Turning Time

Chapter 1

"Matt! Where d'you think you're going?" called Aunt Rachel.

"I'm just going to show Remy the tree house, Mum!" Matthew Lupin called. "Oi, Remy! Come on!"

He was around the corner of the house already, but six-year-old Remy followed his cousin even though he was out of sight. "I'm coming, Matt!" When he rounded the corner of the house, Matt wasn't anywhere in sight. Remy took a clear path through the trees, in thought that a tree house would best be built along that path.

When he walked down the path, there were specks of the full moon's light shining between leaves in the trees, scattering over the path and trunks of trees, as well as Remy's face. He wandered along the path, thinking Matt would drop something from his tree.

Suddenly, there was a rustling from in the bushes along the path just behind Remy. He turned toward it, thinking it would be Matt, sneaking through the bushes to come up behind him. But he saw the dark figure of an abnormally large wolf. It growled at him, saliva dripping from its bared fangs.

Remy ran away, as fast and far as he could. He ran and ran, not daring to look back. How long was it before the wolf would spring upon him? He had but one hint: The moonlight shining on the path.

It was gaining on him, but Remy ran faster and faster, until his legs couldn't bear any faster speed. The growling was so loud, he couldn't even hear his own heavy breathing, and he could hardly hear his cry for help. "MUM! MATT! SOMEBODY HELP!" he screamed in fear.

Then, the wolf finally jumped on Remy's back, knocking him over. "HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" he cried out at the top of his lungs, almost in tears. Remy was sure it was the end of everything. He didn't bother to scream anymore or to flail. He only whimpered and sobbed. Then, the wolf bit hard into his left shoulder, and Remy screamed in agony.

"STUPEFY!" cried a voice out of nowhere, startling Remy. The wolf collapsed on top of him, and he slid out from underneath it, flinching in pain from the bite where the wolf had torn into his flesh. He turned around to see who saved him. "MUM!" he said, realizing it was his mother from the dark robes, the dark waves that framed her face and trailed down her back, and the eyes that seemed to glow even with only specks of moonlight.

"Come here, Remy," she said. Remy ran to her, and when she saw the huge gash in his shoulder that he whimpered and cried over, her eyes grew wide. "Good heavens! Remus! This could make you bleed to death! Let's go clot it, and then let's get you a doctor."

"I don't...want a doctor!" Remy objected.

"Well, then we have to get it to clot either way. Let's get out of here before the werewolf wakes up again." Catherine Lupin turned around, and holding Remy's hand, she headed back to her sister's house.

Remy didn't hear the last three words of his mother's sentence. "...werewolf..." was all that he heard. "...werewolf..." echoed through his head over and over again. He was a werewolf, too, now. His father had told him that a werewolf bit a human to turn that human into a werewolf if not kill them. "Werewolf...werewolf...werewolf..." said his mind, repeating it until Remy began to accept the fact.

***

"Mr. Lupin?" said Professor Veint. "Mr. Lupin?"

Remus shot up from his desk, looking in all directions for his potions teacher, eventually finding him on the right side of his desk. "Yes, Sir?"

Professor Veint was very tall and thin with black, straight hair, and midnight blue, penetrating eyes. Everything was thin about him. He had thin arms, a thin head, thin legs, and a thin body. He always wore dark green robes of velvet. He was a very kind man, but he made sure things were done properly. He didn't let students get away with not listening to lectures and might give a detention or deduct points, but he wouldn't be hard on his students about it. He could often be forgetful.

"Were you listening to my lecture?"

What lecture? "Yes," he lied.

"Good. Well, then. What determines what person a Polyjuice Potion turns one into, just to make sure?" said Veint, strolling back to the front of the class, holding his pointer much like a tap-dancer would handle a cane with both hands.

Remus sighed. Why did teachers always try to get their students? "You need a part of the person you're changing into. Polyjuice potions are supposed to never be used for transformation into animals, as permanent damage can be done."

