Chapter 6: Rendevouz

"Man this suite is amazing. Even better than most of the pureblood manor rooms" Sirius exclaimed turning in every direction taking in the hotel room decor, James closely following behind.

"It is the best hotel available right now. Of course it looks good. I thought the manager was going to have a heart attack when you said you wanted the best room and paid with cash. Did you really needed the presidential suite? and using your Lordship to get it. But seriously that put a big dent in our emergency fund. We need to withdraw more money from Gringotts if we are going to order room service food here." Lily shook her head at the antics of the men.

"Hey we are celebrating. You know I don't use my Lordship anywhere else. I needed the best room and only with the Lordship I was able to get it." James defended himself.

As soon as they settled in the lounge, Harry decided now to be the best chance to proceed with the next step of their plan, 'getting everyone together'. He wriggled in the arms on Lily to be put down on the floor. When he was placed on the carpet in front of them, he waved his hand and accioed his mom's wand to the astonished faces of his family. Before his family could regain their footing, he concentrated on his best memory, meeting his parents in the flesh in this timeline, and the message he needed to convey and pointed his wand towards them. With a blinding light, a white stag patronus charm erupted from the wand and pranced around the room.

The adults in the room felt their jaw drop to the floor, watching this spectacular display of power. Sirius was the first to get his voice.

"Merlin's beard! Do you see what I see?" He exclaimed.

"Prongs" Lily whispered in awe.

"How is this possible?" James wondered unable to believe his eyes.

"A patronus charm is beyond NEWT capabilities. For a baby of 15 months old to produce a corporeal one is unheard of. The sheer magic power needed is beyond imagination" Sirius exclaimed. "And my godson performed it." He turned to look at his godson.

Prongs did a circiut around the room and stood facing them and spoke in adult voice, further throwing them off foot.

"Hey Guys. I know it is strange to see a toddler produce amazing magical feat. But I'm not a toddler, I may be a toddler physically but mentally I'm over 28 years old. There is very big and important plots going on that you need to be aware of. I need two more persons here to explain what is going on here. Mom, I need you to look up Doctors Dan and Emma Granger's residence in telephone directory, their house is at Crawley. I want you to get them and their daughter here, she is a muggleborn so use that route to bring them here. Dad, you contact Head of Department of Mysteries, Algernon Croaker and say the code word: Astral Time Jump, he'll understand the importance. Tell him to bring a penseive. I want both parties by tomorrow morning. It is going to take the entire day to understand."

With that Prongs disappeared in a white mist. Three set of eyes turned towards baby Harry who was sitting on the floor carpet and looking at them with a determined expression.

one minute passed.

five minutes passed.

Finally Sirius spoke up, "What the hell Prongslet? What is going on? Time travel? but... but... without time turner and you are in your younger self's body? How is this possible?"

Lily being the smartest witch of her age, went for the crux of the matter. "Sirius wait. Lets not worry about how it is possible and other stuff. It could be a ritual developed in secret so no point thinking about that until Croaker from DOM is here. Lets start with why. Baby Harry here says he is 28 years old and for him to first consider time travel, the situation would have to be bad in his future. Obviously He wanted some events to not happen this time around. But why did chose this date to return, almost 26 years in the past? he could have chosen a different date and spoke to us easily. Unless..." Lily having her breath catch in her throat, couldn't go on.

James immediately caught on, "Unless, we were not together with him. With Voldemort's attack tonight, Harry leading us on a merry chase out of the house, we were supposed to die tonight."

Sirius suddenly shot out from the couch and grabbed Harry into a hug. His eyes moistened with tears. "Lets not talk about this anymore until tomorrow. Why don't you guys take the main bedroom and get on with contacting the two parties Harry mentioned, I'll take Harry with me to the small bedroom."

Lily went to the phone table, got the telephone directory and started to search for Doctors Granger's residence number. James being in muggle hotel, decided against sending owl and sent his own patronus charm with a message to Croaker.

