The Boggart

Harry hesitated for just a few seconds, waiting for someone to tell him it was okay to leave. But when no one said anything, he gingerly took a couple of steps. No one paid any attention to him whatsoever. And that was when he took off at a run. When he reached the door he wrenched it open and almost collided with Mr Weasley, who was pacing up and down distractedly on the other side, looking pale and apprehensive.

"Dumbledore didn't say -"

"Cleared," Harry said, pulling the door closed behind him, "of all charges!"

A beaming Mr Weasley grabbed Harry's shoulder and pulled him into a hug.

"Harry, that's wonderful! Well, of course, they couldn't have found you guilty, not on the evidence, but even so, I can't pretend I wasn't -"

He stopped dead in his tracks then, mouth agape as the full Wizengamot began to file out of the room.

"Merlin's beard!"

The two stepped aside, watching the witches and wizards in the plum-coloured robes pass by them.

"You were tried by the full court?"

"Yep," Harry confirmed, popping the 'p' at the end.

"But -"

"- It's a precursor to what's coming," Harry said with a sigh. "But it doesn't matter, it's over now."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" Mr Weasley asked, a hand on Harry's shoulder.

They both stood frozen in place then as Fudge, the toad witch and - to Harry's horror - Percy Weasley walked past them and back down the hallway. Neither father nor son acknowledged each other. The frosty silence said it all.

Mr Weasley shook his head after the three had passed, and they were alone in the hallway once more. "Harry, it has to matter."

"I can't let it," Harry shrugged. "Today alone, I've passed by at least a dozen people we tried and convicted after the war. Three of them voted against me in the Wizengamot just now."

Mr Weasley looked horrified, but he said nothing.

"This world is about to change in a huge way, Arthur," Harry said in barely a whisper. "But I can't let myself go there, or I will lose it. And I am barely holding it together now."

"Let's get you home," Mr Weasley said with concern written all over his face. He hadn't realised until now that Harry was shaking.

They headed back through the hallways side by side, but came to a sudden halt just as they reached the ninth-floor corridor. Standing over in the corner was Cornelius Fudge, who was speaking with none other than Lucius Malfoy. He turned to face them at the sound of their footsteps, his cold grey eyes narrowed and fixed on Harry's face.

"Well well well," he said patronisingly. "Patronus Potter."

Harry had to force himself to resist the urge to pull out his wand and curse the man. His hand was clenched so tightly into a fist that his fingernails started to cut into his skin. He'd last seen the man's the day he gave evidence and saw him sentenced to a lifetime in Azkaban Prison. Back in this time, however, he would have last seen those cold, grey eyes through the slits of a Death Eater's hood - not in the eyes of his teenage son's best friend.

He could hardly believe Lucius Malfoy would dare to look him in the eye. He had stood by Lord Voldemort and jeered at him that night in the graveyard; In fact, Harry had told Cornelius Fudge that very night that Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater. He knew the Minister had buried his head in the sand - he remembered it well - but it was entirely different seeing it in person. Again.

"The Minister was just telling me about your lucky escape, Potter," Malfoy drawled. "Quite astonishing, the way you continue to wriggle out of very tight holes ... snakelike, in fact."

Mr Weasley gripped Harry's shoulder tightly, a silent warning to tread very carefully.

"We both know how good I am at escaping tight spots," he said, staring the man straight in the eye.

Malfoy, however, didn't dignify that comment with a response. Malfoy instead raised his eyes to Mr Weasley. "And Arthur Weasely too! What are you doing here, Arthur?"

"I work here," Mr Weasley said curtly.

"Not here, surely?" said Mr Malfoy, eyebrows raised. "I thought you were up on the second floor ... Don't you do something that involves sneaking Muggle artefacts home and bewitching them?"

"No," Mr Weasley snapped, his fingers now biting into Harry's shoulder.

Harry and Malfoy stared at each other long and hard, before Harry finally turned back to Mr Weasley and said, "We need to leave. Now."

Arthur Weasley didn't question him. Simultaneously, they turned and headed straight for the lifts. When the lift finally arrived, it was empty except for a flock of inter-office memos. It wasn't until Mr Weasley had hit the button for the Atrium that either of them spoke again.

"He's here on 'business.' He's got a sack of gold in his pocket," Harry explained quietly.

