As promised, the updated chapters for this story will be posted as quickly as I can re-write them and my best friend can edit them for me. Those of you who come back to read this story from time to time will likely notice the the same string of lines and descriptions as before, which have been left simply because they worked out well. However, newer details and interactions will be added to the chapters as we go, which means that there will always be something new for you to read even if the text is familiar. Please feel free to leave a review when you have finished reading through this chapter. The next one is already being edited and the fourth being re-worked, so I hope to have some more for you soon. Thank you!

Chapter 2
The Arrival

The force of the door slamming behind him as he entered his bedroom was enough to shake the walls and rattle the pane of glass in the window as he stormed angrily about, no longer caring how much noise he made. It wouldn't matter anyway, he thought bitterly to himself as he flopped on the bed and buried his face deep in his pillow. Ever since he had left Hogwarts at the end of June, Harry James Potter had felt completely and utterly alone, almost as if he had ceased to exist the moment he disembarked the Hogwarts Express. The Dursley's had practically ignored his existence since he had come back at the end of the school year, a drastic change from previous years when they had taken full advantage of the fact that he had been an underage wizard who was not permitted to use magic outside of school. No longer did they demand that he trim the hedges or go out and water the flower beds. They had spoken to him only to ask the date of their departure from the house, looking nervous and stiff whenever he was in the same room as them for longer than a second. His cousin Dudley had taken to jumping from his seat and hurrying from the room now, making it impossible for the two of them to have a conversation, not that he had ever had a reason to try and carry one with Dudley. And to make matters even worse, the fear of intercepted letters had made it absolutely impossible for him to contact his friends while he sat around on Privet Drive waiting to be taken away to the Burrow.

The Burrow...

Just the thought of that place was enough to give Harry a small sense of hope, something he had dearly missed for quite some time now. He had been told that Alastor Moody would be arriving on his birthday to take him there by Side-Along Apparation – they had arranged for the Burrow to become a safe-house of sorts while living under the impending threat of Voldemort's return. It meant he would finally be able to see Ron and Hermione again after nearly a month of being cut off from them and they would be able to share their plans freely so long as none of the others caught on to what they were doing. And Ginny, he added as his stomach gave a small lurch. Despite the fact that he had broken off their relationship after Dumbledore's death in order to keep her safe, he was rather anxious to see her again. He hadn't wanted to let her go after having only just started their relationship, but he decided it had been for the best. Being together meant that his enemies would have someone else to use against him if they found out of his affections for the Weasley girl. Harry could not live with himself if he knew that his love had put Ginny in any kind of immediate danger. She meant far too much to him for that.

Sighing softly, he turned his head out of his pillow and cast his emerald gaze on the alarm clock that sat on the bedside table, the bright red numbers of the screen gleaming in the semi-darkness of the room. Eight fifty-four. The early hour made him groan in frustration as he remembered that there was still another two days before he was scheduled to leave and he had nothing else for him to do in order to pass the time. His things had been packed for almost a week now with the exception of Hedwig whom he allowed outside at night in order to hunt and feed herself. Fingers reached out and tentatively picked up the broken shard of mirror that he had placed beside the bed, foolishly hoping yet again that he might catch a glimpse of someone familiar in the other side. For days now he had been watching it to see if the face would appear again. He first hoped to see the face of his godfather keeping an eye on him from somewhere beyond the grave. Instead he had found himself looking into a piercing blue eye - one that had startled him and caused him to drop the shard the first time it had appeared. But as soon as he had scrambled to pick it up again he saw nothing more than part of his own reflection. It had merely been a trick of the light, he had told himself. Or maybe it was a part of his brain desperately hoping that he was seeing the old headmaster alive and well after witnessing his death a month prior.

It was all just foolish thoughts though. Dumbledore was not alive, nor was Sirius. And if he continued to stare at the mirror the way that he was now, he was sure that he would lose his mind entirely. Setting it back down quickly, Harry pushed himself up onto his elbow and pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses, rubbing it gingerly with his thumb and forefinger before he removed his glasses from his face and placed them next to the alarm clock. With nothing better to do he collapsed back onto the mattress, allowing his weariness from the day to overtake him and slowly lull him into a restful sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - BANG!

Harry woke with a start as he heard a crash at the foot of his bed, his heart pounding wildly in his chest as he jammed his glasses back onto his face and turned the desk lamp on with frustrated and fumbling fingers, wand now drawn. He looked around the room for the source of the noise, praying that it had been his imagination - but a muffled groan told him otherwise. Stepping cautiously off the side of the mattress he crossed to the other side of the room, his eyes locked on the two bodies that he saw laying in a tangled heap on the hardwood flooring of his bedroom. Neither of them had yet taken any notice of the fact that they were not alone in the room, nor of anything else it seemed. But he certainly noticed them.

