I Have Crossed Oceans Of Time To Find You

Seventeen Years Later:

"He'll be alright," murmured Ginny.

As Harry looked at her, he lowered his hand absent-mindedly and touched the lightning scar on his forehead.

"I know he will."

The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well.

Or so he thought.

Harry's breath hissed in pain as that familiar searing feeling flashed through the innocuous red line on his skin. His heart racing, he turned to gaze wildly around, fear rising in his heart.

It wasn't possible.

"Harry? What is it?" Ginny asked, alarmed. Ron turned from watching the Hogwarts Express depart, his eyes wide. Ron had married Lavender Brown, having two children with her before they divorced, Fred and Molly. Both had Ron's distinctive fiery hair.

As his eyes settled on his best friend, Harry's mind flew back nineteen years to when he had last seen his other best friend. Hermione.

Why was his scar hurting him? Why?

He spun around again, this time bumping into two other people. "Oof-!"

"Oh Merlin, I am so sorry," Harry immediately apologised to the youngsters, a woman and a man, both with black hair and pale skin. He met the eyes of the woman's, whose own flicked up to his scar, before they widened in surprise.

They were chocolate brown. An achingly familiar shade of chocolate brown. Her long hair hung about her in untamed waves, and Harry recognised the robes of a second Auror trainee.

"You're Harry Potter!" she exclaimed, as the man beside her rolled his eyes.

"The scar makes it rather obvious, Belinda," he scoffed arrogantly, raising green eyes to Harry's own, making him shiver. His manner, the way his hair fell in soft waves against his pale skin, and the cool intelligence in his eyes made Harry's heart sink even as his brow furrowed in confusion.

His scar pained him for the first time in nineteen years, and now here were two people who reminded him of his former enemy and estranged best friend.

"Are you ok?" Ginny asked him concernedly, even as she paled when she looked at the young man.

The boy was a carbon copy of Tom Riddle at eighteen, clothed in the robes of a trainee Healer. They were obviously siblings.

"Mum told me all about you," Belinda continued excitedly.

"Your mother?" Harry repeated. "What are your names?"

"I am Belinda Raven, and this is my brother, Thomas," she replied, even as her brother nudged her in the side. "We were just seeing our little brother Harry off on his first year at Hogwarts."

Ron eyed the two in shock. His eyes met Harry's, and they both nodded. Both realised exactly who the siblings reminded them of. Ginny still was as pale as snow beneath her red hair.

"Belinda! Tom! We're leaving!" a familiar voice called to the pair. Thomas coolly inclined his head and moved away, his robes swirling majestically around him. Belinda hesitated, smiled charmingly at Harry.

"Well, it was nice meeting you Mr Potter, Mrs Potter, Mr Weasley," she murmured politely, before hurrying to join her brother. The steam lingering from the departure of the Hogwarts Express cleared enough for the trio to see the siblings join another pair, and Harry shivered as his scar twinged again, though less painfully than the first time.

"Well, that was weird," Ron muttered, already turning away nonchalantly. "You alright, Ginny?"

"Yes, fine," the younger Weasley breathed. "Fine."

The other two moved away, towards the exit but Harry lingered, unconsciously expectant.

He squinted, as the fog cleared, enough for him to see a sight to make his blood run cold.

Next to the clone of Tom Riddle and the achingly similar-to-Hermione woman, stood two people. One was tall, pale, dark-haired but with grey at his temples, his dark robes swirling around him, an older version of his son. The other was a graceful, slender woman with long, bushy hair and warm eyes, the same as her daughter's, her red cloak flowing behind her.

Hermione.

She was older sure, but she was still recognisable as the girl who had always stuck by Harry's side through thick and thin.

Tom Riddle's eyes pierced him, and he winced. He wasn't sure why, since he no longer possessed a fragment of his soul within him; perhaps a residual whisper of the connection they once shared?

With slight alarm, he watched as Tom glanced at his son and daughter, then at Hermione before gesturing to him. Alarm was writ in every gesture of his graceful hands and every line of his handsome face. Hermione placed a calming hand on his sleeve, before turning to look at him.

Without stopping to think about the consequences, Harry stepped forward to meet them, at the summons in his old friend's eyes.

Hermione watched as her oldest friend began to walk to them, aware of the tension singing through her husband's body.

