Unofficial Portkey Archive

Off-Limits by Blue Lady

Here's Chapter 3 of my revised vision. Well....there hasn't been any drastic changes, but if anyone wants to read it again, that's fine with me! =) Hmm....maybe I should just throw in some Draco/Hermione for good measure..no, wait, that's for another story. Nevermind!

Chapter 3: The Mysterious Trio

Hermione had been in the middle of raising her spoon to her mouth when the letter came. Raising an eyebrow as she noticed a familiar scrawl on the paper, she looked over at Harry to see that he had received one as well.

"So what does it say?" Ginny swallowed the piece of toast she was munching on and regarding the envelope the other girl now held in her hand with a curious glance.

Hermione,
Would you please drop by my office after breakfast. There is a little arrangement I wish to discuss with you and a few other students. You will be excused from all your subjects today. The password is Strawberry Drop.
Professor Dumbledore

"Some people have all the luck." From his seat beside Harry, Ron sighed, "What I would do to be excused from a day's worth of classes..."

"What can possibly be so important though?" Hermione wondered out loud. "I mean, I'm going to be missing Charms, Astronomy-"

"Not to mention that test in Divination." Ron grinned at Harry, "Think I used the being-transfigured-into-a-pet-parrot outcome yet?"

"Don't think so. But the best thing is, I'll get to miss this." and he proceeded to imitate Trelawney's voice: "Oh my poor boy. The signs are not good. ("As if they ever are," interjected Ron.) I see that you are in great danger of getting mortally injured by yet another walking tree."

Ron snickered while Ginny gave an uncharacteristic snort.

Meanwhile, Hermione just rolled her eyes, "I wasn't aware that trees walked."

"Dudley's new video game." explained Harry. "He chucked it into the fireplace when his character got killed by a moving tree."

"What a waste of money."

*******************************************

BAM!

Draco Malfoy swore as the hex came hurling back towards him, almost singeing the tips of his hair in the process. His hands quickly flew to the top of his head as he let off another string of curses.

"Tsk, tsk, such language." came a voice from behind him.

The blond rolled his eyes. This day couldn't possibly get any worse....

Harry snapped his fingers directly in front of Draco's eyes. "Malfoy."

"What, Potter?" he snarled, shoving Harry's hand away from his face.

Harry just gave him grin that made the blond want to punch him - and soon. "Did you get a letter too?"

"Yeah, but what does that have to do with anything-"

"I guess you're illiterate then." cut in Hermione, "He gave you the password for a reason and I have a feeling that one of the reasons is to prevent you from blasting his door apart."

"There was a password in there?"

"You don't read your letters, do you?" Harry raised an eyebrow.

"I was reading it before Ms. Parkinson kindly plopped herself down into my lap and my letter fell into Goyle's cereal!" Draco snarled, whirling around to face him.

His glare intensified as he noticed the tips of Harry's mouth twitching. "Don't you dare laugh Potter."

"You want to try hexing me with that spell that almost singed your hair off?" suggested Harry, as his lips curved into smirk. "I've never seen that one before, I must say."

Draco's eyes shot daggers at him. "It's a spell used to blast away huge obstacles."

"One of Lucius's illegal spells?"

"It's not entirely illegal, especially if it's being used for a good cause," he said evenly, looking pointedly at Harry. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the Boy Who Lived would soon find himself on the receiving end of one if he didn't stop asking questions.

"Are you two done yet?" demanded a voice from behind them. They turned to see Hermione tapping her right foot impatiently. "In case you haven't noticed, we're going to be late. I'm sure the two of you can argue later."

A sneer appeared on Draco's face, "Not bloody likely. I wouldn't want to talk to him for any longer than is needed."

"That hurt Malfoy."

"Good for you."

Hermione just sighed before she took out her wand and pointed it at the immobile gargoyle. "Strawberry drop."

"Now children," A evil smile appeared on her face as she turned to face them, "Let's all try to get along now, shall we? Because I'm starting to lose my patience!"

Harry gulped visibly at the look on her face before she turned around and stormed up the stairs.

Hermione rolled her eyes as she made her way up the spiral stone staircase. "Men." she thought, "Can't live with them, can't live without them...although I'm seriously reconsidering that last part."

Harry and Draco followed behind her silently until they reached the polished oak door with the brass door-knocker.

The brown-haired prefect gave them another warning glare before she pushed open the door. As they made their way in, they were surprised to see that they had company. Also seated were two boys and a girl, one of which bore a striking resemblance to Harry.

*********************************

Shawn, Benjamin and Nina had arrived at Dumbledore's office about half an hour earlier.
Now as they sat waiting, Nina felt slightly nervous at the prospect of meeting her parent's younger selves.

