Harry stood in the doorway of his bedroom, watching the gentle rise and fall of the sheets that outlined the figure that was sleeping in the bed. He couldn't help the smile that spread across his face as he listened to the soft breaths that echoed around the room.
He was happy. More than happy. Ecstatic would have been a more accurate word. Everything was going just as he wanted it to; his job as an Auror was going brilliantly- they had finally caught the last of the Death Eaters that had evaded capture after the Battle of Hogwarts; his godson, Teddy, was around everyday and seemed to love spending time with his godfather; the war had ended years ago and no one lived in fear anymore; he had an amazing wife, and just tonight he had received the best news he had probably ever heard in all his life.
He, Harry James Potter- the Boy-Who-Lived, The Chosen One, The Defeater of the Dark Lord- was going to be a father.
A rush of warmth flooded through his stomach as he thought about it. He was going to be a father. He was going to have a little baby boy or girl to dote upon and love and cherish. And it was all thanks to the beautiful red haired woman who was currently sleeping with her back to the door, in their bed.
As quietly as he could he moved further into the room, pulling off his shirt and jeans as he did, before slowly slipping under the covers next to the sleeping figure. The red headed woman softly sighed as he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. He buried his face into her hair before lightly kissing the back of her neck.
"I love you, Ginny Potter." He whispered into her ear. His hand slipped down to lie gently on her stomach. "I love you, baby."
And with one final sigh of happiness, Harry drifted off to sleep.
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It was the sunlight that drifted through his open curtains that woke him up the next morning. Harry grumbled under his breath and buried his face under the covers.
'I could have swore I shut those curtains last night!' he thought to himself. 'Maybe Ginny woke up early again. Although why she opened the curtains…'
After a few more minutes of trying to ignore the bright light, Harry heaved a great sigh and, intending to get up and go to the bathroom, rolled over to climb out of bed.
THUD!
A sharp intake of breath was quickly followed by a long stream of curses. Harry clamped a hand to his forehead in a futile attempt to stop the headache that was forming. 'Stupid walls, getting in the way!' he groaned in his head 'That's why it is never a good idea to put your bed against a wall…' He paused for a moment. 'But… my bed isn't against a wall…'
With his eyebrows furrowed in confusion, Harry sat up to look around his room. Only, the room he was in wasn't his bedroom. Or at least hadn't been in 6 years.
The hand that was pressed against his forehead fell limply to his side as he blankly took in his surroundings. The walls were a sickly peach colour that looked all too familiar. The carpet was threadbare and was so faded, it looked grey. A small and rickety desk stood in front of the window, a large silver cage perched on top of it amidst scraps of parchment and quills. A dingy wardrobe stood next to the pristine, white bedroom door, one of it's own doors hanging loose of it's hinges, showing the baggy grey clothes that hung inside.
The room he was in was his old bedroom at number four, Privet Drive.
Harry swallowed thickly.
"Well, shit."
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Ginny groaned into her pillow as a wave of nausea twisted her stomach. She swallowed the saliva that had started to pool in her mouth and began to take deep breaths. Apparently she had forgotten that for the past few weeks she had woken up every morning with the urge to throw up everything in her stomach.
'If I wasn't so excited to have a baby, I would resent the little blob for making me feel like this!'
She let out a louder groan as her stomach twisted again and struggled to get off the bed. With half opened eyes and one hand clamped to her mouth, Ginny stumbled her way across the bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom.
Several minutes later, she pushed herself up from where she was crouched next to the toilet and turned the taps of the sink on. She splashed a few handfuls of water onto her face to try and wash away the light sheen of sweat and the feelings of sickness. Keeping her eyes shut to stop the water droplets from going into her eyes, Ginny blindly grabbed her toothbrush and brushed her teeth before wiping the excess water off her face with her pyjama sleeve and lifting her head to look into the mirror.
What she saw made her scream.
Her face was different.
It was younger.