Algernon Croaker, had a really productive day. As an unspeakable working on secret project, you never really get an unproductive day. As night fell, the entire department felt their productivity drop down considerably after a news came floating around the ministry saying the Dark Lord was defeated and dead at the hands of baby Harry Potter. He sat back lost in thoughts. It had been a security nightmare to safegaurd the research secrets in the department from falling into wrong hands. Especially after Augustus Rookwood, employee in DOM was caught in Death Eater activities. He didn't know if anyone else was compromised. He was pondering the ramifications of such event when a beautiful stag patronus appeared in front of him.

"Hello Mister Algernon Croaker. I'm James Potter."

Croaker raised an eyebrow at that. Very few people knew about his real name associated with the position of Head of DOM. He wondered how Potter knew about him and contacted him right after his battle with the Dark Lord.

"I've been tasked with contacting you and tell you the code word: Astral Time Jump."

Whatever Croaker was expecting this was not it. He sat straighter and looked on with wide eyes.

"Oh, can you meet us tomorrow morning in our room at Hotel Savoy? We have lots of questions that needs to be answered. I'm sure you have questions too. Please bring a pensieve along with you. See you tomorrow."

'After the ritual was created, only a few unspeakables tested the ritual for working out the process. But it was put under secrecy and only he knew this and he has yet to select two other individuals as backup. Even Albus Dumbledore failed the trust test. So people from future really did attempt the ritual and successfully made it back. What went wrong that made them come back? if they knew about the ritual, that means they passed the test and are trustworthy. They have decided to include the Potters into the fold so I guess that makes them trustworthy too. Hmm... If they had chosen to comeback today, and Voldemort was defeated today, it could've been their aim. But if it is their only mission, they could've waited until appropriate time to catch him alone. So there is more to their mission than this. Well... let's see how it goes tomorrow' he thought himself.

It was around 9 pm when the telephone rang in the Granger's residence. Hermione heard the sound and became alert. No one calls their house at night time, even her parent's dentist practice does not take emergency cases at night. She tiptoed out of her room towards the stairs and listened quietly.

Emma and Dan were watching late night movie before retiring for the night. They were surprised to hear the telephone ringing. Emma went and picked up the phone.

"Hello. This the Granger's residence. Dr. Emma Granger speaking." Emma greeted.

"Hi Dr. Granger, My name is Lily Potter. Sorry to bother you at this time of the night."

"Hi, Mrs. Potter. If it is an medical emergency, you should call the medical helpline. Our practice doesn't take any emergency cases." Emma gave the usual reply when some did call them about any emergency.

As soon as Hermione heard the name Mrs. Potter. She knew Harry succeeded his mission. She ran towards her room and squealed into her pillow in joy. Somehow Harry has convinced his parents to contact and she'll definitely meet him soon.

"Oh no Dr. Granger. This is not regarding any medical emergency. This is about your daughter."

"Hermione? What about my daughter?" Emma asked. This talk about their daughter got Dan curious and brought him near by, so emma put the phone on speakers.

"Well, have you ever had unexplainable things happen near your daughter? something amazing... if you are more religious type, then something demonic..."

Adult Granger's looked at each other. They knew couple of incidents like that, once they saw a book floating from the top shelf perfectly into Hermione's waiting hands. And once they saw the windows and doors rattle when she was upset as baby. But how does this woman know about that. Who is she?

"By your silence I take one or two incidents did happen. There is nothing wrong with your daughter and I will happily explain everything if we can meet face to face."

"Alright. You have us interested in a meeting. Where and when shall we meet?" Emma asked into the phone.

"Can you meet us at Hotel Savoy tomorrow morning? Ask for Lord Potter at the lobby."

This definitely raised the eyebrows of the Grangers.

"Sure. We'll meet you tomorrow morning." Emma replied.

"Great. Have a good evening."

With that the line was disconnected. Dan and Emma looked at each other astonished. They were invited to a meeting with Lord and Lady Potter. And moreover they were interested in their daughter and the strange incidents surrounding her. They were skeptical in the begining but now they were intrigued. Well they were glad the next day was a Sunday and they had a day off. They were no longer interested in the movie but in this new Lord and Lady. They cleaned up and went to bed hoping a new morning brought answers to their questions.

