- Phase Four -

[August 11, 1999]

Potter's Mill

Ottery St. Mary, Devon

England

"Ugh. That was almost as bad as the first time I did that," Harry groaned, struggling to his feet. In doing so, he noticed that he was no longer in London, but rather laying on the grass of his front lawn in front of his home, Potter's Mill. Incidentally, he recognized it as the very same location where he'd first cast the Penteract spell.

Once on his feet, he pulled his Time-Magic compatible wand and cast a few temporal diagnostic spells. He was… well, good news, he was 'out' of the Penteract spell's influence. Bad news, the Penteract spell still had yet to be fully resolved. He would have expected his future self to have already taken care of… oh. Looking around, he realized that, given the date and time, there should have been a party going on all around him, or at the very least not too far away in the back yard. Instead, only silence.

Wait, where was Ginny?

"Ginny?!" he called out.

"I'm here," her voice called out behind him.

He spun around, and breathed a tremendous sigh of relief at seeing his wife standing there. They ran up to one another and embraced, just staying locked in one another's arms until they finally felt safe enough to let go. Then they started to kiss, and only stopped when they felt they were about to damn their inhibitions. When they finally separated, more or less, she still had both arms around his chest while he had one on her shoulders, they breathed another sigh and started to look about.

"So… what happened?" she asked her husband. "Did it work?"

"I'm… not sure," he answered honestly. "I, or rather we, fixed the timeline, and the Pentaract should have resolved in our favor but," he gestured at their surroundings, "Your birthday party is supposed to be going on right now. This is the same day and time that I've visited half a dozen times now. I don't understand what I did wrong. Are you… Are you the Ginny that went with me, or the one that went with my future self?"

"The one that went with you," she confirmed. "And… my birthday is tomorrow, Harry. Are you saying that it's… tomorrow?"

He blinked, and then stepped away so he could more accurately check the 'time'. The results were surprising, but somehow he was not surprised. He groaned, rubbing his face.

"What?" she asked, concerned, touching his arms. "What is it, Harry?"

"We have to do it from the other side now," he giggled, the kind of giggle one makes when stressed beyond their capacity.

"What?" she repeated herself, utterly confused.

"We have to close the Pentaract and heal the damage to time," he explained, running his fingers through his jet-black hair. "But to do that, what I was counting on my future self to do, we have to essentially… start the ball rolling so the Pentaract is created, and then resolved, so that the sequence of events remain intact. If it doesn't…" he gestured around at their quiet yard.

"How does me not having a big birthday party translate into almost breaking and then fixing all of space and time?" the redhead yelled at him, hands on her hips.

"How does me becoming a Time Mage mean that you have to be killed on your birthday?" he said back, almost whimpering.

"What?" she said again, stunned.

"That is what started all of this," he explained. "On your birthday, today, you were kidnapped by some masked figure, dragging you through a time portal. On the other side, I saw you killed, and eventually I managed to open up a portal that would take me back. We had your funeral less than a week later. I spent all of my time and energy researching a way of making sure that I could save you. I had time magic, I could change history. Me casting the Pentaract spell… it's what started all of this!" he cried out in despair, falling to the ground, head in his hands.

"If… oh god!" he wailed suddenly, tears streaming from his eyes. "I… I have to kill you! To preserve the timeline… to keep you from being that scared, hurt, hunted girl… I have to kill my wife?!"

She slapped him.

"Try again," she ordered.

"What?" now he was saying it.

"If that were really the case, we'd just be back at the party, or that shack I was just in, or even worse, time itself would start breaking down! Is that happening?" she pointed out.

"Well," he considered and rechecked using several different spells to confirm before answering, "No. But… the Pentaract still hasn't fully resolved. Not to mention, time has actually… stopped moving. I… didn't notice it before, but, we're currently in the exact same second of time from when I first checked things, from when we first arrived."