Both were female: one a blonde and the other a brunette. The blonde had landed on top of the other girl and now held a hand to her head as she muttered words under her breath that Harry could not make out. She wore a pair of jeans accompanied by a pink and white t-shirt that didn't quite cover all of the skin around her middle. Even from where he stood, Harry could see that she wasn't an overly tall girl, standing maybe five feet five inches, and that she looked to be about fifteen or sixteen years old at most.

"Nice going," she mumbled. "We landed on a wooden floor."

But her companion was having none of it. "Quit your whining, Kyra," she retorted quickly as she struggled to move beneath her. "If you hadn't jumped when we left the house then we'd have landed on our feet. And you're the one who landed on top, so don't you dare complain."

The two hurried to untangle themselves and get up off of the floor, the blonde reaching down to gather up a knapsack that had arrived with them when the brunette caught sight of Harry and froze in a slightly defensive stance. Her eyes widened in terror when she saw him, taking note of the wand that he still had pointed in their direction, jabbing her friend in the ribs when she did not take immediate notice as well.

"Why don't you attack?" the blonde asked him slowly as she adjusted herself to stand upright. "How do you know we're not here to kill you for Voldemort?"

The brunette jabbed her again, earning a reproachful look. "Don't encourage him."

Harry was rather taken aback by the question that poured from her lips, but even more so by her ability to use Voldemort's name without a trace of fear or discomfort. Aside from Dumbledore he had never known anyone else to use that name willingly, and considering their current situation, the name would send almost anyone into a petrified state of terror. He noted that neither of them seemed to be affected as he looked between the two of them. And a cursory examination lead him to believe that neither of them actually posed a threat to him, so why didn't he attack? Well, firstly because they couldn't have been any older than he was, which meant that they were probably just as limited in their knowledge of magic. And since neither of them was Hermione he felt fairly confident that they wouldn't be pulling some unknown spell out of their back pocket without wands in their hands.

"Deatheaters wouldn't send girls my own age to kill me," he said carefully as he lowered his wand just a little. "You didn't exactly make a quiet entrance, you don't have your wands and, well...no offense, but neither of you look all that intimidating to me."

"You better not be saying that just because we're girls," the blonde said as she wrinkled her nose. "Not that you should be concerned about us anyway. We're here to help," she proudly declared to him.

"Kyra-"

"We're from the future!"

A groan sounded from the brunette as she smacked the heel of her palm against her forehead and resisted the urge to jab her friend in the ribs for a third time. Harry looked between the two of them as if they were insane, his head snapping to look from one to the other. The future? He must have been caught in some kind of twisted dream that he hadn't yet woken from. Who on earth would believe any such nonsense if they were awake?

"Right," he said slowly. "And I'm-"

"The Boy Who Lived, The Chosen One, Dumbledore's Man Through and Through," the brunette jumped in, rolling her eyes as she listed off each name that had been associated with Harry through the years. "Spare us the details, okay? We've heard them plenty of times growing up, trust me."

Harry frowned heavily and opened his mouth to ask one of the hundred questions floating around in his mind before his thoughts were distracted by the thumping noises that came from down the hall. Already he could hear growling someone might associate with an angry bear that had been woken from its winter slumber drawing closer to his room. In a mad dash to keep the girls hidden from whomever was storming toward him Harry quickly pushed them into the wardrobe that he had once thrust Dobby into all those years before, praying that they would get the hint to keep themselves silent while he dealt with the hurricane that was sure to come his way. He managed to slam the door shut just as the bedroom door was thrown wide, his Aunt standing there with bloodshot eyes and flared nostrils, green goop clinging to the skin of her face. Harry couldn't help but cringe when he saw her, mentally thinking that if the mask was supposed to help with her "beauty sleep," she might want to reconsider using it.

"Have you any idea what time it is?!" she bellowed. "It's two in the bloody morning!"

"I'm sorry," Harry said quickly, his mind frantically searching for an excuse. "I was just-"

"SHUT UP AND GO BACK TO BED!"

Without another word the old bat slammed the door behind her and left him to stand there motionlessly until he was absolutely certain that she had returned to her own room. As soon as he heard the sound of the closing door, Harry hurried back to the wardrobe. After being squished rather uncomfortably inside the tiny space, the two tumbled out onto the floor as soon as the door had been pulled aside, looking rather like they had when first they had come crashing into his room and woken him that night. It was evident that the blonde girl, Kyra, was full of the information that Harry wanted and seemed more than willing to share it with him. He could literally see that she was bursting to tell him all that he wanted it know, it was written all across her face and in those bright eyes of hers. But the brunette, whose name he did not yet know, was rather determined to keep her chatty friend in check before she spilled the beans on why they were actually there.

