Of Christmas Past by Chaser921
Chapter Notes: Sorry this took so long. What with the holidays, school, and writer's block, it took a bit longer than I expected. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, as I worked very hard on it! Much thanks to my beta, Yemeron, for helping me make it decent. And yes, she's different than the first one. Oh, and I lied, this is going to be at least 10 chapters, not 6. Maybe more, depending on how it goes...
Harry opened his eyes, and the world slowly came back into focus as he blinked away the afterimages left by the bright flash. He was lying on his back in the stone circle with Ginny on top of him. She had a death grip on him, her face buried in his neck. He loosened his own tight grip on her, and shook her shoulder gently.
“Ginny, it’s okay; you can open your eyes.”
She raised her head and cautiously cracked an eyelid, then opened both eyes. She looked around slowly, but did not release him. They sat up, still clinging to each other.
“Wha-what was that, Harry?”
“I dunno…do you feel any different?”
She shook her head. He stood and pulled her to her feet, holding her hand a bit longer than was necessary. When he let it go, she raised it and looked at it, then looked around on the ground.
“What is it?” Harry asked, concerned. Ginny shook her head.
“Oh, it’s nothing…. I think my glove fell off, and I don’t see it anywhere.”
Harry took both of Ginny’s hands in his own. Sure enough, one was clad in a green wool glove while the other was bare and cold. He rubbed her ungloved fingers unconsciously, then raised them to his lips and breathed on them to warm them. She squeezed his other hand with her gloved one, and with a start, he realized what he was doing. He immediately dropped her hand, took off his own glove, and handed it to her.
“Here, use mine.”
“Oh, Harry, it’s fine. You don’t have to - ”
“I know, but I don’t need it.” He grinned. “I’m a boy, remember? You and Hermione always complain that we’re human stoves.” She grinned back at him, and slipped the overlarge glove over her hand.
“When do you think it fell off?” Harry asked.
She smiled slightly. “Well…I think it was when we…fell, outside the circle. It probably came off when you grabbed my hands. You know, before you kissed me.”
“Oh, right,” Harry muttered awkwardly. “Listen, about that…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Harry Potter!” Ginny said firmly, startling him. His troubled green eyes met her blazing brown ones. “I know what it was, and I don’t want you trying to convince me or yourself that it was something else! So just…drop it!”
“Okay, okay!” he said, a bit hurt. She sighed and shook her head, the anger suddenly draining out of her.
"It's all right, Harry...let's not worry about that now." She looked around. "We really should worry about finding Ron and Hermione; it looks like it's getting late."
Harry looked up, and to his surprise, the sun had dropped to the level of the trees and tinted the clouds around the horizon deep gold and orange. He frowned and looked at his watch, but it had stopped. He shook his wrist and listened to the watch, but no tick issued from it.
"What time is it, Ginny?" he asked.
She checked her watch and frowned. "Funny," she said. "My watch seems to have stopped."
"Mine, too..." Harry said slowly, then abruptly grabbed Ginny's hand and pulled her out of the stone circle.
"Harry, what - ?"
"We need to find Ron and Hermione. Something feels...not exactly wrong but...not exactly right either."
"Hang on, let me see if my glove's out here."
They walked around the circle twice before they found the place where they had fallen, and they only found it because Ginny recognized the lightning-struck tree that she had stopped beside.
"There aren’t any marks on the ground," Harry said shortly, pointing to the area where they had struggled, which was smooth and untouched.
"I don't see any of our footsteps leading into the circle either," Ginny said, scanning the ground nervously. "Or my glove. Let's go find Ron and Hermione; I'm getting worried."
"Me, too,” agreed Harry. “We probably shouldn't call for them though; we might not want to draw attention to ourselves. Something happened in that circle, and until we find out what, we should be careful."
She nodded in agreement. "If we're not going to call them, we should probably split up so we have a better chance of finding them. Why don't we send up green sparks when one of us finds them? We can send up red if something bad happens."
Harry frowned, but then inclined his head. "Okay. I don't like separating, but you're right. It makes the most sense." He hesitated, then reached out and hugged her tightly. "Be careful, Ginny," he whispered into her hair.
She patted his back reassuringly. "Don't worry, we'll get everything sorted out," she said, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself as well as him.
He clung to her a moment longer and released her reluctantly as she slipped out of his arms. He stepped out of the clearing, glancing back to follow her with his eyes as she walked in the opposite direction. In a few moments, she was hidden by the trees, and he began looking seriously for Ron and Hermione.
