“They seem to have your appetite, Ron,” commented Molly. “I had enough cookies for everyone there.”

Harry and Ginny exchanged a glance.

“Uh, so . . . uh, James,” stammered Harry. “Why don’t you and . ..” he stopped, horrified to realize he was going to blow his cover in the first minute. He had no idea of the little girl’s name.

Ginny’s eyes opened wide as she realized the problem. She bit her lip for a moment, thinking, and then took a deep breath, letting out a cough that sounded like “Lily?” The little girl looked up at her. “Yes Mummy?” Ginny gave Harry a triumphant look.

“Mum?” Lily was still looking at Ginny.

“Umm, well, yes. Like your . . . father said . . . umm, I think you both need to tell us what happened with the Pensieve.”

It was like a dam broke. Both children crowded around Harry and Ginny, jumping up and down, fighting to be the first to talk.

“I told you already,” said Lily, sounding remarkably like Ginny when she was annoyed, or Ginny when she didn’t think Harry was listening. “Grandma went out to get eggs for custard and told us not to touch the Pen-seeve, and James did anyway. And then it disappeared!”

“It was an accident!!!” bellowed James. He looked at Harry. “You’ll find it, won’t you, Daddy?”

Harry started at the name. He looked down at James and forced a smile on his face, patting the boy on his back perhaps a little too forcefully. “Sure we will. I promise. Why, I bet it turns up on its own, right here. Soon.” He looked over at Ginny. “Very soon.”

“Well, now that we’ve gotten all of that sorted out, why don’t we go back outside and finish supper?” said Molly. “I just need to put together a little bit more dessert and I’ll join you.”

“Give me a piggy-back ride, Daddy!!!” Lily was jumping up and down in front of Harry.

“No, me!!” shouted James. “You gave her one last time. It’s my turn!!”

“How about I give Lily a piggy-back ride and Harry, I mean, Daddy, gives James one,” proposed Ginny.

“But I thought you couldn’t give piggy-back rides because of the baby,” said Lily, with a confused look on her face.

Both Harry and Ginny stopped. In the doorway, Fred and George turned back to listen as well, identical wicked looks on their faces.

“You know,” said Lily, “the baby in your tummy that’s coming after Christmas.” She smiled sweetly at Ginny. “So James and I can have another brother or sister.”

“Maybe it’s another set of twins!” crowed George.

“Maybe even triplets!” said Fred. “I don’t know, Ginny, you do seem to have been putting on a bit of weight, lately.”

“Sod off,” said Harry. “She looks fine.” As Fred and George started making wolf whistles, Harry turned bright red. Without another word, he scooped James onto his back and carried him outside.

“Way to show my brothers, Harry. I look fine?”

“Give me a break. I had barely realized you were a girl that summer, and suddenly I learn I have produced a couple of kids with you, with another on the way — what did you expect me to say?”

Outside, Harry was trying to get used to the fact that he was apparently not allowed to sit alone in his seat; James had crawled onto his lap and showed no signs of moving as he reached across the table to snag a piece of the cake Molly had brought out. Crumbs showered Harry as James wiggled in his lap, seemingly unable to sit still.

“Hey daddy?”

“Daddy??”

A small finger poked Harry’s chest. Hot breath yelled in his face. “DADDY!”

Harry jumped. “Oh, uh, what is it, James?”

“Can we go fly on your broom later?”

For the first time, Harry focused fully on the small boy in his lap. “You like to fly?”

James giggled. “Of course I do! I’m going to be Gryffindor Seeker, just like you.”

“And I’m going to be a Gryffindor Chaser and play for the Harpies like mum!” Ginny and Lily had appeared outside, Lily clinging so tightly to Ginny’s leg that she could only move forward by carrying Lily along with her, like an extra limb.

“Ginny’s going to play for the Harpies? Are you serious?” Harry stared at the little girl, and then at Ginny, as if he couldn’t decide if they were joking. But Ginny looked just as surprised as Harry, although a flicker of excitement crossed her face as well.

“I’m not Sirius, I’m Lily!!” she crowed with glee, while across the table, Sirius spit out the Firewhisky he had just put in his mouth.

