Harry knew he had to decide what to do now, before the term resumed. So he had asked each of them to come to the Unity Dorms after dinner(by mental sending as he usually would). He had given it some thought, weighed every option… There was just no other way, the only way forward would be honesty, as much as he could spare. He looked over the bubbling cauldron again in the potions workshop. It wasn't his first time brewing a calming draught and being honest with himself, he didn't know if it was for him to drink or the others. It might end up just being busywork.
He'd thought very carefully about Wormtail's death, about why he had been looking for the Room of Requirement. They must have been followed. It was a silly thing to overlook, but when he opened the Marauder's Map the evening of his talk with Keldran, he saw his new name, 'Harry Peltier', next to the blotch in the Slytherin dorms. Magic tends to work funnily that way sometimes. It occurred to him that there was a very real possibility that Wormtail might have spotted him as he resided in the Headmaster's tower when he first arrived, and seen another name. But of course, he couldn't be sure.
He had come to the conclusion that Wormtail's death had been as Keldran said 'a victim of coincidence'. And if he was honest with himself, he couldn't mourn someone as foul as Pettigrew, even if he was yet to come of age. It would be Remus who would pass judgement. Severus, while having become very understanding, would probably see it as an added bonus. Lily, he was certain, would follow him no matter what path he decided to take. So really, as the evening progressed, Harry reasoned that their little clique might lose an arm just like the Marauders did more than a month ago. He hoped honesty would be enough to keep them together. Secrecy had been Dumbledore's mistake.
Drinking some tea, he steeled himself. He decided on taking a measure of calming draught, the aromatic potion reducing him to a more passive anxiety. The sight of Lily passing through the landscape painting complemented the potion nicely, as she gave him a warm smile coming in. He kissed her and held her tightly. She gave a moan of approval.
"Why, hello to you too," she said playfully.
"I had to think this through… I'm going to come clean to them, with most of it," he said determinedly.
"Most of it?" she asked.
"Well, I think it's fine if I don't –"
"Mention you're shagging your past mum," she said with a nod.
Harry groaned. "We went so long without actually saying it."
"I guess the magic is gone now," she sighed, "well it was nice while it lasted. But, why tell them now?"
"You want some calming draught? It's freshly brewed."
"I'm alright," she responded sardonically.
"It's Keldran. He disposed of Pettigrew," he said waiting for a response, but she only frowned, clearly unsurprised. He continued. "I think Pettigrew knew who I was, but didn't know what to make of it. There's more, but I'll just tell when the rest arrive."
"Remus," she said thoughtfully.
"Yes. I hope we all come out of this in one piece."
They sat down, and not much later Remus and Severus came through jovially chatting. They sat down near Lily and Harry, already taking some tea.
"Why does it smell like lavender in here, and peppermint?" Severus said with a knowing look.
Harry stood up and came back with three cups filled with calming draught, ignoring Lily's earlier dismissal. "I'm not going to force you to drink it, but you're definitely going to need it."
Lily, in support of him, sipped it.
"Why are you feeding us calming draught?" Remus asked. "Someone die?"
Harry gave a great sigh and went into a bag he'd left in the potions workshop, retrieving a piece of parchment. "Someone did, but that's not the only reason I called you," he said, theatrically throwing the map onto the table between them. "Go ahead, Remus. You know how to use it. Hell, you mostly made it."
Remus was tongue-tied for a good minute, and stammered. "A – how? You took it?" he asked, after a moment of deliberation.
"Filch took it from James." He paused for effect. "Well he would have, next year."
Confused looks came over the pair. Harry tapped his wand to the parchment and uttered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." And the map came alive with the greeting words, followed by names, dots and the floor plan of the castle. "You can go and waste time asking James to borrow his if you want."
"What is it?" Severus asked. "The Marauder's Map?"
"We made it. Me, James and Sirius. Well, mostly me and Sirius, James found out a lot of the secret passages, so did Peter. Lily helped out too, unknowingly."
Severus regarded the map with a look of interested disgust.
"I – this is – I don't know how you expect me to believe what you're saying." Remus blurted out.
"Dumbledore knows." He turned to Lily, who gave a faint smile and nodded.
"It's why he gave you the hat. Lily?" Severus remarked, with a serious gaze.
"Yes. Severus... Harry is from the future."
Remus shook his head, with a mixed look of amusement and disbelief. "And you're so sure of that?"
"He knows things, you know he knows things. The horcruxes, Voldemort's real name."
"Still, come on. That's nothing to go by," he said turning to Harry with a hurt look. "How exactly did you expect us to believe that? No offence Lily."
