Population Boom, Hogwarts Part 14

"This would be a lot easier with a wand," Marlene complained as she made sure the towel she'd 'borrowed' from the quidditch locker rooms was going to stay put, getting annoyed because it kept coming undone.

"I'd settle for shoes or sandals," James complained as they made their way toward the entrance hall.

"We should have just appeared in Hogsmeade," Edgar complained.

"Severus wasn't sure how far the doppelganger effect extended and the stadium is already pushing things," Lily told them quietly as the doors opened, revealing a familiar old man with a long white beard wearing thick robes like he was going for a nighttime stroll and holding a bag of lemon drops.

"Lemon drop?" Percival offered as he looked over the crowd of people, glad that Severus had already warned him about their arrival since most of them had been declared dead or missing during the war and he might have overreacted if they'd just appeared without any warning.

"I'd love one," Lily replied as she walked over, glad that she wouldn't have to wander around the castle looking for help.

"Let me guess, you fell through a crack in the world?" Albus asked as he poured one of the lemon drops into her hand when she held it out.

"One second we had our clothes and wands and the next they vanished and the place was empty," Lily replied and popped the lemon drop in her mouth, not seeing a point in explaining that they'd had Kreacher apparate their stuff back to Sirius so he could show up with it when they called him.

"That makes it easy, we have a standard form for people that were dropped into the castle from another world," Percival assured them as he gestured for everyone to come inside.

"Another world?" Rose asked, trying to sound nervous, like she didn't know what was going on.

"You might as well come inside, the elves have a table set up with extra clothes and hot chocolate," Percival said as he stepped out of the way.

"You're taking this better than I was expecting. How often does this happen?" James asked as the group made their way into the castle.

"The first duplicate appeared shortly after the start of term and we've been getting at least a couple of students a week since. Thankfully, several of the teachers were also duplicated or we'd probably have trouble with classes," Percival explained.

"Which teachers?" James asked, figuring it would be strange if someone didn't ask, even though he already knew thanks to Severus and Moody.

"McGonagall and Vector along with Albus," Percival replied as he shut the door once everyone was inside.

"So you're from another dimension?" Edgar Bones asked.

"That's what the team from the ministry believes, I've decided to call myself Percival to avoid confusion until they can figure out how to send me back," Percival explained.

"Have they had any luck?" Fabian Prewett asked, hoping they weren't going to get exposed because there wasn't anywhere to send them back to.

"About as much as I've come to expect from the Ministry," Percival replied with a smile as the children made their way over to the tables and started grabbing cups of hot chocolate. "I'm curious, why were you at Hogwarts?"

"Albus offered the children a chance to take classes for a couple of months to see if they liked it since the school on the island doesn't have as impressive a library and we decided to tag along to make sure everyone got settled and to watch a quidditch match," James offered as he walked over and grabbed a mug of hot chocolate.

"You don't have quidditch?" Percival asked.

"We can barely put together a couple of halfway decent teams on the island, it's not the same," James argued.

"When can we meet our counterparts?" Gideon asked, doing his best to act like he didn't know that everyone was supposed to be dead.

'I have to give you credit, if I didn't know better I'd believe you,' Percival mused as he glanced at the children that were enjoying the hot chocolate or pulling on robes so they didn't freeze. "I'm afraid that would be quite difficult, your counterparts are dead or never existed in the case of the younger children."

"So much for asking them for a loan and an extra wand," Fabian mused as someone that looked a lot like James ran into the entrance hall with a pair of red haired twins following him.

"Mum?" Harry blurted out, ignoring the fact that he knew that the young woman couldn't be his mother, despite the fact that she looked like the photographs in the album that Hagrid had given him.

"Harry!" Lily squealed as she ran forward and pulled Harry into a hug, forgetting for the moment that she wasn't supposed to be this world's Lily or that she was only wearing a towel.

"Judging by Lily's reaction, did something happen to your version of Harry?" Percival asked, playing along with their story, if only because the ministry might want his memory of events.

"Complicated," James offered as Mist walked into the hall with a pair of twins with bushy hair. "Mist?"

"Last I checked," Mist replied with a grin as he walked over. "Nice to see you Dad."

"He's a clone," Edgar told him.

