The Changed Timeline
by Teddylonglong
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.
I am not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes.
COMPLETELY AU! Partly OOC! Time travel!
It was early morning, when the Marauders returned inside and went to bed, drifting off to sleep in exhaustion after playing the whole night in their Animagus forms.
By the time Harry's mind turned back to awareness, Remus was still asleep. A glance at his watch showed him that it was already after lunchtime. He got up, dressed and went down to the kitchen to see if anyone was there at all.
"Good morning Harry, merry Christmas," he heard when he was on the stairs and entered the parlour, from where his grandfather's voice had come.
The Potters were just looking at the pretty baubles which Harry had made earlier. "Harry, these are beautiful," Mr. Potter said. "Who made them and how?"
Harry shrugged. "I don't know, I mean I made them, but I can't explain how," he replied, thoughtfully. "I can do things with wish magic, and these I did with wish magic, so I don't know a spell or something to do them with a wand that I could teach anyone."
His grandparents were impressed. "Harry, I've never heard of anyone able to do wish magic except for small children who do accidental magic unintentionally, and the fact that you're able to do wandless magic alone is a sign of how powerful you are. Maybe one day you will be the most powerful wizard alive," Mr. Potter said in clear amazement.
"Yes Granddad, I know," Harry admitted, sighing. "Dumbledore told me before that he's the only one who's still more powerful, but he said that one day I'd be able to outdo him. I don't particularly like it. I'd give anything to just be a normal student like anybody else, but whatever I do attracts attention because in some way or other I'm an exception. I really hate it."
"Now what about opening your Christmas presents?" Mrs. Potter suggested.
Harry looked over to the huge Christmas tree, glad when Lily and Remus joined them, so that they could open their presents together.
He opened the first gift and saw that it was a broom compass from James. His grandparents, the Potters, had given him dragon skin boots; from Remus, he received an ever-lasting lollipop which wouldn't get smaller however long one licked it. From Sirius, he got the book 'Magical creatures and how to cook them' and from Hagrid a book 'Understanding dragons'. His great grandparents had sent him a parcel with a lot of new clothes, muggle clothes as well as wizarding robes. 'Oh, that's great', he thought, 'nearly all my trousers have become too short recently'. Pomfrey had sent him a copy of a very rare, ancient book about Natural Healers, which he frowned at but thought to ask her about it later. From Lily, he received a ring, which was just beautiful. It was simple gold with six animals engraved on it – a stag, a bear, a dog, a snake, an owl and a phoenix.
"Wow, Lily, this is absolutely awesome," he blurted out in amazement. "This is absolutely beautiful." He placed it on the ring finger of his left hand, and it adjusted its size accordingly to his finger.
"I'm glad that you like it," his mother replied, smiling.
Finally, there was only one parcel left, and it was from Severus. When he opened it, he saw another wrapped package with two letters on top of it – one addressed to him and one to Mrs. Potter. He hesitantly handed the letter to his grandmother. "This letter seems to be for you. It's from Severus Snape."
Before he looked at his own letter, he unwrapped the present and saw a dozen phials in six slightly different colours. Then he opened his own letter. It read:
Dear Harry,
I wish you a very happy Christmas. I hope you have recovered completely and are not attracting too much trouble.
These phials contain several new potions that I have tried to make for you and hope some of them could help you the next time you catch a cold, because the Pepperup potion seems not to work for you. BUT: Do not try them out on your own. Please ask Mrs. Potter to keep them for you until you return to Hogwarts. I want you to try them out under Pomfrey's supervision, because they are new and I don't know how they will work and what problems can occur by drinking them. I hope this is very clear, because otherwise these potions can be very dangerous.
Enjoy your time and I'm looking forward to your return to Hogwarts.
Severus
Harry frowned and wondered if Severus liked the rare potions ingredients that he had bought the other day and sent to him. When he noticed that his grandmother was holding her hand out towards him in clear expectation, he handed over the box containing the potions with a sigh, before he said, "Thank you Granny."
