Harry Potter and the Gang of Giggling Girls.

by Glee-chan

Disclaimer: This is a fan fiction, and as such is not authorized, prepared, licensed, or endorsed by J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Inc., or any other individual or entity associated with the Harry Potter book series. All Harry Potter names, characters, creatures, items, locations, and related indicia are the property of J.K. Rowling. The events in this story take place in a Book 5 alternate timeline.

Chapter One:

The rain poured steadily down like a curtain of water around the normally busy London night street. The lights of the shops reflected off the multiple droplets causing a dazzling display of sparkling imagery. But Harry Potter was not interested in the simplistic beauty of the down pour, nor the relaxing sounds it made as water splashing onto the pavement. Instead he was more interested in the criminal fleeing before him, running as fast as he could under a rain soaked crimson robe.

Much like the man ahead of him, Harry was also dressed in robes, although his were a charcoal black color. The man running in front of him was younger but was barely keeping ahead of the older wizard. Harry was forty-seven, but was in incredible shape. His normally messy black hair sloshed back and forth in the wet environment, making it seem longer than it really was. He looked a man who lived his job, (an Auror - or a Magical Law Enforcer) a man who was rough around the edges with dark stubble on his face.

The few Muggles on the street jumped bristly out of the paths of the two running Wizards, taking a moment to marvel at the oddly dressed men running in such bad weather. Harry held his wand under handed so that the long stick stayed close to his arm, partly concealed. He noticed the runner was not taking this precaution. His wand was in plain view and at any moment Harry was sure the desperate man would cast a jinx in sight of the Muggle onlookers. When the man ducked into an alleyway, Harry felt a brief sense of relief, knowing that any magic work that would be acted upon out of sight. He also expected a curse to be shot at him as he rounded the corner.

"Stupefy!" The man casted the stunning spell towards Harry just as he expected.

Harry ducked under the beam of light and shot his spell backhanded. "Levicorpus!"

Instantly the criminal fell to the ground then as if an invisible wire was attached to his ankle, he was sent dangling in the air in front of Harry. Bewildered he had little defense for Harry's disarming spell, which caused him to drop his wand. Harry raised his wand hand and motioned silently a series of movements. This sent the upside down man's wand souring from the ground into Harry's out stretched hand.

"Now then, Mr. Weatherby" Harry spoke with a slight graveled voice, earned from years of shouting down perpetrators. "It's time to answer those questions you ran away from."

"I won't talk!" Weatherby spoke with an unconvincing defiance.

"Yes you will." Harry waved the comment aside. "All you had to do was answer my questions the first time. But because you ran, and into Muggle London at that, I'll have to take you in." He left that sink in before he went on. "However… depending on what you tell me now could determine on how strict your punishment will be."

"Oh some comfort that idea is." Weatherby put on a false sense of bravery. "Besides, even if I tell you Potter there is nothing you can do now."

Harry leaned his face closer to the dangling upside down face of Weatherby. "Enlighten me. Where is Johan Veltman?"

"I- I won't say!"

"If I can't do anything about it, what's the harm in telling me."

Weatherby shook his head.

"Confringo!"

The dangling robes of Weatherby exploded in flames. The upside down man quickly rushed to take off the flaming garments, letting them fall into the rain soaked ground with a hiss. Now, hanging in just his underwear he looked embarrassed and panicked at the same time. "Are you mad!?"

Harry's friendly personality he had up until that point disappeared. He took off his glasses and glared menacing at the frightened man. "Tell me where Veltman is... now!"

Weatherby looked frightened out of his mind, yet still managed to utter a shaky swear word. Harry pointed his wand toward the nearby brick wall of one of the buildings in the alleyway. Weatherby had little choice but to be flung into the wall. He protected his face with his arms, although there wasn't much protection he could have done. When Harry caused him to float in front of him again, Weatherby was no longer in a defiant mood.

"Okay! Okay, damn you! I'll tell you what I know, stop it!"

