Saving Their Lives

************BEFORE YOU READ THIS STORY, KNOW THAT THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR EACH OF THE BOOKS, INCLUDING BOOK SEVEN. I HAVE TWISTED THINGS AT WILL TO SUIT MY PURPOSE, SO IT IS BY NO MEANS CANNON, BUT THERE ARE CANNON EVENTS, AND I HAVE TALKED A BIT ABOUT BOOK SEVEN IN THIS FIRST CHAPTER. BE WARNED.*********************


“I’m sorry, Mione, but I have to!” he said and used his wand to stun the shocked girl with a stupefy spell. He reached out and snatched the time turner from her frozen hand. “I hope that someday you will forgive me for this, but if not, know that I really am sorry and I had to do it.” He took the time turned and turned it seventy-eight times and then disappeared.

A few moments later he was standing in the screeching shack where he had just left Hermione, only, if his calculations were correct, he was seventeen years in the past. He quickly ran down the stairs and barreled out of the front door. The night was cold and he shivered but it didn’t let him deter him from his mission. He thought of the spot that he wanted to be at and apparated away with a pop.

He stood outside of a homey looking cottage surrounded by bushes and trees. There was a neatly painted covered porch that enclosed the front of the two-story house. There were no curtains on the front windows and he could clearly see into the room. A man and a woman played with a baby who was racing around the room. Harry watched as the man threw his head back and laughed and the baby clapped his hands in delight as his mother used her wand to created dancing bears in front of him. He felt a pang in his chest as he walked to the front door. He hoped that this would work.

He knocked on the door and patiently waited for them to answer. The home was under a fidelius curse, but because he had been told where they had lived in the future by Peter Pettigrew that day in the shrieking shack, Harry was able to find it.

A second later the front door opened and a cautious man opened the door. “Yes, can I help you?” he asked.

Harry felt elation at seeing his father alive for the first time in seventeen years. “I can’t believe that I am standing here speaking to you and you are alive,” he whispered.

“What? Who are you?” he demanded looking into the familiar face.

“I don’t know if I should hug you or if I should shake your hand,” he said with a soft smile.

“Kid, if you hug me I’ll hex you into next year!” James said disgusted. What the hell was going on?

“Please, may I come in? I have urgent business to discuss with you and Mu… uh Lilly.”

“Who are you?” James demanded again.

Harry turned and looked around. He didn’t know if it was safe to stand out on the front porch. “Sir, can you tell me what the date is?”

James looked at Harry as if he had gone nuts and then replied, “It’s October 28th.”

Harry grinned. He still had time. “Please, can I come in? I swear to you on my oath as a Wizard that I mean you and your family no harm,” he said and a swirl of green light flew from his wand.

James thought for a moment and then nodded his head. He had sworn a Wizard’s oath after all. “I suppose so. We we’re just getting ready to send the baby off to bed.”

They walked down a short hallway that opened into a large living area. “Lily, we have a guest,” he said cautiously.

Lilly smiled and looked up. She was stunned to see the boy standing there. “Is he one of your relations, James?” she asked bewildered. He looked so much like a younger version of her husband.

James shook his head. “You know that I have no family left, Lilly. I don’t know who he is. He said he had urgent business to discuss with us.”

Harry looked at his mother and felt tears welling up in his eyes. He wanted to run to her and wrap his arms around her and bury his head into her chest and cry. “Do you have any vertiserum here?” he asked Lilly.

She slowly nodded her head. “I do. Why do you need it?”

“I think it is the quickest and easiest way to tell you what I need to say. If you will give it to me, I will hand you a parchment of questions that I want you to ask me.”

“Wait a minute here!” James roared. “Who the hell are you and what is going on?”

Harry looked at him with liquid green eyes that James had seen every day on his wife. He was stunned to see someone else with her eyes. “Please, sir, if you could just do it?” Harry begged.

Lilly and James looked at each other for a moment and then James nodded. “Lilly, you get the potion and I’ll put Harry to bed. He’s up way past his bed time as it is.”

Harry felt a pang in his heart as he watched his father lift him up with a large grin, plant a wet kiss on his forehead and tote him up the stairs to his nursery. He knew that in just a few short nights it would be the scene of his mother’s death if he couldn’t convince them of who he was.

“Here we are. Please, have a seat,” Lilly said with a soft smile. “Can I get you some tea?”

Harry shook his head. “No, thank you. The potion, please,” he said holding out his hand.

