History Repeated

So, I don't own Harry Potter...Damn.

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8 August 2015

James felt as though his feet were going to run off without him if he had to wait a moment longer for his Aunt Hermione to come and pick him up. He bounced his leg up and down as he sat in the kitchen, his new pet was fast asleep in his cage and his rucksack was packed with his clothes and shower things as he was going to spend the night at his grandparents home and attend his cousin's birthday party the next day.

"Nervous?" James heard his Uncle Dudley ask. He looked at his uncle, who was sitting across from him, the morning paper in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. His Aunt Helen was out with Callum and Daisy, picking up groceries for the week. James normally went with them, but not today since he was going off to meet his mother's family.

"A bit," James admitted. "But I'm excited too. I wonder what they're like."

"They're good people," Dudley said, though James could hear the hesitation in his uncle's voice. "They treated your dad well, much better than my parents had."

"Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon didn't like Dad, did they?" James asked, though he already knew the answer. His uncle's parents had made their opinions about him very clear, and James knew they likely would never change them. He could only imagine what his father had gone through under the Dursley's roof.

"Not in the slightest," Uncle Dudley confirmed as he looked down at his paper, though James could tell the man wasn't reading it. "I didn't realize how cruel they were to your father until many years after he came to live with us."

James stared at his uncle, noticing that he looked uncomfortable with their conversation. He wondered if his guardian had a lot more to say but didn't know how to tell him about it. He wanted to ask him, but he didn't want to upset his uncle. He could always tell the man had a lot of things he left unsaid, and it drove James mad sometimes but he never demanded to know what his uncle knew. He always figured his Uncle Dudley would come out and tell him when the time was right, and James would wait, granted impatiently, for him to say what he wanted to.

A small smile crossed James' uncle's face as the man looked at him. "Your dad," Uncle Dudley said. "He was a good man. We talked quite a bit before he died through letters, and he'd come over a few times every so often and we'd talk. Nothing special, unless we had good news to say."

"Do you still have his letters?" James asked, unable to keep the question to himself. This was the first time he had ever heard his uncle mention letters from his dad, and he felt his smile widen as Uncle Dudley nodded.

"Some," the man revealed. "Not all of them, sadly. I've got a box in the attic filled with them." James watched as his uncle stared at him for a moment, not saying anything until he finally did. "I'll look for them tonight and give them to you tonight. I'd get them now, but your aunt will be here soon."

James nodded. He wanted to look at the letters now but he knew his uncle was right, his aunt would be arriving soon and James imagined he'd want to spend hours looking at the letters.

"Did your aunt mention anything about your family yesterday?" Uncle Dudley asked.

"Yeah," James answered. "I've got..." he began to count his fingers in his attempt to remember how many cousins he had. "Nine cousins, and four uncles, my Mum's brothers. They all have wives, Aunt Hermione's married to my Uncle Ron." James momentarily frowned. "My aunt said a few of my uncles died."

"Really?" Uncle Dudley asked, sounding surprised. "I never knew that."

"You didn't?"

"No," the man said as he sighed, his eyes becoming a bit warier, to James' confusion. "What about your grandparents?"

"They're-" James was interrupted by the knocking on the front door.

"Looks like your aunt's here, Jimmy," Uncle Dudley said as he stood, his smile reforming on his face as he set his paper and coffee cup on the table. "Are you ready?"

James nodded as he stood. "I am," He said, grabbing his rucksack and slugging it over his back before he picked up his nameless pet's cage with his right hand. The cat-like creature jumped in his sleep, momentarily opening his red eyes before closing them again and continuing with his slumber. He smiled at his pet before looking up and seeing his uncle was no longer across from him.

Turning around as he heard the front door open, James heard his uncle give his greetings to Aunt Hermione. As he walked out of the kitchen with his things, he saw his aunt entering the front room, with a red-haired man trailing behind her.

Unlike his aunt, the man stood out to James. He looked familiar, though the man was taller in James' mind, and he himself was smaller than he was now. Laughter drowned his eardrums, but no one around him made any sound.