Next morning, when Granger's entered the Potter's suite, Hermione took off immediately towards the toddler and both met roughly half way and wrapped each other in a tight hug, squealing in joy and laughter. Granger's were surprised to see such a reaction from their daughter, who was usually reserved and didn't mingle with other kids. The Potters just raised an eyebrow at the kids.

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Hey Padfoot." Hermione turned to the adults and greeted them enthusiastically with a wide grin.

"I take it you are with our young Harry here." asked Sirius surprised.

Hermioned just nodded her head.

"Hold it right there?" Dan asked out loud. "I thought we were called here to discuss about happenings around our daughter. Now our daughter greets strangers like she has known them for a long time. Who are you people and whats going on? We better hear some explanation first." He asked looking at everyone's face expectantly.

"First let me introduce ourselves. I'm Lily Potter, this here is my husband James Potter, and that goofball is Sirius Black" Lily pointed to Sirius who was sitting down with kids and trying to tickle them into submission. "And ofcourse our son, Harry Potter. It is nice to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Granger. I was seriously hoping you didn't feel bad and am glad you are trusting enough to come out to London."

"Its nice to meet you guys too. We were seriously thinking this was an elaborate prank setup and considering forgoing this meeting. But our concern for our daughter won out in the end. Please call us Dan and Emma." Dan said shaking the hands of the adults. "Now what can you tell us about our the strange occurences around our daughter?"

"Well, there is no easy way to say this. Your daughter is a witch. A magical child" Lily said as a matter of fact.

It took a moment before either of the Grangers replied. "So it is an elaborate hoax." Dan sighed.

"No.. No.. it is true. Look we'll give you a demonstration." Lily took our her wand the levitated the coffee table a foot off the floor. James for his part transfigured the flower vase into a tortoise. Suddenly Sirius disappeared and in his place there was a large black dog licking the face of the kids.

"You see, the strange happenings around your house is what we call as accidental magic. Which every magical child does when they feel strong emotions like anger or wanting something like toys which are out of reach." Lily explained.

"There is a whole magical world out there right beside the non-magical one. And because your daughter is magical, your family is invited to join this new world." James added.

Both Grangers were gobsmacked. "This is like a fairy tale. How can there be a whole new world and we not know about it?" Emma asked.

"You know fairy tale is not completely fiction. The magical creatures mentioned in it like unicorns, dragons, fairies, goblins, etc. everything exists. You must have learnt about the medieval witch burnings. During 16th century, the ruling monarch gave permission to self govern to magical community and established a statute of secrecy. That's why you don't hear about that. But fairy tale and legends existed even before the statute of secrecy. So even now non-magical know them but don't believe them." Lily gave a brief history lesson.

"How can our daughter be magical, when we ourselves are not magical?" Dan asked.

"You see your daughter is what we call muggleborn, a magical born from muggle parents, that is non-magical parents. I'm a muggleborn too. You could've had a magical ancestor in your family tree somewhere far back. Hermione could've sufficient power to unlock her magical potential. James and Sirius are what they call purebloods, magicals with long magical family lineage. And Harry is considered a half-blood, born of a pureblood and muggleborn parents." Lily said. She knew she is opening a pandora box with this line of explanation but it is important to give both good and bad side of magical world rather than give only the positives and discovering the darkness later like they usually do with muggleborns.

"I'm sorry but a lot of that sounds like racists slurs, with all the talk about blood." Emma comented.

"Exactly. Fairy tales do have their share of villains. You see the wizarding world was in a state of civil war until yesterday. There were two groups fighting each with their own ideals. One group was the pureblood supremacist group who feel superior to others like muggleborn, half-blood or half breeds. The other group which we were part of, we fought for equality of all magicals regardless of birth or parents." James said.

"Eventhough you and Sirius are prurebloods?" Dan asked James.

