Sacred is the Windswept Time

Eleven: Botching Tom Riddle's Recruiting Plans

Harry looked up, his eyes locking with the blue gaze of the headmaster, the spark gone from the old wizard's eyes.

"And so it has begun," the headmaster spoke and Harry nodded, before he felt two sets of hands helping him up, Lucius on his left, Severus on is right, both supporting him.

"What has begun?" Lucius asked, looking first at Harry before turning suspiciously to the headmaster.

"A war destined to last for twenty years. If only I'd gone back farther, to Tom Riddle instead of here..." Harry said as he looked at Dumbledore, but the old man shook his head.

"It would have made no difference, and besides you are needed more here than anywhere else.

"How can you say that? An innocent family is dead and his words, the last words they heard spoken, came out of my mouth! I didn't think I could get into his head so easily!" Harry snapped and brushed back the dark fringe covering his scarred forehead. "This hasn't happened yet! I haven't happened yet. I don't want them to die, any of them! I don't want my friends to end up in Azkaban or living in fear, I don't want my family gone, but even with everything that I've changed, with what they know... It hasn't made a difference. None of it, and I never had a choice in all of this!"

"There is still time for that, Harry, things can be helped. You are destined for a final battle and you shall have one. You know that," Dumbledore said, his tone grave.

"So lay my life out there. Dangle me as a prize before him. If it's me that he wants so badly then he shall have me, as long as it ends with me! Damn the consequences as long as they... all of them get to have a life beyond the next three bloody years!"

"This is madness, Granger! You're talking madness. You're having delusions, hallucinations," Severus said.

Harry turned to look at the dark haired, dark eyed boy and laughed, "I won't see you become a bitter shell." Then he turned to Lucius and said, "And I won't see you become a cruel murderer like your father."

"What?" Lucius asked, nearly letting go of Harry in his shock.

"Being in league with Riddle is a bit of a tradition, isn't it, Lucius? How does your father know him?" Harry asked.

"They were in school together, best mates, but what has he got to do with anything?" Lucius asked.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle is Lord Voldemort, the Dark Lord, and he will stop at nothing to destroy anyone in his path. He's promised your father that together they will rid the world of muggleborns and half bloods, but I doubt if he's even told your father that he himself is a half blood," Harry said.

"Harry, I think we should talk in my office," Dumbledore said, and then Harry noticed something dart across the room and under a crack in the door, before he swore.

"Bloody hell, I'm too late, he'll know that I..." instead of finishing, Harry broke free of Lucius' and Severus' grips, pushed past the headmaster and ran out of the door, pointing his wand at a rat, and casting a memory charm on it.

"And pray tell, Granger, why would you cast a memory charm on a rat?" came a gravelly voice from behind, and he was facing his Potions professor.

"Well, Professor, you never can be too careful where spies are concerned in war," Harry said and then looked over his Professor's shoulder, meeting Dumbledore's gaze, as he said, "The mark was seen in the sky. The ministry will have a long night ahead of them. There were no survivors, there never are, at least not until me."

"What do you know of his plans?" Dumbledore asked.

Harry sighed, and looked at his two friends standing in the doorway of the infirmary. "He will send out formal invitations with instructions on how to use the portkey. The letters themselves will be the portkeys. I can't spare them all, but I can spare two. As for me, my letter will be special. I will be sent to a different location, where I will either bow to him and join him, or we will duel to the death."

Dumbledore nodded. "So he knows that you are a possible threat. All I can say is you've choices to make, and the answers lie wait in your heart. Do as your conscience advises you. Spare those that you can. I leave this to you to decide. What will you change? Keep this in mind, that for every change you bring about, there is a consequence, whether it be good or bad will remain to be foreseen."

Dumbledore then turned to Professor Sorcebaine. "Come Serrano, we have things to discuss."

Harry smirked and as the two professors began to head to Dumbledore's office, called after them, "Let me know when the Order is accepting new members."

Both men turned toward the boy, Sorcebaine's eyes wide, and Dumbledore's blue eyes sparkling. The two men then continued on their way, leaving Harry with two very curious Slytherins. They looked at him, a pair of narrowed grey eyes, and a pair of calculating sable ones.

"What is going on?" Severus asked. "How do you know the Gryffindors' secrets, and what in the bloody hell do you see in your visions?"

"And why would you say those things about my father?" Lucius asked, a twinge of hurt in his voice.

Harry swallowed thickly as he looked at his two friends. "I have secrets to tell, but now is not the time."

Lucius' eyes darkened as he stepped forward and shoved Harry back into the wall. "I say we make time, let's begin by telling Severus what else happened that night on the full moon. There are no secrets among us, Granger, though if you are so pleased with Severus and Lupin being together, why you don't want him knowing that you've fucked Black is beyond me."

"What?" Severus asked in shock and stared at Harry.

"Oh, yes. That night when you came back, I went looking for Harry, imagine my surprise when I found him bent over Black and Black crying out his name," Lucius hissed.

