Rating:
PG-13
House:
The Dark Arts
Ships:
Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Characters:
Harry Potter
Genres:
Mystery
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 02/19/2004
Updated: 07/29/2007
Words: 410,658
Chapters: 40
Hits: 159,304

Replay

Barb

Story Summary:
Aunt Marge's arrival causes Harry to flee to avoid performing accidental magic again. But when number four, Privet Drive is attacked, he becomes the chief suspect and a fugitive from both the Muggle police and the Ministry. He tries going to Mrs Figg's but finds unfamiliar wizards there. With an Invisibility Cloak and nowhere to turn he hides in the house next door, to keep watch on Mrs Figg's. He has no idea that this will irrevocably alter the rest of his life....
Read Story On:

Chapter 40 - Mine Forevermore

Posted:
07/29/2007
Hits:
2,229
Author's Note:
This was up on the Yahoo group over a week ago, but I couldn't access my author page at all, plus we weren't taking submissions at FA just before and after the release of DH, so sorry to have made the FA readers wait for this! Hope you enjoy the conclusion to the story. :D

Replay

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Forty

Mine Forevermore


Bloody hell. I didn't just come back to father a son; I came back to die.

Somehow a part of him didn't want to believe this; it just couldn't be. That would be so wrong, so dreadful, the idea of never seeing Ginny and his children again, that it wasn't even worth contemplating. Then he had another thought: Now that I know that man was me in disguise I can save myself.

Technically, it would be changing the timeline, something he was specifically trying to avoid, but what would really be changed by his not dying in the guise of a Muggle walking his dog? It wouldn't affect the battle, what he remembered of it, anyway. He hesitated, however, as he tried to remember exactly how he'd felt at sixteen when he'd turned to see the man across the street lying so still. Had seeing that done something to him, affected the way he'd responded in battle? What if he was condemning his younger self by trying to avoid death? If that was the case then he would wink out of existence the moment his younger self was killed by Voldemort.

Harry crouched, petting the puppy and thinking, wiping nervous perspiration from his brow. He remembered how Dumbledore had thwarted Voldemort at the Ministry by having Fawkes take the brunt of the Killing Curse. Harry didn't have Fawkes or any other phoenix to help him, however. There has to be a way, there has to be a way....

His hand froze in the act of petting the puppy, who continued to fidget and squirm. Harry was in general pleased with his Transfiguration abilities, which had improved in recent years thanks to some tips from and friendly competition with Theo Nott; the puppy was quite realistic and even had a warm flank and subtly variegated coat. In his one and only year of Auror training his Transfiguration skills had been very useful, as much as his Metamorphmagus ability, and he was justifiably prouder of this ability, as he'd had to work hard to learn that; it wasn't inborn.

He thought that he might have a plan. His life depended upon it--both of his lives. He remained crouched next to the puppy, petting it repeatedly, as he worked out exactly what he was going to do. It could work, it really could, and chances were that he'd already done it, for there were many, many things he remembered from the battle that couldn't be explained otherwise, as he'd already told Tilda.

He stood and brushed his fringe over his scar again, swallowing with apprehension. A moment later he heard the distinctive sound of a car approaching. Not a single car had driven past while he'd been going back and forth with the dog; he had thought he'd seen a car like Tilda's on the way over from Privet Drive, but he had looked too late to confirm whether it was her. Now he resisted the urge to stop and stare at the approaching car. It had to be Tilda and his younger self.

Sure enough, when he turned to pretend to watch the puppy dither over whether to produce anything he saw Tilda's car stop in front of her house; she idled the motor while she opened the garage door, but before she'd returned to the car the members of the Order had appeared on Mrs Figg's lawn; Harry saw the crackling light from Remus Lupin's wand hit her, saw her crumple to the ground, stunned. His heart was beating very fast. His plan could work, but he had to time everything exactly, down to the millisecond.

The passenger door of the car seemed to open by itself; he saw his younger self whip off the Invisibility Cloak and cry out, "What did you do that for? I was going to turn myself in tonight!"

None of them had noticed the older Harry, a typical Muggle walking his dog; perhaps they thought that he could simply be memory-charmed after the fact, or maybe the Muggle-repelling charms on Mrs Figg's property meant that a real Muggle wouldn't be able to see them anyway.

Remus frowned at young Harry. "I'm trying to--"

"Aaaaargh!"

Harry saw one of the wizards with Remus go down after a bolt of red light hit him; Harry recognised him as Dawlish, one of the Aurors Fudge had brought to try to arrest Dumbledore. Suddenly and soundlessly they had appeared in Mrs Figg's garden: Voldemort stood in their midst, tallest of them all, surrounded by a dozen Death Eaters. One of them wore no mask.

It was Severus Snape.

Holding the wand in the same hand as the dog's lead had served to camouflage it, and now Harry pointed it down at the 'puppy', preparing to cast the spell very softly, concentrating as hard as he could. He was ready. It wouldn't be long now; Harry tensed up, waiting for what he knew was coming:

There.

Voldemort had looked at him, across the quiet street.

Before the bolt of green light reached Harry he had already cast two wordless spells; when the smoke cleared the people across the street could see that there was a man lying on the pavement who looked just like the Muggle who'd been walking the puppy. But there was no puppy to be seen anywhere.

And the man appeared to be dead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry didn't know when he'd had such a good time. No one seemed the least bit suspicious that he might be far older than thirty-two. He splashed about in the pool he and Ginny had installed near the terrace behind the house; he dried off and helped Ron and Neville to grill sausages and chops and kebabs, he let the smaller children climb all over him and gave them frequent rides on his back as he crawled on all fours. It seemed that all of the people he most cared about were present, except--

"Where's Parvati?" Ginny asked him, suddenly appearing at his elbow while he and Ron debated whether some chicken kebabs were thoroughly seasoned. "I'm quite certain she responded to say that she'd come, but she isn't here yet."

Harry froze, not having a good response to this; assuming that the "split" between him and the time-travelling Harry had occurred at the shop, Parvati would know that there were two of them, from Ginny's perspective. "She must have been held up by something. I'll send her an owl, see what the problem might be."

Ginny nodded, satisfied, and took his place in disagreeing with Ron over the chicken kebabs. Harry entered the house and, rather than going into the drawing room from the entry, climbed the winding stairs to the chapel's old bell-tower, which was their owlery. He wrinkled his nose against the smell of dead prey Hedwig had killed and eaten in her aerie, and against the owl guano; he had a bad feeling that he was supposed to be the last one to have cleaned out the mess and he'd neglected to do so.

He took a piece of parchment from the lap desk they kept in the tower and dipped a quill in the nearby inkwell that was charmed to stay fresh and full.

Dear Parvati,

We're having the party as planned. Can you still come? Oh, by the way, Ginny and everyone else thinks I'm thirty-two. You'll see why when you get here. It seemed the best course of action to me. I don't think Ginny's thinking about me going back to my sixteenth birthday much at all. I told her that I was split in half and sort of 'copied' when I cast the Birthday Wish spell, so she thinks I'm both here and in 1996. Which I am, of course. So go along with that when you come if she mentions it to you, okay?

Everyone's having a brilliant time. Hope you can make it.

Harry

He wasn't sure what Parvati would think of his impersonating his younger self. He thought it best to forewarn her so that she didn't put her foot in it if Ginny talked to her about the Birthday Wish spell. After he sent Hedwig off with the message he cast some cleaning spells to rid the aerie of its odour--Hedwig didn't like him cleaning the place out while she was still in it--and started to return to the party but paused before opening the door to return to the garden again, finally deciding to go up to his and Ginny's bedroom.

Where did she say it was? he thought, sending his mind back thirty-two years. Ah, right, the top shelf... He opened Ginny's wardrobe and took down some hat boxes, feeling about on the shelf for what he sought. He finally found it, pushed all the way back; when he brought it down he sneezed for a moment, then blew the dust off it and sneezed some more.

It was the portfolio of drawings by Dean. Ginny clearly hadn't looked at it in years. He wasn't sure what made him think of it, but for some reason it seemed like the perfect way to do this... He sat down on the bed and untied the ribbon, opening it carefully. The paper inside was yellowed with age. Harry browsed through the drawings, smiling at how young Ginny was in them, until he found his favorite one and turned it over to write his message to Ginny. To his surprise, he saw his own familiar handwriting--he'd already written a note to Ginny on this same drawing when he was thirty-two and time-travelling!. He shook his head; he didn't remember doing it, thanks to the memory-charm that wiped out his memory of sleeping with Tilda. When did I go to Grimmauld place? But then he remembered returning to headquarters as a sixteen-year-old, after the battle, and learning that Ron, Hermione and Ginny had been searching the house for an intruder, assuming that it was Kreacher. That was probably me! he thought, delighted.

There was still space at the bottom of the page so he turned his wand into a pen and wrote another letter, whispering the words to himself with a small smile before tying up the ribbon again. He started to put it back on the shelf, and was even prepared to magically restore the layer of dust that had been there before, but a sudden impulse made him stop and tuck it under Ginny's pillow; with another wand-wave the hatboxes flew back to their places and he closed the wardrobe doors. He didn't have a memory of being with Ginny when she found the portfolio, but if she'd told him about reading it he would have known far sooner that he was going to travel back in time on his sixty-fourth birthday, so he decided not to worry about that. He felt certain that she would read it either later that night or the next morning; she was the one who made up the bed every morning and she couldn't fail to find it then, if she hadn't before that.

Harry tried to stop grinning, thinking of her finding the drawings the next day and reading the two messages from him. But then he froze, thinking about what else August first would bring. Suddenly he felt like an old man as he sank to the bed again, holding onto one of the bedposts to steady himself. Oh, no, he thought. Tomorrow is when it all starts. Once again, years and years of chaos and uncertainty... And everyone thought that when Zabini's dad was defeated by giving his power to Teddy everything would be fine again, no one else trying to be a Dark Lord, no more violence and upheaval...

He wasn't sure how long he had sat there, suddenly paralysed by grief and despair as he considered the many lives that would be adversely affected by the events of the next twenty-four hours; he was startled when a voice spoke to him, as if out of nowhere.

"Harry! Is this where you've been? Ginny said you'd gone to send an owl to Parvati, but I checked the tower and you weren't up there. You all right?"

It had to be Neville, of all people. Neville who had never hurt a single person during his years as an Auror, Neville who had fought by his side against Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Seeing his old friend made it even harder to forget what would happen to him very, very soon.

Neville was wearing a blue, white and green Hawaiian print shirt featuring a lot of palm trees and surfers, red-and-black-striped Bermuda shorts, turquoise gardening clogs and purple argyle socks. He seemed to have been dressed by Arthur Weasley in the days when Arthur wasn't completely certain that Muggles didn't wear kilts and ponchos at the same time. Somehow, despite the completely ridiculous outfit, seeing Neville just after thinking about what was coming caused Harry to tear up; he couldn't help it. Neville peered at him with concern.

