Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters

Sorry for the wait for this chapter!

Thanks to LunaScamander17 and twitchthewitch for the reviews

2022

"Rose!" Older Harry gasped, stepping in front of her. "This is a really bad time, maybe you should go back home for now."

"That's not Albus," Rose said, ignoring her uncle. "He's got a scar on his forehead."

"Erm," Harry said, nervously scratching the back of his neck. "Well, yes, he does. But really, it's not important, just go home, please."

"He's got your scar on his forehead," she continued, eyes still locked onto the younger Harry's brow. He shifted uncomfortably, reminded of the countless times he had noticed people's heads turning as he walked down Diagon Alley or even through the Hogwarts corridors.

Oh, to not have the pesky lightning bolt carved into his temple.

"Who is this?" Lily said, folding her arms menacingly as she glared at the girl. Rose didn't seem hostile, but the way younger Harry seem to shrink backward as she gazed at his scar irritated her. She didn't know why, exactly. Mother's intuition echoed in the recesses of her brain, but she defiantly shoved it into a deep corner of her thoughts. She was just going to ignore that tidbit for now.

"Rose," Ginny interjected helpfully, glancing toward Lily. Her gaze returned to the bushy haired girl, and she continued to speak. "Rose, there's a lot to explain and it'd be easier if we did it after we've fixed it. Or not at all." The last sentence was muttered under her breath, barely made out by Lily.

"This probably has something to do with the picture Dad found at work," Rose decided, still studying the younger Harry. Slowly, she pivoted to fix her stare at Lily. "Are you really Lily?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"Th-that's my name," Lily spluttered, alarmed at the demanding question.

"Rose!" Older Harry said. The girl whirled around to face her uncle. "What's this about a picture Ron found?"

"Ron?" the Harry that stood next to Lily muttered to himself. "I could've sworn she looked like Hermione… Oh." He started to grin, ignoring the heated conversation going on between Rose and older Harry in his reverie. "I knew it!" He proclaimed triumphantly, just loud enough that Ginny sent him an amused glance.

Lily turned her attention back to the pair arguing in the middle.

"What picture?" Harry repeated, frowning at his niece.

"Dad took it off a reporter at work," Rose said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Something about illegal trespassing on private property and stupid paparazzi people. He was busy owling Ministry officials like a madman, but he told me to go get you to have a look." Her gaze drifted over to Harry and Lily again, before flicking back to her uncle. "Where are Albus and Lily, Uncle Harry?"

"It's a very long story," Ginny interrupted again. She seemed to be good at that, stepping in at the right time. "And we should tell Ron."

Older Harry sighed, running his hand through his hair. Lily's fingers twitched again, but she was determined to hold her ground. Still, an image of a cocky James Potter with his hand in his jet black hair as he relentlessly pursued her persisted in her mind. It wasn't a pleasant picture.

"Yeah, I'll talk to Ron, but I don't want to send anyone else through the floo," he said, looking pointedly at the two time travelers, giving the feeling that by anyone, he meant them. "If they end up in the wrong place, then we could seriously muck things up."

"I'm pretty sure I can bloody floo somewhere," younger Harry protested indignantly.

"Of course, because you were trying to end up in Knockturn Alley," his older counterpart replied.

"I'll stay here," Ginny offered, shrugging. "Rose should go back with you. Ron's probably getting worried since she hasn't reappeared within ten seconds."

Older Harry rolled his eyes affectionately. Next to Lily, the younger Harry seemed to be trying to hold back a laugh.

Rose seemed rather taken back at being discussed as if she wasn't in the room. "I want to know who those people are, if they aren't my cousins," she demanded, gesturing widely in Harry and Lily's direction. Her eyebrows were furrowed, and she looked as if she was thinking so hard she would figure out who they were for herself before anyone could tell her. "Plus, I just saw Al. He came in while I was doing my hair. Bloody git," she added, more to herself, and James stifled a snicker across the room. "But anyway, he can't have gone far in the past hour, could he?"

"Wizards, Rosie," James reminded her. Rose folded her arms and glared at her cousin, affronted at being called a pet name. "Al could be at the moon by now."

