Here, There and Back Again

Chapter 2 - Lost and Found

"Uric's become unstuck in time," said Louis casually as he leant against the desk.

"That's nice," said Mena, not even looking up from her Charms essay.

Louis counted under his breath, and grinned to himself as her quill slowly stopped writing.

"What?" she demanded. She was holding her quill as if she were going to hex him with it.

Louis shrugged. "It's just like I said. Uric's unstuck in time."

It would have been a ridiculous idea if they were talking about anyone else, but she should be perfectly used to Uric doing odd things by now. It was their sixth year, after all.

Mena nodded unwillingly. "That does explain why he's been disappearing this year."

"And you never thought to ask him if he was lost in time when you were interrogating him about where he's been," pointed out Louis. He had been there for many of her questioning sessions. In hindsight, Uric's answers had made perfect sense - if he were popping through time.

"Where have you been, Uric?"

"Hogwarts."

Mr. Beaufolle had already decided something strange was going on and was claiming that all of Uric's absences were due to an unexplained illness. The professors wouldn't be so accepting.

Mena gave him an annoyed look.

"You didn't ask him either," she said. Louis shook his head.

"No, I didn't, but I was lucky enough to run into him, and he lent me this." He held a book out to her.

"Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart," she read aloud. There was a cheerful, blond-haired wizard smiling and waving from the cover. Louis wondered, for the third time that day, how long the man had stood in front of a mirror practicing that smile.

"Uric said it was given to him as a present. It's even signed," said Louis dryly. Mena turned to the inside cover to see the signature. Louis waited patiently. She would notice the anomaly eventually. Mena flipped through the book, reading a few random pages, though he could have told her the content was rubbish. Finally she went back to the title page. She looked up at him.

"This was published in 1990," she said in disbelief.

Louis nodded grimly. "Exactly."

"So what do we do?" asked Mena. Louis knew she wouldn't have asked if she had had any idea of what they should be doing.

"Next time Uric comes back here, we question him. Hopefully, he'll give us some clues, and we can tell him to start trying to figure it out as well. He probably hasn't even thought about trying to stop himself from time-hopping."

"He's never been gone for more than a week, so maybe he's caught in some type of loop," suggested Mena.

"Maybe. I guess we're going to have to do some research on time travel," he said reluctantly. While he didn't mind research per se, he preferred to be doing it when it would give him some type of advantage. "I'll also write to Mr. Beaufolle and explain what's happening. That way he can fend off Mrs. Kurze. The important thing is talking to Uric, though."

Mena nodded.

"Next time we see him. We'll tie him down and force-feed him a Truth Potion," she said with a certain amount of glee. Louis had to admit it was an appealing image.

*****

Aberforth Dumbledore wandered aimlessly through the dungeons, unwilling to go back to his dormitory and face his classmates again, and unwilling to go to Central to meet with his tutors, as he was supposed to. He was aware that he was sulking and being a "stubbornly annoying Mudblood," as Marvolo put it when he was in one of his better moods, but he didn't care. He didn't belong here. Life had been better at home. There was no magic there. Nothing unnatural except for his brother.

But here at Hogwarts, everything was wrong. The classes. The students. The teachers. And most importantly, magic itself. People shouldn't be able to do these things, but when he had tried to explain that, he had only gotten the usual threat of being hexed. Sometimes it seemed as if no one ever listened to him.

"It's clearly a matter of status. If Marvolo takes up with Rosier..." said a voice from around the corner.

"He'd be a fool if he did," said another voice scornfully.

"Or a fool if he didn't?" asked the first voice slyly.

The voices were coming closer. Aberforth looked around frantically. He didn't want to meet any other Slytherins now, especially while he was alone.

The corridor he was in was unadorned. Solid stone was in every direction he looked, except for the regular torches. He pressed flat against the wall. Maybe they wouldn't notice him.

"It won't hurt Delacroix, but it won't help him either," said one of the voices casually, as they turned the corner.

Aberforth closed his eyes. Please don't let them notice me. Hide me. Please. Hide me. It became a mantra for him, and at first he didn't notice the strange sinking sensation he was getting, or the fact that the voices were fading away. He opened his eyes and would have screamed if his mouth hadn't already been covered. His body was sinking into the wall. He had one last glimpse of the tip of his nose and the opposite wall before he was plunged into darkness.

Marvolo was going to be so annoyed.

He was frozen in shock for a moment, before he started screaming inside his head. Out. He wanted out.

"Lumos," said a voice beside him.

Aberforth jumped in shock. He turned toward the light. He was amazed that he could see, though his vision was more like when you unfocused your eyes and attempted to see through both your eyes, despite the fact that you were covering one with your hand. It was like something was lurking right in front of him that he just couldn't see. He shivered at the thought, but was distracted by the boy he could see, who was holding up a brilliantly shining wand.