"You're too trusting," Thomas threw at his older sister, as she glared at him from the corner of her eye.

"That you get from your mother," Tom growled. Hermione still hadn't released his sleeve.

"Behave, all of you," she hissed warningly, the aura of her power rising to complement Tom's own, making her children shiver. Both were powerful, but neither could match their parents. Yet.

Harry felt it as he stopped a reasonably distance away, his hand twitching for his wand. It made every hair on his body rise, like static electricity was sweeping his body. Looking into Hermione's dark eyes, he saw the flash of power and felt fear seep into him, cold and dead. Her eyes flashed with sadness this time.

"Hello Harry," she breathed. Harry glanced at Tom, and let his anger and his confusion out.

"How?" he asked in a cold whisper.

"Careful how you speak to my wife, Potter," Tom drawled coolly. "There is a part of me which would very much like to kill you now, but there are children present…"

For the first time, Harry became aware of a little seven year old girl, clinging to Hermione's robes, her bushy brown head buried in the crimson fabric, deep green eyes peering up at him curiously, making his heart lurch.

With an effort of will, he returned his gaze to Tom defiantly. "Never stopped you before," he snapped. Tom merely raised an eyebrow arrogantly.

"Men," Hermione sighed exasperatedly, before swatting her husband on the arm. "Tom, stop baiting him. Thomas, Belinda take Rose and go home."

With a nod, Belinda took the little girl in her arms, as she innocently raised a hand to wave at Harry, before the trio Disapparated.

Harry stared.

"That's not possible. No one can Apparate through the wards here," he gasped, as Tom shook his head.

"Do try to keep up Potter," he murmured, as Hermione started to explain.

"Descendants of the Heirs of the Founders can be held by no ward known to wizard kind. We're too powerful," she told him cautiously, as he returned to look at the pair, dumbstruck.

"How?" he repeated his first question again.

"Simple. In the moments before the Killing curse rebounded on Tom, I used our mental bond as Heir and Heiress to make him feel love, and all he had done to us. It led to regret, and the restoration of his soul," Hermione murmured, unknowingly slipping into her know-it-all voice Harry had heard so often at Hogwarts. "His soul restored, so our bond was completed. But Tom couldn't die while connected to me, and vice versa, so he was stuck in some kind of limbo before returning to this plane. And here we are."

"Why, Hermione?" Harry breathed, shaking his head, inwardly wondering where Ginny had got to. "He's Voldemort. He tried to kill us, made you Oblivate your parents, kidnapped you and he hates Muggleborns. Why?"

Hermione winced. There was no anger in Harry's voice, just disappointment. Tom moved slightly closer to his wife, his presence comforting her.

"I don't think you have the right to question anyone's decisions, Potter," the older man snapped. "Particularly not when you just abandon her to raise a child alone, in grief and isolation-"

"She didn't tell me!" Harry exploded, glaring at the woman before furiously. "She told no one, not me, Ron, Ginny, Molly, no one! She just disappeared!"

"I had no choice!" Hermione snarled, her magic awakening with a fire that Tom delighted in. The fire to his ice, light to his dark. "If anyone knew of Belinda, they would have assumed it was rape, and she would have been taken from me. I was already ostracised, Harry, and you didn't see!"

"But why?" he retorted. "Why? Hermione?"

"Because I love him," she replied coolly. "So what are you going to do about this revelation? You'll find no records of Tom, or even my ancestress. All who might remember Tom's original appearance are either dead, or too old to truly recall. What will you do, Harry?"

"I don't know. I should take you both into custody, but I guess you'll just knock me out or kill me?" Harry sighed, looking at Tom. The older inclined his head.

"I doubt my wife would be too happy if I killed her oldest friend. For some reason, she still seems to care for you, although for the life of me, I can't see why-" he retorted cruelly, but Hermione cut across him.

"Darling, enough with the insults, or you're going to be trouble," she gestured airily with her hand, and Harry was surprised to see a look of trepidation cross Tom's handsome face. Clearly, Hermione held her own in this twisted relationship.

"How do I know you won't go back to your old ways, soul or no soul?" he asked, his fear dying down a little.

"You can't," Tom raised an eyebrow, as Harry bristled. He sighed. "But if you must poke your nose in, Potter, because I have something worth living for now."

