Hey everyone!

I just wanted to start answering some Review, as I should have done since the beginning so sorry for that!
So please leave a comment, it makes me rethink certain aspects of this story and gives me an idea of how I can improve my writing.

Guest review at chapter 4:
Thank you for your comment. I have to admit I'm not a believer of second chances in any kind of way either If it's not meant to be, than be that as it may! It sounds harsh but that's what I experienced in life so far and I'm sorry for your experience.
I don't see this scenario as a second chance for Harry. It's rather their very first chance. Those three years were taken away from him by Dumbeldore and not because he couldn't get his act together or something like that. In one of the upcoming chapters there'll be a talk between Harry and Ginny about what would have been without Dumbledores spell so I hope you'll understand where I was coming from by then.
And for making Harry a fool: I wanted him to be concerned, not foolish. You know I thought it even fitted the "original" Harry. After he knew for certain that he has to die and he saw Ginny in the courtyard he stayed away from her because he thought he couldn't go through with it or that to see her hurt would stop him from doing what has to be done. My Harry, at least for now, kinda things the same way.

Thanks again to my wonderful Beta christyannb94 !

I'm so in love with you

5

27. July 1996

Bzzz...Bzzz...Bzzz...Bzzzzzzzzzzbzzz.

"Oh pleaseeee!" Harry whined as his alarm went off at six o'clock.
He knew he wouldn't be able to find any sleep either way, so he sat up in bed and scratched behind his ears while yawing.
He lost his focus, stared at nothing in front of him and let his arms slump into his lap.
How could he survive this day and everything that followed? Somehow without Ginny, it was much easier. With her he had something to live for, but he knew he couldn't live if he wanted to get rid of Tom.

Over the past years, he accepted his fate. He knew that his family didn't really accept it. They tried and looked up everything they could, but without any results yet. Just with one slim hope based on a bed time story.
He thought back as he overheard his parents the day before Christmas Eve.

Harry wanted to go down to the kitchen and make himself some tea. Another wave of Tom's emotions flooded him earlier while he slept. Even with his Occlumency exercises it happened from time to time, nothing major but it was still a reminder of that 'fucking piece of shit' - how he referred to it - inside of him.
Harry stepped onto the landing between the two stairs and heard his mum's voice coming from the kitchen.

"...but he isn't the same anymore, James!" he could hear the pain in his mother's voice clearly and wondered who this was about.

"Darling, listen to me, please! There is nothing right now we can do besides being here for him and giving him all the love we can. This is hurting all of us."
He heard his mother sniffling

"You know I talked to him more than once but nothing. He's as stubborn as his mother when it comes to my advice...ouch!"
His mother must have a good punch, Harry thought and smiled.
Now he knew that this was about him. He let out a deep sigh and sat down at the landing with elbows on his knees and fingers intertwined.

"I want Harry back, Jamie!" Lily said pleadingly and it nearly broke Harrys heart to hear his mum like that.
Sure his mum was emotional and was known for her temper. There was not much that was hidden from each other in his caring and open family but his mother just wasn't one to cry because of a problem.

"When was the last time he really seemed happy and had fun? I can't even remember how his laughter sounds. We lost him before he...is...even gone!" Lily said with hiccups in between.
For Harry it was enough to forget the reason why he came down in the first place and just to hide in his room for doing this to his family.

From then on, he tried, especially this Christmas, he tried really hard to behave normally, but somehow he forgot what his normal self, or better, his past-self was.
He lost himself and didn't know how to become that person again. He lost his biggest reason to be normal after his second year, that he was sure of.
He raked through his hair, sighed frustrated, stood up and made his way over to the bathroom adjoined to his room. After taking care of his needs, he changed into his training outfit (a tight-fitting muscle-shirt and a pair of shorts in black) and left his room to go downstairs.

"Morning sunshine!" Tonks greeted him happily at the back porch.

"Oh come on Grumpy! Early to bed and early to rise, that makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise"

"You got laid!" was his grumpy response.

"Yep! And you are jealous that you can't shag your pretty head stupid."

"I don't think that THIS will take long," remarked Ginny cheerily, walking through the door dragging a still sleeping Rose along.
Tonks snorted and winked at her.