"I thought as much," Mr Weasley sighed. "Malfoy's been giving generously to all sorts of things for years ... gets him in with the right people ... then he can ask favours ... delay laws he doesn't want passed ... oh, he's very well-connected, Lucius Malfoy."

"You know what scares me most of all?" Harry asked him thoughtfully. "At one point, I thought he might've put Fudge under the Imperius Curse. But I know from experience that wasn't the case. Fudge went along with all of this willingly."

"Sadly, that confirms Dumbledore's suspicions - which, as he says, is not a lot of comfort."

They said no more after that. When the lift arrived in the Atrium, they paused briefly at the fountain where Harry donated every piece of gold he had on him, and then headed back on their way.


The moment Harry stepped in through the front door of Grimmauld Place, he knew something was wrong. Ginny sat silently at the bottom of the staircase, staring at her hands, which were clasped tightly in her lap.

Mr Weasley said something as a brief greeting to his daughter, then headed straight down to the basement kitchen to leave the note for Dumbledore.

"Gin?" Harry asked gently, heading straight over to join the red head on the steps. He knew Mrs Black's portrait was always listening, so he made sure to keep his voice down low. "What's going on?"

Ginny looked up, blinking back the tears in her eyes. She shrugged, and watched him as he sat down beside her.

"What's going on?"

She blinked again, but a lone tear running down her cheek gave her away. "Something's not right, Harry," she said quietly.

He knew better than to interrupt. Sometimes, Ginny just needed someone to listen.

"It's like ... I know things that I can't possibly know."

"Like what?"

She took a deep breath. "Like James' name."

"... Well, you do know his name is James, right?"

She couldn't help but stifle a laugh, even though she was crying. "No. I know his name is James Sirius. How can I possibly know that? You certainly didn't tell me!"

"Well, it's not that I didn't tell you," he countered, reaching a comforting arm around her shoulders. "I just ... figured I didn't want to be responsible for all of his crazy troublemaking?"

"Oh, so it's you that named him," she quipped. "So tell me, why Albus Severus?"

Harry couldn't help but smile. "You'll understand one day."

"You're not gonna tell me, huh?"

"No," Harry sighed. "That's one story that you're going to have to live."

"We named the kids after people we lost, didn't we?"

His silence was her answer.

"Lily Luna?"

"Okay, don't panic," he said very carefully. "Lily was the exception."

"The exception?" She looked at him with so much hope in her eyes. Luna was her best friend - aside from Hermione - after all.

"The exception," he nodded.

She looked at him closely now. She noticed how his hands, which were now back at his sides, were shaking. How he was breathing at double the speed he should be. How he seemed to be hyper-aware of every noise around him.

"Harry?" she asked kindly, placing a hand gingerly on his face. "Is everything okay?"

"No," he breathed, suddenly blinking back tears in his own eyes. At the look of horror on her face, he quickly added, "No, no, no - everything's fine. I was cleared at the Ministry."

"But?"

Another very long sigh. "But I had to re-live it. All of it. They tried me in front of the full Wizengamot, and I had to sit in that awful chair, and ... There were so many of them there, Gin. The people we testified against. The ones who tried to kill me. People who hurt you."

"I'm fine, Harry," she told him tenderly, pulling him into a hug. "I'm right here. And I'm okay. And so are you."

"No, I'm not," he finally admitted. "I'm keeping it together in front of everyone else. For you, for the family, for the boys. The boys - they're living this nightmare, too. I've done everything in my power to keep this part of the story from them, to protect them from it. Then James goes and says one stupid spell and we all wind up back here."

He looked up at her now, shaking worse than ever and letting the tears freely roll down his face. "I can't do this, Gin. I can't do this again. Not here. Not now."

Still, she said nothing.

"I lived through going back in time to save my son. I stood by and watched the night my parents were murdered, and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. I handled that well. And I've lived through this nightmare before. I've seen what happens, and I've seen how it ends. I can't live it again, Gin, I just can't. I can't do it."

"You're having nightmares again," she whispered. She stopped, a quizzical look taking over her face. "How do I know you have nightmares?"

Harry wanted to speak, but he just couldn't. He was still shaking, harder now, and he couldn't make the words come out of his mouth.

"Hey - Harry," she said slowly. "Look at me. Breathe in, and out. And in, and out."

