A/N: Sorry this chapter took longer than usual. New chapters might come slower because I'm very busy right now, but I'll try to keep them coming.
"So let me get this straight," Harry said. "Your parents are on vacation, I'm supposed to watch you for a week, and you" he turned to Blake, "made me fifty years younger. And nobody knows about it?"
"Now you got it," Blake smiled. He looked up at the clock. "Wow. 10:30 already? We better wake Grandma soon. She never sleeps past eleven."
"I'll do it," Gina said. "Blake, you get Harry some clothes that fit him." She tugged at Harry's loose sleeve. "Will, write a letter to the Ministry of Magic. Tell them Grandpa has some sickness that takes a while to cure, and he won't be able to come to work for a while."
Will nodded, and grabbed some parchment and a quill. He sat on the desk, and began to write. He was especially glad he had just started reading about wizard diseases. Gina turned to Harry. "The minute you get some new clothes, stay hidden. Maybe you could keep the door to this room closed." Harry nodded, and Gina ran toward her Grandma.
She found Ginny on the couch, still unconscious. Then she remembered that she couldn't wake Grandma up with magic yet. Cursing, Gina tried to shake her grandma. This, of course, didn't work. Still cursing under her breath, Gina knocked on the boys’ door.
"What?" Blake yelled through the wooden door.
"I can't wake her up," Gina responded. "You have to do it." A moment of silence, then Blake squeezed himself out of a small crack of the opened door before closing it quickly.
"Grandpa's modest," Blake explained, smiling. "Who knew?" Gina rolled her eyes, and led Blake toward Ginny. Gina sat in front of her grandma, while Blake stood behind. He whispered, "Enervate," and snuck quietly back to the hallway.
Ginny's eyes fluttered slowly, and she got up, rubbing her head. "What happened? I didn't fall asleep, did I?"
"Yeah, Grandma," Gina explained. "We were waiting for Grandpa and you must have been very exhausted because you dozed off. The boys and I didn't have the heart to wake you up."
“Where’s your Grandpa?” Ginny asked, standing up.
“Uh,” Gina stammered. She should have come up with a convincing story before she woke up Grandma. “He went to work. He said it was important. And he was sorry,” Gina added.
Ginny frowned. “He said he was going to work less while you kids were here, and now….” Ginny sighed. “I’ll go make some breakfast. Waffles sound good to you?”
“Sounds good,” Gina said. “I’ll go get Will and Blake.” She ran to the hall, almost running into Will. “Did you write it?” Gina said in a hushed tone.
“Yeah,” Will said smiling. “Harry’s got a mild case of Monilipopolitis. He needs bed rest and regular potions, and since each case is different, he might be out of work for a long time.” Will chuckled.
“Perfect,” Gina said. “I’ll send it with Tawny.” Gina ran into her room, and called Tawny from her cage where she had been sleeping all morning. Tawny opened a yellow eye wearily.
“Hey girl, could you send this to the Ministry of Magic?” Tawny slowly opened its wings and flew on top of the cage. She held out her leg. Gina tied the letter around her leg, opened the window, and Tawny zoomed out.
Gina headed to the kitchen, where Grandma already had a large pile of waffles on the table, which Will and Blake had already started on. “Hey Gina,” Blake said when she entered. “We were thinking about going to the Quidditch field after breakfast? Interested? It would give us some time out of the house.” Blake winked.
Gina smiled. “I’d like that.”
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Harry waited a minute after hearing the door close before he left the room. There was no way he was not going to take advantage of an empty house. His first stop was the kitchen, since he hadn't had breakfast yet. There were no breakfast remains, so Harry grabbed a banana from the counter. While unpeeling it, he headed toward the family room. If he was going to learn about his future, this was the place to start.
He looked at the pictures on the mantle first. Most of them were of older Harry’s family, with Cailey, Sean, and Ginny. There was one picture of Ron and Hermione sitting on a park bench, smiling and leaning close together. There was a picture of Gina, Blake, and Will, along with another young man, with untidy black hair, who Harry guessed was Gina’s older brother, though he still didn’t know his name.
A glint of metal caught his eye. On a sidetable, in a fancy case, was a medal. Harry picked it up, and realized it was an Order of Merlin, First Class, awarded to…him! He had won an Order of Merlin? Not bad, Harry thought. He had probably gotten it for defeating Lord Voldemort, or so he assumed.
The next room he searched was his older self’s bedroom. He opened it slightly. It wasn’t that much bigger than Blake and Will’s room. The room had light green walls, and the king sized bed had dark green blanket, with two nightstands on either end, and large dressers on opposite sides of the room. Harry went to the nightstand on the left, and picked up an old tattered book. He opened it, and realized that it was his old photo album, the one Hagrid gave him. There were several new pictures of himself during Auror school, Ron and Hermione just out of Hogwarts, his wedding, Ron and Hermione’s wedding, childhood pictures of Cailey and Sean, all the way up to recent pictures of his grandkids. Harry flipped to the beginning of the book, where his parents’ pictures were. When he reached the page with the picture of Lily and James’ wedding, he found a small bronze key wedged in the crack of the page. He picked it up, examined it, and put it in his pocket, just in case.