It was a Hufflepuff. He looked like he was about Marvolo's age, though Aberforth had never seen him before - Slytherins weren't supposed to pay attention to Hufflepuffs, right? He also looked fuzzy around the edges, as if the walls were attempting to reassert their precedence on his body.

Aberforth wrapped his arms around himself, trying to stop his shivering. It was like they were in Hell with the demons ready to take their souls for their sins. The thought was terrifying.

"This isn't the best way to find the badgers," advised the boy.

Aberforth gaped at him, his fear momentarily forgotten.

"What?" he asked shakily. The Hufflepuff gestured with his wand, making the dark shadows flicker.

"The badgers. They don't live here anymore. Sometimes they travel through here like we're doing, but it's very hard to catch them at it. The proper way to find a badger is to not be looking for one." The older boy was giving him a friendly smile, but Aberforth began to back slowly away. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps this boy was a demon.

A few steps carried him up against an invisible barrier. He pressed against it, terrified, as the Hufflepuff watched him with a faintly puzzled expression. Aberforth turned away from him and pounded on the barrier. He wanted out of here, and he wanted out of Hogwarts.

"Let me out!" he yelled.

"Do you need help?" the older boy asked politely from behind him.

"No! Yes! Let me out of here, or I'll hex you!" Aberforth demanded. The Hufflepuff didn't seem to notice the wand that was being shakily pointed at him.

"That's okay. Just don't hit Simon, please," said the older boy pleasantly. "My name's Uric Beaufolle. What's yours?"

"Aberforth Dumbledore, but everyone calls me Dumbledore Minor, or Mudblood."

"That's very rude of them." Something about the way the older boy had responded to his introduction was calming.

"You're odd," said Aberforth after a moment. Uric looked puzzled.

"Everyone says that," he said. "Is my badge crooked?" He gestured at the Hufflepuff badge on his robes. Aberforth shook his head no. "Then I don't know what it could be."

"Can you let me out of here?" asked Aberforth desperately.

"Yes," said Uric, giving him a smile. He walked over and rested his hand against the barrier, for a moment before casually sticking his hand through the invisible wall. His hand disappeared up to his wrist. Then he pulled it back in again. Aberforth attempted to do the same, but only succeeded in bruising his hand.

"I don't understand," he said. Uric paused to think before responding.

"Walls are made to keep things in, whether you are on the inside or the outside of them. They don't like to be walked through, unless they're the type that is made to be walked through."

Aberforth was beginning to panic again. Was he going to be trapped here forever?

"Some of the walls in Hogwarts will never let you through," said Uric knowledgably. "But most of them are nice, even here in the dungeons. You just have to ask them politely to let you through. They already did it once, so they won't mind doing it again."

Aberforth backed away from the wall.

It couldn't be real. The very idea of being inside a wall was unnatural. You didn't talk to walls, nor did you ask them politely to let you through. He would find another way out.

"No! There has to be another way!" he protested, his fists clenched. Uric was watching him curiously again, and the darkness was growing. The glow from Uric's wand seemed to fade as Aberforth watched and he closed his eyes, but then the darkness pressed in and he was acutely aware that he was inside.

Get away from me! You're not real!

A hand closed over his, making him jump. He opened his eyes to see Uric peering worriedly at him.

"I don't think you should come in the walls again," Uric said. "They don't like to be called names." He seemed to come to some sort of a decision. "Come on."

Aberforth was pulled towards the barrier, and Uric didn't seem to notice when he dug in his heels. The older boy didn't pause when they reached the threshold, but stepped outside, pulling Aberforth with him. Aberforth was too relieved to be outside to notice that Uric was breathing heavily from the effort.

"We've got to be going now," said Uric apologetically.

"What?" Aberforth's eyes bulged as he watched the Hufflepuff fade from view.

Perhaps the boy really was a demon...

He stood there for a moment, feeling like something was missing. He looked at the wall. How had he gotten out of there? He remembered going in, but couldn't remember anything after that point. There had been something about Hufflepuff. He tried to focus, but the thought was gone. With a shake of his head, Aberforth continued down the corridor, keeping well away from the walls.

*****

Norine was bored.

History of Magic had been her favourite class during her first year. She had loved the way that Professor Marclan always focused on her favourite time period in history - the time of Merlin. Nothing could have kept her attention more than the thrilling tales of Merlin's forays into the Muggle world and how he had helped a Muggle boy to greatness. If her great-grandfather was to be believed (and she was sure he was old enough to have been alive back then), then she was actually related to Merlin - and wouldn't it be thrilling if maybe someday she went out into the Muggle world and did something special?

Professor Marclan had apparently done just that. He had resigned over the holidays and headed off to Cyprus to join the Muggles in a crusade, though no one was sure exactly why he would want to do that. Headmaster Swartz had been forced to hire a new professor on short notice, and Professor Alluvium had come to Hogwarts.