She smiled fondly at her grandson and replied, "You're surrounded by good friends, do you know that?"
Harry smiled back and nodded. Then he returned to his room to fetch parchments and a quill and wrote thank you letters to his great grandparents, Pomfrey and Severus. It was almost time for Christmas dinner, when James and Sirius finally showed up and began to open their presents. Christmas dinner was as great as he only knew it from Hogwarts. The house-elves, with a little help from Mrs. Potter, had outdone themselves. Fortunately, Harry, who had missed breakfast that day, was very hungry and could eat a lot of the delicacies. Afterwards, they sat around the Christmas tree until late in the night, reading their new books and talking. Harry suddenly realised that he had to be more and more careful not to give himself away by calling Lily 'mum' or the Potters 'granny' and 'granddad'. Before they finally went to bed at around two o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Potter told them that breakfast was cancelled and they all should show up in the kitchen for a brunch at 11 o'clock.
HP
When they were in bed, Remus and Harry talked for about two hours, and suddenly Harry felt a strong urge to tell Remus about himself and about where he came from. He thought feverishly how he could prevent Remus from accidentally tell anybody and finally tried to spell him with wish magic. But how could he tell if it had worked? Then he reflected that Remus of the future never had broken a promise or told anybody a secret, which had been placed on him; therefore, he decided to trust him.
"Remus?" He began but trailed off, unsure how to begin. Seeing Remus look at him in expectation, he hesitantly continued, "I'd like to tell you something. However, I know it sounds crazy, but I need a wizard's oath from you that you won't tell anybody or act differently because of what I tell you."
Remus gave him a curious look but agreed and made his oath.
"Thanks Remus. What I'm going to tell you about, Lily and Severus know about it partly, and James' parents and McGonagall and Dumbledore know everything. I come from 20 years in the future. Now it's only 18 and half years in fact."
"You what?" Remus blurted out in disbelief, causing Harry to chuckle, as he had never seen the calm Remus so agitated except for last year when he had discovered the wolvescure potion.
"I know you from the future, and you were one of the best friends I had. You also were the best Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher I've had." He told them about how his parents had died and about everything else and they talked until 7 o'clock in the morning, when Harry said, "Let's try to get some sleep; we still have half a year to talk about everything, before I'll have to go back to the future."
"Alright, Harry, good night. And thanks for telling me the truth; I really appreciate it," Remus replied, giving Harry a grateful look.
"You're welcome. I'm glad I told you, so that I'm able to talk to you about it. Lily knows like I said, but she doesn't know who my father is and I don't want her to know."
"Everyone must be able to tell that Harry, it's more than obvious," Remus said in a soft but firm voice.
"No, Remus, she thinks I'm somehow related to him, and I want it to stay like this, because I don't want her to choose to be together with him just because of me; I want her to be together with whom she really loves."
"But… if they don't get together, you won't be born, and..." Remus replied in apparent concern.
"I know," Harry interrupted him, "but Dumbledore has asked someone who can see into the future, some famous seer, and she has clearly seen me and told him that I change everything but that I'll be fine in the end. So I decided not to interfere any further."
"All right Harry, in this case, you don't have to worry about it, and nobody has to know," Remus agreed, smiling. "Good night, Harry."
"Good night, Remus," Harry replied, feeling extremely happy to have been able to tell Remus the truth about himself.
HP
When Harry woke up later and looked out of the window, he noticed that it had snowed a lot since the night before.
"Maybe we can have a snowball fight or a snowman contest," Remus suggested, and everyone agreed immediately.
Harry smiled inwardly when he thought about his snowball fight at Hogwarts just a year before. Sirius and James just couldn't get up, and so it was already nearly lunchtime until everyone was assembled in the kitchen.
"Mum, may we go out into the snow?" James asked right away. "We want to spend some time in the park and maybe have a snowball fight."
Mrs. Potter nodded and instructed the five friends, "Yes you may go, but please be back early enough to be dry and clean for dinner tonight. And remember that it's really cold outside and put on warm clothes."