He walked back into the family room. Then he noticed a door tucked in the corner of the room. Curious, Harry headed toward it. It was a door with glass panels, but he couldn't see through it. He turned the doorknob and realized it was locked. He wondered if he should open the door with magic when he remembered the key. He put the key in the lock. The key fit, and Harry got excited. He was just about to turn it when he heard some muffled voices coming from behind the front door.
"That was fun. It's too bad your grandpa couldn't make it."
They were back! Why were they back so early? He didn't have time to get back in the room. Harry dived behind the couch, out of sight, just before the door opened, and Ginny walked in, holding a Firebolt.
"We should do that more often," Ginny said, laying the broom against the back of the couch. "Blake, Gina, why don’t you put your brooms away? Will, how about a nice game of Wizard Chess?"
Harry noticed the Wizard Chess set on the table right in front of him, and his heart raced.
"I'll get it," Harry heard Will say. Will appeared in Harry's line of vision. Will spotted Harry, and almost yelled out. After thinking for a split second, Will knocked over the chess board, scattering the pieces everywhere. "Whoops, I'll get that."
Will laid low on the floor. "What are you doing here?" he hissed.
"I was in the family room when you guys came home and I didn't have time to get back," Harry explained.
Will groaned. "Okay, we need to get you out of here, fast!" He put all of the pieces in the box and stood up. "Grandma," he said, "could you get me a glass of water?"
"Sure, Will. I could use one too, actually.” The minute Ginny turned toward the kitchen, Will grabbed Harry and pulled him up, and they both ran to the hallway. They ran so fast that when Blake walked out of their room they collided, and all three fell to the floor.
Ginny's worried voice came from the kitchen. "What happened?"
Gina ran out of her room and almost tripped over the boys in the hallway. She stared, panicked, at them before heading her grandma off. Harry got up, and ran into Blake and Will's room, closing the door behind him. He heard the muffled voice of Ginny, and the footsteps of Blake and Will leaving the hallway.
Realizing that he would be here for a while, Harry laid down on Blake’s bed. He tried to take a nap, but instead the thoughts of his godfather that had been haunting his since June came back to him. The shocked look on his face as he fell backward into the veil....
Harry got up abruptly and searched for something, anything, to distract him. He picked up Will’s book only to realize it was the same book he himself used for History of Magic. Harry looked in the closet and found nothing. He even started rummaging through the two trunks, not sure what he was looking for.
Frustrated, Harry slammed the trunks shut, not bothering to pick up the contents that were now in piles on the floor. It had never been this hard to stay in his room at the Dursleys, then again there was no reason to leave his room. Now, he was thrust into the future with no idea what was going on or what was going to happen to him, and these kids not much older than him try to lock him up again without even telling him the whole story. They at least owed him that, considering they were the ones that did this to him.
Well, I won’t let this happen any longer, Harry thought. He wasn’t going to let them keep him in the dark for long.
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During the sunset that day, Gina, Will, and Blake were sitting under the large oak in the Potter’s backyard. Will was leaning against the trunk, absorbed in Hogwarts, A History, which Aunt Hermione had recommended for him. Gina laid on her back, watching the clouds idly, while Blake picked at the grass.
“I still think we should ask him,” Blake said aloud what everyone had been thinking the past forty-eight hours.
“And I still think we shouldn’t,” Gina said, still looking up at the sky. “He’s only sixteen. We know he doesn’t remember anything after that. Asking him about the final battle would be pointless.”
“That’s not what I was talking about it, and you know it,” Blake remarked, rubbing a long blade of grass between his fingers.
Gina sat up and turned to face her cousin. “You shouldn’t ask him about his fifth year. If sixty-six year old Harry wouldn’t talk about it, why would sixteen year old Harry? He’s probably still freaked about whatever happened that year, and he doesn’t need you bugging him about it.”
“Come on,” Blake begged. “Maybe he needs to talk about it. Maybe we could help him.”
Gina rolled her eyes. “Grandpa’s not the kind of person to accept help from strangers, which is what we are to him right now. Not everybody is open about how they feel like you are.”
Blake turned to Will. “What about you? To ask or not to ask?”
Will looked up from his book. “Don’t get me involved in this.”
“Come on, yes or no?”
“Ok, no. I agree with Gina, whatever he went through has got to be a major issue for him now, and we shouldn’t interfere.”
Outvoted, Blake sulked. He threw the blade of grass, vowing that he wasn’t going to be defeated that easily.