Hello my dears!
Okay, so which one of you lovely, lovely people nominated Dalliance for the Marauder Medal Awards?! I''m going to leave the link here if anyone wants to go and vote (for anyone, you don't have to vote for me): https:**goo . gl*forms*UC6ctdDUKRUH7OMF2 (just replace the astericks with / and take out the spaces, since ffn doesn't like links) It's still insane that I've been nominated for two categories. Especially Best WiP for Dalliance. Insane.
Everyone seemed to love last chapter, and I'm so happy about that, you would not believe :D This chapter ought to be a little fun, I really do hope you all like it.
Please leave a review and let me know what you think ;)
My tumblr: indiebluecrown. tumblr. com
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and only the story line and any OC's belong to me.
As always, for Sable and Lais xxx
Previously...
"James?" Emmeline asks again, but then she takes a step back, and she's pulling a wand from who knows where, and she says coldly, "who are you? You're not James."
"I never said I was," Harry says calmly, raising his hands to show that he's doesn't mean any harm, and he cautiously-slowly-puts his glass of juice on the counter beside him.
He makes no movement to reach for the wand tucked behind his ear. His hands stay raised in the air, palms facing her.
Unlike before, he's somehow perfectly relaxed. Maybe it's the number of times he's had a wand pointed at him. Maybe it's because he's curious and focused on how she knew that he isn't James. Aside from the eyes. How did she know is a question he's interested in asking her.
"Who are you?" Emmeline hisses.
"Why are you here?" Harry asks in kind.
"I was going to leave my flat last night, when I noticed some suspicious looking men hanging about, so I packed a bag in a hurry and came through the floo-I closed it off to my place when I got here. This is the first place I knew I would be safe…" Emmeline trails off, and her brow furrows further. "You know what? It's none of your damn business."
The strange part is even though she's uncomfortable-that much is abundantly clear-her body language isn't closed off. One hand hanging limply by her side as opposed to crossed over her chest-that can also have to do with the fact that she's still pointing a wand at him; she's facing him-her bare feet are pointed in his direction-and she's giving him her full attention. It's something deeper than that though, he can feel her uncomfortableness.
"I'm Harry. We met at Lily and James's wedding," Harry says softly.
"No. We definitely didn't meet. I would remember you," Emmeline says, tone as cold and sharp as ice.
"I didn't quite look like this-" Harry admits, letting his hands drop heavily to his sides, sighing before he shifts and leans back against the counter, "-I did introduce myself as Harry though if you recall. At the refreshments table. I was with my friend 'Rupert'."
Emmeline's wand hand is lowering, and all the tension in her body seems to dissipate. Harry has to remind himself that even though they are the same age, they have had different lives. War changes people after all, not to mention all the things have happened to him over the last few years.
Recognition dawns on her face, and she narrows her eyes at him, searching for the young wizard that she met not even a week and a half ago.
"That still doesn't answer my question. Who are you really?"
"I, Emmeline Vance, am Harry James Potter," Harry responds with a soft exhale.
Emmeline's lips twist to the side, she cocks an eyebrow, and shoots him a mocking expression, "right. Like I'm going to believe that."
"Ah, shit," a voice says from behind both of them, and Harry spots Lily. The redhead's hair is thrown into a messy ponytail, and she's wearing James's old Quidditch jersey and a pair of black knickers as far as he can see.
"Morning, Lily. Look who's come round to visit," Harry says calmly, crossing his arms over his chest and jerking his chin in Emmeline's direction. His heart however is now beating at a mile a minute.
"Emmie, what are you doing here?" Lily asks with a frown, walking over to her friend, and drawing her in for a partial hug.
"Some blokes were watching my flat," Emmeline answers, voice laced with confusion as she glances between Lily and Harry.
"I suppose this means we're going to have to tell the our other friends now too...don't we, Harry?" Lily asks, lips pursed.
"We were planning on telling them soon, either way," Harry sighs. "We couldn't keep it a secret forever."
They had planned on telling Frank, Alice, Dorcas, Marlene, and Emmeline about Harry and Ron soon, they hadn't figured exactly when or how to broach the subject, but they knew that they wanted to tell them. Sirius had already told them all about Hermione, or they would be informing them about her as well.
"We'll inform the others when they wake up. Anyways, is everyone okay this morning?" Lily asks. Then distractedly she clicks her tongue, and removes herself from Emmeline, stopping to kiss Harry's cheek in greeting before bypassing him.
She bends down by one of the cabinets on the far side of the room, the sound of jars clinking together-as she searches for whatever it is she's looking for-fills the room.
