Meg: Let's try this ONE more time slaps If I have to re-create one more account I'm going to kill something!
Alex: forcibly restrains Meg Put bluntly, folks, Meg's gone through twelve accounts and all of them have been lost for one reason or another, mostly lost passwords.
Meg: I don't have time for much of an intro, so I'll make this quick and sweet:
1) Second Chances is an AU and most of the character will be OOC, hell, I think about everyone is.
2) Yes, there is an OC, not a Mary Sue twitch but an OC. This fic is a challenge from an old friend and he specifically requested this particular character. I am proud of this character and her development. As for the inevitable romance, see the following section.
3) Romance is not my best subject and I usually avoid it. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be HP if I didn't have a little Romance, so Cyn likes to remind me. There are two very big things I would like to put forward now:
A) I will not spoil any romances, but I will say this: the OC will fall in love, not with Harry, any of the Weasleys, or any other character she is close to at the beginning. The boy she will eventually fall in love with is not an OC and their romance will be love/hate for a long time. This is the only romance I have totally settled on thus far and that is only because it, like the story itself, is a request.
B) All who fear slash should tread with caution. There will be, at the least, hints of slash throughout the story. At one point even the beloved OC's sexuality will come into question, if only for humor reasons. I will say now that, in the proper place and used with discretion, Remus/Sirius is one of my favorite HP couples and it may yet come into play. Nothing hard-core, I promise, a light kiss is the most that will be seen.
4) A lot of things in Second Chance will not be explained immediately, but it will be explained. I warn now that there are things even I am not sure of yet, but one thing I do know is that nothing is for certain. Things change, but once something is written in stone I will not change it. If in one chapter I say that Ron is a descendant of Godric Gryffindor it will stay that way, not that I'm saying this will happen.
Meg: Now that that's done, on with the show. Some of you may notice that things seem a bit off at first. Next chapter it will become a bit clearer and I will put in character descriptions, as no one looks like they originally did in JRK's book. Not that I'm knocking her character designs, but I want to have a little fun. AND HARRY'S GLASSES ARE A PAIN IN THE ARSE TO DRAW!
P.S. One of my beta-readers bet me that I couldn't go an entire story with cussing… This is gonna be hard.
Quote of The Chapter
"If you aren't remembered, then you never existed."-Arisu, Lain
Second Chances: Chapter 1 Memories of Tomorrow
"Harry! C'mon, we're gonna be late!" Angel shouted, tugging on Harry's necklace.
"Calm down, I'm coming," Harry grumbled as he made one last ditch effort to get his unruly hair to lie down before he was beheaded by the necklace that was meant to protect him.
"What kind of idiot is late for their own graduation ceremony?" Angel grumbled as she pulled Harry down the stairs of Number 12 Gimmauld Place. "McGonagall's gonna kill me!" Harry didn't feel like reminding the naga that their own predecessors had been late for their graduation ceremony.
"She can laugh while she's killing her own brothers," Harry muttered as they bolted out the front door and climbed on Angel's precious motorcycle. "but she sleeps in, then panics when we're late for our graduation ceremony."
"Oh, shut up!" Angel shouted as the motor roared into life. She patted the handle-bars and muttered, "Don't let me down now, baby."
"And she talks to her motorcycle," Harry added as an afterthought as the motorcycle suddenly shot twenty feet into the air.
Despite his misgivings about riding an illegal flying motorcycle half-way across the country when five years earlier he and his best friend had flown a flying car to Hogwarts only to have the engine die, then crash into the most violent tree in the world, Harry couldn't help but relax the moment Angel's motorcycle lifted off the ground. Something about flying on his godfather's most prized possession, especially with Angel driving, brought a strange calm over him.
That calm, however was short-lived. As they began their descent to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a powerful gust of wind struck the side of the motorcycle and sent both teens tumbling to the ground. Harry hit the ground and quickly became painfully aware that at least one of his ribs was cracked. He pushed himself up on his elbows just in time to see a fully naga Angel get struck in the stomach by her brother's spike-covered tail.
"CRUCIO!" Harry shouted, pointing one of his gloved hands at Damien.
The son of Lord Voldemort doubled over in pain and a searing pain shot through Harry's scar.
