2017

The curse threw Harry backwards into Uncle Vernon's favorite chair so forcefully that it caused it to recline so far that it broke in half. Umbridge walked forward, but the smug toad-like grin on her face disappeared when she saw Harry. Clearly the curse had not done whatever it was supposed to.

"What in Merlin's --" she began, but broke off. "Oh, no matter. Avada Kadavra!" The green light hit Harry again, but had no more effect than a strong wind.

"Avada Kadavra!" she repeated a third time. "Avada --"

"Expelliarmus!"

Umbridge's wand was knocked out of her hand and Harry sat up to see Dennis Creevey standing in the middle of the living room. He was pointing his wand at Umbridge with the tour group still behind him.

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Harry taught me that spell," Dennis continued as though this were part of the tour, "taught me it back in my second year so I could fight this old hag."

"Oh, Creevey, please!" Umbridge begged. "Don't let them send me back to Azkaban! I hate it there and the prisoners don't like me either! They say they'd rather have the dementors back! Worse, they don't give us anything to wear that's pink! I can't live like that! Oh, please, Creevey, please!"

"Well..." Dennis replied slowly, "I suppose I could convince them to send you to the forbidden forest at Hogwarts instead. I hear the centaurs are --"

"Send me to Azkaban! Send me to Azkaban!" Umbridge pleaded. "I promise I won't try to escape again! Just send me to Azkaban and don't let those filthy half-breeds near me again!!" Umbridge was kneeling at Dennis' feet, kissing the floor in front of him. It was quite a grotesque sight.

"Well, all right, if you insist," Dennis told her. "Someone send an owl to the Ministry -- I think they owe me the five thousand Galleon reward."

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" Umbridge cried, tears of joy running down her cheeks. "Oh, thank you so much!"

"No problem," Dennis said, cringing away from her and stepping forward to look down at Harry.

"Why, if it isn't Albus Potter," he said cheerfully. "Guess you've decided to come and see where your father lived after all." Harry almost corrected him, but then an idea hit him.

"Yes, I did," he said, "and I need my father here now." He realized he might have been too emphatic, but Dennis seemed to have been fooled.

"Okay, you can all clear out," he told the others. "All tours are canceled for today."

"What?!" exclaimed a bold-looking witch with long black hair in outrage. "But we were in the middle of going through Harry's underwear drawer!" Though she was certainly in her thirties at least, this woman sounded just like a teenaged groupie.

"Excuse me!" Harry said immediately, glaring at Dennis.

"Uh, I'm sure Romilda here was only viewing your father's underwear from a historical perspective," Dennis faltered. "I'm sure your father would approve."

"I'm not so sure about that," Harry replied darkly. Romilda was staring off into space with a rather libidinous look in her eyes.

"Besides, she must know your dad's married," Dennis added.

"Yeah," Romilda said crossly, "to that ginger skank."

Once all the people were gone, Dennis locked the wandless Umbridge in the cupboard under the stairs and led Harry upstairs. Harry almost told Dennis that he knew the way before remembering that he was pretending to be his son. Before long, they reached the bedroom Harry had moved into.

"This was your father's bedroom," Dennis informed him. "I thought you might want to look at it while he's on his way over here."

"But you never sent for him," Harry protested.

"He'll be coming anyway to apprehend Umbridge," Dennis assured him, "and I think this is as good a place to wait as any. Please try not to touch anything." With that, he opened the door to the bedroom.

As successful as the Creevey Historical Foundation had been at restoring the rest of the house, Harry's room wasn't quite right. It had the right lived-in look, but nothing was where Harry kept it. It was almost as though someone else had been living his bedroom and using his things. Of course, the rest of the house had probably been easy -- you could find out what it had looked like just by gazing in the window of any other house on Privet Drive. Harry turned around to see Dennis grinning, clearly thinking Harry was deeply impressed.

"I'll -- I'll just wait here then," Harry stammered.

Dennis left and Harry sat down on his bed. It seemed to be the same one that had been there in 1991, but now it was much older. Harry saw an owl cage holding what appeared to be Hedwig, but then he saw it was merely a stuffed owl that had been enchanted to repeatedly hoot. Dennis apparently hadn't thought to include the mice Hedwig often brought back from her hunts. Harry wondered what had happened to the real Hedwig. Did Harry still own her? Did owls even live that long?

