Chapter 3: The new marauders.

After Pettigrew's exposure, the daily routine in the Burrow changed. The Weasleys all accepted that Harry was close with Ginny, so they didn't bat an eye when Harry spent the mornings with her. Harry then spent the afternoons with the male Weasleys.

It was a week after Pettigrew was exposed. That morning Harry was expectant of obtaining the day's edition of the daily prophet. As soon the daily prophet arrived, Harry saw the headline that interested him.

Peter Pettigrew alive, Sirius Black innocent.

But just before he went to read the paper, he saw a small and energetic scops owl carrying a small piece of parchment. Harry took the piece of parchment and read,

You know the words.

Harry pointed his wand and said, "I solemnly swear I'm up to no good." The piece of parchment started to reveal a letter,

Dear Harry,

As have you probably seen in the newspaper, I'm free and your legal guardian. Because I was mandated to be treated in St. Mungo's for the after-effects of the dementors, you won't be able to move in with me immediately. But I designated my cousin Andy as your secondary guardian. Also, because she is a healer, she was allowed to have me in her house, so we are going to see each other, and we are going to be able to plan.

Ted, Andy's husband, went to Little Whinging to collect you but didn't find you there. He said that your aunt and uncle told him that 'the freaks' took you. Can you send him a letter telling him where you are now?

The owl is for Ron. Is partly my fault he doesn't have a pet now.

Love

Sirius.

Harry immediately took a piece of parchment starting to write his letter to the Tonkses. As he was writing, Arthur approached him with the daily prophet.

"Harry, I see you read the news." Arthur commented.

"I didn't read them, but Sirius Black sent me a letter. Sirius designated the Tonks family as my guardians for the time being, they are coming here to pick me up. Also, Sirius bought an owl for Ron as a compensation because he considers himself the reason you lost a pet." Harry replied.

"We didn't lose a pet; we were saved from an intruder. But still, I know that Ron wants something that he can call his own, so we accept the owl."

"I'm going to try to visit."

"You are welcome any time, Harry!"

Harry stood up and went to send his letter to the Tonkses, then he went to Ginny's room.

Ginny handed Harry a box with many locks.

"Don't worry, Gin. I'll make sure this diary doesn't hurt anyone else." Assured Harry.

"I'm still worried, and I won't stop until you show me the destroyed diary."

A knock was heard on the door, "Harry dear, your guardians have arrived." Mrs. Weasley's voice was heard.

Harry gave Ginny a kiss and went to Ron's room to pack the diary in his trunk, then he went down the stairs to the living room, where he saw the two familiar faces from the other timeline, Andromeda and Ted Tonks. They looked more youthful and relaxed than he remembered. Andy herself looked very happy, probably because of Sirius' freedom. Harry approached his guardians and presented himself. "Good morning Mr. and Mrs. Tonks, I'm Harry Potter."

Andy replied, "First, nothing of Mr. and Mrs Tonks, we are Andy and Ted, or Aunt Andy and Uncle Ted. Second, I was looking forward to meeting you after Sirius told me about you in his letters when you were a baby, but after your parents' death and Sirius' imprisonment, your location was locked as a secret."

Ted decided to get to the point, "Harry, do you know how to use the floo network?"

Harry answered, "I used it to go to Diagon Alley and back."

Ted said, "Good, our floo address is 'Tonks residence'".

The Tonkses and Harry then took the floo to the Tonks residence. Andy then took him to the room he was going to use. "Harry, this is your room, the bathroom is down the hall, in front of you is my daughter Nymphadora's room. Now we are going to see your godfather." Harry and Andromeda walked to the room that was beside Harry's, Andy opened the door and said, "Sirius, your godson is here, I'm leaving you to catch up." Then she left the room.

Harry ran up to hug Sirius.

"Okay, we are alive again. Did you read the news?" Sirius said.

"No, your letter arrived at the same time as the newspaper." Harry replied.

"The news were juicy, Barty Crouch and Millicent Bagnold were arrested for not following procedures during the aftermath of Voldemort's disappearance." Sirius laughed.

"Now, I understand why Ginny said that this would shatter Percy's faith in the ministry, Crouch was his idol. I hope that Crouch jr. is exposed as well. We need to deprive Voldemort of loyal followers. About this, you should send Ginny one of the two-way mirrors, so we can plan our next moves." Harry said.