It took a solid few minutes, but he slowly managed to get his breathing back under control again.

"I think it's the same way you know how to do that," he said shakily. "Somehow - and I don't know how - but somehow, time is telling you what you need to know."

She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful. Then, she came out with the last thing he expected to hear. "We live in a big blue house in the countryside, far away from all of this."

"We do," he said, though he was obviously confused. "What else do you know?"

She grinned. "I know you taught the kids to fly before they could walk. And I taught them to play quidditch."

"You did."

"... There's another one, isn't there?"

"Another what?"

She grinned. "Kid. There's someone else there, but I can't quite place them."

Harry smiled. "My godson," he said. To her raised eyebrow, he added, "Again, you gotta live through it."

"I'm telling you," she said, standing up but still holding one of his hands, "I know things. Things I have no way of knowing."

She gently pulled on his arm then, pulling him back up to his feet. He hadn't even realised, but she'd walked him through his anxiety episode and back to his base level without his even realising it. For a few minutes there, he'd completely forgotten she wasn't the Ginny he knew.

"Thank you, Ginny," he said quietly, still holding her hand as they headed through the entrance hallway and down the hallway towards the kitchen. "I can't imagine what this is like for you."

He glanced down to their hands and dropped hers.

"Sorry. I don't mean to -"

"- It's okay, Harry," she said kindly. "This must be hard for you, too. I mean, barely a week ago we were grown and married. And now ..."

He sighed, long and hard. "Now we're kids asking for permission to use the bathroom."

That made her laugh. He would have continued down this track - loving, as he did, that laugh he so rarely heard in this era - but they were interrupted by Ron, who poked his head through the kitchen door and said, "There you are, Harry! Get in here - we're celebrating!"

"They were bound to clear you," Hermione said as they entered the kitchen. "There was no case against you, after all."

Harry sat down in the empty chair beside the future Minister for Magic, smiling. "You know, everyone seems quite relieved, considering you knew I'd be cleared."

On the other side of the kitchen, Fred, George and James were doing a kind of a war dance while chanting, "He got off, he got off, he got off..."

Albus, who was sitting in the chair opposite Hermione, handed his father a hot mug of tea. "I'm glad it went well, dad."

"Me too, bud. Me too." They shared a brief smile, though the moment was interrupted by the chanting:

"He got off, he got off, he got off ..."

"Shut up, you lot!" Ginny yelled, sounding a little too much like the wife Harry had left in his own time.

To Sirius, Harry said, "Did Arthur tell you Lucius Malfoy was lurking around?"

"What?!" his godfather exclaimed.

"We ran into him on Level Nine. They were heading up to Fudge's office. Dumbledore ought to know."

"He got off, he got off, he got off ..."

"That's enough - George - Fred - James!" said Mrs Weasley, as Mr Weasley kissed her cheek and headed back out of the kitchen. "Harry, dear, please eat something, you hardly ate breakfast."

"That sounds familiar," Ginny mused as she absentmindedly passed Harry the plate of sandwiches her mother had just made.

"What does?" Ron asked her, stuffing a curried egg sandwich into his mouth.

"Mum," she answered, still absentmindedly. "Yelling at the twins and J -"

She stopped herself mid-sentence, staring at Harry with wide eyes. "James and Fred," she breathed. "And - and Louis, and Roxi."

Harry grinned and raised his eyebrows.

"The kings of detention," Al mused. At his Aunt Hermione's confused glance, he added, "What? It's the name they use for themselves."

"Yeah," James, who was suddenly leaning over his brother to grab a sandwich off the plate, added, "the Marauders was taken."

"Marauders?" the twins asked in perfect unison.

"Uh-huh," James and Al nodded, though they offered no further information.

"'Course," Ron said, getting back to the conversation at hand, "once Dumbledore turned up on your side, there was no way they were going to convict you."

"They came close," Harry admitted. "I wish I'd had a chance to talk to him though."

The moment he even thought about it, the scar on his forehead burned so badly that he clapped his hand over it.

"Dad?" Al asked, suddenly alarmed.

"I'm fine, bud," Harry said with a wince. To James' worried stare, he added, "It happens. Nothing to worry about."

The others in the kitchen hadn't even noticed. Ron was still stuffing his face full of sandwiches, and Hermione was conversing quietly with Ginny. Over on the other side of the room, Fred and George were still singing.