Harry Potter sat up so suddenly that the huge white dog he'd been laying on jumped up. "Sorry, Mohroh," he said absently, patting the dog's head. He looked around wildly till his eyes fell on the brown-haired man sitting next to the Potters' huge fireplace. He set his book down and looked at Harry with tired calm eyes.
"These nightmares are getting to be a nuisance," Remus mused, looking Harry over. "Anything new?"
Harry shook his head. Nightmares like the one he had just experienced were nothing new, but they were still painful. Harry felt a small drop of blood roll down his forehead. His scar had opened up again.
"Angel's in the kitchen," Remus pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the doorway across the room. "Your mother couldn't get James to help her, so she blackmailed your sister into it." He smiled in that calm, mystifying way that Harry had learned to trust so much. "She said she wouldn't mind if we went out for breakfast. She's already blown up two eggs and a pan of bacon."
Harry laughed and decided to rescue his family from the horror of his foster sister's cooking. The Potter house was huge, being four stories, five if you included the basement/Dobby's room (he still couldn't believe that it had been so easy to trick Lucius Malfoy into giving them the over-exuberant house elf), with 12 bedrooms (that Harry knew of) a bathroom for each, a giant kitchen and even larger living room, which served a dual purpose as a dining room, that took up the entire first floor, an attic/playroom that had been bewitched so you could fit an entire Quiddtich pitch into it (no wonder Lily swore she didn't know what her own children looked like anymore), a large greenhouse that opened up into Angel and Remus's even larger garden in the back yard, and a lab suited perfectly for the explosion-happy Potters and their friends.
True to Remus's word, when Harry entered the large kitchen, the skeletal white haired naga was sitting on one of the many islands in the room, nose buried in a Zonko's magazine. Their mother, Lily was on the other side of the kitchen, fussing over a large pan of bacon. Angel was prodding at a slowly expanding pan of sausages with Remus's wand. Harry vaguely wondered how Angel had managed to pilfer it when no one else had been able to all month.
"Trying to kill us again?" Harry asked taking the wand just before a particularly swollen sausage exploded.
Angel peeked over the top of her magazine, and her mismatched eyes met Harry's. "You too, huh?"
Harry nodded and pulled himself up onto the counter next to her. Her marble-like left eye shined with laughter. She always did that. No matter what particular memory decided to plague her the previous night, she could always laugh in the morning.
"You worry too much, onii-kun," Angel said with that mind-reading look she always used around Harry. "that's all they are: memories. Memories of a future we all hope we'll never see."
"Hey, Bloodsport!" Sirius shouted from the living room. "You're starting to sound like Moony! Knock it off!"
Harry and Angel looked at each other and laughed. They silently agreed that they would worry about this later and concentrate on the task at hand: convincing one of the adults to let them go to Diagon Alley for their school supplies.
"After all," Angel said as she and Harry walked out into the living room to join their godfathers. "we've only got a week till school starts. We need to get as much reading done as possible so we'll have extra time to explore the castle and the Forbidden Forest."
"NARCISSA ANGEL POTTER BLACK!" Lily shouted from the kitchen. "I know you're not planning ways to cause trouble at Hogwarts!"
"No mum!" Harry and Angel both shouted then dissolved into a fit of silent giggles.
"Now kids," Sirius said in a fake scolding voice. "listen to your mother."
Harry and Angel responded by tackling Sirius to the ground and tickling every inch of him they could find.
"HEY! Two on one! No fair!" Sirius shouted. "Moony! Help!"
Remus sighed exasperatedly. "I'm never going to finish my book, am I?" He got up and, with all the delight of a child, tackled Angel and the two went sprawling across the floor.
The tickle war continued till Lily decided to check what all the noise was. The mood in the room changed so quickly that one would have thought Dementors had just entered the room.
"I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED THIS FROM YOU, SIRIUS!" Lily shouted. "BUT YOU, REMUS! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE RESPONSIBLE ONE!"
"Once a Marauder, always a Marauder," James chuckled as he crossed the room and picked Angel up off of Remus's back. "Wolves don't change their fur, Lily."
Remus shot his friend a dirty look, then got up and sat down in his chair again. Sirius let Harry crawl onto his back and began trotting around the room like a large dog.
"Oh, for God's sake!" Lilly threw her hands up in the air and stalked back into the kitchen.
James set his daughter down on the couch and grinned.
"Well, I think Lily's getting kind of tired of you lot," James theorized. "Moony, do you think you and Padfoot could take these two to Diagon Alley with you? They still need their school things."