"If you're looking for the huge bar of dark chocolate, it's over there," Harry says, pointing at a cabinet above the stove directly across the room from him.
Lily's head snaps in that direction with a glint of glee in her eyes. "Harry, you are such a deer. Thank you!" Lily jumps up, kicking the door closed with the side of her foot before scurrying over the cabinet.
Giggling giddily once she located the bar of chocolate. The crinkle of the wrapper crackles around the room, and Lily's facial expression melts into one of raw joy and happiness as she breaks off a piece of the chocolate. She practically whimpers when she pops it into her mouth.
"I love you, Harry," Lily professes, her slender fingers moving to break off another bit of chocolate.
That is clearly when Emmeline reached her breaking point. Emmeline doesn't like not knowing things, she loves learning, and coming up with new theories, but as soon as she feels grossly left out of something, it makes her curl into a ball of uncertainty.
"What the fuck is going on? This is bloody weird," Emmeline snaps loudly.
"You remember how Hermione is from another dimension and time? Harry is as well, as is Ron. They are all extraordinary." Lily shrugs, padding over to a free piece of counter, and then hopping up onto it. Placing the chocolate beside her after breaking off another piece.
Emmeline's face dawns with understanding, and she shakes her disbelief at herself, and Harry hears her mutter, "why didn't I figure it out before? It makes perfect sense. Though, to be fair, we only got told about Hermione." Emmeline freezes, as if it then occurs to her that she's thinking aloud. She clears her throat, and then gives Lily her undivided attention.
"Harry would be our son-James and I that is-in that dimension. We were both killed, and a lot of other shit happened, but Harry and his two best mates popped out of nowhere-" Lily eyes widen, "-was it really a little under two months ago?"
Harry nods in confirmation.
"Shit. It feels much longer," Lily says thoughtfully.
"It does," Harry laughs softly.
"Alright. I think I'll go wake up the others and then I have some floo calls to make. We need to get everyone else here this evening and tell them. As long as it's convenient that is," Lily says, jumping off of the countertop, grabbing the chocolate and then she strolls back out of the kitchen. "See you both in a bit!" She calls over her shoulder.
"So…" Emmeline says awkwardly, taking an uncertain step towards him, tucking her wand into the waistband of her short shorts as she does.
"Start over?" Harry offers with a small smile, holding out his hand.
"Start over," Emmeline nods, grasping onto his hand; Harry feels a surge of warmth explode in his hand where their skin meets, and it shoots up his arm, leaving a tingly feeling behind-if Emmeline notices it, she doesn't make any indication of such.
"I'm Harry Potter, and I was a Gryffindor in school," Harry says, squeezing her hand lightly. He now knows what she saw that told her he wasn't James, because her eyes just flicked to it-his scar. The lightning bolt, he should have known. It is a dead giveaway after all. However, even though he knows she's dying to ask, she doesn't. Which only makes him like her more.
"Emmeline Vance, Ravenclaw," Emmeline smirks, using her free hand to tuck some of her short tresses behind her ear.
Neither of them makes a move to let go of each other's hand, but then the sound of a throat clearing in the kitchen doorway snaps them out of their quaint bubble. Harry angles his head to see who it is, and sees James and Sirius standing there, James's hand is across Sirius's mouth and he looks like he's trying to pull the raven haired boy away. James is shaking his head, and there's an apologetic expression on his face, however as Emmeline turns around to look both boys straighten out and are smiling widely, the picture of innocence.
"Morning," Sirius says, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes.
"Fuck off, Pads," Harry laughs lightly, squeezing Emmeline's hand once more before letting go-albeit reluctantly. She shoots him a shy smile once more, and then swivels on the balls of her feet to face the two Marauders.
"Sirius Black, I recall that you're fairly good at whipping up a good hearty breakfast-" Emmeline turns to Harry then, "-he used to go down to the kitchens some mornings, make a full breakfast and sneak it up to the dorms in the middle of the night. When the girls got wind of that, we used to slip into their dorm and we used to stay up for hours, eating breakfast foods and talking."
"So does that make me your breakfast making lackey?" Sirius cocks an eyebrow.
"Yupp, get on it," Emmeline teases.
"Okay, whilst you guys do that, I'm going to go wake up Hermione and Ron," Harry says, and he walks past Emmeline-but there's a spark of something at their proximity and the back of his hand brushes hers when he passes by her.
Emmeline Vance certainly is something, Harry smirks as he pushes past the broadly smiling boys, Sirius then going into the kitchen and beginning to mill about and look for ingredients.
Today is proving to be very interesting so far. Something tells Harry it's only going to get more interesting as the day wears on.
