Sacred is the Windswept Time

Twenty: Waking Up

Harry groaned as sounds filtered to his ears, and he realized that he was lying on his back on a bed. He groaned again, guessing correctly that he was in the infirmary, and he wondered how things had turned out after he'd killed Voldemort, because obviously everything else had been a dream, because a life that wonderful was just too good to have been real.

As Harry opened his eyes he came face to face with bright grey eyes, and a familiar fair skinned face. He grinned at the boy who was looking down at him in relief and scooted up in the bed and said, "How long have I been out, Lucius?"

The boy looked at him in confusion, and Harry noticed subtle things, things that told him this boy was not Lucius.

"Harry? Are you all right? It's been a few weeks since the accident. You were found a week ago by the gate of Hogwarts. What happened to you? Where've you been? Why was there a knife sticking out of your chest and why in the bloody hell did you think I was my father?" Draco demanded, but before Harry could answer, someone had pulled Draco back and took his place by Harry's side, and Harry smiled, because it was Lucius, twenty years older perhaps, but still Lucius.

"Is it really you, Harry? Are you back with us? We've been lost without you," he said, with a smile and then added, "And at least this time you didn't wake up trying to kiss me, or my son."

"And why would I try kissing a married man?" Harry asked playfully with a grunt as he sat up and felt a twinge in his chest, "You know Narcissa would hex me if I tried anything with you."

"Dad, what's going on?" Draco asked in confusion as he looked from his best friend to his father, wondering how they could know each other so well.

Lucius looked at his son. "Draco, remember when I told you about the man that saved my life? He transfigured me into a ferret and became one of my closest friends? I would like to introduce you to Harry James Granger, or as you know him Harry James Potter."

Draco's grey eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he realized just what had happened to his best friend. "You mean to tell me that Harry went back in time, saved you and fought and killed Voldemort? It was Harry? Bloody hell, my best mate set my dad up with my mum?!"

"You know we weren't always mates, Draco, I hardly remember growing up in this life, just flashes I had on my way back to this time. I remember the life I had before I went back, with the Dursleys and my parents being dead. I remember pain and war. Oh, Gods," Harry said and then turned to Draco's father, "Lucius, what I remember. I want to know this life, but I only saw bits and pieces, enough to put together that I have a sister and brother, and that you have three children, and Severus and Remus are still together. I really did a great thing. You're all here now because of me."

Lucius was about to speak again when the doors of the infirmary swung open and his parents entered followed by his younger sister Evelyn, and his little brother Daniel, and Blaise, Hermione, and Ron. His friends and siblings rushed forward and surrounded his bed, chattering on and on, but it was his little brother that caught his attention when he reached out and traced the lightening bolt scar on his forehead.

"Wicked, Harry," Daniel said. "You have to tell me how you got such a cool scar."

Harry smiled at his younger brother and rumpled his already wild dark hair. He then turned to his parents, tears brimming in his eyes and he tried to fight back the emotions raging within him. "Mum, Dad, I really did it, didn't I?"

His parents eyes widened and they looked at each other and then at him, and they knew, after twenty years they had him back, and both Lily and James shared a moment of sadness for the innocent boy that had been replaced by the Harry they'd known twenty years ago, but they'd known all along that this would happen.

"Is it really you?" James asked, and ran a hand through his wild black hair as he looked at his son.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, Dad. Tell me, how has Sirius been? Is there... Is there anyone else?"

Lily closed her eyes and put her hand on James chest, and James looked down at her and then gave her a little nod before he turned back to his son.

"I can't answer that Harry," he replied, and then Lily left his side and walked out of the infirmary only to return a moment later with someone following her, a tall man with long black hair and fierce blue eyes, Sirius Black.

Behind the man Narcissa Malfoy, Remus Lupin, and Severus Snape followed, but Harry hardly noticed them, as he swung his legs off the bed, and though he was unsteady for a few moments he managed to shakily walk towards Sirius and met him halfway across the room.

Sirius was almost afraid to hope as he looked down at the unsteady boy staring up at him, same black hair, bright green eyes, same face, and the same scar. He was too afraid to hope as he looked at the boy, and the boy looked up at him, their eyes meeting and locking, and it wasn't the boy of a few weeks ago, this was the boy from twenty years ago.

"Oh Gods, Harry?" Sirius asked, his voice a whisper as he spoke his name.

Harry lifted his hand to stroke Sirius' cheek and then he leaned toward Sirius until their lips met, and then something sparked between them as it had twenty years ago, and all the time that was between them began to dissolve as it was swept up by a strange wind and the kiss grew desperate with over twenty years of longing behind it.