"But the wind is blowing, the trees and grass are moving, the sun is shining, and all of that," Ginny argued. "Time can't be frozen if all that is still going on, can it?"

Harry shook his head and got back to his feet, wiping his face absentmindedly as he did so. "Time isn't frozen," he stressed, "It's just stopped moving. Neither going forward, nor backward. It's like… holding your breath and keeping as still as possible, as opposed to being still because you're under a Petrificus Totalus or the like. Time is, essentially, holding its breath. I… don't understand how this is possible, or why this is happening!"

"Harry, calm down," she grabbed him by the neck and made him look into her eyes. "You'll figure it out. How many times have you been at a total loss, almost sure of failure, and then in the heat of the moment, you figure it out and then everything works out. Just stay calm, work the problem. Same as when it was just you and Ron and Hermione."

He nodded and took a breath to relax himself, closing his eyes.

His eyes snapped open.

"This… this is it," he said in awe. "This, this is the moment where the decision is made, and… until I, until we make the decision, one way or another, time won't move forward."

"Harry," she smiled at him, still holding him by the neck, "I'm glad you figured it out, whatever it is, but maybe you could explain it for me? Please?"

"Right, sorry," he grinned sheepishly, taking her hands in his while they were still around the back of his neck. Then he pulled away and they started walking toward their home. Or rather, towards Potters Mill.

"You remember the explanation about how the Pentaract works, right?" he confirmed.

She nodded, then shrugged. "Kind of. I recall the explanation, but I don't think I ever really understood it. Certainly not the way you understand it."

"That's fine, and I'll try and work on that, I promise," he said as they reached their front porch, and the large window there, letting them see into their living room. "I'll start with the basics, because you need to understand what is happening here, Ginny. Time is an Aspect of Existence. Please note the capital letters I used there. I'm still wrapping my head around it, in some ways, but Existence is… EVERYTHING!" He actually shouted and threw his hands out wide.

"There are elements, Aspects, which are required for Existence to remain stable," he went on, sitting her down on one end of the bench they had there beneath the window on their front porch, while he sat himself on the other end. "Existence could, for lack of a better term, exist without these Aspects, but it would be rather chaotic and dull at the same time. You've heard of somebody just 'existing'? Well, same sort of thing. The Aspects make Existence worth living, and also bring about stability so that it doesn't just implode or otherwise self-destruct. The most well-known and acknowledged Aspects are; Death, Life, Love, Magic, and Time. According to this book," he held out the object that had begun his journey into becoming a Time Mage, "Death was actually the first Aspect, and came into being at the same time Existence did. Time began only after Life started, and everything else to follow. Time, is not just the passing of moments, of a sequence of events that happen one after the next after the next and the next and so on into eternity. Time is the Aspect that holds it all together. The glue between the pages," he ran his finger along the spine of the book, "The gravity between objects. Time is alive and very much self-aware, but as with everything else in Existence, it is constantly changing, growing, learning, evolving some might say."

He paused to take a breath and to let the redhead across from him process it a bit.

"Everything has a beginning," he went on after a brief silence. "Even the Aspects, despite the incongruity and illogic of it, where they had to exist before they came into existence. In order for Life to begin and for living things to be born and grow, Time had to exist for time to pass, but Time didn't exist until after Life had already found its way. Likewise, how could Death exist before there was Life to die? It all mish-mashes its way through Existence. I know it's hard, but do you understand?"

"Not really," Ginny shook her head. "But, it sounds like you're talking about all of reality, Existence? Is just one giant paradox."

"That's a good way of putting it," he acknowledged. "Remember the Pentaract? Well, let me put it like this. Existence is pretty much infinite. So, as impossible as it is, try and imagine an infinite-sided version, where there are as many sides as there are seconds in eternity, or atoms throughout all of Existence."

She shook her head vehemently. "What does this have to do with why Time is, as you said, holding its breath? What did you figure out? I get it, the whole situation is a paradox of massive proportions. Moving on!"

