Doxy Day

Of all the things Harry Potter ever expected to be doing today, this was so far out of the realm of possibility it hadn't even made his list. Somehow, he was sitting in the dark, dank basement kitchen of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. The house wasn't the Museum of the Second Wizarding War his family had insisted on putting together years after the war was over. It wasn't the same place he had spent months and months painstakingly restoring the muggle way, alongside his overly excited then-future father-in-law and brothers (who weren't overly enthused to be doing anything without the aid of magic). It wasn't the same place he had casually mentioned to his wife that they should get married. (It wasn't a proposal. It was still a sticking point in their relationship that even twenty years later, he still technically hadn't proposed).

And then there was the Ginny of it all. She was currently sitting opposite him at the grand, old table, eating a bowl of cereal and alternating between avoiding his gaze and shooting worried looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

As for the rest of the family, word seemed to have spread rather quickly that Harry had almost cursed his best friend into next week - and, more importantly for the adults in the household, that he had been doing underage magic. Again.

He'd forgotten about that - this was that summer. The one of the Dementor attack. Where he'd saved Dudley's life (and his own), at the cost of a full hearing at the Ministry of Magic. A hearing he was yet to face. Or yet to face again, depending on how you looked at it.

A sound on the other side of the door had Harry staring. By the sheer lack of interest from everyone around him, it was apparent he was the only one to have noticed the commotion on the other side of the doorway. For his part, Harry couldn't tear his eyes away from the door. On the other side of the table, Ginny Weasley found herself instinctively turning to face the door herself, somehow realising what Harry already knew - something big was going on.

"He did what?!" they faintly heard a man's voice exclaiming from out in the hallway.

"You have got to be kidding me!" a second voice concurred.

Ginny's attention was back on Harry now. He what white as a sheet, pale enough for her to find herself saying, "Harry? Are you okay?"

The conversation around the table came to a sudden, grinding halt. All eyes were now on the Boy Who Lived, who still couldn't tear his eyes away from the doorway.

"Harry?" Hermione asked gently, leaning forward from her seat on the other side of Ron so she could see him more clearly. "What's going on?"

As the door creaked its way open, their attention moved from Harry to the two very pissed-off men standing in the doorway. Well, everyone except Ginny - her attention remained wholly on Harry, whose mouth was opening and closing like a fish out of water. Without realising what she was doing, she'd reached across the table and gently grasped one of his hands. His attention slowly moved from the doorway to Ginny, fear openly present in his eyes.

"What can I do?"

The words were whispered, only for him to hear. It was barely imperceptible, but she was sure he had shaken his head ever so slightly. The look on his face, the tears in his eyes, it all made her heart break clean in two. It was only when he closed his eyes and gently squeezed her hand that she finally turned to face the two men standing in the doorway.

She'd never seen such an expression cross Sirius Black's face. The man had always been a force of - admittedly, somewhat forced - positivity. But right now ... well, if looks could kill, Harry Potter would well and truly be a goner.

"Everybody out," Sirius growled.

The teenagers around the table looked to Remus Lupin for guidance. He sighed and said, "We need to speak with Harry."

The sound of chairs scraping met Harry's ears, but he was barely registering anything that was going on. He was staring dumbly at the two men in the doorway, now gripping Ginny's hand as though it were his lifeline. Though to be fair, it probably was.

Remus Lupin was one of the most observant people to have ever walked the Earth. It definitely did not escape his notice that this was not the same Harry he had brought to Grimmauld Place yesterday. He was not the same Harry who had grilled them for information last night. It wasn't the same Harry that had angrily stomped his way up the stairs when Molly Weasley had stepped in.

Sirius, however, hadn't noticed. He was a man on the warpath, ready to blow at any second. "What the hell is wrong with you? You've already been called in for a hearing for underage magic. And today you wake up ready to duel your best friend?!"

Though his eyes were closed, the couldn't stop a few stray tears from escaping down his cheeks. That was the point that Ginny stood up, squaring her shoulders and staring Sirius down. "That's enough."

"This has nothing to do with you."

"Bull," she retorted. "You're so blinded by rage you haven't looked at him."

Though it was enough to stop Sirius in his tracks, her words caught Remus' attention. She was right, after all. Harry Potter hadn't said a single word. On closer examination, it seemed almost obvious - he looked older. He was still clearly fifteen, but there was a far more mature air about him. And he didn't seem to be able to look either of them in the eye.

