Compilation of Hinny Works

by LegendDairy

I've got too many Hinny one-shots, and there are more coming. So they are all going to be posted here instead of individual stories. And Harry/Ginny pairings only, no others. Will be updated sporadically.

44. Complicated Situation

This one is for Smeyers as part of the Harry and Ginuary challenge from the Ginny Lover's Discord group. I hope I did it justice. Prompts included- Harry being the one with the crush, involving time travel, Sirius black, Weasley twin pranking and prophetic dreams.

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Complicated Situation

()()()

Stepping into the Weasley Wizard Weezes for the first time was a full-on assault to his senses. There was just so much going on; It was colorful and loud, there were myriads of different items on every shelf and sitting atop stands on the floors. Everywhere he looked people were testing out different items. In one corner someone was pulling on a hat that made their head disappear, another person in his line of sight was molting yellow feathers after sampling one of the twins trick sweets.

Everyone everywhere he looked was grinning and had a look of awe on their face.

It made him grin to see it.

"I can't believe they've done it!" Hermione exclaimed beside him. It wasn't in a disapproving tone either. She looked just as intrigued and excited as he felt in this atmosphere.

"Blimey," was all Ron had to say to describe what they were all looking at, and that about summed up Harry's feelings as well.

Ginny had come in with them too, followed by her mother, but she didn't stand there blocking the doorway like the rest of them, instead she made a beeline for a section of the store that had the walls painted pink where a few of her friends were waving her over.

Harry's attention was completely on her retreating form now as he watched her walking towards them and he kept watching as she hugged them all in greeting, feeling a little bit of jealously over how natural her hugging them seemed. She didn't hug him in greeting when he showed up at the Burrow last week.

He managed to catch himself before giving a loud sigh of longing.

It had been nearly two years now that he'd fancied her and still he hadn't managed to say anything to her about it. Why did he have to go and get this overwhelming amount of feelings for her? She had just been Ron's little sister until that stupid Yule Ball in his fourth year!

It wasn't just due to seeing her all prettied up in her dress either.

When Ron had offered Ginny up to be his date he'd felt a wave of relief because it meant that he didn't have to track down some other girl that might be willing to go with him and would hang off him and be annoying all night. Ginny would have been pleasant company.

That relief evaporated quickly when she said she already had a date. And the glare that she gave her brother for basically offering her up like it was his right to do so had shamed the both of them.

That was when it started. He hadn't thought of her as a girl before then, just Ron's little sister. It had been a shocking realization to him and entirely Ron's fault for putting her in that light for him. After that point he actually started noticing her every time they were in the same room and learned about her outside of her simply being the youngest Weasley and realized quickly that she was smart, beautiful and an amazing Quidditch player. She was also nice and funny and the list just went on and on.

Stop it! He scolded himself.

There were plenty of things surrounding him right now that he could focus on, he didn't need to be staring at Ginny and pining all the time.

It was amazing to him that his friends hadn't seemed to have caught on to just how often he would be watching her out of the corner of his eye.

It was amazing to him that Ginny hadn't seemed to have caught on to how much he was looking at her.

Ron and Hermione went off in different directions and Harry started wandering as well. The twins had shown him a lot of their products they'd been developing over the years, but he had no idea that they'd created so many ingenious items themselves. There were a few things around that he'd seen at Zonko's, but a lot of what he was picking up to examine were a creation of their devious minds.

"How is our investor doing?" George asked coming up beside him.

"Hey! Fine," he dismissed the question with his usual response. His financial investment in their business was not something that he liked being reminded of. "This place looks fantastic!"

"Of course it does! We have certain standards you know," George told him, holding himself in the most haughty of poses.

"And we are genius'," Fred said coming up beside his twin. "We haven't even had the time to create the most mind bending of products! Those are still in production. Probably won't have more time to work on them until this lot all head back to school." He thumbed in the general direction of the crowd of school aged patrons behind him.

"Until then, we'll just keep stocking the shelves," George grinned and rubbed his hands together.

"Well, it looks great," Harry told them once more.

"It sure does. Oh no," Fred groaned as he looked over towards the pink part of the store. "Who let Ginny over there? She doesn't need anything in that section."

"What section is that?" Harry asked.

"Can't you tell by the color?" George asked him. "That's Wonder Witch and Love Potions and all that."

"Oi! Ginny," Fred called out across the store, catching her attention and waving her over.

Harry blushed as Ginny began weaving through the people and merchandise towards them. He didn't want to be standing there while her brothers talked to her about love potion! What if they asked why she would need it? What if that led to them asking him if he thought she should need it?

"What's up?" she asked, grinning at them all.

"Come here, we want to show you something we've been working on," George told her. "You too, Harry."

Oh good, he was being evasive about his reasoning for relocating his sister.

Ginny turned her bright eyes to Harry with an excited twinkle shining in them. Her lovely honey-brown eyes that he just wanted to stare into all the time.

The twins led them to a door at the back of the second floor and did a complicated wand movement to unlock it before letting them in. Fred relocked the door after. The space they were in wasn't a stocking area, it looked like a potions lab. It was a narrow space and had a curtained off area at the other end of the strip of walk-way.

"Down there," George nodded towards the curtain.

Ginny led the way and pushed the curtain aside to reveal a small kitchen set up.

"Now then. Harry, we haven't taken care of any documentation about your investment," Fred started.

"Investment?" Ginny asked, looking at him with wide eyes.

"Harry here gave us the start-up money," George explained.

"Guys," Harry warned.

"Oh, don't worry. Ginny here won't tell anyone, will you?" Fred asked.

"Of course not!" she promised.

"It was the Tri-Wizard winnings," Harry explained to her. "I didn't want them, and Cedric's family wouldn't take it, so I gave it to the twins. Figured we could all use a few laughs."

Her eyes shone warmly for him then and he felt himself grow warm from the soft smile she was giving him. If the twins could somehow find a way to bottle that look she was giving him and put that in the pink section of the store he would buy it all up.

"Yeah, he's our hero," Fred gave a pretend swoon that killed the moment. "Anyways, we drew up some paperwork giving you 30 percent of the earnings."

"I don't want it though," Harry argued.

"Then you can reinvest or give that away too," George told him and picked up a few pieces of paper, flipping through them until he landed on the last page that had a line for Harry's signature.

Harry stared at it.

"Go on, Harry," Ginny encouraged. "You don't have to use anything you make for yourself, you could donate it to a charity or something."

He frowned at the paper a moment more before accepting the quill Fred was handing him. He changed the 30 to a 20 and signed his name. "Fine, but I'm only taking this much though. There, happy?"

All three Weasleys did, in fact, look happy about it.

"Now then," Ginny turned to her brothers. "What is this product you've been working on that I need to see?"

"Yes," George clapped his hands together. "It is in the beginning stages, we just got the ingredients that we think we'll need in order to make it happen and are in the trial and error process of figuring out the right way to make it work. Do you know what a Pensive is?" he asked her.

Harry did, and immediately grew wary about whatever they were planning on doing with one.

"Sure, it lets you see memories, right?" Ginny replied.

"Yes. See them, fall into them," Fred waved a hand dismissively. "Well, we are trying to figure out how take those memories and turn them into a different scenario. Like a 'What if' type situation."

"For example?" she asked.

Harry wasn't sure what purpose that could serve. It could be a painful thing to relive most of his 'what if' situations; the first thing that popped into his mind was 'What if I'd remembered Sirius' mirror?'. Then Sirius might have been able to stop him going to the Ministry.

"For example, 'what if I hadn't asked out that bird at the pub yesterday, but went after her friend instead. She probably would have been keen for it,'" George supplied.

"Urgh," Ginny scrunched up her face in disgust. "I don't want to hear that."

"You did ask for an example," Fred shrugged.

"Yeah, regretting that now," she rolled her eyes. "It would be interesting though," she shrugged.

Harry wondered what situation she might be pulling up in her mind that she'd like a chance to do over again. Perhaps not agreeing to go to the Yule Ball with Neville? Then they would have gone together and the both of them would have fallen into a fancy for each other at the same time and would have been spending all of last year sneaking around the castle snogging in secluded locations.

"Looks like Harry has a good one he'd like to do over," George grinned.

It was then that Harry realized he had a very wistful smile on his face and immediately shut it down. "I might be interested in trying that out once you've figured it out," he muttered.

"Alright," Fred clapped his hands. "We need to grab a quick bite to eat and then get back out on the floor. I'm starving. Place has been a mad house since we opened the doors."

On that note Harry headed back towards the exit and started to the door. He could hear Ginny following in behind him.

"You're right," she said to him out of earshot of her brothers. "We will all need more laughs soon enough."

He stopped and looked back at her. She had that soft smile in place again, it was a sad one, but one that he felt was for him and him alone.

"Thank you for helping them with this," she told him sincerely.

"It's just money," he shrugged.

"No," she shook her head. "It was you knowing that giving them that money would make a difference. You need to learn to accept praise when you've earned it, Harry."

He suppressed a shudder at the sound of his name coming from her lips. It sounded so much better when she said it than when anyone else did. He should be getting a lot more opportunity to hear her say his name now that they were going to be on the Quidditch Team together. The thought of them getting stuck in the changeroom with her kitted out in the uniform had fueled a few of his less innocent dreams lately.

She looked around at what the twins had stored on the shelves above their workstations. "I still can't believe that they were able to make such a successful go of it."

"You were there last year with their catalogues being handed out to everyone. You knew some of the products that they had."

"Some, sure. But I didn't know it was going to turn into this. That one they are developing they'll have a hard time keeping in stock. It'll be like their daydream items, but with more control and a specific event. If they really could manage to make the 'what if' situation accurate then that could have a lot of people letting go of a lot of regret."

She peered into the cauldron before her and Harry couldn't help himself looking in as well. Whatever was in there wasn't the color that a Pensive was supposed to be. He imagined that there was a lot of trial and error that went into making these products of theirs; tweaking an existing product until it was just right, over and over again adding and removing ingredients.

Harry wondered now if he would be able to live out a 'what if' scenario from the night that Voldemort killed his parents. He had been over one year old, perhaps he could have toddled off to a different part of the house and his parents would have followed him and had more time to get them out of there. If they might have been able to simply grab brooms and just bolt.

There was a great booming sound that resonated through the walls from the store and caused him to jump, hitting his head on the shelf above him and something knocked over, a liquid poured out of a container, spilling on his ear and then dripping down into the cauldron.

"Oh, Harry!" Ginny exclaimed and grabbed for a rag that was laying against the wall. She reached over to wipe up whatever had spilled on him, neither of them noticing a reaction brewing in the cauldron. It was rapidly bubbling up with a vibrantly green color. The cauldron began to shake and then a puff of smoke erupted out of it, surrounding the two of them.

The twins had made it to the entrance of the passageway just in time to see Harry and Ginny ingulfed in the vapor.

When it cleared they were gone.

()()()

Harry and Ginny were coughing hard as the substance in the air cleared away. Harry took Ginny's hand and pulled her over towards the exit, attempting to get them to fresh air as soon as possible.

He felt around for the doorknob and managed to pry it open, the two of them stumbling out onto the floor of the shop, gasping for breath.

"Oi!" and unfamiliar voice called at them. "This isn't a brothel! You can't use my storeroom to get your kicks. The Leaky Cauldron is just down the road. Get out and go there!"

Harry looked up at the man towering over them as he tried to stifle his need to gasp in air. The man was dressed in deep blue wizards robes that had seen better days. It was a lot darker and quieter in the store than it had been just a moment ago. Harry blinked a few times and took a look around them. This was not the same store that they had been in a moment ago. This one had racks and racks of clothing and shoe boxes all around.

