2017

Harry was slightly surprised to find that the common room didn't look at all different than it did in 1991. He presumed that, as Hogwarts had existed for centuries, it wasn't likely to change much after a mere twenty-six years. While thinking this, Harry was suddenly overcome with a slight sense of awe -- he was in the future. What was the Muggle world like now? Were he and Ron still friends? Harry remembered someone mentioning that he had a wife, but he couldn't recall a name. Who was she? Had Harry even met her yet?

Harry pulled himself together. As exciting as it was to be in the year 2017, it was a forgone conclusion that he would have to find a way back to 1991. He knew he couldn't manage that on his own, so he would have to find someone who believed his story and how else would it be more convincing that he wasn't his own son than if his son was in the room at the same time? Harry took off for the first-year boys' dormitory. He paused in front of the door, not sure what the protocol was for how you entered your dormitory after being sent a generation into the future.

Eventually, he knocked. The door opened and a small, mousy-haired boy appeared.

"Al, what're you --" he began, but then stopped. He turned around and looked onto a bed where another boy sat.

Harry stared at the boy on the bed and he stared back at Harry -- it was like looking in a mirror except that the other boy didn't have a scar on his forehead. Harry awkwardly walked into the room, feeling the eyes of all the other boys in the room upon him. He stopped in front of the boy who could have been his twin.

"Is your name Albus Potter?" he asked eventually. Albus nodded anxiously. Harry thought of what to say next and decided he might as well get straight to the point.

"Albus," he said, taking a deep breath, "I -- I think I'm your father. I accidentally came here from the year 1991 and I need to get back." Albus stared at him for a moment.

"I -- I think I'd better get James and Rose," he said eventually, climbing out of bed. Harry recalled that James was Albus' brother.

"Who's Rose?" Harry asked.

"She's our cousin," Albus explained. "Her parents are Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione."

"Ron and Hermione are married?!" Harry asked in astonishment. "But -- but they hate each other! I -- I mean, in my time Hermione's not even speaking to us. Wait, 'Uncle' Ron? Who am I married to?"

"Ginny Potter," Albus replied nervously.

"Ginny," Harry repeated. The name sounded familiar. "Wait, that's Ron's little sister, isn't it? I'm married to Ron's sister?"

Harry felt a mixture of emotions. He was pleased to know that he would end up being part of Ron's large family, but the fact that he would marry Ron's little sister made him feel a bit tingly. After all, he barely knew Ginny in his own time, having only seen her at the beginning of the school year. Of course, he obviously would have gotten to know her much better before marrying her, but the idea of hooking up with Ron's sister still felt a bit wrong. Had he done it because he truly loved her "that way" or just because he wanted to be part of the family?

With Harry's thoughts still in awhirl, Albus took a single gold Galleon out of his pocket and started tapping it with his wand.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked.

"I'm using this to tell the others I want to meet with them," Albus said as nervously as ever. "They're -- they're the same fake Galleons you used to use to alert the members of the D.A. when it was time for a meeting."

"Th-the 'D.A.'?" Harry asked. "I, uh... don't think that's happened yet in my time. You see, in 1991 I'm still in my first year." Albus looked at Harry for a moment.

"If this is another one of James' practical jokes, I'll kill him," he said.

Shortly thereafter, Albus and Harry arrived in the common room where they found a boy clutching an old piece of parchment. James looked remarkably like Harry except that he was older and his eyes were light brown instead of green.

"What happened to Dad?" James asked in alarm.

"He -- he says he's dad from 1991," Albus said nervously.

"Well, he is Dad," James replied, "The Marauder's Map confirms that."

He held up the piece of parchment he was holding and Harry saw it was a map of the entire school. Right in the Gryffindor common room there were three dots labeled "James Potter", "Albus Potter" and "Harry Potter". Heading down from the girls' dormitory was a dot labeled "Rose Weasley". Harry looked up from the map just in time to see the real Rose reach the others. With her auburn hair and rather large front teeth, she did indeed look a bit like a cross between Ron and Hermione.

"Okay, Rosie, what's going on?" James asked. "This guy says he's our dad from 1991 and the Marauder's Map says his name is 'Harry Potter'."

"Well, the Marauder's Map is foolproof, so there are only three possibilities," Rose explained briskly, sounding just like Hermione. "Possibility one; he's Uncle Harry playing a practical joke on us, which is incredibly unlikely. Possibility two; he's someone else with the name 'Harry Potter' playing a practical joke on us, which is also unlikely given how difficult it would be to become a younger Uncle Harry. You see, Polyjuice Potion only makes you the same age as the person you took it from, so you can't turn into a younger version of that person. That leaves possibility three; he's telling the truth."

Harry hadn't understood half of this, but he could tell she had reached the conclusion that he was indeed from 1991 and this made him feel relieved. However, he couldn't help but being fascinated by what James had called the "Marauder's Map".

"Where did you get that map thing?" he asked in amazement. James started to answer, but Rose interrupted.

"Stop!" she shouted. "If he really is from 1991, you can't tell him anything! He already knows way too much about his own future and no one should know their own destiny! Even the knowledge he has now could seriously alter the proper course of history, so... don't -- tell -- him -- anything!"

"Okay, okay, Rosie, sorry," James said, exasperated. "Couldn't we at least tell him who won the last six Quidditch World Cups? I'm joking! I'm joking!" he added quickly, seeing the look on his cousin's face. James turned to Harry.

