Some dialogue at the end of this chapter was taken from Book One, HP&tPS (HP&tSS) Chapter 3.

Chapter 6
Explaining Soulmates to the Grangers

Still Tuesday, July 23rd
6 p.m, Potter Manor

John (formerly Harry) and Paulina (formerly Hermione) made love for a little over three hours.

John/Harry was surprised how passionate Paulina/Hermione was in their lovemaking; but John was not at all surprised how many bedroom tricks that Paulina knew, even before John broke her hymen.


At six o'clock, the newlywed couple pulled on their clothes, then John called for Greyclay to lead the couple to places in Potter Manor where John and Paulina could take showers. Despite strong temptation, John and Paulina did not shower together.

For John and Paulina to get dressed in different clothes than what they had arrived in, they wound up wearing Charlus and Dorea Potter's clothes, which the Potter house-elves magically altered to fit the young couple.

In the kitchen, four overjoyed Potter house-elves served dinner to John and to Paulina, then the Potter elves gave the newlyweds a tour of Potter Manor—both the parts that could be lived in and the parts of the manor house that were uninhabitable.

John ordered the house-elves to repair Potter Manor, taking gold from the Potter coinage vault to buy whatever building supplies the house-elves needed.

By the time that John and Paulina had fucked like rabbits, had showered, had eaten dinner, and had been given a tour of Potter Manor, the time was a little after 7:30 p.m.


But before John and Paulina left Potter Manor to meet with young Hermione and young Harry, the newlyweds wrote a note—

.

July 23, 1991

Attn: Improper Use of Magic Office

We are John Potter and Paulina Potter, newlywed eighteen-year-old magical Americans. We each have a British magical cousin who'll be beginning Hogwarts this September.

Our intention now is to each visit our cousin at least one time apiece. This letter is to let you know that if you detect magic happening at Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England, or at Number 24, Churchill Way, Crawley, West Sussex, England, don't get excited until at least September. The source of the magic you'll detect at those two places won't be our young British cousins performing underage magic; but rather, Paulina and I performing magic for our cousins' in-the-know no-magic family.

(signed) John G. Potter

(signed) Paulina P. Moffitt Potter

.

Once the letter was written and was signed, John asked Greyclay to elf-pop over to the Improper Use of Magic Office at the Ministry and to hand the letter to someone working late.


7:43 p.m.
Crawley, West Sussex

Paulina side-along apparated John to the Granger house's back yard. Paulina knocked loudly on the back door.

Nothing happened.

Thirty seconds later, Paulina again loudly knocked on the back door.

Inside the house, John heard young Hermione's excited voice: "They're at the back door!"

Seconds later, the back door was yanked open, and young Hermione was grinning at both John and Paulina.

Grinning Hermione said to Paulina, "Tell me the next digit: three point one four one five nine...?"

Paulina grinned back. Speaking with a Georgia accent, Paulina said, "That's a trick question, sugar. You've recited the beginning digits of pi. If you're using an infinite number of digits, the next digit after nine would be two, followed by six. But if you're rounding off to the nearest millionth, the digit after nine would be three."

Young Hermione murmured "Love your accent," while she pulled the door wide open. The bushy-haired girl then stepped back, as she spoke in French. Paulina replied in French, then led John into the back of the Granger house. From there, Paulina walked confidently into the living room, with John and young Hermione following. John saw that young Hermione was smiling as happily as if Flitwick or McGonagall just had awarded her points.

"You two look different," smirking Dan Granger said to the newlyweds.

John bowed. "I am John George Potter, from the American state of Nebraska; and my wife is Paulina Priscilla Moffitt Potter, from the American state of Georgia."

Emma Granger chuckled. "Paulina? Named after the character in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale?"

Paulina said, "The woman who verbally defended dead Queen Hermione when King Leontes spoke slanders against her? Yes. In the same way, at Hogwarts this Paulina will defend young Hermione Granger from bullying."

Young Hermione looked relieved.


Emma Granger was impatient to see the magic demonstrations.

John and Paulina began with "the first spell your Hermione ever will learn: how to turn your wand into a magical flashlight."

After each eighteen-year-old cast the Lumos Charm and its Nox counter, Harry conjured a big white feather.

Paulina pointed her wand at the feather and said to young Hermione, "Pay close attention to my wand-movement now: a swish and a flick. Wand-movements matter."

