Disclaimer: As I said, please see Chapter Zero, if you need to be refreshed on this. It's really very simple.
Author's Notes: Okay, that last chapter had a truly evil cliffhanger; for that, I apologize. (For your reviews, I thank you. Very muchly!) Lots of thanks to my friend Hanana, for her help with the German lines.
Please don't forget to review.
o.o.o.o
31 October, 1981
10:37 PM
Somewhat reluctantly, Sirius led Albus Dumbledore into the Potters' nursery, and pointed at the body on the floor. He heard the Headmaster's sharp intake of breath, and winced again sympathetically.
"This is precisely as you found it?" he demanded urgently, bending over the distorted corpse of the Dark Lord.
"Yes, exactly," the younger Sirius assured him, from his seat on the floor by the door. His back was propped against the wall, and he still looked faintly ill. "We didn't touch or move anything."
"Not even Harry," the other Sirius added quickly. He was staring at his godson.
Harry was sitting complacently in his crib and grinning at the world, despite the fact that most of his face was covered in blood from the cut running diagonally across his face. Thankfully, miraculously, it had already stopped bleeding by the time they'd arrived, but it still looked awful.
"Mm," Dumbledore nodded his approval of this. His concentration was clearly on something else, however. "The soul that was in this body did not actually perish. Hm. It's as I feared, then. Voldemort isn't really dead."
"What?" the man sitting on the floor asked faintly.
"Oh, he's harmless enough at the moment, don't worry; he has no body now," remarked Dumbledore, waving his wand over the body and vanishing it somewhere else for further study later on. "But it appears he took certain precautions against death which could prove rather difficult for us."
Even the older Sirius was starting to look a bit like he really didn't feel well. Neither said anything, though, preferring to let Dumbledore continue to think out loud.
"Still, we've more pressing things with which to concern ourselves." With that, Dumbledore appeared to dismiss the Dark Lord from his mind, and made his way to the crib.
He reached in and lifted Harry carefully over the railing. For a second, as he stared at the toddler, he seemed to freeze, and a strange look came over his face.
"What is it?" inquired Sirius the older, with a worried frown.
"... This is not the Harry Potter that Lily and James took with them into hiding a week ago," pronounced Dumbledore gravely.
Both sets of Sirius's eyes narrowed. The younger one asked cautiously, "What do you mean, it's not Harry? What are you talking about?"
Dumbledore shook his head gently. "Oh, it is Harry, certainly. But there's something different about him."
"You mean, besides the gigantic gash on his face that we weren't allowed to do anything about?" snorted the younger Sirius.
"Yes, besides that." Dumbledore looked up at them, cradling Harry in his arms. There was a strange gleam in the blue eyes. "Do you remember the diagnostic I performed on Harry, when Lily and James came to my office the day before the Fidelus was cast?"
Both Blacks nodded. "The spell to show you his magic," said the older one, frowning slightly as he tried to figure out where the Headmaster was going with this.
"I trust that you both remember the results of that test?" prompted Dumbledore, as he moved out of the nursery. Following him, Sirius and his other self nodded again.
When they reached the Potters' living room, Dumbledore set Harry on the floor, smack in the center of the room. Oddly, Harry sat still, moving only to stare up at the adults gathered around him. Dumbledore motioned Sirius away, and all three men moved back.
"Look at this," instructed Dumbledore, drawing his wand.
As Sirius and Sirius watched, Dumbledore repeated the spell that they'd seen him use a little more than a week ago.
When Dumbledore had first done it, a small ball of bright white light had appeared over Harry's head, hovered for a moment, and then exploded around them in a rush of color. There had been sound, as well, that had reminded them oddly of phoenix song. Dumbledore insisted this all meant that his magic was young, still pure and growing, but already strong. Unusually strong, he'd said.
Now, however...
The ball of light was still there, perhaps a little brighter and a little less white, and it behaved exactly as it had before. But in addition, a glow appeared around Harry's body, mostly white but slightly gold around the edges. It started faint, but in less than a second, it had brightened to near-blinding radiance. When the original ball of light erupted, so did the glow.
The colors were so intense, so bright, that they all had to look away. Sound was there, as well, much louder than before, and along with the phoenix song there was a myriad of voices and noises that flashed by too quickly for them to grasp.
Then the light and the sound faded, and all that was left was Harry, sitting on the rug.
"Heh heh Paaafoo!" laughed Harry.
"Merlin," younger Sirius exclaimed, his knees feeling weak again. "What... what was that?"
"Harry's magic," answered Dumbledore calmly, though he too looked a little shaken.
"What happened to it?" asked the other Sirius. He hurried over and scooped up the laughing baby as he spoke, but almost dropped him again immediately. "Holy shit, he's on fire."
"He is not," said Dumbledore, laughing unexpectedly. "Though I can understand it if he feels as if he ought to be. It's just an aftereffect of the spell being used on someone with so much magic."
"What happened to him?" the Sirii snapped in unison.
