A/N: Yeah, I got two reviews! Thanks NotreDameGeo und Get_The_Snitch! I’m glad you like this fanfiction!!!
Chapter 4: Reunion
Harry started to become nervous, as he climbed the stairs behind Dumbledore. Who would he meet, once he stepped through the door? He was sure that these were the headquarters of the Order of Phoenix, wherever they were located. This was not Grimmauld Place 12, Harry would have recognized that place immediately and besides, if his memory was not failing him, then Mrs. Black would still be alive in this time. He would have to ask Dumbledore later, after he had made sure that his friends were safe and sound.
Dumbledore opened the door and, after having taken a deep breath, Harry followed him outside. His eyes squinted against the harsh light that was greeting him and it took him a few seconds to adjust to the changes. It looked like they were in a kitchen. The room was rather small, with a kitchenette at one wall, some shelves at another and a rectangular wooden table in the middle. Through a window that was placed above a worktop, he could see that the sun was slowly rising. He quickly calculated the time that must have passed between the attack and now. It must have been about five to six hours.
“Dumbledore, what’s he doing here?”
Harry turned to the source of the voice and recognized it as Sirius’. The younger version of his godfather was glaring daggers at him. The other few occupants of the room also stared at him, though not with as much enmity as Sirius did. Harry’s mind was running wild. He knew those people from the picture Moody had shown him, when he had first arrived at Grimmauld place before his fifth year. He identified them as Frank Longbottom, who, in Harry’s time, had been driven insane by Bellatrix Lestrange, Sturgis Podmore, and Edgar Bones, who Harry also had never gotten to know.
“This young man and his friends,” Dumbledore told them, “have unfortunately appeared in the woods near the Burrow at a rather inopportune moment and have therefore been drawn into something they would have rather stayed out of.”
“But one of them bears the Dark Mark,” Sirius interjected, “and we’ve only been able to catch them, because there was a Death Eater attack planned on the Weasleys last night and we only found them. This one,” he pointed at Harry, “attacked Peter without a reason.”
“Sirius, trust me. I was assured that the young man bearing the Dark Mark is no Death Eater, at least not anymore,” he added, with a light twinkle in his eyes directed at Harry. “I have reason to believe in their innocence and therefore I will invite them to stay either here or at Hogwarts as long as they wish as, let’s say, reparation for what they’ve been put through.”
“But,” the black haired man tried to argue again. He was, however, interrupted by Dumbledore.
“No more of it.” His voice was firm enough to tell Sirius that the headmaster would not allow any more arguing in that matter, but was still soft, making it clear that he was not angry but understood the situation. “By the way, do you have word from James already? Poppy just told me that a child was born, but deprived me of any more information. I believe James asked you to be the child’s godfather.”
Suddenly the glare on Sirius’ face was replaced by a look full of pride and astonishment. “Yes, he did and we just talked through the fireplace a couple of minutes ago. He and Lily are proud parents of a small boy. They called him Harry.”
“I see,” Dumbledore smiled through his long beard. “Congratulations are in order then. I hope that I will soon be able to see the small boy, but first I have business to attend to. Frank, could you please fetch the wands of our visitors?”
The lanky man, who was the exact opposite of his wife, quickly nodded and left the room, only to return half a minute later with four wands. “Here you are, Albus. I was going to check this one with Ollivander this morning, because it seemed quite extraordinary.” He lifted an eleven inches long, brown wand. “This one has a phoenix feather as core and if I’m correct…”
“I don’t think that would be necessary anymore,” Dumbledore interrupted him, using the same voice he had already used on Sirius earlier and took the wands. He gave them to Harry, who accepted them gratefully and said, “Well then, I think we should not let your friends wait any longer. Please follow me.”
Harry obeyed Dumbledore and followed him through another door which led into a hallway and then up a flight of stairs. Now that he again held his wand in his hand, he felt a lot more secure. Even though he knew how to do magic without his wand, it was still a source of confidence and he would have regretted it deeply, if it had been broken or lost. The encounter with Sirius had left him a bit downhearted, but he could understand his intentions. Harry would have probably reacted the same way, if one of his friends had been attacked by some unknown and mysterious person and Sirius did not know yet that Wormtail was a traitor. The only question in Harry’s mind concerning this was, if Peter was already a Death Eater or would still become one in the following year.
He knew that he had acted on the anger he was feeling towards Wormtail and he also knew that he could not risk to expose more than he already had. As much as he wanted to take care of Wormtail before he could betray his parents and therefore save their lives, he could not do it. At least not until they had made sure what kind of influence they would have on the future events.