Harry shoved Lucius away from him. "That was a moment of stupidity, of weakness on my part! It's bad enough that my father knows! You don't have to tell the whole bloody school!"

"I thought you said your father was dead," Severus snapped.

"He was..."

"And he isn't now? Is that what you've been looking into in all of your research? Spending all those hours in a library? You've been trying to find a way to resurrect the dead? Bloody hell, a necromancer too?" Lucius accused.

"No," Harry growled. "My father is dead, he's just not dead yet!"

Harry then pushed himself away from the wall and stalked off down the corridor. He had to get away. Everything was becoming so complicated. He never asked to go back in time. He'd never asked to meet his parents. He'd never wanted to befriend Lucius Malfoy or Severus Snape, yet he had done all of that, and he wondered, not for the first time, just what sort of changes his actions, his very presence in the past would have on the future.

----------

"Albus, why have you called us together? Our usual staff meetings aren't until tomorrow," Minerva said, her tone suggesting slight irritation as she'd been in the middle of grading essays from the fifth year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins.

Serrano Sorcebaine answered her question. "The Order of the Phoenix has been discovered by a student."

The teachers and staff present gasped. "But how can that be?" asked Pomona Sprout.

"Who is it?" asked Flitwick.

Serrano turned to Albus Dumbledore and posed his own question. "Let's asked Dumbledore shall we? Just who in bloody hell is Harry James Granger?"

Dumbledore sighed, and took his hat from his head, then reached for his candy dish before popping a lemon drop into his mouth, taking a moment to savor the taste of it, before he spoke.

"Harry James Granger does not exist. There has never been a Harry James Granger, nor will there ever be, as far as I know. There is however a Harry James Potter, born three years from now to James and Lily Evans Potter, who will be orphaned at the tender age of only one year old. He will hold great potential for both good and evil, and he is marked by evil and by sacrifice made in love."

"Are you saying that boy is the son of James Potter and Lily Evans?" Minerva said with a snort. "I hardly believe it! If those two did have a child, he would undoubtedly be sorted into Gryff..." she stopped short as she remembered first seeing the boy, how she'd mistaken him for James Potter and how he'd been wearing Gryffindor school robes.

"He was in Gryffindor," she said in shock. "But how could he have been resorted into Slytherin?"

"People change over the years, Minerva. The boy has been through much in his young life, and has been preparing for battle ever since the first time he set foot in this school. There has not been a year that has gone by where he has not been threatened by Lord Voldemort."

"But how do you explain his being in this time? He's what? Seventeen years old? He's gone back into the past nearly twenty years!" Serrano said.

Dumbledore chuckled. "As I heard it, a bit of thyme was added to his Sleeping Draught of Prophetic Dreams."

Startled by this bit of information, Serrano looked at the headmaster and shook his head. "How could he have made such a mistake? He is one of my best students. He nearly rivals Snape."

"The mistake was not his, but his lab partner's. Really, Severus should have known better than to pair an impatient Gryffindor with a nervous one."

"Severus..." Minerva, Pomona, and Serrano nearly choked.

"Yes, Serrano, he will become your replacement," Albus said.

"I admit the boy's gifted..." Serrano said, and then Minerva cut in, "But put him in an environment teaching so many students and he would terrorize them!"

"Ahh, but they would learn. Of that I have no doubt. And with all the years that Harry was taught by Severus, in this time he still befriended him. What shocks me the most, however is that he befriended Lucius. What I gathered from Harry's memories is that Lucius has become a cruel man, more so than his father, though what could bring about such a change in him is unknown to me. Harry bears many scars inflicted by Lucius Malfoy... Many scars indeed."

"That still doesn't explain how he could know about the Order," Pomona pointed out.

Albus turned to her and smiled. "Harry has known about the Order since his fifth year, so have his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Though I've yet allowed him to join our ranks, I think he is ready now."

"What makes you say that?" Serrano asked.

Dumbledore gave a small smile. "He knows more about dueling than most wizards of this age. If you doubt his quality as someone to serve in the Order, why not challenge him yourself as you have a reputation of being quite formidable."

"Perhaps I might," Serrano replied.

"Oh will the two of you stop? This is ridiculous. If the boy knows about us, and he is on our side, then for goodness sakes let him join us and be done with it. Now what else have you to tell us?" Minerva snapped.

"Well put, Min," Albus said and then continued, "As you may know Harry has been having episodes, dreams where he connects to someone else's consciousness, Tom Riddle. During the episode he suffered earlier in Potions today he witnessed the murder of a muggle family, not just any muggle family, but one we are familiar with. They have a daughter in attendance at Hogwarts. Later on I will see to informing Susanna Harrington of the tragedy, which occurred earlier today. We stand on the brink of war. We've all known this was coming. We sensed it when Tom Riddle himself was a student here. Minerva, you need not say anything in regards to your former friendship with him."

Minerva looked down at her hands. "I was Head Girl, I should have told you sooner what I suspected him capable of."