"Erm, are you all right, Harry? You look like--"

"Ha ha HA!" Harry laughed loudly suddenly, forcing it as hard as he could so that he could claim that the tears were from laughing. "Have you seen what you look like, Neville? Did Hermione actually approve that outfit?"

Neville looked down, clearly hurt. "I like it," he said. "That's what I told Hermione, too, when she asked me if I was quite certain I wanted to go out 'like that,' as she said."

Harry wiped his eyes and grimaced. "Sorry, mate. I couldn't not give you a hard time." He pictured the other Aurors, Neville's comrades-in-arms, marching behind his coffin as Hermione carried little Frances in her arms, her head held high and her eyes red with tears...

He shook himself, ridding his head of his image, this memory, while Neville grinned. "Ha! You fell for it, same as her. I'll tell you what I told Hermione: today's a day for relaxing with my mates, wishing you a happy birthday, and not worrying a jot about what I'm wearing. I was working in the garden before we came, as you can probably tell by my bum," he said, turning around so that Harry could see the grass stains on the seat of the shorts. "I told her that that wouldn't matter to you and you're the Birthday Boy, so that was all that mattered. It helps that we just did my birthday yesterday..."

Harry nodded, smiling a very forced smile again, trying not to tear up once more. "Oh, right, Neville, happy birthday to you, too! Of course it doesn't matter to me. You did bring some small balls to juggle, though, right? And an orange wig and some large shoes... I did tell Ginny that I'm a bit old to have a clown at one of my birthdays..."

Neville burst out laughing and suddenly conjured up a round red ball for his nose and made the gardening clogs stretch out to look like clown shoes. "How's that, then? Good enough for you?"

Harry was laughing in earnest now, but as he followed Neville back outside he couldn't help but sober and think about the dark days to come for everyone in the wizarding world. Today is the last good day, he thought, wondering if anyone realised, before the rise of Voldemort, that there was a particular day that was the last good, calm, safe day before it all went to hell. He knew that everyone thought of the Hallowe'en when his parents had died as the last bad day before they were rid of Voldemort for thirteen years, but he certainly hadn't thought of the days--or even months--before the final task of the Triwizard Tournament as blissfully Voldemort-free because he hadn't been Voldemort-free since he'd first entered Hogwarts and had felt his scar hurt during the Welcome Feast.

He felt as though he were observing the party from afar now, disconnected from this time. He tried to think of what started it all, what led to the darkness...

They'd been waiting in the tent for what seemed like a very, very long time. There was still no Draco to be found. The clerk from the Ministry registry office seemed to be checking his watch every thirty seconds, and Harry had heard him say loudly to the maid of honour, "You know, I do have another wedding I'm expected to do at five o'clock..." Several times Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy's older brother and the real Blaise Zabini, Junior walked in and out of the large space where guests were lined up on their folding chairs, waiting for the wedding to start; all four groomsmen appeared to be quite agitated and were sometimes seen at the back conferring with equally agitated-looking bridesmaids, who all seemed like a variation on Pansy with their pug-nosed faces, so Harry guessed that they were cousins.

"You don't think he's--" Harry started to say to Ron, seated on his left.

"--done a runner? Dunno," Ron answered. "Wish you'd've come to the stag party after all, though. Malfoy's a miserable drunk. Gets maudlin. Wanted me to reassure him that marriage is the most wonderful thing ever."

Harry eyed Luna, sitting on the other side of Ron; she stared attentively up at the blank underside of the uniformly white tent as if a film were being projected onto it. Their kids--like Harry's and Ginny's--were staying at the Burrow during the wedding. "What did you tell him?"

"Well, you know..." Ron reddened and also glanced at Luna, then back at Harry. "I said it's fine..."

"Fine? Fine?" Harry tried to keep his voice to a whisper but it was difficult. "That's all? Fine?"

"Are you blaming this on me?"

But Harry had indeed blamed a lot of what happened on Ron, for years to come. It wasn't fair, he reflected now. It wasn't Ron's fault, in all likelihood. After all, Draco Malfoy had shown a remarkable tendency, when they were in school, to automatically disagree with Ron on any point you could name; if Ron had said the sky was blue Draco would have argued that it was green. If Ron wasn't hopping up and down about marriage Draco's normal response would have been to row with Ron for not understanding that it was the single most noble institution in the history of the world.

Harry wished he could have those years of their friendship back. And the things he'd said to him at Ginny's funeral, when Ron was also grieving--that was inexcusable. How could I have done that? he thought. Any number of things could have prompted Draco to think that he should leave Pansy at the altar. He must already have been having doubts before the stag party. It certainly wasn't Ron's fault that Pansy responded to being jilted the way that she had.

Harry had so many regrets about the way he'd behaved toward Ron, about what later happened to Luna... He wished that he dared to tell any of them what the future would bring, warn them, tell them something that would let them change things for the better, but he knew he shouldn't. He managed to go into the past when he was thirty-two and, as far as he knew, not change the timeline. He'd preserved it. He had to maintain the timeline he knew from when he was sixty-four as well...

Or did he?

He'd no sooner thought this than he saw Parvati suddenly appear in the graveyard, holding a printed cotton parasol over her head. "Parvati's here, Ginny. I'll go greet her," he said quickly, to forestall Ginny saying anything about it. She was still eyeing the grilled food that Ron was turning out with what appeared to be deep suspicion.

"What? Oh, good, yes..."

He ran through the overgrown grass toward Parvati, who looked hot and annoyed. When he reached her the glare she gave him made him feel slightly abashed.

"Why is it," she said without preamble, "that when I send you back to your sixteenth birthday you are only permitted to talk to one person, but when you come back here from your sixty-fourth birthday you're allowed to throw a bloody party?"

"Sssshhh!" Harry said quickly, taking the wicker basket from her that held two bottles of wine. "Thanks for this," he said, pointing at the wine. "But you know that's different. For one thing, I looked very different when I was sixteen and thirty-two. Not a soul here has worked out that I'm not me. I mean, thirty-two-year-old me. No one has a clue, including Ginny. And the party was already planned. More trouble to cancel it. No sticky questions about what I was getting up to on my birthday."

She frowned and looked at the underside of the printed parasol, which seemed to be made of the same gold-trimmed purple flowered fabric as the sari she wore wrapped around her body. "So you're saying that you want people to think you really did father Teddy on your sixteenth birthday and that Tilda, well, that she--"

"Tilda's adjusted to--well, all of it. I'm fairly certain. When she and Severus get back from the Isle of Wight I can ask her if she'd prefer that I say what actually happened, but she might not be any keener to be known as the woman who got Harry Potter to cheat on his wife, even if I did have a memory charm on me at the time."

He felt his face grow hot as he thought of the way he and Ginny had spent the hours before dawn, and just following it, after he'd left sixty-four-year-old Parvati to go back in time half his lifetime--again. He was cheating once more, technically, but he had a feeling that the reason that Parvati had always said that she didn't want to get married was that she knew this was going to happen and didn't want him to go through the pain of cheating on a wife again, even if it was with his wife, before she died.

She was frowning at him again; they'd reached the house by now and Harry waved to Ginny, standing near the grill with Ron, and ushered Parvati into the entryway as she looked over her shoulder. "Why can't I join the party? What--"

"I need to talk to you in private, Parvati. I need to tell you some things about the future and get an opinion."

"An opinion? An opinion on what, precisely?" she wanted to know, taking down the parasol and sighing at the coolness of the high-ceilinged drawing room. He led her to the kitchen and sat down at the table, gesturing for her to do the same. After conjuring up two glasses of pumpkin juice for them to drink he began to explain.

"You see--I'm not completely certain that I'm here this time to maintain the timeline so much as to fix it," he said quickly, before he lost his nerve. She stared at him.

"Fix it? Are you mad?" she said, stopping in the act of sipping her juice.

Harry shook his head, staring at the table. "No, I'm not. Anything but. In fact, I think it would be madness not to change it. You've no idea..."

"Harry," she said, her voice sounding as dire as Hermione's when she was warning him about doing something dodgy or dangerous; "messing about with time isn't a game, you need to--"

"Neville's going to be killed tomorrow, Parvati," he said quickly. "And others. At Draco and Pansy's wedding. Or rather, what should have been their wedding. Draco leaving her... It sends Pansy over the edge after she's waited all these years for him to finally marry her. She snaps. And she asks her cousins, her bridesmaids, to support her. Three of the four do; she kills the other one. She kills Draco, too. And over time, she acquires more followers, all witches, calling themselves her Harpies, wearing bird masks wherever they go, wherever they torture and kill. She's going to be fueled by grief and pain and she will give no quarter. She will want everyone else to be as miserable as she is."

And she'll eventually kill Ginny on our son's eighteenth birthday, he thought, hoping that Parvati wouldn't correctly surmise that there were people even closer to him than Neville whom he hoped to save. And poor Brian will blame himself for his mother's death, since Pansy was trying to kill him and Ginny stepped between him and the curse...

Harry closed his eyes, seeing their son, his red hair the exact same colour as his mother's, his hazel eyes clear and bright, his nose scattered with freckles but his eyesight as poor as his father's, requiring spectacles. Harry remembered him laughing and merry before his mother's death, but a mere shell afterward...

"Harry, I thought you were trying to be inconspicuous about not being thirty-two? If you go out there and tell everyone not to go to Draco and Pansy's wedding so they don't get killed--"

"No, no, I thought you could do it," he said quickly, trying to smile ingratiatingly. She goggled at him.

"Me?"

"Yes! You're a Seer." She looked doubtfully at him and he nodded. "Trust me, you are. Anyway, if you go out there and tell them that you've foreseen a disaster at the wedding--"

Parvati shook her head. "Hermione will die today if I do that. She'll die of laughter. All right, suppose anyone believes me. How will that keep Pansy from becoming The Bride from Hell? Or She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? That just means that some of the people who are supposed to die tomorrow won't, but other people might die instead. And I don't see how that's going to keep Draco from leaving her at the--"

"Stag party," Harry murmured, staring into his empty glass, only half-listening to Parvati.

"Pardon?" she asked, her brows raised.

"I--I didn't go to the stag party tonight. I always thought it was because Ginny couldn't be bothered to do the same magic for that as she did to convince people that they remembered seeing me at my birthday party, but it was because I stayed home here with her, I think. Just this morning we were talking about whether she really wanted to go to Pansy's hen party tonight, and whether I really wanted to go to Draco's stag party... On the one hand, spending more time with Ginny seems like the best possible way I could spend my birthday, but what if I do go? And what if I convince Draco that marriage is the best thing ever?"

Parvati sighed. "Then we'd better pray that you're very, very convincing."