Harry had only been walking about fifteen minutes when, for the second time that afternoon, a snowball hit him in the back of the head. He spun around to see a flash of long red hair as someone ducked around a tree.
“Ha! Gotcha!” he heard a girl cry.
“Ginny! What’re you doing? We're supposed to be looking for Ron and Hermione!” he yelled after her, but his only answer was a tinkling laugh that quickly began to fade.
Maybe she hadn’t heard him.
He scrambled after her, ducking snowballs as she dodged around trees. He frowned. Something seemed…off about her. It almost looked like she had on a different coat, or something, but he couldn’t get a clear enough look to figure out what it was. Eventually the two of them made it out of the forest. Once on open ground, his longer legs gave him an advantage, and he quickly caught up to her.
“Ginny! Wait!” he shouted, catching her arm and wrestling her to the ground. She giggled.
“Okay, James, okay! I give up, you win!”
She stopped struggling and Harry let her sit up, a confused look on his face at the use of his middle name. She shook back her mane of red hair and brushed snow from her shoulders, then looked directly at him, laughing. Harry stared at her, dumbstruck. He wasn’t looking into Ginny’s deep brown eyes. Instead, bright green eyes, eyes he saw staring out of his own mirror every morning, looked back at him. He blinked, and so did she, then she frowned.
“Bloody hell…you’re Lily Potter, aren’t you?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“James,” she said slowly. “You know that’s my name…”
Her words faded and her eyes got very large as she looked, really looked at Harry, who was staring back at her, his mouth hanging open. Her gaze fixed on his eyes, then slowly traveled over his face, pausing in confusion when she saw his scar. She scooted away from him and discreetly pulled her wand out of her pocket.
Harry shook his head to clear it, and blinked.
“Er…I’m not James. Sorry.”
She nodded, and said, as if to herself, “His eyes are hazel…but…who…?”
Before she could complete the question, they heard a shout that made them both turn back towards the woods.
“Hey! Wait!”
A young man with messy black hair emerged from the woods, glancing back over his shoulder as he dodged the thinning trees.
“Ha! Gotta be quicker than that!”
A moment later, a girl with long red hair followed him out of the forest, hot on his heels.
“Ginny!”
“James!”
Harry and Lily yelled at the same time, their voices mingling and echoing so that their words became one loud sound. They looked at each other. Lily’s expression became mildly concerned, and she scrutinized Harry more closely.
“Are you all right? You’ve gone very pale.”
“Er…yeah, I’m fine, just…er…just cold, I guess,” he stammered. “Is that the James you thought I was?”
She glanced at the pair, who had apparently heard them and were swiftly approaching.
“Yes, I think so.” She looked at him again. “Who’s that following him?”
“Oh…well, that’s my, er, girlfriend. I guess she thinks he’s me.”
She stared at him again, as if he were a puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out.
“What?” he asked defensively. “You did!” He wasn’t surprised that she had, actually, considering that he had once thought himself to be James Potter, back in his third year.
“I know…it’s just weird, that you and James look so much alike…” her voice trailed off, and she frowned. “Except for your eyes…”
“Come on, let’s just get this straightened out,” Harry interrupted before she could say anything else, like how his eyes looked just like hers. He got to his feet and helped Lily to hers.
As they trudged through the snow towards James and Ginny, Harry’s mind was racing.
It couldn’t be.
But it might be. She looks just like the pictures of my mum. And the man we’re walking toward looks an awful lot like my dad.
But they’re dead!
Not if I’m in the past.
But how?
That circle, it must’ve been.
What am I going to do? What am I going to say?
Is it even real?
Is it a trick?
Oh, Merlin.
James had stopped to allow Ginny to catch up with him, and as she reached him Harry and Lily drew within earshot.
“Harry Potter, I’m going to kill you! Why-”
“You’ve got the wrong Potter. I’m James.” He frowned. “How do you know my son’s name?”
Ginny’s head flew up, and she looked hard at him, really looked at him.
“Your son “ oh. Your eyes.”
He looked confused and self-consciously pushed his square glasses further up his nose.
“What about my eyes?”
“They’re hazel,” Ginny said quietly.
“Yeah, so?”
“Mine are green,” Harry said as he walked up behind James. James whipped around and gaped at him, then spotted Lily behind him.
“Lily!”
He pushed past Harry and embraced Lily, then turned to face Harry and Ginny, one arm still possessively around his wife, his wand clutched tightly in his other hand. Ginny stepped beside Harry and slipped her hand into his, reaching in her pocket with her other hand and drawing her own wand. Lily noticed and nudged James, who nodded slightly, as if to say he’d seen it too, then cleared his throat and looked at Harry.