She handed him the small vial and he popped the top off and swallowed the contents in a single gulp. “Wait!” Lilly said trying to grab the vial. “That’s more than you need! You only needed a few drops!” she exclaimed.

Harry nodded. “I know, but I wanted to make sure that you believed me. Here,” he said taking a parchment from the pocket of his robe. “I want you to ask me all of the questions on this parchment. Please make sure you ask them all,” he said.

Lilly sat down and unrolled the parchment. She paled after a few moments and yelled for her husband. “James!” she cried.

A second later he came barreling down the stairway. “What’s wrong?” he demanded looking at the two occupants sitting quietly in the room.

“I gave him an entire vial of vertiserum. You need to hear these questions,” she said. She was horrified of what she knew she was about to hear. “Sit,” she demanded.

He looked at his agitated wife and sat down on the sofa next to her. “Ok, ask the questions, dear,” he said patting her on the leg.

She took a deep breath and said, “What is your name?”

“Harry James Potter.”

“When were you born?”

“July 31, 1981.”

James and Lilly both gasped as one when they heard his answer. “What?” James demanded. “How is this possible.”

Lilly felt tears trickling down her face. “Are you our son?” she asked forgetting to read from the parchment.

“Yes.”

“How did you get here?” James demanded looking at the boy who could only be a few years younger than himself.

“I used a time turned and came back into time.”

“Why?” Lilly asked.

“To keep you from dying on Halloween night,” he said.

James and Lilly both jumped up frightened and started demanding answers. Harry cut them off before they could form any questions. “Please, read the questions,” he begged.

Lilly came to the chair that Harry was sitting in and sat on the stool in front of it. She stared for a moment into the same eyes that both she and her baby sleeping up stairs wore. “Are you really my son?” she whispered.

“Yes, I really am.”

Lilly cried out a sob, but managed to pull herself back together and asked the next question on the list. “Is our secret keeper honorable, or will he betray us?”

“He will betray you,” Harry said as tears streamed down his face.

“What?” James demanded. “Peter would never betray us! Why would he do such a thing?”

“He was jealous of you and craved the power that Voldemort offered.”

“No!” Lilly gasped.

James rushed towards Harry. “You lie! He would never betray us to that lunatic!”

“I can’t lie under vertiserum!” Harry yelled. “That is why I made you give it to me!”

“He’s right, James! He was given more than even needed. There is no way he could be lying!” Lilly said defending him.

“What about Sirius? Where was he when this happened?”

“He was lured away from here. The Wizarding world thought that he was your secret keeper and they blamed him for your deaths. He spent years in Azkaban for the death of Peter Pettigrew as well, even though Peter was never really dead!” Harry said.

“Oh no!” Lilly gasped.

James sat back down stunned. “How do we die?” he demanded.

“Voldemort comes here the night of Halloween. He wants to kill me because of the prophecy. He comes across you first; you are in the living room. You send Mum and I upstairs, but it doesn’t do any good. He kills you and comes up the stairs to find me. Mum stands in between Voldemort and me and begs for my life. He tells her to step away but she refuses. He kills her and then he tries to kill me. There was old magic though, that he was unaware of. He tried to use the Avada curse and it backfired off of me and hit him, sending him out of his body and away. I lived, but I retain this scar from that night,” Harry said holding up his hair to show his lightning bolt scar.

“Its not possible!” James said. “Nobody has ever lived through that curse!”

“Mum gave her life to save me. Love is what saved me that night,” Harry said.

Lilly sobbed into her hands and watched as her stunned husband slumped into his chair and her grown son looked at her with tears streaming down his face. She looked down again at the parchment on her lap. She was stunned at the next question. “Does Dumbledore set Harry up to die?” she gasped out.

“Yes. He knew that in order for Voldemort to die that I would have to as well. He trained me to defeat Voldemort knowing that I would die in the final battle. He said it was part of the greater good,” Harry said bitterly.

“How could he do that?” Lilly demanded, outraged that the meddlesome old man would risk her baby that way.

“He thought that one death was worth the lives of many others.”

“Has Voldemort been defeated?” James asked.

Harry nodded. “He is now gone forever.”

“Then how are you still alive?” Lilly whispered.

“It was more of the old magic. I was willing to give my life to save everyone else. When I died Voldemort’s soul was released from my body and I was free.”

“I don’t get it,” James said in confusion. “But I thought you lived.”

