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Ancestors
By Arnel

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Category: Time-Turner Challenge (2014-2), Time Turner Challenge (2014-2)
Characters:None
Genres: General
Warnings: None
Story is Complete
Rating: G
Reviews: 33
Summary: **Winner of Best Overall and Most Creative for the Time-turner Challenge (2014-2)** In January of 1998, Harry goes back in time ninety-seven years to learn about his ancestors.
Hitcount: Story Total: 18595; Chapter Total: 3236
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
Harry's plans start coming together in this chapter. It's a bit short, but maps out what he hopes to accomplish with the Time-Turner. I hope you enjoy it enough to share your thoughts with me.




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Saturday, 3 January 1998, Moorfoot Hills

Unable to sleep, mostly because in the brick house he couldn’t hear the reassuring sound of Hermione breathing, Harry reluctantly slipped out of bed and hastily threw a jumper over his pyjamas while shoving his feet into a pair of slippers. The first floor was cold since he and Hermione had decided only to heat the two downstairs rooms and what little heat there was quickly dissipated the farther from the kitchen one went.

Downstairs, Harry searched the kitchen for a mug, then found Hermione’s tin of tea, intending to take the drink into the sitting room to sip while reading one of the old books. He filled the teapot twice, the first time to warm it properly and the second to make his tea. While the tea steeped, he found the poetry books and the book box containing the Time-Turner, then briefly returned to the kitchen to fill his cup.

The poetry book turned out to be a book of sonnets and while Harry struggled at first with the arcane language, he was soon looking for poems championing the beauty of the love of one’s life and his thoughts wandered to those of the girl he had left behind in Ottery-St Catchpole. He wondered if she had left a gift for him under the family Christmas tree or if she sometimes lay awake thinking of him. Most likely, she hadn’t and didn’t for he had left her without saying good-bye last August. Finally, feeling more melancholy than uplifted, he shut the book and turned his attention to the Time-Turner.

As he had noted before, the little golden instrument was much more complex than the one Hermione had used in their third year. To begin with, the two outer rings were made of gold as were the end caps on the crystal hourglass. Inside the hourglass was a mysterious golden dust that swirled from one bulb of the hourglass to the other. Harry studied the Time-Turner closely and discovered that the counters on the outer rings could be set to a year as far back as 1750 and any of the twelve months of a year. He was careful not to turn the Time-Turner over, lest he activate it and be whisked back in time against his will, while examining the end caps of the hourglass itself. Not surprising, the top had the numbers one to thirty-one inscribed on the outer edge, a ring that moved clockwise, like a dial. The bottom was similar, having the numbers one to twenty-four inscribed on its outer edge and an inner dial inscribed with the numerals five to fifty-five, similar to the face of a clock. Harry surmised that if he twisted and marked the dials and rings just so, he could tell the Time-Turner to take him back to a quarter after three in the afternoon on fifteen May nineteen twenty-one. As soon as he came to this conclusion, he sat back and began to ponder the possibilities available to him.

His limited knowledge of time travel had come from what Hermione had told him on the night they’d rescued Sirius and Buckbeak back in third year. He knew unequivocally that he must not be seen by his own past self and that he must not try to change the past in case he affected the future. Therefore, if he went back in time far enough, he might not endanger himself or the present. It might just work, he thought until another thought crossed his mind. But can I make it back to my own time?

Now feeling somewhat excited, Harry searched the book box for an instruction sheet. When there was none, he sighed, wondering if he should risk an experimental backwards jump, just to discover how to set the Time-Turner correctly. If he tried going back twenty-four hours, he would learn whether or not the Time-Turner would take him to where he had really been a day ago or whether it would dump him right back in his chair so that he would have to hide for a day, waiting for himself and Hermione to show up after the Peebles library closed. He hoped he wouldn’t end up back on the beach at Loch Ness where they had camped the night before: while the food supply had been abundant, the winds had battered the tent and worked its way through the seams in the canvass, causing him and Hermione to end up in Peebles. He didn’t relish spending too much time out in the open near the lake.

Smiling wryly, Harry thought, I’d best get some better clothes on just in case I need to walk around Muggle Scotland.

Fifteen minutes later, Harry was back in his chair, dressed warmly and with the Time-Turner’s chain slung around his neck. He quickly adjusted the counters on the month and year rings and then carefully chose the day and time, hoping that the instrument took intent into consideration as well when locating the traveller. One full rotation later, Harry found himself standing in the doorway to the farmhouse, the noontime winter light streaming in through the windows. Grinning and hoping that turning the Time-Turner forward one rotation would take him back to the next morning, Harry changed the date and time and turned the instrument. He re-entered the present just in time to see himself disappear. Satisfied, he cleaned up his tea things, put the Time-Turner and books back where he’d found them and went back to bed. He lay awake for a long time because had so many things to plan.

*

“Get up, Harry, it’s nearly noon!” Hermione’s voice pierced through Harry’s pleasant dream, jarring him awake.

As he put his feet on the cold wooden floor boards, he remarked, “That’s the best I’ve slept in a while.”