Under the cloak, both Ginny and Harry let out snorts of laughter. Luckily the rest of the table was too busy laughing to have heard. “I guess she does pay attention to us some of the time,” giggled Ginny.

“Yeah, but let’s hope no one tells her that Sirius is actually sitting right across the table from her,” said Harry.

“Who told you that joke?” Sirius asked, gasping for air.

“Daddy says it all the time,” said Lily, looking back at Harry for confirmation. “Sirius was his godfather. He died,” she finished, with childlike bluntness.

“He did? When? No, no, I don’t want to know.” Sirius took another big drink of Firewhisky and looked at his godson. “So, you’re a dad! Guess I didn’t do such a great job of fulfilling my duties to teach you about the facts of life, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Harry, suddenly giving Sirius a wicked grin. “Maybe you taught me too well.” He smiled at Ginny and shrugged. This was all so weird, there was nothing to do but go with the flow at this point. She smiled weakly back and continued on around the table, Lily still in tow.

James began babbling at Harry about Quidditch, a subject Harry was more than relieved to move on to. Here was something he had in common with the boy, and something they could discuss without Harry’s having to act parental or anything.

They were just going over the finer points of the match Harry had played for Gryffindor his second year, where an enchanted Bludger had broken his arm (James apparently was quite familiar with the tale and recited a description of each of Harry’s moves better than Harry remembered himself), when Lily, sitting on Ginny’s lap at the other end of the table, looked up from where she was braiding Ginny’s hair and yelled “Hey!”

Conversation stopped as everyone looked at her. “What?” asked Ginny.

“Why aren’t you sitting next to Daddy like you always do? Are you in a fight?”

“Um, no. D-d-daddy and I are fine, thanks.”

“Well then, come on!!” Lily was surprisingly strong for such a small girl as she pulled Ginny out of her chair and dragged around the table to where Harry and James were sitting.

“Now, sit!” she commanded, pushing Ginny into a chair.

“And hold hands too!” added James, picking up on his sister’s theme.

Ginny and Harry both turned red, but cowed under the twin stern gazes of James and Lily.

“Go Harry, go Ginny,” Harry chanted, while Ginny elbowed him to be quiet. “I want to see what they do.”

Looking at anything but her, Harry took Ginny’s hand. Actually, he sort of took her last two fingers, holding them as if they were burning twigs, or a beaker of acid.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and, taking a deep breath, held her hand more firmly.

“S’okay,” Ginny said. A second later she giggled quietly to him. “If only I’d known when I was ten that all I had to do to get you to hold my hand was bring our kids here from the future, I’d have built the Pensieve myself.”

Her statement broke the tension. Harry let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, and, almost involuntarily, squeezed Ginny’s hand. She looked at him, surprised, and seemed about to say something when Lily and James suddenly burst into song.

“Mummy and Daddy, flying by a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the twins in a baby carriage!”

The entire table dissolved again into laughter as James and Lily began yelling out “Kiss! Kiss! We want to see you kiss!”

Ginny’s earlier bravado seemed to fade as the twins chanted, soon to by joined by Fred and George, who were unhelpfully yelling things like “pucker up, now!” and “Don’t be a minx, Ginny -let’s see some action!”. She glared at her brothers while trying to subtly hush Lily and James, to no effect.

“Oh, good,” said Ginny. “They’re getting wound up.” She nudged Harry. “It’ll be kind of weird, watching ourselves snogging. Do you think we’ll actually do it?”

“In another minute, we’re not going to have a choice. You know the only thing that will get the twins to stop yelling for us to kiss is . . .”

“Who wants to go for a fly?” yelled Harry desperately.

“ . . . That,” finished Harry, a bit of disappointment in his voice.”

“Sorry you don’t get to watch your fifteen-year-old self have a bit of a snog with a pretty girl?” Ginny teased.

“Not when I have a pretty girl to kiss right here,” said Harry, kissing her, and then smirking. “No, I was just thinking that you were about to run screaming into the house to avoid having to kiss me and I was going to win the bet.”

“Not on your life, Potter. Look— I seem to be doing just fine now, although I’m sure part of me is disappointed that you didn’t actually lay one on me.”

