2017

"What?" Harry asked incredulously. "Wipe my memory? You can't do that!"

"It wouldn't hurt," Hermione insisted, "and it's not like we'd be erasing all your memory. I mean, you'd still know who you were and everything."

"I'd just forget I ever came to the future?" asked Harry, who still disliked the idea.

"Exactly!" Hermione replied. "Of course, there is the danger that we might erase too much or that you might be left disoriented for awhile, which could have a serious impact on the past. I guess we'll wait 'till we can send you back and see how much damage is done."

Harry really wished people would stop referring to his existing in 2017 as instinctively "causing damage".

"Well, what do we do with him in the meantime?" asked Neville. "I mean, until we find out how to send him back." Hermione considered it.

"We'll send him to the Leaky Cauldron," she said matter-of-factly. "He's been there in 1991, so it wouldn't cause that much damage."

"Can we go with him?" Albus asked eagerly.

"Absolutely not!" Hermione said immediately. "You haves classes tomorrow... well, technically they're today, but you have to be at school."

"C'mon, Hermione," said Ginny, "how often do you get to meet your father or uncle at your own age? This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

"You always take the kids' side," Hermione retorted. "You're just trying too hard to not be like your mum." Ginny flushed.

"That's not true," she said a little too quickly.

"You're trying to relive your childhood through them," Hermione went on. "Well, that's exactly what Sirius was doing back when he was stuck at Grimmauld Place and look how he turned out?"

"Ladies, please," said Ron, holding out his hands. Hermione shot him a look. "Now, obviously Hermione is right," he added quickly.

"Ron, you don't need to fawn all over me," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"Oh, well, in that case I agree with Ginny," replied Ron.

"What?!" Hermione shouted. Ron shrugged and Hermione turned to the others.

"Well, he would need to be supervised," Luna pointed out.

"Three kids his age are not supervision," countered Hermione. "We might as well have someone supervise their supervision!"

"Don't you think Rosie's mature enough to handle it?" Ron asked. James turned to Rose.

"This is the part where you stare wide-eyed at your mum and make her say 'yes'," he told her. Rose rolled her eyes in a very Hermione-ish way.

"Well, I suppose so," Hermione said eventually. "After all, we want to bring as few people into the loop as possible and it'll be hard for the kids to concentrate on their schoolwork when they know all this is going on. Neville, you send an owl up to the school explaining that we took Rose, James and Albus out of school because of a private family matter."

"All right," Neville replied. "I'd better get to the post office while it's still there," he added darkly.

"What d'you mean?" Luna asked bemusedly.

"I've heard that they're seriously experimenting with self-delivering letters," Neville said heavily. "I can't believe they'd really consider replacing owls."

"Well, at the Ministry they've used memos that deliver themselves for years," Hermione pointed out. "It can't be that much of a leap to enchant them to deliver themselves over greater distances."

"Don't worry, Neville," Ginny said sympathetically, "they'll never replace owls. I mean, they've been around forever, haven't they? Besides, I don't think any changeover that big has ever happened that quickly."

"Well, it happened with the Muggles," Ron pointed out. "Remember, they don't use regular post anymore -- they shut down all their post offices years ago and switched completely over to 'eek mail'."

"Ron, it's e-mail," Hermione corrected in exasperation.

"What's e-mail?" Harry asked curiously.

"How can you not know what 'eat mail' is?" Ron asked in surprise. "Weren't you raised by Muggles?"

"For the last time, it's e-mail," Hermione told him, "And Harry was raised by Muggles in 1991; no one had e-mail back then."

"Are you sure you're not just upset about this because you can't keep up?" Ron asked Neville.

"Maybe," Neville replied rather hotly. "If I can hardly keep up with the magic they have nowadays, how're our parents --"

"Your parents?" asked Ron. "I thought your parents were --"

"Ron!" Hermione shouted. "Don't talk about that in front of Neville!"

"It's okay, I've... mostly gotten over it," Neville said quickly. "After all, Bellatrix has been dead for nineteen years now, hasn't she? Well, anyway, we'd better get going." The adults rose from their chairs and prepared to leave.

"You know," said Ginny, turning to Harry. "I'd forgotten how cute you were at eleven." The look on her face turned a bit lascivious and Harry quickly backed up.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," she said quickly. "It's just that... well... never mind."

"I already know I'm married to you in the future," Harry told her. As hard as he tried, Harry simply could not see the bouncy, ten-year-old girl from platform nine and three-quarters in the thirty-six-year-old woman standing before him.

"Well, I guess that's it," Hermione said heavily. "I'll take Harry and... the kids to the Leaky Cauldron with side-along Apparation. Now, you four had better stay there until one of us comes to get you. No leaving the Cauldron! No going down Diagon Alley and especially no going into Muggle London! Understand?"

"Yes, I understand," replied James brightly.

"And you'll obey?" added Ginny. James sighed.

"Yes," he said with obvious disappointment that his loophole had been found out. Hermione gestured Harry and the others forward.

"All right, I want each of you to grab hold of me," she told them. "And be sure not to let go."

"We're not stupid," James said contemptuously as he and the others grabbed onto Hermione's arms. The next moment, everything went black and Harry felt the sensation of being pressed hard from all directions.

The next thing Harry knew, he and the others were in the familiar Leaky Cauldron where he had met Professor Quirrell just -- what was for him -- three months ago. Harry, James, Rose and Albus stepped forward to look around. Harry saw that -- like the Gryffindor common room -- the Cauldron had changed very little in the past twenty-six years except that a "no smoking" sign had been added to a wall.

"Ah, Hermione," said the innkeeper, who was now confined to an old-fashioned wheelchair and looked so old Harry half expected him to drop dead at any moment, "you wan' the usual."

"No, thanks, Tom," Hermione replied briskly. "I have to leave immediately -- Ministry business, you know." With that, Hermione vanished into thin air. Harry blinked -- he had never seen anything like that before.

"So -- so, are you the same Tom that was here in 1991?" he asked the bartender once he came to his senses.

"Oh, no!" Tom replied. "That was my father. He had to retire because of old age and decided it was time someone young took over. So he handed the job down to me -- Tom Junior! I've been waiting for this all m' life!"

Not sure whether this was more sad or more strange, Harry backed away and joined James, Rose and Albus at an unoccupied table. Once he sat down, they all looked at each other for a few awkward moments.

"This is so weird," James said eventually.

"Tell me about," Harry replied. He was starting to think Hermione might have been right to keep the others at school, but he wasn't going to suggest that aloud. If he could meet his father at eleven... or even meet his father at all...

"So," Albus said awkwardly. "How've your first few months at Hogwarts been?"

"Well, when I first got there," said Harry, who was glad to finally have something to talk about, "which was less than two months ago -- well, sort of -- I was scared to death that the Sorting Hat would put me in Slytherin."

"Really?" Albus asked, sounding awed. "That's exactly what happened to me!"

"Don't tell him anything!" Rose repeated for about the fiftieth time.

"What difference does it make?" asked James. "They'll probably end up using a Memory Charm on him anyway."

"At great risk," Rose replied. "It'd be much better if they could just avoid having to do that altogether." But Harry didn't care.

"Really?" he asked Albus.

"Yes!" Albus said animatedly. "I was so scared that I was going to end up in Slytherin, but then you told me that I was named for two Hogwarts headmasters and that one was a Slytherin and probably the bravest man you ever knew. But I asked the Sorting Hat to put me in Gryffindor anyway," he finished with a huge grin.

"What headmaster was that?" asked Harry, trying to think of a Slytherin he knew who was halfway decent.

"Professor Severus Snape," Albus replied proudly. "My full name is Albus Severus Potter."