"Dursley," James heard the red-haired man say to Uncle Dudley as he entered the house. When the man's blue eyes wandered towards James, he felt as though his heart was going to stop beating. The man must have felt the same because his skin began to pale, and oddly enough, his ears became red.

"Jimmy," James heard the man whisper as he walked towards him. James didn't have any time to respond or react before the man pulled him into a tight hug, his chest pounding heavily against James' ears as the man sobbed. James closed his eyes as he hugged the man, remembering that he knew who he was but not his name.

When he opened his eyes, James looked up and saw the man looking down at him, a smile planted on his freckled face. Despite the tears in his eyes, the man looked as though he was experiencing the best moment of his life.

"You've grown, Jimmy," the man said as he let go of James. "Blimey, just looking at you, you remind me of Harry."

"I do?" James asked, surprised. He only had the photo of him with his parents to go off of, but he never compared himself to his father when it came to his appearance. He always had trouble finding what he got from either of his parents, with the exception of his eye color, those laid alone with his mother. He didn't have his parents' hair color though.

The man nodded, his grin even wider than it was before. "Same messy hair, though, yours is lighter than Harry's was. You're a bit taller than he was at your age, now that I think about it, but he's in you. There's no mistaking that." The man looked back at Aunt Hermione and said, "Merlin, 'Mione, my Mum's going to lose it again when she sees him."

"You're my Uncle Ron, aren't you?" James asked, realization suddenly dawning on him. It made sense that his aunt would bring her husband, who was also one of his mother's many brothers, along with her to pick him.

As the red-haired man looked back at James, he nodded. "I am, James," the man, Uncle Ron, said as his smile slowly disappeared, and James could only imagine why that was happening.

"Sorry," James said as he looked down at his shoes.

"No, Jimmy," Uncle Ron was quick to say, causing James to look back up at the man. "You don't need to say you're sorry. You've got nothing to be sorry about."

"Really?" James asked, a small smiling forming on his lips.

"Really," Uncle Ron said before his eyes drifted down to the cage still somehow in James' right hand. "Bloody Hell, is that a Kneazle?"

"Professor Longbottom got him for me as an early birthday present," James told his uncle, smirking when the man frowned.

"Why does that not surprise me?" the redheaded man questioned before he began to mutter to himself. "First my wife, now my nephew. Kneazles, bloody devils they are."

James snickered, which made Uncle Ron sigh in mock defeat as his frown turned into a smile.

"What's his name?" Uncle Ron asked.

"I don't know yet," James admitted. "I haven't picked one out yet."

"One that his Aunt Helen will allow," Uncle Dudley corrected as he pointedly looked at James, who grinned at the man.

"Aunt Helen needs to loosen up on the name picking," James said.

"You heard what she said, Jimmy," Uncle Dudley said as Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione looked at him. "No inappropriate names or else she'd give your new pet off to scientists."

"She doesn't know any scientists."

"Don't give her any reason to meet any, then."

"Fine," James said as he rolled his eyes half-heartedly.

James watched as Uncle Dudley looked at Aunt Hermione and said, "If he chooses a name for his new pet, please make sure it's something appropriate. The last time he named a pet of his, it caused some problems between my parents and my wife and me."

"Really?" Aunt Hermione asked and Uncle Dudley nodded.

"I named my pet toad after my Uncle Vernon," James revealed. "It looked like him."

"It was a mean thing to do, James," Uncle Dudley said as he sighed.

"Then why'd you laugh?"

"Because of the way you said it was...hilarious."

James smirked. "Remember when Vernon the toad died?"

"Oh God, how could I forget?" Uncle Dudley said as he shook his head. He glanced at Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione, who both looked awkward and confused, but James didn't know why. Uncle Dudley sighed as he continued speaking. "Your nephew there," He nodded in James' direction. "Held a funeral in the garden with his cousins and my Aunt Marge. Little troublemaker eulogized his bloody toad as though it were my father. My aunt only caught on after she realized my father has never hopped a day in his life."

"I don't know how she didn't realize it sooner," James said nonchalantly as he shrugged. He tactlessly continued with, "You'd think she would of after I mentioned him having tadpoles swimming in Aunt Petunia's garden pond. I wonder if Aunt Petunia ever discovered them."