Sure enough, Harry’s suggestion of going flying was met with wild enthusiasm by Lily and James. They tugged Harry and Ginny out of their seats yelling excitedly about how high they wanted to go and who could fly fastest. James grabbed another piece of cake and began shoving it in his mouth with one hand even as he put his other, quite sticky hand in Harry’s.

“I call Daddy’s broom first!” yelled Lily, catching Harry by surprise by running up to Harry and grabbing him around the waist so that he almost fell over.

“Mum and I’ll beat you by a million!” countered James quickly, letting go of Harry and running over to Ginny.

“Wanna bet?”

“Yeah! Let’s bet like Mum and Daddy always do!” He frowned then. “What’s a bet?”

“Nothing,” said Harry quickly, looking quizzically at Ginny. “I wonder what we bet about?” he whispered to her as they walked towards the broom shed, the twins running ahead of them.

“No idea,” she replied, and then grinned. “But we must be fun in our old age.” She looked thoughtful for a second. “I wonder how old we are, anyway? I mean, I imagine a lot of time has to go by for us to get to the point where we are married and have kids. We are married, right?”

“Harry smirked. “If we had twins and weren’t married, I’m sure that instead of talking about Mum and Dad, Lily and James would be talking about Mum and the bloke Grandma keeps locked in the cellar.” He suddenly thought of something, and was quiet for a minute, thinking.

“What is it, Harry?”

“It’s just, their being here. I guess it means I defeated Voldemort.”

“Oh,” said Ginny. “Yes, I guess it does. I wonder when.”

“I wonder how . It’d be nice to be able to ask them, just to satisfy my curiosity.”

“That would look kind of suspicious, don’t you think?” Ginny said. “I mean, can you imagine? ‘Excuse me, kids, do either of you happen to know how I vanquished the Dark Lord?’”

Harry chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I suppose it doesn’t matter that much, since obviously, I figured out some way to do it.”

Harry and Ginny had followed their younger selves as they walked down the path. “Harry, at the end of the memory, do you think we can tell them?” Ginny asked.

“I don’t see why not. Do you think your mum would mind? After all, this is her party.” He looked around. “Where is she, anyway?”

“Prob ably right behind us. Her Disillusionment spells are really good — if they hadn’t been, Fred and George would’ve probably gotten away with even more than they did, growing up.”

But Molly did not make her presence known and Harry and Ginny forgot about her in their interest in watching their younger selves interact with their children.

Harry and Ginny’s next bit of difficulty came when they got to the broom shed and pulled out Harry’s Firebolt and Fred’s Cleansweep Five, as Ginny did not have a broom of her own.

“No! We want to ride your brooms! Where’s your DemonFlyer, Daddy?”

“Yeah,” said James. “And where’s your Gemini, Mum? We’ll never beat Daddy and Lily on that .” He looked disdainfully at the broom Ginny was holding.

“Umm, well, we left them at home,” said Ginny. “These will have to do.”

“I should have picked to fly with Daddy,” James groused, but climbed on the broom in front of Ginny.

Flying with the twins turned out to be a wonderful idea.

They whooped with delight as Harry and Ginny swooped up and down over the orchard, each trying to get low enough for one of the twins to grab an apple off the tree as they zoomed past.

Harry found himself totally relaxed for the first time since the bizarre evening had begun. He almost forgot that it was his daughter he was carefully holding as they flew over the trees, Harry flying more and more crazily just to hear her giggle. Flying always did that to him, allowed him to forget his cares and worries, if only for a little while, and without being totally conscious of it, he was pleased that his future children seemed to feel the same way.

And Ginny. In all honesty, Harry had not thought about her in depth before now. She was Ron’s little sister, generally fun to be around, and someone he supposed he considered a friend. Actually, now that he thought about it, he definitely considered her a friend, just not one he had ever specifically sought out before. But watching her flying over his head, James whooping with glee, Harry realized that a lot of his best memories with the Weasleys included Ginny. Now that she had gotten over her little girl infatuation with him, she was easy to hang out with in a way that many other girls were not. She didn’t make him nervous, like Cho, or annoyed, like being around Lavender or Parvati for too long, could. And while he didn’t put her in the same category as Hermione in terms of friendship, he could already see that she might have certain qualities that would surpass even that relationship. She loved Quidditch, for one. She never bugged him to study, for another.

And, Harry realized suddenly, she was quite pretty.