"His magic is as it was before, but for some reason... it seems to have doubled, and the new half matured to what it would be -- will be -- in his prime," Dumbledore explained, still remarkably cheerful. "And if I would have to guess why, I would probably say it has something to do with that bit of time travel of yours, Mr Black."
The Sirii exchanged a worried glance, both of them imagining Lily's probable reaction to learning that they'd screwed up her son's magic. "This isn't going to hurt him, is it?" asked the first Sirius hesitantly.
"Heavens, no." Dumbledore laughed again. "It will probably only help him, I imagine."
Both Sirii sighed in relief. "Good."
"You'd better take him back to Hogwarts, though," continued Dumbledore, nodding toward the toddler. "So that his parents can say goodbye to him."
Sirius and Sirius paled. "Say goodbye to him!"
°
31 October, 1981
11:11 PM
"Say goodbye to him?" shrieked Lily, clutching her son to her chest and staring at the Headmaster disbelievingly. "Are you out of your mind?"
"Lily, please understand," implored Dumbledore, apparently still calm. "As soon as word gets out that Voldemort has been defeated, the two of you are going to become targets. The safest place for Harry is somewhere they won't be looking for him -- Sirius can take him and hide on the continent. Remus Lupin can even accompany them, if you'd like."
"Why can't we take him?" James demanded harshly. He was glaring at Dumbledore furiously, his hands on his wife's shoulders. "I still don't understand that part."
"An adult witch and wizard -- particularly ones of your standing -- would be much more difficult to conceal for any length of time than a little child of no particular note," murmured Dumbledore soothingly.
At this, Lily looked even more indignant. "'No particular note'? He just killed the Dark Lord and saved the entire wizarding world!"
"What about Sirius and Remus?" snapped James, over his wife's exclamation. "They're both adult wizards. How come you say they can hide with him, and we can't?"
The Potters were not at all reassured when they saw Dumbledore's slight smile. "No one is going to be looking for them."
Lily and James stared at each other, thinking. "How long will they have to stay in hiding?" she inquired, very slowly.
"There's no way to know for sure," answered Dumbledore with a slight shrug. "A few years perhaps."
A few years! Lily's heart skipped a beat. She looked down, staring fixedly at her baby. Harry's face had been cleaned of blood, but the lightning bolt shaped cut hadn't been healed -- Pomfrey had insisted that it wasn't the kind that could be fixed with magic. She said it would heal on its own, within a couple of days, and would probably only leave him with a small scar on his forehead.
Harry was only one year old. In a few years, he'd have grown up so much... Could she give up seeing all of that?
She glanced at her husband. The angry set of his face and the resigned look in his eye told her that she'd have to. She sighed, and hugged her son.
"Well," muttered James, though he looked as if he felt the same way Lily did, "Well, I suppose having him far away is better than having him in danger."
Dumbledore beamed at them. "It's settled, then."
°
1 November, 1981
1:27 AM
Standing outside the Potters' currently empty house, Sirius spun the tiny hourglass five, six, seven times. Exactly as he'd been told to do...
The world blurred around him...
Strange, he'd used a time-turner before, and it hadn't felt like this.
...and as he rushed back in time he felt his injuries overtake him...
Oh, he realized, smiling broadly, it felt different because it was working, his plan was actually working.
... and he unwillingly lost consciousness.
°
28 August, 1991
9:30 AM
"Harry?" Sirius yelled up the stairs. There was a piece of parchment clutched tightly in his left hand.
Remus, in his study, stuck his head through the door into the hall and smiled slightly. "Harry's in the garden," he said brightly, then caught sight of what Sirius was holding. His expression darkened. "Is that what I think it is?"
Sirius nodded grimly. "Yes. Start packing."
He turned and walked through the kitchen to the back door. Outside in the sunny garden, sitting in a pool of shade underneath a large tree, was a skinny black-haired boy, scribbling something in an enourmous book with a ballpoint pen. From where Sirius was, couldn't even see the scar on his forehead.
"Harry!" The little boy looked up. Speaking in German, Sirius called out, "Komm schnell drinnen. Wir müssen gehen."
The expression on the boy's face was instantly guarded, as it was every time Sirius told him that they were leaving. He too spoke in German, asking, "Gehen? Wohin dann?"
"Nach Hause, natürlich," declared Sirius, forcing a grin.
Harry was suddenly on his feet, the book forgotten. His emerald green eyes were shining hopefully. "... Nach England?"
"Ja, nach England," Sirius agreed, and he couldn't help but laugh at the child's enthusiasm.
"Finally!" cried Harry, darting past Sirius into the house. He'd slipped and spoken in English, but Sirius didn't have the heart to reprimand him.
Harry could be heard thundering up the stairs, and Sirius assumed he was heading to his room to begin packing his things. He sighed, and in the other room, Remus did the same thing.
"Yes, Harry, finally."
o.o.o.o
Komm schnell drinnen. Wir müssen gehen. "Harry! Come inside, quickly. We have to go."
Gehen? Wohin dann? "Go? Go where?"
Nach Hause, natürlich. "Home, silly."
... Nach England? "... To England?"
Ja, nach England. "Yes, to England."