"Alright, spill," he ordered, trying to keep his voice quieter so as not to draw any more attention from his aunt. "Who are you? What are you doing here and where did you come from?"

Standing upright, the brunette brushed herself off and initially avoided any sort of eye contact with him. Annoyance flared within him when she took her time in answering. "Depends on the day. If we've landed where I think we have, the Order should be coming to get you in about two days, right?"

Harry blinked at her. There was no possible way for her to know such information, something that only he and the various members of the Order were sure to know. But what she was saying made no sense to him either since the plan, as far as he knew, was for him to leave Privet Drive with only Mad-Eye Moody. And yet the way this girl spoke, it was as if the entire Order was supposed to be coming to his doorstep in two days time, which made Harry just a little more nervous of being around her. If what she said was true, then she knew far more about things than he did, which was infuriating to someone who had spent almost his entire summer without any kind of communication from the wizarding world.

"Yes, Moody said he was coming at midnight on the day I turn seventeen."

Kyra walked slowly to her friend's shoulder and dropped her voice. "Des, we're still underage. We won't be able to use magic while we're here."

At this the brunette rolled her eyes a little and turned her head to speak, using the same hushed tone. "We don't exist here, remember? We just can't use magic until Harry turns seventeen or things are going to get ugly really fast."

"That still doesn't answer my other questions," Harry interrupted, his green eyes darting between the two of them expectantly.

Rolling her eyes again, the brunette finally turned to face him completely, her hands on her hips in a stance that showed just a little bit of attitude being thrown in his direction. "My name is Destiny. We're here to make things right – and we are from the future."

The tiny smirk that appeared on her lips at that moment was really beginning to annoy him, and he was more than aware of the fact that she could see that. Scowling darkly he turned on his heel and dropped onto the bed once more, bouncing slightly on the mattress. Despite his early morning grogginess certain things were becoming clearer to him. With Destiny around, there was no possible way that he would be able to get anything out of Kyra, who still looked ready and willing to talk about what it was that had brought them to his bedroom no matter how absurd it was sure to sound to him. Even so, he couldn't help but sense that there was something in the girls that struck a chord of familiarity with him, especially the stubborn stare that he got from Destiny. Were she not merely a girl no older than himself, Harry might have been a little intimidated by the way she carried herself. As it was, she still managed to make him feel a little uncomfortable under the intensity of her gaze, though he could tell that she wasn't dangerous.

"Do you plan on giving me a serious answer, or are you going to play mind games until the sun comes up?"

Her smirk widened a little as she shifted her weight, a hip cocked slightly to the side. "That would all depend on how many more questions you plan on asking and how nice I feel."

Kyra's small giggle only made Harry frown further. "How far in the future do you supposedly come from?"

"Twenty-five years," she replied.

"Can you prove it?"

"Not likely. Not without revealing information you absolutely cannot know."

There were a thousand and one questions going through his mind at the moment, and it took Harry a moment to try and sort them all out. Kyra smiled brightly at him in encouragement, beckoning him to ask what she could see brewing behind his eyes. But Destiny's smirk was somewhere between challenging and patient, waiting for him to speak.

"Can you at least tell me who you are?" he asked her with a sigh, running a hand through his hair. This time, it was Kyra's voice that he heard speaking softly.

"We can only give you our first names. Anything more than that and I don't think you'd believe us."

Her comment sounded like she was trying to make a joke of the situation, but there was something in her words that made Harry a little uneasy. "Okay…if you're from the future and can't tell me anything about you, tell me something about me – who do I marry?"

Destiny bit her lip in consideration. "I can't give you a name."

"A description then?" he asked.

She ran her fingers through her hair, scratching a little at her scalp before she reached the end and once again folded her arms tightly over her chest. "You married an absolutely brilliant woman who graduated from Hogwarts and gained a position of power in the Ministry of Magic, which is no longer as corrupt as it is now. She's incredibly dedicated to her friends and family, loves you beyond anything else in this world, aside from your children, and is probably having a fit about the fact that two underage witches managed to go back in time without her notice."

The tone of voice that she used when describing the woman he would marry in the future was full of admiration, Harry noted, his heart giving a little bit of a leap in his chest. Ginny was someone to be admired, someone that he loved and knew to be dedicated to everyone around her, a trait commonly found in those who had been sorted into Gryffindor. And for Destiny to give him answers like that…well, perhaps there was some hope glimmering in the future for him after all.

"And my kids?"

Was he ready to hear this? He wasn't even seventeen yet, children were definitely not on the list of things he was prioritizing right now. After all, this was something that he would remember until the day that he married the woman of his dreams, and if they were wrong about his future...well, he didn't really know what to think about the whole thing.

"Two healthy boys," Destiny offered with a small smile. "Your eldest is getting ready to finish his seventh year in Gryffindor, while your youngest is a fifth year Ravenclaw. They're friends of mine," she added, her smile widening just a little bit. "We're pretty close."