"Damn, so much for someone using a time turner to go back in time and save my parents, I guess that means I get to call you Uncle Prongs," Mist replied, doing his best to keep a straight face and failing.

"Traveling back in time would be extremely illegal," Percival reminded everyone.

"Which makes me glad that nothing of the sort happened, especially since if they were my parents, I'd have to give them the key to the trust vault," Mist replied with a grin.

"Mist," Hermione scolded, well aware that they were actually his parents.

James laughed, reminded of Lily's exasperation over some of his pranks. "Don't worry about it, we'll figure something out," he told them, well aware that he'd be able to claim the actual vault since he had the key.

"What's going on?" Harry asked when Lily finally let go of him so that she could pull Mist into a hug.

"Mum," Mist offered as he gave Lily a hug, doing his best to ignore the fact that she was an attractive redhead that was only wearing a towel. 'At least Harry isn't screaming at them for abandoning him.'

"Merlin!" Minerva exclaimed when she got close enough to recognize Lily and James. "How?"

"Magic," James replied with a smug grin, taking a bit more amusement out of teasing his old professor than he probably should.

"That explains so much," Hermione muttered under her breath as she glanced between James and Mist.

Percival smiled at Hermione then focused on Minerva. "They were here for a quidditch match and to register the children for a few months when they ended up in our world."

"We're going to need more teachers," Minerva admitted as she looked over the large collection of children, half of which looked to be the right age to attend Hogwarts.

"Do you want a job teaching Potions?" Percival asked Lily, knowing she had the qualifications.

"I'd be willing to teach, at least part time," Lily replied as she let go of Mist so that she could fix her towel, figuring the job would give her an excuse to stay close to the children and to get to know her boys.

"Defense?" Percival asked James, figuring Moody could use the assistance.

"Is the position still cursed?" James asked, not interested in getting cursed if he could avoid it.

"It shouldn't be," Mist offered. "Wormtail beat Voldemort's homunculus to death with an iron stirring rod and his horcruxes were destroyed first so he's probably rotting in Hell, assuming there was enough of his soul left to even make it to Hell."

"Petter killed Voldemort?" James asked, surprised that Peter would have the courage.

"Officially, no idea. Unofficially, I basically sent him a letter claiming that we wouldn't come after him if he killed Voldemort and fled the country," Mist admitted.

"I'm surprised that worked," James admitted.

"I also sent him a bottle of firewhiskey, I'm pretty sure he was drunk or well on his way," Mist replied with a shrug. "I got tired of waiting for the ministry to fix their shite so I figured I'd take care of it."

"Language," Minevra complained.

"Sorry," Mist lied, not particularly concerned about his language, especially when he'd been being polite. "We should probably grab an empty classroom and trade stories, I'm curious about my siblings."

"Siblings?" Harry asked as he scanned the group of children, trying to see if anyone looked like him or his mother.

"Hey," Rose offered with a casual wave, not sure what to make of her older brothers but looking forward to getting to know them.

"Hi," Violet and Ivy offered cheerfully as they waved at Harry and Mist, excited that they were finally getting to meet their brothers.

"Are you any good at dueling?" Holly asked Mist, curious if Rose could beat him in a duel.

"Not particularly," Mist admitted. "I just hit things with lightning until they stop moving, I never bothered learning the official rules since most dark wizards would just cheat."

"Lightning? Like a sith lord?" Holly asked excitedly.

"Something like that. I'll show you later, I'm not using the spell in the castle," Mist replied, trying to avoid getting stuck in detention for the foreseeable future.

"Awesome!" Holly squealed, looking forward to learning how to shoot lightning.

"Do you want to see another trick?" Mist asked, figuring it was a good chance to impress his family and get a bit of revenge on McGonagall for the annoying homework assignment that she'd handed out that involved looking through the library for books on various charms since it had ended up being a bit of an Easter egg hunt.

"Sure," Holly replied with a grin, always happy to learn magic.

"Nothing up my sleeves, nothing behind my ears and presto," Mist said, snapping his fingers and using his ice cream conjuration spell as he said presto.

"Did you just conjure that?" Rose asked in surprise as she stared at the ice cream bar that her brother was holding, knowing that conjuring food was supposed to be impossible.

