatrix – "
"Do you know who all of these people are?" James asked Lily – I still couldn't get used to calling them "Dad" and "Mom" – jokingly. Lily shook her head.
"No idea. I know Remus, Peter, Fred, Severus, Bellatrix – "
"Dobby is a house-elf that saved Harry, Ron, Hermione, and some other people's lives – long story – and Bellatrix killed him by hitting him with a knife aimed at Harry. Crabbe was Malfoy's little side-kick back in school, he started a Fiend-Fyre in the Room of Requirement that ended up killing him – smooth, right? Collin Creevey was a year older than me, he was Harry's number one fan, he was under age but came back into Hogwarts grounds to fight in the final battle – oh, I forgot to say that the final battle was fought at Hogwarts. And Tonks is Sirius' cousin – she should be about seven right now – "
"You mean Dora?" James asked. "She died?" I nodded slowly, but smiled.
"You ready for this?"
"For what?" Lily asked, confused.
"She was married – to Remus – and they had a kid." James and Lily's mouths dropped. I couldn't help but laugh at the looks on their faces.
"You're kidding!" Lily said. I shook my head.
"Nope. I just wish I could've met little Teddy in real life – he was born sometime after I died. In April, I think."
"We can't ever let Remus live this one down!" James said.
"I don't think it would be a good idea to tell Remus," Lily said. "It might pressure him into marrying – Tonks, did you call her? – and having this kid at the right time." James groaned.
"Party-pooper."
"Well I sorta agree with Lily – Mom," I said. "Sorry Dad, but that would pressure Remus into marrying Tonks and having Teddy. I'd love to meet Teddy and for Remus and Tonks to get married, but I don't want him to do it because of anything other than love." James sighed.
"I guess you're right, but it takes the fun out of it. Can we just tease him about knowing something about his future that he doesn't?" I shrugged.
"I don't see why that would hurt."
It was Lily's turn to groan.
"You're so immature!" she said to James, who shrugged, indifferent.
"You should let them back in," he said to me, nodding his head toward the door as we all got back into our seats, only this time with James and Lily on either side of me.
Instead of getting up, I waved my wand and the door opened, revealing the five standing outside the door, looking bored.
"Hey Remus!" James called, causing an unsuspecting Remus to jump slightly at being addressed so suddenly. "Guess what?"
"Er – what?" he asked, confused, as he led the way into the room.
"I know something you don't know!" Remus groaned.
"Are we going to have to go through this again?"
"Oh, but what he knows this time is good!" I pointed out.
"Tell me tell me!" Sirius exclaimed. James laughed at how excited he sounded and said,
"Sorry, can't Sirius!" Sirius slumped, pouting, into the chair beside James. "What do we do now, Dumbledore? We have all of the Horcruxes, no spies, and no way to kill the Horcruxes?"
Then, suddenly, there was a booming, cold voice that echoed throughout the school and grounds.
"Peek-a-boo, Hogwarts students and teachers!" I heard several muffled, distant screams from someplace in the castle, and I groaned – I could never go a day without Voldemort in my life, could I?
"Dumbledore, Lord Voldemort is speaking to you, and you alone. Take my – my prized possessions – " his Horcruxes, obviously " – out to the Forbidden Forest – you will find some Death Eaters and myself. Failure to do so in the next hour, and we will attack and kill anybody and everybody in our way until we find them."
"Well," I said when I was sure his little speech was over, "I guess that answered your question, Dad."
A/N: Like it? Love it? Hate it? Leave me a review to tell me your opinions! Constructive criticism is appreciated! You can even tell me what you'd like to see happen later in the story if you want.
