Chapter 11: Disrupted Lunch

Harry could almost swear that he had never had a better lunch before. True, the lunches and other meals at the Burrow and even at Grimmauld Place he had spent with his makeshift family had mostly been interesting and fun, but this one topped it all, because this lunch he was spending with his true family. This feeling was completely new to him (the Dursleys never really counted as family) and yet it already felt as if it belonged, as if it had never been different.

They spent the lunch talking and laughing, their topics ranged from their friends, which Harry approached carefully and a bit reserved, over Hogwarts, classes and teachers, when, in a moment of carelessness, Harry let slip that, much to James' horror ("That slimy git?!"), his Potions and in seventh year also Defence against the Dark Arts teacher had been Snape. Lily had just laughed and said that even though Severus Snape had always been a bit antisocial at school, he was not that bad, as they had had the pleasure of working together on a potion assignment for a couple of weeks and he had always been nice and polite to her, despite her being a muggleborn witch. Harry and his father only looked at each other with expressions of mild disgust on their faces and James decided that it was better to change the topic.

"So Harry, any girlfriends we should know about?"

Harry sputtered and almost spit out the pumpkin juice he had in his mouth, when James popped this question. He felt his face redden, of embarrassment as well as of the force of trying to swallow the juice. He looked at James and saw that the young man was grinning brightly, while his mother was trying to suppress a smile, though he could see the curiosity twinkling in her eyes. "Er… No…"

"No girlfriend?" James asked, mockingly aghast. "With your looks every girl should be at your feet! But there's one you fancy, isn't there?"

"Well," Harry said hesitatingly. As a matter of fact, there was one, but thanks to the ever looming threat that he might not live to see the next day and his dedication to become better and more powerful than Voldemort, he had not yet dared to start dating her. Maybe, when everything was over, when they were back in their own time and Voldemort was defeated, he would ask her out.

"Well?" James raised an eyebrow.

His son sighed and allowed a small smile on his lips, when he thought of her. "There is one. But there hasn't been the opportune moment, yet. In my time, there are right now more important things than finding a girlfriend," he ended gravely.

"Come on, tell us about her… If you don't want to tell us her name, then maybe something else."

"She's about a head smaller than me, smart and she does have a rather mischievous streak. I can talk to her about everything that bothers me and she always gives me some advice. She's a lion at heart, always stands up to others and sometimes it seems to me as if she doesn't fear anything. Oh, and one thing you might like – she was a superb chaser on our house team," Harry added almost as an afterthought.

"A chaser, huh? Best position on the whole team, if you ask me." James looked at him daringly.

"Is that so? Well, I prefer playing seeker." Happy that they had found another topic to talk about, Harry accepted the dare and so they got into a playful argument about which position was better and more important – chaser or seeker.

Lily watched the whole exchange with a smile on her face, until little Harry announced with a loud wail that he was in desperate need of some attention. She stood up and gathered him in his arms. The baby quieted down immediately. She then walked up to Harry – he and James had stopped arguing when they had heard the cry – and sat down next to him on the couch. "Do you want to hold him?"

A look of pure terror must have passed on his face, because James once again started to laugh and Lily only smiled at him softly. "I- uhm, I don't know. I've never held a baby before…"

"There's a first time for everything," Lily said and carefully put the infant into his older self's arms.

Harry was at a loss of what to do now. He did not dare to move, out of fear to crush or break his baby-self. "Don't worry!" James still laughed. "He isn't made of glass. You can hold him a bit closer."

Doing what James had said, he pulled him (himself!) a bit closer and looked down into a pair of emerald eyes. Harry could swear that the baby recognized him, which was, of course, impossible, since the baby was not even able to see properly yet. He smiled, when the little boy yawned and marvelled at how he had looked as a baby. The messy mob of black hair on the head and the eyes were definitely his. But one thing, Harry thought, was missing. And that was the lightning bolt scar on the baby's forehead. Technically the boy would receive this scar in about one year and a couple of months, but not if Harry had a say in this!

Suddenly the portrait swung open and three men, laden with plenty of colourfully wrapped presents, were about to storm into the room, but stopped dead in their tracks, when their eyes landed on Harry holding the baby. A small present, wrapped in blue paper with golden stars on it, fell from the stack and hit the floor with a loud 'Moo!'. Other presents followed suite, when Sirius Black got over the initial shock and whipped out his wand. "What are you doing here?"