Harry laughed and nodded his head.

"On my eighteenth birthday," he said, holding up the book, "I was sent this. I glanced at it; a book about Time Magic, and then I put it away as we had more important things going on, most immediately, our wedding, and then your birthday party. I was going to come back to it, study up on it, learn more if I could, but only casually, you understand? That was my plan, at least."

He sighed and leaned back on the bench, facing out toward their yard. "Then, like I told you, you were kidnapped from the party, killed in front of my eyes, and I spent all of my time learning and mastering Time Magic, to the point that I could cast a spell that would let me save you. Then, after I came back to the party, to save you, I met a future version of myself. He explained that your death was the only way that I would learn Time Magic fast enough. That I would be motivated, dedicated enough to learning as quickly as I possibly could. Then he said something to me."

"What? What did he say?" Ginny asked.

"That this was all set in motion by the 'eldest' me, the one that makes the decision to follow this path in becoming a Time Mage," Harry answered. "It has been simmering away in the back of my mind all this time now. A decision, one decision that I made, or will make, sets off a chain of events that goes as far back in time as it does in going forward. And," he looked around at the still and quiet world around them.

Though the wind was blowing, they both simultaneously realized, it was muted, though the trees were swaying and the grass waving, the sounds were somehow diminished from how it normally might have. Though they were a wizard and witch living off the beaten path, they weren't that far from muggle civilization. There was a highway not too far off, and at all times both day and night they could often hear the sounds of traffic. Not right now, though.

"And," he finished speaking, "this is that moment the decision gets made. And until it is made, one way or the other, Time won't know which way to go. If I save you, if I make it so you never get kidnapped and killed… then I don't push myself to become a Time Mage. But then, I wouldn't need to save you in the first place if that becomes the case. The problem is… I don't know why I would ever want to fake your death, if that is what this turns out to be. I don't understand why this all happened in the first place!"

Ginny nodded. She was, finally, starting to understand.

"So, how do we find out?"

"What?!"

She smiled and scooted closer. "How can we find out which decision is the right one? How can we find out why killing me, fake or not, is even an option in the first place? You made, what did you call it? A Time Clone, or something, right? Where you basically time-travel some future version of yourself to the present, but he's both real and not real because his timeline, or whatever, isn't ever going to happen? Can't we do that, only instead of bringing the clone to the present… send us to whatever future?"

Harry opened his mouth, and then left it hanging open as his eyes started racing all over the place as his brain overclocked itself.

Upon successful reboot, he snapped his jaw closed, wincing slightly at the brief pain, and finally answered the posed question. "Yes, we can do that actually. It won't even affect things negatively, and we can easily come back and do it either way. Although… past a year, it becomes exceedingly difficult to do so without resounding consequences. That exponentially increases with each passing year, so… I can give us until the next Christmas, to be sure about it. But if I do wait that long, even by only four months over, we can only make this choice once."

"So what you're saying," Ginny interpreted, "is that we have a year and a half to figure out what it is about our lives here that made me being murdered and you becoming a hermit the better option? And that if we come back and decide to go ahead and kill me anyway, we can't change our minds and go back to the first way?"

"Yes, essentially," he confirmed.

"And if we only live through the next year, down to the exact day, we could try out both choices as many times as we want?"

He just nodded his head.

"Then why not do both?" she scoffed. "Live out one year, doing one choice, come back and do the other for one year, and if we haven't made a decision by then, well, then we'll do the year and a half thing and make our final choice from that. Personally, I'm kind of inclined to believe that we'd choose to stay right where we are, but given that we've actually got a choice in the matter, best to make it when fully informed, right?"

"So," she got to her feet suddenly, "How does this work? I don't mean time magic, I mean this thing we're going to be doing? Living the next year and then coming back to this moment?"