"Yes. You see we are considered as Light sided families. There are a few like Longbottoms, Bones. We do not use dark magic, forbidden magics, and we treat everyone equally. There are some families who are light sided but still stay pureblooded. Mine was one such family until I fell in love with Lily. There are some neutral families who does business transactions with both factions." James nodded towards Sirius, "Sirius's family on the other hand, is what we call Dark family, pureblood supremacists. Sirius was thrown out of the family for not following pureblood traditions."

"What did you mean you had civil war until yesterday?" Emma asked.

"Oh Just that we were attacked by the Dark Lord Voldemort, Leader of the blood purist group, yesterday at our home. We battled him and he was defeated and killed." James said with a grin on his face.

"Oh please. Only half the battle is done. We still have to battle on the political arena to make laws equal for all." Lily informed them. "The Queen and Prime Minister are aware of the magical world and they don't interfere with the Ministry of Magic's business."

There was knock on the door just then. Everyone turned to look at the door. Padfoot bounded to the door and transformed to a man to much astonishment of Grangers, grabbed his wand to ready position and let in the last expected visitor for the day.

The new person who entered had the hood up. The robe hid the body so the occupants did not know if the person was a male or female, young, old or middle aged. Slowly the hands lifted the hood up to reveal a late middle aged man.

"Hello. I'm Algernon Croaker. Head of Department of Mysteries. I believe we have a situation in our hand?" Croaker asked.

"Welcome. Please believe me when I say this, we are as surprised as anyone in this room about our unusual situation." Sirius welcomed him and introduced everyone.

"I take it one or two of you guys are the time travellers?" Croaker asked the adults.

"Time travellers?" Grangers exclaimed in wonder.

"Nope. The kids are." Lily pointed out the kids who were standing still with a determined expression.

Croaker turned to the kids with raised eyebrows. Dan interrupted here, "Hold on a moment there. I thought you called us here to inform about our daughter being magical. You didn't say anything about time travelling?"

"Yeah. Are you saying time travelling is possible and our daughter is from the future?" Emma questioned.

"Yes, time travel is possible with a device called time turner but the kind these two used is unheard of. That is why an expert was brought in." Lily gestured towards Croaker.

"Right. First this is a state secret, so I'm going to need a wizards oath from all three of you, and I need permission to cast a spell on you two," here he pointed at the Grangers. He quickly added when he saw Grangers get alarmed, "to make sure you can't divulge this secret voluntarily or involuntarily. You'll be able to discuss it with us but you won't be able to talk about this with anyone outside." Once they were given the importance of the secret and what would happen if it falls in wrong hands, everyone agreed and took the oath and spells placed.

Croaker started the explanation, "In Department of Mysteries there is a sub department which specializes in research into time. 58 years ago couple of our over enthusiastic employees created a new time travelling method which sends only memories back in time. They had worked on it for almost 30 years before finally creating the ritual. The first trial went so bad that the backlash killed one of them instantly. After adjusting all calculations, the second trial was a success. He was able to send his memories few days prior. When he attempted to do it again to a date prior to first test to save his friend, something went wrong and he too died of a backlash. This project ended up on the desk of the senior unspeakable. He went over that calculations and figured the strain of the ritual on one's body is so great that you cannot attempt it more than once. That was the reason the third attempt failed. This ritual was put under secrecy even within the department and only the Head of the DOM and two others who passed the trust test are allowed the knowledge and the rest are obliviated."

Everyone was enraptured with the explanation, when Hermione raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" Croaker asked with a smile.

"Actually Sir, I made improvements to the ritual so that the magical backlash is no longer is fatal and multiple people can power the ritual. Also the strain of multiple jumps is not on the body but the soul. The soul gets obliterated and erased from existence. You won't even have an afterlife or a life of a ghost." Hermione added.

Now it was the Head Unspeakable's turn to have his jaw dropped.

"Remarkable. Were you perhaps an employee of DOM in the future?" Croaker asked expectantly.

"No Sir. It was my first time seeing the ritual and first time testing my changes." Hermione said with a shy smile. At Harry's pointed look she added with a sigh, "I guess Harry wants me to say that I was considered the brightest witch of my age." Harry gave a satisfied and proud smile.