"You can't eat conjured…" Minerva trailed off as she discreetly cast a detection spell on the ice cream and realized that he'd actually conjured something you could get nutrition from and was completely safe to eat. "Where did you learn that?"

"From a book," Mist replied with a smile. "On a completely unrelated note, libraries are awesome."

"That's impossible," Minerva argued.

"I don't think that word means what you think it does," Mist replied with a grin then took a bite of the ice cream bar.

"I meant that no such spell exists in Hogwarts library," Minerva stated.

"Are you sure?" Mist asked. "It's a rather large library, the book was probably in the wrong section, it happens a lot."

"Be nice," Hermione told Mist as she lightly swatted his head for trying to send McGonagall on a wild goose chase.

"I never actually said I found the book in the school library," Mist replied with a smile.

"No, you just implied it," Hermione argued. "Is this because of Friday's homework assignment?"

"That would be petty," Mist replied unconvincingly as he pulled a box of wands out of his inventory, still a bit annoyed that he'd had to spend a couple of hours trying to dig up research material on a bunch of historical figures when the librarian could have made it easy. "Speaking of unrelated things that you're not supposed to be able to conjure, you probably need wands."

"Would offering points for answers work?" Minerva asked, curious where he'd found a book that let him violate one of the laws of magic.

"No, even without Snape screwing with the points and making the house cup pointless, I don't actually care about the banner or the trophy on your desk," Mist replied as he floated the box of wands over to the table with Telekinesis. "Feel free to grab a wand."

"Snape screwed with the points?" James asked, not particularly surprised that Severus had downplayed his attempt to convince people that he hated Harry so that Voldemort would trust him.

"To be fair, he did save Harry from our insane Defense teacher in first year," Mist admitted. "We should probably grab an empty classroom, find Harry's duplicate and share stories."

"Are we going to discuss how you made a box of wands appear or why you have a box of wands?" Minerva asked.

"Nope," Mist replied with a shrug. "It's not a crime to make wands, it's just annoyingly difficult to find any books on the subject, despite the fact that wands are basically required for this society to function."

"We also need to send some letters to our family, now that we're here," Edgar Bones stated.

"Excellent idea," Percival agreed, curious how they'd managed to fake their deaths.

"This is going to get messy," Fabian mused.

"And noisy," Gideon agreed, curious if their sister would faint or start screaming at them for vanishing for thirteen years.

0o0o0

"So you're basically telling me that you couldn't rescue me from the Dursleys because it already happened and you would have been erased from time, right?" Harry asked.

"We also weren't told that you needed rescuing until like three weeks ago and by then it was already too late," Lily admitted.

"Story of my life," Harry muttered.

"What? Strange things happening and playing with time?" James asked.

"Basically," Harry replied, thinking about using the time turner to save Sirius back last year. "I would have loved to avoid spending a decade in Durz-kaban prison but at least everyone is alive and I can't blame you."

"We can get revenge together," James offered.

"They're stuck on a deserted island in a painting, I don't think we'll ever see them again so they're better off forgotten," Harry argued, happy to leave them in the past.

'Yeah, probably better if I don't admit that I can jump into that particular painting,' Mist mused, deciding that ignoring the Dursleys was for the best.

"You're taking this remarkably well, why?" Rose asked, knowing that she'd be upset if she was the one that had gotten left, even if it wasn't her parents' fault.

"I just got everything I've ever wished for, why would I be upset that things aren't perfect?" Harry asked.

"What about you?" Rose asked Mist.

"This wasn't the best case solution but it was pretty damned good," Mist replied with a shrug.

"What was the best case?" Lily asked.

"I would have sent Sirius back in time as a sixteen year old kid as well so he'd get the years back but I'm not sure he could have prevented himself from interfering," Mist explained.

"Probably a good call," James admitted.

"Besides, it's not like we can't turn ourselves back into kids in fifty years," Lily pointed out.

"Good point," Mist agreed, then looked at Rose. "So, tell me about yourself and the island."

"Let me tell you about the island," Rose replied with a grin.

0o0o0

Mist sighed in relief when the blue fire in the Goblet of Fire died and Harry's name didn't fly out of the goblet at the last minute to ruin his day and Harry's year. "Fantastic."

