To Before, From After: A Next Generation Harry Potter Time Travel FanFic

Chapter Three

Time seemed to be taking its time as it moved ever so slowly. Through dinner, through family chit-chat, through the thoughts in Fred and James' heads.

They had been trying their best to hide their feelings of eagerness from the rest of the family, and hoped that any emotion that did escape would be perceived as normal, at least considering their situation, not having seen their cousins in almost two weeks.

The whole family was there, almost. Harry and Hermione were noticeably absent. James assumed that this was due to the business that he had overheard. His father not being home for dinner meant things were really serious.

After what seemed like fifteen hours of endless chit-chat, the pair of mischief makers were finally able to put their new Canadian pranking device into action.

They entered James' room to get the object only to remember that the owl was still there.

'Shit,' said Fred. 'What are we going to do about the owl?'

'I'll write a letter to Anon and send it off with her in the morning, hopefully no one will notice because there will be so many owls coming to and from this house,' James replied sitting down at his desk and jotting a quick note.

Write letter to Anon thanking him for the Canadian pranking thing and send it back to him using the owl he sent.
Make sure owl is fed.

'Where should we test this thing out first?' Asked James, who had just finished the note.

'Isn't it obvious? The 'room',' Fred replied sarcastically.

'Of course,' He said back as the boys shared a mischievous grin that could only mean something bad was going to happen.

When the kids were younger, Harry and Ron built a 'kids' room for the kids in the attic. It was filled with games and fun stuff for the kids to play with. However, when they kids got older, they grew out of the kids room, so Harry and Ron renovated it again and made it the 'teenage' room, but no one liked it, so they just called it the 'room'.

They climbed their way up to the top of the house, Fred with the small package in his hand.

When they entered the room all of their cousins were there, even Teddy who was far too old to be hanging out with the kids, though James suspected that his mother had put him up to this.

Rose, Molly and Dominique were sitting in a group playing some sort of muggle card game on the couches. Teddy and his girlfriend Victorie were entertaining the younger kids; Lily, Hugo and Louis. While Roxanne, Freds twin sister, Albus and Albus' friend Scorpius were having a heated discussion about Quidditch, much to Albus' objection.

Scorpius Malfoy was Albus' best friend at Hogwarts, and though he wasn't a part of the family, his parents were going to be away on business for the first few days of the Christmas holidays, so his father, Draco had kindly reached out to Albus' dad, Harry, who he went to school with, and Harry had agreed to let Scorpius bunk with Albus until Christmas Eve, when his parents would arrive.

James and Fred went and sat down in one of the couches on the other side of the room to open the package.

Though they were trying hard to hide their excitement, it did not go unnoticed by all.

Lily Luna Potter was the youngest child of Harry and Ginny and their only daughter. As James' youngest sibling she had developed a keen eye for spotting trouble before it happened. Sorted into Gryffindor, she was in her first year at Hogwarts. It would have been an underestimate to say that James did not want his younger sister to come to Hogwarts while he was still there because he feared that she would make it a living hell for him, which she did, an achievement she was very proud of.

'Wow,' Lily overheard James and Fred saying from across the room. As their faces grew in excitement, Lily's stomach twisted and turned.

She got up from her spot and slowly walked over to her brother and cousin. Lily knew something was bad when the pair were so intense in their conversation that they didn't even realise that Lily was walking towards them.

As she drew closer, she got the attention of more and more people in the room, the younger ones mostly, who were fascinated by anything.

When she was close enough to see the object in question she spoke up, startling both the boys in front of her and some of her other cousins in the room. 'What is that?' She said loud enough for the whole room to hear.

'Oh, umm,' James said, fumbling for words, now the prank was ruined. They were going to have to lie their way out of this one and try and get them another time.

'It's... a... umm...' fumbled Fred.

'Our final purchase before we were sent home, it only got here today,'

'But what does it do?' Lily asked, confused.

James held what looked like a golden necklace. It was beautiful, but the mischief makers faces were confused, something that didn't fill Lily with confidence.

'Umm...' James trailed off.

'You don't know?' Lily exclaimed. She now had the attention of everyone in the room, including Teddy who had looked up from his book with annoyance.

Teddy Remus Lupin was an Auror in training. Though he had graduated Hogwarts years ago, Harry had completely reformed the Auror training program when he became Head of the Auror Department. Teddy, Harry's godson was in his last few months of the program.

Teddy locked eyes with the object that James held.

'James,' Teddy said sternly as he sprung up from his chair and walked over to the small crowd that had formed around the scene. 'You need to give that to me right now.'

Teddy was serious, but it was one of James' favourite pastimes to annoy him and get on his nerves, as it was Fred's too.

The events that immediately followed, were a blur to everyone.

Fred remembered a game of catch gone wrong.

James remembered a god brother that was furiously angry.

Lily remembers a gut feeling of everything going wrong.

Teddy knew that this was not going to end well.

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