Ginny was watching as the younger Harry flew lower, closer to where Ginny was making figure eights in the air. She smirked and poked Harry. “By the fascinated look on your alter-ego’s face, I think you just figured out I’m a girl.”

“Prat.”

In the air next to Ginny, Harry was stuttering a bit with his new realization, as well as the fact that he suspected it was time to end their flight. It had become quite dark, and even Harry knew that it was probably time for the twins to go to bed, assuming the memory lasted that long.

Although Lily and James put up a half-hearted protest when Ginny said it was time to come down, they were obviously tired, and quieter than they had been since they had first appeared. Harry and Ginny locked the brooms in the shed and walked slowly back towards the rest of the family. Harry expected to see dishes floating through the air as everyone joined in a Molly-directed clean-up, but, inexplicably, Mrs.Weasley was still sitting at one end of the table next to her husband, a look of concentration on her face. She was also nodding occasionally. Everyone else was quietly talking and taking no notice of the sight.

“Aha!” said Ginny. “I think my mum has gotten a hold of, well, my mum.” She looked at Harry. “Can you see the disturbance in the air behind her? I think she is telling her what is going on.”

“Probably warning her not to interfere with bedtime,” agreed Harry.

Indeed, as Harry and Ginny appeared in the clearing, Molly stood up suddenly and looked at everyone at the table. “I need help clearing the table,” she announced. “And since Harry and Ginny have to put the twins to bed . . ,” at this statement, she looked pointedly at them, “I think it would be best to stack and rinse the plates out here, using an Augamenti spell, so we don’t make too much noise in the kitchen.

“Yep, clearly your mum’s doing. Looks like it’s all up to us to get the twins to sleep. Well, up to that Harry and Ginny.” He took Ginny’s arm. “Shall we go watch?”

“Defi nitely,” said Ginny. “I still have that bet to win.”

“Come on, kids, inside now,” said Harry, feeling strangely comfortable with his new role as authority figure.

“It makes me think of my dad,” said Harry quietly to Ginny as he scooped up James and she put Lily on her back.

“Acting like a parent yourself, you mean,” Ginny nodded at him.

“Yeah. It’s not something I’ve really thought of before. I’ve always focused on the fact that they’re not here, not on what it was like for them when they were around, you know, taking care of me. Now, with all this,” said Harry, gesturing at James, who was cuddled against his shoulder, “I can imagine it somehow.”

Under the Cloak, Harry took Ginny’s hand. “That’s exactly how I felt when they were born,” he said softly. Ginny didn’t reply, just put her hand on his cheek and smiled.

“It’s a powerful feeling,” said Ginny,. “one I never could’ve imagined before. I’ve only known them a couple of hours, but knowing that they’re mine . . . ours . . . or will be, I don’t know. I think I love them already, somehow.”

Harry smiled. “Yeah. Knowing that I’m going to love them someday, it makes me love them now. I mean, why wait?”

Harry and Ginny were grinning at each other kind of stupidly, the absurdity of the situation catching up with them, and they were both chuckling as they entered the Burrow’s kitchen and headed towards the stairs.

“Daddy?” Harry had thought James had fallen asleep.

“Yes kiddo?” The endearment rolled off his tongue surprisingly easily.

“I don’t feel so good.”

Harry and Ginny exchanged a look. “I knew I should have tried to stop him from eating that last piece of cake!” Ginny muttered, “on top of the biscuits and Chocolate Frogs and an entire plate of my mother’s cookies.”

“I think that would have counted as ‘interference,’” replied Harry. “But let’s stay close.”

Ginny put her hand on James’ cheek. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“My tummy feels yucky.”

Harry and Ginny exchanged a look. “I should have stopped him from eating that last piece of cake!” Ginny said. "And didn’t they mention having biscuits and Chocolate Frogs before they got here? Not to mention an entire plate of my mother’s cookies.”

“Too late now,” said Harry. “But stay close.”

“Why don’t we go upstairs and lay down in bed. Won’t that feel good, James?” Ginny was somehow managing to gently rub his back while still balancing Lily on her own.

“I don’t know.” James had gotten quite pale.

“Ginny, I think I should take him to the loo,” Harry said, moving quickly in that direction. He didn’t like the look on the boy’s face at all.

