It's Christmas Time Again: A Time-Traveling TMS Holiday Extravaganza

Boxing Day, 2013

"I've been having funny dreams," I told Harry.

It was early afternoon on Boxing Day. I'd stayed at Harry's house since Christmas eve. I was sitting at the table in the dining room, working reading my Magical Engineering text - there was a bit that just wasn't sinking into my brain that I'd read over and over again, trying to understand. But my mind was distracted.

That weird hollow feeling in my chest that I'd felt when I had that dream - it was getting bigger and almost... cold. I'd woken up with it settled in there, my lungs so tight it was hard to breathe, like how it felt when I was having a panic attack, except... worse... because instead of the sharp stabs like a panic attack gave, this was more numb, harder to pin point. I knew, usually, what had caused my panic. This, I didn't know where it came from or why it was there. It was just heavy and hard and it felt like my lungs couldn't expand all the way properly.

Harry was leaning over a folder he'd brought home from the Ministry, his brow knit in concentration. He held up his finger - one minute - and his lips moved as he re-read the sentence I'd interrupted him on, his other hand dragging over the text.

Something was going on at the Ministry. Despite it being the holiday, which Harry always took off, he was still working.

I bit my lip. I probably shouldn't even bother him with the feeling I had. But the feeling in my chest... it seemed to coincide with the growing frequency of the dreams... they were getting more and more peculiar - and, I'd realized that very morning, they always had the same "character", for a lack of a better word. Some mysterious woman I didn't know and couldn't see clearly. A blur within the dream.

Harry's finger slid off the page and he looked up, his brow uncreasing. "What now, Tedders?" he asked.

"Nothing," I said, shaking my head.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to not pay attention before," Harry apologized. He sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes, exhausted. I stared at the round frames on the table, the blurry view I had through them from this angle that told me just how poor Harry's eyesight was. His thumbs worked on his temples as he leaned forward on his elbows. He looked tired and miserable.

"Why did you become an auror?" I asked.

Harry lowered his hands, squinting at me, "It felt like what I ought to do, I suppose," he said. "Everyone was looking to me to save the world and I felt like... I couldn't let them down." He put his glasses back on. "If I defeated the most evil wizard that ever lived, then surely it wouldn't be so hard to defeat some of the lesser evils, right?"

"Did you want to be an auror?"

"What else would I be?" He smiled, and said playfully, "I am the Chosen One after all. The Boy Who Lived."

I shrugged.

"Have you thought on what you want to be when you get finished at Hogwarts, Tedders?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I haven't thought about it all. I've got forever to think about that."

"It's not as far off as it seems," Harry warned.

I shrugged.

Harry studied me a moment, tilting his head. I felt like he was seeing past my skin and my cheeks started to warm - I'm sure my hair was probably turning slowly warmer, too, like always. Harry's mouth opened and he took a breath, about to ask a question when the back kitchen door burst opened and James-Sirius came running inside.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" he shouted the moment he was through the door.

Harry stood up quickly as Albus came in wailing at the top of his voice, clutching his mouth and nose. "Galloping Gargoyles! What did you do?" Harry cried, seeing blood splattered over Albus's chest and face.

"I was just throwing him the quaffle!" James-Sirius explained. "It's not my fault Albus caught the ball with his face!"

Albus was screaming.

"Oh gods, your mother's going to have a fit," Harry said, lifting Albus up, panic clear on his face as he clutched Albus to his chest. "Al - Albus - are you alright?"

We were rushing, then, being urged by Harry - "hurry, hurry" - Albus still screaming and crying as I held onto Lily's hand, rushing from the floos to the reception desk at St. Mungo's. James-Sirius running beside his father and brother, staring up at them, wide-eyed with worry.

"I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to," James-Sirius was chanting, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Harry reached the reception desk. "Help! Help me! I - My son, my son's been hit with a quaffle. A quaffle to the face!" Harry said, breathless from the run.

Lily tugged on my shirt. "Is Albus's face broken?"

"No they'll fix it, he'll be alright," I promised.

"It was an accident!" James-Sirius was still crying, even as a mediwitch led us away to work at healing Albus.

"Your brother will be good as new when we're done," the mediwitch promised us. Harry looked pale with worry.

Albus was sort of good as new, he wasn't perfect, but it was close-ish. He had one tooth that was crooked after that.

I didn't realize the irony of it until several years later - after I properly met James Potter.