"Very good, Mr. Lupin. And now get started on your assignment, class."

"Peter! What's our assignment?" whispered Remus to his working partner, particularly short and chubby with straight, short hair of an almost colorless blonde and big, watery eyes.

"We have to use the ready-made potions to turn into each other, which I think are set up to last five minutes instead of an hour." Peter Pettigrew pointed out the vials of a disgusting khaki solution already in front of them. "Here's one of my hairs, Remus. But wait a second..." Peter paused. "Do you count as an animal?"

"No, I do not count as an animal! Of course not!" Remus exclaimed a bit rudely. He didn't appreciate even his friends making jokes about his being a werewolf, though he might do the same at times, but Peter wasn't joking this time. He was just nervous about what might happen to him.

"Alright. I just wouldn't want to be stuck as you forever," Peter said, and Remus rolled his eyes. Well, who would want to be stuck as a werewolf? Who would want to look back on December 1, 1986, and think, That day, I had a class assignment in potions when I had to turn into Remus. But my potion went wrong, so now I'm stuck as a werewolf. Being a werewolf was scary, and then it was a pain in the neck missing what went on during.... During the time of inhumanity.

"Consider yourself lucky," Remus said, pulling out one of his hairs and giving it to Peter. When Peter put Remus's hair in his vial, it turned a deep shade of blue. Despite the elegant color, it smelled like vomit. When Remus did the same with Peter's hair, his vial turned a pure white.

"Obviously, I don't have a personality," muttered Peter, shaking his head at the color Remus's vial turned. What kind of personality did white stand for?

"Well," Remus said, "they both smell. Let's get it over with. Here's... to you," he said, hesitating to drink the smelly substance.

"Cheers," said Peter, going right ahead to drink it.

As soon as the vial had touched Remus's lips, he immediately wished he could spew out the potion all over the room. The aftertaste was disgusting, and he could feel himself getting shorter and chubbier, his eyes getting wider, and his hairline getting higher up. He finally turned toward Peter, who was now Remus. Or was he Peter? He didn't know.

"Heavens, I'm short," Remus said in shock, noting the different level above his desk he was.

"I heard that!" Peter said, now taller with smaller, more tired, amber eyes, and light brown hair that barely touched the shoulders in the back.

"No, no, no," Remus said reassuringly. "Not short as in a person being shorter than average. I just meant that I'm shorter than my usual self."

"I hope you meant that," Peter said.

"Are we supposed to do anything now that we're... err.... each other?" Remus asked, not sure of what to call being under the use of the Polyjuice Potion.

"No," Peter, or maybe Remus, said. "We're basically just supposed to talk around to people. It might be good to see if we can identify them."

Suddenly, a skinny boy with messy, jet black hair that looked like it had never been brushed and hazel eyes behind glasses walked to stand beside Remus, now reading a book. "Hey, James!" he said. "Peter's actually thinking!" Well, the boy looked like James Potter, but he wasn't. He was Sirius Black.

"I heard that!" said Peter-who-looked-like-Remus.

"Oh, Peter!" Sirius said. "There you are! Still aren't thinking... what a disappointment. Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Just then, a tall boy with dark brown hair in a devilish style and dark, dark eyes walked over. He looked like Sirius, but he was James.

"Are you Peter?" James asked the boy who looked like Remus but wasn't.

"Yes," Peter replied. "Who else would I be? Who did you think Remus was working with?"

"I thought he was working with Snape," James joked.

"That wasn't funny, James," Remus responded.

"Oh, really? If I didn't make it and have to keep a straight face, I'd be howling in laughter."

"At least he's acting like himself," Peter remarked.

Just then, every two people in the room were switching places again. James and Sirius were suddenly Sirius and James. Remus and Peter were suddenly Peter and Remus. Severus Snape had lost his soft, short brown hair, which had turned back into a long, black greaseball.

"Best go sit down again," James said. "We'll be going."

"Best go sit down again. We'll be going," mimicked Sirius.