"He was a friend, and we Gryffindors have our ties with loyalty," Albus said.

"That's no excuse," she replied, and looked up, a tear trailing her face as she accepted the handkerchief from Pomona.

"Now, that we have been presented with the facts, where do we go from here?" Serrano asked, with barely a glance at the emotional woman.

Albus shrugged as he reached for another lemon drop. "I leave that to Harry. I trust that he will make the right decision."

"He is a seventeen year old boy from twenty years in the future, who grew up an orphan. He has returned to a time where his parents are alive and well. How can you possibly trust him?" Serrano snarled.

Albus smiled. "I have faith, Serrano, simple faith."

----------

He'd been walking blindly for what seemed like ages, though really he had no sense of time or how long he'd been wandering the corridors of Hogwarts. He found himself in an unfamiliar corridor, and turning about he found himself wishing that he had the Marauder's Map so that he would at least know where he was.

He was about to start off down the corridor in hopes of finding something familiar to tell him where he was when he heard footsteps approaching. He groaned and then shook his head, knowing exactly who it was before the lit wand came around the corner and he was facing none other than Sirius Black.

"What do you want?" Harry groaned as he leaned back against the wall next to a lively landscape.

Sirius shrugged as he stared at the boy that looked so much like his best friend, leaning casually against the wall, looking at him with a dark expression on his handsome face, his green eyes burning in contempt. Was this boy really destined to be his godson?

"I just needed to see you... After what happened in Potions..." Sirius couldn't bring himself to finish.

"What? You were worried about me?" Harry asked, his tone mocking.

"Would it surprise you so much if I were?" Sirius asked.

Harry shrugged. "I just want to know one thing."

Sirius looked up, and Harry continued, "Why did you tell my father what happened? What we did? It was wrong. I'm your godson, and I knew that, and you knew you were my godfather, your best friend's son. It never should have happened. I'm not saying it was your fault. It was mine, everything is always my fault."

"I didn't," Sirius whispered as he looked up, his blue eyes meeting Harry's green, the light from the sconce on the wall flickering strange shadows across both of their faces. "He just figured it out, and then knocked me flat for it. You haven't even been born yet, and he's already playing at being your dad."

Harry closed his eyes in defeat before wearily asking, "What are you doing here, Sirius?"

"I..." the boy began and then swore. "Dammit, Harry, what if it isn't wrong? What if..."

"What?" Harry looked up in curiosity.

"What if you're all I think about? What if it never was James? I only thought it was?" Sirius blurted.

Harry's eyes widened as he fought with himself to keep from laughing. "Fuck your godson and all of a sudden you've found love? It takes more than a good fuck to be in love."

"Is that all it was?" Sirius asked, searching Harry's eyes for answers, but none were forthcoming.

"Was it?" Harry challenged. "You were the one that said, 'no strings' as I recall. Going back on your word are you? You know, Gryffindors are only as good as their word."

"Speaking of Gryffindors, what were you before you were resorted?"

Harry grinned at the boy. "Oddly enough the sorting hat wanted to put me into Slytherin the first time, but I told it no, so I found myself in Gryffindor. This second time, I wasn't sure I wanted to be around you or my parents. After all, knowing what I know I might have chosen to change something, but hell, just by being here now, things have changed."

"You've only just figured that out?" Sirius asked with a wry grin.

Harry's left eyebrow rose. "Are you flirting with me? Actually flirting?"

"Would you like me to?"

"I'm going straight to hell for this," Harry muttered, as he took Sirius' face between his hands and kissed the boy, Sirius immediately responding as his arms wrapped around Harry.

Once they parted, Sirius panting, replied, "Then we'll go together. I've always been rather fond of a warm climate..."

----------

Remus gasped as his golden eyes widened. In the north wing on the third corridor, were none other than Sirius and Harry. Remus heard the door of the dorm open, and quickly closed the map as he tapped it with his wand and hissed, "Mischief managed."

He looked up, his eyes meeting James'. James looked at his friend suspiciously before his eyes fell on the map in Remus' hands. James lips tightened as he fought an inner battle to maintain his temper before he asked, "What did you see Remus?"

Remus sighed and held the map out to James before he replied, "Maybe it's meant to be James. Would you deny either of them happiness?"

James activated the map and as he saw the two sole occupants on the third corridor in the north wing of the castle the map slipped from his hands, and he stared at his friend before his legs failed him and he collapsed to his knees, unsure of how to accept that fact that his best friend was pursuing a relationship with his son.

Remus knelt before him and put a consoling hand on James shoulder. "He's never been so determined, never gone so far to be with anyone. Perhaps you should let it run its course. See where it goes. They may end up together, or maybe not, but that is not your decision to make. It's between Sirius and Harry. You've nothing to do with that choice."

"But he's my son. How can Sirius even consider being with my son?"

Remus shrugged, as he was unsure of that answer himself. He found himself wondering what fate held in store for them all, because Harry had been sent to their time for a reason... There had to be a reason...