"I think we should tell Andy, we need an ally in this timeline, we should also secure our secret as time travellers under a fidelius." Sirius proposed.

"You can put a normal secret under the fidelius?" Harry asked shocked.

"Yes, it makes it that no one can talk about the secret unless let in by the secret keeper, also when talking about the secret the other people would only hear noise. You are going to be the secret keeper to my secret, and I'll be the keeper of yours and Ginny's" Sirius explained. "To perform the charm there needs to be a secret giver and a secret keeper, the secret keeper can't keep a secret that directly involves them, the secret giver is the one that casts the charm, I'll tell you how." Sirius then explained every step of the Fidelius charm. Then they both stood looking each other and started the casting.

Sirius first waved his wand in a circle saying, "Ego confido vobis secretum."

Then they both held the other's hand, with Sirius saying, "Sirius Orion Black is a time traveller sent back by death."

Harry bowed and replied, "Accipio secretum tuum."

Then a light flashed intensely sealing the secret.

They rested for a while and made the same procedure with roles reversed and the secret being 'Harry James Potter and Ginevra Molly Weasley are time travellers sent back by death.'

Harry then used Hedwig to send the mirror to Ginny. The rest of the day was spent with Harry getting to know the Tonkses and getting reacquainted with Nymphadora.

It was the next morning that Harry and Sirius decided to reveal themselves to Andy. First while they were both alone, Harry called Ginny on the mirror.

"Ginny Weasley." Harry shouted to the mirror.

Ginny's freckled face appeared in the mirror. "Harry, good to see you. I see that Sirius is here, did you tell him about our secret?"

Harry reacted strangely to Ginny's words, but then the lightbulb lit up, "Ginny, Sirius Orion Black is a time traveller sent back by death."

Ginny's mouth opened in surprise, "So, a fidelius charm can be used for that?"

"Yes, Sirius told me, I'm his secret keeper and he is ours."

"Great!"

"Ok, we are already reacquainted, I should look for Andy." Sirius said before leaving the room.

"Sirius told me he agreed with us revealing Andy the secrets." Commented Harry.

"Great, she can help us! Should we tell her everything?" Exclaimed Ginny.

"I think we should, or we would be worse than Dumbledore. Secrets can hurt the people that involve them, and we know that from experience." Answered Harry.

Sirius came back with Andromeda in tow.

"What are you two going to tell me? Is about how Harry looks so malnourished? I need to do a medical check-up to you," said Andromeda.

Sirius replied, "We aren't going to talk about this right now. We have a secret for you, a secret so important that is under the fidelius charm."

Harry told Sirius' secret, "Sirius Orion Black is a time traveller sent back by death."

Andromeda's eyes widened, "What?"

Sirius then told Harry's secret, "Harry James Potter and Ginevra Molly Weasley are time travellers sent back by death".

Andy questioned, "Are you kidding me, right?"

Sirius replied, "No, try to talk to anyone else about the secret. You won't be able to. The fidelius can only hide secrets that are true."

Andy sighed, "Ok, and who is Ginevra Molly Weasley?"

Ginny from the mirror replied, "That would be me."

Andy looked at her and smiled, "Of course, Potters and their redheads."

Sirius complemented, "Potters and their redheads indeed. Harry, you know that your mother was a redhead, but your grandmother, Euphemia, was also a redhead. But enough of that, we should tell Andy everything, so we can plan a course of action."

Andy asked, "How far into the future are you from?"

"Ginny and I are from seven years in the future, Sirius is from four years in the future but has knowledge of the other three years." Harry answered.

"I think is much better to structure this information dump by year." Sirius proposed.

"I'll start, this year was marked by a conspiracy of Lucius Malfoy, involving Voldemort's diary. Your brother-in-law wanted to get revenge on the Weasleys because of the Muggle Protection Act. He slipped the diary on Ginny's books. She wrote in the diary until she was possessed, the chamber of secrets was opened, it was lucky no one died. At the end of the year Ginny was taken to the chamber and I rescued her, killed the basilisk, and destroyed the diary." Harry explained.

"Wait a second, a basilisk? How did you survive? What was that diary?" Andy asked.

"Fawkes and the sorting hat helped me. The diary was one of Voldemort's horcruxes." Harry replied.

"Horcruxes?"

Sirius took charge, "Horcruxes are objects that act as soul anchors for their creator. To create a Horcrux, you must tear your soul by committing murder. Voldemort is still alive."