"Well," he said, joining her, "From my perspective, it kind of plays out like a video game, only where I actually get to take part. Since I haven't warded you or performed the rituals for you that would allow you to retain multiple timelines…" he trailed off at her confused look, "... So you could keep your memories without getting confused. I'm not sure how it will be for you. You may just be yourself, but with a subconscious reminder that your next birthday is going to be a very important day. We may have to correct that if it turns out you can't remember future events without the protection."

"What might it mean if I could?" she wanted to know.

Shrugging, while hiding a smile, Harry replied, "Well, considering that you're a witch, it might mean that you have a talent for Time Magic, same as me. We won't know until after."

He raised his wand and began casting the spell.

[August 11, 2000]

Potter's Mill

Ottery St. Mary, Devon

England

So… now they knew.

"None of this happened in the other timeline?" Ginny asked, subdued as they witnessed the destruction of their home. It was burning, along with all of their possessions, having been the result of a dark magic attack by Fiendfyre. Harry's fellow Aurors were doing what they could to contain the blaze. The arsonist, Greg Goyle, had gotten himself drunk, reminiscing about his old friend, Vincent Crabbe, who'd gone and gotten himself killed by his own Fiendfyre two years past now.

"No," Harry shook his head, holding his distraught wife close, as much for health as comfort given she was dressed only in her nightgown and the sun hadn't even risen yet. "Apparently, according to his confession, he was only brave enough to do this because he knew I'd be busy elsewhere tonight, whereas in the… other timeline, I'd become a hermit, never leaving the house."

"Sir!" a junior Auror ran up to them. "It's confirmed, sir. Goyle didn't start here. He's been hitting houses all over the place. He, uh, he actually started with Auror Weasley's and Mrs. Granger-Weasley's home, before hitting the Burrow and a number of other enclaves in the area. I hate to pry you away, sir, but they need all hands on deck."

"Understood," Harry snapped. "I'll report in momentarily. That'll be all."

Gulping, the junior Auror scurried away.

Harry stopped time.

"We've actually got another few hours before we hit the limit of the spell, but I think we've already learned everything that we need to, don't you?" he commented to the woman in his arms.

"I'll say," the redhead grumbled, pulling out her wand and conjuring some warmer clothes directly onto her body. "Burning the house down is just the decorations on the cake. Ron cheating on Hermione with three different women! Neville being forced to quit the Auror force to become a full-time Lord, something that he hates! Seven stalkers trying to hex or otherwise curse me so they could try their hand at you! Luna disappearing, Hermione quitting her job because she was pregnant with child number one, Dad moving out of the Burrow because Mum is beside herself with no one else to take care of, and then there's all the crap with Rita Skeeter and the rest of the press!"

"And the fact that I won't know as much about Time Magic in this timeline, limits what I can do to either prevent or change any of that," he added.

"But… faking my death?!" she exclaimed, pacing back and forth. "There has to be some other motivation or trick that we could pull off to get you to learn almost as quickly?"

"Ginny…" He sighed, then had an idea. "OK, let's go back, and I'll show you what happened during that year after you died."

"How?" she questioned. "I'm dead, I can't live through it, like I did this past year."

"I never thought I'd get a chance to use this spell so soon," Harry said as he began casting with his metallic black wand. "It's called the Observer spell. Basically, it is like being an invisible ghost, able to see, hear, and observe everything, but not interact at all. So you can see just how much I actually dedicated to learning time magic after you died. And, something to keep in mind," he added as the portal opened before them, "I cast the Penteract spell the moment that I was sure I could cast it and succeed. If it had only taken me a month, a week, or even a day to be able to cast it, that is how long I would have waited and not an hour more. Ginny," he gave her a sorrowful look right before they crossed the threshold, "I waited ten years."

"Wait, what?!" she stopped him and pulled him back.

"I created a time loop," he hurriedly explained. "One of the early spells in the books. Took me a week and a half to be able to cast that much, and then I relived the same seven days over and over again… five hundred and twenty nine times. Once I was sure I knew enough, I ended the time loop, spent a day casting every ritual and ward and protection that I would need on myself, and then I cast the spell. You need to see me during that month, Ginny. Otherwise… you can't understand."