He nodded. "All the more reason not to broadcast to people that I got Tilda pregnant when I was thirty-two, rather than sixteen. And if Ginny goes to the hen party I can talk to her about making sure Pansy realises how much she loves Draco, no matter what..."

"--just in case he still ditches her?"

Harry grimaced. "Just in case, yeah. Damn! I wish I could be here tomorrow, too, to make sure he goes through with it."

Parvati sighed. "Well, I could tell you to do that. When you get back from Tilda's. So that you, or rather he, erm, the other you, doesn't realise that sixty-four-year-old you travelled back in time, too." Passing her hand over her eyes, she said wearily, "I'll be glad when I can stop speaking of you in the plural..."

Harry laughed. "Me too. But--don't you see? This could be a very, very good thing! If someone could have pinpointed the day, the very hour that Voldemort decided he was going to be a Dark Wizard, don't you think they'd have given their right arm to be able to prevent its happening? We can do this, Parvati. We can change the world for the better."

She scrutinised him carefully. "But what if it's not, Harry? What if it's not better? What if Pansy still goes off half-cocked tomorrow but it's you she kills, instead of Neville? What then?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Then... time paradox. I never become sixty-four, I never go back in time to tell you to tell me about the Birthday Wish spell, then I never go back in time to see Tilda and then Teddy isn't born, and a whole new timeline is created. Which is to say, if I fail, I'll never know. And neither will you, because we will never have had this conversation."

She shook her head, looking rather dizzy. "If you say so. I was asking a rhetorical question, by the way. No answers concerning time paradoxes were necessary. Especially answers concerning time paradoxes," she added. "So--Ginny didn't think she'd have you for your birthday, but you're here after all. How will you convince her to go to the hen party while you go to the stag party? I doubt she'll want to give you up for a moment."

"Absolutely right," Ginny said, grinning as she entered the kitchen, carrying two plates with chicken kebabs and salad. "Here you go; I didn't know whether you were both hungry or not, since you weren't outside with the others." She seemed a little nervous, as if the plates of food were just an excuse for interrupting them. Harry had the good grace to look sheepishly at her.

"Listen, Ginny, we've had all day, and the party is brilliant, but we were both invited to Pansy's and Draco's parties later. We should probably go."

Ginny's mouth twisted. "I suppose we should..."

"And while you're at it, can you emphasise to Pansy how important the virtue of forgiveness is in a marriage?" he said hopefully, giving her a small smile.

Ginny put her hands on her hips. "Forgiveness, eh?" She raised one brow and her smile spread to her whole face. "Okay, okay. I'll tell her. As long as you tell Draco how lovely married life is..."

Harry sprang up and hugged Ginny tightly. "Oh, believe me, I will..." He pressed his mouth against her neck and she started to sigh with bliss. Parvati cleared her throat.

"I'll just take my plate outside... the kebabs look fantastic..."

Harry and Ginny didn't answer her; Harry was just glad that Parvati managed to get out of the house before Ginny pulled him onto the kitchen table and banished his clothes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry straightened up and looked around; he had successfully Apparated to his bedroom on Privet Drive a split second after transfiguring the rock that had been a puppy into a simalcrum of a full-grown man who looked exactly as he had, with the straight brown hair flopping over his brow. He guessed that the ersatz man wouldn't have had more than a few moments of being balanced upright before Voldemort's curse struck, so it wouldn't matter that it wasn't designed to stay on its feet.

Harry returned to his usual appearance, feeling that he'd had quite enough of looking like other people, and put his Invisibility Cloak back on, lifting his wand to Apparate back to the battle.

He landed in the thick of it, in Tilda's front garden. He spotted Tilda immediately, stunned, lying prostrate in front of the garage; he waved his wand and quickly transfigured her into a rock, then summoned it silently. A split second after he'd done so the spot where she'd been lying was blasted by a Death Eater; a smoking crater sat before the garage. Creeping along as quietly as he could, holding the rock under his Cloak, he moved it inconspicuously to a spot next to the front door, partially under a shrub. Then Harry pointed his wand at the Death Eater and wordlessly stunned him. One down...

"Expelliarmus!" Dumbledore roared. Harry jumped in surprise; he'd forgotten how the crackling light from the headmaster's wand had splintered into separate strands so that the wands belonging to the Death Eaters--including the Death Eater Harry had stunned--flew into the air; the Death Eaters all fell to the ground, including Severus Snape. Voldemort laughed and this made Harry sink to his knees, holding his head with both hands. He hadn't realised that still being in close proximity to Voldemort would have this effect on him; he remembered feeling tempted to laugh, to be controlled by Voldemort when he was young, and had to concentrate very hard to resist the same temptation now. The feeling was suddenly gone; when he looked up he saw that Voldemort was smirking at Dumbledore.

"As usual, Dumbledore, your pedestrian methods fail to anticipate me." He turned to sixteen-year-old Harry. "I know your weakness now, Potter. You may think you have something I do not, but fear trumps everything, and I have at my disposal something you fear, the thing you fear most." He raised his wand and a flash of light emanated from it like a beacon.

The street went dark, all of the lamps winking out simultaneously. Wind whipped the tree branches, as if blowing from all directions at once. Sticks, leaves and rubbish flew about and Harry saw his young self hold his left hand over the top of his glasses; were it not for the Invisibility Cloak, which he was at pains to keep from blowing away, he'd have had to do the same.

Then--there it was. That sound. Like a death-rattle magnified a hundred, a thousand times.

The wind settled down a little and everyone--Dumbledore, the Order, Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and two Harry Potters--looked up expectantly at the starless sky.

Harry's heart leapt into his throat as he squinted through the Cloak to see what he knew was coming: Dementors. Soon the air above them was simply swarming with them, despair incarnate. It had been years since Harry had been near Dementors... He had different worst-moments now... He also had had far more happiness than his sixteen-year-old self, which he felt the Dementors pulling on, trying to take away from him...

They were close enough that they were affecting him, but they were focussing on his younger self, even though he knew that Dementors didn't care about Invisibility Cloaks; he could see the boy straining to stand again after going to his knees, pulling himself up by the handle on the car door, his eyes unfocussed and vacant.

Harry tried not to hear the voices in his head, but he couldn't help but relive the horrible day that the children had disappeared...

"Where's your dad? And Bill and Percy? And the kids?"

"The garage?"

"Your dad and Bill and Percy are here, but the kids aren't!"

"Wait a minute, Harry! You know how you told me about that prank the twins sometimes pull? Making it look like they're gone, when they're just hiding? Think they did something like that?"

"I reckon it's possible. They must have done something to knock out the adults, but I can't work out what it is. They're not stunned; I tried using the standard revival spell. They're okay, breathing and all, but..."

"Wait a minute, Harry. The clock!"

"The clock?"

Suddenly, Mad-Eye Moody sent a spell hurtling at Voldemort, who deflected it. This, however, seemed to give young Harry the strength to stand again, blindly pointing his wand. Moody was not fighting Voldemort effortlessly; the familiar green flash was flying at him but he Disapparated in time, reappearing behind Voldemort, looking exhausted; they repeated this time and again, making Voldemort appear to be merely annoyed rather than challenged. Harry saw that the boy Harry was concentrating very hard, probably to produce a Patronus, and he was glad that Moody was keeping Voldemort occupied.

Dawlish and Tonks were both huddled on the ground as if hearing some very bad things in their heads; McGonagall leaned against a tree, her face screwed up in concentration and pain simultaneously, trembling. Lupin and Dumbledore cried, "Expecto Patronum!" with their wands pointed heavenward. A jolt of pain shot through Harry's scar; when he managed to open his eyes again he saw silver mist dissipating. They'd succeeded in conjuring Patronuses but it wasn't enough, the Dementors were still coming.

Death Eaters also huddled on the ground in the foetal position, helpless and disarmed by Dumbledore, but Voldemort seemed unconcerned, continuing to duel with Moody. A Dementor hovering over one of the Death Eaters removed the man's mask and took down his hood, releasing a fall of pale blond hair. The Dementor brought its mouth closer to Lucius Malfoy's; Snape seemed to have grabbed one of the wands that went flying, because now he conjured a Patronus, a cloud of smoke that abruptly unfurled into a thick snake, going after both the Dementor trying to kiss Malfoy and one leaning over another Death Eater. Harry could see his unmasked face clearly: Rodolphus Lestrange.

Harry saw his young self sink to his knees; he felt Voldemort's presence in his mind and knew that young Harry felt it, too. Hysterical laughter wanted to escape from him. He squinted through the Cloak and saw the boy press a hand to his scar as he pointed his wand heavenward. "Expecto Patronum!"

A wisp of white fog drifted lazily from the boy's wand. The laughter grew louder; Harry struggled to block it from his mind, to deflect the alien thoughts, but he felt as incompetent as he did at fifteen and sixteen. I'm here to help, he tried to think, trying to focus, panting as though he'd just run a marathon. He could see his younger self kneeling beside the car, still attempting to conjure a Patronus but looking like he was going to black out. Voldemort was still duelling with Moody but seemed able to send out mind-numbing thoughts to Harry--to both Harrys--at the same time, so unchallenged was he.

I can do this, Harry thought. I can help him. I have to! I have so many happy thoughts...

He pictured Ginny on their wedding day... holding the twins just after they were born... telling him that she was expecting another baby... the first time he made Teddy laugh... getting Teddy and all of the children back again after Zabini's father had kidnapped them...

Harry ran to the car where young Harry was trying to point his wand aloft again. Harry pointed his as well and cried out with him, their voices joining:

"Expecto Patronum!"

Harry winced and struggled to remain upright as another jolt of pain sear through his scar; young Harry was feeling it, too and had pressed his hand to his head. Another ineffectual white wisp escaped from the boy's wand, but a fully corporeal Patronus leapt forward from Harry's wand and through his Cloak, galloping through the air, the beautiful silver stag charging and scattering the Dementors.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Lupin's Patronus shot toward the Dementors as well, a large ghostly wolf leaping against the sky, accompanying the stag, immediately joined by Dumbledore's Patronus. Harry grinned, then noticed that the boy was also grinning; he suddenly looked happy enough to finally conjure a Patronus himself and Harry heaved a sigh when he succeeded, wishing it were all over.

The silver phoenix flew circles around the wolf and stag, and between the three strong Patronuses they finally succeeding in scattering the army of Dementors. Voldemort jerked his head up from Moody for a moment, disbelief contorting his features. This gave Moody a moment's respite, but then he looked in young Harry's direction, his eyes widening in shock; Harry realised that, for the first time, Moody had noticed him under his Cloak, standing behind young Harry.

The moment that Moody looked at Harry Voldemort's curse hit him and he went over with a thud.

"Noooo!" Harry cried with his younger self again; the boy scrambled onto the car's bonnet. He heard a pop! and was jolted by Percy Weasley running from behind him. Harry was no longer deluded into thinking that it was Percy's appearance that had doomed poor old Moody. Percy hadn't been there when Moody saw a thirty-two-year-old Harry Potter, concealed by an Invisibility Cloak, and met his fate. His younger self was glared at Percy. It's not his fault, though, Harry thought miserably. It's mine.