Harry lowered his wand, and Weatherby fell to the ground on top of his smoking robes. "Talk fast."

"I don't know where he is, that is the truth, but I know who kidnapped him and why." Weatherby scrambled to place on his robe, which was burnt with holes. "Veltman was taken because of his work with the restoration of the Time-Turners."

Harry narrowed his eyes, remembering briefly that it was partly due to him while he was in school that there were no more Time-Turners. He vaguely recalled that the Ministry of Magic had set a task in trying to recreate the precise devices, but from what he heard there hadn't been any break-throughs.

"Someone wants to travel illegally through time." Harry concluded. "Who?"

Weatherby smirked. "Alecto Carrow"

Harry lowered his wand. Alecto Carrow was a dumpy woman that was sent to Azkaban after the Battle of Hogwarts twenty-eight years ago. She was a former Death Eater. There would be only one reason as to what a Death Eater would need for a Time-Traveling devise. "She's trying to bring back Voldemort."

Weatherby laughed slightly, although the effect was not very menacing as he was still cowering naked in the rain. "That's right, Potter. So you see, even though you know everything I do, it'll do you no good when the real criminal is going to rewrite history!"

Harry snatched Weatherly aggressively and pulled him to his feet. He'd have to figure out a way to stop Carrow. But there was no way of knowing what Carrow was planning to do in the past, let alone what time period she was going. And if Carrow did successfully go, Harry wouldn't know, he'd probably just be erased form existence without anyone remembering he ever lived. Some of his enemies might not mind but, if Harry disappeared then that meant that Lord Voldemort would live.

After dropping Weatherby off at the Auror's Department, Harry returned to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, a flat that he now was living out, though not by choice. The place was gloomy as ever, as Harry hadn't done much to the place when he moved in. But it was starting to liven up ever since his daughter decided to stay with him. She had always been "Daddy's Little Girl" and this position did not change, despite the fact she was 22. When she heard him arrive, she came to the door to greet him.

"Dad! You're soaking wet!"

"I know, Lily." Harry smiled at her fondly. If only she didn't look so much like her mother. "I'm surprised you're still awake."

Lily pushed her glasses up the top of her head and showed him a book she were reading. "The Hornsacks Cave, and Where to Find It. It's Aunt Luna's book." Luna Scamander was not her real Aunt, but all his kids called her 'aunt' just the same. "It's completely ridiculous of course, but it's so funny I can't put it down."

"I keep forgetting to read that…" Harry muttered and started to walk in further.

"Oh no you don't. Stay right there, I'll get a towel and some fresh robes. I just mopped up, I don't want mud everywhere."

"Yes Mum." Harry teased her. She stuck her tongue out at him. "If you have to time, use the Flu Network to contact Hermione for me. I need to talk to her as soon as possible."

"Yeah, yeah… one thing at a time." Lily waved him off and walked away from the hallway.

There was considerable silence for a while as Harry thought about the problem at hand. Even though he was frozen all over, his body was not cold from the rain-heavy cloak he wore. A time-traveling Death Eater was no joke. Those days of the war were long gone, but in an instant they could be back. The only reassuring fact he had was that he hadn't vanished yet, which meant Carrow hadn't travelled through time.

"Mum's worried about you…" Lily voice came from the upstairs hallway, interrupting his thoughts. "She doesn't like that you've holed yourself up in here."

"Where else am I supposed to go? She already took the house in Gobric's Hollow." Harry murmured bitterly, then shook his head. He didn't want his daughter to get in the middle of his and Ginny's divorce. It wasn't her problem.

"I don't know Dad." Lily's voice sounded sad, then added tenatively. "She let that Lynch guy move in."

Harry tried to repress the anger he felt on hearing that. Being a pretty good detective, he already knew this, but hearing it from his own daughter made it seem more real. Ginny had already moved on. "Well… if it makes her happy…"

Lily returned with a mountain of robes and towels in her hands. He watched her feet as she stepped down the stairs, willing his daughter not to topple over. Naturally she was obviously to his protective gaze. "Albus says that it's just a phase, that she'll snap out of it and see she made a big mistake, but you know how thick Al can be. She's had been cheating on you for 4 years before the divorce."