Had he grabbed the wrong door handle? He was sure there had only been the one exit in that room.

"Who are you?" Ginny asked.

"Osiris Podmore," he glared down at her. "This is my shop. Names on the building. Or did the two of you not bother looking at that while you were looking for a place to fornicate?"

Harry got up to his feet and held his hand out for Ginny. They each took another look around them before their eyes landed on each other, both looking completely befuddled.

"Either buy something or GET OUT!" Osiris yelled at them.

Together they hurried down the steps of the shop and out into Diagon Alley.

"I don't get it," Ginny said and looked back at the store. "This place went out of business ages ago. I remember Sturgis talking about it. Osiris was his dad, but he died not long after You-Know-Who fell. The first time, I mean."

Harry didn't understand either, but the building before them that had read 'Weasley Wizard Weezes' when they went in now clearly read 'Podmore and Sons'.

The street was just as abandoned with darkened storefronts as it had been when they had walked down it, that part hadn't changed. The weather was different though. It was warmer out than it had been when they'd gone it. There wasn't that chill and damp feeling that he associated with Dementors swarming around the countryside.

"What is going on?" he couldn't help asking aloud.

"What do you suppose was in that potion?" Ginny asked. "What if it was their 'What if' potion and it went all funny? Don't you need a memory to make a Pensive work? Maybe this is a memory of yours? Maybe we'll get pulled out soon. I've never been in one before, have you?" She was sounding panicked and looking around wildly.

"Ginny, calm down," he grasped both of her arms and tried to get her to slow her breathing by making her mimic his own. "There is no point in hyperventilating over this." He took in a few deep and slow breaths, accentuating the movements for her to copy.

She did as he told her and looked to gain some control of herself. "Okay," she said, sounding much more in control of herself. "I suppose we need to find out where, or more likely when, we are." She looked up and down the street and saw a vendor with copies of the Daily Prophet for sale. She took his hand and clutched it hard, leading him towards the vendor.

"Yeah, good call," he said seeing the newspapers for himself. He didn't want to let go of her hand either. If one of them was going to get pulled out of whatever this was, then the other was going to make it out also. He didn't want to get trapped in here by himself and he sure didn't want Ginny to either.

"Have you got any money?" she whispered.

"Yeah," he pulled out five knuts and handed them over to the guy selling the papers.

"'S only four, mate," the guy told him and gave him his change with the paper.

Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance at the price change and then they both looked down at the front page of the paper. The date on the paper read August 21st, 1981.

Harry felt his hands go numb and almost dropped the paper.

"No," she whispered.

"More casualties of the war," the guy minding the stand said in commiseration, misreading what it was they were upset about. "There'll be more before it's all said and done though, mark my words."

From that they looked back down at the paper and actually read the headlines. Ginny drew in a breath.

It was the story of her uncles, Gideon and Fabian, that had been killed by Death Eaters.

"Oh no," Harry muttered. "Ginny. Ginny, I was thinking about…" He stopped himself and looked back up at the vendor who was standing a little closer to them than Harry liked. He guided her along so they could distance themselves. "I was thinking about if I could go all the way back with the potion and see what would have happened… that night." His last words were barely audible.

She stopped them so they were standing close and facing each other. "The night that your parents…"

"Yeah," he breathed out. "What if this isn't us stuck in a memory? What if what they made through their trial and error actually sent us back?"

He felt a shiver run through her from their joined hands.

"What if we could actually change things?" He dared to feel hopeful. This could change everything. They could stop his parents from dying, stop Tom Riddle's diary from possessing Ginny, stop Sirius from getting thrown in jail for eleven years for something he didn't do. "Pettigrew!" he exclaimed in a loud whisper. "We could stop Peter Pettigrew, that would change everything!"

Ginny's brow was furrowed with worry. "But, what if-"

"That's just it though," he cut her off. "What if! If this is all some simulation that the twins concocted, then we can see how things would play out. I mean, what is the likelihood that they actually accidentally sent us back in time?"

She worried her bottom lip while thinking over the chances that this was all really happening.

He pulled her closer to him, not registering in that moment just how closely he was holding her. He was too excited at the prospect of having a chance to make everything play out differently. "We could change everything," he grinned down at her.

He was seeing every feature of her face more clearly than he ever had before. Every little freckle on her nose and the pink of her lips. He could just lean down slightly and touch his own lips to hers. Attempt to win her over to his idea with a kiss. A kiss would surely make her see his reasoning. She would like that, wouldn't she?

"Harry," she said softly.

There it was again, that wonderful sound of his name coming from her lips. She was asking him to kiss her, wasn't she?

But he couldn't focus on the concern in her eyes, only their proximity to his own.

Before he could allow himself to make any further decision about it a hand came down hard and clapped him on the back, grabbing his jacket and hauling him backwards. His arms were still around Ginny and the two of them gulped down their shouts of surprise while their feet fought to keep them upright as this person pulled them out of the street and into an alley.

"James, what the fuck do you think you're doing here?" The angry voice of Sirius Black sounded out from beneath a hooded cloak. He flipped back his hood and Harry's jaw dropped. This wasn't the Sirius Black that he knew. This was the one he had seen in the pictures of his parents wedding. The one with laugh lines being the only thing marring his boyish good looks. He was all of twenty years-old and looking angrily down at Ginny.

"Who is this?" Sirius asked in a quiet yell. "You're supposed to be in hiding not out with some young girl who bares a passing resemblance to your wife." He turned his eyes to look properly at Harry then and took a step back. "Oh. I…" Sirius tilted his head and squinted at Harry with confusion. "J-James?" he asked in a bewildered confusion.

"No," Harry couldn't help grinning at him and giving off a delighted laugh. "No, I'm not James."

This was his godfather! Alive!

"Sorry," Sirius took a step back.

"Sirius, wait," Harry called to him as he was about to head back towards the Alley. "I… we need your help." He turned to check that Ginny was on board with that he wanted to do, but she was staring at Sirius in amazement.

"You know me?" Sirius asked carefully.

"Yes, we know you. And you want to hear what we have to say," Harry told him.

()()()

It took quite a lot of convincing to get Sirius to agree to take Harry and Ginny to his house. This wasn't Grimmauld Place either, it was his uncle Alphard's home that was left to him when he came of age and Alphard had passed away. It wasn't much, and it was a mess, but it was much homier than Grimmauld Place had ever been.

And though he had let them into his home, Sirius was still unsure about them and keeping his wand in his hand until he was confident they weren't playing him somehow.

Harry told him his name and a run down of what had happened to them to land them there. He'd said that Voldemort's downfall was imminent, but that he wouldn't die completely and had come back in their time and was trying to take over again.

Sirius had simply looked at them like they were crazy.

Ginny had found her nerve and did her part to convince him too, telling him about how they knew of his Animagus form and about his friends. There was a silent agreement between Harry and she to keep the bit about Pettigrew being a spy until Sirius was truly convinced.

With it only being August just then that meant that there was a chance that Voldemort hadn't figured out the prophesy yet. Sirius had said that 'he' was supposed to be in hiding when he'd though Harry was his dad, that meant that Snape had overheard the prophesy already and Dumbledore had deciphered it at least.

"So, if you know about my being an Animagus, then do you know why I became one?" Sirius asked curiously, still trying to verify their claim.

"Because of Remus," Harry said. "Because he is a werewolf and you wanted to help ease his suffering during the full moon."

Sirius leaned back in his chair and looked over the two of them again for signs of deception. "I still don't know," he shook his head.

Ginny let out a groan of frustration because they'd been at it for nearly an hour now. "Marauders Map, flying Motorbike, living with the Potters, hating your mum, pin-ups of half-naked girls under your canopy at Grimmauld, Kreacher," she listed off in hopes of convincing him.

"What do the pin-ups look like?" Sirius cut in, sitting up straight now.

"Uh, um," Harry struggled to find his wording. The pin-ups were of half-naked girls straddling motorbikes. All he saw when he looked at them was smooth skin and breasts.

"The blonde one has sunglasses that she's looking out over the top of, the motorbike is red and black and her knickers are lacy and red," Ginny rattled off as though he subject was boring. "The dark one isn't wearing any knickers, the background is yellow and she's on her back laying on the bike and arching up in the most uncomfortable looking way."

Sirius' jaw dropped open then.

"Oh, and they are Muggle posters, they don't move," she added.

"Holy shit. Holy shit!" He stood up and walked around to stand behind his chair, turning to face them once more. "Holy shit! You're telling the truth! Only my mum has seen those, and she wouldn't have told a damned person about it."

"You mean your brother never saw them?" Harry asked curiously.

"No, Regulus stayed out of my room, and I never went in his. Not after he was in second year at least," Sirius said. "You two really are from the… future." It was such a strange thing to say that Sirius looked like he wished there was another word he could have used. The idea of time travel was science fiction, not magic.

Save for time-turners anyhow, but those were only good for a few hours at a time.

"We really are," Harry told him earnestly.

"Like we've been saying for the last hour," Ginny muttered under her breath and crossed her arms. She looked both frustrated and relieved.

"So, so how do we get you back? Do you want to go back, don't you?" Sirius asked, coming back around to sit in his chair once more.

At this Harry turned to Ginny. They didn't know if there was a way to go back, but if anyone could have helped them out with that it would probably be Dumbledore, wouldn't it?

Before that however, there was something he needed to accomplish.

"How much can we tell him though?" Ginny asked, reading his thoughts. "Wouldn't there be some kind of butterfly effect?"

"Wouldn't us being here already cause that?" Harry countered. He would really like to come out of this for the better.

She worried her lip a bit but nodded. "Whatever you want to do. It isn't like it would result in us not being born," she gave a weak chuckle.

"Right then. Well… it should probably just be the basics though, right?" he asked. Ginny looked as though she had as much of a clue about how much they could potentially muck this up as he did. Harry turned back to Sirius, pausing for a moment longer before deciding. Just the basics. "Peter Pettigrew is a Death Eater," he told him outright. "He's a Death Eater and he's going to sell out my parent's as secret keeper."

Sirius' jaw dropped open. "Peter? Little Peter Pettigrew?" he was close to laughing outright at them. "Now you're having a go."

"It's true," Ginny told him. "Tom probably tortured or blackmailed him into it, even just simply bullied him, but Pettigrew is a Death Eater."

"Tom?" Sirius asked.

"Tom Riddle," Harry explained. "That's Voldemort's real name."

Sirius didn't jump at the name he just sat there contemplating and silently stared at Harry for several long moments.

"While you're thinking that over, mind if I grab some food?" Ginny asked. "I'm starving." Just then her stomach gave a bit of a loud rumble.

Sirius waved towards the kitchen. Ginny looked over at Harry expectantly.

Did she want him to get her food?

No, she held out her hand for him. She didn't want to be apart from him just in case. He couldn't help being pleased about that. Even if they didn't know exactly what was going on, at least he was going through this with her.

As they walked past, Sirius his arm shot out and grabbed hold of Harry by the elbow.

"Not Remus?" Sirius asked him weakly.

"No," Harry said earnestly. "No, Remus is a great man. You can trust him."

"He was a great Professor," Ginny said offhand.

"Professor?" Sirius asked in pleasant surprise.

Ginny didn't reply to him, instead she tugged Harry into the kitchen and opened up a few cupboards and the icebox to find something to assemble for them. "I can do pasta and sauce," she told him. "There isn't much else in here."