“Um…hello,” James began awkwardly. “I’m James Potter, and this is my wife, Lily.” He addressed his next comment solely to Ginny. “Sorry about the snowball, by the way. I just saw the back of your head and assumed you were my Lily. We didn’t realize there was anyone else in the wood today.”
Ginny smiled.
“It’s all right, no harm done. Harry and I had our own snowball fight earlier. That’s one reason I thought you were him.”
James frowned.
“Yes, about that…”
“Oh, pleased to meet you,” Harry answered quickly. “Uh…I’m Harry…Porter, and this is my…girlfriend, Ginny…Westland. We…we just arrived from London and were about to head into town for a hotel.”
Ginny looked taken aback, and opened her mouth, but closed it and nodded slowly, almost to herself.
Lily gave Harry a hard look as James raised his eyebrows.
“Porter…” he said slowly. “But Ginny called me Harry Potter.”
“Oh, uh, you must have misheard her then,” Harry stammered. Lily continued to look at him closely, and he had a sinking feeling that neither of them was convinced.
“Did he?” she murmured. “I must have misheard her, too.” She shook her head. “And the hotel is full. We met a young family about an hour ago who said they’d gotten the last two rooms. Do you have anywhere else you can stay?”
Harry and Ginny looked at each other, then slowly shook their heads.
Lily glanced at James, a questioning look in her eyes. She drew him off to the side where they held a whispered conversation. Harry muttered a quick spell, and the wind shifted direction to carry the Potters’ voices to him and Ginny.
“We need to find out who they are, James! Something’s not right, especially about the boy! He looks so much like you, and his name…I’m halfway convinced he’s a teenage version of our son!”
“But, Lily, we don’t know anything about them! They could be working for Voldemort!”
“That’s why I want them to come back to the house with us! We can’t very well question them out here in the cold and the dark! The sun’s almost gone, look! And with the Death Eaters around…”
“But what about Harry? Our Harry? What if they try something?”
There was a pause, and Lily’s voice continued, more hesitant.
“Well…Sirius is at home with him now…why don’t we have him take Harry to his place until we’re sure of them?”
“But, Lily, how can you be sure?”
“I’m not, okay? I’m not sure! But…there’s something about them…especially the boy. And I have this feeling… I don’t think they’re telling us the truth, but…I don’t think they’re working for You-Know-Who either. Something in his eyes… Please, James?”
He threw up his hands.
“All right, all right! But I’m still taking precautions. And I’m contacting Dumbledore as soon as we get back to the house!”
Lily nodded, and they walked back over to Harry and Ginny. James took a deep breath and slipped his hand in his pocket.
“Lily and I’ve decided…we’ve got an empty guest bedroom we’d like to offer you. We live just outside the village. Would you like to stay with us?”
Harry stared at him, his mind working furiously. Staying with his parents, even just spending time with them, could change everything. He and Ginny would have to be very careful about what they told the Potters, and they might not be believed even then.
But…to spend Christmas with his parents…and besides, they didn’t have anywhere else to go. They had to figure out what their next move was, and that would be a lot easier to do indoors, especially with night coming on.
“It’s not very safe nowadays, especially after dark, what with the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who still at large,” James added.
Harry looked down at Ginny. She was shivering slightly, and he let go of her hand to place his arm around her shoulders. He looked at his parents.
“That would be great, actually. Thank you,” he said firmly. “Come on, Ginny, you look cold.”
James nodded shortly, and he and Lily started towards the road that led to the village. Harry and Ginny followed hand in hand as the road turned sharply to the right, then split. The second, less traveled fork led to a cozy two-story house that somehow reminded Harry of the Burrow, even though it was solidly on its foundation and had no chickens.
James led them around the back of the house to a door covered with faded red paint. He waved his wand and pushed it open, holding it for the other three, staring closely at Harry as he went through. The door led to a small kitchen with exposed brick walls. Harry and Ginny looked around as Lily disappeared through a doorway on the right, calling Sirius’s name as she went.
Ginny nudged him and nodded towards the daily calendar sitting on the counter. It featured a moving photograph of three or four children having a snowball fight, but the picture wasn’t what interested Harry. The date, the twenty-second of December, was all right, but the year…the year was 1980.
As he stared in shock at the date, his first thought was that Ron and Hermione were never going to figure out where they were.