In Harry Potter's opinion, brooding was a delicate, beautiful art. He'd never been much of a brooder before the summer before his fifth year. Harry was a practical boy, always had been. He never saw the point of dwelling on things he couldn't change. His relatives hated him? Whatever. He nearly died repeatedly, burned a man alive, and then got sent back to the aforementioned relatives? Meh. Suffering indignities was simply Harry's lot in life. It was what it was. Trying to change it was just asking for trouble. Every time he got his hopes up, they'd been relentlessly crushed. No, far better to just go through life accepting the hits as they came.

The events of a few months ago had changed all that for him. It was no longer possible to ignore what had happened. Voldemort had returned. Cedric was dead. And it was all his fault. He'd participated in the Triwizard Tournament; he'd just stood there like an idiot instead of grabbing the bloody cup and going back; he'd done nothing as Cedric was murdered. And it had been his blood that resurrected Voldemort. Now the magical world would face the same war that had killed his parents once more, except this time around, there wasn't a mother around to sacrifice her life to defeat Voldemort. This time, there was nothing stopping that genocidal maniac from killing him and anyone who stood in his way. Nothing had certainly stopped him from sending Dementors after Harry.

Over the last month, Harry had been dwelling on these events nigh continuously, brewing in his self-blame like he was marinating a steak. Brooding. It was bad for him, he knew, but he perversely felt better when he was punishing himself. Harry felt like he deserved it. His very existence was a plague, accomplishing nothing useful. Perhaps it would be best, he thought sometimes, if he just accepted whatever ridiculous sentence Fudge handed over to him and go to prison. Let the idiots in the magical world fight Voldemort themselves. These days, he felt like he was being affected by Dementors on a daily basis without even the bloody things being around. Would it truly make a difference if he was locked up in Azkaban or in Grimmauld Place?

Lying on his bed in the bedroom he shared with Ron, Harry almost smiled at how deep he'd gotten into his brooding. Ever since he got to Grimmauld Place and got to spend time with his friends, it had been hard to brood like he did at Privet Drive. He knew he deserved the bad thoughts and feelings. His mother could have lived if he had died and she had never gotten anyone killed except herself. Mum deserved it more than Harry. Everyone seemed to deserve more than Harry. Even if Harry deserved more, it wouldn't matter. He wouldn't get it anyway.

Yes, that was a good one, Harry thought. Let's think about all the things others have that you don't. Happiness. Freedom. A family.

There was a knock on the front door and Harry shot bolt upright. Someone knocking on the front door shouldn't have been possible. The house was under a Fidelius charm. Anyone who had access to the house wouldn't knock and anyone who didn't couldn't even know there was a door to knock on. He looked over at Ron to see if he was just as alarmed and he was.

"Who the hell could that be?" Ron wondered. "I don't think Death Eaters would use the front door…"

"Maybe it's Dumbledore?" Harry suggested. He seemed like the type to be old fashioned enough to knock on a door he implicitly had access too.

Ron got off the bed. "Well, if it is the headmaster, I've got questions. You know, Harry, I've been thinking about what you screamed – er, said. And you're right. We should have done more for you." Despite his foul mood, Harry smiled a little. Ron may not have always had his back 100% of the time – the Triwizard Tournament being a prime example – but when it truly counted, he was always there for Harry. "He could have let us do more."

Harry and Ron went downstairs to find Sirius, Lupin, Ginny, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley pointing wands at the last type of people Harry would have expected to see. They were two children, both around thirteen. One of them was a boy with shaggy black hair eerily reminiscent of Harry's own, but with brown eyes and an air of casual ease about him. The other was a girl with long reddish brown hair who looked a lot more uncomfortable than the boy, but there was still a look of resolute determination in her eyes that reminded Harry a lot of Hermione.

"Who are you?" Lupin demanded.

"We're simple Muggles, going door to door collecting money for charity," the boy said with a smirk.

Lupin did not find what was clearly an attempt at a joke to be particularly funny, as his grip on his wand tightened. "Liar. Muggles wouldn't know they were called that."

"It was a bloody joke!" the boy complained. "Sheesh, I thought you'd have more of a sense of humor. Teddy's always good for a laugh." Harry didn't know who Teddy was and by the looks of it, neither did anyone else.