Harry took a look as well. It appeared that Sirius went out for most of his meals. There was an overflowing amount of garbage on the counters and in the corners that looked like it had been take-out. He wondered whatever happened to this house when Sirius was carted off to Azkaban. Did his little brother take ownership of it? Harry never heard what had happened to Regulus, just that he was presumed dead.

It was strange to think that in just under three months that the Sirius in the other room could be getting locked up for eleven years.

"We can't let him get locked up this time," he told Ginny.

She was at the sink filling a pot with water and looked back at him. "We told him about Peter, we don't know all that that changes. If You-Know-Who doesn't disappear on Halloween this year, then will the war just drag on?"

He watched her move around the kitchen and get supper ready for them as he thought it over. Ginny looked like she was happy to have a task that she was familiar with right then. She never was one to simply sit still.

Watching her moving around like she was helped him relax a bit as well. He tried to think of the series of events that was supposed to have happened before they interfered with history; the prophesy was overheard, check, Snape reports it back to his Dark Lord, likely a check on that one as well, Pettigrew betrays his parents secret location, not yet.

Did that mean that his parents hadn't already defied him three times?

No.

No, that would have had to be true at the time that the prophesy was made, right?

"I think we need to talk to Dumbledore," Harry said to Ginny.

"I agree," Sirius said coming into the kitchen. "And I've just sent him an owl." He looked into the pot that Ginny was stirring with the pasta in it. "I'm not going to lie, I'm still not one hundred percent convinced about you two just yet."

"Well, you've been with us for longer than an hour and haven't seen us drinking any potions, so you know we aren't Polyjuiced," Harry told him. "You could do some kind of revealing spell and see if any glamor charms are removed," he offered.

"I'm not letting him point his wand at me," Ginny said straight. "Wouldn't then, won't now."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked her.

"Last summer when we were cleaning up Grimmauld," she told him, "I got a few doxy bites and this drunkard," she jutted her thumb at Sirius, "claimed he knew a spell that would help. Good thing I wouldn't let him too; He got a doxy bite on himself to prove he could do it and he did it wrong. Wound up breaking his toe," she laughed.

"I didn't hear about that!" Harry exclaimed.

"Of course, you didn't. There had been so much you had to catch up on by then that a little thing like that hardly seemed important," she told him. "Mum wound up fixing both of us up."

He would have like to hear anything if it involved her. This past year his attraction to her had almost grown to the point of obsession, but last summer he certainly would have liked to have something to laugh with her about when they were trapped in that place. Currently he was picturing her holding one of her arms with an angry looking doxy bite on it and her immediate reaction to Sirius' offer of assistance making her want to run away or bring her heel down hard on Sirius' other foot and break a toe herself. She had probably glared at Sirius as he hopped around cussing up a storm.

This Sirius moved to scratch his nose where he stood resting his back against the cupboard and that called Harry's attention. Sirius was looking at him curiously. Harry raised his eyebrows at him in question. The responding smirk and head jut in Ginny's direction followed by a kissy face made Harry's face heat up and he shifted awkwardly in his seat.

"Can one of you clean off some space for bowls so we can eat?" Ginny asked as she pulled out three bowls to divvy up the pasta.

Harry hopped up and headed to the dining table behind him, but Sirius cast a spell to clear off the mess before he had a chance to pick anything up.

"If you can do that so easily, why don't you?" Harry asked him.

Sirius gave a shrug. "I could easily toss my socks in the hamper at the end of the day, but more often than not they wind up on the floor."

"So, what exactly did you put in your letter to Dumbledore?" Ginny asked once they were all seated.

"Just that I needed to see him urgently," Sirius told them. "He probably won't be able to get back to me until tomorrow or something, so after this we can figure out sleeping arrangements. I've only got two bedrooms in this place, and sorry, but I'm not giving up my bed for one of the two of you just because you came back in time to end the war or whatever. Harry, you can sleep on the couch."

"No," Ginny stated.

"What, you want to sleep on the couch?" Sirius asked her.

"No, I mean we aren't going to be separated for that long. We'll both stay in your guest room."

Harry choked on his dinner at that. She wanted them to share a bed? What if he snored too loud, or talked in his sleep? What if he got morning wood?! How was she going to react to that? He turned his eyes desperately on Sirius who was looking between the two of them.

"How old are you exactly?" he asked them skeptically.

"According to the newspaper we saw earlier, I'm ten days old," Ginny said.

Harry covered his mouth with his hand for that one. She always did have a sharp tongue. The corners of Sirius' mouth were twitching. He was looking at Ginny like she was a worthy adversary. Harry hadn't noticed if she and Sirius had actually got along when he was alive, they hadn't all been in the same room together for any extended periods of time.

"I'm getting you separate blankets at least," Sirius told them. "You are my Godson after all." Now he was teasing.

"Hey, did you give me the broomstick yet?" Harry asked impulsively. "Was it for my first birthday?"

"I did!" Sirius told him proudly. "You took to it right away!"

"A natural right from the off, eh?" Ginny nudged Harry. "Lucky you. I had to sneak out at night in order to learn to ride. Bloody misogynistic prats my brothers were."

"It all worked out in the end," Harry told her. "You're a brilliant Quidditch player now."

"You both play?" Sirius asked keenly.

"Harry here is the youngest Quidditch player in a century. McGonagall recruited him for Gryffindor Seeker his first week of school," Ginny said proudly.

"That true?! Wow. I bet James was bragging about that everywhere he went," Sirius grinned.

The smiles dropping straight off his and Ginny's face was indication enough for Sirius that there had been no James around to celebrate that accomplishment. They given him that part of the story yet, only that Pettigrew was a Death Eater and Voldemort's downfall was imminent.

Sirius' expression dropped as well. "What about Lily?" he asked.

Harry couldn't meet his eye. Ginny reached over and took Harry's hand, he was able to meet her eye. He didn't know whether it was his imagination, or just wishful thinking, but the level of care and warmth that she was offering him in her gaze alone was helping him get through having to tell Sirius this.

"When?" Sirius asked. "Did- did I raise you?" He asked it like it was a lifeline he was hanging on to.

Ginny gave Harry's hand a squeeze. He knew he had to say something, but he just couldn't get it out. He wasn't good with having to give bad news, and this was certainly not going to be pleasant for Sirius to hear.

"It doesn't matter," Ginny said. "Not now. If we are able to make any changes to what happens, then maybe he will be raised by Lily and James Potter."

Sirius gave a solemn nod of understanding. "Er, how exactly are two teenagers supposed to know enough about Voldemort to get him out of the picture?"

"We should probably wait for Dumbledore before we share that information," Harry told him. "There are things that he probably knows right now that might help it all make sense. He's not the most forthcoming about details."

"You're telling me! It's like we're all his little chess pieces, and it's always just us saying 'yes, sir' and hopping to it because he's all knowing or whatever," Sirius complained. "Oh, wait. Are we complaining, or just stating facts?" he asked for clarification, making both Harry and Ginny grin.

"Got anything you want to get off your chest there, Sirius?" Ginny asked in jest. She stood up and took their empty dishes to the sink and came back to stand behind her chair. "Mind if we see that spare room of yours? Time travel is a little tiring."

Harry looked out the window. The sun still hadn't set, but he didn't know where exactly this house was. They could be in Scotland and the sun might not set until after ten. He was tired though. But not sure how he was possibly going to sleep when Ginny was going to be right there beside him.

He and Sirius got up from the table and followed behind her as she headed towards the stairs.

"You and she," Sirius whispered. "Anything there on her end that you know of?"

Harry gave a hard swallow and shook his head mournfully.

Sirius shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Like father like son," he muttered. "Just… don't make me regret this," Sirius told him.

Sirius hurried up the stairs and Harry frowned at his back. What exactly was he supposed to be doing to cause regret? Ginny wasn't interested in him and he was too damned shy to act on his overwhelming yearning for her.

The spare bedroom was cramped, but it had a queen-sized bed that was now free and clear of all the boxes that had been piled on top of it. Sirius cast a freshening charm on the room and had the sheets change themselves before offering up a change of clothes for both of them to use as pajamas. They had taken turns in the bathroom and were now both laying on opposite sides of the bed.

Harry was staring up at the ceiling. Ginny was on her side facing the other way. He didn't want to roll on to either of his sides, if he went one way then his back would be to her, if he went the other way then he'd just be staring at her. There was enough light coming in through the window that he would be able to see the color of her hair and her bare shoulder was exposed because the shirt that she was sleeping was too big for her so it had slipped down. If he turned the other way he would be able to see her clothes that she'd changed out of, he was sure she hadn't realized that her bra was poking out a bit from between her jeans and sweater.

He'd noticed though.

That meant she wasn't wearing a bra right now.

He closed his eyes tight and tried to force himself not to think of her breasts that were now unincumbered beneath the t-shirt.

The mattress moved and he felt her roll over to face him. "Harry," she whispered.

"Yeah?" he whispered back.

"I'm scared."

He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her. He wasn't sure what he could say to her. He didn't know if everything was going to turn out to be okay or if they would ever get back to where they had been. He felt like this was all his fault, he'd been the one thinking about this scenario for the 'What if' situation he would have liked to change.

"Don't," Ginny said.

"Don't what?"

"I can see it when you start to blame yourself for things. You're easy to read, and this isn't your fault. It isn't anyone's fault."

She really did know him so well. She could get a read on him in a second and it made things so much easier when he didn't have to explain himself or put what he was thinking into words.

"We'll just have to wait and see what Dumbledore's opinion on all this will be. In the meantime, all we can do is get some sleep," he told her softly.

"You mean try to get some sleep. It's really quiet here." She gave a sign and rolled onto her back. "I'm exhausted, but I can't turn my mind off."

"I've just been staring at the ceiling," he admitted.

"This might sound like a strange request, but can you tell me a story or something?"

He couldn't help but grin at that request. "What kind of story?"

"I don't know. Pick something. My dad told me there is some Muggle thing called 'Movings' that they watch and it tells a story, like a play that you can watch over and over again. Dean was telling me about them too."

Dean? Dean Thomas? His dorm mate? Harry felt a flash of jealousy go through him hearing that. Why was Dean talking to Ginny? She had a lot of friends, she didn't need him being one of them. Wasn't he seeing some Hufflepuff in Ginny's year? Maybe she was hanging out with that girl and Dean mentioned them.

He gave himself a mental shake to try and push those feelings away..

"They're called 'movies', and I haven't seen many," he told her.

"I don't care," she said. "I just want to listen to you talk, really."

That helped extinguish the small fire that his envy of Dean Thomas had turned into. "Alright," and so he started telling her the story of a cartoon movie that he had watched from the stairs while Dudley had been watching it the living room. He only got partway through the story when she moved over and snuggled against him, completely asleep.

Harry kept telling the story as he shifted slightly to get comfortable with his arm behind her so she could rest her head on his shoulder. Her arm came to lay across his stomach and it felt so right.

She had been the one to cuddle against him!

His Patronus would shine so brightly right now.

The warmth of having her there, not just her body heat, but the feel of her against him, essentially hugging him in her sleep, it caused him to drift off himself.

()()()

There was a tugging feeling against his side. It wasn't any external force that was trying to get him out of bed, it was his own body that was trying to pull away from him. Part of himself was desperate to leave.

But he didn't want to leave.

Ginny was here, he couldn't leave without her.

Harry's eyes opened. It was dark all around him. There was nothing but dark fog obscuring anything details about where he might be. He was standing up as well, not laying down. He knew he was still asleep, but he also knew this wasn't a normal dream. In normal dreams he wasn't this aware or confused. In normal dreams everything simply makes sense; he could have been riding a purple unicorn the suddenly turned into an ice cream cone and that would have seemed nothing out of the ordinary.

