AN: This is not a story I plan to continue. I may add more at a later time, but instead this "story" will be a collection of partial stories. I am willing to let anyone else continue writing them on the condition they are kept at T or below, no slash, no lemons, no self-inserts. Keep it canon. And I am sent a link so I can read it too. I'd be willing to beta anyone who wants to continue one of my ideas. Thank you.
Disclaimer: I do not have either an J or an R anywhere in my legal name, therefore I could not possibly be JKR. I own nothing of value. I am merely creating a plethora of "what-ifs" in her world.
- - - - -A Surprise Visit - - - - -
Summary: Everything was going just fine during the Halloween feast, Remus Lupin, was pleasantly surprised at how his time teaching was going. That is, until 3 strangers showed up in a swirl of light, "James?"
He could hardly believe the opportunity before him. Sitting in the Great Hall, enjoying a Halloween Feast. When he was ten he thought he would never experience this at all, and now with seven years as a student behind him, he now sat at the teacher's table, overseeing the whole hall. He tried desperately not to think about that Halloween, though it was impossible to do so, especially when his eyes kept being drawn back to that familiar mop of black hair at the Gryffindor table. He was so unlike his father though. Sure, they looked alike, and both were at home on a broom. But the similarities ended there. No matter how many diatribes he heard from Severus about him strutting about like his father. James was never so timid. James got into so much more trouble. Maybe it was his group of friends. There were only three. He had Hermione to be the brains of the operation, to keep them on task and out of trouble. With no Siri—with no Black being brash and loud and drowning out what she has to say. Though the youngest Weasley boy was more like Black than Peter, Ron came from a good family that would teach him well. He would never be like that traitor. No. Harry was not much like his father. Minerva had lamented his lack of talent in transfiguration, and Filius his mediocrity with charms. But they had obviously never seen Harry in defense. With the right training, the cub would be well on his way to a defense mastery. He may not know many spells, but that could be put down to the poor quality of previous teachers, but he learned everything quickly and easily, and he didn't freeze up.
A swirl of light towards the center of the room caught Professor Lupin's attention. That small swirl grew, and grew; it now twisted around in a column that seemed to come down from the heavens of the starry night seen on the ceiling, down to cover the whole of the great seal in the center of the hall. Legend had it that the seal was once a ritual circle and was the point of intersection for all the powerful magic that ran through the secluded magical valley that included Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and the surrounding land for miles. Professor Dumbledore had confided in him upon signing his contract to teach, that the circle was the marker for the ward stones buried deep below. It was of course in the original contract set up by Gryffindor and Ravenclaw that the information of the ward stones could never be told to one who had not signed the contract, and it could not be used to bring harm to the body, mind, magic, or reputation of the students, the school, or the castle. But now something very magical was happening with the circular seal, the column of a glittering white light had changed; it was swirling faster now, with bits of colorful streams of light interspersed throughout. There were big thick red streaks; there were thin yellow streaks that looked more like flames than pure magical energy. There were watery streaks of blue and green, grainy swirls of purple. And something that looked a bit like small lightning bolts tumbling about in the sea of light. Then the light began to recede in on itself, as it became only half the size it started, it became apparent that there was someone in the streak of light, then not one, but 2 someones.
The column of light disappeared suddenly, and three individuals stood in the circle, looking around themselves. Or rather two individuals were standing there, the obviously female red-head was carrying a boy that had the same messy black hair as the man standing next to them with wand drawn, ready, as if expecting an attack. The man. Not the child. Remus knew they were a distance away, and since it wasn't near the full moon, his sight was rather average at the moment, but he knew he had just been thinking of the man standing before him. The boy turned to the table, and the piercing green eyes captured Remus' attention, as the little one, know more than 15 months old looked straight at him and cried out "Dada!" Remus turned to the man who was still looking around, and queried, not as quietly as he meant to, "James?"