Andy asked, "So, we need to destroy all those Horcruxes? Do you know what objects are?"

Harry answered, "Yes, and we know the objects and their locations. I have the diary now, the Gaunt family ring is in the Gaunt shack in Little Hangleton, Slytherins' locket is in the Black family home, Hufflepuff's cup is in your sister Bellatrix's vault, and Ravenclaw's diadem is in Hogwarts. There was a sixth one, but that one was only created after Voldemort's resurrection in the old timeline. And to destroy them we need either basilisk venom or fiendfyre."

Sirius interrupted, "We need to continue this info dump."

Harry said, "Right, then my third year was relatively peaceful, Sirius here escaped Azkaban because he saw Wormtail in the newspaper, the ministry sent dementors to the school, they almost kiss me. Sirius almost catches Wormtail, but he escapes."

Sirius continued, "The following year was horrible. The Triwizard tournament was brought back. Harry was forced to compete against his will as a fourth champion, that made his image against the school and wizarding Britain suffer. Pettigrew and Barty Crouch Jr. used the tournament as a trap for Harry to use him to resurrect Voldemort. In the end of that tournament, Harry and the other Hogwarts champion decided to take the cup together to have a Hogwarts victory, the other champion died, and Harry was used in the ritual."

Ginny interrupted, "This is when we started to be resentful of wizarding Britain in general. Fudge didn't believe Voldemort was back and decided to make a smear campaign against Harry and Dumbledore. On the other hand, Dumbledore in his infinite wisdom decided that the best way to handle someone that saw another person die was isolating that person with his abusive relatives and restrict his mail. Then the minister decided to send his undersecretary to Hogwarts to assist him in his vendetta against Harry."

Sirius continued, "On the other side, the Order of the Phoenix was reformed, your daughter joined the order. Dumbledore and most of the Order decided that the best way to protect Harry was to keep him in the dark about everything, something that was not the best idea. Harry was baited into rescuing me to the department of mysteries, there a battle ensued where I was killed. Then Dumbledore decided that was the best moment to tell him about a stupid prophecy."

Andy noted, "So this is why you came from four years in the future as opposed as seven."

Sirius replied, "Yes, but then I watched Harry, Ginny, and the order from the afterlife, this is why I know the details of what I'm going to say now. That same night at the same time Dumbledore was having his conversation with Harry, the rest of the order had an emergency meeting where Professor McGonagall and Snivellus proposed the order to send a law proposal to the ministry, a law that proposed that in the case Harry survived the war, he would become a ward of the ministry until the day of his death. Most of the order, except for Nymphy, Moony, Ginny's family and an auror named Kingsley Shacklebolt, approved the proposal, and sent it. The Wizengamot dismissed it and archived it."

Harry continued, "The following year, Dumbledore gave me some lessons about Voldemort's life, and I tried to uncover a conspiracy from your dear nephew to kill Dumbledore, I don't understand how everyone dismissed the possibility of Draco being a death eater, when he was always salivating to the possibility of our deaths. In the end of the year a battle happened in Hogwarts that killed Dumbledore."

Ginny narrated, "After Dumbledore's death the ministry fell and was replaced by a death eater puppet ministry, Harry became a fugitive. I returned to Hogwarts that became a torture camp. Harry went with my brother and someone else they considered a friend in a mission to destroy the horcruxes. A final battle happened at Hogwarts, where Moony and Dora died leaving behind an orphan son."

"My daughter? No!" cried Andy.

"We are doing everything in our power to avoid this in the new timeline." Assured Sirius.

"After the battle of Hogwarts, we thought that we would have peace, but we were blind. We returned to Hogwarts for our final year. We co-captained the Gryffindor quidditch team and won the cup. We didn't know what to do with our lives, but we knew we wanted something, we wanted to get married," Harry said.

"That was our mistake, we thought that everyone would be ok with our decision, well not ok but not consider it a crime. But Percy, my dear brother, still believed Harry was an unstable delusional liar. And another friend, Hermione Granger, decided that Harry was losing his sanity when he was just enjoying life, something he didn't do until Voldemort's death. She claimed the Wizengamot seat she was awarded with her Order of Merlin and sent the proposal of the order to the Wizengamot, she and Percy convinced the Wizengamot to approve it." Ginny commented.