"I see! Where did you leave the other four dwarves? Here we got Happy," she pointed to Ginny "Sleepy," she pointed to Rose who began to drool onto Ginny's shoulder "and lovely Grumpy over there," she said and smiled happily at Harry who just crossed his arms over his chest and glared dangerously at Tonks and Ginny.

"Look! He tries to look dangerous," Ginny said and cooed at Harry like he was a two-year-old.
But Ginny had to admit that he looked intimidating. With his physique and the stony look on his face in another situation she would probably beg him for mercy for what he could do with his bare hands. Then there came totally different things to her mind about what she wanted him to do with those hands on her that she nearly joined Rose in drooling all over the place.

"I missed you so much, honey!" Tonks exclaimed and clapped excited.

"Can we start or do you have another comment to say?" Harry asked annoyed.

"But Harry, that's what friends are for!" Ginny answered and batted her eyes with a big fake smile towards him.

"Uh-uh! Important things first. I know, it's pretty damn wicked to train with such a badass auror as moi, but why are you even trained in the first place, my little dwarves?"

"To kick some Death Eater ass?" Rose mumbled while using Ginny as a support.

"No, preferably exactly NOT to kick some Death Eater ass. First of all, Grumpy here started to train to work off some of his nasty moods he devolved since Happy here was whisked away. Resulting in these simple work out sessions, and also due to the likelihood of being a target after his already three encounters with Voldy-Smoldy, his first year, his second year and as a toddler, and this prophecy thing hanging over his head, we started to prepare Harry." Ginny felt that while explaining the last part, Dora became quite serious.

"But the point is, he is prepared to fight IF he ever needs to. There's no way any of you would be put, willingly, in front of any Death Eater or folks like that. You're still kids, and this war is not fought by you...well at least we hope that this will end before any of you need to fight it." Dora paused and looked at the three teenagers in front of her. Even Harry's stubborn posture cracked and he watched his sister and Ginny listening carefully to Dora's lecture.

"Our world sees more and more death and pain every day caused by those idiots...and believe me, as an auror, I got my fair share of that. Therefore we want you to be able to handle yourself if the necessity arose and to be able to help others if needed." As if they were told to, both Ginny and Rose felt the need to nod their understanding.

"Good! But to be able to help yourself and others, you need a strong mind and body before you even learn what you're able to do with it. I'm here for the physical part. Every morning during the week, we'll meet right here at the same time for the next two weeks. After that, just like Grumpy, the two of you will be able to work out by yourselves. Any questions left?" Even Harry shook his head no and so they began their warm up with a few sit ups, push-ups, and crunches.

Harry didn't even begin to breathe heavy or to show any kind of fatigue. Neither did Tonks and to their utter surprise Ginny - she seemed in better form than they thought. Rose woke up completely somewhere half through the warm up.

Harry had a hard time during that particular warm up. His decision to stay away from Ginny and not to act on his feelings for her somehow never really reached his body because certain parts of his body reacted pretty … hard.
The fact that Ginny wore a pretty tight-fitting pair of sport leggings, her top hugged her chest rather tight and showed off a bit of her naked skin every time she stretched (added to what he saw last night and would never forget) that did nothing good for his imagination.

So he appreciated the chance to not have her in his range of vision while running.
Ginny thwarted Harry's plans quickly on the second day as she outran him. While doing this she ran through the water and got him pretty wet.

"Hey!"

"I just wanted to cool you down. You know, that's what friends are for!" she said and ran in front of him and gave him the perfect view of her backside.

29. July 1996

After that morning and the following day Harry reduced their interaction to the minimum during the training.
Ginny took every opportunity to torment him with his own words or just be too close to him. The rest of the family found their little game highly amusing because they knew one day Harry would give in. Everyone except Lily and Rose.

"Mum?"

"Yes, Rosie?" The two red heads stood in the potion lab that took over half the basement of the house. The other half was occupied by a duel and training room.
Rose loved to help her mother making potions. It fascinated her how a tiny bit from one ingredient could make it a completely different potion or how even simple herbs can alter its effect. And the calming that brewing a potion entails was what Rose loved the most. Also, to have the exact plan of what you have to do next, knowing the preferable outcome and its effect gave her a security that she missed in her everyday life for a long time now.

