Potter47
~ Part Two ~
Closer to Where I Started
"Everything I look on seemeth green."
~ Shakespeare
~ Chapter Nine ~
Family Reunion
"What?" asked James. "My parents are dead. Voldemort killed them."
Ginny looked at James as though he were stupid. "Do you honestly think we're your parents now? Do we even look older than you? No."
"What d'you mean?" he asked. "What, did you travel through time or something?"
"Exactly."
Harry saw a flaw in Ginny's plan. A rather large flaw that could give it all away.
"These are most definitely not your parents, James."
And it seemed that Lily saw it too.
"What?" asked James. "They look just like them. How would you know?"
Lily took a step to stand next to Harry. "What colour were your father's eyes, James?" she asked, looking Harry in the face.
"Hazel. Like mine," James answered at once.
Damn.
"Do these look hazel too you?" she asked gesturing at Harry's eyes.
James peered at the shorter boys face, and, seeing the emerald, his head snapped back to his girlfriend. He looked back and forth between the two. "They're green. Just like yours."
"As green as a fresh pickled toad," she agreed.
Ginny's head snapped up at once.
Losing his head, Harry tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.
"Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles. "Here is your singing valentine:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord!
"I'll ask once more," said Lily, bringing both Harry and Ginny back to reality, "Who are you?"
"Er..." It seemed this was the only word in Harry's vocabulary.
"Who do you think we are?" asked Ginny, trying, unsuccessfully, to seem taller. If not for the height difference, Lily and herself could have been twins.
"I think-" James started.
"I," said Sirius, bringing himself into the conversation, "think that this is officially the oddest thing that has happened all year."
They all but ignored him.
"-that you two were sent by Voldemort to try to infiltrate Hogwarts," James finished suspiciously.
Ginny couldn't help but snort, and Lily looked at her boyfriend pityingly. "If we were Death Eaters," said Ginny, "don't you think we'd be a bit...taller?" she asked.
"Well, maybe...but-"
"I don't know who you are," said Lily. "I have no idea. That would be why I keep asking you."
"Would you believe... I'm your third cousin on your father's side and through me you're distantly related to him which is why I look like both of you?" asked Harry quickly. It was the worst lie he had ever attempted.
"No," said Lily, "I wouldn't."
"I thought not," he muttered dejectedly.
"What's that on your forehead?" asked Lupin, pointing.
"Er..."
"A scar," said Ginny matter-of-factly. Harry hoped she had thought of some brilliant plan to get them out of this. At least he could be sure that his parents would not kidnap her and take her into the Chamber of Secrets.
"I know it's a scar. Why's it shaped like that?"
"Er...my parents, they died in a car crash, I survived but I got that scar," Harry told the lie that the Dursley's had forced him to believe for ten years, hoping that it was remotely believable.
"Right..."
Apparently not.
"If you're not up to no good," said James, "why won't you just tell us your names?"
"Er..." said Harry once again. "I'm Larry Kotter."
No, that was the worst lie he'd ever attempted.
His mother looked at him oddly. "Larry Kotter?" she said. "What a coincidence! His name," she said, pointing at James, "is James Harry Potter."
Hmm...I never knew that...
"Fine," said Ginny. "My name's Ginny Weasley."
"Weasley?" asked Lily. "As in, Billy Weasley? Are you his sister?"
Ginny looked taken aback. "Yes, actually," she said. "I always called him Bill though. You know him?"
"Yeah. Second year, right? He said he liked my hair." Ginny snorted.
"Well he would, wouldn't he? It's just like ours," Ginny said, fingering her own. Harry suddenly had the strong urge to finger it too...
"And you are?" asked Lily, turning to Harry.
"Er, first I'd like to say, we weren't lying when we said we had gone through time," said Ginny hurriedly. "Um, do you really need to know his name?" she whined.
"Yes."
Harry swallowed, and tore his gaze from the back of Ginny's head. "Harry," he said. "Harry Potter."
Lily blinked. James blinked. They looked at each other, and, blinked once again.
"Potter?" asked James, his eyes wide.
"Yeah."