Ron snorted as he attempted to stifle his laughter by pressing his hands up against his tremoring lips.

"Ronald!" Hermione hissed under her breath as she glared at her husband.

James tilted his head in confusion as Uncle Dudley covered his face with his hands.

"Why are we getting all these photos together?" Louis heard his cousin, Molly, complain. His grandmother, sisters, and cousins were gathered in the main room of the Burrow, going through old boxes of photographs and newspaper clippings. Louis's parents, grandfather, and aunts, and uncles were outside, preparing the garden for a large family dinner seeing as there wouldn't be enough room for everyone at the kitchen table.

"For your cousin, James, Molly," Gran said as she stacked a pile of pictures on the coffee table next to her. She was sitting next to Victoire on the settee. "Your Aunt Hermione mentioned James only has one photo of his parents, the poor boy. He should have more than just one, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Molly said, her face turning as red as her hair. "I still don't know why we have to help. I've got a Potions essay to still complete."

"You should have had that already done, Molls," Molly's sister, Lucy, commented from the corner of the room where she was hiding, a particularly large box blocking a majority of her body. "You know how Dad gets when we don't have our work done before August."

Molly rolled her eyes. "It's just one Potions essay, it's nothing to balk at."

"Than you won't have any issues helping us here," Louis said as he pushed his blond bangs away from his eyes.

"That's not the-"

"He's right," Louis' older, but not eldest, sister Dominique said. "So, shut up Molly."

"Yeah, shut up Molly!" Hugo said, his curly brown hair bouncing as he jumped up and down. Next to him sitting on the ground surrounded by random photos and Chocolate Frog cards, Rose was hiding her face in her hands, the tips of her ears red.

"Enough!" Gran exclaimed, causing the Weasley grandchildren to stop what they were doing and look at her. "Your cousin will be here soon, and the last thing he needs to see is his family acting like they don't care he's here." Louis watched as his grandmother glared at Molly as she continued speaking. "And you, I'm shocked by your behavior, Molly. You need to have some respect for your Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry. They died protecting their son," Louis grimaced as he watched tears form in his grandmother's eyes. "Merlin knows what that little boy remembers. Have some empathy for him, he's your cousin." Her tearful eyes glanced around the room, Louis shivered when her eyes looked at him. "And try not to exclude him. He won't know any of you, and I can only imagine how he's feeling about all this. He's lived with muggles for the past ten years, he won't know anything about our world. He won't know anything about us."

Louis looked down at his pile of photographs when his grandmother leaned back into her seat.

An awkward silence filled the room as the Weasley grandchildren continued going through the boxes. As Louis sifted through his box, he stopped when he examined one photo he had never seen before.

It was a photo of three teenagers. Louis instantly recognized his Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, but younger. The boy in the middle, he knew only from photos and stories. His Uncle Harry, with his lightning-bolt scar, had his arms wrapped around Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron's shoulders. All three were smiling, with his aunt glancing at Uncle Ron and Uncle Harry laughing into the camera. Louis couldn't recognize the background where his uncles and aunt were at, but judging by their Gryffindor cloaks above their regular clothing, and the dingy-looking setting Uncle George once described in great detail, his uncles and aunt were inside the Hog's Head of Hogsmeade.

"Gran?" Louis said, looking up at his grandmother, who glanced at him. Her brown eyes weren't watery anymore, but the surrounding area red from rubbing at them. "What about this one?" he asked as he stood up from his spot on the ground and walked towards his grandmother, handing her the photograph and watching as a barely visible smile crossed her wrinkled face.

"This is lovely, dear," Gran said as she stared at the photo. "Merlin, they were so young."

What seemed like hours passed before Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione returned with James. Louis didn't see them arriving, since he was inside the Burrow helping his grandmother place the last photograph inside the photo album for his cousin, he didn't see them apparate in the garden of his grandparents home. He heard the commotion, though, and he glanced at his grandmother, who was no longer looking down at the album but up at the door that led into the garden.