The girl groaned, looking like she wished she was anywhere else. "I told you to let me do the talking." She took a deep breath. "My name is Rose Weasley." Okay, this was starting to make sense. Obviously, this must have been a distant Weasley cousin and Mr. Weasley must have decided to give her and her friend sanctuary in Grimmauld Place. "And my cousin Al and I are from the future."

Or maybe it made no sense at all.

Sirius gave a grin. "Nice prank, Fred and George. Worthy of a Marauder, I'd say."

Rose and Al gave an identical flinch. Few people would have noticed it. Harry did. It was the same flinch he struggled not to make whenever anyone mentioned Cedric. "You're saying they're dead in the future?" Mrs. Weasley went very pale.

"Oh, come on, Harry, you can't say you believe them," Hermione complained. "What they're saying is ridiculous! You can't time travel more than a few hours at a time. It's impossible!"

"Hermione, five years ago, we thought time travel was impossible period," Harry reminded her. "I've seen a lot of weird things and I'm not dismissing them out of hand."

"Thanks, dad," Al said automatically and Harry's heart practically stopped.

It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. It couldn't be his son who stood before him. It wasn't possible for Harry to have a family, one who loved him. His future was a black hole. He had more or less accepted his luck would run out and he'd die at Voldemort's hands. And now to have definitive proof in front of him that this wasn't the case…it was enough to make his brain break.

"Oh, well done," Rose snapped. "I told you, we have to ease them into it. Next thing you know, you'll be telling them that Sirius died…oh, damn it!"

Sirius frowned. "I really admire your commitment to the bit, Fred and George, but that wasn't funny. At all."

"It's not a joke," Al promised. "We're not under glamor. I'm the child of Harry Potter and Rose over there is…uh…"

"Is Hermione and Ron's child," Harry concluded. Both Ron and Hermione's faces flushed a brilliant scarlet. "Oh, come on, it's obvious! She acts just like Hermione, doesn't she, and she's a Weasley, so who else could she be?"

"Bloody hell," Ron said, his eyes wide with awe. "Bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell…" Harry smacked him hard on the arm to snap him out of his loop. "Thanks, mate."

Hermione sat down on a chair, looking like she just wanted to melt into the floor. "It's not…it still can't be possible. It violates all known magical temporal laws."

"Oh, well, there's actually a very interesting explanation for that," Rose explained. Harry and Al shared a look of commiseration with each other. At this point, Harry had accepted that Rose and Al were telling the truth. He just knew it in his bones. "The new time turner Mum developed allows one to travel to parallel realities, so we traveled to one where the laws of magic didn't work like that, and we stole a time machine from there and now we're here!"

"Sounds like something I'd do," Ron commented.

Lupin and Hermione had put away their wands and Sirius had lowered his, but Mrs. Weasley and Ginny still had theirs out. "How are we supposed to know this isn't a Death Eater plot?" Ginny demanded.

"My middle name," Al said, pausing in the middle of the sentence for no apparent reason other than the purposes of drama, "is Severus."

Harry closed his eyes and cursed fate and his wretched, wretched life. "Could someone please get me a glass of water?" he said calmly.

Mrs. Weasley scurried into the kitchen and returned with the glass. "Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said graciously and then he took a big sip of water and spat it straight into Al's face. "SEVERUS?! WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?! Why in the name of almighty God would I ever name my child after fucking Snape?!"

"Language, Harry!" Hermione snapped. "Please do try to set a good example for our children." She paused as what she had just said sank in. "Huh."

"Maybe it's a different Severus," Sirius suggested desperately.

Al laughed. "I wish! But, no, I was named after Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape who was, and I quote you directly, dad, 'the bravest man I ever knew.'"

Harry opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. What the actual fuck? "Huh?"

"I know!" Al shouted. "I'm as confused as you are!"

"I must have been really high," Harry decided. "It's the only explanation that makes even the tiniest bit of sense."

"I don't understand how this is supposed to prove your true identity," Ginny said.

Al smirked. "Well, Mum…why would anyone trying to sell a con ever say something so ridiculous and unbelievable? It's too strange to not be true."

"I think I believe them," Harry said and then what Al had just said finally sunk in. "Did you just say Ginny was your mum?"