Not noticing the tension between the Potters, Ron said happily, "I bet Dumbledore turns up this evening, to celebrate with us, you know."

"I don't think he'll be able to, Ron," Mrs Weasley said, adding another plate of sandwiches to the table. "He's really very busy at the moment."

"HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF, HE GOT OFF ..."

"SHUT UP!" Mrs Weasley roared.

Harry couldn't help but smile. It was nice to be back with his family again.


Harry found himself daydreaming about his days back at Hogwarts more and more as the holidays drew to a close. He couldn't wait to see Hagrid again, to spend with his friends by the fireplace. The possibility of playing Quidditch alongside his boys had even crossed his mind. But there was one person who definitely was not enthused at his impending return to school.

Harry found him in the drawing room one Wednesday morning, staring very intently at the old tapestry on the wall.

"It's beautiful," Harry said, standing in the doorway and leaning against the door frame. "I know you hate it, but it's a beautiful piece of family history. I'd kill to have something like that."

Sirius shrugged, still staring at the tapestry. "You've got a built-in historian. I'm sure he can find out everything you ever wanted to know. And more."

Harry stepped into the room and joined his godfather in looking at the tapestry. When Sirius said nothing, he knew this was his moment to say his piece.

"I've really enjoyed getting to spend this summer with you, Sirius," he said. "I'm not sure I ever told you that."

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"And I love that the boys got the chance to meet you."

That got his godfather's attention. "That answers that question."

Harry smiled sadly. "You're James' hero, you know? He's looked up to you his whole life." He paused, then added, "Well, he looks up to Padfoot."

"He knows about that?" Sirius asked, surprised.

"Of course," Harry nodded, smiling. "He idolises the Marauders. You are his namesakes, after all."

Sirius grinned. "So it's true?"

"What's true?"

"You named him James Sirius."

"I did," Harry nodded. "Pretty sure we gave Minerva a heart attack the day his name appeared in the birth register."

Sirius couldn't help but laugh, as though he couldn't quite believe it. "You really named your kid after me?"

"Of course," Harry shrugged. "We decided early on to name the kids after people we love. You're family. And you mean that much to me. Through James, you get to live on forever."

With tears in his eyes, Sirius pulled him into a hug.

"You're a good kid, Harry," Sirius told him. "And you grew up to be a great man."

Harry couldn't help but smile. "You don't realise how big a part you were of that."

"It had nothing to do with me," Sirius shrugged. "You were a teenager before I ever really met you."

Harry shook his head. "No, Sirius. You don't realise how big an influence you have had on my life. Thank you, Sirius. Really."

They shared a smile. It was a beautiful moment that Harry, as a teenager, never got to have. He knew in this moment that no matter what happened, he would treasure the memory of that conversation forever.


On the last day of the holidays, Harry was sweeping up Hedwig's owl droppings from the top of the wardrobe with the owl sitting on his shoulder when Ron walked into the bedroom carrying four envelopes.

"Booklists have arrived," he said, throwing an envelope each to Harry and Al, and dumping the final envelope on James' bed. "About time, too. I thought they'd forgotten. The lists normally come much earlier than this ..."

Harry swept the last of the droppings into the wastepaper basket, which swallowed it and belched loudly. He silently caught Al's eyes and gestured to Ron, who was by now on the other side of the room. 'Watch this,' he mouthed to his very confused son.

Al, who was half-watching his Uncle, soon got sick of waiting and opened his own book list. "There's only one book different to my school list. Why is that?"

Crack.

Fred and George Apparated, appearing out of thin air right beside Harry. James, on the other hand, walked in through the door.

"We were just wondering who set the Slinkard book," Fred said.

"Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher," George added.

"And about time too."

"What do you mean?" Al asked, now genuinely confused.

"We overheard Mum and Dad on the extendable ears a few weeks back," Fred told Al. "From what they were saying, Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job this year."

"Not surprising, is it, when you look at what's happened to the last four?" George asked.

Fred held up a hand, ticking their previous teachers off on his fingers. "One sacked, one dead, one's memory removed and one locked in a trunk for nine months."

"What?!" the Potter boys exclaimed, both not believing what they were hearing.

Instead of explaining, however, Harry's attention was wholly focused on the other side of the room, where Ron was staring dumbfounded at his Hogwarts letter. Having followed his father's gaze, James asked, "What's up with Uncle Ron?"