Harry didn't want to be reminded of this. Since he was an excellent Auror and a natural detective, he suspected early on, and found out about the relationship between Ginny and Hayden Lynch almost immediately. They were on the same Quidditch team together, always traveling. When she was home, Harry would be on a case, and the constant separation caused a huge strain in their relationship. He had pretended he was oblivious to the romantic rendezvous for 4 years, mainly for the kids, but partly because he blamed himself. Had he been around more perhaps things would have been different.

"She's going to stick with Lynch for a while." Harry announced more to himself than to Lily.

"But to let him move in?!" Lily grumbled and handed her father a towel. "How low is that?"

"Now, I don't want you to think ill of you Mother." Harry dried off his hair. He may have said that, but he was glad Lily championed him. James seemed to like Lynch enough to accept the situation and Albus was indecisive as always. But Lily was always his little angel.

"You're too forgiving." Lily sighed, then placed the dry robe on the cloak stand. "I'll call Aunt Hermione while you change."

Harry watched her leave, feeling a thick pit in his throat. She looked so much like her mother. Slapping his cheeks, he decided to forget about his home issues and concentrate on the problem at hand. As he dried off, changing out of his soaking robes, Harry knew that time-travel was well out of his comfort zone of magic. But Hermione had always been the clever one of the bunch, even if she always seemed distracted by Ron. If anyone could help him sort out this Carrow mess, it would be her.

When he finished, he followed his daughter's lead and hung his wet clothes on the cloak hanger to let them dry off a bit before putting them in the laundry. Then he made his way into the Living room where Lily was on all fours looking into the fire place. Sure enough, Hermione's head was poking out of the flames, both of them carrying on a conversation. He joined his daughter on the floor, grunted a bit as his knees popped slightly. He allowed them to finish their small talk before he got done to business.

"Tell Uncle Ronny I told him to lay off the bacon." Lily giggled.

"You know him, won't listen to a word anyone says." Hermione smiled.

Lily patted her father lightly on the shoulder and took her cue to leave the room. Harry watched her go fondly, before returning his gaze to Hermione. She looked slightly dark around the eyes, and Harry could tell that she wasn't sleeping well.

"Problems?"

"Oh, just Ron again." Hermione frowned. "We had another fight."

Harry loved both Hermione and Ron with all of his heart, but even when they were kids he knew they weren't right for each other. "Sorry about that. I'd offer for you to come visit, but I'm back in Grimmauld Place."

"Yeah I heard about Ginny." Hermione rolled her eyes. "I still can't believe it."

"Anyway…" Harry pushed on, telling her of the night's events with Mr. Weatherby. As he talked Hermione got that old curious expression on her face when coming on to a new project. As he finished he let her think about the situation before he pressed her.

"Well we certainly have more than one problem, don't we." Hermione murmured. "Despite the fact that we don't have a Time-Turner, there are far too many issues here. Time could have changed and we wouldn't have known it."
"Hermione, there is only one thing a Death-Eater with a Time-turner would do." Harry reminded her. "I'd be dead if time was changed."

"You're right. But just because some criminal says Carrow wants to time travel doesn't mean it's going to happen. We're talking ancient magic here. You don't think-" Hermione thought, but Harry interrupted her.

"My Department has been looking for her a good while, Hermione. She wants to stay hidden. If she figures out how to travel through time there is no way to stop her. Are you sure the Ministry isn't hoarding some Time-Turner they don't want the Auror department to know about?"

"I'm positive. But that's not the real problem. We have no idea when she is traveling back, what time period, nothing. So even if we had A Time-turner, we couldn't follow her. Not only that, but she's sure to change time, so by the time she does do this we would have never known anything was different."