But this wasn't like that.

He took a step forward and a mirror became visible through the dark fog. It was a full length one that was showing himself, but he didn't look completely like himself. His hair was laying flat for one thing and his eyes were red.

"We don't belong here," Mirror Harry said to him. It wasn't in English though. This time when Harry heard the Parseltongue he could make out the subtle hissing that accentuated the words.

"I know we don't," Harry told him, also in Parseltongue. "We could change things though. Make them better in the future."

"By killing me, you mean?" Mirror Harry asked, cocking his head to the side, his eyes boring straight into Harry's own. This reflection of himself was speaking and moving in just the same way that Tom Riddle had when he came out of the Diary. "That's right. You aren't alone Potter, you're never alone. And you and the girl aren't the only one's with your other selves here."

A shiver ran through the real Harry. "What do you mean?"

Mirror Harry squared his jaw and looked him over. "You've been a fine host. But this," he gestured to his person, "was never the plan." He crossed his arms and appeared to be fighting against himself. "When you see Dumbledore," he snarled at the name, "you need to tell him to search for the Horcruxes. Capture Lord Voldemort, killing him will simply drag this on."

Harry didn't know what that meant. This wasn't like the visions he had either, the ones where he could see what Voldemort was up to. This was something else entirely. But he knew that it was important, and true.

He continued to stare at this creepy version of himself, repeating in his head what his mirror image had told him. He just knew on some level that it was the all-important key to change everything.

Without warning his mirror image lunged at him and came through the mirror.

On instinct Harry closed his eyes and tackled the thing to the ground, pinning it down.

"Harry!" her voice called out in a panic. "Harry, wake up!"

He opened his eyes and saw it wasn't the creepy mirror image of himself that he had pinned beneath him, it was Ginny. They were back in Sirius' guest room. He had a cold sweat that had broken out across his forehead and he was shivering.

"Harry, it's okay," Ginny told him and ran her free hand up and down his side in a comforting manner. "You're alright. It was just a nightmare." She cupped his cheek and he leaned into her hand, feeling the pressure of it calm him down. He was only half conscious of what was going on though and took her hand in his own, pinning it too to the bed with her other.

After a moment his breath started returning to normal and he let his forehead rest against her own.

"It was a dream," he whispered. "At least, I think it was a dream. There was another me, and it said to tell Dumbledore to search for the Horcruxes. Capture, don't kill. I don't know what it means but, but it was important. Is important."

"Okay. Okay, we'll tell him that," she assured him. "Either it will make sense to him, or it won't, but we'll tell him."

He raised his forehead up off hers so he could try to read her face like she did his. "Do you think it was real?"

"I think that you once had a dream where my father was mortally injured and because of it his life was saved," she said. "This could mean something, it could mean nothing. We'll find out." She sounded so sure. So reasonable.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Could be something, could be nothing," he repeated, allowing himself to relax.

That was when he realized he still had her pinned to the bed. Her hands were locked above her head against the pillow because he was holding them there. His chest was pressed right up against hers, and the rest of their lower halves as well.

She wasn't making any hints that she minded either. She looked like her only concern that moment was for him.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked. He really didn't want to move.

A smile came to her face and she bit the side of her lower lip. He felt her tug her one leg out from under his so that both his legs were now settled between hers. "That's better," she whispered.

He was still frozen looking down at her. She didn't want him to get off of her? He hadn't felt her tug at her hands at all, only her leg had moved.

"Your move, Potter," she told him coyly.

"You mean," he couldn't get the words out.

It seemed Ginny was losing patience, her lovely smile wasn't adorning her face anymore, she looked impatient now. "Either finally snog me, or-"

He lower his lips to hers abruptly and cut her off.

They were just as soft as he imagined they would be. And she was kissing him back. He'd dreamed of this moment, fantasized about it endlessly, and the real experience did not disappoint. He released one of her hands and trailed his fingers down her arm, down her side and settled on her hip where her shirt had ridden up. There had been quite a stretch of soft skin along her side for him to enjoy.

They were doing this. They were snogging in a bed.

He had gone from having a complete nightmare to living out his best dream.

She tasted so good. She moved so good. Her lips were wonderful the way they moved against his own and it was growing heated. They weren't just snogging, they were devouring each other. All the built-up longing he had for her, all his emotions he was pouring into this kiss.

Ginny hooked her legs around his shins, forcing them together more below the belt and they both groaned at the sensation that elicited.

He was desperate for his lips to wander though. Her own were amazing, but he wanted to kiss every part of her body that she would let him, starting with her neck. There was this one cluster of freckles at the base of her neck and he wanted to kiss her there, he wanted to draw lines connecting one to the other with his tongue as though he were mapping out the constellations.

He shifted lower, his hand going subtly higher against her side, and he kissed his way down to that spot on her neck. She arched her back as a pleasured sigh came from her lips, Ginny turned her head to allow him more access and pulled her other hand out from beneath his, burying it in his hair.

Her fingers scratched against his scalp in the best possible way and he gave his own groan of pleasure. Carefully he adjusted himself, not wanting her to possibly be offended by his arousal. How he wanted to palm himself now. Laying on top of her like this was the most turned on he'd been in his life. He didn't know when or how he was supposed to stop this or how far it was okay to go.

If he couldn't palm himself right then, then he was desperate to move his hand at her side further upwards. Slowly he did just that. She was making all these little sounds and movements as his lips and tongue fastened to her neck. He worked them lower to her collar and his fingers brushed upwards, barely grazing her breast.

Ginny's hand came down on his own and he was sure he'd gone too far then. She was going to push him off and tell him to sleep on the floor. Call him all kinds of names.

But that wasn't what she did. She moved his hand upwards. She placed it fully onto her bare breast beneath her shirt. He let out a great groan at that. It was so soft, so supple, so perfect. He kneaded her there, felt her pert nipple against his palm, felt himself twitching between his legs.

She was making these movements with her hips against his lower belly. If they were lined up properly he would be feeling those movements against his erection. And he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to.

"Harry," she panted.

He thought his name sounded good coming from her mouth before, the way she was panting it now was incredible.

He removed his lips from her collar and shifted himself upwards, claiming her lips again. They were perfectly lined up now. The underside of his shaft was right between her legs. A spot that felt so warm. He moved slightly against it and his eyes rolled back behind his lids.

"Tell me to stop," he begged her. It was the only way that he was going to be able to pull himself away from her now. "Tell me not to do this." He groaned again as he rocked against her, each movement becoming more.

She didn't say anything though, she just kept meeting his movements, rolling her hips just right. She kept on kissing him, her lips vibrating against his own with her moans.

It was all too much. He'd wanted her this way for a year. His fantasies about her had grown to this point shortly after they'd been locked in Grimmauld Place last summer. Those fantasies involved more than this at points as well, but this was real. They were snogging passionately and grinding against one another.

"Ginny, I'm, I'm going to," he tried to warn her. But then it was too late, he was already spilling himself out onto his pajama bottoms. Her own movements continuing on for a moment before her back arched off the bed and her hands came down, fisting in the blanket as a new rush of warmth met the underside of his happily receding shaft.

She'd just cum as well.

"I… I didn't mean for it to, us to get so…" he panted as he looked down at her. Ginny's eyes were still closed and she had a flush to her cheeks, this blissful expression on her face that he could feel echoing through his entire body as well.

She just nodded, her bruised lips parted and drawing in deep breaths.

She didn't look like she regretted it. That was his only concern. He didn't want her to feel like he'd taken advantage, or for her to have just allowed him to do that because she wanted to help him calm down after that nightmare.

He came to lay down beside her, grabbing his wand off the side table and quickly cleaning them both up. She was still laying in the same position when he turned back to her. There was a little more light coming in through the window now than there had been when he'd first opened his eyes. It could have been around 6am or as early as 3am, he couldn't tell. He could tell that the orange-ish light was making her hair look a darker red than it was and her freckles were standing out more than ever. She looked gorgeous.

The shirt she was wearing was bunched up and exposing her stomach. He wasn't sure why but being able to see her belly button felt very intimate.

He reached down to grab the blanket from the end of the bed and pulled it up over them and lay back down. She still hadn't said anything.

He was growing more nervous the longer the silence dragged on. But once he was settled on his back Ginny rolled onto her side and adjusted the blankets so that they weren't tucked between them. She rested her head back on his shoulder, just like she had done when she'd first fallen asleep last night, and she gave him a kiss on his chest through his shirt, right over where his heart was, then she settled back down, her arm once more draped across his stomach.

Harry fell back asleep with the biggest smile on his face.

()()()

When he opened his eyes again the sun was properly up and there was blue sky visible through the window. He was alone in the bed though.

And confused.

The dream he had with the mirror version of himself he could still recall, but the part with what happened between him and Ginny, he didn't know if that had also been a dream. He hoped it hadn't been a dream.

He was definitely in the same guest room that he had fallen asleep in at Sirius' house, so the time travel part hadn't been a dream for sure.

Looking over at the dresser he saw that his clothes were still there, but Ginny's had disappeared. He got out of bed and was half-way across the room when the door opened slowly and Ginny poked her head in.

"Hey," she said quietly. "Was just checking to see if you were up yet."

He was frozen to his spot, trying to get a read on her face. Was it real? He could still recall the exact feeling of her lips on his own as though it had happened. He should have given her a hickey or something so that he would know if the morning if it had really happened.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm up," he nodded.

She came into the room properly and shut the door behind her. "Sirius is downstairs," she told him. "I don't know if he is still struggling with the concept of us being from another time. He's starting to ask questions though. No relation to anything important, but things like Quidditch outcomes and the like," she chuckled.

Ginny was acting so normally. Her back was now resting against the wall beside the door, her hands clasped behind her back and looking him directly in the eyes.

"Right." It was all he could manage to say. He turned back towards the dresser and picked up his clothes. "I'll just go and get dressed then." It was a dream. It had to have been a dream.

"Hey, Harry?" she said, stopping him from leaving by putting her hand on the doorknob.

They were only a foot apart from each other right then. He was aching to stand closer to her, to kiss her again and this time know that it was real.

"That 'What If' potion?" she started. "Do you want to know what my scenario from my past was? What I had immediately thought of to try over again and see the result?"

He didn't breathe, silently begging that it had something to do with him. It was that she hadn't been so quiet around him when she was eleven and he'd gotten to know how great she was sooner and they would have been together for years now.

"That I'd found another date for Neville for the Yule Ball," she said quietly. "Then I could have gone with you."

He sucked in a deep breath. "That was mine!" he told her in a rush. "Not my first thought, but the one right after."

She gave him a sad smile. "Your first was about Sirius, wasn't it?"

He nodded and took a half step closer to her, not eager to go into that scenario. He wanted to discuss her 'What if'. "You wanted to go with me?"

She shrugged one shoulder coyly. "It could have wound up being the start of something, or it could have made it so you still didn't look at me and see me as anything other than your mates little sister."

He shook his head. "I would have figured it out at least when I saw you in that dress."

That made her grin. "Liked that, did you?"

"Very much," he nodded. He reached out and took her hand. "So, last night? That actually happened? That wasn't a dream?"

A blush came to her cheeks. "Would it be the first time you had a dream like that?"

She was so good at beating around the bush. Maddeningly evasive. But how she phrased it did mean that it hadn't been a dream, otherwise she would have asked what had happened in the dream.

And no, it wasn't the first, he'd had several dreams like that about her before. Now wasn't a time when he wanted to delve into the extent of his wet dreams about her though. This was now and she was here. She wanted to be with him too, right? That was why she had wanted to see the alternate outcome of the Yule Ball with him as her date.