"No daughters?"

Destiny shook her head slowly. "Nope. Just the two boys."

Boys, he thought to himself. According to this girl who claimed to be from the future, he would have two boys to carry on his family name. The possibilities of the coming year were endless with such knowledge in his grasp, and yet the fear of what he was about to do was beginning to truly settle into the pit of his stomach. The very thought of children meant that he would actually survive whatever lay ahead, but also that now he was not only toying with his own life as he plunged head on into danger: the lives of his unborn sons were at risk as well now. How many lives would be affected by this? Was a single act all it really took to alter everything that these girls said they knew? If that was true, that meant that the future was never set in stone, that everything was fluid and in a constant state of change.

That meant that their presence alone could alter things for him, he thought as he glanced up at the two of them once more. Just by standing in the same room, by hearing the words that they allowed themselves to share, everything about his future could be changing without his knowledge.

And what of the things that they were not telling him? He couldn't even begin to guess at what they were hiding from him as they stood there in his bedroom, looking at him as if they were completely comfortable with him despite the way that he had been made to feel by others at various points in his life. There was no trace of fear or uncertainty in their eyes, no mistrust or anything of that immediate nature.

And truth be told, they were really starting to give him a headache.

"Why did you come back?" he asked them, bright green eyes darting between the pair. "How did you even get here?"

Kyra glanced carefully toward her brunette companion, speaking only after getting a small nod from Des. "Things have been changing in our time," she started slowly, shifting the weight between her feet. "History itself is suddenly being rewritten with alternative endings, people have stopped remembering certain things-"

"And people that we love are disappearing all together," Destiny finished, her arms tightening against her chest as her eyes narrowed a little. "Nobody knows what is going on and they haven't a bloody clue of how to fix it either. We came back to see if we can put it right."

"But the truth is, neither of us really knows where to begin," Kyra confessed, earning herself a bit of a look from Destiny. She shrugged in response. "We have to find a starting point and go from there."

Try as he might to follow their words, Harry's mind was too busy processing this new information for him to notice the strange look that was exchanged between the two girls. He glanced toward the window as he wondered about this strange future they claimed to come from - he began to wonder about the two children that he had not yet met. What were they like? Who did they look like, him or his wife? On that thought, who exactly was his wife? What was the future like? Had they stopped Voldemort for good? Was he even gone? How many of his friends were still alive? It seemed as if he had been handed far more questions than answers once again, something that was becoming rather familiar to him. And when you coupled this information about his uncertain future with the task that waited ahead for him, Harry couldn't help but feel a knot of anxiety begin to twist in the pit of his stomach.

"People are disappearing?"

Destiny nodded, closing her eyes for a moment to compose herself. "Yes," she responded slowly, her voice soft. "People are disappearing. And those who are left behind don't remember what really happened. They just-"

"Des…"

It was the gentle tone of Kyra's voice that made Destiny remember where she was, noticing now that she had begun to dig her fingernails into her arm. Inhaling deeply the young woman gave her head a little shake and straightened her spine, pushing aside the darker thoughts that had invaded her mind as she thought of the mess that they had left behind. There was no time for her to worry about it all now, there was too much at stake for a distraction. She had to maintain her composure and keep a clear head if she was to successfully carry out this mission and return home to her family. Especially since it was not just her life that was currently at risk.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Harry shook his head a little bit. "No…it's okay. I think I understand."

But as his green eyes caught sight of the alarm clock that sat beside his bed, he couldn't help groaning a little. His aunt had been right when she had stormed angrily into his room - it was indeed two o'clock in the morning and his body was beginning to feel the ungodly hour as he slumped forward a little. His eyelids slowly began to droop, a hand raising to rub them a little before brushing against his cheek.

"It's late," he muttered to himself, muffling a yawn with the back of his hand.

The girls exchanged yet another look, both nodding to him. "Get some rest," Kyra offered. "You're going to need it."

"Can I trust you not to kill me in my sleep?"

For the first time that night, a soft laugh fell from Destiny's lips as she looked at where he was perched on the edge of the bed. "I promise, you will be safe with us."

After a moment to pause and note the smile that danced at the corners of her mouth, Harry moved himself back up the mattress and removed his glasses before he turned the lamp off, plunging the three of them into darkness. Neither girl spoke a word as they nodded silently to one another in silent understanding. Kyra reached around and produced a cloak from inside her back pocket before she curled up on the floor under its warmth. Destiny remained upright, moving only enough to lean her back against the wall and pull her wand from her own pocket to watch over the two of them as they slept. Should anyone dare to approach, she would be the first to know.

And from where she lay on the floor, Kyra smiled, silently pitying the idiot who crossed Destiny first.