"Harry behaves like an arsehole."

"Rosie..."

"No mum, really! He treats Ginny so horrible and at the same time can't stay away from her in his animagus form," Rose cut some goosegrass rather violently.

"Firstly, don't talk like that about your brother. Secondly, that goosegrass is already dead, you don't need to kill it, just cut it," Lily said, took the knife from her daughter.

"And thirdly, you don't think that your father and I didn't try to talk to him about the last days? But you know as good as anybody else that when your brother has planned something in that stubborn head of his, that it takes longer for him to see the fault in it – especially when it comes down to personal things."

"He's so focused on Tom and that f...," Lily cleared her throat "…flippin' thing, that he forgets everything that's really important." Lily knew all of that.

In the last two days since Ginny's return, she saw the distance between those two and saw how much it hurt Ginny.
She already talked to the younger witch but when she came to the same point as Rose, to tell her the reasons for her son's behavior, she couldn't tell her.
It just wasn't right to tell her. Harry made them all swear not to tell Ginny what was happening with him, he would do it. But he didn't, and it made Lily unbelievably angry.

"We have to do something mum. It's killing her and I mean that not just as a figure of speech."

"I know, Rosie. And I promise that your father and I will try our best," she said, smiled encouragingly at Rose and kissed her forehead.

"Oh, shoot! The cauldron!" Rose exclaimed and hurried over to her cauldron that started to spill its content all around the potion lab.

"Hey!" Ginny looked to her left and saw Rose taking the seat beside her on the porch swing.

After dinner everyone went their own way. Lily and James managed the kitchen after they laid Daisy and Daniel down. Harry went his own way and Rose finished the last bit of her essay for Ancient Runes – and was now finally done with her holiday assignments. Ginny found a book from one of the shelves in the living room (the German novel 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' by Johann Wolfgang Goethe) and sat down at the porch swing.

"Hey" she greeted Rose back.

"What are you reading?" Ginny just held up the cover.

"Ah, quite depressing, especially at the end," Rose commented her choice of book and they fell into silence – Ginny staring at the cover and Rose staring at her.

"How about we get you up to date with Hollywood tonight? We could watch a few movies that you missed. If I remember correctly, you loved those movie nights," Rose said enthusiasticly, grabbed the book out of Ginny's lap and reached for her hand.
Ginny looked up at her best friend and a huge smile crossed her pretty face.

"I'm in!" she just said, grabbed Rose's hand and they made their way upstairs.

"What are you two up to?" James asked as he poked his head out of the kitchen.

"Movie night," Ginny answered.

"Oh great, care if we join you or was this planned as a girl's night?" he asked walking towards the stairs where they stood on the landing.

"But dad, you're already dressed properly for a girl's night," Rose answered sweetly and Ginny had a hard time not to laugh out loud.

"What do you...," but he stopped mid-sentence as he took a look at himself. He was dressed in a pink flannel pajama with jumping stags on it.

"Prongsy, you told me all those years that you wasn't into wands," Sirius exclaimed with an amused look on his face as he entered the hallway with Remus and Dora, who were already laughing like mad.

"Ha, ha...funny you old mutt. Now change me back," James said in a louder voice trying to be heard above the laughter from his wife and the others.

"That wasn't me!" Sirius said between laughter.

"I'm proud of you. The Marauders 2.0 are getting us boys," Remus said and reached up to high-five his goddaughter.

"Thanks, Uncle Moony!"
James groaned but had a hard time to hide his look full of pride. She was her father's daughter through and through.

"What are you three even doing here?" Lily asked as she stood beside her husband and couldn't resist pinching his backside.

"Two little red birds told us something about a movie night," Dora said as she excitedly joined Rose and Ginny at the landing.

"All right, everyone up and I'll bring something to drink along," Lily ordered the others.

"Oh and Remus, Sirius? Cute pajamas," Lily added innocently, winked at them, and walked back into the kitchen to get them some drinks.