Lily seemed to be struggling to form a word. She mouthed wordlessly for a few moments, then murmured, "Oh," and fainted dead away.
* * *
Something was wrong.
Ron knew that something was wrong.
He had felt it as soon as he entered the Great Hall that morning. Something had to be wrong.
And he knew it had to do with Luna.
Ron was confused. That was the only thing he was sure of.
Until that night, in the Ministry, everything had been so simple.
Now, everything was decidedly complicated. He felt odd. He recognised the oddness. He had felt it for years. So, he guessed it was wrong to call it oddness, as it was the norm.
He had felt this way every time he saw Hermione for years. Since third year, in fact. Every single time. It was an odd feeling, even though he was used to it. But recently, it had...stopped. He hadn't felt it when he looked at Hermione. He hadn't felt it at all.
And then he saw Luna.
He felt it again.
It was confusing...all this it business. Especially now. It seemed a stronger feeling now than it had ever been before. As though it were something different. Something deeper.
Nonsense. Luna was his friend, wasn't she? She always had been. For as long as he could remember. They hadn't been all that close over the past few years, but he had always thought of her as a friend. Nothing more.
Just like it was with Hermione...
Yes, Ron was confused. Or, as Luna would put it, Ron was confuzzled. Odd word. He wasn't even sure it was a word.
But he liked it.
He liked her. A great deal. He might even go as far as to say he fancied her. That's what he had thought of his feelings for Hermione. Until it all changed.
And Luna was not in the Great Hall. Hermione had said she was probably sick, and Ron had never before wanted to think Hermione was right more than he had at that moment.
But he had the oddest feeling that she wasn't sick. That something was seriously wrong.
And here he was, sitting in the library of all places, looking for...something.
"Stupefy!"
He never found it.
"Your my...our...son?"
"Yeah," said Harry, "I'm your son." Words he never thought he'd be saying.
"But...why...why'd you come back here? Now?" James stuttered.
"Well, I didn't really mean to come back. It was an accident." He had definitely not meant to tell his parents who he was. Not in a thousand years.
"Er...Harry?" said Ginny. "You think maybe you should help your mum off the floor?"
"Oh!" Harry and James both jumped to help Lily off the library floor. Her eyes blinked open.
"Bloody hell," she said, looking from James to Harry. As they were both bent over, helping her up, they were at about the same level. The only differences being the eyes and the scar.
"You look just like him."
Moony, Wormtail, and Padfoot still just looked, mystified, at the scene unfolding in front of them.
"Unbelievable," said Moony. "A family reunion, yet two of the three members did not even know about the family."
"Family..." said Lily. "Do you have any siblings?" she asked curiously.
"No."
"Where do we live?" asked James, as though he had been wondering for ages.
"Er...You know, if I say anything to you, it might-"
"-mess up the fabric of time," finished Ginny.
James looked between the two, and smiled.
"Of course," he said, grinning. "Harry? May I have a word?"
"Alright."
"Wait just one minute, James!" said Lily. "You are not asking about anything that can be bet upon!"
"Ah, don't worry," he said dismissively.
Harry and James walked a few aisles away, so that they could not be overheard. "So, Harry. You play Quidditch?"
"Er...yeah. I'm a seeker."
"A seeker? Damn, I bet Padfoot that any kid of mine will be a chaser..."
"I shouldn't really say anything," said Harry. "I don't want to find my way back and find myself playing chaser."
"Right, right, right," he said. "Just one more thing."
He leaned closer to Harry, and whispered, "Is she your girlfriend? Cause personally I think that she's beautiful. Then again, she does look just like Lily."
"Er...not yet, Dad." Dad. I called him dad.
"Well don't wait too long! She actually seems to like you, and your what? In fifth year? Lily hated me in fifth year. You've got a head start." He thought for a second. "Did you just call me dad? I like the sound of that..."
Father and son both walked back to the others, to hear a soft, "soon, maybe..." from Ginny, before she noticed them. She seemed to be in conversation with Lily.
"Well," Harry's mother said, "it's about time. Ginny here told me that you'd be leaving soon, so we decided that the best thing to do would be a memory charm for each of us."
