Chapter 4
“Anything new or interesting?” Harry asked Hermione, during lunch, as he finished off his third helping of the soup Mrs. Weasley had made, following some French recipe Fleur had claimed only a real ‘Chef Française’ could make successfully. Fleur had pulled up her nose at Mrs. Weasley’s creation, but Harry thought it tasted great.
Before Hermione could reply, Ron cut in, sounding bored. “Let me guess, another disappearance?”
“No, I bet it’s another odd ‘accident’ that left Muggle authorities puzzled.” Ginny put forth, as she buttered up her bread roll.
Hermione huffed and put down the Prophet. “I don’t know why I’m even reading this anymore. It’s depressing.”
“If you’re not going to read anymore, do you what to join another two-a-side Quidditch game?” Ginny asked, eager to jump on the opportunity to distract Hermione before she could start a rant about the current grimness of the wizarding world. “Ron and I are ready for a rematch.”
“I don’t even know why you all want me to play. I’m dreadful, Harry would probably be better off going up against you and Ron on his own.” Hermione complained, pulling a face at the thought of having to fly again. She’d done little else the past few weeks, since Dumbledore delivered Harry at the Burrow. She was getting sick of being stuck with three Quidditch fanatics.
“It’s about fairness and balance,” Ginny started to say, but she was interrupted by clamouring in the hallway.
Ron frowned, looking from Harry to Hermione, to Ginny. “What’s with the racket?”
The other three shrugged their shoulders, equally confused. Mrs. Weasley had not mentioned that she was expecting any guests.
Soup forgotten, Harry stood and made his way in the direction of the noise. Based on the loudness of the unexpected visitors, it was either a large group of people or Fred and George.
“… so homey.” A young female voice was saying.
“It looks a bit crowded though,” Another young voice that sounded remarkably familiar spoke. “Are you sure we can all stay here until the end of the summer, Professor?”
“The Weasleys are an incredibly warm and welcoming family.” The voice of Professor Dumbledore replied as cheerily as ever. There was a low, treading sound that Harry had grown accustomed to relate to someone coming down the stairs. “Ah, Molly,” Dumbledore said. “My apologies for stepping by so unexpectedly-“
“Who is it, Harry?” Hermione asked, touching Harry’s shoulder and making Harry jump from where he’d been eavesdropping so intently.
Harry turned around to face her, and the two curious redheads still sitting at the table. “Dumbledore. He’s got some people with him.” He exchanged a glance with Hermione. “You think this has something to do with Malfoy?”
Hermione sighed a bit exasperatedly as she shook her head at Harry’s recent obsession with trying to figure out what Draco Malfoy had been up to in Knock-turn Alley a week prior. “I doubt that. Unless one of the people you heard, was Malfoy himself.”
“Well, no, but…”
It was at that moment that the door to the hallway suddenly opened, hitting Harry in the shoulder, making him stumble forward. “Oh, sorry,” apologized a voice that made Harry freeze.
Hermione let out a gasp beside him, and Ron and Ginny both stood up, eyes wide and disbelieving. Harry turned, half-expecting to see the face of the man he’d been dreaming about ever since that wretched night at the department of mysteries.
Instead, he was met with the face of a boy, not at all much older than he was. It was a boy with painfully familiar grey eyes though, and he had the aristocratic, somewhat haughty Black good looks, that Harry had only ever seen untouched by Azkaban, in pictures and someone else’s memory.
For a mere moment the world seemed to stand still, as Harry stared and the boy stared back, taking in Harry’s appearance with equal astonishment as if Harry was the one who was defying logic just by being there looking like he did.
Then the moment was broken as Mrs. Weasley let out a sound of pure distress. She bustled past the young Sirius-look alike, stepping in between Harry and what he was becoming more and more certain was the teenage-version of his godfather. “Oh, Harry, Hermione, I didn’t know you were down here, I thought you were in the garden!” Mrs. Weasley cried apologetically.
“Harry?” Another voice from behind Sirius said. “Padfoot, is Harry here?”
“Mrs. Weasley, what-?” Started Hermione.
“Padfoot-?” Harry echoed at the same time, putting a hesitant, wavering step forward.
They were both cut off as a second boy their age popped up from behind Sirius, squeezing past Mrs. Weasley to catch a look at Harry. Harry’s breath caught in his throat and he suddenly felt a bit dizzy. It was like looking into a mirror. Only… this mirror image wasn’t as unhealthily skinny and its eyes were a deep brown, instead of green.