Hermione, Ron, Draco, Blaise, and Harry's siblings were shocked by the display between Harry and his godfather, but none of the adults were. Finally Lucius cleared his throat and the two sprang apart like a couple of teenagers caught in a broom closet.

"Well, won't this be nifty on the front page of the paper. See, I told you James. You should have named me godfather, as you know what was between Sirius and Harry. What will polite society think?" Lucius said with a smirk as he looked at Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Stuff it, Ferret Face."

Lucius lifted a brow at Harry and then Harry grinned, raising suspicion in the elder Malfoy. "Oh Luci, why don't you ask Draco about his budding romance? I'm sure you'd be surprised. You do remember that discussion we had... Oh say twenty years ago?"

Lucius rolled his eyes and said, "Yes and I remember telling you that my son would never be attracted to a boy."

Harry smirked as he noticed Draco squirming out of the corner of his eye. Lucius turned toward his son and noticed the boy fidgeting and his eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed as he asked in a sharp tone, "Draco Lucius Malfoy, do you have something to tell me?"

"Well, Father, Dad, I..." he began but couldn't bring himself to finish, so Blaise piped up, "He's with me, we've been together for a whole year now, and I thought Harry promised to keep that a secret!"

By then Blaise was blushing and a memory surfaced out of nowhere as Harry recalled walking into the dormitory he shared with Blaise, Draco, Theodore Nott, and Gregory Goyle. He'd caught Draco, Blaise, and...Hermione! They were in quite a compromising position, sans clothing, on Blaise's bed.

Harry burst out laughing and spared a glance Hermione's way before he doubled over laughing and gasping as the sharpness in his chest caused his breath to catch. "He'll still give you an heir, Lucius. I can promise you that much."

"What?" Lucius asked in complete shock, and then his wife was behind him putting a comforting hand on his shoulder before resting her other hand on the swell of her abdomen, and Harry lifted an eyebrow as he realized that Draco would have another sibling soon.

By that time Hermione was absolutely crimson and shooting poisonous glares in Harry's direction, and finally relying on Gryffindor bravery she shook her head and then said, "What Harry is trying to say, Mr. Malfoy, is that Draco is involved with Blaise and myself. I'm sorry you had to find out this way. We've been together for over a year as Blaise said..." she was suddenly cut off by Ron.

"Hermione! Bloody hell! With Slytherins? Not just one, but two?" he said and then he was overwhelmed and promptly fainted.

James turned to Lily and grinned as he said, "And I thought we had problems with Harry and Sirius going public. Imagine when Draco, Blaise, and Hermione step out into the limelight."

Lucius fell back into a chair that was next to Harry's bed, his head in his hands, his wife's hand rubbing up and down his back as his mind reeled with the social riot that his son was about to cause, knowing that his son had finally succeeded in outdoing Harry Potter. Remus and Severus exchanged a look that seemed to say, "Sometimes I'm glad we weren't able to have children."

A few minutes later Castor and Selene Malfoy walked into the infirmary and saw the results of all the chaos they'd missed and pouted for having been left out during what had obviously proven to be an interesting event in the lives of their family. Both looked from the obviously close Harry and Sirius, and then to their parents, noticing the state of their father they knew that Draco had done yet something else that Lucius disapproved of, and they were only disappointed that they hadn't been the ones to bring it to their father's attention. And then their grey eyes widened as Harry leaned into Sirius, his Godfather, and they witnessed the snogging, the likes of which hadn't been seen in over twenty years, since they'd last kissed in Great Hall on the day that Lucius Malfoy had married Narcissa Black and James Potter had married Lily Evans, in the double wedding that inspired inter-house unity.

And all of this due in part to Neville Longbottom and a potion blunder for all time...

End.

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Author's Notes on Sacred is the Windswept Time

By C.K. Blake

Sacred was a project that I've wanted to do for a long time now. I've read many fics that have Harry go back in time due to a Time Turner accident, well I wanted to go with a new angle, and thus was born the Windswept Time Potion.

I've also come across many a fic where Harry struggles to keep from changing time, for fear of what that might accomplish. Well, after everything that Harry has already been through in his young life I thought I would put a spin on things. What if Harry met his parents and rather than befriend the marauders he got sorted into Slytherin and befriended the enemy? I loved the idea behind that, and I don't see Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape as inherently evil. I see them in a more human light, where they manipulate themselves into believing in some things so much that they ultimately destroy themselves. I wanted to play off of that and their natural suspicions of the strange new student Harry "Granger" who seems to know too much.

