By lunch, most of the school had heard: this strange boy that had just enrolled into Hogwarts a few weeks ago had gotten the most popular girl in school to go out with him. As Harry sat alone at Gryffindor Table, munching on a chicken wing, Ron and Hermione stormed in, sitting across from them. “Hey,” Harry said indifferently, acknowledging them. They weren’t amused.
“Harry, what is your problem?” Hermione said, glaring at him. “Going out with your mother?”
“She’s not my mother yet,” Harry rebutted, not looking up at her or Ron.
“That is beyond bizarre, mate,” Ron said, shaking his head. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Look, guys,” Harry said quietly, leaning in to whisper to them, “I don’t appreciate this attention, believe it or not. I have enough of it already back home, so I’d like it if you got off my case. It just so happens that Lily is a great girl, and isn’t my mother yet, and you can’t tell me what to do.” Harry’s quiet anger made Ron withdraw, frowning, but Hermione glared even more, standing up straight.
“What is it with your family and redheads?” she asked, shaking her head. With that, she walked out of the Great Hall.
“And what’s wrong with redheads?” Ron retorted, yelling after Hermione and running to catch up with her.
Harry only shook his head and returned to his food. Somehow, it didn’t concern him anymore to be ignoring Ron and Hermione a lot lately. In fact, he had been separating himself slowly with them throughout their entire time in the past. He was so caught up with the events surrounding their arrival, he didn’t seem to be as close to them as he had once been, which gave him a pang of guilt whenever he blew them off. But pushing the thought from his mind, he finished his lunch and left to go to Herbology.
However, as he was walking across the grounds, lost in his thoughts, he suddenly was pushed to the ground. Wheeling around, and pulling out his wand, he saw James standing over him, glaring down on his future son.
“Enough is enough, Harry,” James growled. He pulled out his wand. “You just think you can waltz right into Hogwarts and steal my girlfriend?” He tried to curse Harry, but the latter instinctively produced a Shield charm and deflected it, getting to his feet.
“She’s not your girlfriend yet!” Harry said back. His temper was getting short... “Maybe I’ve decided not to let you marry her anymore! What’s wrong with you?”
“What?” James exclaimed, attempting to cast Levicorpus on Harry, but it was deflected once again. “You won’t exist in your time if you interfere...you know that, right?”
“Who says I’m going back to my time?” Harry retorted. By this time, a considerable crowd had gathered, watching the two, luckily not having heard what they were saying thus far.
“You’re crazy,” James said. “How do you know that I won’t tell everyone here your secret?”
“Leave him alone!” a female voice shouted, and Harry wasn’t surprised to see Lily walk in between the two, rounding on James. “If you’re mad at him for dating me, know that I would NEVER date you, James...not in a million years!”
“Is that so?” James said, smirking. “In that case, I’m assuming Harry has something he needs to tell you.” Harry motioned for James to cut it out, but Lily turned to face Harry.
“Is that true?” Lily asked Harry quietly. “You need to tell me something?”
“N-no!” Harry sputtered. “James is trying to cause an argument!”
“Fine,” James said. “If you won’t tell her, Harry, then I will. Evans, Harry is...”
Harry had no choice. “Fernunculus!” he yelled. The spell shot over Lily’s shoulder and hit James in the mouth. Instantly, James’ front teeth began growing at a rapid rate, and he could no longer talk coherently. As a rebuttal, James, now furious, pointed his wand and Harry and shot yet another spell at Harry, which was deflected. Lily ducked out of the way as James sent a flurry of spells at Harry, each more feeble than the last, each deflected by Harry’s Shield charm.
“What is going on here?” a voice said. Professor McGonagall was walking down the stone steps to see what the large crowd was all about. “Potter...what has happened to you?” she said, examining James’ mouth, who drew away angrily. He stormed up to the castle, apparently headed for the Hospital Wing.
“Who did this to him?” McGonagall demanded, looking around at the entire crowd.
“I did, Professor,” Harry said, stepping forward. The professor looked dismayed.
“Potter, why can’t you seem to stay out of trouble?” she asked, shaking her head.
“It wasn’t his fault, Professor,” Lily said quietly, stepping to stand next to Harry. She linked her hand with his, making Harry’s heart jump. “James tried to curse Harry, then he threatened to tell everyone something private about Harry, and Harry was just trying to keep his personal things to himself...” Lily was getting a bit worked up, but Harry wasn’t complaining.
“Very well,” McGonagall said. “I will be speaking to Mr. Potter “ James “ and Harry, I advise that you watch your step from now on.” With that, McGonagall turned around and walked back up to the castle, and the bell rang, making all the students jump and sprint for their classes.
***
The fact that Harry had gotten the most popular girl in school to go out with him and beat the best dueler in the school in a fight in the same day spread quickly throughout Hogwarts, and by dinner, he was as well-known at Hogwarts as he was in the future. Once again, Ron and Hermione were left just behind the spotlight, watching as Harry got all the attention.