Hermione frowned. “I thought you prowling around in the middle of the night. How can you have slept well if you were up?”

“There’s something to be said for a cup of tea and the chance to read some soppy sonnets to help me forget where I am and what I’m doing,” he said, studiously avoiding his friend’s penetrating gaze. “I can show you the book, if you like,” he added.

“Then you didn’t have a nightmare?” Hermione queried.

“Nope. Honestly, I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t hear you breathing,” Harry admitted, feeling his ears heat up. “It was too quiet in my room.”

“Oh, Harry,” she sighed, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. After I came back to bed, I slept better than I have the last few weeks.”

Hermione only smiled and asked, “Want to help me with lunch? I went back to Peebles while you were sleeping and stocked up on staples: flour, eggs, bread, milk, that sort of thing. If we’re careful with the chilling charms, and add a Refilling Charm or two, at least the liquids will stay plentiful for the next week.”

“Sure, I’ll help. And then, while we’re eating, I’ll show you that poetry book,” Harry said.

Hermione mumbled something about liking the idea as she started down the stairs. Harry dressed quickly and followed her as soon as he could.

*

“I’m going for a walk,” Harry announced as they finished cleaning the dishes they’d used for their lunch. “Want to come with me? It’s stopped raining and I’d like to have a look at the valley.” He didn’t add that he would be scouting for a good place to enter the past.

Hermione smiled. “That sounds like a lovely idea. I’ll get my coat.” She hurried off and was back in the kitchen before Harry was.

They first toured the farmyard, often comparing it to what they knew of The Burrow’s recent history. Like The Burrow, there was a pigsty and the remains of a chicken coop. The barnyard itself was fenced in on three sides, the fourth being made up of the main wall of the barn. They found the remains of a vegetable garden in back of the house, along with a rusting plough, so they surmised that the family had kept at least one horse while someone lived here. Further from the house, the pastures seemed to be returning to their natural heather since there was no sign of sheep or goats anywhere on the surrounding hills. Eventually, Harry directed their steps down the dirt track and they meandered along until, nearly a mile from the house, the land opened up to reveal a vista of more gently rolling hills. Way off in the distance, they could see Peebles.

Harry sighed inwardly in frustration. The distance between the farm and the village certainly put the brakes on his plans to just show up with the lame excuse that he was just passing through. How was he supposed to introduce himself to his ancestors if he couldn’t pass himself off as a tourist? There had to be another way…

“It’s certainly isolated here,” Hermione commented, voicing his tormented thoughts.

“I’m beginning to think this branch of my father’s family liked being isolated,” Harry observed while adjusting the locket chain under his shirt collar. The movement dislodged the fingers of doubt the Horcrux was worming into his thoughts. “If they were even semi-magical, meaning they could perform the simplest spells, having nosy neighbours might have been a problem.”

“My parents had a few of those,” she said, sounding a little nostalgic. “Before I went to Hogwarts, the neighbourhood mothers were constantly popping in for a cuppa and I always had to be careful not to become too irritated when they overstayed their welcome.”

Harry looked at his friend. “Did anything specific happen when they did?”

Giggling, Hermione said, “Usually I ‘wished away’ the tea things or made light bulbs break spectacularly enough that the ladies left. Only once did I make someone’s cup hover over their head, threatening to dump its contents, until they left.”

“What had she done?” Harry asked.

“The usual,” Hermione shrugged. “She had a daughter in my class who was obviously less studious but more popular than I and she really rubbed it in. I think I was more perturbed than hurt by what she said, but it still rankled. The next thing I knew, her teacup left its saucer and was banging the side of the lady’s head.”

“Sounds like something Dumbledore did to the Dursleys once,” Harry said as they turned to go back to the farm. “Only it was glasses of mead that were annoying them.”

“I would have liked to see that,” Hermione said wistfully.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence and when they entered the house, Harry took down several of the old ledgers–marked 1900-1904–and one of The Farmer’s Journals while Hermione went to fetch her book from Dumbledore. They lit a magical fire in the fireplace since they had no wood other than the old wooden furniture and they certainly weren’t going to start burning that, and then settled into a companionable silence.

Harry’s mind whirled as he searched the ledger for patterns–expenditures and income–that would give him clues to the times his ancestors had made the trek to Peebles to either sell their fleece or pick up supplies. As he turned the pages, the pattern of life on the farm was revealed to him. In spring, a few weeks after lambing season, Herry and Amelia Potter bought supplies for planting the vegetable garden, fixing things around the farm and a few items such as bolts of cloth for the house and themselves, it appeared. They purchased the most food during the summer months with some of the money they gleaned from selling their fleece with the help of their two hired men. Harry found it a bit surprising to learn that instead of being the most plentiful time of the year, summer seemed to be the time when there was the least human food on the farm while the family waited for the garden to grow and animals like pigs to mature. In autumn, they stocked up on staples and canning supplies in preparation for winter. In winter, most of the family’s money went to veterinarian bills to keep the sheep healthy, especially during lambing season. With these patterns in mind, Harry began planning his visit to the farm to get to know some of his family.

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