Louis watched as his grandmother got up from the settee and walk to the garden door. He only followed after closing the photo album. When he got outside, his grandmother was hugging a tallish boy with messy brown hair. He could see a splatter of freckles around the boy's nose. The boy's eyes were closed and his chin was resting on Gran's shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. When the boy's eyes opened, Louis saw a pair of bright brown iris' that he had previously only seen on his grandmother, and Uncles Percy and George. At least, in person, Louis silently corrected himself. He had seen photos of his Aunt Ginny and Uncle Fred, but he didn't have any memories of them.

"He doesn't have a scar like his dad did," Louis heard. Turning his head, he saw his cousin Freddie standing next to the long arrangement of tables that were set up for dinner.

"That's a good thing, right?" Louis asked.

"Yeah," Freddie said as he started to walk closer to Louis. "It's strange seeing him after so long."

"You remember him?" Louis asked, surprised.

Freddie nodded as he raised his hand and scratched the side of his neck as though he had an unrelenting rash there. "A bit," He admitted. "I remember being in an old, narrow house, playing with a boy up until now I've only seen in pictures. I wonder if he remembers it too."

Louis shrugged. "I don't know," He said. "You could ask him whenever Gran decides to let go of him."

A soft chuckle escaped past Freddie's smirking lips. "Never, then," He joked. He nodded in the direction of where most of their family was at, watching Gran cry as she hugged her long lost grandson. "I wonder if he'll like Quidditch."

"Why?" Louis asked, perplexed. "Shouldn't he?"

Freddie glanced at Louis, his dark eyes sparkling as he shook his head. "He's been living with muggles for years, Lu, he won't know what Quidditch is let alone know how to play it. At least," He grabbed Louis around his shoulders and pulled him into a one-sided hug. "Until we show him how to play. What do you say? Yay or nay?"

Rolling his dark blue eyes, Louis smirked and said, "Yay, I guess."

Freddie grinned widely as he let go of Louis and pushed him forward. "Good," The older Weasley said. "Now go and rescue him from our Gran. She's about to smother him if she doesn't let him go anytime soon."

"What?" Louis demanded, wide-eyed. "Fred, I-"

But Freddie was already walking away, laughing quietly as he waved Louis off.

Louis groaned before he felt something hit his cheek. Frowning, he dragged his fingers along his cheek and felt something crawl onto his pointer finger. As he moved his hand away from his face, he saw a strange-looking ladybug on his pointer finger. It stayed on his finger for a moment before it flew off.

Thinking nothing about the bug as soon as it left his hand, Louis shook his head and walked towards his family as he braced for what might be his worst offense yet; taking his long lost cousin away from their over-affectionate grandmother. He shuttered to think of the consequences he was about to face, but continued on as he felt Freddie's laughing pound into his eardrums, and oddly enough, the ladybug's purple eyes on him. He didn't even think to question if ladybugs had purple eyes or not.

Despite Ron's claims that James looked more like Harry than Ginny, George had to disagree as he sat next to his nephew in his old bedroom, on his old bed. The room smelt nothing like it had when Geroge lived here with Fred, to his sadness. His mother had finally gotten the smells caused by him and Fred's explosions out, he imagined at the time to her great pleasure. Now was more debatable, considering Fred was dead and George seldom came into this room, least of all to do experiments for his joke shop.

Looking across from him was Fred's old bed, currently occupied by a sleeping Hugo as the boy had crashed some hours ago after running himself tired with all the excitement going around.

"Did you have fun today?" George found himself asking his little sister's son, who stared up at him with her eyes all wide and bright. For a moment, he thought he was looking at Fred, though George knew that was impossible. Fred was dead and James wasn't a redhead.

James nodded, Harry's haunting smile crossing the boy's lips. "Yeah," He said. "Freddie and Dominique are funny."

George chuckled, unable to disagree with his nephew's statement. "They are," He agreed as he nodded his head, the sensation feeling weird as his earless ear remained a ghost as a strand of his greying red hair brushed past it. Merlin, he thought to himself, he needed to get his haircut soon. He knew Angelina wouldn't like it, she never did fancy long hair on him. Or on Fred, a more depressing thought raked through his brain. She had been with Fred first, not him. She married him, though, and not Fred, but only because he was dead and George wasn't.