"Why did you have to marry her, Prongs?" Sirius asked as he looked disgusted at the same pajamas James wore, just with little stars on it, and for Remus with moons.
They all walked up together to the second floor and took the first door on the right. Ginny was shocked.

Behind the door was a huge room that contained two big sofas and a few armchairs and ottomans around the room. On one wall hung a huge screen for the video projector, that was connected with a VHS player, a DVD player, and two consoles – a Super Nintendo Entertainment System and a PlayStation. The two windows that overlooked the path towards the village were hidden behind dark red curtains.

"The equipment changed a bit over the last three years," Ginny remarked as she sat down at one of the huge sofas in front of the screen, still looking around.

"But it's sooooo worth it!" Rose responded happily standing next to the shelf that contained all the VHS's and DVDs.

"So which...,"

"Braveheart!" Dora screamed and interrupted Rose.

"Oh come on. You know that movie in and out" Sirius said from his seat in one of the armchairs, still in his pajamas.

"It's still great," She defended her choice.
Just as she went to sit down next to Remus at the other sofa, her outfit changed into pajamas too.
"I don't wear things like this!" she said, mock angry and turned to look at Rose and Ginny who were also in those pajamas and pointed at Remus.

"No, you don't wear that much at night," He said waggling his eyebrows and pulling her towards him.

"Bad wolf, Moony!" James said cheerfully followed by a wolf howl from him and Sirius.

"Darling, could you lend me a helping hand here?" Lily asked from the doorway after she placed the drinks on the table.

"Sure, babe" he said and walked over to her.

"Ready?"

"As I'll ever be." James smiled lovingly at his wife and kissed her forehead.
They opened the door to the training room in the basement and were met with a picture of pure destruction. Pieces from dummies laid all around the room. In the middle of the room laid a sword on the floor that reflected the dimmed neon light.

"Harry, sweetheart?" Lily approached her son and turned the music off with a flick of her hand.

"Hey!" he answered, breathing heavily.
He stood slightly ahead from where the sword lay. His shirt was totally soaked and sweet was dripping down his forehead.
James grabbed a towel from the stack next to him and threw it over to Harry.

"Thanks, dad." He looked amusedly at his dad's attire and had to smirk.
He caught his son's look

"Your sister. We thought you might want to join us for a movie night. Remus, Dora, and Sirius are there, too" James asked and picked up the sword. It was the sword of Gryffindor.

"Naah, I know most of them already and wanted to try something I read about this morning," he responded and vanished the pieces from the destroyed dummies all over the room.

"Why are you doing this, son?" James asked calmly and put the sword back on its place next to the sword of Slytherin.

"YOU trained me to fight with a sword and I just wanted to practice while you...," Harry started to explain but was interrupted by his mother

"Oh stop it Harry! You know what your father meant!"
Lily wasn't the type of mother that got easily angry with her kids, or annoyed in any way, but that person in front of her, right now, wasn't really her son.

"You treat Ginny, your best friend, the girl you told me you would once marry, like she's nothing to you." She took a step towards him.
Somehow, his mother seemed much more intimidating than ever before. She didn't scream or raised her voice. The edge in her words made it much more effective than screaming.

"You treat your whole family as if we were too stupid to understand you. Everything you say is just 'You don't understand it!' But do you want to know something?" Harry stared at his mother and gulped.

"We understand you! You weren't the only one that lost the other half of his family. We lost them too and we swore to get through this together. As a family!"
James stood slightly behind his wife and just listened. He saw that everything Lily said hit home. He saw how his son's face fell and his eyes took over a hurt and look full of so many other emotions he rarely saw the last three years in those pair of emerald-green eyes.

He knew Lily good enough to know that she was nowhere near done with their son.

"I don't give a damn about how many pieces of Tom's soul are inside of you, or what stupid plan you set your mind on this time, but I won't let you give up before you've even tried to survive this. I have no idea how you can accept that you have to die and live the last years of your life like this, but I won't let that happen. Tonight is family-time. We have no idea how many of those nights we got left together, because I'm always afraid that one of you won't come back home." Lily closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

"So please, give me my son back. I can't give him up."
As he looked into his mother's eyes again it felt like all of his insides were pierced with a thousand knives.
Her emerald-green eyes, his eyes, sparkled with tears that rolled down her cheek.