"I thought you hated Divination," Seamus grumbled as he handed Mist five sickles, annoyed that he'd lost the bet, especially since it should have been a sure thing.

"Just because I don't like the class, doesn't mean I can't read the writing in the stars," Mist replied with a grin as he collected another seven sickles from one of the sixth year Gryffindor boys that had bet against him.

"Bullshit," Seamus argued as Fleur and her two duplicates headed for the door that Krum and Cedric had already entered.

"I'm aware," Mist replied with amusement as he collected the money that a pair of third year boys owed him. "Better luck next time."

"You should have remembered that Mist doesn't like gambling, just taking people's money," Jenny told Seamus.

"What were the chances of all three of his choices being right?" Seamus asked in annoyance as

"That depends on who you ask, Krum was Karkaroff's favorite and Fleur was rated pretty high which just left Hogwarts' champion in question and Cedric was a solid pick given the rest of the people that tossed their name into the goblet."

"So you're saying that he's better than I am?" Angelina asked, giving him a mock glare.

Mist turned to look at Angelina who was a couple of seats down the table from him, fairly sure she wasn't actually upset. "I'd bet on you on a broom any day of the week but his other skills are pretty solid."

"True," Angelina agreed, looking forward to collecting the money that she'd had George bet on Cedric with a couple of seventh years.

"How are you doing?" Mist asked Rose in a whisper.

"I'm good, it's just weird being around a bunch of strangers," Rose admitted.

"If anyone gives you grief, I'll blast them with lightning," Mist offered.

"Only if they can't see reason," Hermione argued.

"That's fair," Rose agreed, looking forward to making new friends.

"Is it weird that I feel like I dodged a curse with the goblet?" Harry asked in a whisper.

"Nah, I'm sure that in another world your name would have come flying out of the Goblet as a fourth champion and everyone would have turned on you for cheating," Mist offered.

"Bullshit, we'd have his back," Ron argued.

"To hell and back," Ronald agreed as he glanced over at the Slytherin table, curious about the attractive blonde that was talking to Malfoy as he'd never seen her before. 'She must be one of the new people, damned shame that she ended up in Slytherin.'

"To the best damned friends that money can't buy," Mist offered as he picked up his apple juice to make a toast, glad that this version of Ron was actually pretty solid. 'Now if I can just keep him from looking at my sister like she's on the market, I won't have to kill him,' he mused, having seen the way he looked at Rose.

"I'll drink to that," Violet said as she tapped her glass with her twin's glass, glad that she'd gotten sorted into Gryffindor with the rest of her siblings.

0o0o0

"What's wrong?" Remus asked as he walked into the sitting room and saw Sirius looking at a postcard like he was trying to figure out if he should laugh or cry.

"I know that killing Voldemort bought the bastard some forgiveness but there are limits," Sirius complained as he waved the post card at Remus.

"Shouldn't you be happy, James and Lily are officially alive and the time loops are closed?" Remus asked.

"Veela," Sirius complained.

"What?" Remus asked as he grabbed the card that showed Peter and a group of attractive and quite naked girls.

"He stole twelve years of my life and my graduation trip plans," Sirius complained.

"That seems very unlikely…" Remus trailed off as one of the girls wandlessly conjured a ball of fire, something that only veela generally did. "Okay, he might have stolen your graduation plans."

"Exactly!" Sirius complained. "He also mentioned getting paid for offing Voldemort!"

Remus flipped the card over and read the note, seeing that twelve years as a rat hadn't improved his penmanship skills. "Huh, at least he's not coming back to England and he'll have to live with what he did, which seems less horrible now that they're back."

"This is completely unfair, I'm pissed but proud of the bastard for actually killing him," Sirius complained. "What do you call it when you want to high five someone in the face or family jewels?"

"Anger management issues?" Remus asked.

"Can you seriously tell me that you're okay with him ending up with a bunch of veela?" Sirius asked.

"Voldemort is dead and our friends are alive, I'm going to call it a win," Remus replied.

"Must you be the reasonable one?" Sirius asked in exasperation.

"It's in my contract, just look at my friends, what choice did I have?" Remus replied with a grin.

"Fine, but I'm only sending him half a case of fire whiskey," Sirius declared.

"That's reasonable," Remus agreed as he rolled his eyes.

0o0o0