Then Paulina incanted, "Wingardium leviosa."

Paulina made the feather float and dance. To John's amusement, Paulina soon made the feather swiftly dive down toward the coffee table, almost crashing into the coffee table, before changing direction to skim the top of the table.

John chuckled. "A Wronski Feint using a feather? Paulina, you might not like Quidditch games, but evidently you've learned at least one thing about them."

Paulina looked at the Grangers and said, "I know that making a feather float doesn't look impressive. But when you're first-years, trying to make a feather float for the first time is hard. Some firsties in our class, it took the entire class-period before they managed the spell."

John said, "In one case, a student kept not-casting the spell because he was mispronouncing the incantation. He kept saying the second word as levioSA instead of the correct leviOsa."

Dan Granger asked, "But now you can levitate objects heavier than a feather?"

"Yes we can," Paulina replied. She gave her wand a swish and a flick as she incanted, "Wingardium leviosa." At the end of the casting, Paulina's wand was pointed at the couch that Dan, Emma, and Hermione were sitting on.

That couch slowly rose until Dan's head almost touched the ceiling. Then the couch slowly dropped till it was back on the floor. All three Grangers now were staring at Paulina with wide eyes.

John smiled at young Hermione and said, "You'll be pleased to know that when our class first was taught this spell, this witch beside me was the first student in the class to make their feather float."

John discovered then that Paulina-hugs were just as delightful as Hermy-hugs.

Dan Granger said, "Would you please show us something dramatic? Something amazing?"

John incanted, "Expecto Patronum!" But what came out of his wand was not a glowing white stag; instead, John's Patronus turned out to be a woolly mammoth.

Paulina cast her own Patronus then. No longer was it an otter; instead, her corporeal Patronus was a largemouth bass that "swam" through the air.

The Grangers acted impressed; the Potters were startled.

Paulina leaned over and murmured in John's ear, "I don't think Dad needs to know that I have a new, X-rated Patronus-memory."


Seventeen minutes later

Young Hermione had, to John's complete lack of surprise, drawn up a list of questions for the time-traveler newlyweds to answer. The newlyweds had just been hit with the genius girl's latest question.

("Question 6: Paulina, how many wizards at Hogwarts were in the same year as you? Of those however-many magical boys, how did you know that Harry was 'the one'?")

Paulina answered, "The number of wizards in our Sorting was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. As for knowing that Harry was 'the one'? Between Halloween 1991, when our friendship started, and June of 1994, I always thought of this man as my very close friend. It wasn't until this man, his godfather, and I were flying on the back of a hippogriff in June 1994 that I realized: I love my best friend."

John said, "Which just shows, once again, that's she's smarter than me. I loved her at the end of our second year, May of '93; but I didn't realize I loved her till I had died in May '98 and I was sitting across the desk from Thanatos. Death himself told me, 'According to your file, she's your soulmate'; then this woman confessed to me she loved me, and I realized that I loved her back."

Paulina gave John a fierce hug, and kissed him.

Emma said, "This word soulmate—I take it that the word doesn't mean merely someone who is quite compatible with you?"

Paulina answered, "That's right. John and I aren't merely 'quite compatible,' we're perfectly suited. Of all the billions of people on the planet, he's perfectly suited to me and I'm perfectly suited to him."

John said, "Let me tell you something else that being soulmates in the magical sense means." Now John was looking meaningfully at young Hermione. "If we'd kissed even once, lips to lips, between the day I met her on the firstie train and the day we died, we would've been magically married—no vicar, registrar, or justice of the peace needed."

Young Hermione's eyes were wide.

"Why didn't you?" Emma asked. "Kiss our daughter, I mean."

John sighed. "Besides my not realizing I was in love with this witch here? Potions. Potions that were slipped to us by magical people we thought we could trust. Eventually I thought I was in love with a redhead stalker fangirl, and your daughter thought she had a crush on an argumentative, lazy-slob redhead boy in our year. Nope—in both cases, our 'love' came out of a cauldron. Your daughter and I never got romantic, despite our closeness, because we each thought we'd be acting disloyal to the aforementioned redhead boy. Where did our strong loyalties come from? Loyalty Potions."