Another stunned silence fell, as Harry’s double stared at Harry in what could only be described as awed amazement, while Harry stared back blankly, feeling like he must be either dreaming or losing his mind. The tense silence was broken when Ron walked forward until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Harry, wide brown eyes flitting between his best friend and his best friend’s doppelgänger. “Bloody hell, Harry,” he whispered, his words clearly audible in the deadly silent kitchen. “that bloke looks like you, mate.”
The lookalike of Sirius in his teens, let out a bark-like laugh at Ron stating the obvious, but nobody else even moved and he received an elbow-poke in the ribs from another teenage boy, a clear duplicate of Remus Lupin, behind him. The movement caught Harry’s eye and it was then, that he realized that there were another five people standing in the hallway, including the Lupin-duplicate, Dumbledore, a round boy with blond hair, a teenager that clearly resembled Snape and a girl with hair as red as Ginny’s and eyes as green as Harry's.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Harry mumbled, taking a step back, feeling very much overwhelmed.
“Oh Harry, I’m so sorry,” cried Mrs. Weasley, looking guilt-ridden. “Dumbledore didn’t want you to find out this way…”
“Find out what?” Harry demanded, staring at the group of too-familiar strangers in consternation. “What is going on? Who are they?”
It was then that Dumbledore decided to weigh in. The teenagers parted for him like the red sea for Moses as he made his way forward. “Why don’t we all sit down?” He proposed.
Sirius watched his best friend’s son sitting stiffly in his chair, on the other side of the table, the red-haired boy and the bushy-haired girl flanking him protectively. The boy was pointedly avoiding looking in the Marauder’s direction, much to Sirius’ disappointment, but beside him, James didn’t seem to mind. He was staring at Harry with a nearly lovesick look on his face, looking in between Lily and Harry every once in a while and just appearing to be over the moon to see a living result of his and Lily’s love sitting right in front of him, whether said living result was ignoring him or not.
Peter was gawking at Harry too, eyes often flicking from James to Harry and back, as if trying to find any minor differences between the two. Sirius couldn’t blame him, because surely two people should not look this much alike? Even if they were related? Hell, it was like looking at James after an eye-colour changing spell, for Merlin’s sake.
Lily was looking at Harry a lot too, but she at least had the decency to be a bit subtle about it. Remus and Snape… well to be honest everyone was staring at Harry, but c’mon, how could they not? Harry was James with Lily’s eyes, he was their future child , how could they not stare?
And it wasn’t like no one on the other side of the table was giving as good as they got in the staring department. The two Weasleys were staring unabashedly, mainly at Snape, Remus and Sirius himself, and Harry’s other friend couldn’t seem to look away from Lily and James and the way their hands lay entangled on the table.
Professor Dumbledore cleared his throat, making everyone’s attention snap over to him, for a moment. Those from the Marauder Era soon returned to staring though, taking in the other four teens’ reactions as Dumbledore patiently started to explain what they already knew.
It was interesting to see. The freckled boy that had been introduced as Ronald Weasley, Harry’s best mate, simply seemed gobsmacked at first, but then once the first surprise seemed to fade away he just seemed to roll with the punches. Overall, he appeared pretty stoked about this revelation. His sister, though, looked at the newcomers with a healthy dose of scepticism, as if suspecting that they were lying and they’d somehow tricked Dumbledore himself.
Hermione asked a lot of pointed questions about the time travel and what their appearance would mean for the timeline. Harry just… looked tired. Tired of insane things happening to him. Sirius couldn’t really blame him. Dumbledore had told them a lot about the crazy adventures he’d been on since arriving at Hogwarts, but somehow Sirius suspected that even Dumbledore didn't know about everything the boy had really been through.
“and that is why I asked Molly to take them in for what little remains of the summer.” Dumbledore ended his story softly. “so you could spend time to get to know these versions of your parents and godfather, Harry, before the schoolyear starts.”
A silence fell. Harry finally looked over at the teenage versions of his parents. Sirius could feel James vibrate in excitement beside him, at being acknowledged by his son, but then Harry’s green eyes flitted to look at Sirius instead. Unexpectedly, they filled with tears and suddenly Harry stood, his chair clattering backwards. “I can’t do this.”
“Harry!” Mrs. Weasley called out, even as Harry fled the room.
It didn’t take long for Hermione, Ginny and Ron to chase after him. Their disappearance left the kitchen in an awkward silence.
“Well.” Sirius said, attempting to break the ice. “That could’ve gone better.”
He earned a chastising swat from Remus for his trouble.