"Nervous had to be an understatement." thought Nina. She was a seething wreck! What the heck was she suppose to do? Go up to Harry and Hermione and say something along the lines of "Hey, you don't know me, but I'm your daughter and I've come to make sure Lord Voldemort stays dead in this lifetime so he won't be around to murder all of us in about 15 years time. By the way, you have to marry Hermione here or else I'm gonna be majorly pissed when Ben and I don't get born." Yup, that was going to go over real well.

Nina placed her head in her hands and groaned inwardly. She could feel a migraine coming on. Beside her, her brother put a comforting arm around her. To his left, Shawn just sat there, brooding silently.

They had been told to keep their identities to themselves for the mean time, but Dumbledore had decided that they would be safer staying with their parents. That way, they could look out for each other.

Personally, Benjamin had a sneaky feeling that one of the reasons was that they could stop his father from getting into another life-threatening situation, which coincidently, only seemed to happen every single year.

Shawn however, had voiced the opinion that it would take all three of them to drag Uncle Ron away from Draco whenever Ron felt the urge to rearrange the older Malfoy's face, which was quite often.

Meanwhile, Professor Dumbledore sat calmly behind his desk, rearranging some papers. The three of them jumped as they heard a loud BAM! coming from the direction of the staircase.

"That must be Mr. Malfoy," smiled Dumbledore, "Right on time as usual."

"I thought so." muttered Shawn under his breath.

****************************************

Hermione's eyes widened in surprise as she took in the other three occupants in the room.

If she hadn't known better, she would've sworn that one of them almost looked enough like Harry to pass for his brother! The only thing missing was Harry's trademark lightning bolt scar.

Was this what Dumbledore had wanted to tell them? That Harry had a brother? But he wouldn't have sent for her and Draco then....

She was broken out of her thoughts by the Headmaster's voice. "I'm sure you may have been wondering why I have called you three up here."

She nodded as she snuck a quick look at Harry to see if he had noticed the resemblance as well.

Dumbledore continued, "Being some of Hogwarts's best students, I'm giving you permission to miss today's classes to show our three new students around."

"Zachary, Joanna and Adam, I want to you to meet your guides for the day. This is Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy."

Ben and Nina exchanged a look. The two of them had been placed in Gryffindor, but Shawn had been placed in Slytherin to keep an eye on Draco, much to Shawn's annoyance - he never liked the Slytherin common room much, preferring the warm, comfortable Gryffindor common room instead.

"Since all three of you are prefects, I hope you won't mind having a roommate for the time being until we can arrange something for our new students," Dumbledore said apologetically to the three sixth years.

"No, that's fine." said Hermione. The other two nodded, although Draco was mentally calculating how much stuff he had to hide away.

"Now, off you go. I'm sure the six of you would like to get better acquainted." said Dumbledore with a twinkle in his eye.

****************************************

As the gargoyle sprang back into place behind them, Draco turned to Shawn. "I guess I might as well show you where the Slytherin common rooms are."

"Sure." Apparently Shawn wasn't planning on being very talkative today. The sullen look had been replaced temporarily with an impassive expression.

As they made their way downstairs, Harry turned to Hermione, Nina and Ben. "So where do you want to go first?"

"Can we go to the Quidditch field?" asked Ben earnestly. "It's been so long since I've last played."

"Yeah, last time we did, we totally smashed Sly-" Nina stopped abruptly. "Nothing." she mumbled when Harry and Hermione glanced at her questioningly.

"Well, I guess we'll see you two at lunch then." and with a wave, Harry and Ben both disappeared around a corner.

Hermione turned to Nina, "Is there anywhere you want to go first?"

Nina smiled at her, "Can you show me where the library is? I want to catch up on some reading and Hogswarts, A History said that this school has a huge library."

However, what she really had in mind was getting her hands on some books on curses and hexes. Never knew when that might come in handy.

Hermione blinked. "You sure?" she finally said, a few seconds later. 'I never thought I would find anyone who liked the library as much as I did.' she thought in amazement.

"Positive!" Nina grinned at the look on her mother's face.

As they walked along, Hermione attempted to start up a conversation, "So, what school are you from?"

Nina paused for a second, "The Salem Academy of Magic. It's a private school in the United States." she added quickly after she noticed Hermione's inquiring glance. "I'm a 2nd year at my school, the guys are in 3rd year."

"Does that mean your parents decided to move to England?"

The younger girl suddenly bowed her head, "No." she said quietly, "My family came under attack by a powerful Dark Wizard and my parents decided that we would be safer in England."