Dumbledore shouted at Percy, "Did the Minister send you? How many more are coming?"

"It's no good, sir! She knows! She cursed me and then told Fudge I was mad. I was taken to St Mungo's..." Percy turned to Snape. "Which means he knows about you, too!" He pointed at Rodolphus Lestrange. "And probably you, as well!"

Harry remembered abruptly that the Death Eater who was wearing Rodolphus Lestrange's face wasn't a Death Eater at all but Bill Weasley using Polyjuice Potion. Voldemort turned to Snape and 'Lestrange', fury contorting his already-inhuman features, and Harry quickly transfigured them into two more small rocks, hidden in the shrubs in which Snape and Bill had been standing. Then Harry remembered that the Death Eater who appeared to be Lucius Malfoy was actually Mundungus Fletcher, which was why Snape was also protecting him with his Patronus, and transfigured him as well. Voldemort started throwing curses around furiously. Young Harry jumped down to the ground on the street side of the car, pointing his wand at Percy and glaring at him, eyes full of distrust. Harry, however, remembered what was coming next and knew he had to act quickly.

"Avada--" The boy jerked his head up, seeing too late that Voldemort was pointing his wand at him.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Harry cried, pointing his wand at the car, still hidden by the Cloak. The boy fell back as Tilda's car rose into the air.

"--Kedavra!"

The car was crackling all over with green light as Voldemort's curse hit it; the levitation spell was effectively 'killed' by the new spell, however, and the car dropped out of the air, landing with a crash. Young Harry scrambled out of the way.

"Put your Invisibility Cloak on, Harry!" he couldn't help bursting out angrily, surprising the boy, who didn't know who had spoken. His younger self ducked behind the car and quickly pulled on his Cloak, as he was told, evidently deciding that it didn't matter who was ordering him around, as the voice was giving him sound advice. Another cry made him look up; Percy was bound, magical ropes holding his arms to his side, his wand still clutched in his fist. A masked Death Eater strode over to him while Dumbledore took up Moody's part, duelling with Voldemort again, very much as they had at the Ministry.

Harry quickly pointed his wand at both Percy and the Death Eater, transfiguring them both before the Death Eater could do anything. Two more rocks sat on the grass. Harry summoned the rock he was certain was Percy so that he could get it to safety. He placed it under a different shrub from Tilda's and left the Death Eater's rock where it was.

He was startled when he heard his own young, cracking voice almost right next to him, under the other Invisibility Cloak, whispering, "Tilda?" with a croak in his voice.

Harry wished he could throw off his Cloak and say something reassuring to the boy, but suddenly a spell came from just two feet away--he knew it had to be young Harry--and hit a Death Eater going after Tonks and Dawlish; the man was stunned. This allowed Lupin to stun a Death Eater who'd somehow got another wand and shield Tonks from being struck by what looked like the Cruciatus Curse. Not to be outdone by a teenager--even if it was himself--Harry pointed his wand under his Cloak and cried, "Expelliarmus!" The stunned Death Eater's wand flew through the air and landed in front of the garage.

"Accio wand!" McGonagall's voice cried, retrieving the fallen wand. Professor McGonagall pointed her wand at the disarmed and stunned Death Eater, even though he was oblivious. "That was Alastor Moody's wand!" she cried, clearly outraged. "And you are not to touch it!"

Two of the disarmed Death Eaters decided to go for her at the same time with their bare hands, but suddenly she was gone; a small tabby cat was leaping at the taller Death Eater; he roared when the cat's claws sank into his chest. Tonks, Lupin and Dawlish had successfully subdued the other Death Eaters and were removing their masks. Harry saw Voldemort start to turn toward Dumbledore and he swiftly created yet another transfigured rock, hidden by the flower patch in which the old man had been standing, so that it appeared that Dumbledore had Disapparated.

Harry waved his wand and felt the world slipping away from him; a moment later it was sliding into focus again as he Apparated much closer to Voldemort. He closed his eyes and concentrated; his Metamorphmagus abilities went as far down as his voice box, and he altered it now, enlarging it.

Not realising what had just happened to his headmaster, young Harry threw off the Invisibility Cloak, appearing just a few feet away from Harry; the boy glared at Voldemort, brandishing his wand in one hand and his Cloak in the other. "Where is he? What did you do with him?" he demanded. Voldemort laughed; Harry bit his tongue to keep from crying out, willing himself to withstand the pain, to focus. The boy cried out, holding his hand to his scar and sinking to his knees, his eyes closed in agony. Harry took a deep breath, struggling through the pain, and used his new voice, speaking in Parseltongue:

"Tom Riddle!" he cried, both hollow and sibilant. Voldemort turned toward young Harry but didn't look at him. He cast his eyes about madly, looking for the source of the voice. Not wanting Voldemort to home in on his location, Harry lifted his wand, Disapparated again, and when he was solid again, he cried, "I said, Tom Riddle!" He'd taken himself to the far side of Mrs Figg's garden, trying to make Voldemort turn around. The stars had reappeared with the departure of the Dementors and the street lamps glowed around them; Voldemort's complexion was coming very close to matching the red of his inhuman eyes.

"Show yourself!" Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue. "Who speaks?" He looked to his left, to his right, he turned around, his robes whipping about his legs.

I didn't realise when I was young that the voice was speaking in Parseltongue, Harry thought, before saying as ponderously as he could, "The time is not yet ripe. Potter is yet a child and you are destined to meet as equals. Do not attempt to thwart fate. You shall meet and you shall battle. But that is for the future...." Voldemort scrutinised Mrs Figg's garden with far too much interest for Harry's liking, so he Disapparated again, aiming for Tilda's roof. "Tom Riddle!" he hissed after he had planted his feet firmly on the roof tiles, making certain that he would not slide off. "Begone! You shall confront your enemy when the time is ripe."

To young Harry's clear surprise, Voldemort took this very much to heart.

"Come!" he cried to his Death Eaters, even though many of them were not in any condition to obey. He didn't seem to care; when Voldemort suddenly Disapparated only two of his Death Eaters who had managed to recover wands and keep them also vanished; during the fight, Harry repeatedly saw both members of the Order and Death Eaters retrieving random wands from the vegetation in both gardens, only to be disarmed again by an opponent; he was surprised that anyone in the Order was still armed after the frenzied battle.

Still on the roof, Harry aimed his own wand at the flower bed where the transfigured rock that was Dumbledore lay, removing the spell. When the old man put his hand on young Harry's shoulder, the boy jumped.

"Are you all right, Harry?"

The boy nodded, looking baffled. "Who was that? Where did you go? Can--can you throw your voice? You know--do ventriloquism? With magic?"

"Let us simply be grateful that we can get you out of here safely--without anyone else being injured," he said, not answering the question. They both looked toward the fallen Moody and Harry could see that his young self looked sick with guilt. "Harry," Dumbledore said kindly, "Moody knew--he always knew--the risks of his work. He lived a very, very long time and sustained a number of injuries before--well--" Dumbledore's mouth was drawn into a line. Minerva McGonagall returned to her human form and looked grimly at Moody's body.

"I'll see to him, Professor Dumbledore. You worry about Potter." But she wouldn't look at her student; Harry remembered how awful he'd felt at that moment and sat down on the roof tiles, hugging his knees with his arms. He'd managed to help in so many ways, but he couldn't save Moody, and he knew that he shouldn't, even if he'd found an opening...

Young Harry looked at where Tilda had been again; Harry remembered his assumption that she'd also been killed and wished that he could jump down to the ground and tell him that she was all right.

"Here, Harry," Dumbledore was saying quietly, clearly also seeing the guilt on the boy's face. "We'll clear up the mess here," he said, dropping a phoenix feather into his hand. The moment that it touched his skin, sixteen-year-old Harry Potter was gone in a brief, violent maelstrom.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry felt extremely uncomfortable. He swirled his drink in his glass, looking around at the others at the party, but there seemed to be no one present over the age of fifty. He was growing weary of pretending to be thirty-two; he longed for someone near his own age to talk to. He missed Parvati, his Parvati, not the young woman here who just thought of him as a friend and who would only ever think of him that way if he succeeded in changing the timeline.

He tried to tell himself that this would never work, not to get his hopes up. He would return and very likely find that nothing at all had changed, that nothing could change. Neville would still be dead, Ginny would still be dead, so would a host of other people, including Luna.

Harry watched Ron across the room; he was talking to Neville and laughing. He swallowed, remembering the huge row they'd had after he'd learned from Ron that he'd spoken to Draco only with lukewarm enthusiasm about marriage, at this very party. He remembered shouting at Ron, telling him that he could at least be sorry, that he could say he was sorry that he'd done what he'd done, but Ron didn't want to admit anything. When he thought about it later, Harry knew that he was being completely irrational, that Ron was probably beating himself up inside worse than anyone else ever could, but before he could calm down and think about how Ron was feeling, he said it, the unforgivable accusation:

"I suppose you're pleased that this happened, since Neville is dead now and you can leave Luna and run off with Hermione. It's what you've both wanted for years."

It was the end of their friendship, despite the fact that Harry was married to his sister. After Harry had admitted to Hermione that he'd said this it was touch-and-go whether she'd still be his friend as well, but she gritted her teeth and said that she was certain that he had let his emotions run away with him and that he hadn't meant it. Hermione had gone to Ginny for comfort instead, not daring to go to Ron after Harry's accusation, and when Hermione did tentatively make conciliatory noises about being his friend again they seemed rather half-hearted. They invited her and Frances over to dinner frequently after Neville was killed, but she seemed now more like Ginny's guest, Ginny's friend, rather than Harry's.

And then Luna had done it. Harry had heard Ron talking to Ginny about it afterward, crying on his little sister after he'd become a widower: Luna had taken it into her head to work out what her mother had died from, which experimental charm. She had all of her mother's notes and decided that perhaps she could work out what she was trying to do, be successful at it, and perhaps it could help the Ministry to fight Pansy and the Harpies. No one ever found out what Luna's mother had been working on, though, unless Luna worked it out just before she died of the same thing. Ron came home after picking up the children at The Burrow, where Molly had been minding them, to find Lew, his father-in-law, unconscious in his study, breathing shallowly due to the fumes that were filling the house, and Luna in her little workshop just off the kitchen, slumped over her worktable, dead for hours.

Harry had tried, a little, to extend the hand of friendship to Ron, but Ron threw it back in his face. "What are you going to do now, tell me that I wanted this to happen, too, all so that Hermione and I could be together?" Harry was stung but knew he deserved it; when he discovered, from Ginny, that Ron and Hermione had in fact started seeing each other again about a year after Luna had died he had no problem refraining from saying anything about it. There was no point; neither of his best friends spoke to him any longer. All he had left was Ginny.