Harry had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he did not notice Dumbledore halt in front of a door and almost ran into him. He suddenly began to grow nervous again. What if someone had hurt his friends, despite what he had been told? How would he react in that kind of situation? But suddenly a much worse thought hit him: What would Hermione do to him, when he told her what he had told Dumbledore? He could clearly remember the warning she had given first when they had used the Time Turner in their third year and again shortly before the Marauders had found them: Keep out of sight! but it was too late now. They had been seen, caught and the only way to get out of this alive and unscathed had been telling the person they trusted the most about what had happened.
Dumbledore quickly knocked twice at the door and then opened it. Harry followed him inside, his nerves being ready to burst. The room where they were now in resembled a study. There were bookshelves on the walls and Harry thought that Hermione might be more than happy to snoop through some of them. Right next to the door, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew were sitting at a table and in the middle of the room Hermione, Ron and Draco were bound to three chairs. Their eyes widened considerably as they spotted Harry behind Dumbledore, looking despite the scratches and torn clothes he had received during their earlier fight against the Death Eaters unharmed.
“Professor, what is going on?” Lupin inquired, when he, too, spotted their fourth captive.
Harry clenched his fists, when he saw Wormtail practically hiding behind Lupin and he despised him even more than before. Sure, he had known before that Peter Pettigrew was more a tag-along, but that he was nearly wetting his pants, when he was in the room with the one who had attacked him earlier that night, though Lupin and Dumbledore were present as well, was simply pathetic. He could not believe that such a person would be able to fake his own death to send one of his formerly best friends to Azkaban. Yet, Harry himself had experienced the results of Wormtail’s treachery and came to the conclusion that only incredible fear of someone could cause such drastic measures.
“For now, let’s just say that I was convinced that those young persons were only at the wrong place at the wrong time and had nothing to do with the planned attack on the Weasleys.”
Harry saw Ron’s eyes widen even more, when Dumbledore mentioned the planned attack, but he remained silent.
“So y-you want to s-say that they are innocent?” Wormtail asked quivering. “But he attacked me and this one has the mark of You Know Who.”
“I’m sure there are explanations for everything, but yes, I do believe in their innocence. So, would you be so nice to untie them and please leave the room? I want to give them some privacy to discuss what has happened.”
Lupin and Pettigrew obeyed, though the latter more grudgingly and loosened the ties. The three friends rubbed their wrists, but still did not say anything. The two Marauders left the room and Dumbledore was bound to follow them, but he turned around before he closed the door. “Mr. Potter, I will make sure that some breakfast is prepared for the four of you when you decide you want to eat. After that I would like to speak to all of you privately about the matter we discussed earlier, Mr. Potter.”
After the headmaster had closed the door behind him and Harry had placed a silencing charm on the room so that no one could hear what they were talking about, Hermione rushed at Harry, almost crushing him in the hug. “Oh Harry! You’re so stupid! We were worried sick!”
“Hermione…” he gasped, though with humor in his voice. “Need air.”
She quickly let go of him and mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Hermione’s right,” Ron said. “Where have you been? They didn’t want to tell us anything. Well, it seemed like Remus wanted to, but Wormtail kept him from saying anything. By the way, I do believe you now that we are in the past.”
“They kept me downstairs in the cellar,” Harry told them, while he was sitting down in one of the chairs. “They thought that I was the leader of our little group,” he pointedly ignored the snort Draco gave him, “and Dumbledore decided that he would interrogate me alone. I only woke up a bit more than half an hour ago, I think and Dumbledore came immediately to talk to me.”
“What did you tell him?” Hermione wanted to know. Her voice already showed the accusing tone she usually used when she did not approve of something the three young men did. “Dumbledore called you Mr. Potter, so don’t tell me that”“
“I told him,” Harry answered her simply. “And I’m sorry about it, as much as I am sorry about attacking Wormtail. I know this is no excuse, but the anger at him suddenly overcame me and I didn’t know what I was doing anymore until the three Stunners hit me. And I had to tell Dumbledore, otherwise he would have never believed me.”
“Right,” Draco drawled, “Dumbledore believed you this story about us travelling to the past instead of some simpler story that you could have come up with? I highly doubt that.”
Harry sighed deeply. He knew that this would not be easy to convince them. “I told him something, something only the two of us know, that’s how I made sure that he was the real Dumbledore and not some impostor. He had even started to trust me before that, because you guys have shown great loyalty to me, but to believe me that we come from the future, I think he had to hear what I said.”
“What was it? I mean, what you said to him, the thing only you two know about…” Ron asked.