"Then after our honeymoon they went to arrest us and killed us. Death decided to send us back to a time of our choosing and we chose the 10th of August of this year, she also sent Sirius with us." Harry finished.

Andy spent some minutes processing everything that was said. "I'll help you. What do we need to do?"

Sirius explained, "We don't just need to kill Voldemort, we also need to kill his influence."

Harry said, "First we need to prevent his resurrection, all the Horcruxes are easy to get except the cup. We should also sabotage the ritual they used to resurrect Voldemort the last time. We need to destroy all the skeletons belonging to Voldemort's family. I'll kill the basilisk with a rooster when I return to Hogwarts and harvest his venom to send to you to use."

Sirius continued, "We need to destroy the Malfoy influence at Hogwarts and the ministry. Slytherin house at Hogwarts has two problems, Snape and Malfoy, they are both making Slytherin a junior death eater breeding ground."

Harry asked, "Sirius, how are the economic resources?"

Sirius answered, "I have the entire Black family wealth, I invested a good part in a certain new broom company. Why do you ask?"

Harry replied, "This year Malfoy buys himself a place on the Slytherin quidditch team by donating new nimbus 2001 brooms. I was thinking of equalizing with the other teams."

Sirius smirked, "Interesting idea, is feasible."

Ginny added, "I want to create a school newspaper with Luna and Colin. This way we can try to influence the internal opinion at school. This is going to be helpful in our secondary goal of killing the boy-who-lived."

Harry commented, "About killing the boy-who-lived, I'll hold back in Defence against the dark arts, and make charms my best subject. I'm going to focus in quidditch and make myself Oliver Wood jr."

Ginny laughed, "If you made yourself Wood jr. Angelina won't be captain."

Harry replied, "I hope so, I have some new tactics to try. I think I'm skilled enough to play as an aggressive seeker."

Ginny assured, "Of course you are, and we are going to practice those tactics back at school."

Sirius yelled, "Hey! Stop flirting and let's get back to business."

"Okay" said the young couple in unison.

Sirius continued, "I think we should just discuss the school business now. Ginny has limited time." Ginny nodded.

Harry said, "Sirius, do you know how to make a spare marauder's map?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I want one, or the instructions for one. I want to preserve the original map as a memento, and I think we need to restore the marauder legacy at Hogwarts but better, something that unifies every house."

"This version of the marauders is going to be the fifth Hogwarts house." Ginny declared.

"Sirius, we need three marauder's maps, one for me, one for Ginny and one for the twins." Harry requested.

"Making the first one was the most difficult step, replicating it is easy. Don't worry, you'll have them before you return to school."

Harry then took a piece of parchment and a quill, "Gin, we need to think about our recruits. We and the twins should be the leaders of the new marauders. But we need recruits."

"I agree, start writing. In my year I'm sure about my newspaper club, and we should also try to recruit my roommates that became my friend group in the other timeline." Ginny said.

"In my year I'm sure of Ron, Dean, and Parvati. I also have intentions of recruiting Tracey Davis, the outcast of Slytherin. I don't know what to do about Granger and Longbottom, I don't know what led them astray." Harry replied.

"I also don't know what happened to them, we should keep an eye on them. But I'm more hopeful of Percy than of them." Ginny commented.

"Did the Crouch situation set him off that badly?"

"Yes, his letters to Penny have increased in frequency."

"I liked Penny, I hope they stay together in this timeline."

"I think they will."

"We should obviously recruit the twins' friend group, and maybe Katie too."

"I don't know who else to recruit for now."

"I think we should keep an eye on Terrence Higgs from Slytherin, he is going to be resentful of Malfoy after he buys his place in the quidditch team."

"Good idea."

"I also think we should have another name, not the new marauders, we should divorce my reputation from my father's reputation. There are too many people that don't see me as me and just see my father, our two main professor foes, Snape and McGonagall being examples of those people."

"What about the Hogwarts Renegades? We are renegading about the Hogwarts houses; we are going to take Hogwarts by storm." Molly's voice was heard calling for Ginny, "I have to go, Harry, we can talk every night." Ginny's mirror disconnected.

Andy said, "Don't make yourself the idea that this information dump and the talk with your girlfriend will excuse you of a medical check, Harry. Come with me!" Andy dragged Harry from Sirius' room.

After Harry left the room, Sirius remembered his ally and the other true marauder left, Remus Lupin. He took another piece of parchment and began to write him a letter.