And then he'd also lost her.

He'd had no one left to go to but Parvati, who had comforted him and then decided to try to break the memory charm he'd put on her on the night of his thirty-second birthday. Harry didn't know that yet, but when he found out that he would again time-travel, it became one of the few things in his life that he felt he had to look forward to.

And now, in a few hours, he would be going back to that world, the world in which he had no friends, just Parvati and a wizarding world full of people who bowed and scraped to him as the Minister for Magic, even though he'd tried to bring more of an egalitarian air to the Ministry. He'd tried to make a difference, he'd extended the hand of friendship to Ron and Hermione yet again, but when he let slip to Hermione that he was having Unspeakables work on creating one more Time-Turner, she was appalled, and Ron hadn't deigned to speak to him at all...

Harry jumped when Draco suddenly appeared next to him and started to speak. "You really know how to be the life of the party, eh, Potter?" Draco said with a smirk. A rather scantily-clad girl who didn't appear to be much older than nineteen--Harry couldn't remember her name but had a sinking feeling that he'd given her rather poor marks on Defence Against the Dark Arts just a few years earlier--was gyrating between Ron and Neville, making both of them redden, while Crabbe and Goyle looked very much as if they might faint from the sight. Zabini seemed bored and as if he'd had far too much to drink.

"Wuh? Oh, um, sorry, I'm just--" He went for honesty. "I'm just missing Ginny dreadfully. To tell the truth, I almost didn't come because I wanted to spend more time with her..."

Draco guffawed. "You say that like you're never going to see her again!" he said, shaking his head and taking a rather large gulp of his drink. Harry looked at him levelly.

"I miss her every moment of every day that we spend apart," he said quietly. "I want to tell her about everything I've done when I see her again, and then I want to hear about everything she's done while we've been apart..." He looked Draco in the eye. "Please tell me that you feel the same way about Pansy." Please, he thought, please say that you feel the same, that you couldn't imagine your life without her...

Draco scratched the back of his head. "Erm, well, yeah. Pansy's quite--well, you know--"

"I'll bet you couldn't stop thinking about her when you were in Azkaban," Harry said, hoping that this was helpful. Draco's expression changed slightly, softened a little.

"Well, that's true enough...."

"And when you saw her again after you'd got out," he added, not mentioning how this had happened, hoping he could maintain his tact instead of bringing up the plan to kidnap his children, "you were probably overjoyed, I'll bet..."

Draco stared into the distance. "Yeah, yeah, I was..."

"It really is like nothing else to be with someone who understands you, isn't it? Who practically knows what you're thinking before you do?"

"Hm?" Draco said, his mind clearly wandering.

"You and Pansy. You seem to be on the same wavelength."

"Wavelength?" Draco said, frowning. Harry realised that it must be a Muggle term; he'd never thought about it before.

"Yeah, the same–well, you know. You get each other."

Draco nodded, taking a gulp of his drink. "That's true. Pansy could tell that–well, she could tell when my heart wasn't in it anymore..." He had the good grace to look sheepish now. "You know–with the kids. All I really wanted was to get out of prison and go off with her... And yeah," he added, rolling his eyes a little, "I know I deserved to be in there after what I did, but I ended up making up for it, didn't I?"

Harry clapped him on the shoulder, hoping that this would really work. He wouldn't know until he got back to his own time. "Something I can definitely say wholeheartedly is that if there's one thing I want it's to see you married to Pansy, happy and content..."

"...and back in Gibraltar," Ron finished, very quietly yet loud enough to be heard, causing everyone else present to laugh. Harry was glad to see that Draco joined in.

"That's me, as well. I would have just got married there, at a registry office, but Pansy wanted to plan a big to-do with her family and all that..."

"...and you love her, so you wanted to make her happy," Harry added, hoping that he wasn't overdoing the reinforcement of reminding Draco how much he loved Pansy. "You–you didn't like being with Penelope, did you, because you felt guilty about Pansy, right?"

Draco shrugged. "A bit, I reckon. And--well, you know, pretending to be someone else. Pretending like that in general is one thing, but in the bedroom..." He looked around furtively, as if worried that someone might thing he'd gone soft. Harry wondered how much he'd had to drink. "I know breaking out of prison wasn't right, but that really didn't feel right..."

"Erm, looks like we need to get this party back on track," Harry said hastily, trying to convince himself that impersonating himself wasn't the same at all. "To Draco and Pansy!" he said loudly, raising his almost-empty glass.

"To Draco and Pansy!" the other guests chorused, plus the dancing girl, who was perched on Zabini's knee; he looked distinctly uncomfortable, smiling at her feebly. Crabbe and Goyle slapped Draco on the back enthusiastically, practically knocking him over and Harry watched the three old friends, his former nemeses, never dreaming that the future happiness of Draco Malfoy was what he had to most hope for if he was going to have any future happiness of his own. Or rather, if my present happiness isn't going to become future misery and grief.

"To Draco and Pansy," he said again, in a whisper.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry Disapparated, arriving on the ground again, where he took the spells off Percy's rock, then Snape's, Bill's, Dung's and Tilda's; although she was no longer a rock, she was still stunned, lying on the ground under a shrub.

"Ow!" Percy cried, sitting up and immediately being stuck with sharp branches protruding from a shrub badly in need of a trim. Bill still looked like Rodolphus Lestrange as he leaped across the space separating him and his brother.

"Percy!" he exclaimed, pulling him to his feet and hugging him tightly. "You knew it was me, right? Bill? The potion will wear off soon, I hope. Did all of that mean what I thought it meant?"

"Erm, what do you think it meant?" Percy said warily, as if afraid that one of his family members would again start shouting at him about being a traitor.

"You're with us! Working for Dumbledore!"

Snape looked shocked by this revelation but did not comment; Harry felt a certain enjoyment from seeing his surprise, nonetheless. Mundungus Fletcher, still wearing Lucius Malfoy's face, appeared to be in his own world, peering into Tilda's garage; Harry wondered how much stuff she'd ended up missing because of Dung and was glad that the member of the Order with the stickiest fingers didn't know anything about the valuable collection of silver hidden upstairs.

Percy looked bashfully at his brother. "You mean, I was... my cover's blown now. I can't go back to working for the Minister and telling Dumbledore what he's up to..."

"Now, now, Mr Weasley--or Percy, I should say, since we have two Mr Weasleys here," Dumbledore said, putting his hand on Percy's shoulder. "You have performed your duties admirably and I have many things that you can do for me on the continent now that it is no longer practical for you to work for Cornelius..."

Snape motioned to the still-unconscious Tilda. "Albus, there is still the matter of the Muggle woman."

Dumbledore regarded her with a small smile. "It was very good of her to take care of Harry, but now we should return her to her usual routine. If you would be so good as to take care of the matter, Severus?"

Snape nodded and opened Tilda's front door with a flick of his wand, then surprised Harry by picking up Tilda and carrying her inside without using magic. Harry swiftly Apparated from the front of the house to Tilda's living room, so that he was already standing near the television, still in his Invisibility Cloak, when Snape entered and carried her to the couch, putting her down in a semi-sitting position. He backed up, staring at her strangely; Harry felt as if he were seeing a person he didn't know at all. Snape thinks she's pretty, he thought in wonder.

A second later, however, Snape's mouth was twisting in a very familiar manner. "What is it about the Potters and--certain women?" he mumbled, making Harry remember what Teddy had told him about Snape fancying his mother, competing with James Potter for the affections of Lily Evans. Then Severus abruptly lifted his wand and pointed it at Tilda; Harry strode forward, placing himself between her and the wand. He didn't know what Snape had planned, but he couldn't let him do whatever it was to Tilda, even if he was a member of the Order, even if he was going to marry her one day.

"Obliviate!" The spell hit Harry squarely on the chest; he wobbled for a moment, then took a step to the left, maintaining his balance, but just barely. He felt very odd and disoriented. Somewhere, a voice shouted, "Enervate!" Perhaps. And then there was a soft popping noise and Harry felt like he was going to fall over again, so he stepped back to the right; he looked down and saw that the couch on which he was about to sit had a woman sitting on it, holding her head as if it hurt, so he tried to sit on the arm instead and missed, ending up on the floor, his Invisibility Cloak sliding off.

"Harry, is that you?" the woman exclaimed. Trying to bring his eyes into focus, Harry realised that it was a young Tilda Harrison.

Why does she look so young? he wondered, staring at her. Then he looked around at the room and realised that he was in Tilda's house. Except that it hadn't been her house for years and years. "What--when--what's the date?" he asked her.

"The thirty-first of July, nineteen ninety-six," she said promptly. "Are you quite all right, Harry? Is this a side-effect of time-travel? Sit here..."

As he sat on the couch he shook his head, which felt rather woolly. "All right? Not really. I mean--why aren't you shocked to see me? Hang on--did you say time-travel? I found out that I would come here eventually, but how, exactly? What's going on?"

"Don't you remember?" she asked in alarm. Harry shook his head again.

"I suppose I feel a bit like--like I've had a memory charm put on me..."

She looked thoughtful. "I'm--I'm missing some time as well. Didn't you tell me that wizards put memory charms on non-magical people who've witnessed magic? I saw a man in some long robes point a wand at me after I got out of the car after driving back from Brighton, and that's the last thing I remember before waking up. Do you think he put a memory charm on both of us? Wait, I'm the only one who knows you're here..."

Harry frowned. "That's true, no one who was at the battle ever told me they'd seen an older version of me, although I reckon they could have been worried about telling me that I'd time-travel in the future... But how can I even be here at all? How did I travel back in time sixteen years?"

"You told me that you'd used something called a Birthday Wish spell that brought you back exactly half your lifetime. You also told me that you'd had a memory charm put on you so that you couldn't remember the second half of your life, only the first sixteen years. We stayed up talking last night, in my bedroom, and then, erm--"

"What?"

"Well, you slept in my bed, with me." She turned deep red and looked away from him. "Twice."

Why is she using the word 'twice' like that? he wondered.

And then it all clicked into place: he'd done it. He'd created his son, which he'd known for a while would very likely happen when he came here, but--

"Oh, Harry, don't look like that! It was--" Her expression softened and she slid her arm around his neck, bringing her mouth very close to his. Her other hand was sliding up his thigh with a light, tickling motion. "It was very mutual. And it was lovely--"

As she leaned in and started to brush her lips against his, her hand moving ever upward, Harry let out a yelp and stood up abruptly, backing into an ottoman and nearly tumbling over.

"No! We--we can't do any more of that!" She looked shocked by his reaction.