John looked at young Hermione. "Some advice: When you get to Hogwarts, the redheaded twins are good kids to know, but avoid the rest of their family."

Paulina said to all three Grangers, "Being married to my soulmate is a thousand times better than anything I ever had with Ron, even when potions were creating false emotions in my head."

Young Hermione was smiling.


Dan Granger sighed. "Princess, now I don't want to send you to that school at all. But the deadline has passed for school fees, so now I've spent money that I can't get back and I can't afford to write off."

Dan looked at John and at Paulina. "Please, give us some good news."

Paulina said, "Here's one bit of good news: Britain has a second magical school, Manchester Magical Academy. Their application deadline is June 30th, so Hermione can't go there this year; but she can go to MMA next year. Plus, MMA teaches both magical and nonmagical subjects. For Hermione, MMA really is the ideal school; I wish I'd known about it way back when."

John said, "I mentioned that I'm here to save my younger self's life; I'm also here to hunt down and to kill Voldy. The way I plan to do this is to take guardianship of young Harry, then to let Paulina and me be talked into attending Hogwarts as seventh-years. Both Paulina and I will make sure that young Hermione is as protected as a royal princess."

Both Granger parents said, "Thank you."

Young Hermione yawned then. John said, "It's getting late, and we should go."

Paulina pulled out a parchment from her beaded handbag. "Before we leave, Mum and Dad, may we ask you to sign this? It declares me, Hermione's supposed second cousin, to be her magical guardian. The sad truth is, since you're nonmagical, there are things you're not considered competent to decide for Hermione, even though you're her parents."

Dan Granger asked, "What happens if we don't sign it?"

John answered, "Then whichever Hogwarts professor becomes her Head of House also becomes her magical guardian. If Hermione is injured, it's the magical guardian's decision—not Hermione's, not yours—what happens to your daughter. If the magical-guardian professor is McGonagall, she won't do what is best for Hermione, she'll do whatever Dumbledore orders her to do."

Dan and Emma signed, then Paulina put the parchment back into her beaded handbag.

Emma asked the newlyweds, "What are your plans for tomorrow?"

John replied, "To start my younger self on a life that's free of both physical abuse and Dumbledore's head games."


Now late evening, back in Potter Manor

The newlyweds chose a bedroom at random: the bedroom last occupied by Charlene Heloise Potter. The newlyweds exercised self-control while the house-elves changed the sheets on the bed and otherwise freshened the bedroom. But as soon as the house-elves left, John and Paulina resumed their conjugal experiments.


Early the next morning
Wednesday, July 24th
Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

John and Paulina were standing in the street, near the curb that was in front of the Dursley house. The time was early enough in the morning that only two of the Dursleys' neighbors were outside to see the Potter newlyweds. However, Notice-Me-Not Charms on both John and Paulina meant that while the young couple might be seen, the Potters would be disregarded.

Paulina was waving her wand as she examined the infamous "blood wards" that Dumbledore had used as an excuse to imprison Harry Potter at the Dursley house.

Paulina said, "I declare, John, I've lost all my respect for the headmaster. These wards are worse than ordinary."

"Go on," John said.

"These wards are vampiric, sucking magic from young Harry's magical core to power themselves. The wards have nothing special in them that might have come from a genius mother's sacrifice for her son. The wards here look like something an uncreative seventh-year put up for a NEWT practical."

"Shit."

Paulina nodded, instead of rebuking her husband for his profanity. "The one bit of cleverness I see in this ward-scheme is that the wards block one person with a specific Hufflepuff Magical-Signature Text—I'm guessing that the one person is Voldy. But wait, there's more."

"What else?"

"Built into the wards are several rune-based monitoring spells. They detect whether Harry Potter is sick or injured, or if he's dead. They're not wards, they don't block young Harry from becoming sick, injured, or dead, they just let the headmaster know what's up."

John snarled, "So Voldemort can't kill young Harry, and Death Eaters can't kill or injure young Harry, and Dumbledore thinks his job is done. The Dursleys abuse young Harry, and Dumbledore knows this because of his detection-spells, but Dumbles has done nothing to stop the Dursleys' abuse. Young Harry being beaten is just more secret knowledge that Dumbledore can hoard."

Paulina said, "I'm so sorry, honey." She gave John a one-armed hug.

"Dumbledore put up these wards; so none of what you just said should surprise me. Is there any good news?"