Harry watched the trio that had appeared. He knew that whatever was going on, it involved him, of course it did, bad things always happen on Halloween. He was much closer to the trio, and knew Professor Lupin was wrong, that wasn't his father. According to his photos, his parents were not as close in height as this pair. And the woman's hair was the wrong shade of red from the memory flashes he'd had. But Harry had to wonder why this professor would call out "James" not "James Potter" or "Potter" as he might have expected. The greying defense professor was too old to have been in the same year as James and Lily.
No, Harry knew that this pair was not his parents. But he did recognize that very Weasley shade of red, and he'd seen the flash of green in the man's eyes. Time travelers they may be, but not from the past. No, this would certainly appear to be his future self. But with Ginny? He considered the thought for a moment. She was pretty, and she was probably very nice and fun, considering her family. But he just didn't know her; she was too much a fan of the Boy-Who-Lived to care about Harry. Maybe it was just coincidence that she was there, carrying a little boy who was clearly a Potter. Maybe it was actually his son and grandson with Ron's daughter. Yeah, that was more likely.
The newly appeared adult Potter looked around, mumbling to himself, quite loudly, "Halloween by the décor, Remus is defense professor, that makes this my third year, what happened Halloween of third year? Sirius, Sirius got in the castle!" The pronouncement had the whole room startled.
Professor Dumbledore stood quickly at this assertion and cast sparks from his wand to get the attention of the room. "Please, identify yourselves, and if you know anything about the whereabouts of Mr. Black, please help me find him."
"I'm Harry Potter, this is my wife, Ginny, and my godson, Teddy – Teddy."
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow at the visitor's stumbling over the little boy's name. "And how is it your godson looks as if he could be your twin?"
"He's a metamorphmagus. Makes it rather difficult to take him out in muggle London."
"And Teddy's surname?" "Is best left unknown for the moment. Considering my younger-self's relationship with his parents."
Hermione stood up at this point, "But you can't be here, simply showing up creates all sorts of time paradoxes!"
"Normally that would be true," the woman spoke up for the first time, "but our presence here has created a parallel timeline, exactly the same until the moment we arrived. Our time line continues to exist; we simply aren't there anymore. But shouldn't we get back to the safety of the students, ridding the castle of traitorous rats and the dementors?"
"Parallel time line? Where's your evidence of that? How did you get here?" Hermione asked, scowling at the woman.
"My evidence is the for the Chief Warlock and Headmaster. Not for pretentious teenagers." The woman scowled. "I'd forgotten how bossy you used to be Hermione. I wish you could get over that sooner." A shocked Hermione flopped back onto the bench, speechless and angered at the woman's words. She turned to glare at young Ginny Weasley, apparently the current version of the adult she'd been arguing with. But seeing her older self, happily married to Harry Potter, and standing up for herself, little Ginny was not backing down anymore than her older self at Hermione's glare.
"Alright, alright, let's see," the man, older Harry, pulled out a worn piece of paper, tapped it with his wand while mumbling something no one could understand, but still left the Weasley twins and Professor Lupin gaping at the man. "Percy and Professor McGonagall need to go to the Gryffindor common room and get Ron's pet Scabbers. Sirius has convinced himself that the rat is Peter Pettigrew, and he was never exactly stable, 12 years in Azkaban haven't done him many favors. You two will need to bring the rat to the headmaster's office. I can convince Sirius that we are on his side, and he'll come peacefully, thinking he's going to be pardoned and allowed to have his godson back. Then, when he's supposedly getting his hearing, to have the rat exposed, he can be taken back into custody."
"And just how can you convince Black that you are on his side, without convincing us as well?" Professor McGonagall queried. In response, the older Harry shot out a patronus. Remus nearly fell out of his seat in shock. "That, that will convince him." He stuttered out. "Can you please explain?" The headmaster asked quietly.