"None taken."
"Look, I can't prove it to you. The only way to do that would be to take you back. I can't… I can't go back, and I can't take you with me. All I have is that map, and a few other things."
"Meddling with time," Severus pondered, "I've always been told it's one of the great mistakes wizards can make. How did you even decide to do that?"
Harry winced at remembering it. "Voldemort won, the second war that is, in 1998. I didn't expect to come back so far, and to be frank, I don't think anyone knew what they were doing sending me back. We were… desperate. A lot of people died." Harry turned to Lily with a mournful look, which she empathetically returned.
"Did I die?" Remus asked.
"No, not you. Not yet. But we weren't far off, those who were left would never submit." He shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if – when they would have been caught. Death would be a mercy in the hands of Voldemort's followers.
"Hold on," Snape said. "Why you? Why would they send back... a boy, instead of someone experienced?"
"Blame Dumbledore," Harry said with a weak grin, "he's the one who witnessed the prophecy that said I would be the one to destroy Voldemort. Everyone wanted to hold on to the hope that it was still true, even after I failed. The whole thing, it's probably all hogwash."
"But you still agreed?" Remus asked.
"It didn't seem like much of a choice at the time." Harry swallowed, pushing himself to get to the real matter at hand. "Remus, there's another reason I called you here, it's the reason I told you about who I am in the first place."
"My head is spinning," Remus said.
"Tell me about it," Severus quipped.
"Last night," he started, "I had another vision, I saw the past this time. I saw what happened to Pettigrew."
Remus' eyes only narrowed at this. For a moment there was only seething silence between them and Remus let out a big breath, calming himself. "Tell me."
Harry nodded, dreading what was to come. "Peter was shadowing us, he knew where we'd been. He went to the 7th floor and found the Room of Requirement. He went in when we weren't there, had to be the night he disappeared. There was a fight." Harry took a long pause to watch Remus stew behind a mask of composure. "Keldran isn't all talk, he shrugged off the Killing Curse like it was a bad stunner. He's the one who killed Peter. I don't know if you can call it self-defence, but Peter did try to kill him. He must've figured out Keldran wasn't… That he wasn't just another wizard."
Remus stood up, heaving. "I see why you did it now, your story, the calming draught."
"I just wanted you to think things over before – before you decide you're done with this," Harry said, slumping his head.
"You think I'd just lay down and take it?"
"I get you're angry, but it's not worth it!"
"He was my friend!"
"He was a rat, and a killer!" Harry said with wroth in his eyes.
Remus lunged forward, but Lily had anticipated it and put herself between them. "Enough! Both of you!"
She looked between them, her look of disappointment having its effect. Harry calmed himself, eyes closed, taking deep breaths. "Sorry."
Remus scoffed and no one dared utter a word for a long time. Finally, Severus spoke. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Voldemort is still out there," Lily said.
"Not for long," said Harry, "if Keldran is to be believed, there's something worse out there, and Voldemort is about to be its victim."
They all looked at him in surprise, even Remus forgot his anger for a moment. He felt a wave of embarrassment come over him, the entire story was already completely unbelievable. He wasn't even sure he believed it. "I was going to go about things on my own at first. Lily convinced me otherwise. I have no idea what is going on, but I don't have a choice. I'm going to try and stop whatever is coming, even if I have to do it by myself."
"You don't," Lily said forcefully, "does he?"
Severus stood up now and nodded to them. Remus closed his eyes and did the same.
"So, what is coming?" Severus asked.
"I have no idea," Harry said, "but it feels bad. I have a feeling I'll find out soon enough. Ever since I had my first vision, it's like something has been creeping up on me. It has something to do with me, and with Keldran. I'm going to keep trying to prepare, it's all I can do."
"I've found the library very useful," Severus mused, "it would be a waste to ignore it. Are we really not going to discuss Harry being a time traveller any further? Like, who are you, really?"
"Harry, I've always been Harry. Got any more questions?"
"Too many," Severus said.
Severus did have more surface questions. How he died (by Voldemort's snake), how Voldemort came to power. However, Harry felt it wise not to mention Severus had played both sides. He also asked about time travel in particular, but there Harry could very truthfully say he had no answers, except that he found it impossible to go back, and as such, found it impossible to know what impact his presence had on the future. The clear prophetic Crystal was brought up, and remembering it, things started to make sense for them. Everyone seemed satisfied that there was really not much to say. In the end they stood square against whatever challenge came ahead. Harry would not go back, and none of them would run.