Fred headed over there, asking his little brother what was going on. When he arrived over Ron's shoulder, however, his jaw dropped too. To his boys, Harry said very quietly, "You're going to want to watch what happens next very closely."

"Prefect?" Fred gasped, still staring at the piece of parchment. "Prefect?"

George leapt forwards, seizing the envelope and turning it upside-down until a small scarlet and gold pin fell out of it. "No way," he breathed.

"There's been a mistake," Fred announced, snatching the parchment and holding it up to the light as though he were looking for a watermark. "No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect."

"Well, believe it," Harry said, a smile stretching across his face. "Congratulations, Ron."

Ron, however, could only stare at Harry with a look of horror on his face.

"Prefect," Fred repeated. "Ickle Ronnie the Prefect."

"Oh, Mum's going to be revolting," George groaned.

Ron, who had still not said a word, took the badge, stared at it for a moment, then held it out to Harry as though mutely asking for confirmation that it was genuine. That, of course, was when Hermione appeared.

"Did you - did you get -?" She took one look at him and made a an assumption. "I knew it! Me too, Harry, me too!"

"Oh, no," Harry said, immediately depositing the badge back into Ron's hand. "That's all Ron. Nothing at all to do with me."

"But - but how?" Ron finally managed. "I'm no one."

"You're not no one, Uncle Ron," Al said kindly. "You're strong and brave."

"Yeah," James added. "I mean, how many Aurors can we have in one family, anyway?"

Ron blanched. "Auror?"

"Well, not anymore," Ginny said from the doorway. "As I understand it, you retired from that life years ago. Now you work in the family business."

Turning to Harry, she added, "And you. You're not an Auror anymore, either."

Harry, shocked, said nothing.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, clearly confused. "But - he said he's an Auror. How can he not -"

"- He was promoted a couple years back," Ginny said, "to Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

"Head of the - you have got to be joking," Fred said, not believing his ears.

"You're a Ministry guy?" George asked, just as doubtful as his brother. "Really? You?"

Harry shrugged. "Yes. Me." To Ginny he said, "Actually, it was you who convinced me to take the job, the third time it was offered to me. I'm pushing forty, after all. Even I can't keep up with those young blokes forever."

"Hmm ... Yeah, that definitely sounds like me," Ginny quipped. Changing course, she asked, "So, future man. Tell us about this new Defense professor."

The boys both looked at their father expectantly. Harry, however, paled and shook his head.

"All I will say," he said softly, "is tread carefully." To the boys directly, however, he added, "You two cannot afford to draw attention, particularly from this new teacher. She can't be trusted. Which means -"

"- We get it, dad," James interrupted him. "We'll be on our best behaviour."

Al raised an eyebrow at his brother. "Uh-huh," he said, unconvinced. "I'll be on my best behaviour, dad. He'll be spending his time in detention."

Harry clenched his fist and looked down, fully expecting to see that faded old scar and honestly a little surprised to realise it wasn't there. Distractedly, he said, "No, boys. I really mean it. You cannot afford to get on the wrong side of this woman."


It seemed odd to everyone how widely their possessions seemed to have spread throughout the house over that summer. It took them all nearly all day to retrieve everything - and it did not escape anyone's notice how many of Ginny's belongings seemed to have made their way upstairs into Harry, Ron and the boys' bedroom. It wasn't like she was sleeping there, but she did definitely have a surprising amount of books and trinkets stashed up there.

Mrs Weasley arrived back from Diagon Alley right on dinnertime, having spent her day out shopping for the students' school supplies. Last minute wasn't her usual style, but there was nothing at all normal about this summer. They'd met her in the entryway when she arrived - Harry and James fought to close those awful lace curtains in front of Mrs Black's screeching portrait while Al and Hermione helped Mrs Weasley and her packages through the front door.

Ron, however, only had eyes for the long package wrapped in brown paper. He'd practically moaned when his mother handed it to him, but there was no time to unwrap the present before dinner. His brand-new broomstick - the first new thing he'd ever owned in his entire life - would have to wait until after their evening meal.

