Unknown Times

Chapter Two

Sirius caught Harry as he fell forward, leaving the unconscious body to lean on the table. The back table was out of sight from the rest of the tables; however Sirius and Remus magically rotated it so that Harry was further hidden from view by their bodies.

It was the day before Christmas Holiday started and a large portion of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were allowed to visit the village of Hogsmeade. The two boys had been joined by another friend before a small boy had appeared in the middle of the lane. The boy seemed frightened and looked remarkably like their friend, James Potter; added to the puzzle was the fact that the boy's name was Harry Potter. Peter had left Harry with Sirius and Remus while he returned to the school and to borrow some items from their friend that might be useful in smuggling the boy back into the school. The three decided that it would most likely take longer than the afternoon to return the boy to his home and they believed it best to think things out first. He seemed to display a shock at his surroundings that a magical child, raised with magical forms of travel, would not have. The connection with their friend and what they guessed to be a Muggle, or non-magical, upbringing led them to give Harry a sleeping potion once they had found out some information about him. At the very least they reasoned that Harry seemed in need of a good sleep.

The two boys took their seats and remained in quiet thought for a few minutes. Though The Three Broomsticks was quite busy due to many students attendance the atmosphere of the back table seemed remarkably quiet. The small noises such as the clink of a mug seemed enhanced and it startled Sirius when Remus broke the silence.

"We were right." Sirius glanced at Remus in amazement for a few seconds, letting the words sink in. They had had previously come up with no explanation of how Harry ended up in their lives or his connection to their friend, for there obviously was one. Sirius looked quizzically at his friend before Remus continued.

"I'm fairly certain that he is James's son, well his and Lily's son. He says he is from 1987, though I didn't ask him directly. He also says that he lives with Lily's sister and her husband, who appear to be raising him as a Muggle." Sirius listened intently as Remus continued. "I'm guessing that Lily and James died with some connection to magic. Harry says they died in a car crash, but I don't see that happening. From Lily's stories about her sister, however, it does appear that she would mislead Harry to keep him from knowing the truth."

There was another moment of silence before Sirius, who would usually have come up with a jocular or teasing comment about knowing that his best friend would have a son with his girlfriend, remained quiet at the severity of the rest of the information that Harry brought with him.

"Where should we take Harry?" Sirius questioned trying to focus on what needed to be done. "He can stay in Gryfindor Tower with us once term ends. I think the four of us are the only ones staying here."

"Lily's staying," Remus interjected. "She doesn't want to spend more time than necessary with her sister's fiancé, not that I blame her. She decided to stay at the last minute. I think you're right, though, other from that we're the only ones who'll be here. I guess we should take him to one of the secret rooms we've found, so we don't need to worry about anyone seeing him."

"I'd say the best bet is that room in the library; we haven't seen anyone using it. It has that couch and we can research how Harry got here, while we figure out how to tell Lily and James that they die in a few years leaving their son to live with Lily's sister."

"Well, if you put it like that." Remus said with a suppressed a grin, "I wouldn't fancy being you dealing with their reactions." 

The seriousness of their conversation broke and the two began to revert to the more lighthearted manner that usually occurred within the group of friends. The usual manner was easily replaced by the serious manner, in which the two were discussing earlier, and the two manners were usually used intertwined in a conversation causing others to view the boys incapable of carrying out a serious conversation; however, when faced with an important situation the necessary discussion was carried out.

"Well I wouldn't tell them like that; I don't know about you though." Sirius countered, receiving a glare from Remus. "But we do need to tell them someway, whether they like it or not. You know we're not going to keep this a secret from them."

"And this is where you're brilliant plan of postponing telling them comes into play? Wait until the last possible moment before we have to tell them about everything?"

"No, let them finish whatever they decided to do today, though they really didn't need to spend the day together since it was planned to be their last day together before Lily went home. Now that she has decided that it wouldn't be much of a holiday if she had to spend it with her wonderful sister they have all of the holiday to spend together."

"Well that makes sense." Remus began. "I am worried about how and why Harry got here. If he lived in the world that we would like him to have been in I think we might be able to pass it off as some strange accident of James and yourself, but I don't think that Harry would accidentally stumble across some time travel ability or any other form of magic with his aunt and uncle."

"True." Sirius began with a trace amount of disgust in his voice. "We'll also need to explain to magic to Harry, though it might be best to leave that job to his parents."

"Trying to get out of doing the hard jobs by forcing others to do it?" It was then that another presence in the back of the pub was made known, as an invisibility cloak and piece of parchment were dropped onto the table. Startled, Sirius and Remus jumped and turned to see their friend slumped into the fourth seat at the table.

"With that and postponing the difficult conversations, it seems Sirius can't do anything too difficult; we need to make sure everything is at his level." Remus said with a grin.

"Hey!" Sirius protested. Remus and Peter both shared a laugh at the indignation on Sirius's face. "At least my proposition had us doing something useful, rather than sitting around here with you two insulting me."

"What was his plan?" Peter whispered to Remus. "Is there anyway that we could follow his plan, yet continue insulting him?"

"He wants to take Harry to the library and research Harry got here. I'm sure we could find something to tease him about there." Remus said, and then with a scan of the pub he continued in a low whisper so that only his friends could hear him. "I think that Sirius's idea is good though. I think we may start attracting attention soon." Turing to Peter he added, "We'll tell you what we know when we get there. I don't want to risk being overheard. Sirius you should take Harry under the cloak and we'll make sure we don't run into … anyone we don't want to."

In unspoken agreement the three boys then made ready to leave: standing up, Sirius walked around the table to lift Harry to his arms, Peter took the cloak and covered Sirius and Harry with it, and Remus activated the map. No one bothered them as they left the pub and walked down the High Street back to Hogwarts.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Harry Potter. I am writing this to satisfy my own personal "What-If" fantasies.

Authors Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed. It really helped to get me writing more, knowing that people enjoyed the story.