"Please. Be yourself again." She wasn't just pleading him with her words but with her whole being. "Please!"
Harry walked towards his mother and wrapped his arms around her. He buried his face in her neck and felt his own tears soaking her auburn hair.

"I'm so sorry, mum," he croaked out and felt her gripping him tighter, like her life depended on it.

"I love you so much," she said, kissed his forehead, and wiped his tears away with her thumbs.
James joined in and they remained in their three-way hug for a few minutes.

"We'll find a way. I promise you," his father said as he kissed the side of his head and pulled him closer.

Harry just nodded and bathed in the feeling of having his parents so close. He couldn't imagine how his life would have been without them. They were his anchor and he had no idea how he could be such a prick the last few years.

"I need to sort things out tonight. Think about it, you know?" Harry said as he untangled himself from his parents.

"I'll be back tomorrow and tell Ginny everything."

"Don't you think you should just talk to her now?" Lily suggested.

"Give him this night, Lils. He can calm down and from tomorrow on, there'll be no running away anymore."
Harry took that with a smile and silent salute.

"Then I think I'll grace my big brother with my appearance." He added as he walked with his parents to the ground floor.

"Tell him I told you that he has to come over more often!" Lily told him as he walked into the living room.

"I will, mum," he responded before he vanished in the green flames.

"C'est magnifique. Oh, Bill. Zees is it. N'arrêtez pas, chéri!" Was the first thing that met Harry's ears accompanied with the picture of Bill having his head buried between Fleurs legs and her squirming on the sofa that stood in front the fireplace he just entered through.

"I'm so in love with you, chérrie!" Bill's muffled voice reached his ears next.

"'Arry!" Fleur screamed as she opened her eyes.

"What?" Bill asked shocked, and lifted his head.

"Hi, big brother. I should've called through first." Bill wheeled around. He saw Harry standing there waving at him and still covering his eyes with his other hand.
He heard the rustling of clothes, their little discussion why the other didn't seal the floo, and after Bills 'You can' he uncovered his eyes.

"Hi, again," he said sheepishly.

"Your timing could've been better, o brother of mine!" Bill said a bit annoyed as he did the last button on his shirt.
For Bill, all four Potter children were just as much his brothers and sisters as his own. They grew up with each other and he didn't differentiate between any of them.
As the first child, he saw all of them grow up from the beginning and loved them just the same as any Weasley. Lily and James even asked him to be Daisy and Daniel's godfather and he was more than happy to accept.

"What a greeting, it's great to see you, too," Harry responded and winked at Fleur.

"Still it is good to see you, 'arry" she said sweetly, smiling at him, still a bit flushed, and gave him a kiss on his cheek.

"I make us zome tea," Fleur added and walked to the other end of the room where the kitchen was located.
The whole room was rather big and contained the kitchen with the dining table and the living room.
Just three doors led out of the room. One towards the bedroom, the one next to it towards the bathroom, and the last door, next to the fireplace, led outside the flat into the oceanic summer weather outside.

The right wall gave an amazing view over the rooftops of Rennes, the regional capital of Brittany in the west of France.

A year ago, Bill transferred to the French branch of Gringotts where he was offered the position as head curse breaker. The fact that Fleur applied for a job in his department at the same time was rather ... coincidental just as much as the fact that her family lived just outside of Rennes.

"I hope her mouth wasn't occupied otherwise before," Harry said after they greeted each other and earned him a smack in the back of his head and a 'Brat!' by Bill.
Harry loved to spend time with Bill. It always gave him the possibility to see things from a distance and think. Bill wasn't always involved in his everyday family life, so he knew he could always count on Bill, if he needed a much more impartial point of view.

Somehow, Dumbledore never thought about Bill and Charlie not visiting the Burrow very often due to their jobs overseas.
Because Bill and Charlie visited after the incident with Ginny and the chamber, they were also under Dumbledore's spell. But as they didn't return after the six months were over, Charlie;s memories returned and contacted Bill directly.