“Please, ask the questions. It would be easier if you stuck to the questions.”

Lilly looked down at the next question. “Who raised you?” she asked in surprise.

“Petunia and Vernon Dursley.”

“Oh god’s!” Lilly gasped.

James was outraged. “How did they get their disgusting hands on you? You were to live with Sirius if we died!” he shouted.

“But Sirius was in Azkaban,” Lilly said. “Why Petunia though? Surely they could have found someone better?”

“It had to do with blood magic and protection. They could protect me from Voldemort until I was of age as long as I resided with a blood relative. Aunt Petunia was the only one.”

“Were they good to you, Harry?” Lilly asked, afraid that she already knew the answer.

“No, they were not. You must immediately re-write you will leaving explicit instructions on where I should live. They can not force me to live with the Dursley’s if there is a will stating otherwise.”

“Where do you want to live?” James asked.

“Sirius would have been great, he’s a lot of fun. Remus would have been nice as well, but he Ministry would never allow it because of being a werewolf. I think that the best home for me would have been the Weasley’s. They’ve been my family for the past seven years.”

“The Weasley’s? Molly and Arthur? Don’t they have six children already?” James gasped.

Harry grinned. “No, they have seven.”

“Like they need another mouth to feed! They’re as poor as church mice!” Lilly said.

Harry smiled. “But they loved me. Molly was the only mother I knew, and Arthur was my father. They treated me as if I was one of their own. We have tons of galleons. Give them a bit of money to take care of me.”

James and Lilly looked at each other horrified. Their adult son just spoke to them about another family being his and another set of parents being his mother and father. They couldn’t accept that. Lilly looked at her list again. “What should we do now?”

Harry took a deep breath. “You need to hide. Don’t tell Dumbledore or any of the Order of the Phoenix members that you are leaving here. Sirius and Remus and the Weasley’s are the only one’s whom I would trust. Make Arthur Weasley your secret keeper. There has never been a more honorable man that he. In the morning, leave immediately. Go to Gringotts and submit a new will, and then disappear.”

“Where would we go?” James asked, and Lilly smiled. “That was the next question on the list.

“Hide in Muggle London. There is a new subdivision that is just being built on Rosewood Court. It is called Heather Glen Estates. Purchase a home here. There is a Muggle family there, the Grangers. Their daughter, Hermione is the same age as me. She will grow to be the brightest witch since Lilly Evans,” Harry said with a smile. “They are a wonderful family that did their best with their daughter who they never understood. Perhaps by being close you can help each other.”

Lilly looked him in the eyes. “Do you love her, Harry?”

Harry laughed. “Yes and no. I love her as a sister, but she and my best mate Ron Weasley are together.”

“What are horcruxes?” James asked reading the next question on the list.

“They are objects that are made to house the parts of someone’s soul.”

“What?” James gasped. “I have never heard of them!” he exclaimed.

“They are very rare and very dark magic. Voldemort split his soul seven times and hid them in objects to preserve his soul. This way if he died he could keep coming back.”

“What do I need to do with the horcruxes?” he asked.

“You need to destroy them before Voldemort knows what you are doing.”

Lilly gasped. “How?” she asked.

“I will tell you what each one is and where it is located. If you leave here tomorrow before he shows up here to kill you, he can’t turn me into his seventh one. You will go to each of these items and retrieve them, and then you will destroy them. Once they are destroyed, he can no longer come to power again. When he dies, it will be forever.”

“But then what?” James asked. “Do I need to kill him?”

Harry shook his head. “No, I need to kill him.”

“But if we leave here, and destroy all of the horcruxes, then we would be changing everything. How do you know that you would still need to kill him?” Lilly demanded.

“I don’t. I just know that as of now, I am the one who must kill him. Even by changing everything else, I believe that I still must kill him.”

“Oh, Harry!” Lilly cried throwing herself into her son’s startled arms. “What a life you must have led!”

Harry wrapped his arms around her and closed his eyes as the warmth of his mothers love surrounded his body. He hadn’t felt anything so wonderful in his entire life. He never wanted to let go, but he knew that he needed to finish telling them all that they needed to know. “Finish the questions,” he said sadly.

“Should we trust Severus Snape?” James asked. He already knew the answer to that question. The disgusting git had already joined the death eaters.