Her hair was sticking out at odd angles, the colour more flame like than she remembered it being. Her eyes, though bleary, held no traces of the small lines that had started to gather around them. Her face was rounder than it was last night and upon looking down at her body, she saw that her breasts were smaller and her whole body was shorter.
Her fingers flew like quivering spiders over her face, hair and body as the scream continued to tear out of her throat.
It was the sound of thundering footsteps that stopped the shriek. Ginny whirled around to face the door and it was only then did she realised what state her rooms were in.
The bathroom looked dingy and dirty with its sickly green, peeling wallpaper and rust coated taps. The bedroom beyond the bathroom door was bleak, it's four poster bed covered with black drapes and old, raggedy sheets. But before she could even contemplate why these rooms seemed so familiar to her, the bedroom door opened to reveal a flood of red haired people running into the room.
"Ginny!" A frantic voice sounded out. "Are you okay? What's wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?" She was then crushed into a hug that only belonged to one person.
"Mum?" She whimpered.
The woman who had crushed Ginny into her embrace pulled away and then held her at arms length. Ginny's breath left her lungs as she looked at the years-younger face of Molly Weasley.
"Ginny? Speak to me! What's wrong?"
Ignoring the voice, Ginny's eyes slowly wandered towards the people behind her mother. Out of the 8 people stood around the doorway, 5 of them had flaming red hair. The others had bushy brown hair, sandy coloured hair and long wavy hair of an ebony black. All of the faces held the same concerned expressions, but Ginny couldn't tear her gaze way from the 3 people she never thought she'd see again.
"Fred? Sirius? Remus?" She gasped before the blackness took hold of her.
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He didn't know how long he had sat there, staring wide mouthed at his room, before he leapt up and ran to the door. He twisted the handle and yanked it only to find that the door wouldn't budge. A few more rattles of the door handle told Harry that he was locked in.
With a cry of frustration, he whirled around, intent on pacing the small space when his foot caught the bottom hem of his pyjama pants and he fell over. Another stream of expletives exploded out of his angry mouth before they abruptly stopped.
Harry quickly rolled onto his back and sat up, leaning against the sorry-excuse of a bed. Looking down at himself, he saw that he was wearing a very large, very old pair of pyjamas.
"What the…?" He could have swore that he just slept in his boxers last night.
Last night… bedroom… baby… Ginny!
Short breaths of air rapidly puffed out of his mouth as he began to hyperventilate. His eyes madly scanned the room as he half hoped that Ginny would just pop out of nowhere and reassure him that everything was okay, that she was fine, the baby was fine and this was all just elaborate joke that George was playing on him.
But, of course, no such thing happened.
Harry curled up into a ball and fisted his hands in his hair as a desperate sob erupted from his lips. What was going on? Why was he here, at Privet Drive? Where was Ginny? Was she okay? Was the baby okay? What would happen when she found out he was missing? Had he been kidnapped? Was some random Death Eater supporter trying to take his revenge out on him?
The Auror part of his mind immediately latched onto that last question and his sobs stopped.
If this was a Death Eater plot, why did they bring him here? He hadn't been here since the summer of his 17th birthday, 6 years ago! What had they done with Ginny? Had they killed her? 'Oh Merlin! What if they have killed her? And the baby? Ginny… the baby… why? What is going on? Why am I here? Why do I seem younger…?'
His head snapped up with an audible crack. Younger?
He frantically uncurled his body, ripped the baggy pyjama top off himself and stared down at his chest.
He was much skinnier than he had been when he went to bed. So skinny in fact, that his ribs were clearly visible. None of the muscles he had built up in the past half-a-decade seemed to exist. And the thing that really proved to him that he was in fact younger was the lack of scars on his chest.
The scar from the locket Horcrux and the scar from being hit with the killing curse again were gone.
"Holy-" His soft exclamation was cut off by the sound of the bedroom door being unlocked. Harry looked up just in time to see his Uncle Vernon walk through the door.
He looked the same as ever- vast stomach, bushy moustache and a curious likeness to a walrus.
Harry just stared at the man in front of him. It hadn't even occurred to him that if he was a Privet Drive, then he would probably see his Uncle, Aunt and Cousin.