"I see 'bad intent towards Harry Potter' wards here, but I'm pretty sure that they don't define 'taking young Harry away from the Dursleys without the headmaster's permission, so Harry can live with his older self' as bad intent towards young Harry. Meaning, the wards won't stop us from walking up to the front door, and they won't warn the headmaster that we've come here. However, one of the rune-based spells has a quirk that you should know about."

"Oh?"

"One of the detection-spells informs Dumbledore if young Harry isn't on the property at 6 p.m. if he was on the property at 6 a.m. So we need to tweak our plan for today."

John grinned at Paulina. "Or we could throw your brilliant plan completely in the trashcan and just wing it."

She slapped his arm. "Turkey."


An hour later

As the postman was walking up the path to Number 4, Privet Drive, an owl landed on the path in front of the postman.

The postman barely noticed the owl; the owl was unimportant.

The owl stared at the postman whilst the owl held an envelope in its beak. For some reason, the postman felt the urge to take the envelope from the owl. But even as the postman obeyed the urge, he did not wonder where this urge came from, because the urge was unimportant.

Already in the postman's hand was a brown envelope (containing a bill, most likely) and a postcard. Without thinking about it, the postman slapped the owl's envelope on top of Number 4's little mail stack.

The postman barely noticed that the owl's envelope had an unusual feel to it, had no stamp on it, and was addressed with green ink. The postman only barely noticed these things because the envelope was unimportant.

The owl flew away, to roost in a tree. Since the owl was unimportant, the postman did not watch where the owl flew to.

The postman continued his walk up the path. The postman barely noticed that two people were standing just off the path. But beyond making sure that he did not bump into either of the two people, the postman did not even glance at them, because the two people were unimportant.

The postman stepped up to the mail slot, and dropped into the mail slot the brown envelope, the postcard and the unstamped, odd-feeling envelope that was addressed in green ink.

The postman turned away from the mail slot, and began his walk down the path.

The owl, the unstamped envelope with the green writing on it, the urge to take the envelope from the owl and the two people who were standing just off the front path—to the postman, they all were unimportant. In fact, they were so unimportant that by the time the postman had taken three steps away from the mail slot, he had forgotten about all the odd things he had encountered at Number 4, Privet Drive; and the postman would never think about those odd things again.


Meanwhile, inside Number 4, Privet Drive

Click. Mail had just been pushed through the mail slot and had fallen onto the doormat.

Uncle Vernon did not even look up from his newspaper. "Get the mail, Dudley."

Eleven-year-old Dudley whined, "Make Harry get it."

Uncle Vernon snapped, "Get the mail, Harry."

Ten-year-old Harry Potter said defiantly, "Make Dudley get it." The exercise would do the baby whale some good.

Instead of agreeing with Harry's good suggestion, Uncle Vernon said, "Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Harry felt anger, hopelessness and despair, but none of these emotions showed on his face. Harry dodged Dudley's Smelting stick and went to get the mail.

Three items of mail were laying on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister, Aunt Marge; a bill that was addressed to Uncle Vernon—and a letter for Harry.

Harry was bending down to pick up the mail when—

Ding-dong!

—the front doorbell rang.

Harry yelled, "Someone is at the door!"

Uncle Vernon yelled from the kitchen, "DON'T STAND THERE, ANSWER IT! BUT IF IT'S A PEDLAR, TELL HIM THAT WHATEVER HE'S SELLING, WE DON'T WANT ANY!"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon."

Harry opened the front door. Standing there were a young man and a young woman. The woman was beautiful enough to be a film actress, or a presenter on the telly. The young man was tall and muscular, and was handsome overall—

—except for his hair. That hair was brown, unlike Harry's own black hair, but atop the young man's head was the exact same rat's-nest hair that Harry saw every time he looked into a mirror.

"Oh, hello," said the young man. He spoke with an American accent. "You're Harry James Potter, right?"

Uncle Vernon yelled, "WHO'S AT THE DOOR?"


OMAKE by Red Phoenix Dragon

Young Harry ignored his uncle and replied, "I am Harry Potter. Is James my middle name?"

"Yes, after your father, James Potter."

"My father's name was James Potter? I never knew that. Do you know what they looked like?"

Paulina-Hermione cursed the old fool again.