He was, so far as Norine could tell, the most boring man in the world. Instead of talking about the interesting parts of history, like all the battles and the great witches and wizards, he concerned himself with his list of 'great achievements'. Did they really need to know the date when the Summoning Charm was invented? It was enough to know it worked - and who cared when wizards had started bespelling portraits?

She and the rest of the class watched with boredom as Alluvium wrote a list of the greatest wizarding achievements to date on the large piece of parchment behind him, before turning to address the class.

"Now, the current cauldron type was standardized in 1201 by Hadrian Sevant..." He droned on and on, but Norine's attention was caught by what was going on behind the professor. She blinked, and suddenly there was a boy standing near the wall. He looked like he was in one of the higher years, but he turned immediately to look at the wall so she couldn't identify him. All she could see was that his hair was done up in a funny braid. She had never seen a boy with his hair like that. How had he gotten here?

Professor Alluvium didn't notice his visitor, though many of the other students were beginning to, judging by the way they were sitting up straighter and forgetting to take notes - if they had bothered to take notes in the first place.

After a long study of the wall, the boy pointed his wand at the parchment, and she could hear him muttering during the pauses in Alluvium's speech.

The boy was adding more great achievements to the list. In between the discovery of the properties of bubotuber pus and the invention of the Animatus Charm, the boy wrote "The discovery of the Great Miggleduffer that lives in the Forbidden Forest by Oacer Littlemen while he was looking for Potions ingredients." The class continued to gape as the boy placed more additions on the list.

"My mum said that the invention of the Out-Spot Charm was very important."

"John Privet invented the Septum spell for all our waste disposal needs." Norine had never heard of that spell, but some of the other students were snickering.

"The badgers threw a giant party in celebration of the true new year."

"Butterbeer was banned from Hogwarts for fifty years after an incident involving the Astronomy professor and a very long drop."

More comments were added, of a similar persuasion, until every space that wasn't covered in Professor Alluvium's handwriting was covered in the boy's. Once he was finished, the boy stepped back to regard his handiwork. He gave a satisfied nod, then turned toward the class for a moment. There was a big grin on his open face, and Norine thought he was looking straight at her as he faded out of sight.

She shut her eyes for a moment, then opened them again.

Alluvium was still talking. And behind him were a lot more notes then she remembered. Maybe she had fallen asleep? With a shrug, she copied them down, and went back to wishing that she were out making history.

Professor Alluvium, who never read his own notes, was puzzled when some weeks later the Great Miggleduffer was mentioned in nearly every one of his students' essays.

*****

The jar of rat spleens crashed to the ground, shattering on the stone floor and sending spleens bouncing in every direction.

There were some days when he hated being a teacher.

His lips curled into a sneer at the thought of what the Livy sisters had done to their Burning Solution. They wouldn't be out of the infirmary for at least a week. He had been able to hide the fact that the potion had hit him as well when he brought the girls to Poppy, but the pain had distracted him for the rest of the day. Not a single class had finished its assigned potion.

He unconsciously ran his hand over his arm. If it hadn't been his right arm that was hit, he would have sworn that the Dark Lord was calling.

A flick of his wand and the jar was repaired, but he bent down to pick up the rat spleens by hand. He was going to spend the night inventing an antidote to the Livys' mistakes. If he was feeling charitable, he might even share it with Poppy.

The breaking of the jar was another hour of work, though. He had renewed the Unbreakable Charms several months ago when he had started teaching. If one was failing now, then they all would start failing, and some of his ingredients were a lot more fragile than rat spleens. He surveyed his floor-to-ceiling shelves of ingredients and decided the charms could wait until after he brewed the antidote.

Taking the jar of octopus suckers that sat on the shelf next to the rat spleens, he made his way back into his private workroom. He had a sample of the Livys' failed potion at a slow simmer, while next to it, his replica of their potion was at a boil. His careful notes and experiments had revealed the problem.

Now it was time to brew the antidote. He set to work, making a simple healing solution, but intending to expand upon it from there.

"You're going to need some powdered andara root," said a voice behind him.

Severus spun around, a glare already fixed on his face. A shower of drops hit the floor, dripping from the ladle that was still in his hand. He may have been Hogwarts' newest professor, but he had already established a reputation for being unpleasant to disturb. Whoever had ignored those rumours would pay.

It was a Hufflepuff, of all people. The boy was nearly as tall as he was, and had a strange creature perched on his shoulder. Severus took in the open, smiling face, the hazel eyes, and most importantly, the scroll of notes clutched in the boy's hands. He snatched his writings back from the boy.

"Twenty points from Hufflepuff!" he snarled.

The boy fixed him with a bewildered stare.

"You're still going to need powdered andara root," said the boy thoughtfully. "Though if you don't have any, a unicorn hair might work, if it was a small one."