I wanted to explore something that I myself have never seen done before. So this story just sort of came out of left field and I fell in love with the different concepts and angles that it presented, and I loved characterizing the bad guys and showing the marauders in more of a three dimensional sense, though I still can't bring myself to like Peter, he is a traitor and that is the worst thing to be. Hey, I'm only human.

As for Lucius, I really liked the angle that he was against his father, and I wanted to make him similar to Draco in a sense, where he's torn between impressing his father and fearing him. Also his curiosity, snobbishness, and interest in Harry was fun to play around with.

Now Severus was just so twisted, I loved how he holds this loyalty for Lucius, and I can see some distorted form of loyalty in Severus, and as he grows older I thought he'd probably grow imbittered and find himself torn as a traitor to Voldemort and the side of Light. So I played around with him finding himself loyal to Harry, and thus the friendships were born.

With the Marauders, it was pretty obvious the angle I took with them. They are Gryffindors to a fault. With Harry, I wanted to make him dark. I wanted him to be bitter and angry, and so different from the carefree Marauders. When Harry is thrown back into this time he is far more mature than his parents and that makes him dark, and that is why he was sorted into Slytherin.

I also liked the idea of playing off Harry's tie to Voldemort, through the sword of Slytherin. The sword of Gryffindor would have been the obvious choice to defeat Voldemort, but the sword of his own ancestor, the sword of his blood, well that just made more sense to me, and Voldemort sort of gave a piece of himself to Harry when his curse originally back fired, making Harry an heir to Slytherin as well in a sense.

Now as for how the Potion works. The Windswept Time potion doused Harry and created a sort of time loop. When Harry is originally doused in the potion he goes back and alters things almost to the point where he couldn't possibly exist through everything. Still it is fate that makes him exist, because when he returns to his own time and finds things different and when he makes his way back through time from memories of the life he always wanted we see the time loop in effect. When the Harry from the alternate world, the world where he has a mom and dad and siblings is doused by the same potion under similar circumstances he doesn't go back to 1977, he goes back into his one year old body in 1981, and lives our Harry's harsh life, until again in 1997 he is doused by the potion and goes back to 1977. A time loop that the potion creates, so that Harry is the only one that knows that he has in turn lived two life times. I sort of gleaned this concept from the Back to the Future trilogy. A very interesting set of films. I recommend them for anyone.

As for bringing Harry and Sirius together, well it was a relationship I'd never done before, and I thought, well if Harry ended up in Slytherin Sirius would be the most unlikely to accept him, and I went from there. Hopefully I made it convincing...

Oh and I've received some questions regarding the use of the Wild Hunt in Xavier Malfoy's demise. Well the Wild Hunt is a concept from Celtic and Welsh mythology I do believe. At any rate I found them terrifying, and I've also read about the Wild Hunt in Peter S. Beagle's Tamsin, a book I highly recommend for it's lovely characters and the quality of the story. A beautiful ghost story indeed.

As for Salazar possessing Harry, I thought that he would be disgusted at the madness his bloodline had descended into and in his day he had ties to the Wild Hunt and was an honorary member. Hey, his past is virtually unknown, so I just went with an interesting idea.

So that is pretty much Project Sacred in a nutshell. I hope you all enjoyed it and will review. I thank all of you who have reviewed to this point and hope you recommend this story to your friends. It was a fun project to write. As for my next novel length project in the works, I'm still working on it. It's a story revolving around the Malfoys, and spans from Lucius in 1977 to Draco in 1997 and is post HBP. It's seventh year, there is a new DADA professor, Percy Hampton, and just what is Remus' part in all of this. It's also an interesting character study in my opinion, and Lucius has his evil moments, I'm quite pleased with him in this story entitled "Remembered Kisses After Death".

Look for "Remembered Kisses After Death" to be posted soon. Until my next post, keep reading, and thanks for the reviews! Hope you enjoyed the story.

A note on Lucius Malfoy in the Marauder era...It was only recently brought to my attention that he was around six years older than the Marauders and Severus. Sacred was written before the release of HBP and that is why Lucius' father is Xavier rather than Abraxas, and in the upcoming "Remembered Kisses After Death" Lucius is in the Marauder era again, because the story dictates it as such and again I only recently learned of the time line in Lucius' particular case, and I'm already into writing chapter eleven of Project Remembered. Be forgiving of the timeline please, as I think the story might make up for it just a bit.

Blessed Be,

Cassie Blake