"Damn... I guess Potter men do have our type. Brightest witch of her age. Right Honey?" James whispered in Lily's ears. Sirius who overheard James' comment laughed out loud.

"Now that the how part of the question is out of the way. I want to know the why part. Why did you travel back in time? Why this particular date? What happened to you guys in the future?" Lily asked.

Dan interupted here, "I'm sure everyone is eager for the explanations but today is the day we found out magic is real and our daughter is not only a witch but a witch who travelled back in time from almost 25 years in future. It has been an information overload for us. Could we probably have a small break to get our minds in order." he pleaded.

"He's right. We are magical and even we find it little much. Why don't we go for lunch and then we'll pick up showing of memories. I'm sure thats why Harry asked for Pensieve from Croaker here." Lily suggested.

During lunch, the questions from Granger were directed mostly to Lily to know more about life as a muggleborn, the current political situation in magical world, whether a fairy tale creature was real or not. Hermione was sitting near Harry and holding hands. James and Sirius were asking Harry about quidditch and whether he played for the school team.

"Tell me Harry, you got sorted to gryffindor right?" Sirius asked eagerly.

"Yes" Harry confirmed.

"Did you make it to Gryffindor Qudditch team?" James asked.

"Yes" Harry said with a wide grin.

"What position do you play? a chaser like your father or beater like me?" Sirius asked.

"Seeker" Harry replied.

"Which year did you make it to the team? Second?" James asked eagerly.

Harry shook his head no with the same smile.

"Third?" Sirius chimed in.

Another shake of the head.

"Fourth?" James asked.

Another head shake with a mischievous smile.

Sirius gasped, "Don't tell me. You made it as a first year?" He asked disbelievingly.

Harry just gave a 100 mega watt smile. There was a loud cheer and both James and Sirius jumped up and each holding Harry's hand was doing a jig. Lily just rolled her eyes and said "Men and their sports" to amused Grangers.

"Wait a minute Prongs.. If he made it to team as a first year, that would make him the youngest in... in..." Sirius tried to remember the trivia.

Hermione came to Sirius rescue and said, "Youngest seeker in a century." with a smile.

"You have to the same this time around too prongslet." Sirius said proudly. Harry just nodded with a smile while Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Then the conversations got back to differences between magical and non-magical world for the rest of the lunch. Once lunch was over James paid for it, much to the protestations of Granger who offered to split the bill, they trooped back to the suite.

James made a detour via the lobby to book couple more suites for the Grangers and Croaker, much to further protestations from them.

"Look, we are going to see 25 years worth of events. It will take more than a day to just process that. This way you guys can avoid travelling back and forth." James reasoned. Finally everyone agreed and made it to the suite.

When everyone settled back in the suite, Croaker placed the pensieve on the coffee table, "Granger's, I'm sure you are wondering what this device does. This handy little stone basin is used to view memories. You see if you think of any memory you have, you remember the important bits like conversation, the people involved or the object of your attention. But the human mind stores all sorts of information like your surroundings and such. It will be easier to analyze your memory, understand and recall missing parts. If someone tries to introduce fake memories or change parts of the memory he or she doesn't want to be viewed, you can clearly see the tampering. Unfortunately there are some limitations with this process so we cannot use it in criminal trials."

"We get it. It is something similar to a video player." Emma said.

"Exactly. Instead of video you see real memories." Lily concurred.

Hermione and Harry came near the pensieve. "Some of the memories we are going to show are gruesome. I'm sure your parental instinct is to keep us safe. But remember we lived through it once." With a sideward glance after Harry she continued, "Harry hadn't allowed me to view some of the memories. I know it happened but not the details. so even I'm curious about some of them. Before we came back, we decided to show the memories in same order we experienced to understand our decisions."

Harry slowly stood up and accioed his mom's wand wandlessly and raised it to his temple. He pulled a thick silvery strand and dropped it in the pensieve and nodded.

Everyone stood and reached towards the pensieve. Lily explained to the adult Grangers how to use the device. Slowly one by one fell into the stone bowl.