He was still worried when he went back to the dungeons, that Remus would change his mind, which he had every right to. But Remus hadn't stayed so far for shallow reasons, and he wouldn't leave for them either.
-sSsSsSsSs-
Term resumed as quietly as none of them expected. Aside from quidditch practice, there was one more thing to do: the Ministry Apparition License Exams. With Harry Peltier's birth date of 15th September 1959, he could attend. It was in all honesty a formality. He wished Remus had been there, or that he could have convinced him to take the test.
When the test was over, Harry, Reg and Severus walked back to the dungeons and after Reg uttered a relieved "we all passed", their housemates, including the whole quidditch team, Nathan, and Melissa, all cheered. He went up to the dorms to stash his books and paused, opening his second hand trunk. Out of it he took a parcel carefully wrapped in cloth and opened it, revealing a leather bound frame with silver trimming. He turned it on its side and the picture transformed, showing the Slug Club at the Easter Party.
It had been on a whim. Two galleons and five more for the frame. He wasn't even sure he would hand over the gift. Would anyone want that reminder? Putting it back, he rifled through a hidden compartment in the trunk and took out a different picture. He had more of them in the beaded bag hidden in the secret dorms, he didn't know why he'd taken this one down here. It was a large group photo of the DA. In the middle of it was he, and next to him was Hermione smiling proudly while patting his arm. Ron was puffing up his chest. There were the Creevey brothers trying to shunt aside George, and Fred making rabbit ears behind Justin. Neville, Luna and Ginny were standing next to Hermione, Luna waving excitedly at the camera. In the back were Ernie, Hannah, Cho and Marietta, all with hopeful looks on their faces. He felt a pang of sadness as he looked over it. But he also felt happiness that he'd shared those moments. It was a rough balancing act.
With two weeks left until their final match of the season it was all the talk in the Slytherin Common Room. In fact he met Reg on his way downstairs, urging him to get ready for practice. At the pitch there were a few younger Slytherin watching, as well as a group of Hufflepuffs who sat in the stands with a defeated frown. The Slytherin quidditch team had never seemed better, Regulus especially was keeping the hoops with renewed focus, much to Luci and Darcy's frustrations as they tried new plays to get the upper hand. Harry had seen the Hufflepuff keeper at work and while not a complete disaster, there would be no way he could counter the Slytherin chasers as effectively as Reg was doing. The group of Hufflepuffs left halfway through, and Harry felt a bit of pity at their disappointment.
With Remus' ire towards Keldran, they decided to only talk with Selwin as much as was needed. They kept at unravelling the secrets of the library, getting side-tracked, engrossed and occupied with finding ways to expand on what they'd learned. Severus spent much time in the spell creation workshop which had a few tables that might have been used for crafts, Harry had no idea. They mostly kept to their own interests, asking each other's help when needed. Lily revealed she had been practising her runic wards on the school grounds, well out of view of prying eyes. He accompanied her and tossed a few newly learned hexes at it. The barrier she erected would flash with purple and then rebound the hex or gulp it up like a great ball of slime. A piercing curse managed to break the protection and Lily went over her runes again to see where the weakness was.
At dinner, Dumbledore had been giving him increasingly impatient looks. Harry realized that the Headmaster probably wanted his hat, answers, and some reassurance that the rogue time traveller currently residing in his school wasn't just slacking off or plotting to do a Riddle. But things had gotten way past explanation so quickly, it was hard to think of having a merry old chat with Albus Dumbledore. Not to mention there was no telling what he'd do if he ever found out his sorting hat had murdered one of his students for casting killing curses in his castle.
It wasn't a simple matter of catching up. Harry fully intended to wait until the last minute to say his goodbyes to Dumbledore. Hopefully by then, he would have enough information to finish the job he started one way or another. It seemed that more than likely Harry would once again have to pass up his final year of schooling, if only to avoid having to talk to Dumbledore.
He hadn't given the future much thought. The idea of becoming an Auror after all this seemed a bit silly. On the other hand there was some excitement in his heart at the thought of getting to be Moody's colleague or mentoring Tonks. Maybe he would travel for a bit. It seemed strange that after all the places he'd been, he never even once left the UK. He travelled through time, but still managed to keep himself confined to the British Isles. The only thing he was sure of was he would like to spend any future he had with Lily. It would be nice if he was still friends with Severus and Remus, Regulus...
"What are you grinning about?" asked Reg, taking him out of his daydreaming.
"Nothing, thinking about what happens after we leave Hogwarts."
"Well don't ask me, I have no idea. Although I guess I'll be Lord Black." he said in a bitter tone.
"No worries, Lord Black."
"Don't call me that."