"We're going out," he said.*
Harry just blinked. His uncle was just having a normal- for him, anyway- conversation with Harry. As if he hadn't just randomly showed up at the place he had told his Uncle he would never go to again.
But what if he hadn't just randomly showed up, according to his uncle? What if he had been here this whole time?
That was when he noticed the suit his Uncle was wearing and the smug smile that stretched his oversized face.
"Didn't you hear me, boy? I said we're going out!" Uncle Vernon barked at him. Harry jumped a little as he was pulled out of his thoughts.
"Sorry?"
"We- that is to say, your aunt, Dudley and I- are going out."
Harry frowned at him. Why was this conversation familiar to him? Why was it all familiar? The locked door, his uncle in a suit, informing him that he and his aunt and cousin were going out…
Realisation settled in his stomach like an ice cube.
"Oh. Wh-where are you going?" He cursed the fact that his voice cracked, but Harry was more focused on what his Uncle was going to answer with.
Vernon puffed out his chest, giving him the impression of a cross breed of a penguin and a stuffed walrus.
"We have been short listed for the All- England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition."
Harry suppressed a snort. He had forgotten all about Tonks' excuse to the Dursley's when she came with the advance guard to… to…
To rescue him from Privet Drive!
Harry just sat there, stunned and only half aware of his Uncle leaving his room and going back downstairs. It was only when he heard the sound of the car reversing out of the drive did he snap out of his thoughts.
He was at Privet Drive, his family had just left to go to a pseudo competition that Tonks had set up in order to get Harry away from this place because he had just been attacked by Dementors and was now facing a hearing at the ministry of magic.
Except, all of that had happened years ago, so how could it be happening now unless…
Unless he had somehow travelled back in time.
As soon as that thought cropped up in his head, Harry wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of it. It was ludicrous to think that he had travelled back in time. It wasn't possible to go back more than a few hours!
Or was it?
Time travel was the only thing that worked and added up to the strange situation he had found himself in.
And if that was true, then he was about to be sprung from his suburban prison.
With that thought in his mind, Harry scrambled to his feet and started to race around, grabbing the belongings that were supposedly his from around the room and shoving them into his trunk. He emptied the loose floorboard under his bed and cleaned Hedwig's cage, who he had realised was probably at Grimmauld Place.
In his excitement and anxiety to get downstairs to wait for his visitors, Harry was hardly aware that he had used wandless magic to unlock his bedroom door.
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"… wonder what was wrong?"
"Maybe it was just a dizzy spell, Mollywobbles."
"But then she's sick? What if she's coming thing down with something serious, Arthur? I mean, she's been out all day! Harry will be here any moment…"
As soon as she registered Harry's name, Ginny's mind cleared of the last remains of unconsciousness and she sat up suddenly in her bed.
Molly let out a startled gasp.
"Ginny! Are you okay?" She rushed out as her hand pressed itself against Ginny's forehead.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just felt a bit funny this morning, that's all." Ginny muttered distractedly. Her mind was too busy focusing on what was going on. During her time of unconsciousness, Ginny had come to realise that there were only two possibilities of what had happened.
One, she was dead.
Or two, she had somehow travelled back in time.
She was pretty sure it was the last one. After all, surely when you died you didn't immediately throw up. And besides, most of the people she had seen already had been alive when she last went to bed- with only 3 glaring exceptions.
And if she had gone back in time, what the hell was she going to do? How had she gotten here in the first place? How was she going to act around Harry if he had not been flung back in the past as well? And most of all…
What was she going to do about the baby?
That was the one thing Ginny was absolutely certain about. She knew she was still pregnant. She knew that somehow the baby that was growing inside of her had come back in time with her. She just knew.
And that was one hell of a problem.
Just as she was about to complain to her mother about her pulse being checked, Ginny distinctly heard the sound of the front door of number 12 Grimmauld Place being opened and closed. Before either of her parents could say anything, Ginny had leapt out of bed and was practically flying down the stairs in order to see who had come in.