"I'm sorry, Harry," she said stiffly, standing and smoothing her clothes down, looking embarrassed and rejected. "Of course, you don't remember how we could have come to that point..." She turned red again. "I mean--"

"No, I'm sorry. It's you who doesn't understand. I'm deeply in love with my wife, Ginny. I remember the second half of my life now, everything but the last twenty-four hours or so. I love my wife, and my daughters, and--" He stopped before he said, 'my son.' Tilda shouldn't know about that yet, he thought. "I'm sorry, Tilda. You probably feel that I misled you--"

She swallowed, digesting all of this information. "Well, to be fair, you misled yourself..."

He nodded. "But now that I remember Ginny, I couldn't possibly--"

"No, no, of course not," she said quickly, her voice rather higher than normal. Looking away from him again, she added, "I am glad to know that you get to be thirty-two, though. That you did it; you killed him."

Harry hesitated for a moment before saying, "Well, I reckon there's no harm in your knowing now, as long as you don't write any letters to me and tell me, but no, I didn't kill him."

He sat in a chair and told her about going through the Veil and then through the door to the Mystery of Love. He told her about forgiving Voldemort and about the old man's recent death in Azkaban, a harmless old man called Tom Riddle. She also sat while he told her about this. When he looked up he was surprised to see that she was crying very quietly.

"So," she said shakily, wiping the backs of her hands across her eyes, "what did you do when you left here? When you were sixteen?"

"I went back to Order headquarters; the next day I talked to Ginny for a long time and told her all about these past two weeks." He looked away from her, his face feeling hot. "I told her about falling in love with you..." Tilda was quiet when she heard that; the silence hung between them, one of the most uncomfortable silences Harry ever remembered.

"Well, then!" she said suddenly, a false-briskness in her voice; "Why don't you spend the rest of our birthday telling me about how you fell in love with her? You said that Ginny became your wife, right? And you have daughters?"

Harry smiled, closing his eyes, seeing Ginny and the girls in his mind. "Yes. The twins, Ruby and Rory, and Little Charlotte." He opened his eyes again to see Tilda smiling at him and holding out her hand.

"Come on, then. To the kitchen. I'll make a pot of tea and you can tell me all about them."

He smiled at her and nodded, following her into the kitchen, sitting at the table and beginning with the story of what happened during his sixth year...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry looked at his watch and thought, Bloody hell. It's eleven o'clock! His birthday was nearly over and he'd spent the last few hours of it trying to convince Draco Malfoy that he really really wanted to marry Pansy Parkinson.

Harry slapped Draco on the back, saying, "Well, I should be getting back to Ginny. Great party, see you tomorrow," he said hastily, lifting his wand.

Ron stared at him. "What are you talking about, Harry? It's not even midnight!"

Harry wondered how much Ron had had to drink. And whether he might say anything he shouldn't to Draco Malfoy if he were left at the party without his best friend. "You should probably get back to your lovely wife as well, Ron. C'mon, I'll help you through the Floo system, so you get out at the right fire. Neville, can you get his other arm?" Harry said quickly. He eyed Draco Malfoy, who appeared to be ready to fall over. "And can you get Draco up to his bed?" he said to Crabbe and Goyle.

By the time he'd Flooed to Ron's house with him and Neville, then got back into the fire to go to Pansy's, it was already eleven twenty-five. When he tumbled out of the fire at the hen party he was shocked by the immediate cat-calls from the slightly tipsy women, and it took him several long moments to spot Ginny on the other side of the room, chatting with Hermione, Pansy and Luna.

"Good one!" cried one of Pansy's cousins, with a nose like a pig's snout. "Getting a wizard stripper who looks like The Boy Who Lived!"

"The Boy Who Stripped!" giggled another witch.

"That's my husband," Ginny said quickly, rescuing him from several sets of fingers that had started working at his buttons. "The real Boy Who Stri--erm, Lived, I mean..." Ginny turned bright red and looked a little uneven on her feet.

Pansy simpered at Harry, "I once went to a hen party where the maid of honour had hired two strippers--one who looked like you," she said, poking Harry in the chest, "and one who looked like your best mate. Soon they were down to almost nothing but their Gryffindor ties..." She hiccoughed and then giggled; it seemed that the giggling would go on forever.

Ginny made a face. "I think that the last thing I need to see or think about is a stripper impersonating my brother..."

"Oh, I don't know," Luna said dreamily, sounding as she always did and not even a little drunk. "I wouldn't mind that. He is my husband, after all."

Hermione nodded; her nose was a little red and she held a large pint-sized glass with very little ale left in it. "Yes, I wouldn't mind seeing that either," she said, slightly slurred, before looking around and adding quickly, "I meant, if it were my own husband. Neville."

Luna smiled placidly at her but Ginny gave Harry a look, with one eyebrow raised. He leaned over to her to say softly, "We should get back to Parvati's shop. Nearly midnight."

She opened her eyes wide, remembering. "Oh! Right, right, of course..." Turning to Pansy, she said, "We must go, Pansy. Get some rest, why don't you? Big day tomorrow."

Harry grinned at her. "Draco couldn't stop talking about how he can't wait to be married," he added.

Pansy looked touched. "Really?" she asked. Unfortunately, Pansy then wanted a full description of what Draco had said.

When they were finally able to Apparate to Parvati's shop Harry was glad that he managed not to bang into anything this time. "Why don't you wait here while I get Parvati?" She nodded and looked at him with such love in her eyes that he couldn't resist reaching for the Time-Turner, thinking of how lovely it would be if he could go back to the beginning of the evening and suggest that they spend three more hours together and still go to Draco's and Pansy's parties... But no, he shouldn't do that. Other things to focus on.

However, he'd already felt for the chain around his neck and failed to find it.

"Is something wrong, Harry?" Ginny asked, seeing his hesitation.

"No, I was just trying to remember where I'd left something. I'll get Parvati." He raised his wand and Apparated to the flat above the shop, arriving in Parvati's bedroom. She was sleeping peacefully, the dark grey cat barely visible in the darkness, curled up at her feet. Harry lit the end of his wand to see her better; he watched her sleep, remembered the first time he'd spent the night in this room...

The evening had begun like many of their evenings together: Harry had brought a bottle of wine, Parvati was already frying up some samosas in her tiny kitchen, a pot of rice with peas and peppers nearby, some mint chutney waiting for the samosas. They ate and drank, moving into the sitting room afterward as they always did, listening to the Wizarding Wireless. Rather than talking this time, however, they found themselves lapsing into silence, and then they found that they couldn't keep their hands off each other, couldn't stop kissing...

Harry was surprised, still, when she rose and led him wordlessly to her bedroom. Ginny had been dead for more than a year and there wasn't a day that went by that he didn't miss her sorely, but something in him now seemed to be saying, Live. Don't die. Don't stop. There's a lot of life left to live. Live it. Starting now...

And he had. Afterward he lay in her bed, holding her in his arms, running his fingers through her long, soft hair.

"Why is it that you're still single, Parvati?" he asked her as he played with her hair. "You look like you did thirty years ago. Are all of the other men in the wizarding world blind?"

She snorted and kissed the base of his neck. "Mostly they seem to be--intimidated. I've had more than one bloke in the shop, chatting me up, and then as soon as he realises that I'm the 'seer', not just a shopgirl who happens to work here, they back off and make an excuse to leave. One said to me, 'Don't go reading my mind now, and get cross with me!'"

Harry asked, "Can you do Legilimancy?"

Parvati made a face. "No, of course not. I don't know where the idea comes from that a psychic or a seer can read minds. Half the time I can't work out whether I ought to tell someone what I think I see in their Tarot cards."

"Well, I think those blokes probably meant that they were having rather naughty thoughts about you, so you really wouldn't need to be a mind-reader to work out what those thoughts were."

She sat up, feigning shock. "And have you been having naughty thoughts about me, Mr Potter?"

Harry looked sheepish. "For a little while, yeah."

"Good," she said, grinning. "So have I. About you, I mean. But I wasn't certain that you were interested in--have you gone out with anyone since Ginny?"

"No," he said quickly. "Not that I haven't had the opportunity, mind you." He shook his head. "Honestly, some of the witches who've been throwing themselves at me in the last year... I thought it was bad before Ginny died. And my own students! After a sixth-year accused me of--well, you know--Minerva got her to confess that it was the other way round--I'd rejected her--well, since then I've always made certain that there is a female professor present if I need to meet with a female student." He sighed. "I'm seriously considering giving up teaching."

"That's awful!" she said. "So then--no one, is that what you're saying?"

"It's not as if I haven't had a social life. I've come over here for dinner. Molly and Arthur have me over quite a lot. So do Percy and Penelope, and Bill and Fleur. Even Severus and Tilda..." He sighed. "Of course, my two former best friends, who are now married to each other, won't even share a drink with me..."

"You think it'll work out this time? The pair of them?"

"I hope so. I'd like to be able to tell them that I hope so, too, but you know how stubborn they both can be. I'm glad Ginny was able to see them get married, though. Before--well. I get news about them from the rest of the Weasleys. I don't think Ron will ever really stop thinking of Luna, nor Hermione of Neville, but then, I doubt that I'll ever stop thinking of Ginny..."

"If you were the sort of person who would I doubt that you'd be here right now," she said, smiling at him. "I shouldn't like you half so much if you could forget her very easily."

Harry swallowed before shaking her shoulder gently. "Parvati," he whispered, then, "Parvati!" a little louder.

She blinked and then realised who was sitting on her bed. "Harry! What are you--"

"It's nearly midnight, Parvati. Almost time for me to go back to the future. And for him to come back from the past."

She rubbed her eyes and shook herself to wake up. "Right, right," she mumbled, getting out of the bed and reaching for her dressing gown. Harry's heart turned over as he watched her, realising for the first time that if Draco and Pansy did marry, chances were that Parvati would not be waiting for him when he returned to the future, at least not as someone who was in a relationship with him... It was wonderful that Ginny might be there yet, alive and well, but no matter what happened he'd be losing someone he cared about.

He followed her down the stairs; Ginny was asleep on the couch near the astrology books in the shop. Harry and Parvati tried to be very quiet when walking through the bead curtain into her Reading Room, after which he checked his watch again. "Ten minutes," he whispered. He thought of his grandchildren--they would be different people or nonexistent, some of them. So much would change, possibly not all for the better, if Pansy didn't start to terrorise the wizarding world in less than twenty-four hours. But he couldn't think that way; it had to be better. Even if he had different grandchildren, or if his children married different people...

He stared at Parvati, remembering kissing her goodbye before travelling back to his thirty-second birthday. He'd had no idea that he might not be returning to her, to the same future he'd left. He couldn't not step toward her and say, "Parvati, I'd like to thank you for everything. Everything," he repeated, feeling like he was speaking to his Parvati, who knew him so well. He could tell that she was startled when he cupped her cheek with his right hand and said softly, "Where I come from, you are the dearest person in the world to me, but if I've succeeded in convincing Draco Malfoy to go through with his wedding, this could be the last time that--" He faltered, swallowing, gazing into her bright, dark eyes. She wasn't pushing him away but looked slightly anticipatory, and he wondered if she'd seen this coming, seen it in her crystal ball or a spread of Tarot cards, or in the bottom of a teacup. "Parvati--can I kiss you goodbye?"