Down in the basement kitchen, Mrs Weasley had hung a scarlet banner over the heavily laden dinner table, which read:

CONGRATULATIONS RON AND HERMIONE
NEW PREFECTS

Harry did a double take when he first saw the banner - it looked oddly familiar. Upon second glance, he realised it was almost exactly the same as the one he and Ginny had hung at the Burrow years from now, the night they'd celebrated the future couple's engagement party. The knowing look Ginny was sending him from across the table told him that she somehow had this memory, too.

"I thought we'd have a little party, not a sit-down dinner," Mrs Weasley told the room at large as she bustled around the place, simultaneously supervising her magical cooking implements and sending down platters of delicious looking foods. "Your father and Bill are on their way, Ron. I've sent them both owls and they're thrilled."

Fred rolled his eyes, George bent forward and pretended to be sick, and James made kissy faces and Ron behind his back. Harry, however, reached around and gently slapped his son across the back of the head. James had turned around to complain, but Harry held up a hand to stop him. In what was now known as his 'authoritative dad voice,' he told his son, "Manners."

It seemed like just about the whole Order had arrived for dinner, Harry thought, as he obediently walked around the room offering everyone a Butterbeer. It wasn't until Mrs Weasley, who was standing immediately behind him, said anything that he realised he was about to run into Mad-Eye Moody for the first time all summer. (Well, the first time since he woke up, anyway).

"Oh, Alastor, I'm glad you're here," she said brightly. "We've been wanting to ask you for ages - could you have a look in the writing desk in the drawing room and tell us what's inside it? We haven't wanted to open it just in case it's something really nasty."

Harry turned, nodded hello to Mad-Eye, and said, "I'm telling you, Molly, it's a boggart."

Moody's electric blue eye swivelled upwards and stared fixedly through the ceiling of the kitchen. "Drawing room ... Desk in the corner? He's right, Molly - definitely a boggart. Want me to go up and get rid of it?"

"No, no, I'll do it myself later," Mrs Weasley said, still beaming. "You have your drink. We're actually having a bit of a celebration, actually. Fourth prefect in the family!"

That was when Harry took his leave. As much as he wanted to celebrate his best friend's achievement, he was desperately hoping to talk Sirius into some of that bottle that looked suspiciously like Firewhisky. Grabbing a glass and sitting down next to his godfather at the very far end of the table, Harry said, "Hit me."

"Oh, no you don't," Remus said, taking the bottle out of Sirius' hand as he went to hand it over. "You might be forty where you come from, but here you're fifteen."

"Oh come on, Moony," Sirius said quietly. "Cut the guy a break."

Remus looked from Harry, whose expression right now made him look every bit of his forty years, to Sirius and back. Rolling his eyes, he said, "Oh, fine."

In the end, it was Remus himself who poured Harry the drink.

"Well, I think a toast is in order," Mr Weasley announced from the other end of the kitchen. "To Ron and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects!"

Ron and Hermione beamed as everyone drank to them, and then applauded.

Back with the Firewhisky, however, the party was just getting started.

"I was never a prefect myself," said Tonks, sitting down and grabbing the bottle. Her hair was bright red and waist-length right now; she and Ginny, who dropped herself into the chair on Harry's other side, could have been sisters. "My Head of House said I lacked certain necessary qualities."

"Like what?" Ginny asked. She picked up Harry's glass, sniffed it, pulled a face and thrusted it back at him.

"Like the ability to behave myself," Tonks grinned.

"What about you, Sirius?" Ginny asked the man at the end of the table.

Sirius laughed. "No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James - uh, my James. James Sr.? Anyway, Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge."

"I think Dumbledore might have hoped I would be able to exercise some control over my best friends," Lupin said thoughtfully. "I need scarcely say that I failed dismally."


Hours later, and a little more tipsy than he would care to admit, Harry found himself struggling to keep his eyes open. At forty, a couple of Firewhiskys at a party was nothing. At fifteen, however, it apparently knocked him more than he would care to admit.

"You all right, Potter," Moody grunted, taking Sirius' long-vacated seat.

"Yeah, fine," Harry lied unconvincingly.

"Must be strange," Moody commented, "being back here again."

"You can say that again," Harry sighed. "I mean, I've been done with school for twenty years. And now I'm going back? I just - I need a drink, that's what I need."

Moody helpfully offered his flask, but one look at it had Harry politely declining. He couldn't help but remember the imposter, Barty Crouch, Jr, who had once continuously drunk Polyjuice Potion from that very flask for a solid nine months. He'd had them all believing his ruse, too.