And there he was.
Harry. Her Harry.
He looked just as she did- younger. He was more skinny and his hair was even more of a mess than it was in the future. But she didn't care. All she cared about was the fact that he was here.
She wasn't even aware that the people in the crowded hallway had parted in order to get out of the way of her sprinting at Harry. All she was aware of was that she needed to be held in those arms of his.
It was only when his arms had snaked around her waist and she had wrapped hers tightly around his neck did she start to cry. She wasn't crying big noisy sobs, but the sounds she was making was enough to cause everyone in the hall to become alarmed even more. Well, everyone except Harry.
The way his arms tightened around her waist indicated to her that he knew who she was. That he knew she was Ginny Potter and not Ginny Weasley. After all, if he hadn't come back in time and he really had just arrived here for he first time, then he would be awkward and shying away from her. The fact that he was doing the opposite prompted her to ask him the security question.
"What does my room have at the Burrow?" she whispered into his ear, her voice harsh due to the tightness of her throat.
Harry chuckled softly, a hint of relief in his answering soft tone. "A nice view." Ginny tightened her arms around his neck in response. "What is the most macho animal ever?"
She giggled at him. "A Hungarian Horntail."
Ginny pulled back a little so she could see his wonderfully green eyes. They stared back at her for a few long moments before he ducked his head a little and placed a soft kiss on her brow. They both let out a sigh of contentment. They were both so happy and relieved that the other was there, in their arms.
After a moment, Harry looked up and what he saw made him grimace and wince. Ginny, confused, turned her head around to see what was wrong.
There were a lot of people in the hall way, and all of those people were gaping at them. Molly, Arthur, Bill, Fred, George, Ron, Hermione, Mad-Eye, Kingsley, Remus, Tonks, Hestia Jones, Elphias Doge, Dedalus Diggle, Emmeline Vance, Sturgis Podmore, Sirius, McGonagall, Snape and Dumbledore. Well, the latter two had a sneer on their face and a twinkle in their eye respectively.
It was Arthur who spoke first.
"Harry? Ginny? Is there something you want to tell us?"
Ginny and Harry looked around the group once more and then looked at each other.
"We're going to have to tell them." Ginny whispered to him.
"But we don't even know what's going on! How can we tell them something we don't know?"
Ginny bit her lip as she thought. He was right.
"Well," She slowly said. "We can just tell them what we know." She carried on and cut Harry off when he opened his mouth to argue. "We can just tell them how we went to sleep in 2003 and woke up this morning back in 1995. How you woke up at the Dursley's and how I woke up here…. And still pregnant."
Harry's eyes snapped and focused on hers at that last statement. After searching her eyes swiftly for a moment, his gaze softened and his mouth widened into a smile.
"The baby? It's still there?" He hardly breathed the sentence out as his hand drifted down and gently caressed her stomach. Ginny's eyes welled in tears again.
"Yes."
A rough cough interrupted their tender moment.
"Well? Out with it!" Moody growled at them.
Harry sighed. "I think it's best if we move into the kitchen. You're going to want to sit down for this."
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A/N: There you have it! Was it good? Bad? Brilliant? Awful?
I've read quite a few time travel stories where Harry and/or Ginny and/or other people go into the past and I thought it'd be good to write one myself!
The main idea I had was for them to not just go back in time, let out a few secrets, and then go back after erasing everyone's memory. Oh no! I wanted Harry and Ginny to go back to their 15/14 year old selves, but retain their future knowledge. And I thought it'd be a brilliant twist to have Ginny pregnant as well! That's certainly going to change things!
The way I see things at the moment, before anybody asks, is that Harry was around about 22/23 years old and Ginny was around 21/22 years old. The person they are pregnant with is James Sirius Potter. I couldn't find a precise date for when James was born, so I'm imagining it would be about 5 or 6 years after Deathly Hallows ended.
No, there will be no more time travellers. It will just be Harry, Ginny and Baby Potter :P
Now, review? Please?
*****EDITED: 5/11/2011*****