"Is that a Nimbus Two Thousand you have there?" he asked in awe.

"Yeah, are they still good in 2017?" Harry asked curiously.

"Are you kidding?" James asked incredulously. "They're antiques now! Do you have any idea what a museum would pay for a Nimbus Two Thousand in good condition?"

"No," Harry said immediately, seeing where this was going.

"C'mon, you can get another one in 1991," James pointed out.

"He said 'no'!" Rose insisted. "And if he hadn't, I'd've had to insist. Nobody's supposed to meddle with time! Right now, we have to concentrate on getting Uncle Harry back to 1991 before any more damage is done." Harry felt a ripple of guilt.

"It wasn't my fault," Harry insisted. "It was an accident; I swear!"

"That doesn't matter now," Rose told him. "How'd you get here? Did you use a Time-Turner?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so," replied Harry, unsure what a Time-Turner was. "I used some kind of alarm clock thing." This didn't seem to mean anymore to Rose than it did to Harry.

"'Alarm clock thing'," she repeated. "I've never heard of anything like that before. Where did you find it?"

"It was in some unused classroom on the ground floor," Harry explained.

"Well, let's get down there right away!" Rose replied immediately. "We don't have any time to waste."

"Yeah, but what about Filch?" Harry asked. "Won't he -- I mean, she catch us?"

"We'd use the invisibility cloak," Rose answered, rolling her eyes.

"Invisibility cloak?" asked Harry.

"Oh, boy," said James.

Hiding under a silvery clock that apparently made them invisible, the four of them headed all the way down to the room where Harry found the mysterious clock. They took off the cloak as soon as they entered and Harry picked up the clock, seeing that it still read "MMXVII".

"I came into this room after Quidditch practice and found this clock resting right here," he told the others. "I turned the knob, which caused the letters to all change, and the next thing I knew I found myself here." Rose was looked at the letters on the clock's face.

"These are Roman numerals," she said suddenly. "See, 'M' is a thousand, so two 'M's equals two thousand. 'X' is ten, 'V' is five and 'I' is one, so all these letters add up to... two thousand and seventeen."

"And that's the year it is!" Harry realized aloud. "The year 2017! So that's how I got here. Now, how do I get back?"

"Well, I see no reason the reverse application would not be effective," Rose replied.

"What?" James asked blankly.

"Meaning that, as far as I can tell, all you have to do is turn the clock back to 1991," Rose explained. This was so obvious Harry couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it himself. However, there was still one problem...

"I can't read Roman numerals," he told the others. "How am I going to know when it says '1991'?"

"Well, 'MM' is the year 2000," Rose answered, "So once you get there, you can just start counting backwards; '1999', '1998', '1997', etc. until you reach 1991. What's most curious is that this clock gives the year, but not the month or day. Wait... what was the date you left 1991?"

"It was the night of... 26 October, I think," Harry replied.

"It's 27 October now," said Albus.

"That means it would have been the night of 26 October when the Uncle Harry of 1991 arrived here," Rose went on, apparently thinking out loud. "And that means it must send you to the target year on the same day it already is in the present year. Therefore, if Uncle Harry goes back to 1991 right now, he will find several hours have passed since he was last there. Therefore, it would make sense for him to get back to 1991 as soon as possible so his disappearance will have the minimum effect on the timeline."

"So I should go back right now?" Harry asked.

"Preferably so," Rose answered, passing him the clock. "Before you leave, just promise me you'll try to forget anything you've seen in or heard about the future."

"Er, I'll try," Harry said uncertainly. He reached for the knob.

"Wait, we should leave first!" Rose said suddenly. "I'm not sure how that thing works, but we don't want to risk you sending us into the year 1991."

"Oh, right," said Harry. James, Albus and Rose cleared out of the room and watched from the doorway as Harry reached for the knob. However, the knob wouldn't turn, no matter how hard he tried.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked, stepping back into the room with her cousins following.

"This thing won't work again," Harry told them.

"Maybe it can only send you into the future," James suggested. Harry prepared to turn the knob in the other direction just to be sure.

"No, don't you dare!" Rose shouted. "We already have enough of a mess now!" Harry sighed.

"Well, what do I do now?" he asked desperately. Rose was clearly trying to think of something as quickly as possible.

"I don't know," she said half to herself. "But if Uncle Harry's missing from 1991 too long -- oh, no! I just thought of something; if it was 26 October when Uncle Harry left 1991, then Halloween hadn't happened yet. If Uncle Harry doesn't back to 1991 before 31 October, he won't be there to convince Dad to rescue Mum from the... events that happen on that day. If that happens, Mum might die or, at the very least, not become friends with Dad. Either way, Mum and Dad would never be married in which case Hugo and I would never be born!"

"Bloody hell!" James replied. "Does that mean you'll start to fade away like in that Muggle movie Back to the Future?"

"That's not how time travel works!" said Rose, rolling her eyes at how stupid her cousin could possibly be. "If I were going to be erased, Uncle Harry would have arrived in a future in which I already didn't exist. The fact that I'm still here would seem to indicate that we'll be successful in sending him back to 1991."

"Wait, if we already know he'll be sent back, why do we have to do anything?" Albus asked curiously.

"Because if we don't do anything, he might not have been sent back," Rose replied briskly. "Just because we know beforehand that he will go back doesn't that it wasn't -- or, rather, will be -- the result of our efforts."

"My head hurts," said James after a beat.