"It's okay, Sirius," James said, as he stepped up to his friend. "I invited him over for lunch."

"You what?" the black-haired man sputtered. By now Remus and Peter had also discarded the presents they had been carrying and were pointing their wands at Harry, though Harry noticed that Peter's hand was shaking badly and that Remus was studying him with a thoughtful expression on his face, always gazing between him and the baby. "Are you crazy? This guy's a Death Eater!"

"No, he's not," they suddenly heard a new voice behind them and saw Arthur Weasley and his wife Molly enter the room. "Lower your wands, please, there's absolutely no reason for this."

"You too, Arthur?" Sirius asked appalled.

"M-maybe h-he put t-them under the I-Imperius C-Curse," Peter stuttered.

Sighing, Harry handed his baby-self back to Lily, who then put him back into the crib. It would be better, if his hands were free of any burden in case the situation escalated. And escalate it would, if Sirius kept up like this.

"Listen, none of us here in this room is under the Imperius. There have just been some unexpected revelations, that's all. You see…" James threw a quick glance at Arthur, asking for a bit of help to convince them.

"This young man here is a distant relative of James, and his red-haired friend is a distant cousin of me. I know, this sounds unbelievable, especially when you hear their names, but I assure you that they mean no harm."

"What Arthur is talking about," Lily now said, "is that they found out about open teaching spots through him and wanted to come to the Burrow before they went to Hogwarts. However, due to the threats of the Death Eaters and the attacks, we all forgot about this and mistook them for Death Eaters, especially since the correspondence had been limited to owls."

Harry saw Arthur and James nodding, while Molly was looking between the baby in the crib and him in wonder. He also noticed that Remus was following her gaze and that suddenly a look of understanding passed on his face. The werewolf smiled at Harry and lowered his wand, much to Sirius' and Peter's surprise.

"What are you doing?" Sirius hissed.

"I believe James and Arthur that he and his friends mean no harm," he replied simply. "Besides, if Albus trusts them enough to employ them as teachers, I think we should, too. Nice to meet you." He then walked up to Harry and extended his hand, which he shook relieved. "I'm Remus Lupin and my suspicious friends are Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, if you didn't know yet."

"Harry Potter," Harry answered, smirking at the shocked and surprised faces of Sirius and Peter.

"I told you that their names might surprise you," Arthur said smiling, as he clapped on Harry's shoulder. "My cousin is called Ron, just as my youngest." Harry returned the smile, thanking him silently as he started to relax. "Albus invited Molly and me to stay over dinner tonight. Molly can't wait to meet Ron," he then told the young man.

Growling, Sirius also finally put the wand into his pocket and Peter followed his example. "Okay, but only because you trust him, James."

"Fabulous!" Arthur Weasley exclaimed. "Now that all problems are solved, I think we're here to congratulate Lily and James to their first child and spoil the kid with plenty of presents!"

"You're right, Arthur," Sirius said, with slightly forced cheerfulness and picked up the mooing present. "So, James, Lily, where's my godson?"

Harry, who now started to feel a bit out of place, as everyone else gathered around the crib and cooed at the baby, gave James and Lily a quick wave and mouthed goodbye before he left the room. As soon as the portrait of Sir Cadogan closed behind him ("Stay and fight you coward!") Harry let out a deep breath. That was close. If Sirius and his father had not been best friends, he was sure that a fight would have broken out.

Now that he was standing in front of the portrait, Harry did not quite know what to do now. He did not feel like going back to their chambers already nor to the library, because he was pretty sure that he would meet Hermione there and what he needed right now was some time alone. So he opted to take a walk around the castle to see if there are any major differences to their time he and the others ought to know.

While he was walking, Harry noticed that the castle was unusual silent. He half expected the doors to the classrooms to open and masses of students to rush out of them to their next class. The only times he had known the castle to be nearly as quiet and deserted as now had been during the Christmas breaks that he had spent at Hogwarts. And even then you would have met at least one or two students in the hallways.