He saw her swallow again, but he also saw the very small nod she gave him. He leaned down and caught her lips with his; they immediately parted, admitting him, and he laced his fingers into her hair. She seemed afraid to touch him, tentatively putting her hands on his arms as they kissed.

"I hope--I just wish you all the best, Parvati. And there's something else--"

She pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, frowning. "What is it?"

"Well, first, do you have a piece of parchment and a quill?"

She summoned these items from a nearby dresser that held a paisley-patterned tea service. "Yes. What now?"

"We talked about this, remember? Please write this down: Do everything in your power to ensure that Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson get married tomorrow. Oh, make sure you put the date and time." He was about to have her write a second note to herself, telling herself to memory-charm thirty-two-year-old Harry when he returned, so he wouldn't remember his experience with Tilda, but then he remembered sitting in Tilda's kitchen, drinking tea with her and telling her all about Ginny and the girls... He'd already been memory-charmed! That he'd utterly forgotten this made him start to laugh--he'd forgotten about when he was memory-charmed--but he looked up at Parvati and saw that she was clearly not in a laughing mood; he'd never seen her so dead serious.

"Who is it directed to?"

"Anyone. Everyone. Just--can you tell me something? When you see a piece of parchment like this, can you recognise your own handwriting? Can you tell that it was definitely written by you?"

"What? Yes, of course I can, Harry. Why--?"

"Obliviate!" He suddenly pointed his wand at her; Parvati's eyes slid out of focus as he quickly threw on his Invisibility Cloak. He started to check his watch again, but just as he saw that it was midnight he felt a wind rise out of nowhere in the tiny room, and the past was soon slipping away from him...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Ginny! Ginny!"

She struggled to open her eyes and when she did, Harry was running across the floor of Parvati's shop. She sat up and Harry pulled her to her feet, hugging her tightly. She put her arms around him, unable not to cry, and then he was kissing her and all she could think was, He's back, he's back, he's back...

When he let her come up for air she could see that he was crying, too, gazing at her lovingly, as if he'd been away for a minute, not a day. She pulled away long enough to reach into her pocket and take out his wedding ring; she put it back on his finger without speaking and he leaned down to kiss her again, then smiled at her in a way that made her feel that, even though her husband had just travelled back in time and slept with another woman, she was the luckiest woman in the world.

"Thank you," he said softly. "For giving it to me this time and the first time."

She sat on the couch again and Harry sat with her. "Did you miss it?" She tried not to ask, "Did you miss me?"

"I don't know," Harry said, frowning, which she supposed was an honest answer.

"Oh, that's right!" she said, remembering. "The memory charm! You didn't remember being married..."

"Well, actually, I did. That spell must have worn off after a while. I suppose."

"You suppose?"

"Well, I--I don't actually remember any of it now."

"Any of what?" She felt very confused.

"Any of the last twenty-four hours, and a bit before that."

"That makes two of us," Parvati said, standing in the doorway of her Reading Room. "Can you tell me exactly what the two of you are doing here, and why I'm not asleep in my bed? Or perhaps I am asleep in my bed and my dreams have become strangely literal..."

Ginny went to her and Harry followed. "You look like you need to sit down, Parvati," Ginny said, but when she entered the room she saw that that was no longer possible; the chairs were splintered, lying in pieces on the floor and on the overturned bookcases. Books were strewn all over, broken teacups and saucers littered the floor, and the crystal ball lying next to the upturned table on which it had sat had a large crack running through it.

"What happened in here?" Ginny said, surveying the destruction. She hadn't heard anything in the shop.

"Must have been the Birthday Wish spell," Harry said, bending over to pick up the crystal ball.

"The what?" Parvati wanted to know.

"The spell that allowed Harry to travel back to his sixteenth birthday," Ginny told her, waving her wand to repair a shattered teapot; it leapt onto a dresser, soon followed by its companion cups and saucers.

Parvati stared at both of them as if they were mad. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"But--you're the one who told us about the spell," Ginny said reasonably.

"Wait--when I said I didn't remember the last twenty-four hours, you said, 'That makes two of us.' How did you know it was twenty-four hours?" Harry asked Parvati.

"I looked at my clock," Parvati said, nodding at the carriage clock on her mantle. "Time and date on that one. It now says the first of August. Fortunately, it's not broken, I think. I picked that up first, put it on the mantle, and then heard your voices in the shop. Is it the first of August?"

Ginny waved her wand at the chairs, repairing them, and then she righted the table again, so that they could all sit down at it. "Yes, it is. Listen," Ginny said, trying not to let her voice shake, "I seem to be the only one who wasn't memory-charmed, so let me try to explain all of this. Last night, you called Harry to say that it was time, Parvati. Time for him to go back to his sixteenth birthday."

"Called? But you two aren't on the Floo network," Parvati said.

"On a mobile."

"On a--where would I have got a mobile?"

"Harry said that you said it was borrowed. Anyway, we came here and you told Harry about the Birthday Wish spell..."

"But who told me about that? And once again, why don't I remember?"

Ginny looked helplessly at her. "I have no idea. On both counts. But Harry did use it to go back in time sixteen years."

He nodded. "That's true, even though I don't remember much of the last day..."

"Why don't you remember that? You were only supposed to forget the second half of your life," Ginny said.

"I was?" Harry shook his head, then told them about waking up in Tilda's living room and being told about the Birthday Wish spell by her, among other things.

"So--you don't remember doing anything with Tilda?" Ginny said anxiously.

Harry shook his head. "Other than sitting in her kitchen and telling her all about you and the girls--no. I made certain not to mention Teddy, of course. I think it'll be fine, telling her that much of the future; it reassured her. And I won't be in contact with her again until Teddy goes to Hogwarts." He opened his eyes wide, having remembered something. "And that's why Tilda knew about you when I went to see her after Teddy started school..."

Parvati held her head in her hands. "I simply do not understand..."

"I think you should go back to bed, Parvati. Are you going to Draco and Pansy's wedding this afternoon?" Ginny asked her.

"No, I wasn't invited."

"Just as well. You can sleep late, and sod it all if people can't get into the shop to buy things in the morning..."

"Actually, customers could get into the shop if they wanted; they just couldn't take anything out of it. Anti-theft spells on everything. After something's been paid for, the spell lifts. If anyone tries to Apparate away with something they haven't paid for, when they go, it stays behind. Or if they try to walk out without paying, whatever it is disappears from their pockets the moment they're back outside and reappears on its shelf."

Ginny was impressed. "Very neat! I wonder if Fred and George know about that?"

Parvati made a scoffing noise. "Who do you think told me about it?"

Ginny laughed. "All right, you help Parvati upstairs, Harry, I'll finish cleaning up in here..."

When they had gone, Ginny resumed the repairs on various objects, until the only thing still out of place was a piece of parchment in the corner. She summoned it into her hands and saw that there was writing on it; Parvati appeared to have written herself a note, and for some reason she included the date and time: 31 July, 2012, 11:55 pm. A time that neither Parvati nor Harry now remembered. The note was very terse:

Do everything in your power to ensure that Draco Malfoy gets married.

Ginny frowned, since Parvati had said that she wasn't even invited to the wedding, and then, for some reason she couldn't name, she put the parchment in her pocket when she heard Harry's footsteps on the stairs. They returned home soon afterward.

She didn't mention the parchment to him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ginny felt very peaceful when she lay down to sleep again in their bed at St Clare's, Harry by her side. When she awoke in the morning she could hear Harry singing in the shower, which made her smile. She rolled over and punched her pillow with the intention of getting a little more sleep, but she couldn't find a cool spot to lay her head on, so she decided to turn the pillow over.

However, two things met her eye when she picked up the pillow: the faded old portfolio that she knew should be on the upper shelf of her wardrobe, and a fine gold chain. She pulled on the chain and a tiny hourglass emerged from the space between the mattress and headboard. She gazed at it in wonder, no doubt in her mind that it was a Time-Turner, from what she'd heard Hermione say about it. Where did this come from? she wondered. And why is this portfolio under my pillow and not in the wardrobe?

There was only one possible answer: she was meant to find these things. She put the Time-Turner around her neck, tucking the hourglass inside the bodice of her nightgown, and untied the ribbon on the portfolio.

She glanced throught the drawings, which were more yellowed than she remembered. Then, when she turned over the drawing Dean had done of her on the bed, something caught her eye--and then made her stare. The entire back of the drawing was covered with writing; all of it was very similar, but the writing at the top was a little firmer, more assured.

My Dearest Ginny,

I'm so sorry, Ginny, I can never say how much. I'm sorry to ever have put you through the pain and uncertainty of wondering whether I wasn't telling the truth about me and Tilda. As far as I know I did not sleep with her on my sixteenth birthday. Except that it turns out I did, as a thirty-two-year-old man. I would do anything to change that but I don't know how to without endangering anyone. When I did it I didn't remember how much I loved you and didn't want to hurt you. I didn't know you were and are my wife and the mother of my daughters.

But now the memory charm has worn off and I do remember, I remember it all, and I feel as if my heart is being torn out of my chest, because if this causes me to lose you then my heart should be gone--you are my heart and my love and I don't deserve you and your love and your patience.

Ginny wondered when Harry had been able to write the note, but then she remembered Ron and Hermione being convinced that the front door of number twelve, Grimmauld Place had opened and closed. And now he probably doesn't even remember writing it, she realised.

I hope that when I return you read this and that there is some hope that you won't leave me. If you do, however, I wouldn't blame you. Any man would be lucky to be married to you. I am the luckiest man, wizard or Muggle, that I know. And that is because of you. I have treasured living and working with you, raising our children, making love to you and in general sharing my life with you.

There is still the battle tonight at Tilda's and Mrs Figg's. I think I need to do something important there, to preserve the timeline. If anything happens that prevents me from returning, remember that I have always and will always love you. You are truly my better half.

With all my love,

Harry, aged 32

31 July, 1996

Below this was another scrawled note in very similar but more spidery handwriting, beginning the same way:

My Dearest Ginny,

It is a wonderful gift to see you again as a young woman, to hold you, to make love to you. I must admit, however, that I was not completely honest with you when I said that the Birthday Wish spell split me in half. I have travelled back in time again, half of my life. I used a Time-Turner to go back a little further, to tell Parvati about the spell and lend her my mobile.

Ginny touched the lump of the Time-Turner, under her nightgown, and thought, That's where this and the mobile came from! Her heart thumping excitedly, she continued to read:

Since everyone will remember seeing me yesterday but I won't, you'll have to come up with something to tell me. I know you'll do fine. Parvati won't remember anything, however, because I'll be putting a memory charm on her before returning to the future. She'll break it eventually and learn the truth, but the time hasn't yet come for her to know.