Bill was more fortunate as he had to be tested for spells or curses due to his work for Gringott,s and as he discovered what happened to his memories and by whom, he directly contacted the Potters who told him everything.
From then on Bill and Charlie worked together with the Potters and their extended family to free the rest of their family from Dumbledore's spell and at the same time fight against Riddle and his minions.

"Mum will be so smug to see that she was right," Harry said as he and Bill joined Fleur at the kitchen table.
Bill instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer to him.

"I told 'er zat I would not even need my magic on 'im," Fleur responded and smiled happily at the man next to her.

Bill and Fleur met for the first time when she was 16 and he was 22, on the weekend before he turned 23 in November 1993.
James and Lily started to get as many people on their side as they could in the beginning and thanks to a business relationship that connected the Potters and Delacours, they were already befriended to the family.
So one week in November, they met with Bill at the Delacours' to ward their house properly.

Fleur was at home for two days and they met for the first time. Bill thought her to be a spoiled and very self-centred little girl in the beginning. And Fleur's impression was ... well it was impressive.
Bill studied the property sketches to plan how he could achieve the most powerful wards and everything required, for example how many crystals and which one he would need and so on.
While doing this, he suddenly felt some magic pulling at him but without an effect. He didn't need to turn around as he already knew what it was.

"Miss Delacour, could you please stop trying to use your Veela magic on me. I need to concentrate." He turned now towards the younger but, he had to admit, extremely beautiful witch.

"'ow..,"

"I'm trained in sensing magical signatures and magic itself, and thankfully I'm also trained in resisting some forms of them," he explained before she could finish her question.

"So, you don't need to waste your magic on me to get my attention, even if you seem to need it," Bill said and continued his work.

Everything was just so stressful form him, after what happened to his family, that he couldn't stand it to be disturbed while doing his work. The only thing he could do without going totally nuts.
After he found everything he needed, he turned towards Fleur again.

"Could you please leave the room. I need to calibrate the crystals for them to work properly."

"You said zat I could...,"

"I said you could stay and watch, if you turn out your magic, but you seem to not be able to do. So, please, leave." Bill interrupted her again.

"Zat is effarant !"

"Oui, s'il vous plaît quittons la pièce?" Bill asked her again and startled her as he spoke in French.
She found her composure again, huffed, crossed her arms over her chest, and glared at him.

"Puis-je vous poser une question?" Bill asked after they stared at each other for a moment and let his eyes wander over her.

"Oui."

"Do you have a low self- esteem, or why do you have to keep up your magic all the time?"
Fleur was so pissed off with what he just asked that she stormed out of the room and was happy that she never had to see him again.

But they met again a year and seven months later at the night Voldemort returned during the fourth task of the Triwizard Tournament.
Neville Longbottom was used in some kind of ritual to bring Voldemort's body back. The boy barely survived. Only thanks to James and his teams of aurors, who were able to track him down fast enough, did he have any chance to survive.

James and Lily got everyone together to make plans at their place and the Delacours were there, too.
Bill said he was sorry how he treated her and explained his situation then, and she told him how right he was.
They stayed awake that night and just talked. Fleur told him how she always thought that nobody would genuinely like her for who she really was and rather just react to her magic that just naturally leaked out from time to time.
That night they became friends and barely a year later everyone suspected that they were going out with each other.

"So, what brings you here?" Bill asked.
Harry raked through his hair and started to tell them everything that happened the last days.

"She's really back?" Bill just asked him as he finished, obviously happy about having his baby sister back.

"Yes, and I have no idea yet how I should talk to her about everything," Harry responded, frustrated, and banged his head on the table

"Listen to your 'eart, 'arry." Fleur suggested and he just groaned.
If he would have done just that from the beginning, he wouldn't have to worry about it now. But he knew she was right.

"Would it be alright if I stay here tonight? Then I could get everything early in the morning and go straight home to talk to Ginny."
They said yes and, after he took a shower, he laid down on the sofa he expanded – and cleaned – with two motions of his hands.

That night, he also didn't get much sleep, but in anticipation that tomorrow he would get his life back on track and fight for it, no matter what..