"Well, I'll have you know-"

"Everyone calm down!" Ginny said, moving swiftly to intercept the two arguing teenagers. "Albus is not on the moon, I promise, Rose. And James, you knew that," she continued, glaring at her son. "Just..." she shook her head, exasperated. "Rose, go with Harry. James, stay here with… Our guests." Ginny focused on Rose, gauging her reaction to the term.

"Guests," Rose echoed, smirking a little. "I knew they weren't Al and Lily."

"I am Lily," Lily replied, clenching her fists. "I told you."

"Not my Lily," the red haired girl said triumphantly, standing up straighter. Lily was disappointed to see that she was the taller of the two.

"I thought I told you to stop fighting," Ginny interrupted sharply. She directed Rose to older Harry, who had been watching the tense conversation with meek curiosity. Muttering something to Ginny as he passed her, he took Rose back into the living room, where presumably the fireplace was located.

Harry was starting to worry. He had come home from work expecting an overexcited Lily wanting to play Quidditch and a timid Al hoping for a decent game of chess that didn't involve being slaughtered by his uncle. Instead he had him and his mother and they were both younger than him.

That's a sentence I never thought I'd have to think.

Though, he supposed weird things came with being an Auror, and, well, being him. You didn't find a basilisk that petrified people by slithering through an old castle's pipes and doing a supposedly dead murderer's bidding without adjusting quickly to strangeness.

He could tell that Rose was bursting with questions, more so than normal, at least, but he didn't want to deal with them right now, so instead he simply didn't answer any of them.

Honestly, the young Weasley was so similar to Hermione, it was almost comical. The only difference was the red hair, and Harry could tell that his younger self had noticed it quite quickly after he had learned that her father was Ron. Rose had picked up the raw determination to know absolutely everything there was to know from her mother, as well as the confidence Hermione had gained after years of ignoring the press.

Rose stepped through the fireplace behind him into her family's living room. Harry made to go upstairs, but stopped at her intense expression.

"You can't possibly believe you're just going to drop me here," she said, haughtily. "I'm curious. I'm coming with you to see the picture."

Harry blinked, surprised by the demand.

"Mum says to always foster curiosity," Rose added.

"You can't come with me, Rose. I don't know what it is your Dad's got, but if he had wanted it shown to you, he would have done it himself."

"You never know," the red haired girl reasoned. "You could take me up there and ask him."

"Rose, this could be important, okay?" Harry said. "I need to go." He had a dim feeling that Rose wasn't going to take that as a final answer, but dismissed it. He had been wondering what could be so bad about this picture, but anything that he had to be called in for couldn't be good, and he didn't want his niece tangled up in it. As Rose, pouting slightly, ducked into the kitchen, he made for the stairs.

The Granger-Weasley home was relatively small by their family's standards, though it had no haphazardly placed rooms charmed not to bring the whole building down, unlike the Burrow. It was a small cottage in the outskirts of Harrogate, previously owned by an ancient line of Scottish wizards. What a Scottish family had been doing for centuries living in Yorkshire had unfortunately escaped Harry.

It was because of the house's magical history that he had to jump the fourth step from the top, as when agitated it liked to swear in a gravelly Scottish accent. Most of the curse words had been rendered obsolete due to time, but were coming back into fashion among the fifth year Gryffindors because of Hugo's fondness for rough language.

Harry found Ron and Hermione exactly where he'd thought they'd be, in the study, which was really a small desk surrounded completely by overstuffed bookshelves. They were both bent over the desk, staring with furrowed brows at what looked like a photograph.

He stood in the doorway for a few moments, but apparently his entry hadn't caught their attention. "'Lo," he said, softly, grinning a little as both of his friends jumped.

"Harry!" Hermione said, grinning broadly at the same time Ron did. "Oh, we've got something to show you."

They waved him over to the small desk, pulling him in between them. As Harry got a good luck at the picture, he realized exactly what it was.

It was him. But not him as he was now, but the younger version of himself sitting at home at that moment. The younger Harry seemed to be looking off the the side, bangs pushed away from his face so the lightning shaped scar on his forehead was clearly visible in the photograph. Harry watched as the younger him turned away. Then the picture reset, and his temple was in sight again.

