Chapter Text
Albus Potter knew that the life he lived now was at the expense of his parents' youth. Looking around, Albus takes in the sight of his boisterous family. All Weasley and Potter grandchildren plus an extra Malfoy gathered around enjoying each other’s company. Albus would say this would be a perfect way to spend Christmas Eve if it wasn’t for his two best friends.
“There’s no way you actually believe the Canons will beat the Harpies! You must be out of your mind Malfoy!” Rose cackled.
“The Harpies star player is injured! No way they’ll beat the canons without Jenkins on the pitch!” Scorpius retorted.
Their argument has only increased in volume and Albus knew it was only a matter of time until…
“ALBUS!”
in unison, they both finally acknowledge him.
“Mate you have faith in the canons right? It’s totally their season! The stars have aligned for them! It’s fate!” Scorpius shook Albus as if it would help his chances.
“C’mon, Albus is smart! He knows that even with our star player injured the Harpies will still beat the Canons.” Rose replied, attempting to step between the two guys.
Albus knew his best friends very well, it was the same cycle of bickering, dragging him into the debate, and then ignoring his input, all while having a certain spark in both of their eyes. Being totally honest, Albus was sick of them.
“Albus? Are you even listening to us?” Rose must’ve noticed his indifference towards their argument.
“Well it doesn’t matter what Albus thinks, Rosebud! What matters is the facts! Jenkins is recovering and the Canons will win, just wait my dear petal!”
“You forget that despite Jenkins recovering they still have—” Onto ignoring his input his two friends began.
A loud clattering of objects interrupted Rose mid-sentence. Shrieks and laughter soon followed. In the Weasley and Potter household that only meant that James Sirius Potter, Fred Weasley, Roxanne Weasley, and Lucy Weasley-Wood, were up to mischief.
Factoring in that only the children occupy the Potters residence Grimmauld place, the adults are too occupied to keep watch attending the ministry Christmas party instead, the four creating mischief meant that this Christmas Eve was one to remember.
———
“Ooohhhh Rosie and Scorpius! Be a couple of dears and open this box for us?” A small ornate box was cradled in James’s hands.
“You’re all seventh years remember? You guys can’t do alohomra charm?” Lily chimed in.
“Trust me Lily we already tried, Roxie nor me could get it open.” Lucy reassured her.
“James, how do you expect us to open that? Scorpius and I still can’t perform magic outside of school, we’re both underaged.” Rose shook her head.
“Where’d you even find that box, it looks ancient.” Scorpius brought up a good point, Albus had never seen that box in his life which meant it could’ve only come from his dad’s office or the attic.
“No one was falling for our traps we so we got bored and went rummaging around the attic.” Fred cheerfully said. Albus let out a sigh of relief knowing his dad’s office hasn’t been tampered with and the scoldings he’ll receive over Christmas break will stay zero.
“We found the box but couldn’t get it open but there’s something interesting inside, Jamie and Freddie tried to brute strength it while me and Lucy-Loo tried to charm it open! Neither worked.” Roxanne explained.
“So we’ve brought it to our two competitive smarties, who can be declared the winner if they’re the first to get it open!” James finished.
“And how are they supposed to do that without magic geniuses?” Louis asked. The commotion must’ve been big enough to draw in the entire family.
“If the box cannot be opened by force or magic, it’s probably meant to not be opened.” Molly noted.
“You guys should probably hide that box before Vicky and Teddy come over, they’ll both freak out over you all snooping in the attic.” Dominique added. That caused the four mischief makers to look at each other with varying degrees of concern.
“Why do you guys need magic to open it anyways? Just smash it on the ground if you wanna find out what's inside.” Hugo proposed, the conversation was interesting enough for him to look away from his wizarding chess game with Lily.
“Brilliant! Knew you had some Granger in you Hugo!” Fred cheered. “Quick, who gets the honors?”
The next sequence of events happened simultaneously.
“Why are you all gathered here?” came from Teddy.
“JAMES DO NOT THROW—” was screamed by Victorie who realized what James was doing.
The sounds of multiple Weasley and Potter grandchildren and an extra Malfoy getting engulfed in a bright blue light.
And finally, Albus Potter comes to the realization that the scoldings he’ll receive over Christmas break will not remain zero.
———
“HE GOT OFF! HE GOT OFF! HE GOT OFF—” could be faintly heard underneath where they landed.
Groans and discomfort are heard from the pile of tangled limbs that were once the Weasley and Potter grandchildren and extra Malfoy.
“James, why on earth did you do that—” Teddy started.
“James, once I am free from Dominique's arm I am going to kill you! One Christmas Eve with all the kids with nothing horrible happening was all I wanted!” Victorie wailed.