It was Remus who spoke next, after carefully sitting himself down in the chair beside the one Ginny had just vacated. He waited until she had walked around the table, where she stood behind Harry's seat, one hand on the back of his chair. She still couldn't quite work out why she was hovering, but there was no doubt in her mind that this was exactly where she needed to be.

"Harry, what's going on?"

The boy sobbed - actually sobbed. It was something the other three around the table had never seen before. They each looked at each other, no one at all sure what they should do. The meaning of the stern look Ginny shot Sirius across the table, however, and her pointed glance at her recently vacated chair were very clear. Sirius quickly scrambled into the seat, concern for his godson written all over his face.

They remained in silence for a long time, until Harry finally spoke. "I shouldn't be here."

"No kidding," Sirius jumped in. "You definitely should'nt have - sorry, sorry."

One look from Ginny silenced the man.

"What does that mean, Harry?" she asked him gently.

He turned to face her directly now, no longer bothering to try and hide the tears in his eyes. "I mean I shouldn't be here. Here, in Grimmauld Place. In 1995!"

That caught Remus' attention. "Are you saying you -"

"- I'm saying that when we," Harry interrupted, gesturing between himself and Ginny, "went to bed last night, we weren't teenagers. We were pushing forty. We had jobs and lives outside of Hogwarts, away from this nightmare. We should be worried about the kids blowing up the house and how many detentions our eldest will ring up this year, not whether Death Eaters might come knocking on the door."

Ginny found herself mouthing the word 'we' in response to his comments about last night. Surprisingly, however, she didn't freak out. She remained almost unnaturally calm, listening attentively to his panicked assessment of why he definitely should not be here right now.

"... You mean it's over?" Remus asked him disbelievingly. "It's really over?"

Harry nodded, finally turning to look the two men in the eyes. "Yeah, Remus," he said. "It's over. But there was a cost."

"There's always a cost," Sirius whispered. "What was it this time?"

"Good people," Harry answered. "People we loved."


They'd wisely chosen not to push him any further than that. Well, 'wisely' in this instance really means something more like Harry refused to say anything more. To anyone. At all. In fact, he'd spent most of the rest of the day locked upstairs in his bedroom, refusing to open the door for anyone.

Ginny, on the other hand, had joined the others up in the drawing room.

"Well?" Fred demanded the moment she walked through the door, just after Remus and Sirius had called their mother downstairs to meet with the other members of the Order of the Phoenix that suddenly starting appearing at the house. "What's he got himself into this time?

"And more to the point," George jumped in, "how do we get in on it?"

She headed over to a pile of cloths and spray bottles, which she knew they were supposed to be using to deal with whatever was causing the buzzing in those awful moss green curtains.

"I don't think you want in on this one," she said quietly. Gesturing back to the curtains, she said, "Shall we?"


That was where Harry found them nearly three hours later, each of them holding a cloth over their mouth and nose and spraying the curtains with the foul-smelling black liquid.

"I've never seen an infestation this bad," Mrs Weasley, who had returned from the impromptu meeting not ten minutes ago, was saying. "What that house-elf's been doing for the last ten years -"

From his place in the doorway, Harry looked to Hermione, remembering very clearly the reproachful look she'd thrown at Mrs Weasley.

"Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage -"

"- You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione," Harry said, not at all surprised when every eye in the room was suddenly trained on him. "In fact, he's not half bad when you get to know him."

"When you get to ... have you gone barmy?!" Ron stared at his best friend, open mouthed. "You've met the thing once and he insulted you!"

"Actually," Harry countered, moving into the room and observing the curtains with interest, "He's part of the family where I come from."

It was Hermione who spoke this time. "What does that mean?"

"Not the time or place, Hermione."

The look on her face was exactly the reaction he'd expected. He managed to crack a smile, she had always been so predictable - in a good way, mind you. He could always rely on Hermione Granger to ask the questions they all needed answers to.

He found his eyes pulled toward a cupboard filled with old, dusty trinkets, then. In the end, it was a locked cabinet on the other side of the room that caught his attention. It was shaking slightly - not enough to cause concern, but enough for it to be obvious there was something going on in there.

"It's a boggart," he told Mrs Weasley, gesturing to the cabinet. "I can deal with it, if you like."