The idea was a strange one. Ginny was beautiful, of course. There were no two ways about it. But Ginny was firmly in the category of Ron's little sister right now and for the life of him, Harry couldn't possibly imagine what had happened to take her out of it. He barely even considered her a friend. They simply didn't move in the same social circles. But Al was saying he was going to fall in love with her and marry her! (Okay, he hadn't actually mentioned marriage, but Harry did not believe it was in his character to impregnate someone and not marry her.) That was a huge deal!

"I'm going to be a mum," Ginny whispered.

"Not on my watch you're not," Mrs. Weasley snapped. "Not now anyway. Young lady, we're going to have a long discussion after this conversation about contraceptive charms and how you will be grounded for life if you find yourself in a situation where you're using them under my roof."

Rose laughed. "Don't worry, grandma, Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry were married nice and proper when they had Al."

Had Al…Harry was a father now. He had a son. And as a father, he had responsibilities. (How unfair of the universe, he thought, to give him those responsibilities without the fun that everyone else got to have before getting a son.) He grabbed Al by the shoulders. "Are you getting enough to eat?" he demanded. "Are you safe? You have a proper bedroom, not a cupboard?"

"Merlin, dad, relax!" Al said, looking unsure whether to laugh or cry. "You're not Vernon and Petunia!" Harry's blood went cold at the very thought. And how did Al know about the Dursleys anyway?

"What house are you in?" Harry went on relentlessly, preferring to pretend Al had not said anything than even acknowledge the very existence of the Dursleys. "How many times have you nearly died at school? What percentage of your Defense professors have tried to kill you? For me, it's 75%. No offense, Professor Lupin."

Al sighed, looking very sad. "I forgot how screwed up your life was as a kid. No one's tried to kill me in school." What? No mortal danger at Hogwarts? Was that even possible? "And I…I'm a Slytherin."

"A Slytherin?" Ron said, sounding ill at the thought.

Harry surged forward and slammed Ron against the wall. He held his wand at Ron's throat and gave a bestial snarl. "If my son is a Slytherin, then he's a bloody Slytherin, Ron. And he's going to be the best damn Slytherin there ever was! If you have a problem with it, I'm going to permanently paint you green and silver. You hear me?!"

"I'm sorry!" Ron squeaked.

Harry withdrew the wand. "Good. I hope you remember that in the future too."

"Well, I'm a Ravenclaw, but you've probably guessed that already," Rose admitted. "This all is touching, but we have important business to discuss. We didn't just come here on a lark."

"We didn't?" Al asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Rose did a face palm. "No, we didn't. We came here because we're going to help you win the war."

"The hell you are," Ginny said instantly. "No niece of mine is going to get involved in fighting. And certainly not my son."

"No, no, we're not here to fight," Rose said, sounding disgusted at the very thought of fighting. "But we have a lot of vital information to share with you. Information that could end this war before the year even ends."

There was a strange emotion brewing in Harry's heart. It was strange and barely familiar, both joyous and frightening. It took quite some time for him to realize that it was hope. He hadn't felt any in so long. He'd taken joy in viciously crushing it whenever it arrived. But this time, he didn't bother. This time, he wanted that hope. He had proof that there was a way out of this awful war right in front of him. And he'd do anything to make it happen.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Hermione fretted. "Changing the future could have cataclysmic consequences. What about paradoxes?"

"Fred died," Al said bluntly. Mrs. Weasley let out a gasp of horror. For a few seconds, it looked like she was about to faint. Lupin even took a few steps in her direction to catch her just in case. "Mr. Black, Professor Lupin, you died too. Even Dad died…though he got better." Of course he did. Harry wasn't even surprised anymore.

Rose glared fiercely at Al. "Don't worry about paradoxes. It's fine since we're technically in another reality. First we need to go to –"

"No one's going anywhere until we've gotten some food in you!" Harry said firmly. He was well aware he was starting to sound like Mrs. Weasley and he didn't care. There were far worse role models to have when it came to parenting. Like Vernon. He almost shuddered at the very thought.

"I'm going to floo Professor Dumbledore," Mrs. Weasley said. "We can't make this decision alone."

"Are you on a Quidditch team?" Harry asked as he practically dragged his son and niece into the kitchen. "It's totally cool if you aren't, but I'm on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and it's the coolest thing ever! Ever ran into a Cerberus? I have! And trolls and giant spiders and worst of all, Lockhart."

Al's mouth opened and closed repeatedly. "Wow, you have issues."

"And now we can have them together!" Harry said with an earsplitting grin. "Isn't that awesome?"