Masking his sigh behind a yawn, George grinned at James and said, "Your mum used to come in here when we were little." He glanced at Hugo, who remained fast asleep as he cuddled Fred's old but clean quilt in his little arms. "She would get nightmares, and would always come in here because your Uncle Fred and me, we were brilliant at making her happy again."

"She'd have nightmares?" James asked, his voice quiet and surprised-sounding.

"She would," George said as a more genuine yawn escaped past his lips. "Always of silly, scary little things, poltergeists, werewolves, our Aunt Muriel." He snorted as he thought of his horrid great-aunt, and how she had left nothing in her will to him, not that he had any problems with that. Terrorizing her at his wedding was enough to settle him for life with that old hag. "She'd always climb into bed with me or Fred and force a story out of us, but we were always happy to give them to her."

"I get nightmares sometimes," James told George as he looked down at his feet, which were partially dangling off the side of George's old bed.

"You do?"

"Yeah, but I never remember them." The tone in his nephew's voice made George believe that the boy was lying, but he held this thought back as he pulled James into a one-armed hug.

"Then you've got nightmares that are afraid of you."

"That doesn't make any sense," James said as he looked away from his feet and back up at George, who grinned.

"Course it does," George jovially protested. "Nightmares are brought on by emotions, you know." At least, he thought they were. "Whenever you have a nightmare, it stays or it runs depending on if you're afraid of them or not. You're afraid of your nightmares, they stay. If you're not, then they run because they're afraid of you not being scared." He, without thinking much about it, ruffled his nephew's already messy hair before letting go of the boy. "If you have a nightmare, don't let it scare you. If it scares you, then you can't let it go. Do you understand?"

"I guess."

George smiled, though he wondered silently if he had said the right thing. "Brilliant," He said as he stood up. Glancing at Hugo, George continued speaking to James. "I better get that one right there down to his parents before they run off without him."

George heard James laugh, which made him sigh in relief as he walked over to Hugo and carefully picked the sleeping boy up. The boy was light in his arms and clearly slept like his father as he didn't stir upon being removed from his late uncle's bed.

As he turned back towards James, George said, "Goodnight, Jimmy. We'll be back tomorrow, so get some sleep."

"Thanks, Uncle George," James said as he yawned. "Night."

As George walked out of the room with Hugo in his arms, he thought about his twin brother and little sister and wondered if they thought he said the right thing to James. He hoped so.

9 August 2015

The morning had been quiet within the walls of the Burrow, something Arthur never envisioned for his home. Raising seven children with vastly different personalities, silent mornings were never on his mind. Even as his children grew up and moved out of their childhood home. Some after they graduated from Hogwarts and moved out for work opportunities or in the case of his younger children, marriage.

He sighed as he looked down at his copy of The Daily Prophet. It was upside down so no one could read the front page, which more often than not delivered rather grim news about deaths or attacks on dear friends. He was tempted to flip it over and take a peek at what horror laid before it but he resisted temptation. His wife's pleads had been very clear after they saw Ginny and Harry's corpses on the front page of The Daily Prophet. Arthur didn't know why Rita Skeeter thought that image would be perfect to display for the world to see, just days after reporting their deaths without warning. He also didn't know how she hadn't lost her job at The Prophet, no one had been pleased with seeing the dead bodies of Harry and Ginny Potter, both famed for their actions throughout the war. Molly had been inconsolable for months following the photograph's graphic release, Arthur had wanted to murder the reporter for what she had done.

Frowning, he flipped the morning edition of The Daily Prophet and nearly dropped it when he read the front page title.

JAMES SIRIUS POTTER FOUND!

by Rita Skeeter

You heard that right, my fellow witches and wizards. James Sirius Potter, son of the late and famed Harry and Ginny Potter, has been discovered alive and in the hands of his mother's family!

For those unfamiliar with the case of James Sirius Potter, ten-years-ago, on the-

Arthur didn't know how to react, nor did he have the time to as his wife's screaming tore his attention away from the blasted paper in his tremoring hands.

"Arthur!" his wife yelled from upstairs. "James's gone!"

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