Living inside Yesterday
Potter47

Part One
The Shadow of the Past

"Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have."
— Butler

Chapter Two
Identity Crisis

Ron was still sporting red ears as the four of them emerged from the fellytone booth—the... er... rather small fellytone booth.

Luna had flown at him quite quickly when he had Summoned her, you see. She had hit him full force and he had been pushed into the opposite wall. It had been... well, it had been quite the embarrassing situation. Especially as they had kind of been... squished together and...

Suffice to say, it had not been the most comfortable of circumstances.

And Hermione! Hermione (who had been Ron's best friend for years)—Hermione (who never, ever, would just joke around with someone)—all Hermione could do was to 'attempt' to keep herself from bursting out laughing!

Neville had also seemed to find it quite funny, although he was the only one among them that seemed to remember that there were a dozen Death Eaters not thirty paces away. So he reminded them of this fact, and they moved along. Neville had always been one of Ron's favourite friends: always nice to people. Other than Malfoy, of course.

Luna conjured a piece of meat with her wand, and strolled dreamily along to the Thestrals, not a care in the world. Ron shook his head—he had never quite understood her.

Crack!

What was that? Ron asked himself, spinning round to find the second best thing he could have imagined—the first being, of course, the Cannons in a parade float, waving the championship trophy around, and announcing that a free buffet was being held for all loyal fans.

That can wait for now.

Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, Kingsley, and Mad-Eye had all Apparated in front of them. Sirius, who didn't even seem to notice the four students, was running as fast as possible for the fellytone booth.

"Hold it, Black!" growled Mad-Eye. "Did you not notice that four of his friends are right here?"

Sirius tried to stop, but gave up and just turned while in motion. He stopped in front of them, out of breath, and said:

"Where is he? Where is Harry?"

"We don't know—" Ron started to say, but Hermione cut him off:

"It's obvious where he is, we just don't know when."

"What? What happened?" Sirius's grey eyes quickly counted them. "Snape said Ginny was with you too."

"There was," said Luna rather pleasantly, "an accident... Hang on, aren't you Stubby Boardman?" Her head was tilted curiously to the side.

"Er, no, Luna," said Ron awkwardly, "this is—"

"—Sirius Black." Neville spoke, his voice barely more than a whisper. His eyes were wide and fearful—

"Neville, Luna..." said Hermione, "that's a long story, and this really isn't a good time."

Sirius was still waiting to hear what had happened:

"Well? What happened?" he said, finally, unable to be patient.

"There's this bell jar, in the Department of Mysteries," Hermione began. "A Death Eater —Crabbe, I think—he levitated it, and tipped it onto Harry and Ginny. They disappeared when it hit them. It's obvious that it somehow transported them back in time, to the same room, of course, in the Department of Mysteries, but years, maybe even decades ago."

Ron blinked at her explanation. That was my very first thought as well, he thought sarcastically.

"Ha–Harry's lost? In time?" Sirius seemed almost to wobble a bit on his feet.

"Yes. And Ginny as well."

"How do we get him—them, back?"

"I don't know," said Hermione, shaking her head slightly, hesitantly, as though she didn't quite want to admit it.

"Hermione doesn't know the answer," said Ron ominously. "That's never a good sign."

——

The Knight Bus stopped abruptly just outside the gates of Hogwarts. Harry and Ginny made their way to the front of the bus—there was a strange old woman who was asleep with her eyes open in one of the beds, and the two of them moved past her rather quickly, anxious to leave.

The conductor was standing up front, looking at one of the galleons that they had handed him before. He spoke to himself with his head tilted, weighing it in his hand up close to his ear as though it were speaking to him. "I don't know why... but frankly, this just doesn't feel right..."

They moved quickly towards the door, practically jumping the last couple steps.

"That was close," murmured Ginny, once the bus had BANGed away. "I hope he doesn't come back, saying we gave him counterfeit gold. That's a serious charge, you know—"

"Even if he did," said Harry, starting the walk up to the castle, "he probably wouldn't be able to find us. It's not as though are names are in the school records."

After a quick moment of hesitation, Ginny said: "Yes, I suppose you're right."

The pair walked up the familiar school grounds, almost feeling as though they had not gone back in time at all, but instead had just returned to Hogwarts. Everything looked just the same here, just the same as it always had—Always would, Harry corrected, but it was rather hopeless.