"Oh, shut up!" James responded.

"Oh, shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

"No, you shut up!"

James decided not to say anything after that. He walked over to his chair and sat down, and then Sirius sat on his lap, obviously trying to mimic his sitting in that particular chair.

"Get off me!" James said, through gritted teeth.

"Okay, okay, okay!" said Sirius quietly, seeing Professor Veint was stopping all the talking now that the potions had worn off.

"Back to your seat, Miss Evans," said Professor Veint, rubbing a bit of his velvet robes between two fingers.

"But Professor," the redheaded girl with bright green eyes insisted, "I sit here."

"Oh, right, then, Miss Evans. Remain there, in that case," the potions master said. "Now, class. Take notes on your experience of turning into each other!"

What was there to take notes on? Basically, all they did was put each other's hair into vials and drink the potion, then walk around getting confused. But Remus wrote anyway.

Peter gave me one of his hairs, and when I put it in my vial, it turned white. I drank it. I shrunk, got chubbier, my eyes got bigger, and my hair turned blonde. Five minutes later, I changed back.

"This is a boring report," said Peter. "What should I write? 'I put a hair of Remus's head in my vial and drank it, therefore I turned into him.' That's about all there is to it."

"You could add detail," Remus said. "Like the color the potion turned when you put my hair in it and how your appearance changed."

"Oh," Peter said. "Right. Okay, then." Peter wrote it out completely, but then he asked, "Did you write this kind of stuff?"

"Yes," Remus replied. "Why?"

Peter got a new piece of parchment and laid the tip of the quill to it to start a new report. "It's kind of like copying you, isn't it?" he asked.

"Well, no." Remus thought for a second. "Maybe yes, though."

The bell rang for the next class. "Out with you," said Veint, standing up and directing his long, skinny fingers in the direction of the door. "Class is over. Good day, class."

***

"One more step, and I'll eat your eyes out!" said Raoul.

"You wouldn't! Just stay calm, Raoul," said Fenton, stepping towards Raoul.

Then, Raoul kept his promise and leapt upon Fenton, biting and tearing at his eyes until they fell out with blood in and all around the sockets.

"JAMES!" said Remus. "What kind of book is this?" He flipped the book closed and looked at the cover of Oh, Yes, I Would! by Kristina Rockwell.

"Oh, it's my favorite book!" James said. "Kristina Rockwell is one of the greatest wizarding writers. It's great, isn't it?" he said, gleefully, almost jumping for joy.

"No! It's so violent!" Remus said, his amber eyes huge in surprise of just how strange James could be.

"Yes! That's why it's so great!" James said, his eyes so wide in excitement, one couldn't see any more than his eyes through his glasses. His grin was huge.

"Hallo!" said Sirius, leading Peter down the stairs of the Gryffindor boys' dormitories. They were all in the Gryffindor common room, furnished in scarlet and gold. The velvet hanging on the walls around the room was scarlet, the desks were of mahogany wood, the chairs were cushioned in scarlet velvet, and the carpets over a mahogany floor were scarlet and gold.

Sirius had with him what looked like a tiny, sparkling hourglass on a fine, silver chain.

"Sirius," Remus asked, "what's that?"

"It's the sacred Time-Turner," said Sirius. "It was my mom's, but I snuck it out of the house. Anyway," he said, "we can use it to go through time and see what's happening then. This is a special one. They usually have gold chains, but this one has a silver chain, meaning it's a rare one that can take you over years instead of hours."

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Remus said. "To travel through time can be dangerous! You might change the future! Or even the present! You mustn't use it!"

"Moony," said Sirius, "if we all went but you, would you be glad being here?"

"If you all went without me, would you be glad if I told Dumbledore?"

"Errr...." Said Sirius. "No. But we're going to go either way, so you might as well come."

"Fine, fine." Remus sighed and rolled his eyes. "But just remember: we may see or feel things that change the course of our lives forever. Such as our children never being born. And let's try to get back as quickly as possible."