They both leaned in at the same time.

This was real. Her being in his arms, her own wounding around his neck. The bubble of joy in his chest was growing to the point of him wanting to pick her up and spin her around like a lovesick fool because he was so happy.

Finally, something so completely good was happening to him. Something he had wanted for so long.

"Ginny," he said through kisses, not wanting his lips to leave her for very long. "Are you really in this? I've wanted to be with you for so long." Once more his lips started trailing kisses down her jaw to her neck. How in the name of Merlin did she smell so good? They were in a different place altogether and yet she still smelled of the flowers at the Burrow somehow.

"I know," she sighed. "Took you long enough."

He pulled back and looked down at her, completely bewildered. "You knew?!"

She grinned up at him. "Yes. And I kept waiting for you to do something about it. For someone who manages to get themselves in life threatening situations annually you really are scared of something as simple as asking a girl out."

He couldn't believe this! "So, if I'd have said something to you at the Yule Ball, then this whole time," he trailed off.

"Then what we did earlier this morning wouldn't have seemed so sudden… or fast," she blushed, biting her lip and now unable to meet his eye.

He felt his hands grow numb at the memory of them writhing together, feeling her grinding against him and panting his name. It had been incredible and he didn't want to feel ashamed about it, but she was right; they hadn't seemed to have any self-control.

"I'm sorry." He pulled away from her slightly.

"Don't," she said, coming away from the wall and tightening her arms around him. "You told me to tell you to stop. Twice. I couldn't though. It just… felt so good." She gave him another kiss and then rested her head on his chest. Buried her head in his chest more like to hide the color he had noticed coming to her cheeks again.

He wrapped his arms tighter around her, feeling so happy in that moment. He didn't want to leave this room and face what was coming on the other side of the door, even if it was just Sirius asking them about Quidditch stats over the next fifteen years.

Choosing to extend this moment as long as he could he bent down to capture her lips once more. He could feel her smiling against him and responding.

It was barely five minutes later when there was a short rap at the door before it opened. Sirius poked his head in to see them, Ginny was sat up on the dresser with her hands in Harry's hair and he had been bent down kissing her collar again; she really seemed to like it when he kissed her there. It was like she was giving herself over completely to the sensations and in turn got him incredibly aroused.

"Oh good, your both still dressed," Sirius smirked. "Are you coming downstairs anytime soon?" He didn't seem at all bothered by what he'd just walked in on. "I've got food ready."

Harry stood up properly and was about to take a step back from Ginny before he froze and realized just how obvious his erection would be in these pajama bottoms. "Yep. I'll, we'll, be right down," he managed.

Sirius shook his head and then retreated, muttering something about how he 'knew it'.

"See," Ginny grinned at him. "Even Sirius knew you fancied me."

"You don't think Ron knows, do you?" he worried.

"Hermione definitely does," she said and got down from the dresser, straightening out her shirt and running her fingers through his hair. "Ron is probably oblivious about it."

Harry nodded, his brow furrowed. Ron was his best mate, if Harry had a sister he would probably want her with someone he trusted that he knew would treat her right. Ron must know that he would never do anything to hurt Ginny.

Ginny reached up and rubbed her thumbs along the creases on his forehead in a massaging pattern. His eyes closed and he swayed at the feeling of it. No one had ever done that to him before, it felt really good.

"Stop worrying over Ron," she told him. "We have bigger issues to deal with right now." She gave him one more kiss and then left to let him get ready.

Ten minutes later and he was showered, changed back into his previous days clothes with a cleaning spell applied to them and was sitting down to breakfast.

"I haven't heard back from Dumbledore yet," Sirius told him with a cup of coffee in his hand. "I did however receive this letter," he pushed a piece of parchment over to Harry who was about to start reading it when the photograph that was sent along with it caught his attention.

Harry picked it up and watched with amazement as he saw a little messy black-haired toddler flying around a foot off the ground while someone that looked remarkably like himself sat laughing on the couch in the background.

This was him! The toddler him! He'd heard about the broom Sirius had given him for his first birthday, but here was the proof. The toddler version of himself was squealing with joy and his father looked so proud of him. They were so happy.

Are so happy.

And now there was time to make sure they stayed that way.

Harry pried his eyes away from the photo and saw that the letter sent was from his mother to Sirius. Her writing was so perfectly spaced and legible, nothing like his own chicken scratch. She was both chastising and praising Sirius for his gift and telling of all the things that had already had to be repaired from 'Harry' knocking them over.

"They look to be doing okay in hiding," Ginny said as she peered over his shoulder at the photo and letter.

"They are. Those two would do anything if it meant that their little boy is okay," Sirius told them.

The smile dropped from Harry's face then and he set the letter down, turning back to his breakfast. Ginny rubbed his back and then returned to her own.

He could feel Sirius' eyes looking back and forth between the two of them. "You are actually teenagers, yeah?" he asked.

"Yes," Ginny answered for the both of them.

"Either of you of age yet?"

"No," Ginny answered again.

"Then did one of you break the law when you cast the charm last night?"

Ginny choked on her food at the question, but Harry wasn't sure what charm he was talking about. He had used his wand to do two small charms last night, but that weren't really strong enough magic for the Ministry to pick up on.

"We didn't need that charm," Ginny said through gritted teeth. "And they wouldn't notice the underage magic anyhow. We're here under your roof. Do you not use magic in your day to day?"

"They can't tell who casts the spell?" Harry asked her incredulously.

"Of course not," Ginny told him. "Otherwise you wouldn't have gotten in trouble with them before your second year, remember? It was House Elf magic that got you in trouble."

"You have a House Elf?" Sirius asked him in confusion.

"No, he belonged to the Malfoy's," Harry told him without thinking and kept looking at Ginny. "So, every time I was at yours for the summer I could have been using magic?"

"You couldn't have gone overboard or anything, but yeah," she shrugged. "How do you think I keep my room so clean? It isn't manual labor," she grinned at him.

"That is so sneaky!"

"Isn't that one of the things you like about me?" she waggled her eyebrows at him and gave him a wink.

He liked this flirting she was doing with him.

"Why was the Malfoy's House Elf at your house before your second year?" Sirius asked gravely. "You aren't friends with them, are you?" He looked a moment away from giving them a tongue lashing for associating with that family.

"No," Harry and Ginny both said sharply together.

"I hope Lucius Malfoy rots away in Azkaban this time around," Ginny snarled.

"It probably won't stop Draco Malfoy from being a snobby prat though," Harry told her.

"Junior Malfoy is a prat, but you getting so hot headed over every little thing he says is exactly what he wants," Ginny scolded him lightly.

"Excuse me," Sirius waved his hand from across the table to get their attention. "Good to know you both hate the Malfoy's and that you didn't shag in my guest room last night, but why was their House Elf at yours?" he asked Harry.

Harry pondered how to answer that one; That story involved the Diary, which involved Ginny and a secret chamber and a Basilisk. They should probably wait until Dumbledore was there to get into that story. "It's complicated," was all that Harry could offer him. "We should wait to tell you and Dumbledore the important parts together."

"Look, Dumbledore is a busy guy. Right now he is extra busy and I don't want to put more into a letter than absolutely necessary." They could tell by his expression that he understood the gravity of this situation, but he was right, Sirius sending him an owl asking him to stop by wasn't enough for Dumbledore to just drop everything. "I could hardly send out an owl stating that two people had been accidentally sent back from the future so would he please stop 'round for some biscuits."

Harry thought on it, wondering what would be safe enough to put into a letter that would make no sense to anyone else, but Dumbledore would recognize the urgency. He looked over to Ginny to see if she had any ideas.

She was already looking back at him. "Tom Marvolo Riddle?" she offered.

"I dunno." He wasn't sure how many people knew his real name. "What about how it wasn't Hagrids monster that did in Myrtle? That he was right."

"Maybe. But what if you just sent him," she leaned forward to whisper in his ear, "Horcrux."

"I still don't know what that means," he told her. "Maybe just a line from the prophesy?"

"You know it?!" Sirius jumped in.

For a split second, seeing Sirius and thinking of the prophesy, those two things combined just brought him back to the Ministry and seeing Sirius falling through the veil. Harry's stomach did a drop. Then he flashed back to being in Dumbledore's office and smashing everything in sight right before hearing it.

"I do," he managed to say quietly. "I know who it was he heard it from too, and who it was overheard by."

"Too dangerous," Ginny said warningly. "It could get people killed."

He and Ginny sat there pondering. Harry thought back over all his interactions with Dumbledore from the past five years and realized he didn't know that much about the man. No more than anyone else would have known. Perhaps that he had the unfortunate experience of eating a vomit flavored Bertie Bots Every Flavored Bean?

"Can't you just go to Order Headquarters or his office and see if he's there?" Ginny asked Sirius.

"And leave the two of you alone here? No thanks," Sirius gave a good-natured scoff. "I was a teenager once too and it's bad enough you convinced me to let you share a bed last night, I don't need that going on in the rest of my house."

"What is it exactly that you think we'll get up to?" Ginny insinuated as though testing him.

"Don't give me that look, girlie," he pointed at her, looking like he was enjoying the opportunity for this kind of banter. "I'm pretty sure you're the instigator here."

"Not true," she countered. "He was the one to kiss me, not the other way around."

"Hey!" Harry defended. "You all but told me I had better, or else."

"How else was I supposed to get you to do it? Wait around another year while you twiddled your thumbs? A girl only has so much patience, Potter."

Sirius roared with laughter over that and Harry turned red.

There was the sound of movement coming from the other room and they all froze.

"Sirius?" called out a voice that Harry didn't recognize.

Sirius mouthed the name 'Peter' to them and Harry gripped his chair, fighting the urge to get up and kill the rat immediately. That or just hit him really hard and lock him up somewhere.

Sirius stood up to head through the kitchen and into the sitting room, gesturing for them to go back up the stairs and stay out of sight. It looked like Sirius was still a bit on the fence about believing them when it came to Peter, but he was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt at the moment. Harry would have had trouble believing that Hermione or Ron could have betrayed him like that, so he was grateful that Sirius was at least being cautious.

He and Ginny tip-toed out of sight and up the stairs, then ducked around the corner of the stairs so that they were still close enough to potentially hear what was being said.

"Do you have an extendable ear?" he asked her.

She fished into her pockets but came up with nothing.

They could only hear the low rumbling of the two men talking to each other, they couldn't make out the words. Harry prayed that Sirius wasn't selling them out. They must have convinced him enough that he wouldn't do that.

There was a bit of an exclamation of surprise heard and then a third voice adding to the mix. Harry gripped Ginny's arm as he recognized the low-smooth voice of Albus Dumbledore. "It's him!" he said in a panicked voice.

"I know, now let go of my arm," she growled under her breath.

He released his hand immediately, "sorry." He gave her an apologetic look and she just rolled her eyes at him and kept listening down the stairs.

They couldn't talk to Dumbledore with Pettigrew around. Hopefully Sirius would find a way to make the rat leave and then close the Floo so they wouldn't be interrupted.

Several more minutes they stood there trying to make out what was being said but the men were too quiet and too far away. Sneaking back down the stairs was too risky as well.

"I could go down there," Ginny offered. "You look too much like your dad, but they wouldn't recognize me."

"And when they question why Sirius has a fifteen-year-old girl alone in the house with him?" Harry pointed out.

Harry felt Ginny give a shiver at realizing how that would look. She came forward and rested her head on his chest. It was only a few hours now that they'd been together, but her being comfortable enough to stand with him like this would take some getting used to, in the best possible way.