It was a breath of fresh air, to Harry, to see the castle as it should be, after the war-torn London had set his mind in strange directions. It was good to be back where things made some semblance of sense—but then, having just been transported through time, Harry was quite unsure anything would ever make sense again.

Harry grasped the handle on the large, oak front door, and pulled: it would not open. He tried again, and again, and again, and he felt that if he pulled any harder, his arm would dislocate, which wouldn't be all that pleasant.

"Harry, you of all people should know that Hogwarts doesn't just let random people inside. It doesn't recognize you as a student, so you can't go in."

"Then... how do we get in? I doubt it'd recognise you, either—"

She answered him by walking up to the door, raising a fist, and knocking firmly, three times.

I really am stupid tonight, aren't I? thought Harry.

The door opened slightly, and a face appeared behind it—for a moment Harry thought of how coincidental it was that there had been someone just inside the entrance hall, but he soon forgot it, as he recognised who the face belonged to:

"Dumbledore!" Harry said, just as Ginny reached the same conclusion.

The man—Dumbledore—blinked. "Yes, that's me. Of course, it could also have been my brother, but as he isn't here and you were addressing me..." He narrowed one eye slightly. "What are you two doing out of Gryffindor Tower at this time of night?"

"They got Siriu—" Harry stopped, realising that this Dumbledore knew nothing of Sirius Black. "We...er..."

"What?" asked Ginny with a tone of incredulity. "What do you mean. 'out of Gryffindor Tower'?"

Dumbledore blinked once more. "The two of you are standing on the front steps of the school—you do realise this? And Gryffindor Tower is—" he opened the door further, and stepped outside; he pointed high above the school, "—way up there. You are certainly not in Gryffindor Tower, my young friends—"

"That's not what I meant," said Ginny. "I meant, how do you recognise us?" Harry hadn't even noticed that Dumbledore shouldn't have known who they were.

"With my eyes," said Dumbledore, and he seemed to be growing tired of the conversation—or perhaps just tired in general, as he seemed to be battling a yawn. He added, then, in a worn-out voice: "Should I... not? Recognise you, I mean?"

"Sir, my name's Harry Potter—this is Ginny Weasley. Surely you don't recognise our names?"

"You must not remember mine, if you think I am called Shirley," said Dumbledore, and Harry noticed that although this Dumbledore was much younger than the one he knew, he looked just as—if not more—fatigued.

"Stop playing around, Mr Potter," Dumbledore said, then. "Of course I recognise your names—would it not have been prudent—if you are indeed trying to fool me, and have not simply had a bit too much butterbeer—had to change both the given and surs?" Harry blinked, unsure of what he meant—The given answers? What? "Or do you expect me to believe that you are, perhaps, John Potter's cousin and this is not your girlfriend at all?"

"What?" Harry and Ginny chorused.

"What do you mean, my girlfriend? Who do you think we are?" Harry was incredibly bewildered, as was evidenced by the high ratio of interrogative to non-interrogative sentences that were flying out of his mouth.

"You, my friend," said Dumbledore, pointing towards Harry, "are John Potter, fifth year Gryffindor." He then pointed at Ginny. "And you are Virginia Arden, fourth year Gryffindor and girlfriend of John. I do like to keep an eye on the students, so stop trying to fool me. It wears on my nerves."

How many people are trying to fool him, thought Harry, to make him look like this?

"Virginia..." Dumbledore added, a worried look in his eye. "You look a bit different—just a bit. Are you ill?"

The two students had matching expressions of complete bafflement on their faces.

"Professor," said Ginny, once she had again found her voice, "if you were to check... in Gryffindor Tower... I can assure you that 'John Potter' and 'Virginia Arden' are still there. I am Ginny Weasley and this is Harry Potter."

"Professor Dumbledore," said Harry, "we need your help."

Dumbledore looked at them oddly, as though a large part of him wanted greatly to refuse and return to his chambers with a hot water pillow. And then, sleepily: "Very well, Mr Potter. Follow me."

He turned his back on them, stepped into the entrance hall and began to walk. It was a quicker walk than Harry was used to seeing on the Headmaster—that was logical, of course, as Dumbledore was quite a bit younger than usual—but there was some strange drag in his step, as though his leg were asleep.

"Where are we going?" asked Ginny.

"To the kitchens," Dumbledore said, only causing them even more confusion. "That was a joke," he added slowly. "We're going to my office, of course."