“Hey! Why is all the blame on me! Freddie, Lucy, and Roxanne all helped me find the box and Hugo gave me the idea to smash it open!” James cried.
“So you as a seventeen year old would listen to your fifteen year old younger cousin for decision making tips? Great to see how you’ll survive outside of Hogwarts!” Rose droned sarcastically, struggling to remove her leg from the pile of limbs intertwined.
“Guys” Lily said quietly.
“Hey, the box didn’t get engulfed with us! We don’t even get to know what was inside!” Roxanne dramatically yelled.
“Guys” Lily’s volume increased.
“Roxanne how could you be worried about what was inside the box! We’re in some place we don’t know!” Molly stressed.
“Guys!” Lily chimed in again, her voice growing more desperate.
“Calm down Molls, it’s not unknown this is still grimmauld place just…” James trailed off “Hey has our house always been this uh dusty? I thought we just cleaned.” Albus quickly removed himself from the pile and took in the surroundings.
James wasn’t wrong, where they stood now was grimmauld place but significantly dirtier considering the Potters cleaned the day before in preparation for hosting family.
Before he could speak, Lily let out a rush, “GUYS I THINK SOMEONE’S COMING I HEAR THEM!”
As if on cue, the door swung wide open and suddenly the group were no longer an entangled pile of limbs.
Teddy, being the first to get steady on his feet, stood protectively in front of the others, shielding the intruders from peering at them.
The only problem was that the intruders weren’t really intruders. Hugo in fact had recently gotten his card in his chocolate frog. Standing in front of them was famed auror Mad-Eye Moody. A very revered but dead man.
“Give me one good reason I don’t curse ya right now.” Mad-Eye had drawn his wand and pointed it right towards them. Molly Weasley had peered behind him, her eyes barely looking over his shoulder and let out a small gasp.
“They’re just children! Put your wand down Alastor!”
“Death Eaters disguised as children!” Mad-Eye Moody replied.
“L-Listen! Mad-Eye Sir we mean no harm!” Teddy explained.
“We’re not death eaters either mister!” James added trying to move past Teddy
“James!” Teddy hissed out.
“James?” Sirius Black now joined Molly Weasley to look over Mad-Eye Moody’s shoulder to take a peek at the newcomers.
Sirius wasn’t anticipating near identical copies of his best mate, his best mate’s wife, and his god son but here they were, standing no less than three feet away. Rage erupted inside Sirius at the thought of these death eaters impersonating the people he held dear. “Ringleader, you better start talking because if you think this disguise is fooling any of us you’ll be dead wrong.”
Startled, the boy replied “We’re not death eaters I swear! How can we prove it?” Teddy pleaded
“Still doesn’t explain how you managed to break in.” Mad-Eye Moody deadpanned at Teddy.
“We’ve time traveled sir, my family and I were spending Christmas here and my idiot cousin messed with something he shouldn’t have.” Victorie explained.
A laugh bubbled out of Sirius, “No way would a family spend Christmas at this dump unless they had to, are you sure you wanna go with this lie?”
“Victorie isn’t lying. We are from the future, we’re from 2022 and seeing this is the order of the phoenix we’re probably in 1995, right?” Molly interrupted Sirius’s laughter.
A silence fell among the group, the order members contemplated the possibility that these children were telling the truth.
“Please believe us, I’ll even take veritaserum to prove our innocence. We truly mean no harm. My god-brother is just an idiot.” Teddy begged, still attempting to shield the rest of his family behind him.
“Let’s just owl Professor Dumbledore, he can ask Snape to provide us some vials.” Remus Lupin spoke up. Making the gesture for the children to follow him into the living room, “he’ll be speedy and you kids won’t have to wait long to get home.” Remus smiled.
———
Following Remus, the time travelers come face to face with their aged-down family. Each who had a look of bewilderment on their faces at seeing the startling number that emerged from upstairs.
“So, are we allowed to ask who cloned Harry?” George broke the silence.
James opened his mouth to respond, “Don’t ask them questions till we get veritaserum in the blue fellow.” Mad-Eye said, nodding his head towards Teddy.
“We’ve sent a patronus to Dumbledore and an owl so we’ll be hearing from him soon.” Molly assured the children.
The floo place was suddenly brought to life by two figures: Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape.
“Let’s see what all this time travel nonsense is about, yes?” Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye.
Standing in front of both of his namesakes, Albus Potter started to feel the reality of the situation hit him, the majority of the people he cared about in his life and himself were stuck in the middle of the second wizarding war right when Voldemort was resurrected. Suddenly Albus had an urge to smack his older brother for getting them into this mess.