One last thing, Ginny--your wish of our someday having a son will come true next year, on Teddy's birthday. We'll decide to name him after Dumbledore. I'm sure you'll work out which of his names sounds best with "Potter". I love you, my dearest Ginny, so very much. Please remember that always, for the rest of your life, however long that may be.

Yours forevermore,

Harry, aged 64

31 July, 2012

Ginny didn't know when she had begun to cry but tears were wetting her nightgown. She heard Harry turn off the water in the shower and she stuffed the portfolio back under her pillow, leaning against it just as Harry opened the door to the bath. He immediately spotted that she'd been crying as she hastily wiped the tears from her cheeks.

"Ginny! Are you all right?"

She couldn't stop crying, somehow; thinking of the life growing inside her, the gift Harry had given her for his own sixty-fourth birthday, made it impossible. She stood and wrapped her arms around him, so glad to have her thirty-two-year old husband back, even though she hadn't even known that it was the sixty-four-year-old Harry with whom she'd shared the previous day. His skin was still damp from the shower, smelling of sandalwood soap. He kissed her soundly and she smiled up at him through her tears.

"I'm just glad you're back," she said finally. "I missed you so, yesterday. I had to put spells on everyone who was here for the party, so they believed you were here, too, rather than cancelling," she improvised quickly. "So if someone mentions the party, just go along, or say it's all a bit of a blur for you or something like that. Oh, and the same for Draco's stag party and coming to pick me up at Pansy's afterward." She started to go into the bathroom but stopped and turned to face him, no longer feeling like crying. She felt very happy--and a little mischievous--instead.

"Had you ever thought about stripping?"

"Wh-what?" Harry choked. "Where did that come from? Hang on--did they actually have a male stripper at the hen party?"

"Well, not as such... You'll find out someday why I asked you that."

"Oh, someday, will I?" he said, smirking.

"Yes. I have faith in you, Harry." She stopped and scrutinised him as if she'd never seen him before. "You really are quite--resourceful." She laughed at the puzzled expression on his face. "Don't think too much about it right now, Harry. We have something much more important to do today."

"Oh, we do? What's that?"

Paraphrasing the note she had tucked into her bedside table, she said, "We have to do everything in our power to ensure that Draco Malfoy gets married."

Harry stared at her, puzzled. She went into the bathroom and leaned against the door, closing her eyes as she pictured the Harry with whom she'd spent the previous day; she just knew that he had left her a message about the future by having Parvati write the note before he put the memory charm on her. And if her future husband thought that it was important, then she felt that she had to trust that. It was important. Probably as important as leaving her with the gift of their son.

Taking out the Time-Turner and holding it in her closed fist, she whispered, "Thank you, Harry."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry picked himself up off the floor, thinking how much easier it had been to do this sort of thing when he was only half as old. The room wasn't quite as much of a mess as it had been thirty-two years earlier, perhaps because it was only affected by one Birthday Wish spell this time, not two, but it certainly wasn't as Harry had left it. He waved his wand, putting it to rights; he assumed that Parvati was upstairs. They still maintained separate residences although they rarely slept apart.

He accidentally put a chair down rather hard after repairing it in mid-air, and he heard footsteps overhead, followed by the sound of someone coming down the stairs.

"Bloody hell, Harry... What've you done to my wife's place of business?" Neville stood framed in the doorway in his dressing gown, his wand out. He looked rather tired and had a receding hairline, but it was Neville! He was alive!

"Neville!" Harry cried, throwing his arms around him. Neville grunted in surprise. The new memories came cascading into Harry's mind:

He was sitting with Ginny at the wedding, waiting and waiting for Draco Malfoy, everyone growing very restless, and then Ginny had excused herself, come back just a minute later looking very self-satisfied, and Draco had marched in with his groomsmen to stand with the Ministry clerk and wait for his bride to walk down the aisle...

Luna had still died while attempting to learn how her own mother had died, unfortunately. Ron was comforted by Ginny and Harry, but mostly by Hermione's friendship. And then one day Hermione had shown up at St Clare's in tears because Neville had gone to the Ministry registry office to get divorce papers; he told her that she'd never really stopped loving Ron and she was the only one who didn't seem to know that. He felt that it was only right to give her her freedom, to let her go...

Evidently, he'd gone to see Parvati for a reading, and after demanding that she tell him the truth about what she saw in the cards, she'd admitted that it appeared that he was holding someone prisoner, someone very dear to him, but who should still be given freedom, which would also free him.

After the divorce was final, Neville had asked Parvati to dinner, to thank her for waking him up and to assure her that he didn't resent her for telling him the truth; soon they were seeing each other, and a year later Ron and Hermione were married and Neville and Parvati were married as well. Near their first anniversary their first son, Kumar Longbottom, had been born...

And after Brian finished his seventh year at Hogwarts, Harry and Ginny retired from teaching, Teddy took over the DADA job, and Harry was tapped to be Minister for Magic...

Neville gasped and Harry released him, laughing, as Parvati appeared behind him, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

"Sorry, love," she said to Neville. "I meant to set my wand to wake just me, so you could rest, but I forgot."

"Neville, Parvati," Harry said, grinning at them both, "how are your kids? Your lovely, lovely kids?"

Neville frowned at him and stepped back, as if afraid that Harry might give him another crushing hug. "The kids are grand, Harry. Are you all right?"

"Never better, mate. Never better!"

"Harry?"

A familiar voice came from the shop; Harry turned, his heart thumping in his chest as he remembered Ginny at the wedding again, thirty-two years earlier. He burst through the bead curtain and walked around a bookcase; there she was, standing in front of the couch, looking almost as she had thirty-two years earlier, except for having shorter hair. He ran to her and threw his arms around her, laughing and crying at the same time.

Ginny was also laughing. "Harry, you act as if you hadn't just seen me the day before yesterday!"

Harry pulled back a little and gazed at her dear face. "It feels a lot longer..."

After they finished helping Parvati and Neville to clean up, they thanked them again and Apparated back to the graveyard at St Clare's. Harry grasped Ginny's hand and they walked to the house, grinning at each other in the moonlight.

"Can I ask you something, Ginny? Where did you go when we were waiting for Draco and Pansy's wedding to start?"

She stopped and stared at him. "Harry, that was thirty-two years ago!"

"Well, for me..."

She laughed; he wanted to crush her in a hug again, he'd missed that laugh so much. "All right, you really want to know? You're not the only person who occasionally time-travels..." She touched the gold chain she always wore at her throat and withdrew something from the throat of her robes that was hanging on the chain. Harry's jaw dropped when he saw it.

"Where did you get that?"

"You left it in our bed. I don't think you meant to; it was under my pillow with something else I think you did mean for me to find: the portfolio."

"So you read it! You never said!"

She smiled at him lovingly. "At any rate, you asked me about the wedding... I slipped out of the tent and found an inconspicuous cupboard in the house, so I could go back a few hours, using the Time-Turner. Then I tracked down Draco upstairs and gave him a good talking-to. Oh, and I helped him to mend his dress-robes. He'd ripped them on something and was rubbish with mending spells--Pansy's brother, too, who was also there--so I helped him with that. Which seemed to be the main problem, actually; he was a bit surprised that I wanted to make certain he still wanted to marry Pansy. He said to me, 'Of course I do, don't be daft.' You know how tactful he always is...

"Of course, then I couldn't let him come downstairs until it was nearly the time from which I'd travelled, but Pansy wouldn't have any of that; she came upstairs to find out what was keeping him, and she wanted in. Her brother didn't want to let her; he's very superstitious and kept going on about its being bad luck, but I let her in because I don't hold with superstitious rubbish. She was a bit miffed to find me there, but a bit less miffed when she saw her brother as well. We explained about the robe-mending to her. Well, she and Draco made up well enough, but then they really started making up..." She cleared her throat. "And then Draco suggested to her that they leave everyone in a bit of suspense about it all, since I'd said that he had to wait to come down, and then her brother and I left them to their, erm, own devices. Parkinson wasn't very happy with me, either, but personally, I think it was good luck for Pansy and Draco to be together before their wedding, not bad. When it was close to time, I watched myself leave the tent from behind a topiary shrub on the lawn, I walked back into the tent, and soon after that the wedding began. With a bride in a rather wrinkled wedding gown," she added, giving Harry a wink.

She looked very pleased with herself. Harry's jaw dropped. "Are you telling me that the reason he hadn't come downstairs yet was that he couldn't mend his own bleeding robes? And that if her brother had succeeded in keeping Pansy away from Draco--?"

Ginny stared at him. "If her brother had succeeded in keeping Pansy away from Draco what?"

"Oh, erm, nothing. Never mind." He couldn't prevent a rather large grin from creeping across his face as they continued to walk to the house. "Everything's just fine. And as it should be."

He wondered for a moment why neither she nor the Longbottoms had questioned his hair not being white, and then remembered that he didn't do that in this timeline. He looked down at their joined hands, surprised to see that his wedding ring was back on, even though when he'd left he hadn't been wearing it; all day, at his thirty-second birthday party, Ginny hadn't questioned this, probably because she knew that he'd taken it off before time-travelling back to his sixteenth birthday, and he was a 'copy' of that Harry, so of course he had no ring...

When they entered the quiet house, which Harry knew would later be filled with the happy voices of his children and grandchildren, coming to celebrate his birthday a day late, he couldn't resist taking Ginny in his arms and twirling her around the drawing room in the moonlight streaming through the stained glass windows, singing to her as badly as he ever did while she laughed and gazed lovingly at him and made him feel like the luckiest person who'd every lived:

"Every summer we can rent a cottage on the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear...We shall scrimp and save. Grandchildren on your knee: Vera, Chuck, and Dave..."

"Those aren't their names," she interjected, laughing. "And--well, anyway, it's Tilda and Severus who like to go to the Isle of Wight--"

He pictured Tilda and Severus as he'd last seen them; eighty and eighty-four, growing old together, quite happy and content...

"Send me a postcard, drop me a line, stating point of view," Harry continued to sing very badly. "Indicate precisely what you mean to say: Yours Sincerely, Wasting Away. Give me your answer, fill in a form: mine forevermore..."

Finally, Ginny joined in with him at the end, almost laughing too much to manage to get the words out: "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"

They stopped singing and dancing and laughing, standing in the middle of the drawing room, holding each other tightly, and the look in her bright brown eyes as she leaned up to kiss him told him the answer to the song's question, the answer he'd always known.

THE END


Once again, the song Harry is singing is "When I'm Sixty-Four", credited to Paul McCartney (and often John Lennon, too), copyright 1967, Northern Songs.

Thanks to the incredibly patient and detail-oriented Rena for the beta-reading and to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story.

Please be a responsible reader and review.