“Nothing, really.” Harry shook his head. He still did not plan to tell his friends about the prophecy anytime soon. He could just imagine their reaction to this, even after all the years and all the fights. Draco simply would not believe it, Ron would pale and ask him, if he was kidding and Hermione, well, she would most likely consult her books and come up with some theories to disprove the prophecy “ they all knew how she thought about divination.
He looked up and saw in his friends’ faces that they did not believe him, but they did not pry further. Instead, Hermione asked, “And what was the matter you two discussed that he wanted to talk about later?”
“Time travel. I told him that the right person to speak to about it would be you. But don’t worry, I didn’t tell him anything about you, none of you. I did not even tell him about the fate of my parents, only that Voldemort attacked, left me with this scar and was able to flee. I thought that it should be up to you how much you want him to know,” he quickly reassured them. He was getting slowly tired of this. His body was aching, something he had not noticed before, probably due to the adrenalin that had been pumping through his veins, but now, that he had the chance to calm down, he could feel the wounds he had received during the battle. He was getting hungry and he felt completely drained. Even his scar started again tingling slightly, but he put it off as unimportant. It had the tendency to tingle, when he was feeling utterly exhausted. Fact was that he did not want to talk about himself anymore, so he quickly changed the topic. “So, but how about you? What has happened after I was out?”
So his friends took turns in telling him what had happened. After the Stunning Spells had hit Harry, the three of them had surrendered their wands as James had ordered, because they did not want Harry to be hurt. Then their hands had been bound behind their backs with magically strengthened ropes and they had been led out of the woods to a field, where some other wizards had already been waiting, while Sirius had carried Harry over his shoulder. The three of them had immediately recognized one of the persons on the field. It had been Ron’s father, Arthur Weasley. He had asked if the four young men had caught the attackers and instead of answering, Ron, Hermione and Draco had been pushed forth. Mr. Weasley had given them a good once-over, hesitating slightly, when his gaze had landed on Ron, but shaking his head, telling the Marauders and the other two present members of the Order to follow him. He had offered them to use his fireplace to floo back to the headquarters, since they could not apparate with their captives. James had seemed ready to decline, but Lupin had pointed out that this was their only option to return.
After a short walk, they had arrived at the Burrow. A couple of more people had been waiting outside. A plump woman, who had held a small red headed baby boy in her arms. It had been a younger version of Molly Weasley and the baby seemed to be Ron. Two other toddlers with red hair had been wildly running around her, chasing each other, one small boy hid behind his mother and yet two other boys, also with red hair, had been standing calmly next to their mother, staring expectantly at their visitors.
“Is that them?” she had asked, cradling the baby even closer, when she had seen the three strangers and the one stranger slung over Sirius’s shoulder.
“Yes, Molly,” Lupin had told her comfortingly. “Don’t worry, they won’t be able to harm anyone anymore. Arthur offered to use your fireplace to return to the headquarters.”
“Of course,” she had said, smiling gently, but her face had still been deprived of its natural colour. “You know the way, but excuse me, when I stay outside until you’re gone. But thank you.” She had glanced at her children and Lupin had understood.
“We have to thank you. You should know that we would never let anyone harm you, Arthur or any of your sons.” Lupin had stayed with Mrs. Weasley, while his comrades had led their captives inside and pulled them into the green flames of the floo network.
“Thank you, again.” Mr. Weasley had put a hand on the young man’s shoulder, when he had been the only one left, and had squeezed it gently. “You know that, if my situation were different, I would join you…”
Lupin had only smiled at him. “Don’t you worry. Dumbledore said it before and I say it again: Your family is more important than anything else. You would only be in more danger, if you were a member of the Order, and you have to think about Molly, Charlie, Bill, Fred, George, Percy and of course little Ron. They should be your first priority.”
“I know, but it’s just so hard doing nothing,” Mr. Weasley sighed.
“I know…” A short silence fell over the room, before Lupin eventually walked over to the fireplace himself. “See you later.”
“Do you have any idea how strange it is to suddenly see your whole family and yourself, only that you are a baby?” Ron asked Harry, still being somewhat excited about what had happened.
“Yes, I know,” Harry answered with a sad look upon his face.
“Oh sorry, Harry… I didn’t think…” Ron stammered quickly.
“A Weasley thinking? I’d never thought I’d see that happen.”
“Shut up, Malfoy!” Ron growled, but Harry put a comforting hand on his friends’ shoulder and smiled at him.
“Don’t worry, Ron. I don’t know, I feel kind of happy that I had the chance to meet them, even if I always dreamt that the situation would be different.” He let go of his friend’s shoulder and looked at the others. “So, what do you think? I’m getting kind of hungry and I also think that we should talk to Dumbledore as soon as possible. Maybe he knows a way to bring us back.”