Next to him stood Lily Evans, but instead of looking off to the side, she had been looking out the window as the picture was taken. As the photo continued, she frowned slightly, and then turned to Harry next to her before the image reset.

"He's got a scar," Ron said, slightly faintly, as if he still couldn't believe it. "Harry, why has Al got a scar?"

Harry opened his mouth, trying to form a decent answer.

Hermione interjected. "Ron found the photo at work; a reporter from the Daily Prophet came in asking for comments. He confiscated it from the woman, she was awfully angry about it, but it was trespassing, that's under Decree 46."

Ron nodded along with his wife, still focused on the picture. "She kept saying you'd been shrunk or something, and then she held up a picture of your mother." Now he was looking at Harry, gauging his reaction. "Funny thing is, Lily-our Lily looked more similar to your mum that I'd noticed before."

Harry's eyes flicked between his two friends, waiting to see if they were going to continue. He had a long story to tell, and he didn't want to be interrupted. Hermione and Ron looked back at him with equal intensity, though with more confusion mixed in.

Deciding he ought to start explaining, Harry began. "Lily looks like my mum because she is my mum," he said.

"That's a bit messed up, mate," Ron remarked.

"What?" Hermione exclaimed at the same time.

"Let me explain," Harry said, exasperated. "That's not our Lily. I came home to Ginny and James, who were talking about time travelers. Lily looks like my mum because she's actually Lily Evans, and Al's got a scar because he's me."

"Where are Lily and Albus then?" Hermione said, frowning as she considered the story.

Harry ran a hand through his hair, shoulders drooping as he thought of his son and daughter. He had considered where they were, and the question had been nagging him since Ginny had explained. It was worrying her too, he could tell. They could be anywhere, but other incidents with time travel had inclined him to think that Lily and Albus were someplace connected with Lily Evans and himself.

Merlin, he hoped Al wasn't in 1995. He couldn't imagine someone else going through that-he wasn't particularly sure how he had survived that year without going insane himself. Lily… he wasn't sure what had happened to his teenage mother and father, but he desperately hoped she was okay.

"I don't know," Harry answered finally. He knew Hermione and Ron well enough to know that they had the same concerns about where the two teenagers were. "I-I just…"

"Harry," Hermione said soothingly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We'll find them."

"In the meantime, though," Ron mused, "we ought to make sure the two time travelers are safe. It could be a plot, you know. If either your…" He gulped. "Mum, or you, die, then we'll be in serious trouble."

"Or it could create an alternate universe," Hermione remarked. "I'll have to look into it. And learn a bit more on time travel, of course. I can go to the Hogwarts library, that's the biggest Wizarding one in Britain, isn't it?"

Both Harry and Ron shrugged and made general noises of ambivalence.

"We've got to be more careful, though, you're right, Ron," Harry said. "If the Prophet gets ahold of this…"

"Rita Skeeter's in charge these days, did you hear?" Ron added. "It would be a disaster."

"You're both right," Hermione agreed. "We need to be much more careful. Ron, you don't think the reporter had any other copies of the photo?"

"I dunno," Ron said. "I'll have to find out. You go to the library, Hermione. Harry, make sure the time travelers are alright. I'll tell Rose and Hugo we'll be out, and then I'll go to the Prophet's main offices."

"Right," Hermione said. "Erm, I'll be off then, I guess. Research first. I should probably talk to Lily and the younger you as well, Harry," she added as, with a flick of her wand, she Disapparated.

Ron frowned. "You can't Apparate to Hogwarts."

"You only know that because of her, mate. She's probably gone to Hogsmeade. Mcgonagall will let her in." Harry ran his hand through his hair again, his thoughts once again returning to his missing children.

"Hey," Ron said, as if he could tell what Harry was thinking about. "We'll find them. Blimey, we put Hermione on the case, didn't we? If she can't find them, no one can."

Then what do we do if she can't?

The two men made their way out of the study, both in considerably worse moods now then when they had entered.