Whatever happened next, at least one of his 'what if' scenarios panned out successfully. He couldn't feel too terrible about the situation they were stuck in now. Even if they didn't find a way back to their own time, at least he was here with her and he had Sirius back.

Harry wrapped his arms around her in a hug and simply held her close, the way he'd always wanted to.

"You guys can come down now," Sirius hollered from the kitchen. "Peter's gone."

Harry took a deep breath and reached down for Ginny's hand. Sirius and Dumbledore were still in the sitting room when they walked in. Dumbledore looked the same as ever, perhaps his beard was a foot or so shorter, but that was the extent of the difference.

He was giving Harry a very curious look, his eyes darting over to Ginny, but resting for a longer period on Harry. "You two would be the urgent matter that Mister Black needed to discuss?"

They both nodded. Ginny turned to Harry, telling him he could take the lead with the conversation.

"We are," Harry got out. "It took quite a bit to convince Sirius that we weren't Death Eaters or anything. I assure you, we aren't. And we're not messing you about either. I'm Harry, and this is Ginny. And, well, we aren't from… now."

"And when are you from exactly?" Dumbledore asked.

"1996," Ginny answered.

Dumbledore looked imploringly into each of their eyes. Harry was sure that he was using legilimacy on them to see if they were being truthful. He looked over Harry properly and given the date Ginny had answered with he had no doubt come to a conclusion on who he was. His eyes lingered on Ginny a moment longer before giving a single tip of his head in greeting.

"Ginevra Weasley," he said to Ginny. She nodded. "Harry Potter," he turned to Harry.

"That's us," Ginny answered for them.

"And you came here by accident?" Dumbledore continued.

"It was due to something my brothers created," Ginny told him. "Fred and George are inventors. They were messing about with a Pensive potion and daydream potions. There was a bit of an explosion near us when we were looking into the cauldron, something was knocked over and it caused us to wind up here."

Dumbledore nodded, as though it were a completely reasonable explanation. "I take it the two of you are not convinced that this is real then."

Harry didn't know how it was that Dumbledore always managed to cut right through all the bullshit, particularly when he had the knack for speaking in the most evasive ways.

"Pretty much," Ginny agreed. "We were lucky it was Sirius that found us and not someone else."

"You know Sirius then?"

"We do," Harry said. "We've known him for two years."

Sirius gave them a quizzical look. "How could you have only known me for two year? I'm your Godfather. If something happened with James and Lily, even if you wound up being raised by someone else, I must have stopped by to visit."

"Not if you were locked up in Azkaban for something you didn't do," Ginny finally told him.

"What?!" Sirius asked loudly.

Harry was grateful to get this off his chest now. Sirius needed to know. "You go after Peter when Voldemort falls the first time. You know it's him who sold out where my parents are because he's the Secret Keeper. But then he blows up a street full of Muggles, chops off his finger and turns into a rat and goes into hiding," Harry said.

"A rat who winds up living at The Burrow, my home, as a pet," Ginny added. "You were standing on the street where he did it, holding a wand and laughing. There wasn't even a trial, you just got thrown in prison."

"Peter is the Secret Keeper?" Dumbledore asked Sirius.

"No, but I had been considering switching," he gestured to Harry and Ginny, "before this. Me being their Secret Keeper was the obvious choice, which is why I figured the Death Eaters would come after me instead."

"I don't know if becomes a 'him or them' situation for him," Harry told the two men. "Three years ago, er, in our time I mean, when you get out of Azkaban, you and Remus corner him and he says that the Death Eaters threatened to kill him. But then after he gets away again he goes searching for Voldemort on his own, so I don't know how much I believe it."

"You said 'when Voldemort falls the first time', I am assuming he went into hiding at some point?" Dumbledore asked.

"Sort of." Harry still wasn't entirely sure what had happened to Voldemort the first time, or how he had survived. "He turned into some kind of… half-human thing. I don't know. He required some special potion to get his body back. It required a bone from his father, blood of his enemy and flesh of his servant."

"Tell him about the thing," Ginny encouraged.

"I don't know what it means though," he told her quietly.

"That doesn't matter, he might," she said.

Harry looked at both the men. Sirius looked at a loss for words, Dumbledore had this pensive look, but one that portrayed understanding. It seemed he knew what spell Harry was talking about.

"I, erm, I had this kind of… strange dream last night. I, well see, there was this mirror and it wasn't really me looking back at me, it was some weird version of myself. Anyways, it said to tell you something."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Yes," he encouraged.

"It said to tell you the word 'Horcrux', and to capture, not kill Voldemort."

Dumbledore took a deep breath. "Horcrux," he repeated. "Did it say how many?" he asked desperately.

His reaction was such that it made Harry believe that his strange dream had been real somehow, but how could that be? It was him talking to himself, but he was different somehow. He was telling himself to mention something to Dumbledore that he, Harry, had never heard of before. That doesn't make any sense.

Nothing made any sense right then though.

"It didn't," Harry told Dumbledore. "You know what it means? What is it?"

"It is a method that one can take to become immortal," Dumbledore admitted.

"We had a book on it at my family home," Sirius said, sounding like he was reaching through the recesses of his brain to pull up the information. "It requires the maker to use some horrible and depraved means to split your soul and stash it away. That way if you get killed, you won't actually die."

"So that would be why the dream said to capture and not kill," Ginny said.

"Yes." Dumbledore sat back in his chair and contemplated this information.

"He couldn't have tried to use a different method, like the Philosophers Stone, to extend his life, could he?" Sirius asked. "With so many people wanting him dead."

"He does attempt to get his hands on it actually," Harry told his Godfather. "In ten years, the first time he tries to come back. But he didn't get it and then he… disappeared again"

The two men looked at Harry, looking like they very much wanted Harry to tell them the full story on that one.

"When does he fall?" Dumbledore asked, moving on. "In your timeline?"

"October 31st," Ginny offered. "James and Lily Potter die, but Lily sacrifices herself to protect Harry and the Killing Curse rebounds somehow and everyone starts calling him The Boy Who Lived."

"You wind up putting me in hiding in the Muggle world," Harry continued, telling Dumbledore. "I don't find out I'm a wizard until Hagrid tracks me down with my Hogwarts letter."

"Surely not," Dumbledore looked baffled by that information.

"My Aunt and Uncle are not keen on magic," Harry told him, not interested in delving into any further information.

Everyone was silent then. Harry and Ginny moved to sit on the loveseat. Harry was sure that Dumbledore would come up with something that would make this all make sense. He was over a hundred years old, he had to have some knowledge that would get Harry and Ginny back to their proper timeline and use the information to have Voldemort finished off for good.

"Did you have any inclination?" Sirius asked Dumbledore, breaking the silence.

"I knew about the prophesy, and I know that part of it had been overheard and relayed to Voldemort. It was no great leap to assume that He had found some method to make himself immortal." Dumbledore turned to Harry then, "have you any idea what he might have stored these Horcrux's in?"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. "They need to be stored in something? Like a tin and put up on the shelf?" He could picture a bookshelf full of tins that were rattling and shaking like a Boggart was trapped in them.

"No, no. He would have wanted to keep them, if there are more than one, in something of meaning."

"I don't know," Harry admitted.

"If there was something," Ginny started slowly, "would it have the ability to possess someone?"

Harry turned to her sharply. "You think, the Diary?"

She bit her lip. "It was his, and it took me over. Took me down into the Chamber to do his bidding. It would make sense if I was being possessed by a piece of his soul."

"This Diary," Dumbledore asked with great interest. "Do you know where it is? Is it still around in your time?"

"No. I stabbed it with a Basilisk Fang and it sort of, died." He didn't know how to phrase that better. He'd stabbed the book and the ghost or phantom Tom Riddle, or whatever he was, vanished.

"You just happened to have a Basilisk Fang laying around?" Sirius asked skeptically.

"No, there's one at Hogwarts," Harry told him.

"There's a Basilisk Fang at Hogwarts?" Sirius asked Dumbledore.

"No, you idiot," Ginny scoffed. "There's a Basilisk at Hogwarts. It's in a secret chamber underground and Harry killed it, then he killed the Diary."

Sirius just stared at her with his mouth hanging half open for a minute. Then he got out of his seat and headed to the kitchen. "I need a drink," he muttered.

"Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, I take it?" Dumbledore asked, leaning forward with great interest.

"Entrance is through the second-floor girls loo," Harry told him. "You need to be a Parselmouth to open it. And you were right, by the way; Hagrid was innocent of Myrtle's death. That was the Basilisk and Tom Riddle."

Dumbledore nodded sadly. "I could never find a way to prove it, and unfortunately questioning Myrtle about it did not yield the results I was looking for."

It looked as though he was believing them. Sirius must have at this point as well.

Sirius walked back into the room with a bottle of Firewhiskey and four glasses. He started pouring them out and handing each person a glass without waiting to see if they wanted one.

Harry looked down at the amount of whiskey was in his glass, and over at Ginny's. There wasn't as much as was poured out for Dumbledore in either of their glasses, but Sirius had handed it to him and there wasn't any objection being voiced by the Headmaster. Harry raised his glass a bit to Ginny and they both took a sip; Harry making a face at the taste, but Ginny had apparently had it before because she didn't show any sign of the taste being a surprise.

"So, the way I see it, we're down to this; we set a trap for the bastard and try to capture him. According to these two we know exactly where he'll be and what he'll be doing on Halloween. Other than that, it is a guessing game," Sirius announced after he'd drained his cup. "That also means that I would still have to make Peter the Secret Keeper, tell James and Lily what is going on, and somehow get them on board with all this." He poured himself another finger of the whiskey and downed that as well. "How the fuck are we supposed to make that happen?"

"Sirius," Dumbledore said in warning at his language, or perhaps the amount of alcohol he was imbibing.

"Honestly though," Sirius carried on. "That is the option that we're stuck with, isn't it? I was planning on switching my role as Secret Keeper to Peter anyhow. Although, let's just say that these two are full of it." He started and gave Harry and Ginny a small apologetic look. "Tell me, situation reversed, would you believe it?"

Harry couldn't fault him that. Hermione had mentioned that there were all kinds of issues that had come up when people had used Time Turners; they would wind up attacking themselves or something and things got ugly. It would be very hard for him to take someone at their word if they showed up and claimed to be from the future, looking to change the outcome on something like this.

"If they are telling the truth, all this would mean is that the night of October 31st we'll need a few people over at James and Lily's and they'll need a way out or something." Sirius finished his glass and set it down with emphasis.

Dumbledore thought it over. "If we do this, there is a chance that the two of you will simply cease to exist," he said to Harry and Ginny. "The people you are now might simply vanish. There is the other chance that you will be stuck here as you are to live out your lives. I'm afraid I do not have the answer to that question that you undoubtedly have."

A little part of Harry had expected Dumbledore to have the answer to what would happen to them; like he could simply be able to brew a potion that would send them back to the exact time that they came from and it would be a whole new world.

But he supposed there was a bigger part of himself that knew that wouldn't be the case. He clasped his hand in Ginny's. At least if they did wind up simply ceasing to exist he had his chance to make a difference for the good and he got the girl. That was what all the stories were about, right? And if they were going to be stuck living in this new timeline they would just figure it out, together.

Ginny squeezed his hand back.

"I guess we'll just have to see what happens," Ginny said for the both of them.

"This Diary that you mentioned," Dumbledore asked. "Have you any idea where it is now?"

"Lucius Malfoy has it at some point in the next eleven years. I would assume that he was given it before now. The Malfoy's were loyal followers, weren't they?" Harry asked.