Remus smothers a laugh as Marlene's stoic exterior cracks wide open as she walks into the Drawing Room and catches sight of Ron and Harry.
It's rare that the witch expresses her emotions so freely, and he hugs Hermione closer to his side. The honey brown haired witch kisses the side of his neck quickly, and grips his forearm tighter.
Remus and Hermione are leaning against one of the desks on the far side of the room. Dorea is pacing back and forth, a calculating look in her eyes. Charlus is standing by one of the windows. Lily, James and Sirius are on the couch, and Ron and Harry are seated in the loveseat facing the door. Emmeline is standing behind the loveseat. Frank and Alice-who got here moments ago-are sitting on the other loveseat adjacent to the couch.
Remus caught sight of the modest rock on Alice's finger, and joined everyone in congratulating them after they picked their jaws up off of the floor.
Only one they have to wait for now is Dorcas, the short witch bursts into the room not two minutes later-Regulus and Kreacher close on her heels.
"It seems everyone is here, right, we have a few things to explain." Dorea stops in the middle of the room, clapping her hands together. "First of all...nothing we says leaves this room. You must all swear on your magic not to breathe a word of this," Dorea gives them all a sharp look, and everyone doesn't hesitate to nod and agree.
It only takes a few minutes for everyone to swear, and in that time Remus ignores the sharp stare Marlene is shooting their way. Instead he buries his face in Hermione's curls. "You smell so good, you know that?" Remus murmurs so only she can hear him.
He knows that Sirius can hear him due to his heightened hearing, but he chooses to ignore that little nugget of information as well. He's heard much worse things tumble out of Sirius's mouth.
"Hush-" Hermione smiles, squeezing his forearm lightly, "-this is supposed to be serious."
"Yea, and I'd like to be off snogging you...we don't always get what we want," Remus chuckles softly against the shell of her ear. Hermione responds with a playful pinch. Though he hears her heart pick up the pace and he grins. Turning back to pay attention to Dorea.
"You all know about Hermione-" Dorea pauses to gesture at Hermione, who merely half waves a tad awkwardly, "-but we didn't want to tell anyone about Harry and Ron just yet...we thought it best, since Hermione can integrate without anyone having to ask any questions, or not as many questions.
Harry and Ron wouldn't be as easy. If someone who looks exactly like my son shows up, people would start to ask questions. If someone who is clearly a Weasley shows up out of the blue, people would start to ask questions.
We just wanted to protect them," Dorea finishes, smiling wryly. "We didn't want to tell anyone about Hermione either...but Sirius kind of forced our hand there-" Dorea shoots Sirius a scolding look, and he merely grins goofily back at her, "-but we understood that he clearly trusts you lot."
"So...who are they exactly?" Frank asks, looking directly at Harry and Ron; the latter of which stands, but there's no smile on his face. Remus asked Hermione what happened last night since all of the trio looked like hell this morning, especially Ron-whose eyes were red-rimmed and had puffy, dark circles under them.
"We're from the future, like you know. I'm Ronald Weasley, sixth son of Molly and Arthur Weasley...and this is my mate Harry Potter," Ron says in a firm tone, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder when he mentions his name.
"Sixth son?" Marlene narrows her eyes, "how many do they have now? Four?"
"Five," Ron, Hermione, Harry, Lily, Remus and Dorea answer immediately.
Marlene merely looks around her, unsure about how to react to the answer spoken in unison.
"It's my brother's birthdays today actually," Ron smiles weakly. The proclamation seems to float dead in the air, since no one knows how to respond. Dorea however simply opens her arms and beckons for him to come to her. Ron slowly trudges over there, his spirits are lower than Remus has ever seen.
Remus takes a quick glance at Hermione and sees how her adorable face is contorting with worry. He leans over to kiss her cheek gently.
At that moment Ron crumples in Dorea's arms and she rubs his back soothingly as she hugs him.
To distract from the sobbing ginger, Lily pipes up, "so who wants tea?"
Remus shakes his head fondly at the witch, she certainly knows how to diffuse the tension of a situation.
Half an hour later and things are a bit more relaxed, everyone is milling about and interacting. Then it occurs to Remus that he doesn't see Ron. He's about to ask Hermione where the ginger could be, when Charlus asks in his stead, but more generally, to the all of the occupants in the room. "Where's Ron?"
Everyone freezes, no one saw him leave the room. No one heard the door open and click back softly after him. No one saw him sneak upstairs and retrieve something before he headed outside of the Manor, to outside of the wards. No one saw him disapparate.
No one saw Ron leave.