They kept walking. Harry soon realised that they were heading toward not the Headmaster's office, but the Transfiguration teacher's office; Harry had forgotten that Professor Dippet had been Headmaster in nineteen forty-five.

They reached the door.

"Every Flavour Bean," said Dumbledore, and it was a quite random thing to say, so Harry reckoned it was the password. "I really should change that—don't particularly care for the things anymore."

As they entered what Harry thought of as McGonagall's office, Dumbledore closed the door behind them with a wave of his hand.

"All right," said Dumbledore, settling in his chair, "explain yourselves. Miss...what did you call yourself? Weasley? I have heard that name somewhere—forgive me for not being able to place it at the moment—I have not been sleeping well."

"Yes, sir."

Harry noticed that many of the silver instruments that would be in the Headmaster's office stood upon the shelves of this considerably smaller room, making the whole chamber look very cramped and precarious. If someone were to make a sudden movement, it seemed, dozens of twinkly things would crash to the floor in pieces.

"There was an accident—at the Department of Mysteries. We..." Ginny trailed off.

"Yes?" Dumbledore's auburn eyebrows were raised, clearly waiting for a chance to inquire why they had been in the Department of Mysteries in the middle of the night.

"We've gone—come—back in time." Harry finished for her.

Dumbledore blinked.

"You know, it's funny," he said, nodding his head slightly and not looking at them. "That was not at all what I expected you to say. I expected something along the lines of, 'We snuck out and a mysterious stranger kidnapped us and took us to the Department of Mysteries for experimenting,' which I would have then refuted with, 'They don't experiment on students in the Department of Mysteries without the Headmaster's permission.' But no, of course not, instead you say that you've come back in time. Forgive a middle-aged man's tendencies, but would you care to elaborate a bit more? " He was sitting up in the seat now, and looked a bit more awake.

"There's a huge bell jar down there. It—well—fell on us," Ginny informed him.

"Such delightful detail," said Dumbledore, nodding still. And then: "But when do you claim you're from? If someone has come back through time, usually the first claim includes when they have come from—"

"Nineteen ninety-six," said Harry. He added, for lack of better detail: "June."

Dumbledore was silent a moment. He peered at the two of them, back and forth, but he didn't really seem to be looking at them at all, but rather contemplating something within himself. Then, his mind made up, he said, looking almost ashamed:

"Is he gone? Do we defeat him?"

"Who?" said Ginny.

"Voldemort?" said Harry.

"Who's Voldemort?" said Dumbledore, his eyes narrowing. "I mean Grindelwald, the Dark Lord."

Harry had, for some reason, always figured that 'Grindelwald' was pronounced the way it was spelt, having only ever seen the name on Dumbledore's chocolate frog card, in his first year. It was, apparently, pronounced 'Grindelvald,' and Harry wondered for the first time why he'd never heard anything of him, in any of his classes, or anywhere else. Hadn't the war been a major point in wizarding history? Why did no one ever speak of it?

And then, quite suddenly, Harry's mind knew why Dumbledore was so tired-looking. It did not seem the war was going very well at all.

"Oh..." said Ginny, and she glanced pointedly at Harry. He understood at once what she was trying to say: if they told Dumbledore anything about the past, or his future, then it may not happen that way. Dumbledore defeated Grindelwald—in nineteen forty-five—without the help of two time-travelling teens.

"Er... we shouldn't tell you, should we...?" said Harry, and Dumbledore nodded, dismissing his question as a foolish and desperate attempt.

"Right, right, right, it would disturb the fabric of time." Dumbledore continued to nod to himself, as if to make himself believe that it was indeed for the best that they could not tell him.

"So," Dumbledore said, then: "You," he pointed at Harry, "you said your name was Potter. Are you John's son? Or was I correct about the cousin thing?"

"Er... No, Professor. My father's name was James—or, will be James. And I don't even know who his parents were." Harry hadn't really thought of that before—how little he knew of his ancestry.

"We need help to get back," Ginny said, then, and it was as though Dumbledore realised that he hadn't brought them to his office for a midnight chat on the trivialities of time.

"I'll... I'll see what I can do." Dumbledore stood, and it occurred to Harry once again just how old Dumbledore usually was. Now, fifty years prior, he still wasn't exactly young. Even if he did have red hair, as opposed to silver.

"Er... Professor?" asked Ginny. "Where will we be staying?"