"Alright mum, we'll be careful," James promised, and they ran up to their rooms to fetch their warm coats.
Outside, the Marauders went to a part of the park, where a very tiny pond was the living space to many colourful fish. Everyone loved the spot, and they spent a long time watching the fish, before Sirius suggested having a snowball fight. They hadn't even exited the forest part of the park when Sirius began to throw snowballs at each of them.
Harry ran over to Lily and Remus and whispered to each of them, "Let's get together against Sirius", and they fought quite a battle against Sirius and James who quickly came to help his friend. By the time Remus proposed having a snowman building contest, Harry was freezing and his teeth were chattering, so he declined and told them he was going inside before catching a cold. Lily, who had been watching her son with worry, decided to accompany him and instructed the others to build their snowmen directly in front of the kitchen window, so that she, Harry and Mrs. Potter could be the jury, when the snowman contest was finished.
"All right", James agreed, "go inside and ask mum for a hot cocoa for both of you to warm up."
Lily rushed Harry back into the kitchen, where she told him to sit down at the table, and when he obliged she went to look for James' mother. Finally, she found her in the parlour reading a book.
"Hello Lily, are you back already?" she asked friendly. She appreciated the girl very much and was glad that her son had such nice and cordial friends and not only pranksters like Sirius, although she had taken in Sirius and loved him like her own son.
"Yes, I came in with Harry, he was cold and his teeth were chattering, so James told us to go in and ask you for a hot cocoa," Lily told her and followed her to the kitchen.
Harry was sitting at the table, his arms wrapped around himself as if he was cold in spite of still wearing his warm coat. Mrs. Potter immediately proceeded to making hot chocolate for them, before she asked Harry, "Are you all right Harry?"
Harry slightly shook his head and sneezed. "Oh no, Harry. Have you caught a cold?" Lily asked horrified.
Harry sneezed again and glanced sadly at his mother. "Don't worry," Mrs. Potter said in a soothing voice, before she instructed him, "Drink your chocolate, and afterwards you take a hot bath to warm up, and you should do the same Lily. Afterwards you come back here and we'll see what we can do."
They did as they were told, and by the time Lily and Harry were back in the kitchen, Harry had warmed up but was now sneezing and coughing constantly. His grandmother handed him one of the potions that Severus had sent him and said, "I know that Severus said you should take it with Pomfrey's supervision, but I fire-called her and she agreed to let you try it out now. If you get any problems, we will have to call her immediately though. We'll have dinner in half an hour, and afterwards you go straight to bed and maybe you'll be fine in the morning."
"May I go to bed now? I don't feel well, and I don't want any dinner," Harry asked in a small voice.
"Harry," Lily scolded him lightly.
However, Mrs. Potter eyed him in concern and conceded, "All right then, go to bed. I'll be by later to check on you."
Harry went to bed and Lily and Mrs. Potter took turns sitting with him for the whole evening. Even if he really felt unwell, he noticed that he in fact enjoyed to be cuddled and cared for by his mother and grandmother – something that he had never experienced before. Fortunately, Severus' potion was very efficient, and in the morning, Harry was completely fine.
HP
The rest of the holidays was so enjoyable and funny that the time passed in a blink and soon the day came, when they had to return to Hogwarts. Harry was a bit sad. On the one hand, he was looking forward to seeing Severus and his great grandparents again, but on the other hand, he had liked it at the Potters very much, and he had really enjoyed living in a home together with a family of his own. Mrs. Potter pulled him into a big hug and promised that he could come again to spend the Easter or summer holidays at Potter manor.
This time they took a Portkey to King's Cross in order to board the Hogwarts Express, and they were early enough to be able to get a compartment together. When they arrived at the castle, Severus was waiting for him in front of the entrance door.
ハリーと改変されたタイム・ライン
"Hello Harry, good to have you back," Severus greeted him, uncharacteristingly excited. "Now we can go to dinner I suppose. You're in for a nice surprise."
tbc...
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