Harry thought about seeing the older version of himself. He would get to see what he would be like as an adult. His adult self was probably on his way now. How fast did wizards travel anyway? Harry remembered Rose had been worried about it causing a "paradox", but that didn't bother Harry. Besides, a paradox seemed like such an abstract concept. What kind of tangible danger did a paradox represent anyway? In contrast, the curiosity of seeing yourself grown up was very tangible.

As the minutes past, Harry looked around the room. As he soon found out, almost everything in it was fake. A heap of letters from Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and many others was actually a pile of envelopes glued to the table they were resting on. There was a blank scrap of paper that resembled the Marauder's Map that James had had and he also found a silvery clock that didn't actually turn you invisible. Harry's bedroom had been transformed into a museum display and that gave him a rather surreal feeling.

After what could have been no more than an hour, the door opened and Hermione peeked her head in the room.

"Hermione," Harry said in surprise. "I didn't hear you arrive."

"We Apparated," Hermione said tersely. "When Dennis said he had Albus here, we realized it was you. That's why we hid the real Albus under the invisibility cloak." She pulled the cloak off Albus and he appeared at Hermione's side.

"That's... great," Harry said eventually. Hermione was looking rather crossly at him.

"When you ran off, we had to tell the Ministry about what happened," she said. "I didn't want to have to do that." She was clearly trying to make Harry feel guilty and it was working a little... but only a little. Before Hermione could say anymore, Ron entered with an animated James.

"Did you see them down there?" he asked excitedly. "All those Aurors taking that woman away? Who did you say she was, Uncle Ron?"

"Well..." Ron said with exaggerated mentor-ish-ness, "she is what I like to think of as Voldemort's female counterpart. In fact, she is undoubtedly the most evil, describable creature to walk the Earth since... well, ever." Harry wanted to ask what this Umbridge woman did that was so bad, but decided they would probably tell him he couldn't know about that. Besides, there were more important things he needed to know about his future.

"Who else is here?" Harry asked instead.

"Just the family," Hermione told him. "Neville's back at Hogwarts and Luna had to leave for an important errand."

"I brought Lily," Ginny said brightly as she entered with a small red-haired girl trailing behind her.

"Ginny, what are you thinking?" Hermione asked indignantly. "We're trying to bring as few people into this as possible."

"I just didn't want her to feel left out," Ginny said defensively. "I think that would've been really sad. Besides, you could've brought Hugo if you wanted."

"That's not the point!" Hermione said in exasperation. "I suppose next you'll want Teddy and Victoire and the whole clan over here."

"I never said that!" Ginny snapped. "Lily is Harry's daughter. She should get to see him when he was a child. Lily, don't you find seeing your dad at eleven interesting?"

"Yeah," Lily responded. "Does this mean I can go to Hogwarts?"

"No, why would it mean that?" asked Ginny, obviously annoyed that Lily wasn't helping her case.

"I dunno," Lily said dejectedly, "I thought it might mean I'd at least get to see it."

"You will get to see it," Ginny insisted, "when you turn eleven."

"But that won't be until 2019!" Lily complained. "I want to see it now!" Ron rolled his eyes as Rose ran in the door.

"Uncle Harry's on his way up," she said breathlessly. "Mum, are you sure it's a good idea to bring the two Uncle Harrys together?"

"Well, the danger would have been that one of them would think some kind of Dark Magic was going on and attack the other one," Hermione explained. "Since both of them now know time travel is going on, that wouldn't be a problem." And then Harry saw his thirty-seven-year-old self walk in the door.

He instantly recognized this man as himself -- his green eyes, messy black hair, lightning bolt scar and round glasses had gone unchanged. However, this Harry was unmistakably an adult and the time-traveling Harry suddenly found himself feeling very young -- he was eleven and adults were still a bit of a mystery to him. You never really knew what they were thinking or why they did what they did and seeing himself as one was just weird.