"When, when we were in school, the three of them managed an illegal animagus transformation. Peter was a rat, Black a large dog, and the third was, a stag. It was also his patronus, and Black's clearly messed up in the head, he'll likely think it possible. Or else his ghost playing one last prank."
"Very well then, Minerva, Mr. Weasley, please go and get the rat. Mr. Potter, please send your message. I think your younger self, Ms. Granger, and the rest of the Weasleys should come to my office as well. Professor Lupin, please join us. Professor Snape, some veritaserum. Professor Flitwick, I shall ask you to ensure the rest of the students make it safely to bed.
"Now, we are all settled in, as we await Mr. Black and Professor McGonagall, perhaps our visitors could tell me your evidence that you are not destroying your timeline." It was phrased as a question, but all knew the headmaster's statement was anything but.
The older Harry stood, and moved to the cabinet at the side of the room, "Do you still, or perhaps thats yet, keep the pensieve in here?" In answer, Dumbledore pulled it out, removed a few silvery strands and then proffered it to the man. He placed his wand to his head, and drew out a silver thread; he repeated the process half a dozen times. "This first memory is what would have happened this evening, had we not appeared." He placed his wand against a rune along the side, and a scene was displayed of the Gryffindors standing in a huddle outside their common room, as a pompous Percy pushed his way through the crowd. It continued to the horror of those not in the know, with Peeves revelation that Sirius Black had cut up the canvas in anger.
"This second memory is from the beginning of what should have been my seventh year at Hogwarts." Another ethereal image played, of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, obviously several years older, in a dark hovel of a room discussing with Professor Lupin how ministry aurors and death eaters were now interchangeable. How Voldemort was ruling from behind the scenes. The revelation of the muggleborn register. "It was bad, for awhile there, according to those that lived through both, it was much shorter, but much, much harder than the first war with Voldemort. But we survived, we began rebuilding, and then—" he cut off here, and looked towards the woman who he had called his wife. "Two weeks before our wedding, Ginny was over, decorating my place, and Teddy was staying with me, because his grandmother wasn't doing well. She lost her daughter, husband, and son-in-law in the war. Along with a sister and a two cousins. It, it was too much for her. So Teddy was with us, when, I don't even know exactly how it happened, but the house, it the wards suddenly gave out, and it came crashing in on us. We both were going for Teddy before trying to apparate out, and neither of us made it, probably for the best, at least for us." Mrs. Potter had walked over to her husband, putting her hand on his shoulder.
He stared at her blankly for a moment; he was about to begin again, when Ron opened his mouth. "Hang on now and you can get away from my sister, you said you were married, but then you said you were still a couple weeks from the wedding. Which is it?" Ron glared angrily at his future friend, while his twin brothers looked suspiciously at the older pair.
Both Ginny's put their hands on the hips and shouted "Ron!" before the older one continued, "he was about to explain that when you so rudely interrupted, Hermione was wrong, he doesn't have the emotional depth of a teaspoon, that gives him too much credit. More like a drop of sense in the desert. It's not enough to be noticed, and you're left with exactly what you had before. Nothing." Her outburst seemed to have done the trick to pull her husband out of his brooding, because as he began to speak again, she gave a smug smirk and a satisfied nod of the head.
"We didn't immediately show up here, we were… somewhere else … for a few days, perhaps it was weeks, I don't know, time didn't exactly mean much there… It's a place between, where the almost dead can meet with those truly gone, I'm not explaining it right, but basically I was being given a chance to change things, to give my younger self a better life, and to save lives. I know what is needed to destroy Voldemort permanently. Anyway, we were met by, I suppose it was Death. He gave me the option to go back in time, to change things. But he would only send two souls back. He told me to choose between the love of my life, without whom I would be useless, and my godson who had not had a chance to even live. And then she arrived." Harry spoke this with an awed smile playing at his lips. "She showed me an option that would allow us to all three come back. A magically induced marriage, combining our souls, so that Ginny and I are literally one soul. Allowing us to bring Teddy back as well.