"In other words you want some time alone with Lily," Sirius translated happily.
James went pink and Harry and Angel both gave delighted whoops.
"Can the boys come?" Angel asked excitedly.
"If you want," Remus answered. "You'll invite them along either way."
Angel reached into the side pocket on her sweatpants and pulled out a small hand mirror with snakes wrapped around it.
"Oy, Ron!"
Ron's red-haired, freckled face appeared in the mirror. "Hey, Bloodsport. It's too early for this!"
"Yeah! You woke us up!" Fred's voice came from somewhere behind Ron.
"Stop griping you two," Angel growled. "Think your mum'll let you three come to Diagon Alley with us?"
There was a loud bang in the background, someone pushed Ron away and George's face appeared.
"We'll be there in ten, Bloody! don't leave without us!"
The mirror went blank. Remus and Sirius looked at each other and began laughing.
"You call Chance," Angel said, tossing the mirror to Harry. "I Gotta go get dressed before Molly calls up and starts yelling."
She jumped up and ran upstairs before Harry could protest.
Harry looked in the mirror, silently wondering how Angel had lived this long. "Chance!" the mirror remained blank. "Chance!" still nothing. "NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM GET YOUR LAZY ARSE OUT OF BED!"
There was a yell, a bang, and a very disheveled-looking Neville Longbottom appeared in the mirror.
"It's too early, Mirage. Call me back some time decent!"
"It's almost noon, Nev," Harry rolled his eyes. "Get up. Moony 'n Padfoot are taking us to Diagon Alley."
"I'm awake!" Neville shouted. "I'll be over in a few minutes."
And the mirror went blank.
"You'd think we never take them anywhere," Sirius mused. "You'd better go get dressed, too Harry. Wouldn't want you accidentally walking into the Leaky Cauldron half-naked again."
Harry turned scarlet and ran up the stairs after Angel.
Ten minutes later Ron, Fred, and George apparated in the middle of the living room and were instantly leapt upon by Lily, who was painfully against under aged wizardry of any sort.
"That smarts," Ron muttered, rubbing his rapidly bruising rear. "I don't know what hurts more, that pan or your mum's broom."
"It's a close race," Angel managed to say through a fit of giggles.
A moment later Neville apparated in the living room with a very soft crack. He was rolling on the floor laughing after Fred and George had finished Ron's story.
"Well, we'd better get going," Sirius suggested after Neville had calmed down. "We've got a lot of work to do."
"I'm riding with Sirius!" Angel shouted the same time Fred and George both yelled "Shotgun!"
Lily sighed exasperatedly as eight of the ten Marauders ran out the front door.
"Just think," she muttered. "ten whole months with no explosions, no monsters," the sound of Sirius's motorcycle firing up echoed through the house. "and no more chaos."
"It's going to be a long ten months," James mused form behind the Daily Prophet.
"Just think," Angel said, punching a fist in the air as they made their way into Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "ten whole months with no rules, no muggles, and best of all, no mothers!"
Sirius and Remus couldn't help but laugh as Madam Malkin began fussing over the six Hogwarts students. After a quite hysterical incident involving a pair of renegade scissors and Madam Malkin's dress, Sirius ushered his charges out of the shop while Remus tried to apologize to the disgruntled woman. The group headed for their last stop Flourish and Blotts half an hour later.
While the adults retrieved the six sets of school books ("How come we have to carry this stuff? It weighs more thank Prongs!") the remaining Marauders slipped into the back of the shop.
"You sure it's here?" Fred asked.
"When have I been wrong about my mira's memories?" Angel asked.
She gently pushed on the wall and, much to the rest of the group's surprise, it began to slide away. The room behind the wall was full of ancient looking books from floor to ceiling. Everything was covered in cobwebs and a large spider was crawling across the floor.
Ron latched himself onto Angel's skeletal arm." Spiders. I hate spiders."
"Shut up, you big baby," Angel growled. "C'mon. Let's get as many of these as we can." She pulled her new wand (dragon heartstring and black willow, fourteen inches) out of her sleeve and pointed it at a large pile of books. "Minimus!"
The books shrank to the size of large pieces of gum. They began picking up the books and shoving them in their pockets. After a few minutes Remus came to the back of the store.
"Time to go," he said quickly.