"... All right," she agreed, and then they both stepped through the portal.

[August 11, 1999]

Potter's Mill

Ottery St. Mary, Devon

England

"..." Ginny was at a loss for words.

They were back at the moment where Time held its breath, the Penteract on the cusp of resolving, one way or the other. They'd just gotten back from the 'year out' timeline where she dies and Harry comes 'back' after 'failing' to save her in using the Penteract. He quit his job with the Ministry, instead turning into some kind of silent investor, financially supporting a number of 'new' businesses opening up throughout the Wizarding World, and not just in Diagon Alley. When people tried to send him mail or comfort him, or stalk him, they found his home at Potter's Mill abandoned and slowly falling into disrepair, though he had not sold the property. If a face-to-face meeting was required, he met the party somewhere else, somewhere public, and nobody could seem to track him or find out where he slept or anything like that, though he was obviously still involved with the hidden world of wizards… it was not to the degree that he'd been had Ginny stayed alive.

As for all the other tragedies that had befell them and their friends in the other timeline, well… they seemed to either miraculously reverse themselves, get prevented due to unforeseen events, or still happen, just without the same impact that it might have, had Harry Potter's wife still been alive. Too concerned with his best friend's grief, not to mention his own of having lost another sibling, Ron couldn't be bothered to cheat on his wife. Needing further distraction from her own grief, the very pregnant Hermione dared not quit her job, in fact she was still hard at work and had to be dragged away from her desk and paperwork when she went into labour. Neville still left the Auror force, but because he'd quit to become a professional Herbalist. He was still acknowledged as Lord Longbottom, but refused to be cowed into the position after the loss of his date to the Yule Ball and a close friend at the same time. Luna did not 'disappear', so much as she seemed to be as difficult to pin down as Harry himself, in fact the two often 'appeared' at various appointments in the company of each other.

As for Ginny herself, well the Observer spell seemed to have limits and without knowing where they put the young woman after faking her death, there was no way to see what was going on in her life, and apparently the Time Mage didn't disapparate to her location, so much as he moved through space and time, which the Observer Spell could not track.

In seeing both consequences to the decision to be made here, she should have felt more certain than ever about which way to go. In the short term, it was obvious which way to go, to ensure the most people's happiness. And while they'd only seen the 'final iteration' of that week-long time loop Harry had put himself through that first month of the year, she'd seen enough to know that he essentially had dedicated ALL of his time to mastering time magic. He'd only eaten when his energy levels had failed, he'd only slept when he could no longer keep his eyes open, and he kept up his reading and his studying while doing anything else. For the equivalent of ten years.

There was no way that she could've gotten her Harry to focus that much on mastering the esoteric magic, even if she could retain her memories of the various timelines. Even if they didn't 'kill' her, but instead 'kidnapped' her or even kidnapped him to make him study and practice… he'd focus on finding her, or on escaping. They'd actually spent most of that 'year' Observing, talking out and brainstorming various other possibilities besides faking her death. It all came back to how long it would take him to learn everything that he needed to learn. Not even faking HIS death would work, as they found out the hard way when 'testing out' that particular timeline.

Apparently Ginny would be killed for real right about the time the Penteract spell would've been cast. By Goyle, with the Fiendfyre spell again. Malfoy would then emerge as the new Minister and secret Dark Lord before the year was out.

Hence why Harry couldn't 'disappear' entirely after the 'death' of his wife. His very presence deterred most all dark wizards and kept them in line and the Wizarding World's society mostly stable.

"So," she finally spoke.

"So," he repeated, nodding.

"Kind of obvious what we have to do then, huh?" she remarked.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Could still try and see what is two years out for when we don't kill you. And… time travel can be a versatile tool. Once I know enough, could come back and make everything better… maybe," he shrugged again.