"What? I want to remember that I have a son..."
"Well, you might not if you don't agree," she said dangerously.
"Fine, fine," he agreed hurriedly.
So, they proceeded to Obliviate the four marauders and Lily. As Harry was doing Wormtail's charm, he realised that the rat might even now be working for Voldemort. He might already be feeding secrets to the Dark Lord. Harry felt a surge of Hatred toward the small man. Yes, Hatred with a capital 'H'.
Just as he was about to do the charm, he heard a so-far-un-Obliviated James hiss in his ear, "Remember, don't wait too long."
And thoughts of Ginny replaced thoughts of Hatred as he performed the charm. He most definitely wouldn't wait long. The first thing he planned to do once he returned, was to sneak into the Ravenclaw dormitories, and Murder Michael Corner.
Yes, that's Murder with a capital 'M'.
Hermione was busy. She had taken every single book from the library that even so much as mentioned time-travel, eager to find out everything there was to know. Of course, she had already read the majority of them in her third year, when she got her time-turner, but she felt the need to go through them again.
But, of course, there were quite a lot of books that had to do with time travel in the library. She could hardly even see over the stack she held in her hands. It was ten books tall, with the topmost ones swaying precariously as she trudged along the hallways to Gryffindor Tower.
There was one new title that she wanted to start first. It was called 'Time Travel for Dummies,' and seemed to have been published rather recently. She had never heard of it before.
It was written by G.Y. Granger, which she thought oddly coincidental. But the oddest thing about it was easily the fact that it just fell atop her pile of books. It seemed to come from nowhere, but she was sure it had just been on the top shelf.
So, after what seemed to be hours, she eventually reached the portrait hole.
"Is that you back there Miss Granger? My, that's quite a lot of books," the Fat Lady commented as Hermione came closer.
Hermione merely answered with the password. "Fata viam invenient."
"I'm sure they will."
Hermione climbed through the portrait hole, amazed that the pile survived. It seemed to defy logic. She shook her head. Of course it defied logic. It was magic!
She dumped the pile on a nearby table, and picked "Time Travel for Dummies" up for the first time. It felt warm in her hand, as her wand had when it picked her in Ollivander's.
She settled down in an armchair, opening the book.
As she opened the front cover, the warmness seemed to increase. She just knew that this would be an interesting read.
But as she turned to the title page, she knew something quite different.
It read:
A Definitive Guide
to the
Past, Present, and Future
Got You Granger
She knew that she had been foolish. She knew that this was a trick. She knew that she felt a sickening hook behind her navel. She did not, however, know where she was going.
"Master," said Wormtail, walking cautiously back into the room. "Master, they have the Mudblood and Weasley. Granger's been portkeyed to the dungeon already, and you know Lovegood's already here."
The Dark Lord turned around, and Wormtail knew that the precious moments of stutter-free speech had ended.
"Only L-Longbottom is left. And Bellatrix is sure that h-he will be of no tr-trouble."
"Good, Wormtail. That's good. It makes me happy to have servants I can count on. Unlike some..."
Wormtail shivered. "There...there is something else I sh-should mention," said the servant.
"Yes?" the Dark Lord said, the 's' sound enunciated into a hiss.
"Potter and the Weasley girl. Th-they're in nineteen seventy-eight."
His master's slit-like eyes narrowed even further. "How do you know?"
"I was there, Master. Potter did a Memory Charm on me and B-Black and Lupin, and his p-parents." Wormtail shook once again. "His m-mind must have wandered, as I still remember it clearly. I d-did not until just a m-moment ago, so I assume that's where th-they are now. So to speak."
"Good, Wormtail," said the Dark Lord.
"It's only a m-matter of time..." said Wormtail.
"Of course it is, Wormtail. This whole little escapade has been a matter of time."
The Dark Lord instantly regretted saying it, as it seemed the sort of thing that Dumbledore would say. Urgh.
Locked in the Dungeon
"Show it a fair pair of heels and run for it."
~ Shakespeare
~ Coming Soon ~