Not that Harry wanted it...he wished that everyone would leave him alone. Somehow, somewhere along the line, the story of Harry making James’ front teeth enlarge transformed into eyewitnesses swearing they saw Harry cause a dragon to encircle James in flames and burn him, but once Harry tiredly explained what really happened, the listeners were a bit put-out, but still excited to be around him. Harry had become the most popular kid in school within six hours.
Harry decided to not leave Ron and Hermione completely in the dark. “Hermione,” he said, approaching them at the far end of the table at dinner, after escaping a mob of people wanting to hear the story of the duel again, “you do know that I didn’t start that duel, right?”
“No, I didn’t,” Hermione said indignantly. “Perhaps you could have come straight to us and told us the whole story, like you usually do, so we wouldn’t have to hear it secondhand from some excitable first-year that swears you cast an Unforgivable!”
“They said that?” Harry asked, bemused.
“That’s beside the point, mate,” Ron said. He looked rather upset. “You haven’t really been talking to us lately, you know.”
“I know,” Harry said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I didn’t ask for any of this, you know. I just think that, while I’m here, I should do the wizarding world a favor! And what have you been doing...pretending like this is just another part of life, and we should go through it until we figure out how to get back! I just can’t do that!”
“Speaking of which,” Hermione said, “since you’ve already eliminating students, we should think about that...getting back. Tonight we should have a look at your photo album and try to figure it out.”
Harry had no wish to do so, but he was suddenly forced to run from another group of students following him, asking for him to recount the incident one more time so they could write it down.
***
That night, Harry went up to the dorms early to escape the mob of people in the common room. He opened his trunk and pulled his photo album out. He opened it up, expecting to see the blank white sheets once again, but his heart skipped a beat: several pictures had appeared in it. But they were unrecognizable. One showed James and Lily at their wedding...and another, with Lily pregnant and smiling with James at her side...and then he saw it. Harry realized it wasn’t James in the pictures...It was him.
“I am going to marry her?” Harry muttered to no one in particular. He was intrigued; several more pictures of Lily pregnant followed, then a picture of Harry holding a baby girl in his arms. Tears filled his eyes as Harry looked at a black-and-white photograph of what would one day possibly be his child. She’s beautiful, he couldn’t help but think. He flipped another photo, and found that the rest of the album was blank. Shrugging, he put the album down, and just then, Ron and Hermione came in.
“Oh, good, you have it,” Hermione said, walking over to Harry’s bed and sitting on it uninvited. She picked up the album, and for a moment, Harry was afraid she’d open it, but she only examined the cover. “Yeah, this matches with the description I read about the magical leather,” she muttered, running her hands across the rough surface. “Now we just need to figure out the key word.”
“What did you say, mate, right before we disappeared?” Ron asked. “Exactly?”
Harry racked his brain. “It was so long ago,” he said. “But I think it was like, ‘I wish I could go back in time...and tell James to shut up...and let Lily like him’...”
“It can’t be that specific,” Hermione said, examining the leather again, which hadn’t changed in the slightest. “I doubt someone would make the key word something that only one or two people would know...it has to be an ordinary, everyday word.”
“Well,” Harry said, “I think I said something at the end...like...oh! I said, ‘Everything would be perfect’.”
“That has to be it,” Hermione said. “The key word must be ‘perfect’. But we have to test it...”
“I’ll do it,” Ron offered.
“No, I’d better do it,” Hermione said. “No offense, but I think I stand a better chance of not screwing up than you.”
Ron scowled, but he nodded in agreement. Hermione held the leather in front of her, took a deep breath, and said, “If I could go five minutes into the future, it would be perfect.” Expecting a big earthquake or loud noise like before, Ron and Harry carefully backed away from Hermione, but to their surprise, with no noise or movement whatsoever, Hermione disappeared.
“Wicked!” Ron exclaimed, feeling the air in which Hermione’s body had once been. “Even Apparition makes more of a noise than that did!”
“Keep to the corners,” Harry warned. “She may reappear anywhere...”
So they backed into the corner. Five minutes later, however, Hermione reappeared in the same spot she’d disappeared in.
“Wow,” Hermione said, putting a hand to her head. “What a rush...did it work? I heard a lot of noise, and everything went black, and the bed disappeared...”
“We saw you just vanish, Hermione,” Harry said. “No noise, no movement...nothing.”
“Interesting,” Hermione said. “Well, that’s that...now we know how to get back. Now you just need to modify James’ memory, and do whatever else you need to do, and we’ll be home free.”
“Yeah...” Harry said absentmindedly, still in doubt on whether to do just that. Satisfied, Hermione walked out, and Ron walked over to his bunk to change. Harry did the same, ready for a good night’s sleep to take his mind off of all that had happened that day. Even after cursing James, and figuring out how to work the album, and talking to Dumbledore about the future Death Eaters, only one thing was on his mind:
I can’t wait until the next Hogsmeade weekend!
Author’s Note: By the way, that line of Hermione’s was the humorous line I’ve been trying to insert for a while...“What is it with your family and redheads?”...anyway, hope you enjoyed it! Please review!