Harry hadn't thought of that.

"You are Gryffindors, correct?" Dumbledore asked, and at their nod, he said, "Then you'll stay in Gryffindor Tower, of course—you wouldn't be allowed anywhere else. The Head Girl and Boy are from Ravenclaw and Slytherin this year, so those two rooms are empty."

A pause, and then:

"You know the way, correct? The password is 'the Wizard of Oz.' It's a Muggle film, you know, and I convinced the Fat Lady to watch it the other night. She thought it was superb."

Harry bit back a snort at the coincidence. Dumbledore looked at him curiously, but did not comment.

Soon, they left Dumbledore's office, and were on their way through the familiar corridors of Hogwarts.

——

"He's innocent?" Neville said, looking wide-eyed back-and-forth between Hermione and Ron as they walked. "Sirius Black is innocent?"

"Yeah, Nev," said Ron, "bit of a hard concept to grasp, isn't it? But at least you don't have a broken leg."

"I already apologised for that, Ron," Sirius said, though he really didn't appear to have been listening. He was looking straight ahead, as they walked to Grimmauld Place.

"So, Stubby," said Luna casually, walking next to Sirius, "what made you join this 'Order of the Phoenix?' Have you ever considered reuniting the Hobgoblins?"

"I am not Stubby Boardman!"

They reached Grimmauld Place—once number twelve had appeared for the Order members, Ron, and Hermione, they eventually managed to steer Neville and Luna up the invisible-to-them front steps and into the door.

They heard a screech from the living room:

"Master will not return from the Department of Mysteries!" Kreacher was laughing as he said it—laughing fit to burst.

"Well, someone is clearly not being respectful of his master..." said Sirius, leading the group into the living room. Dumbledore was sitting on the couch, with Kreacher facing him.

"Master!" Kreacher abruptly spun around and bowed as low as his old frame could take. "Terrible, terrible timing you have..." he muttered.

"I'll deal with you later, Kreacher. Right now I need to speak with Professor Dumbledore—alone." He didn't really mean 'alone' of course, only 'without Kreacher.'

The aging Headmaster was staring at the line of students, his mouth hanging slightly open. His eyes flicked back and forth, as though ascertaining that he had not missed anything—or anyone.

"Where are they?" he asked, the slightest bit of panic showing through his usually calm voice.

"When are they," said Hermione once again, and Ron reckoned that she liked pointing that out.

Dumbledore blinked. Again. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.

"Th—they're at Hogwarts."

Now it was everyone else's turn to blink.

"What?"

"What do you mean?" Sirius quickly inquired.

"They are at Hogwarts... in the year nineteen hundred forty-five. I remember them."

——

Harry and Ginny arrived at the Fat Lady's portrait, nearly dead from the exhaustion of the day's events, which had finally caught up with them.

"How did you two get out here?" asked the portrait. "No one's left the Tower tonight, I'm sure of it—it's not exactly common, to have no one sneak out, and I like to take note of it."

"The Wiza-a-ar-rd of Oz," Harry said as he unsuccessfully attempted to stifle a yawn.

The portrait opened slowly, and the Fat Lady's shrewd gaze never left the pair until they had both passed her frame.

They were on their way towards the stairs, when something red flashed at the edge of Harry's vision. He turned to it to see himself snogging Ginny, and was about to turn back—

To see what?

"Gin!" he grabbed her shoulder and turned her around.

"What is it Harry? I really am ti—"

Her eyes widened when she saw the couple in front of the fire. "Bloody hell."

"I'm guessing that's John Potter and Virginia Arden," observed Harry quietly.

"You think?"

The two on the sofa jumped apart. Ginny put a hand over her mouth when she realised that she hadn't been all that quiet.

"Who's there?" came a voice that sounded remarkably like Harry's.

Harry had an idea. He walked up to his counterpart, and said in the exact tone of voice, "Who's there?"

"Seriously, who is that?" said the redhead.

Ginny walked up next to Harry, and said as best she could: "Seriously, who is that?"

"Virginia, I think we're asleep."

"Virginia, I think we're asleep." Harry hoped Ginny didn't mind him calling her by 'Virginia'—she hated it when people got her name wrong.

"Yes, you're right."

"Yes, you're right."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

The four students went up to their respective dormitories, to get some much-needed sleep.

Next Chapter
Riddle Me This

"A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma"

— Churchill

Revised Version

Coming Soon