It was too late. With an almighty belch, James threw up all over Harry and promptly burst into tears. Lily looked over at her brother and began crying as well.

Harry and Ginny stared at the scene, and then each other, both wanting more than anything to comfort their children. “Harry, I have to go to them!” Ginny wailed.

Harry was feeling the pull of his son and daughter as well, but managed to hold back his wife long enough to watch their younger selves confront their crisis. “Look, I think they’re doing alright,” he said.

Harry was rather shocked that getting vomited on had not made him lose his own dinner. He guessed it was because he was too focused on trying to make James feel better and comfort Lily, who was crying nearly as hard as he was.

Ginny cast a couple of cleansing charms over them and opened her arms to James, who crawled into them. She shrugged apologetically at Harry. “There’s just something about your mum when you don’t feel good,” she explained.

Harry didn’t disagree. He picked up Lily and held her gently. “Look, honey, James is better already. Aren’t you, buddy?”

James raised his tearstained face. “Yeah. I feel better.”

“Good,” said Harry. “Throwing up makes me feel better too.”

“That’s what you always say, Daddy,” said Lily.

“I do?” Harry didn’t know what to think.

“I think that bed is in order now,” said Ginny firmly.

In short order, Harry and Ginny helped the twins wash their faces and brush their teeth, tucking them both into the bed in Ginny’s room, which Harry carefully expanded first. It felt almost natural to brush the hair back from their faces and kiss them each carefully goodnight. Both children were so drowsy that they could barely mumble “goodnight” back to Harry and Ginny, but Lily managed a sleepy “love you” that made Harry’s breath catch in his throat, and James grabbed his hand as it brushed by his cheek and held on for a moment, before sleep overtook him.

Harry and Ginny stood looking down at the twins for a moment.

“Do you think they’ll be here in the morning?” asked Ginny.

“I don’t think so,” said Harry, looking around. “We’re getting close to the end, I think.” Indeed, certain aspects of the room seemed fuzzier than when they had first entered it. “I’m going to miss them.” He shook his head. “I mean, I would miss them if I was still going to be around after they are gone. But I guess when they go, we go too.”

“Yeah, said Ginny. “I can’t picture it, though.” She frowned. “How exactly do they get back?”

“We’ll take them.” Harry threw off the Invisibility Cloak and revealed himself and Ginny to their younger forms.

Harry and Ginny, quite appropriately, were shocked. “How long have you been here?” asked Ginny.

“The whole time,” said Ginny. “We could watch, but not interfere.”

Harry opened his mouth and then closed it again, a thousand questions running through his mind. He tried again. “So . . . it really does happen, then? Ginny and me, I mean. And Lily and James.”

"It does.” Harry smiled. “Not as soon as you would like, though. You . . . well, we, are a bit thick about her," he said, tilting his head at Ginny.

Ginny was looking at her older self in fascination. “Wow.” She blushed a bit, and muttered, “Glad to know I finally fill out.”

Ginny grinned. “Well, part of that’s the pregnancy, but yeah, you do.”

“She looks pretty good now, I think,” said Harry, with only a hint of a blush this time.

“That ’s a step up from ‘fine,’” said Ginny approvingly.

“They’re great kids,” said Harry suddenly. He knew he didn’t have much more time. “It’s too bad this is it. For me and Ginny, I mean. At least for a while.” He looked at Ginny. “I’m sorry I’m going to be so thick about everything.”

“Me too, I think. But I’m glad it all works out in the end.”

“That it does,” said Harry, nodding.

“Bett er than you could ever imagine,” agreed Ginny, going over to the bed and carefully lifting Lily into her arms.

“Are you okay with her, Hon?” Harry had picked up the sleeping James and was studying his wife.

“I’m fine.” Ginny smiled at Harry and Ginny, noticing their clasped hands as they watched their older selves. “You were wonderful with them, you know. As good as Harry and I would have been. You’re going to be great parents.”

“We are great parents,” said Ginny, looking at the woman she was going to become. Harry squeezed her hand.

“Too bad this isn’t real, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Too bad.” He looked at them for a second. “Hey, there’s something I wanted to ask you, about how I defeat . . .”

The room suddenly swirled around them all, and then went black.