Fortunately, Moody seemed to understand. Al and James - who had only ever seen their father not-quite-right like this once before - chose that moment to appear. "Ah, boys. Come here, I've got something that might interest you."

The three Potters all leant forward as Moody pulled a very tattered old wizarding photograph from the inside pocket of his jacket.

"Original Order of the Phoenix," he said. "Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn't had the manners to return my best one ... thought people might like to see it."

James took hold of the photograph ever so gently, as though he were worried it might disintegrate in his hands.

"There's me," Moody said, unnecessarily pointing to himself. "And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on his other side ... that's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That's Frank and Alice Longbottom -"

Al looked to Harry worriedly, but all he could do was nod sadly.

"- poor devils," Moody growled. "Better dead than what happened to them ... and that's Emmeline Vance, you've met her, and there's Lupin, obviously ... Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him ... shift aside there," he added, poking the picture. The little photographic people obediently edged sideways, so those who were obscured could move to the front.

"That's Edgar Bones ... brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family, too, he was a great wizard ... Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young ... Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body ... Hagrid, of course, looking exactly the same as ever ... Elphias Doge, you've met him, I'd forgotten he used to wear that stupid hat ... Gideon Prewett, it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian, they fought like heroes ... budge along, budge along ..."

The little people moved aside again, allowing yet more of the obscured folk to come forward.

"That's Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke ... that's Dorcas Meadowes, Voldermort killed her personally ..."

The two boys looked up in surprise when Moody said that. In all their time here in the past, they had never heard anyone - including their own father - call Lord Voldemort by his name. He was spoken about, certainly, but very rarely spoken of. The moment, however, passed quickly.

"There's Sirius, when he still had short hair ... and - there you go! Thought that would interest you!"

Even after all these years, Harry's heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man he couldn't help but recognise as Wormtail, the one who had betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort.

"Who's that?" James asked immediately, clearly not reading his father's face correctly. "The little dude?"

"Uh - I have to go," Harry announced abruptly, pushing his chair back with a scrape and all but legging it out of there. Once he was out in the entrance hall, he doubled over and gulped in the cool nighttime air. He didn't know why it had been such a shock - that very photograph could be found in a dusty old photo album in his own home, after all - but it had still got to him. It definitely wasn't seeing his parents that had done it. It was Wormtail, showing up when he least expected it.

He hardly wanted to explain his sudden departure to his boys - this was one part of the story he had been trying to keep from them, after all - so he slowly headed upstairs, toward his bed. At least, that's where he had intended on going, until he heard the sobbing.

"Hello?" he asked, mid-way up the staircase.

There was no answer. The sobbing just continued.

As he arrived up on the landing, he found himself pulling out his wand and adopting a defensive stance. On the far side of the drawing room, someone was cowering against the dark wall, wand in hand, their whole body shaking with sobs. Sprawled on the dusty old carpet in a patch of moonlight, clearly dead, was Ron.

All the air seemed to vanish from Harry's lungs; For just a moment, he thought all of his worst nightmares had come true and history had been changed around him. Without Ron, there was no Ron and Hermione. There was no camping out, hunting for Horcruxes. There was no Rose, and no Hugo.

But - hang on a minute. This couldn't be right. Ron was downstairs, sharing a Butterbeer with Hermione. He'd seen them not five minutes ago.

"Molly?" Harry asked tentatively, hoping beyond hope that his gut feeling was right.

"R - r - riddikulus!" Mrs Weasley sobbed, pointing her wand at Ron's body.

Crack.

Ron suddenly turned into Bill, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever.

"R - riddikulus!" she sobbed again.

Crack.

Mr Weasley was on the ground now, right where Bill had been a moment ago. His glasses sat askew, a trickle of blood rolled down his face.

"No!" Mrs Weasley cried. "No ... riddikulus! Riddikulus! RIDDIKULUS!"

Crack. Dead twins. Crack. Dead Percy. Crack. Dead Harry.

That was when Harry himself stepped in. The moment he walked through that doorway, Mrs Weasley looked up at him with eyes full of fear. The boggart, however, seemed to recognise that it had a new target.

Crack.

In less than a second, it had changed form. Now, standing in front of him and holding each of his sons by their necks, was Lord Voldemort himself.