"Except, in that timeline, by the point you'd know enough, it would be history set in stone, rather than a simple left or right choice that you can hop back a few minutes or a day to choose the other one," she argued back, actually using one of the same arguments he'd used against her when she'd first suggested something similar.

"We didn't even get to see what our personal lives are like," he tried again. "All we saw was what our friends and family deal with. And the rest of the world too, I guess. But my point is that we might end up fighting all the time, with you being in seclusion or whatever ends up going on. And… what about when we have kids? You know that you're going to want your Mum to be there for that!"

"..." Ginny silently acknowledged the point, then shook her head. "We… we will fake my death. And then, I don't know, maybe after a year, or more, we can silently approach my family. Mum and Dad at least. Let them know what we did. Set up some kind of, I don't know, Time Magic Fidelus Charm, so they won't be in danger and can visit."

"It would still just be the Fidelus Charm," he pointed out, before continuing. "And we talked that over. We'd have to make the Secret-Keeper either Hermione, or Luna, and Hermione would definitely tell Ron, who would then get her to tell everybody else."

"So we make Luna the Secret-Keeper," said Ginny.

"One word, preceded by 'the'," Harry said back. "The Quibbler."

She winced and acknowledged the point. An actual conspiracy? Involving a branch of magic nobody would admit existed? Not to mention the Man Who Vanquished, or whatever they were calling her husband these days? The quirky blonde wouldn't be able to help herself.

"We'll… talk about that later," Ginny finally decided. "So, how do we do this? I mean, the decision is made, right? We're going to fake my death and do all the time-travelling necessary for that, right? What's next?"

"Oh, I don't know, making actual plans for what to do after you're dead and buried?" Harry said. "We've got as much, pardon the expression, time as we need to hammer out all the details, instead of doing it on the fly here, Ginny. As far as the Penteract," he shrugged. "It should be resolved the moment I open a portal to the appropriate timeline. Once that is done, we just play our parts and then…" he sighed, "We move on from there."

"Oh yeah," she sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry, it's just this place is starting to creep me out just a little bit. Especially since it is getting, y'know, darker."

Harry grimaced. "OK, so I might have exaggerated when I said that we have a lot of time. I mean, how long can anyone hold their breath for, let alone an Aspect, right? Ha ha ha."

"Are we," she gulped, looking up at the twilight sky, "in any danger?"

"How about we deal with the situation and make the big decisions now, worrying about the small stuff later? The moment I take us back to actually set everything up and start the sequence of events, everything will be fine and the Penteract will resolve, no problem," he assured her. "For now, where do you want to live? Because, Ginny, after this, we can't live anywhere in England, Scotland, and probably not even Ireland. I'm hesitant about France, but it is a pretty damn big country, so avoiding those that know us shouldn't be that difficult. Of course, that would be true of just about anywhere in Europe, so…"

"Harry," she interrupted him. "We're moving to America."

"Uhh, OK?" he was confused by the rapid decision. "Mind if I ask why?"

"Probably because it is the only other country, with magic, where the primary language is English," she pointed out. "Australia's nice and all, but we both know that it is primarily a Magical Creature Preserve, and in order to live there, we'd both have to be experts in taking care of at least one breed, or more, of magical creature."

"Ah, yeah, there is that," he shrugged. "Hadn't really thought the language barrier as an issue really, since it would take almost no time at all, so to speak, to learn a new one. OK, so where in America? And… are we serious about letting people know after-the-fact?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Somewhere in the middle, I guess. Let's just start with New York and decide after we get there. As far as letting people know… unless there is some kind of limitation, or plan that you have in mind, can't we decide that later?"

"Er, yes, but that all depends on your method of dying," Harry said reluctantly, rubbing the back of his neck, and not quite meeting her gaze for the moment.

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked, confused.