Sirius broke out into laughter quite like that of an evil sorcerer. "Me? With children? Let me have a laughing tantrum as you continue your conversation!" He broke out into the same laughter.

"Anyway," Remus said, "that is the risk we take."

James then did what may have been a thinking habit, but he did this constantly. He stuck his hand in his hair and ruffled it as much as possible. Then he adjusted his glasses.

Peter bit his lower lip and stared around the room in wonder.

"So how far into the future are we going?" Sirius asked.

"Let's say... How about twenty years?" asked James.

"Sounds like a difference, but not too much," said Peter.

"Okay, then," said James. "Let's go!"

"Not yet, James." Remus smiled at James. "Did you understand what I said about the risks? You didn't seem to do anything about it," he said, looking at Sirius.

"You said that... children would die?" Sirius said. "How? Would we kill them?"

"Obviously, you didn't. I said that--" Sirius cut Remus off, and Remus sighed.

Sirius put one hand over his chest, and with the other hand, stuck one finger up in the air. And closed his eyes to say, "We may see or feel things that change the course of our life forever, and I'm such a genius named Remus Lupin!"

"Alright, then," said Remus.

"Remus Lupin is a genius! I'm going to buy a T-shirt that says '#1 Remus Lupin Fan!'" said Sirius.

"So when should we go?" Remus asked.

"Why not go now?" Sirius asked, smiling devilishly. "But of course, first, Jamesy here wants to write Miss Evans a love letter, right, Jamesy?"

"Shut up, will you?" James remarked, scowling at Sirius.

"Well, is there anything we must do first?" asked Peter.

Daine Connors walked down into the common room, smiling sweetly at Remus. She had long, dark brown hair that fell halfway down her back as well as small, midnight blue eyes and a wine-colored gloss over her thin lips.

"I think we better continue our conversation up in the dormitory," he whispered, and the other boys walked up the staircase in agreement. He stole a glance back at Daine as he followed them, and she turned to look at him quickly, and this was his turn to smile, but she smiled back anyway.

Remus had always had at least a small crush on Daine, and recently she had stopped Severus Snape picking on him, so now they were friends, though they shied around each other still.

Remus closed the door to the sixth-year boys' dormitory quietly, so as not to cause suspicion of anything.

"Now," said Remus, "I'm afraid we'll all choke now."

"What?" said James.

"Well," Remus replied, "you have to keep the chain around your neck. This isn't long enough for more than three, I don't think. So maybe," Remus paused, scratching the side of his scalp, "two of us could put part of the chain around our wrists. We need two, because with three people, I'm afraid there won't be enough room for someone to string their wrist in. I vote Peter and Sirius."

"Why us?" said Sirius.

"Well, no offense, but Peter is a little pudgy, so it would be easier for us to have it around his wrist, and then you, Sirius, are hyper and should be held in place."

Sirius started jumping up and down and vibrating his arms for no apparent reason.

"My point exactly," said Remus.

"So," said Peter, "I'll string myself up now." Peter took part of the chain Remus was holding and twisted his wrist into it.

"Sirius?" Remus said. "String in your wrist. Go on."

Sirius stuck his tongue out at Remus and twisted his wrist into the chain, already around Remus's neck, so James got it around his neck, just after getting his invisibility cloak out of his trunk.

"Who's doing the time-turning?" asked Sirius. "How about one of us with numb wrists?"

"I'll do it," Remus replied in a way that would have made one imagine that no one volunteered to and he needed help.

"Remember!" Sirius said urgently. "It's s turn a year! Twenty turns!"

"I know, I know," Remus assured Sirius, so he turned it over twenty times, and the dormitory suddenly became a swirl of color and shapes all around, as they felt themselves flying very fast. Any noise they made was totally unheard through the pounding of their ears.

Finally they could feel the ground beneath their feet again and everything came back into focus. Peter and Sirius twisted their wrists out from the chain and Remus came out from under it.