Ginny finished off her glass of Firewhiskey and helped herself to another ounce. No one stopped her.

For the next three hours Dumbledore and Sirius started asking them more questions about the details of what happened the night Voldemort fell the first time. It was Ginny that had more information about it though. She knew other families that had been attacked that night and warned about the Longbottom's getting attacked by the Lestranges and Barty Crouch Jr.

She had been told stories of that night several times growing up and her parents had kept copies of the Daily Prophet from that month in the attic with the Ghoul which she'd read the year that she was at the Burrow by herself before starting at Hogwarts.

By the time lunch rolled around Dumbledore decided it was time to leave and the rest of them migrated to the kitchen to get some lunch ready. Harry let Sirius get ahead of them and slowed Ginny down to hang back a bit with him.

"How're you doing with this?" he asked her.

She bit her bottom lip, worrying it a moment before answering. "I mean, what option is there really? Either we're stuck here, or we just … vanish. There doesn't seem to be anything we know of, or Dumbledore knows of, yet. It hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet. Who knows if we'll simply wake up on the storeroom floor of Triple W at three-thirty today. I guess," she shrugged, "I guess I'm just trying not to panic or anything."

That was essentially where he was at as well.

"I promise, if we get stuck here, I'll figure out something. We can, I don't know, move somewhere far away and start over, or, or stay in hiding and help out with the Order however we can." He felt responsible for putting them in this mess and wanted to take care of her, be her support system or something. She was the one that had a family where they had come from, he was the one that only had family in this timeline.

"You don't have to take care of me, Harry," Ginny told him. She gave him a kiss and pulled back. "I never intended to be a kept woman, I don't see any reason for that to change now." She took hold of his hand and gave him a push to keep heading towards the kitchen. "We'll figure it out together."

()()()

Harry's eyes shot open at the sound of something falling down outside his door and looked over to the other side of the bed. Ginny wasn't there, but she usually did manage to sneak out of the bed before him without disturbing him.

It had been two months, one week and three days since they'd arrived in this timeline. Neither of them were feeling the need to be around each other at all times of the day like they had been when first arriving. Sirius had been very accommodating allowing them to still sleep in the same bed together, but really, after the first night, what difference did it make to his Godfather where either of them was sleeping.

It was still only Dumbledore that knew they were there. And they hadn't been anywhere outside of the property since arriving either. The two of them were going very squirrelly and Harry had a new appreciation for what Sirius must have been going through when he was stuck at Grimmauld Place.

When he was on the run at least Sirius had some freedom and fresh air. He may have been going hungry a bit but he was still able to be running around as a dog and get exercise.

Ginny had taken to cleaning up the place from top to bottom to expel some of her energy and Harry had grown rather obsessive about mapping out all the potential consequences of them being there could cause. He had a notebook full of every historical detail (from the last fifteen years, their time) to see if anything changes when those events come up.

Sirius had been leaving and coming back throughout the days and nights but had grown accustomed to having the two of them there at least and didn't mind Ginny cleaning up the place in the slightest. As a thank you the two of them had been preparing all the meals as well.

Sirius had transferred the power of the Secret Keeper to Peter two days ago. They had no idea if that was when he had done it in the original timeline so they were all hoping that it would still play out the same.

The night of Halloween, which was this one, Sirius, Dumbledore, Harry and Ginny were going to be in Godrics Hollow, James, Lily and baby Harry were going to be here, at Sirius' house. Unfortunately, Harry had not gotten, nor would he be getting, any interaction with his parents, Dumbledore had said there could be severe consequences of him seeing his child self and they didn't want to chance that nor separate young Harry from his mum and dad.

He did his best not to think about it, particularly when he knew that Sirius had just come back from a visit with them. There was this faint perfume scent that Sirius had on him when he returned from Godrics Hollow and Harry didn't know if it was from his mother or if their home just smelled like it but the receptors in the back of his brain recognized it and made him long to see them all the more.

Today was the day though. It was going to be all or nothing.

Ginny and he had talked about what they were going to do after today; would they stay until the end of the war or would they leave? It was still up in the air but they had lain awake talking over a few options, one of his favorites was to move to an island in the Caribbean and simply stay there. They could make new friends, live as Muggles and somehow keep tabs on what was happening back here in the U.K.

Part of him wanted to get this day over with, the other part didn't want it to happen at all. Over two months of waiting for it to arrive and now it was here and by the end of it everything would change.

He had grown accustomed to this new life of his, just a bit.

Getting out of bed he pulled on his clothes and opened the door to see that there was a toddler crib that had been plonked down outside of it.

His toddler crib for his toddler version to sleep in that night.

He pulled it into the room and set it up at the end of the bed, on the opposite side of the room from the door where it was most out of the way. Ginny or Sirius had placed a new sheet set inside the crib that was meant for the bed he had just gotten out of. Harry stripped the sheets and changed them with the new ones, carrying the used downstairs to be cleaned.

Ginny was in the kitchen and moved a plate full of breakfast that she had made for him into his eyeline. She looked as nervous as he felt, simply trying to contain herself.

"Thirty-minute warning," Sirius called over to them from the sitting room, he must have heard Harry coming down the stairs.

Harry tossed the sheets into the hamper by the door and accepted his plate. He wasn't hungry, but knew he needed to eat.

As he sat down Sirius came in and sat opposite him. "The Potters will be going to Hogwarts first," he announced, relaying for them once again the game plan. "Then we will go to their house in Godrics Hollow. You are going to look like James," he told Harry and gave him a once over. "Nailed it."

It never failed to make Harry want to chuckle when he did that.

"Ginny is going to play the part of Lily. I'll cast a glamor charm on your hair and remove some freckles." They had practiced that before and while she still didn't look exactly like Lily Potter, they just needed a rough approximation should He look in through the window.

"We'll have the animated doll playing the part of Harry Potter Junior and it will stay in the crib upstairs or be on one of your hips at all times. I'll get the signal from Dumbledore and then we'll all go over to Godrics Hollow and wait it out. Dumbledore and I will remain hidden and under shield charms so that we won't be detected and you two will have to just go about your day as though nothing was going on. We'll have a few Order members here just in case, and only the one's that you two have mentioned are absolutely not Death Eaters nor have been compromised in any way."

Harry got the sense that Sirius repeating this several times was helping keep him centered and gain confidence in the plan.

After Harry managed to get down his breakfast they all moved to the sitting room and silently waited for the notification from Dumbledore that it was time to head over. Nearly thirty minutes they all waited anxiously and it was so silent in the house that when the coin in Sirius' pocket vibrated they all heard it.

Harry and Ginny had both been given the slip of paper informing them of where the house was, the one that Peter had written out for Sirius after they had made him the Secret Keeper, then Sirius Apparated them one by one to the house.

Harry had seen pictures of the house from the few that Sirius had laying around but being there and seeing all of it was different. The white picket fence, for instance. He hadn't known about that. Nor that the garden had some late blooming flowers that were still holding on though the weather had turned cold. He also didn't know that one of the windows in the bedroom on the second floor appeared to have some markings on it like his younger self had gotten a hold of some crayons and decided to be an artist.

When they went inside he instantly smelled the scent that Sirius had on him when he came back after his visits. So, it wasn't just his mother's perfume, the whole house was subtly fragrant. Perhaps it was a candle, or a spell.

It was warm inside too. Not just that the temperature was high, but the colors, the carpeting, the furniture, it was all perfect and comfortable. He imagined that getting the chance to grow up in a place like this would have had him turning out like an entirely different person. His parents were obviously wonderful people to have so many boasting about them. All the teachers had said his mother was brilliant, and though he heard several stories about his fathers troublemaking it was always told with a small chuckle, and his friends, Remus and Sirius anyhow, were unfailingly loyal.

Ginny took his hand. "Are you okay?"

He just nodded and kept looking around. There was a pile of toys in one corner of the living room, some he recognized as Muggle toys, others he assumed were wizarding toys because he couldn't tell what they were supposed to do. There was a pipe on the table beside the couch.

"Does my dad smoke a pipe?" Harry asked.

"Sometimes," Sirius shrugged. "He says cigarettes are a waste because you can only really get one kind of tobacco and there's no way he's going to be rolling his own."

That was something no one had mentioned to him, though why they would he didn't know. It seemed like such an 'old man' type thing to have. James Potter was only twenty-one, shouldn't he be sneaking joints instead of smoking a pipe?

He continued to move through the house, saving the upstairs for last.

There was a highchair in the kitchen and dishes in the sink.

"It's just so odd," Harry commented.

"What is?" Ginny asked.

"Just… that they live here. Currently! I mean, they had breakfast here this morning. Just an hour or so ago, and now… here we are." He wasn't being any good at explaining himself.

An hour ago his parents had been feeding him in a highchair. Now he knew the meal he'd had for breakfast the morning his parents were killed was oatmeal and apple sauce. He knew that his mum and dad didn't get the dishes done immediately after the meal was done. He knew they had laundry piled up in a hamper at the bottom of the stairs and that his dad smoked a pipe and they had all sorts of toys for him that he didn't need.

He'd only needed them! And they were taken from him.

He'd been forced to live in a house that smelled of cleaner constantly and there was never a spot of dust, because it had been his never-ending task to get rid of that dust. He had never been anything more than a burden and a maid to those that were forced to raise him.

He could have been here and happy growing up.

Something cracked inside him then and Harry fell to his knees on the the linoleum floor with tears running down his face, completely unable to stop it.

Ginny came down beside him and wrapped her arms around him, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and didn't even bother attempting to pull himself together right then. He deserved this moment. He'd had to keep himself in check for so much of his life. Five minutes was all he needed to get it all out. It was cathartic. Wasn't it supposed to be cathartic? One meltdown and then he'd be okay again?

He wrapped his arms around Ginny and let it all out.

Eventually his grip on her relaxed and he felt like he was done. She pulled back a bit and handed him a handkerchief. By the time he was done using it he thought it should probably go into the trash; cleaning charms only did so much.

She helped him back up to his feet.

He was a little embarrassed to notice that Sirius and Dumbledore were there, politely looking away, but still in the kitchen with them.

"Sorry about that," he muttered.

"Not a problem," Dumbledore assured him. "Our emotions will catch up with us all at once like that if we bottle them up."

Harry couldn't contain his scoff at that. "How do you do it then?" he asked. "The only time I've seen you angry is after-" he stopped himself just shy of mentioning the Goblet of Fire incident. They didn't know about the Triwizard Tournament. When he told them about the graveyard and the resurrection he left out the details of how he had come to be there. "Never mind."

Dumbledore gave him a peering look but didn't ask any questions. "It gets easier with age. And talking through things with several portraits that are unable to share any information I give helps as well."

Harry nodded vaguely and gave another wipe of his eyes with his sleeve. "Are the two of you going to be hiding in here all day?"

"No," Sirius pointed to the den just off the kitchen. "We'll be in there. There's a loo and a few things to occupy us."

Harry poked his head in and saw a full bookshelf, a desk, a guitar on a stand in the corner, a loveseat and a wireless. There was another door leading to a water closet.

"Too bad I can't just get into his scotch," Sirius mourned as he examined the butlers cart beside the desk.

"Very unfortunate. Perhaps after," Dumbledore proclaimed optimistically.

"Pretty sure he'll need to give each of us a bottle if we pull this off. He can afford it," Sirius said.

Harry left them in there to continue looking around and Ginny took his hand. She'd already had the glamours applied to change her features slightly, but she still very much looked like his Ginny.

"Ready to go upstairs?" she asked.

He just nodded and hoped that he'd gotten the waterworks out of his system now.

Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom.

"Which one first?" she asked.

He led her towards the first room. It looked like it was a guestroom or a hobby room. Some storage as well.

"You would think it would take them longer to accumulate this much stuff. They've only been out of school for about four years," he smirked.

Ginny pulled open a box and looked in. "It's your old baby stuff. This must be everything you've outgrown." She pulled out a little onesie that would fit his hand like a glove and had little dinosaurs on it. "It's so cute!" she cooed.

He grinned at her. "I'm still cute though, right?"

She rolled her eyes at him, but still came forward to cup his cheek and give him a kiss. "Adorable," she said saucily.

He kissed her again. "Sorry I fell apart there for a minute."

"I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. I know I broke a few dishes in frustration, but you! You just kept calm and carried on. I think if ever there was a time for it, it was here and now." She reached up and kissed him once more.

He was glad they hadn't changed her eyes. They were the nicest brown. So warm and loving.

"Shall we keep going?" she whispered.

Next was the master bedroom. It wasn't overly large, there was just enough walking space around the king-sized bed to get to the closets on the other side. On the dresser beside the door though there was a bunch of items littered all over and a photo in a frame, one of James and Lily Potter with a baby between them. All three were sleeping on the bed in this room. He smiled looking at it. His parents look exhausted, but after a moment baby Harry opened his eyes and looked up at his mother and reached for her, then the picture looped back to them all asleep.

He had the urge to take this picture with him. He wished that it had been included in his album Hagrid had given him.

Ginny clasped his hand again and together they went into the last bedroom upstairs, the one that had writing on the window.

His crib was against the opposite wall and there were several toys in here, including the little broom that Sirius had given him. It was a cute, but it wasn't pulling up all kinds of feelings in him that he wasn't able to define. This was his room he had as a baby, that was it. There was a fake baby occupying the crib, that part was a little odd, though he had expected it.

"I wonder what is standing on this land now," Harry wondered.

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked.

"Well, I hardly think they just left whatever was left of the house standing there forever."

"Harry, that's exactly what they did," Ginny told him.

"What?!" How had he never been informed of this? Or asked?

"There's a statue of you and your parents outside of the house."

"And the house is still just standing there half destroyed? What about all the stuff in it? Did that get moved out and stored somewhere? The only thing in my vault is gold, no personal effects." He was fighting the urge to go downstairs and ask Sirius and Dumbledore what happened to all his parents belongings, as though they would have any idea.

Ginny shook her head. "I know that no one can go inside it, perhaps it's still all there, under a shield or something."

"Have you been?" Harry asked.

To his surprise her cheeks turned red. "Erm, my dad may have brought me as a surprise one weekend when Ron went off to school. I was mopey about being by myself at the Burrow."

She was embarrassed about it! He was pleased to hear that something like seeing a statue of he and his parents little Ginny had considered something that would cheer her up, even before they had met. He still remembered her the day of his first train ride on the Hogwarts Express. She had been so eager to go to Hogwarts herself and so sad that all her brothers were now leaving her behind.

They made their way back downstairs and checked in with Sirius and Dumbledore. Dumbledore was at the desk flipping through a book and Sirius was sitting on the loveseat with the guitar in hand, a pick between his teeth.

"Alright?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah, alright. What do you suppose we should get up to now?" Ginny asked them.

"Here," Sirius tossed her a random book from the shelf beside him. "That or you could whip us up something delicious in the kitchen," he suggested with an eyebrow waggle. "Bet Lily has the fixings for a chocolate gateau."

"You want me to bake you a cake?" Ginny deadpanned. "Right now."

Sirius just shrugged. "You need to fill your time, I want chocolate cake. Why not? You've got nothing to do and we might all die tonight. If not now, when?"

Ginny paused. Dumbledore looked up from his book, an amused look on his face, "I do have quite the sweet tooth," he offered.

Harry let out a laugh. "I'll make a cake."

It was something to pass the time at least. He got a chance to figure out the layout of the kitchen as well and find out what kinds of food his parents preferred to eat. It looked like they enjoyed eating butter chicken and potatoes. There were fixings for anything though, including a cake from scratch, and a cookbook to give him the recipe.

Ginny sat at the table in the kitchen while he worked and cracked open the book Sirius had tossed her. It was a horror novel and it had her completely enraptured. Every time Harry asked her about it, she just shushed him and kept on reading. It made him chuckle.

It really was just a waiting game. There wasn't much else that they could get up to. At random points both Harry and Ginny went to get the 'baby Harry' doll and carry it around the house on their hip and pretend to play with it in the sitting room. Sirius and Dumbledore were all set in the den, but Harry could feel everyone's tension rising as the day dragged on into night.

It was 7:27 p.m. when Dumbledore called out to the rest of them. Ginny had been sitting on the floor and pretending to play with the baby. Harry had been sitting on the couch and examining his dad's pipe, smelling the tobacco once more and admiring how it smelled so different from cigarette smoke, which he thought smelled vile. Sirius and Dumbledore were still in the back room.

They could all feel it, it was like a wave of energy passed through them because someone else had come inside the protective enchantments around the house. It was just a flash of cold coursing through his body, like the first sip of water you take when you are thirsty and you can feel it go all the way down your throat.

"Go," Harry told Ginny as his protective instincts kicked in and had him completely forgetting their plan. "Take him and go. Up the stairs," he ordered. In some of the memories that he recalled when he was learning to deal with the Dementors he had heard his fathers plea's to his mother to get as far away from the entrance as possible.

"Upstairs?" Ginny asked in confusion at the request. "I'm not going anywhere!"

The front door blasted off its hinges and flew across the entranceway. It stopped mid-air and blew back, however. Something that the man coming through the door had not anticipated, it hit him before he could counter the attack.

If it wasn't such an important moment Harry would have laughed.

Dumbledore was who had blown the door back at Voldemort.

Harry and Ginny already had their wands drawn on him and immediately blocked off the door so that Voldemort had nowhere to go but further into the house.

Four wands were drawn on one man. He didn't look as snake-like as he had when Harry saw him in his time at the graveyard. He still looked awful though. This Voldemort was aged and without the appeal his younger self was able to put forth to the world. This Voldemort just looked vile and angry, he still had hair and a nose, but his eyes were red.

"A trap?" he asked with a cock of his head, paying more attention to Dumbledore than either of the rest of them. "You had that pathetic Pettigrew betray me?"

"No," Sirius said. "That rat betrayed us. We just knew about it."

Harry was starting to feel woozy. His head was spinning like he wasn't getting enough blood flow. He cocked it to the side and listed forwards a bit, his wand still outstretched. His body took a step towards Voldemort without his permission, like Voldemort was some kind of magnet.

Voldemort turned his attention on Harry then. "You. You are not Potter," he said. But he didn't look like he was completely in control of himself either. His eyes started rolling back a bit, yet he was managing to stay perfectly stationary.

Harry's eyes closed completely of their own volition and he gave a great shudder. Then it was like a weight had been lifted off of him. He heard Ginny give a gasp and that made him force his eyes back open. There was a shadowy presence in front of him, and one in front of Voldemort too. Each of the shadows held the shape of the man they came out of. They hovered between them for a moment before crashing together and becoming darker, their shapes contorting as they joined.

Voldemort raised his wand at the shadow, the beginnings of the killing curse forming on his lips.

Harry felt a hand on his shoulder and nails digging into his skin as he was pulled roughly to the right by Ginny.

The green curse hit the shadow and it burst sending its shadowy vapor in all directions.

The other two men acted fast and cast stunning spells at Voldemort, Ginny joined in. Voldemort was deflecting them one right after the other. Shakily, Harry lifted his wand and attempted to disarm Voldemort. The spell shot out of Harry's wand just as a spell was being cast from its brother wand directly at him. Harry knew that they would connect, just as they had last time.

And they did.

The three others casting stunning spells was enough to have the Dark Lord crumple to his knees and fall sideways to the floor.

Harry wanted to shout with joy, but he was now so tired. All his energy had been zapped out of him somehow. He leaned against Ginny and tried not to fall completely to the floor, but it was a losing battle against gravity.

He managed to open his eyes and look over to where Ginny was, surprised to find her on the floor next to him appearing just as exhausted. Her form was fading. He could see through her, like she was a ghost, but she was slowly disappearing.

He could hear his name being called but he couldn't turn his head to see if it was Sirius or Dumbledore calling.

"Harry? Harry!"

His whole body gave a jolt and he sucked in a deep breath as the sudden noise all around him hit his ears. He was standing up now and there was someone holding on to his shoulder and giving him a shake. He lurched away from their grasp and looked all around him. There was a lot of sound and color and things flying in all directions.

It was a joke shop.

It looked just like Weasley Wizard Wheezes, but different. Like it was a different location.

He blinked a few more times and looked around, his eyes finally coming to land on Sirius. But it wasn't the twenty-one-year-old Sirius that he had just been with, this one was well into his thirties and still had a healthy glow about his features and bright brown eyes.

"Alright?" he asked with his signature grin.

"A-Alright," Harry managed to get out. "Did… did we just come in here? What's happening? Is everyone okay? Where's Ginny?"

Sirius stared at him funny for a moment and then there was a look of understanding and adulation that passed over him. "Did it just happen? Are you… what's the last thing you remember?" He was keeping his voice down considering everyone surrounding them.

"Uh, I was in my parents house with you and Dumbledore." Harry looked around once more, frantically searching for a glimpse of red hair. "Where's Ginny?" he asked again desperately.

"You've really got all your memories of it?!" Sirius grinned widely. "That's brilliant!" He ran his fingers through his hair and looked so relieved. "Oh, I can't tell you what a mind-fuck this had been for the last fifteen years!"

"Wait," Sirius paused and put his hand back on Harry's shoulder. "What did we do yesterday? Yesterday in this time?"

Harry sputtered for a moment. They had gotten all the last-minute things for Sirius' house for his parents and the baby version of him to stay. But they'd also… "Harpies game?" He had flashes of a Quidditch game with girls in green uniforms and other players in orange. "Harpies versus Cannon's," Harry said, startled.

He had memories from events that happened in the new timeline.

"Holy shit!" Harry exclaimed. "I remember both!" Images of his past fifteen years in this timeline kept coming at him. His parents taking him to Platform 9 ¾, and with him during holidays, and tucking him in at night and giving him cuddles when he was younger. He had a memory of getting into a shouting match with his dad and slamming his door and turning his music up too loud, of making dinners with his mum. And there were memories of him and a younger ginger haired girl, not Ginny, a different girl. His sister!

Harry grabbed hold of Sirius' shirt. "I have a sister?! That's fantastic!" he grinned.

"Yeah, she's cute, but you're mad at her right now for ruining your Puddlemere United jersey," Sirius laughed.

"Harry!" a familiar voice called from over the noise of everything else around them. It was Ginny heading his way from across the store.

He moved quickly around the displays and met her halfway. He squeezed her tight and lifted her off the floor for a moment in his excitement, setting her back down and giving her a kiss that had her bending over backwards a bit, like men do in the movies.

They were both chuckling with excitement when he pulled her back upright again.

"Oi! What do you think you're doing?" a girl shouted at him from nearby and stormed over. It was Lavender Brown and he didn't know what her problem was. She was glaring at both he and Ginny.

"Ginny! What the hell?" a guy in Ravenclaw from the year below him came over to them, angrily standing beside Lavender.

"Oh, I should probably mention," Sirius said quietly as he stood behind them. "You two aren't exactly dating each other. Currently."

Harry's mouth fell open.

"Shit," Ginny said under her breath before she burst out laughing.

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