Hermione's hands flew to her mouth. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," said Nina softly. "It's nice to see you again, mommy." She thought to herself as she gave the older girl a small smile.

**************************************

Meanwhile, Draco and Shawn walked along silently. Shawn kept on glancing around. Hogwarts castle hadn't changed that much after all - give or take 15 years.

His nose wrinkled as they approached the Slytherin common room. He had never liked it down here, on the few occasions when he and Ben had come down to leave one of their surprises at his father's old House. The Slytherins were a rotten bunch, and even though Shawn was technically half a Slytherin himself, he could never bring himself to like them.

The House itself was synonymous for turning out dark wizards and from what Shawn had heard from his father, he wasn't too keen about staying there for the duration of his visit.

"The things I do for my parents..." he sighed inwardly to himself. "I must speak with Father about raising my allowance, by say, at least 300% when I get back for all this trouble I'm being put through."

On the bright side, he would be given unlimited access to Slytherin House and that would always come in handy when he and Ben got back to their own time, provided that they ever got back...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When they finally arrived at the Quidditch fields, Ben almost rammed into Harry as the older boy suddenly stopped.

"Damn, I'm an idiot." muttered Harry, "You take people to the Quidditch field, but you forget to bring a broom?!"

"Is anything wrong?" asked Ben cautiously.

Harry smiled at him sheepishly, "I forgot that I left my broomstick in my room."

"That's not a problem." said Ben, taking out his wand from a side pocket. "Accio Firebolt!"

Seconds later, Harry's firebolt came zooming towards them. Harry grabbed ahold of it and handed it to Ben. "You want to have a go on it?"

Ben brightened, "I can?" His expression was one of awe as he looked at Harry's Firebolt before he mounted it and flew off towards the goalposts at the other end.

However, Harry was perplexed as he watched Ben fly. Why did it seem that the kid could almost read what he was thinking?

*************************************

When the time came for lunch, Hermione and Nina were already chatting away like old friends. Nina, for one was surprised at how much more interesting her mom was when she was in her teens. Of course, this was before the Darkness that had descended once more upon the wizarding world about ten years after the defeat of Voldemort.

Spotting Ron and Luna at the far corner of the Gryffindor table, Hermione grabbed Nina's arm and led her towards the rest of her friends.

As they sat down, Ron gave Hermione a strange look.

"What?" asked Hermione, "Did one of you clowns dye my hair bright pink again?" she reached for a lock of hair.

"No," Ron still had a look of awe on his face, "You're not freaking out even though you just missed two classes! I can't believe it!"

The brown haired girl reached over and gave him a light smack on the head. "Very funny, Ronald."

"OW!" Her friend glared at her balefully as he rubbed his head.

"Anyways," Hermione ignored him, "This is Joanna. Professor Dumbledore wanted me to show her around the school since she's just arrived from America."

Just then, Ginny plopped down in the chair across from Ron. "Whew, what's with McGonagall and her pop tests? Teachers are suppose to give pop quizzes." she complained. "So what did Dumbledore want to see you for?"

"He wanted me to show Joanna around. She's new to Hogwarts." she turned to Nina,
"Joanna, this is my friend Ginny."

"Hi," said Nina shyly.

Ginny's eyes widened slightly before she finally managed a weak Hi.
"It can't be." she thought.

However, she soon received another shock when Ben walked over with Harry. "I must be seeing things." she told herself, "There is no way Harry's kids are sitting right in front of me. I am not going crazy, I am not..."

"Ginny, are you okay?" asked Hermione. The younger girl had been unusually quiet ever since she had first seen Joanna; then when Zachary had walked in, Ginny just froze.

"I'm fine," said Ginny in a unnaturally high voice, "I really am," she added when she saw Hermione's look of disbelief.

************************************

As they finished lunch and headed towards the doors, Ben suddenly gestured to someone near the Slytherin table.

Shawn joined them a few seconds later outside at the bottom of the stairs.

"So what did you think of your lovely housemates?" said Benjamin casually.

The blond threw him a dirty look, "What do you think?"

"You sure he's not related to Malfoy?" Ron whispered to Hermione, "Because I swear those two are somehow related, attitude and all."

"I don't think so. His last name's Parker." Hermione whispered back. 'Although I must say that he does resemble Draco quite a bit.' she mused inwardly.

Ginny overheard this and she finally looked up. When they first ran into Adam, she had assumed that it was Draco and she was trying to look everywhere but at him. However, since it wasn't Malfoy....

Her eyes widened again as she realized just who it was she was staring at. It was Malfoy all right - there was no question about that - it just wasn't the Malfoy she had been expecting...

She gasped as Shawn's brown eyes finally met her own.

"Shawn?!"

*********************************************

To be continued...