"Ten more points from Hufflepuff. And a detention!" This didn't provoke the response he expected. The boy smiled brilliantly.

"Will we be brewing potions? Maybe I can do the detention now," he said excitedly.

Severus tried very hard to control his temper. Dumbledore would be severely disappointed in him if one of the students was found dead with Severus' fingers imprinted around his neck.

"You will be serving detention with Filch," he growled. The Hufflepuff was still smiling, though he looked puzzled again.

"Who's Filch?" he asked.

"He's only the caretaker of our school," said Severus. "Surely you've seen him before. I can only imagine that you must be a frequent visitor to his office judging by how annoying you are." As insults went, it was sub-par, but the pain in his arm was distracting him.

"You should probably start now. It's going to take hours to brew that antidote," said the boy helpfully.

That was it. He grabbed the boy's arm, ignoring the startled squawk from the thing on the boy's shoulder. The Hufflepuff didn't resist as he was half-dragged down the corridor.

"Where are we going?" he asked curiously.

"We are going to your Head of House," said Severus, in the futile hope that this would intimidate the boy.

"Who is he in this time, then?" asked the boy.

Snape stopped abruptly and was forced to hold the Hufflepuff up as the boy stumbled into him. An idea had occurred to him. It was so ridiculous that it might be true. He examined the boy again. He could honestly say that he had never seen this student before in his life.

"What's your name?" he asked in a low voice. It was possible he had forgotten the boy's face, but he never forgot names.

"Uric Beaufolle, sir." The boy gave a little bow.

Uric.

Severus' eyes widened. Not that Uric. It took him a moment to find his voice.

"Fifty points from Hufflepuff - and get out of this time!" he ordered. The smile finally faded from the boy's face.

"But-"

"Leave!"

Uric frowned at him, staring hard into Severus' face. Whatever he saw made his smile come back.

"Good luck with your potion, sir," he said politely, then walked off down the corridor, talking softly to the creature on his shoulder.

Severus stared after him for a long moment, until the pain in his arm reminded him of his task. Back to the antidote.

The next morning, Professor Sprout was heard protesting vehemently about the eighty points that Hufflepuff had inexplicably lost during the night.

*****

It was one of the most fascinating things Uric had ever seen. The most fascinating thing had been a re-enactment of the fall of the dark wizard Beogarund, as performed by chocolate frogs, but this did come close.

He was in the Defence Against the Dark Arts office, though it looked nothing like the office in his time. Against one wall was a tank that held a Grindylow, which was glaring at him banefully. An old desk sat near one end of the room. There was a discarded quill on top of it, a smoking goblet of something that smelled like wolfsbane, only nastier, and the object that had caught Uric's attention.

It had looked like an ordinary piece of parchment from afar. But when he got closer, he had noticed the amazing amount of lines and dots spread across the parchment. At first, Uric thought the lines and dots were playing some type of game. It looked like the dots were trying to avoid the lines, since they rarely touched, and he felt sorry for the dots since there seemed to be a lot more lines than dots. He watched them move about, and even cheered with glee as the dot labelled "Severus Snape" made an escape off the edge of the parchment.

It took him a moment to remember where last he had seen a Severus Snape. The bad-tempered professor certainly hadn't looked like a dot at the time. Perhaps it was his Animagus form...But then how could everyone have an Animagus form of dots? Or were there secret communities of dots that lived all over, masquerading as the periods at the ends of sentences, and as the little droplets of ink that always dripped from an overloaded quill tip? Perhaps they took the names of their human creators?

He looked down at the paper again. The lines reminded him of something. He tilted his head, turning it almost upside down as he regarded the parchment.

All the lines and dots seemed to come together.

A map! That was it, even if it was like no map he had ever seen, including the giant map of Britain he had once seen in the Wizarding Council chambers. That map had simply kept track of all the wizards in Britain, showing them as tiny, red dots. Uric had thought they were some sort of plague until his father had explained it to him.

This map was showing all of Hogwarts, though...He looked closer. Actually, it wasn't showing all of Hogwarts. There were a few things missing. Like the secret herb garden and...and something else he should remember...should remember...

And it looked like Peeves was having fun in the armoury. Perhaps he should go visit him.

Uric walked over to the wall and pressed the proper knot to open the secret passage out of the office, then glanced back at the map. Perhaps he should take it with him? But no. It wasn't very useful if it didn't have all of Hogwarts on it. Though perhaps there was a map like that somewhere. Peeves might know.

He followed the secret passage out of the office, wondering whether there really were dot Animagi somewhere...

*****

Historical Note: The crusade Norine is referring to is St. Louis' crusade (the Seventh Crusade, which ended rather badly...though they all ended badly after the first one). Therefore Norine's second year at Hogwarts was in 1248-1249.