"It's more than likely she's planning on helping Lord Voldemort win the war. We'll be dead. Think about Voldemort knowing future knowledge on how we defeated him the first time. Every wizard now knows the story. All Carrow has to do is tell him and he can just wait for our past selves to show up at a Horcrux and massacre us."

"Harry…." Hermione looked even more worried than before. "I don't think we can stop Carrow unless it's now."

Harry sighed. He had hoped Hermione had some brilliant solution, as she always had. As she got older, she reminded him of how Albus Dumbledore seemed to know everything. But even the clever brain of Hermione couldn't conjure up a way to travel through time. He heard footsteps behind him, and knew Lily was returning. He was pretty sure she was eavesdropping, as usual. Though this was a conversation he'd rather her not hear. If he, Ron and Hermione were dead, she too wouldn't exist.

"Dad…"

Hermione looked up at Lily kindly. "Oh Lily. You shouldn't be spying on other peoples conversations."

"I know but…" Lily sounded scared. "Does this mean Voldemort will be back?"

"Don't worry about it." Harry reassured her. "We'll catch Carrow before that happens. You won't be erased from existence I pro-"

"I'm not worried about myself…" Lily interrupted him. "…I'm worried about Voldemort. I've read what he was like… you told me the things he did. If he kills you then… well can anyone else stop him?"

"Well, no." Hermione said frankly. "It's not how it is today, Lily. Only your Uncle, myself, and your Father knew about the Horcruxes. We were under strict orders not to tell anyone else about them. Dumbledore felt the less that knew the better."

"Then the world is doomed if you die." Lily looked at them sternly. "Because some nutter old man was so paranoid he didn't leave any back up plan to the Order of the Phoenix."

"When she phrases it that way…" Harry smirked at her.

"All that is fine in hindsight," Hermione shook her head. "but it was the right course of action for the time. No one knew who to trust back then. During the First Wizardry War, the whole thing nearly got blown because of a traitor, Pettigrew. Sure, it seems silly to think that Dumbledore couldn't trust someone else with the secret, and back then there was no way to look back and-"

But Hermione stopped. Harry had seen that expression on her face before. It was the start of a new idea. Usually a brilliant one. Lily seemed to notice this too as she perched closer to the fire. Finally Harry had to pry it out of her.

"What is it Hermione?"

"We can't travel back in time… but perhaps we could send a message." Hermione spoke slightly slow, as if speaking was slowing down her brain as it was beginning to process big chunks of information.

"And tell someone what? All we know is Carrow is going back in time."

Lily poked her dad. "What if you knew where all the Horcruxes were before hand?"

"That still doesn't fix the part of not know what time period Carrow is traveling back too." Harry told her, but was never the less proud of her helping with Hermione's brainstorm.

Hermione smiled, as if she had come up with the correct answer in Transfiguration class, but then she quickly dropped it. "Oh no… maybe not."

"What?" Both Potters pressed.

"The only way to be sure to send a message to the correct time is to implant that message in someone's memories as the time changes."

"Come again?" Harry asked.

"See, we'd have to let time change. The memory implant would shoot all the back to our past selves on the exact time Carrow travels. The problem is… well how fast will Carrow be able to find Voldemort before our past selves figure out what the hell the message means. Plus, there is no guarantee that this timeline will be the same. Sure, we might be able to figure out the message and stop Voldemort again, but we might also do something back in the past that changes the future too."

"But Hermione, the future will have been different anyway once Carrow goes back." Lily rolled her eyes.

"Dear… you're not understanding. Say we succeed. Yes this timeline might return, but the chances of it being different will be huge. Events won't take place as it did before. What if Ron dies? Or say Harry doesn't marry your mother for some reason or another. Plus there is no way of knowing our teenaged selves would possible understand these memories popping in their head. This is why time travel is usually forbidden in the Magic world."

There was a long silence. But it was Lily again who broke it. "Even with all the risks, and time not coming back to how it is now, it's still better than Lord Voldemort being in power."