Mrs Weasley screamed. Mrs Black's portrait started off again, just as they heard footsteps of the rest of the household, who had come running. They appeared in the doorway, wands drawn. It wasn't until Harry held up a hand to his side, indicating that they shouldn't step any further, that anyone stopped.

The boggart Voldemort leered down at Harry, his red eyes every bit as menacing as he remembered. Far more calmly than he felt, Harry stepped forward and said, "Riddikulus!"

Normally, the boggart would have turned into something very funny. Apparently, however, its imagination was limited. With another crack, Lord Voldemort became a smiling clown, who - as opposed to gripping the boys by their necks - was now giving them bright pink fairy floss. With another wave of his wand, the scene before them disappeared.

To the shocked faces in the doorway, Harry said, "It was just a boggart."

"But - but that -"

"- Wasn't that -"

"- It can't have been."

People were all speaking at once, but Harry's eyes were drawn to his boys, who stood front and centre. Both had drawn their wands at some point, but their arms now lay at their sides. Though James' face showed only shocked, Al's was harder to read.

"That was him, wasn't it?" Al asked his father quietly. "You-Know-Who."

"Yes, Al," Harry answered, still using his carefully calm voice. "That was Voldemort."

"I've only ever read descriptions," Al told him. "There's no photos. No portraits."

"That's intentional," Harry confirmed what he knew his son was already thinking.

James chose then to speak, in a whistling kind of whisper, "Dude is creepy."

"That doesn't even begin to cover it," Al said to his brother. "You know how he came back, right? It's the ritual he used - that's why he looks like that. Why he doesn't quite look ... human."

Harry was shaking again. And this time, everyone noticed.

Mrs Weasley, whose sobs had begun to subside, stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Harry, dear. Are you okay?"

"This was supposed to be over, Molly," he said, speaking far too quickly. "He's gone. I was never supposed to see him again."

She opened her mouth to speak, but his words slipped out before she could.

"I did what I was supposed to do. I sacrificed myself. And now I'm back here, at the start of this nightmare? What more could the damn universe want from me?!"

The room went silent. By the looks on their faces, he knew he'd said too much.

"You - you what?" Hermione managed to ask. "Sacrificed?"

He couldn't look anyone in the eye.

"Dad?" James asked, sounding every bit the little boy he felt in that moment.


He'd refused to say nothing further, of course. He'd made out he was tired, that he was going to bed, but everyone knew it was a ruse. Harry couldn't sleep. Not only had he accidentally spilled his greatest secret right out there for everyone to hear, but he was about to step back in to life at Hogwarts. Ironically, during one of the longest, hardest years of his life.

He wasn't at all surprised when he heard someone else moving on the staircase in the middle of the night. He'd needed to get out of that room, away from Ron and the boys, somewhere he felt alone. So he sat on the staircase, in the silence and the dark. He knew it was Ginny even before he spoke. It was as though he could smell exactly what he smelt in Amortentia: it was a unique combination of treacle tart, broomstick polish, and something that was just so Ginny.

She sat down beside him, silent for a moment. When he didn't speak, however, she did it for him.

"You walked into the forest. Alone."

When he didn't object, she took gently took his hand in hers and said, "You were under the cloak. You walked right past me - I knew you were there, somehow, but you didn't stop. You couldn't stop."

He knew before he looked what he would see. But he turned anyway, and faced her horrified expression head on. "You willingly walked to your death."

It wasn't a question.

After a long moment, he broke the silence. "I was the last piece of the puzzle," he told her. "I had to give my life to save everyone else. So I did."

It seemed so simple, though it really wasn't. There was a lot to unpack here, but they didn't. Instead, she gently laid her head on his shoulder and stared at everything and nothing at all.

"You have no idea how much I miss you, Gin," he admitted in the darkness. "I mean, you are you, but -"

"- But I'm not," she sighed. "The same way you're not you either." Another pause, and then: "How much time do we waste?"

"Before what?" he asked. "Before we come to our senses?"

She shrugged. "Something like that, yeah."

"Well, I am a bit of a clueless git, as you'll keep reminding me for the rest of my life," he admitted with a chuckle. "But not you. You've always known."

He couldn't see her face, but he knew she was smiling. "Then it must all come down to timing."

"Yeah," he echoed. "Something like that."