"Okay, we've taken care of Umbridge," said adult Harry. "She'll certainly be doing time for this."

"Isn't she already serving a life sentence?" asked James.

"Well... she'll be put back in Azkaban anyway," the adult Harry corrected, "and I don't think she'll be escaping again. It was quite lucky that Dennis heard her from up here and went downstairs to stop her. Now, I --" The adult Harry stopped when his eyes met those of his younger self.

"Uh... hi," the young Harry said awkwardly.

The adult Harry blinked.

The Harry of 1991 didn't know what to say. Where should he begin? 2017 Harry, however, seemed to decide to get right down to business.

"All right," he said, "before we do anything, I need to ask you -- me, I guess -- what Umbridge did. It's necessary for my report and you're, uh, hopefully not going to be here much longer, so I thought we'd better get it out of the way."

"Well, uh, I was in the living room," the younger Harry said, still dazed that he was talking to himself. "Then the Umbridge woman came in and announced that if I didn't go back, then, uh... well, I don't remember exactly, but she said she might make it to Minister by 2017. Then she pointed her wand at me and said 'Avada Kadavra'." Everyone seemed shocked.

"'Avada Kadavra'?" the adult Harry repeated, sounding rather confused. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it threw me backwards and then she tried it several more times on me," the younger Harry went on. "That's when that Dennis bloke came in and rescued me."

"She simply can't have said 'Avada Kadavra'!" Rose said immediately. "That's impossible!"

"Well, that's what she said!" Harry contested. "And I'd know -- she said it several times. How's that impossible?"

"Because that's the Killing Curse," Rose told him. "The Killing Curse is unstoppable -- the only person to survive it is... well, you when Voldemort tried to kill you." Harry shrugged.

"Maybe I'm immune then," he suggested.

"No," said the adult Harry, "I -- you -- we only survived that curse because... our mum died to save... us. Besides, the curse rebounded on Voldemort and that unfortunately didn't happen to Umbridge." Suddenly, Hermione's eyes lit up.

"I think I know why she couldn't kill you," she said.

"Why's that?" asked the 1991 Harry.

"Because it would have created a paradox," Hermione said swiftly.

"A paradox?" adult Harry repeated.

"Of course!" Rose said excitedly, clearing already grasping whatever her mother had thought of. "If Umbridge killed the young you now, it would cause an inconsistency between cause and effect, resulting in a temporal paradox that could not be resolved."

"That is not helpful," said the younger Harry.

"Okay, let me explain," Hermione said rather bossily. "If she killed you, then you would not be able to go back to 1991 and then you would not be there to thwart her in our fifth year."

"Well, that's what she wanted, wasn't it?" asked Harry, still lost as ever.

"Exactly," replied Hermione, "but if that never happened, she would have no motivation to kill you when came to the year 2017. Therefore, you would go back and you would thwart her. You see? It would create a continuous loop that would repeat for all eternity. However, it would seem that there's some kind of... cosmic failsafe, if you will, that prevents that from happening. You understand?"

"Uh... not really," Harry admitted, "but it's okay."

"Are you telling me," said Ron, "that Harry became the only person to survive the Killing Curse twice... and for a different reason each time?"

"Apparently," Hermione replied. She turned to 1991 Harry. "So, you're okay then?" she asked him breathlessly. "You're not hurt at all."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Harry replied.

"Good," said Hermione, relived. "Now... what the bloody hell were you thinking?!" Harry had been wondering when that explosion would come.

"Whoa!" said Ron, aghast. "Hermione, you're swearing in front of the children."

"Well, you do it all the time," Hermione snapped at him.

"Yeah, but you're the good example," Ron pointed out. "I'm the do-what-your-mum-says-or-you'll-end-up-like-me example."

"I -- I did it because I -- I needed to find out something," Harry quickly interjected.

"To find out something?" Hermione repeated incredulously. "To find out what exactly?"

"I --" Harry began, but faltered. How did you ask your future self if he had gone to the Dark Side? Surly his future self wouldn't tell him the truth if he knew the younger him wouldn't like it.

"I -- I wanted to know why I named Albus after Snape," he managed to say eventually, figuring he should just spit it out.