Their eyes met, green to green, and Harry understood. An odd sense of kinship ran between the two former enemies, and although he would never like Tom or forgive him for his crimes, he accepted his right to a second chance.

So maybe he was forgiving him after all.

"Just don't forget it," was all Harry said, the anxiety in Hermione's face easing, just before Ginny's voice rang across the platform.

"Harry?"

He looked to his wife, eyes wide, but when he looked back, Tom and Hermione were gone.

He sighed, as the strange encounter ran through his mind one last time, before he turned and walked back to his wife and best friend, his mind still on the couple who had vanished without a sound, the platform all but vibrating with their power.

He too had his own life to live.

Hermione stood at the marble railing of the balcony overlooking a lake, the sun's setting rays painting her skin a fiery gold. Tom watched her from the doors to their bedroom, knowing her mind was hundreds of miles away, and hours before, on their difficult encounter with the Potter boy.

Inwardly, he considered his own feelings towards the boy. Oddly enough, no murderous impulse rose up anymore, just disinterest. That was good, he supposed.

Hermione felt her husband's presence, and smiled, although her eyes were closed. "I know you're there, Tom," she whispered, just before warm arms slid around her waist, clasping her tightly like the coils of a snake's embrace.

"And I always will be," he breathed seductively against her neck, making her shiver. She opened her eyes and turned her eyes to his, their lips meeting with practiced precision, but the need between them had not even come close to dying down after seventeen years of life together.

And it never would.

The couple kissed feverishly, as below, in the rays of the setting sun, Rose Raven happily hissed in Parseltongue to a brilliant green boa constrictor, a brilliant gold phoenix watching over her from the branches of a tree with wise, happy eyes of the most brilliant blue.

Several weeks later, Harry received a letter from his son, one which made him chuckle ruefully. He tucked it away, and never showed Ginny, nor Ron.

Somehow, he felt this was for him alone, a sign of the past finally dying in the future of their families.

Dear Mum, Dad and Lily,

School's going ok, brilliant in fact. Transfiguration's cool, DADA is wicked but I hate Potions.

There's this one kid who helps me out a lot, and I like him. He's called Harry too Dad, and people think we're twins because we look alike. But his hair doesn't stick up like mine and yours does, Dad. He's in Gryffindor too, and we're going to try out for the Quidditch team in second year. He says he wants to be lead chaser, but I want to be Keeper.

Although he can be a bit annoying. The other day in charms I was having trouble with the Wingardium Leviosa spell, and he snatched my wand away and told me I was doing it wrong.

Apparently its Levi-O-sa not Levi-o-SA.

Anyway, Professor Longbottom sends his love, as does Hagrid. James got into trouble again, but you probably already know that. Something about enchanting the chandelier to sing that song off the end of that Muggle film Mum and Cousin Victoire love watching. The one about the ship that ran into an iceberg.

He just got detention, again. I think he's trying to break Uncle George's record for bad behaviour at school.

Anyway, I'll write more soon, I have a mountain of homework to do and Harry's already nagging me. Reminds me of that friend you used to tell me about, Hermione?

Wonder if they're related?

Love you.

Albus.

At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, two dark haired boys with identical green eyes smirked at each other, as one drew a scrap of parchment from his robe pocket, and tapped it with his wand.

"I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he intoned, making the other laugh. As soon as the ink stopped spreading, he turned to his companion with a devilish grin. "Where to, Harry?"

"You decide, Al," Harry Raven, son of the former Lord Voldemort and Hermione Granger, smiled at his newfound friend, and followed him on whatever mischief they might make tonight.

After all, they had a record for mischief to break, first set by a group of four friends, then matched by two red-haired twins. Now it was the next generation's turn.

As Albus tapped the Marauders' Map, leading Harry down a corridor to a secret passageway, the moonlight silvering their dark hair.

Mischief managed.

The End

Me: Well that's that. Done and dusted. Thank you for all your reviews and support-

Tom: You called him Harry.

Me: What?

Tom: You called my son Harry.

Me: And?

Tom: YOU called MY son HARRY!

Me: So? Your point is?

Tom: Ok, that's it. I'm going to have to call him Harold now.

Me: What's wrong with Harry? It's a good strong name.

Tom glares at me. I roll my eyes.

Me: For the last time, I will say one word. Men.