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

Chapter Two

'Yeah, I didn't think your parents would be too nice to you after what happened. I believe Harry described it as the 'most idiotic and stupid thing he had ever witnessed, with damage worse than anything we had ever caused'. If it was worse than what we've done,' said Ron, recalling a memory from his second year where they brewed an illegal potion in a bathroom that turned his wife into a cat, 'then its got to be bad.'

'Anyway, umm... what are you doing here?' Asked James, 'I thought you weren't meant to be arriving until you picked up the others from Kings Cross.'

'Yeah,' he said trailing off a bit. 'Well Hermione is a bit tied up at the Ministry at the moment, so she's not coming to the platform, unfortunately, and I had the morning off anyway, so I figured that I would get a head start on bringing our stuff over and setting it up for the next few weeks.'

It had been a tradition for the family that had been going on since before they were born that they spend the Christmas holidays at Gimmauld Place. There whole family would be coming. After Harry had taken over the house a couple of years after his godfather, Sirius Black had passed and completely renovated the whole place. He added extra rooms and everything to make it big enough for his family, and as the family grew, with marriages and children, Harry added more rooms. Eventually he had to add another story to the house just to allow everyone to fit. Because of this, Christmas gatherings were always the best ones.

'Sure,' replied James. 'Go ahead, don't let us keep you.'

Ron nodded in reply, unsure of what to say in response. It wasn't often that his nephews pushed him away. He knew that something must be up, but didn't think anything of it at the time and hesitantly walked away.

When the boys were sure that Uncle Ron was out of earshot, they began concocting a plan.

'Geez, that was close,' said Fred to his cousin.

'I know. Do you think that he suspected anything?' James replied.

'Nah, Uncle Ron has never been that observant, but imagine if it was one of our mums that had come home.'

James shudded at the thought. 'The parcel?' He asked his cousin.

'It's fine, but we should probably hide it soon, before someone else comes.'

'Good idea,' said James about to follow Fred to his room when he realised. 'Shit...'

'What is it James?'

'What are we going to do about the owl?' He questioned.

'Oh, shit...' said Fred following James' line of thought.

The pair knew that they couldn't put her outside because Uncle Ron would hear the door and demand to know what is up, and they couldn't keep it in the drawer otherwise it would suffocate and die and that would be a harder story to explain. They couldn't even take it up to their room for fear of someone seeing it and finding out.

'What do we do?' Asked Fred.

'I guess we need to hide her,' James said, seeing his cousins questioning expression.

'Where?' He asked. 'And how do you do that without magic?'

'Ahh...' that questioned stumped James. 'Look, lets just take her up to my room, and we'll see from there,' James said as he was about to turn to go get the owl in the next room, but he heard his Uncle's footsteps coming down the stairs and immediately sat back down at the kitchen table.

'Alright,' started their Uncle as he entered the kitchen once again. 'I reckon, I'm done and I gotta get to work, so I'll see you two later.'

'Ok, good bye,' said the boys in near perfect unison.

Ron walked out of the door and as soon as James and Fred heard the slam of the door, they raced to get their plan done in as short a time as possible, praying that nobody else came.

James ran to the next room and got the owl, who he was pleased to see was still alive.

When the two got to James room, they quickly shut the door.

'That was way too close,' said Fred, as he fell onto James' bed.

'At least we are still in the clear,'

-----

The rest of the afternoon passed smoothly for the boys. As relatives came and went, they decided that it was best to leave the package in James' room with the owl until after everyone got there that night.

By the time that their siblings, cousins and family were meant to be arriving, James and Fred were bored out of their minds. All they wanted to do was investigate what the object in the parcel did, but they couldn't risk it. At least not until after dinner.