"Ah - no, thank you, Harry dear," Mrs Weasley said quickly, moving forward and fussing over him. "Can I get you something? Some water, or a sandwich?"

"Thank you, Molly. But I'm fine."

He'd said it with a smile, but it had caught everyone off guard. She paused - it was the first time he had ever called her by her name, after all - but she quickly pulled herself back together again.

"I think we'll get Mad-Eye to have a look at it, just to be sure. You never really know with this house." She paused again, looked at Harry, then hastily added, "Well, I suppose sometimes you can, but ... Better safe than sorry, dear."

He'd opened his mouth to say something - anything - to try and make the conversation a little less awkward. Meanwhile in the background, the other teenagers looked from Mrs Wesley to Harry and back, not really knowing what to make of the conversation.

The awkwardness of the situation was interrupted, however, by a loud, clanging bell from downstairs, followed by the long-forgotten screams of the portrait of Mrs Black that was stuck to the wall with the aid of a permanent sticking charm cast several decades before.

"We keep telling them not to ring the doorbell!" Mrs Weasley said exasperatedly, hurrying out of the room. They heard her running down the stairs as the screeches grew louder and louder:

'Stains of dishonour, filthy half-breeds, blood traitors, children of filth ...'

The words, however, were drowned out by an almighty bang. Whoever was at the door gave a loud yell of surprise, and then the six teenagers were all rushing out of the drawing room and down the stairs. What they saw downstairs stopped all but one in their tracks. While the five Weasleys and Hermione stared at the newcomers strewn across the entry floor, Harry continued forward without a second thought.

"Boys!" he called to the newcomers. He grasped a hand of each of the boys - who couldn't have been much younger than himself - and helped them to their feet. Pulling them into a hug, he said, "Oh, thank God, you're okay."

The younger of the two stepped back, shock written all over his face.

"I have no idea what's going on," Harry told him gently. He slowly turned his attention to the elder of the two, saying, "But I have the distinct feeling it has something to do with you."

Both boys had his same crop of dark, messy hair. The younger had his same green eyes; The elder one, however, had unsettlingly familiar eyes of warm, chocolate brown.

"But - but -" the younger one stammered. He turned to the elder one and said, "This is all your fault."

"My fault?!" the elder one exclaimed. "No way! It was all him, d -"

"- Frankly, James, I don't care who did it," Harry cut straight over the top of him before he could say that incriminating word out loud. "The point is, we're here. And we need to do something about it."

"But d -"

One look from Harry stopped the younger one in his tracks. The boy quickly caught himself, and rephrased, "He sent us back in time."

"No, you sent us back in time," the elder one countered. "I swear, it had nothing to do with me! I'm innocent, I tell you - innocent!"

Harry sighed, rubbing circles on his temples tiredly. He shook his head, and with one hand manoeuvred the elder boy slightly out of the way. To the younger one, he said, "I cannot believe this. I thought you of all people would've had enough of all this after last year."

The boy opened his mouth to say something, but Harry's next outburst stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Time travel, Al. For God's sake! I cannot believe the two of you would be dumb enough to get yourselves involved in this - again!"

That was when the elder of the two piped up again. "To be fair, I wasn't involved in the first ... You know what? Never mind."

"No, no, James," Harry said sarcastically. "Please, go ahead."

The elder one - James - looked nervously from Harry to one of the gobsmacked teenagers behind him and back. "Uh, no thanks."

Harry's eyes narrowed, but he stopped and forced himself to take a deep breath that clearly meant 'I will deal with you later.' Looking at the room around them, however, he suddenly seemed to realise they had an audience. "Get in the kitchen," he said to the boys, who both started trying to argue. "Just get in the kitchen. We will talk about this later."

He watched the two boys look awkwardly around them, but neither made a move. Harry didn't need to say any words - he simply lifted his left arm and pointed down the hallway. James begrudgingly headed for the kitchen, but the other boy - Al - stayed behind.

"Dad?" he whispered, shocking everyone in the room around them.

Harry wanted to sigh in defeat, but he knew he couldn't. Instead he stepped forward, his full attention on his son. "Yeah, buddy?"

"What about Lily?"

Harry's features immediately became more serious. "What about Lily?"

"Well, she's not here. So ..."

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed a hand across his face. "So where is she?"