Chapter 1: Bad Ideas Make The Best Memories

It was a beautiful late summer afternoon. The afternoon of the 31st July 2015 to be exact. Harry Potter's birthday. The boy who was supposed to die at age 1 became 35 today. People in fact started to call him old. That was to everyone's amusement, except his, of course.

To celebrate this special occasion, family and friends of the Potters' came together at Potter Manor. This included the usual suspects, like Harry's best friends Ron and Hermione Weasley with their children Rose and Hugo and the rest of the whole Weasley family: Bill and Fleur with their three kids Victoire, Dominique and Louis, Charlie, who specially arrived from Romania a few days ago, George and Angelina with their twins Fred and Roxanne, Percy with his wife Audrey and their children Molly and Lucy, and last but not least the beloved grandparents Molly and Arthur Weasley. But since the birthday of the Boy-Who-Lived was considered as a very special matter indeed, others were also to be found. In fact, Draco and Astoria Malfoy, together with their son Scorpius, young Mr Potter's best friend, were one of the first to arrive. After Albus Potter greeted his friend, they disappeared in his room, while even more people showed up, this including Neville Longbotten and his wife Hannah and their kids Frank and Alice, as well as Luna Scamander with her twins Lorcan and Lysander. And that wasn't nearly everyone, there were many of Harry's former professors, especially the new Headmistress Minerva McGonegall, many colleagues from work, and yes, even the Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, himself. We're talking about a really peculiar event after all.

All of them were warmly welcomed by the Potters, the Boy-Who-Lived himself, his loving wife Ginny and their more or less – depending on the circumstances, really!- charming children James Sirius, Albus Severus and Lily Luna Potter. Of course, it should not be forgotten that Teddy Lupin was there as well. After all, being Harry's godson was not meaningless at all. Officially, he live with his grandmother, but let's be realistic for just a second, being with the Potters was much more fun from time to time, so it was no surprise that he spend a lot of his time at his godfather's place. Actually, when asking little Lily Luna, who her favourite brother was, the answer would be Teddy. So naturally, he was always welcome at Potter Manor.

Still, Teddy and his grandma were the last ones to arrive, just in time for the birthday cake, not even thinking about what crazy things would be going on later. Harry's birthday was supposed to be an uneventful and happy day, full of talking and celebrating. But what is going to happen later, is as far away from that as it can get.

At first, everything was normal, the parents were chatting in the living room after tea-time was over, and the kids went outside to play some Quidditch in the garden which was protected from view. So no one from the outside could see what the kids were up to later on. And at this moment, everything still seemed normal, most of the kids were playing, while Teddy and Victoire were sitting and talking under a tree, not really paying attention to who might catch them kissing. Furthermore, Albus and Scorpius were seated at the small lake, for once not caring about the ongoing Quidditch Match. They were deep in thoughts while playing with some stones, a game Aunt Hermione taught them a few years ago. Sadly, that wasn't the only thing a little out of the ordinary for that day, because after the match ended everyone formed groups and talked -quite like the parents did inside- but suddenly, everything went quiet. Well, nearly quiet. There was still James after all. He seemed very excited, his brown eyes sparkling with joy. Now, you must know that most of the time, this wasn't a good sign at all. You could nearly feel the mischief forming in his head.

His cousin Fred, always the prankster as well, naturally wanted to know what his best friend was up to. But this wasn't supposed to be some kind of secret between the two of them. No, this was supposed to be the most exciting and therefore all-consuming thing ever. Not even a prank, more like an adventure, really. At least, James thought that this would be fun. What could go wrong, right? Well, a lot. But he will find out about that soon enough. For now, he wanted to share his idea, but not just with Fred, because this one was much bigger than just the two of them.

"Come here, everyone! I have something to show you", he exclaimed. And this was the moment when the first people started to be quite suspicious.

"What's that?", asked Fred, always the first one to be full of excitement regarding the possibility of new pranks. Oh, he'll like that one!

"That, brothers and sisters, cousins and friends, is a Time-Turner. I found it in dad's office. Cool, isn't it?"

While Teddy, with his 17 years the most responsible one, was still in shock about James' statement, little Lily Potter and Rose Granger-Weasley were fast to decide that this was not a good thing at all.

"You're not allowed to go into Uncle Harry's office! It could be dangerous. Actually, this is dangerous!", Rose shouted, always the one to follow the rules.

"Give it here!", Lily Luna demanded in addition, her green eyes flashing with rage.

Even though this didn't help to change James' mind, it was at least helpful to get Teddy out of his stupor.

"Do you even know how dangerous this is, James? Give it to me! You could get us all killed!", he tried to reason with his younger as-close-as-brother.

But James didn't seem to get the danger behind this little golden necklace he was holding in his hands. He wasn't ready to give it up just yet. He just didn't get the problem. What could go wrong? He just wanted to have a little fun. Because of that, he didn't even think about giving the Time-Turner to Teddy.

This unwillingness, of course, resulted in Teddy and Victoire trying to snatch in from James' hands. And that was the moment, everyone realized that this day was not going to end like any other normal days do. They were in for something were crazy indeed.

After James tried to throw the Time-Turner at Fred to secure it from Teddy and Victoire's grip, Fred wasn't able to catch it. So everyone else tried to get it instead, but like it is all the time, time seemed to pass in slow-motion and still no one was able to get there in time. So naturally, the Time-Turner crashed in the grass and everything became foggy until a time vortex opened up, swallowing the children, while the adults were none the wiser.