Harry wandered through both familiar and unfamiliar corridors, over moving staircases, past his old classrooms and stopped shortly, when he was suddenly standing in front of the empty portrait of the Fat Lady. The urge to take a look inside the Gryffindor common room and the dormitories was big, but neither could he enter, without the Fat Lady to grant him access nor did he know the password – Did he as teacher even need a password? Harry had no idea.

Sighing, he let his feet carry him through more hallways, first stopping when he was standing in a classroom – the classroom for Defence against the Dark Arts. His classroom. In about four weeks this classroom would be filled with students of all seven years, expecting to learn something about the Dark Arts and the defence against them. Once again, doubts started to nag at the back of his mind. He absolutely could not see himself as teacher. The DA had been different – there he had been teaching fellow students, but in four weeks he was supposed to stand before a whole class of people he had never seen before. Give him a couple of Death Eaters and he would be fine, but give him a couple of students and he would freak.

Would they see him like he had seen Quirrel, who knew something about the Dark Arts but had not really been a capable teacher (apart from the fact that Voldemort had been sitting at the back of his head), Lockhart, who had been an absolute moron and knew nothing except for the memory charm, or Lupin, the best teacher they had had until then? Then there had been Barthy Crouch junior, who had posed as Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody, but from whom they had truly learned something about curses and Dolores Umbridge, the Ministry official, who had been making his fifth year at Hogwarts hell with purely theoretical lessons, countless detentions, his and the Weasley twins' ban from Quidditch and the prohibition of the DA. The woman, who had driven Dumbledore and Hagrid from Hogwarts and whom he partly blamed for Sirius' death. No, he did not want to be compared to this foul woman. He would arrange his lessons more like the ones of Lupin, Moody/Crouch and maybe a bit like Viktor Krum's, who had had to give up his career as Quidditch player because of a permanent injury of his spine after an accident during the finale of the Olympic Wizarding Games. Despite all reservations of the students at first, he had shown his knowledge of the Dark Arts in their sixth year, but had also resigned at the end of the year due to personal reasons. However, their seventh year had been special. Harry did not know if he should shudder at the thought or not, because no matter how much he disliked Severus Snape, he had been the one who had taught them all they needed to know to pass the NEWTs with at least an 'E' (Exceeded Expectations) or an 'O' (Outstanding) and more to prepare them for the war waging outside of the secure walls of Hogwarts.

No, Harry told himself resolutely. He would be a good teacher. The students would look up to him like he and his schoolmates had looked up to Lupin, Moody/Crouch, Krum and in the end Snape. He would prepare them for the world outside, would teach him everything he knew and most of all, he decided, he would make them face their fears and fight them. They would leave this classroom at the end of a class and be able to use what he had taught them, if they were ever attacked.

In his mind a plan started to form. He would soon need to make a visit to the library and Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade to find suitable books and what else he needed for his lessons. With this thought in mind, Harry left the Defence against the Dark Arts classroom. Voldemort, be warned.

~*~

Back in the common room, Harry found Ron hunched over a catalogue of Quidditch supplies, looking at different types of brooms. "Hey Harry," his best friend greeted him. "Where've you been?"

"I had lunch with my parents," he replied smiling and sat down next to him, also taking a look at the catalogue.

"So they believe you?" Ron asked hopefully. When Harry nodded, Ron clapped him on the shoulder. "Good for you, mate."

"Yeah… I also met your parents. They will stay over dinner tonight."

"Oh…okay," Ron said, momentarily taken aback.

"Don't worry, you know that the only thing your mum might do is hugging you to death."

"That's exactly, what I'm afraid of…" he muttered.

Harry snickered, before Ron's glare shut him up. "By the way, where are Hermione and Draco?"

"Hermione is in the library, I think. And Malfoy went to check out the potion supplies in his office to see, if he needs to buy anything for the coming term. I think we all should plan a trip to Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley soon. I'm pretty sure that Hermione needs a lot of books and I need a good broom for my classes. What about you?" Ron wanted to know.

"I also thought about buying some books and I also need to find a book for the students. And a broom doesn't sound too bad. I guess, Draco will agree. Is there anything interesting in there?" he asked.

"Well, here's the very first Nimbus, but I heard that the first ones of the series aren't that good. The Cleansweep series sounds better, but there's also a broom called Thunderbolt. It's from the same manufacturer as your Firebolt. We should really check them out at Quality Quidditch Supplies…"