Angel put the last of the shrunken books in her pocket, then, after everyone was out, closed the wall.
"Well, this year's definitely going to be interesting," Ron muttered. "Can't wait till September."
They stopped at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch. Just as Harry and Angel were finishing their cheeseburgers, they caught sight of their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher across the room. Professor Quirell was shaking hands with Hagrid, but that's not who he was looking at. He was eyeing Harry, a strange gleam in his eye.
"You getting the creeps too?" Angel muttered.
"Is that supposed to be Professor Quirrell?" Fred asked, looking over Angel's shoulder at the teacher.
"That's him," said Harry, taking a sip from soda. "That face is impossible to forget."
"Stop staring," Remus kicked Harry under the table. "We all know what he's hiding, so stop worrying about it and start worrying about what you're going to do once he gets back to full strength."
Harry and Angel both gave involuntary shudders.
"Hey! Hagrid!" Neville shouted, desperate for a change of subject,
Hagrid turned around and ambled over to them.
"Well, if it ain't the Marauders," he laughed, thumping Harry on the back. "Where's yer par'ner in crime?"
"Dad decided to spend the day at home," Angel said in a false nonchalant voice,"With mom, alone, on his one day off."
Hagrid laughed and motioned for Professor Quirrell to join them. Much to Harry's dismay, he accepted the offer.
"Hello Professor," Remus said calmly.
"H-Hello, R-R-Remus," Quirrell stuttered. "S-Sirius."
"This 'ere's Harry," Hagrid said, gesturing to the boy in question. Harry nodded. "'An tha's Neville, and the one next ta him's Ron," the two boys grunted in response. "Fred and George, Ron's brothers," the twins nodded. "'an, where's Angel?"
The group looked around. Angel was nowhere to be seen.
"She does that a lot," Remus said with a shrug. "probably getting another drink."
"Were you looking for me?"
Professor Quirrell spun around. Angel was standing right behind him, glaring evilly. She slid into her seat next to Harry.
"Can you do me a favor, Professor?" she asked, nothing but distaste in her voice. "Tell my father he's not going to live to see me graduate."
Quirrell's eyes widened.
"We...have to get going," Remus said quickly, grabbing onto Angel's messy white braid. "Lily and James expect us back soon."
Sirius and the boys nodded then made a mad dash for the door. It wouldn't be till several days later, when Remus and Sirius would be kicked out the door that they would realize they forgot to pay for their food.
"What the bloody hell's going through your head?" Ron snapped as soon as they were out of the Leaky Cauldron.
"Just a little reverse psychology," Angel replied lazily. "Psyche my father and Quirrell out a little, that's all."
Remus slapped his forehead. "Lunacy. Absolute lunacy. You're going to be the death of us all."
"Can we go home now?" Neville asked, glancing warily back at the door to the Leakly Cauldron.
"So, what should we do first?" Ron asked, flopping down on his favorite couch.
"You mean when we get to Hogwarts," Harry leaned back against Mohroh and closed his eyes. "how about we raid Filch's office?"
Angel shook her head. "It's gotta be something big."
"Ten galleons says you four can't get detention before the end of the first week," Sirius said as he messed up Harry's already unruly hair.
"Make it twenty, for the first day," Neville chirped.
"You're on!" Sirius shouted, punching a fist at Neville.
"I got five galleons on Angel being the first down!" Fred shouted.
"Six on Ron!" George retorted.
"WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT BETTING IN THIS HOUSE?" Lily shouted from the kitchen.
"YES MUM!" the nine Marauders shouted indignantly.
"Spoil sport," James muttered. "You lot are lucky. You get to escape her for a few months."
"Hallelujah!" Angel shouted.
"IF YOU LOT WANT DINNER, I SUGGEST YOU RETHINK WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!"
"YES MUM!" the Marauders chorused again, then began laughing.
Ten years ago Lily and James Potter were supposed to have been killed by Lord Voldemort, but something went wrong. Something stopped him before he could even enter the Potters' house. Now, bearing the disturbing and terrifying memories of a future that could befall their world, eleven year old Harry Potter and his foster sister, Angel, are beginning their first year at Hogwarts alongside their best friends. With Lord Voldemort breathing down their necks and the world's future in their hands, Harry, Angel, Ron, and Neville have to protect each other, and the world they love or risk repeating the events that will bring about the apocalypse.