“No. He is a very brave and a very loyal man, and he loves Mum. He would give his life to protect her. He made some mistakes, but he has spent the rest of his life making up for them. He worked as a spy to bring Voldemort down, giving his own life in the end. However, at this time I think he is still loyal to Voldemort. He only turned with the death of Mum. That is why Voldemort told Mum to step aside. Severus asked for Mum’s life to be saved.”

“What?” James demanded. “That greasy git wants my wife! I thought that he got over his crush!”

“He will love her until the day he dies,” Harry said sadly.

“Did he treat you well, Harry?” Lilly asked.

“No. He hated me because of dad and he blamed me for your death. He made my life miserable. However, I do not hate him, in fact I very much respect him for all that he did.”

James snorted. “How can you respect someone who makes your life miserable?”

“Because of all that he did. He would not have hated me so much if you and Sirius had not tortured him so much. You turned him into the bitter man that he became. I was very disappointed when I heard of all that you had done to him,” Harry said in disapproval.

“Hey! I didn’t do that much to him!” James said defending himself.

“I saw Severus’ memories in a pensieve and during occlumency lessons.”

James blushed but kept quiet. Lilly turned and glared at her husband. They had had this conversation several times in the past and he knew it. She snatched the parchment from his hand and asked the next question. “Should James immediately get his invisibility cloak back from Dumbledore?”

“Yes, immediately. It is part of the deathly hallows.”

“What is the deathly hallows?” James asked.

“That was the last question on the parchment.

Harry took a deep breath and told him everything that he knew about the deathly hollows. When he was finished both of his parents were shocked. “And you are the master of the deathly hollows?”

“As of right now in the future I am, but all that will change as soon as you leave here. Dumbledore has the wand, and you should just let him have it. You have the cloak, and the Gaunts have the stone. When you go to get one of the horcruxes, you will retrieve a ring that has the stone on it. When that Horcruxe is destroyed, you will be left with the stone. It must be banished. I would drop it into the bottom of the lake at Hogwarts or somewhere else where it can never be found. Those three items should never be reunited again. That kind of power in the hands of one person is a dangerous thing, and nobody should ever be tempted that way.”

“Do you have a list of the horcruxes and their locations?”

Harry pulled another parchment from his pocket. “Here. Guard this with your life. Memorize the locations and the items, and then destroy this parchment. Nobody can know what you are doing.”

James looked at the list and frowned. “Some of these tasks sound daunting.”

“They are. Take Sirius with you to the lake, as he will be able to force Kretcher to show you where it is. Regulas had sent him there with Voldemort before and knows its location. You must make Kretcher swear never to tell anyone what you are doing there, or that you even went. He is very loyal to Mrs. Black, and he hates Sirius for the cruelty that he has shown to him.”

Lilly shook her head in disgust. She did not understand how someone could treat a defenseless house elf so badly. “I shall be having another word with Sirius about his treatment of house elves,” she said.

“Where do I get the venom from a basilisk?” James asked in shock.

“I don’t know. There is one that lives under the school in the Chamber of Secrets, but you have to be a parsletongue to open it. I am right now because of the transfer of power that Voldemort gives me, but if he does not try to kill me there will be no power exchange and I will no longer be a parseltongue.”

“Parsletongues are very rare, Harry,” his father told him. “Basilisk venom is even more so.”

“You can use the fiendfyre spell, but it is as dangerous.”

“Fiendfyre!” Lilly exclaimed. “That is more dark magic! Harry, what have you gotten yourself into?” she demanded.

Harry grinned. “Life,” he said. “From the day that I entered Hogwarts as “The Boy Who Lived”, I have had one dangerous adventure after another!”

“We’ll see if you go to that school!” Lilly huffed.

Harry smiled. “I must go now. You have a lot to absorb, and a lot to do. You must leave this house immediately in the morning, and remember all that I have said. Be very cautious of who you can trust.” He stood and stared for a moment again at his parents who stood as well. He thought for a second and then threw his arms around his mother and then his father. “I know for you, that it has been mere hours since you held me last, but for me, it has been seventeen years since I have felt the love of my mother or father.”

“Oh, Harry!” Lilly exclaimed with tears running down her face.

“I am so sorry that your life has turned out the way that it has, son,” James said.

Harry took the time turner from his pocket and smiled. “Make it right then,” he said twisting the turner to bring him forward. A second later he disappeared.


A/N: I always wondered why JKR didn't have Harry do this in her books...So, I thought I would...I am not sure where I will go with it, but I am curious to see if anyone is even interested in it...Please review and let me know what you think.