Harry sighed. "She's right… But so is Hermione. If the magic is even possible of such a thing, there is no way we could give a detailed amount of instruction to our past selves in any message we send. It would just be gibberish. And since we don't even know the time, I'm not sure what kind of message to send back in the first place."

Lily threw her hands up in the air. "Why not just send all of your current memories back in time then. That way you don't need a message, you have everything already there." The idea was thrown out in frustration, whether it intentional or not, it was brilliant.

"A complete memory transfer?" Harry asked, then turned to Hermione, wondering if this was at all possible.

"If one of us has our full memories, it wouldn't matter how old we are." Hermione thought aloud. "We could try to minimize the damage to the time stream too."

"Okay… that's the plan then." Harry said. "We just have to figure out how to do it."

Hermione looked sheepish. "I wouldn't have brought up sending a message through memory if I didn't know it could be done. That's we can do. The tricky part is the trigger. I can send a message at any time, but having them sent back automatically when time-changes… I'm not sure about that."

Lily bit her bottom lip. "I'll help you research if you want Aunt Hermione."

"Thank you sweetie." Hermione smiled but still looked grave. "Harry… we better start right now. If you have no idea where Carrow is, then there is no telling how much time we have."

"Right. I'll come too."

"And Harry… you should… say goodbye to everyone." Hermione looked white. "Even with full memories, things aren't going to work out like they did before." With that, she looked at Lily.

Harry felt a stab in his heart. There was a good chance his kids would vanish. He'd have to retrace all the mistakes he made with Ginny in order for his children to even be born, all the while with the constant knowledge of knowing his wife's true nature. Even if he did act the part, would Ginny be able to sense his distain?

Lily was looking down at her knees. "Daddy." She only called him that when she was being her most serious. "I know that … that maybe I might not be born. It scares me. But Dad, Lord Voldemort scares me too. If I were alive and he was still around, that would be awful. For the greater good…"

The greater good. The worst thing Harry had ever heard from Albus Dumbledore. "Lily-"

"No Daddy… I'm serious. You can stop Voldemort before he kills anyone with your future knowledge. If that means I don't exist anymore, I'd gladly give my life for that."

Harry hugged his daughter. His little girl. She didn't seem like a 22 year old woman to him. She felt very much like the 11 year old excited about going to Hogwarts for the first time. He only let her go when she pulled way. She had tears in her eyes, but a determined resolve.

"Right." Hermione sniffed, clearly touched. "We should start our research right away. I'll need you both if I'm to find the right books and spells."

Harry nodded. "I'm going to write a few letters… then join you. I shouldn't just leave without saying something to…"

"Yeah." Hermione nodded solemnly. "Be quick though."

"Personally I kind of want to get this over with." Lily said with a smile. "Once time erases no one will remember any of this anyway so I'm going to start looking now."

She was being brave. She was her father's daughter after all. Harry allowed Lily to enter the Floo network and disappear to where-ever Hermione was working at.

As soon as both of them vanished Harry scratched out a long note, then used a charm to duplicated them. He only wrote to his two sons and his ex-wife. He didn't think the whole world needed to know what he was up too. He didn't go into detail about what was going on, but addressed it as if he was going on a dangerous mission that might be fatal. Then folding them into separate envelops, Harry give his owl, Sirius, the difficult task of sending the letters, especially in this rain.

Taking one last look around in his house he felt a heavy burden on his heart. Could he survive without his children. Even if everything worked perfectly, and his kids were born, he'd had to wait years for his relationships with them came to where they were now. His existence would be hell with the foreknowledge of Ginny's indiscretions. Could he live with such a thing? Could the kid he was be able to live with the knowledge of a middle aged man floating in his head. Could he even grasp the concepts of the love of family that the older self felt. He didn't know. But Lily was right. Once again Voldemort was about to shape his life. Once again he would destroy his family and once again Harry would have to defeat him.