"Well, there is Avada Kervada dead, and there's broken neck or stabbed dead," he pointed out. "If we tell people you died from the first, they'll think I somehow transferred my immunity to the Unforgivables to you and that would lead to… problems. If it is physical trauma, then we can just say I'm a necromancer or something instead of a Time Mage. Either way, we have to provide a legitimate excuse for them to acknowledge that you aren't actually dead. Um, and that I didn't just make a copy of you, or something else crazy like that."

"Then yes, we're going to tell them at some point, just… not within the first year or so, all right? Give us time to settle into our new life. Speaking of, what am I going to do for work?" she asked.

"Well I'm not about to say that you can't or shouldn't," he remarked. "But even if we change your appearance, it would be too dangerous for you to try and get on the Holyhead Harpies again, or try and do anything on the Professional Quidditch Circuit for that matter. If you want to work as a muggle, there will be hundreds of opportunities to be on the lookout for. If you want to work as a witch…" he hissed, clenching his teeth slightly. "I'll need to set up some kind of fake identity, probably something through the American schools or maybe even let you relive a whole other life there and something. That can be one of the minor details, for now."

"Great," Ginny nodded. "As long as it isn't working for the ministry or government like Dad, or staying at home like Mom, I'll love it. Maybe I'll join up with the local Aurors or something when we get to wherever we're going."

"Sure, if you don't mind me tagging along or time travelling so I'm always in the area whenever you're on patrol," he semi-joked back.

"Ugh, you're too overprotective," she scoffed, but smiled.

"Should we discuss funeral arrangements?" he brought up the next topic.

Several subjective "hours" later, with the sky remaining the brighter side of twilight, they'd hammered out the final details of everything they'd want or need to do after Ginny was "dead". Now it was time to discuss how they were killing her in the first place.

"Shouldn't you be telling me, how I'm going to be killed?" Ginny pointed out.

"It wouldn't make a difference," he shrugged at her. "Whatever we decide is what I'll remember. If I don't say anything. And if I try and lie to you or spare your feelings, or even describe everything in detail, whatever our final decision is, will be what I remember. This isn't a loop, or a paradox, Ginny. It's literally history being made. Now. How do you want to die? I would not recommend the Avada Kedavra. For one thing, it hurts! And for another… see previous statements about how you haven't undergone the rituals that I have that would guarantee your safety."

"What is the least painful way to die?" she asked.

"Um… in your sleep, of old age, while surrounded by great-great-grandchildren and all their numerous parents?" he shrugged.

"Funny," she rolled her eyes at him.

"While having sex?"

She didn't bother dignifying that with a response.

"OK, I give up!" Harry held up his hands in surrender.

"I'm being serious!" she shouted at him. "Even if it won't be happening to me-me, it'll still be happening to me, so whatever it is, I don't want it to hurt!"

"And whatever I tell you that is least painful, you'll pick, which comes right back around to me changing my own memories," he pointed out.

"Are you being this difficult on purpose?!"

"I'm not being difficult," he argued back. "I'm being cautious. And I really don't want it hanging over our heads that I think about ways of killing you."

She opened her mouth to continue arguing, but what he'd said struck a chord in her, and her jaw snapped shut before any words could form. She really didn't know what to say to all that. Besides, he was right. Knowing that neither of them would do it, nor even try it, was secondary to knowing that they were thinking about killing one another.

"Y'know what, let's think about this another way," she declared. "How can we prank the younger you? What… pranks or other stuff that my brothers sell at their joke shop could we use to make the younger you think that I've been killed, and then just switch out 'me' for whatever faked time-clone-corpse we'll be replacing me with?"

Harry opened his mouth to protest that he wouldn't be fooled that easily, when suddenly his own jaw snapped shut as his eyes widened in realization. Then he blushed, embarrassed enough to rival her natural hair color as he admitted, "I saw your throat get cut open. And… Ron had mentioned a bunch of new merchandise that they were getting at the shop when we spoke at the party. We can just make the purchase after the funeral and then come back with whatever is needed. Probably hit up a couple of costume shops and the like over in London while we're at it, further confuse the issue."

"All right," she nodded. "So, that's that out of the way. Now, what all do we have to do to pull it off? Plan on hitting your younger self with a Confundus charm while we're at it, just to be sure."

"Panic and horror will definitely keep him from noticing it right away," he agreed, nodding.

"As for everything we have to do," he said, running his fingers through his hair as the scope of it briefly overwhelmed him, "well, it is a lot. And, try not to laugh, but I've had some time to think it through, and I believe I have figured out what most of it is. It is just going to depend on our, uh, heh, timing…"

Rolling her eyes at her husband of (depending upon your point of view), one year, or maybe almost five, given how many times they'd lived through alternate timelines by this point. She told him plainly, "Just lay it out like a Quidditch strategy. I'll worry about figuring out whatever strange Time Magic terms you use. You just worry about telling me the right things to do or say or whatever. Like when we were fixing the Penta-thingie."

"Pentaract," he automatically corrected.

"Whatever!" she snapped. "Just lay it out already!"

And so he did. The entire sequence of events as he experienced them, one after the next. He also outlined what he had deduced as to what needed to happen, on their end, to make it all happen.

"All right," she nodded her head. "Let me just, go through this, make sure that I've got it, all right?" He nodded in reply. "For… whatever reason, however many timelines ago it was, I was late to my own birthday party, so this all started as a way to get me to the party earlier, so I could enjoy it. Regardless, while the 'me' from after the party is enjoying said party, the me coming home from work drives up to see the party in full swing and joins it, acting all surprised and everything, while the me that had been at the party slips away. When that happens, we'll open up a time portal and I'll jump through and grab the other me, dragging her away, because we already know that you won't be able to do it. We'll get tackled by the younger you, while the 'youngest' you at the Party goes through a completely different portal that you'll have already set up. Then we go about convincing the younger me about the situation, while the younger you tries and rescues her. Then you'll portal me and my time clone to wherever the 'youngest' you is and I'll slit her throat with the prank knife and then get out of there. After that, I'll join up with you in the basement of our house to sit through that explanation on the Penteract all over again, and then… that's it? Everything is fixed? We go home, or move on or whatever?"

"That is the basic outline of events, yes," Harry confirmed.

"... My head hurts, is that normal?" Ginny asked, rubbing her temples.

"Like a hangover, or just stress?" he asked.

"Well, the lights aren't bright enough to hurt my eyes, and the sounds are already muted, but yeah, kind of like a hangover," she answered.

"Then yeah, it's normal," he shrugged. "It's why most people profess that they need to be drunk to discuss time travel in the practical. Because then they can't tell the difference between the hangover and the headache they get from talking about time travel."

"Anyway I can get pissed before we do this, then?" she whined, rubbing the bridge of her nose and forehead now.

"Well, we probably should find a place to live and set everything up in America before we have to actually fake your death and go into hiding and all that," said Harry. "Don't see why we can't do all that and have a few drinks along the way before coming back…"

"What about Time holding its breath and all that?" she pointed out.

"Decision's made," Harry shook his head. "We're never coming back to this 'moment' after we leave it, and we've only stayed this long to map out our plans. After we get everything set up, we'll just go ahead and enact the plan to 'prank' the younger me. And then after that, well," Harry shrugged, and drew her into his embrace, "Well, then we live our lives. A Time Mage and his wife."

"Yeah," she said, poking him in the chest. "Don't think for even a second, Mister, that I'm not getting you to teach me everything you can about time magic. I'm not about to let you go gallivanting throughout all of History without me along for the ride!"

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Harry smiled and kissed her head.

"Are we doing this, or what?" Ginny finally asked after they'd been standing there, hugging, for nearly a minute.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Let's do this."

And just like that, they were gone and the Moment had passed. Finally.

- END Phase Four -