Time And Time Again

Winter, 1975

Wizards in England were luckier than their Muggle counterparts for many reasons, but mostly because no Muggle had ever been blessed enough to see the winter wonderland that was Hogwarts at Christmastime. Trees along the edge of the Forbidden Forest had been decorated with small twinkling fairies and bowed slightly under the weight of heavy snow. Holly hung beneath the windows of the large castle and mistletoe could be found in quiet nooks and crannies (giving Appollyon Pringle, the Hogwarts caretaker, reason to take points off students found... joining.... in the Christmas spirit). The grounds were covered in a thick blanket of snow, like a small child snuggled in their bed, ready for a night of blissful sleep. With the stars shining in the dark early morning sky, the Hogwarts grounds carried an air of celestial purity.

But four silent figures were not taking in the peaceful scene on this particular morning. Each figure carried a large beaker in their hands and was creeping from the stables into the castle.

At the Great Hall, the group paused, watching. The house elves were dashing around the room, readying it for when the students came down for breakfast. Finally, an elf with a large badge on his chest ran to the center of the room and whistled. With a small *pop*, he disappeared. Promptly, the rest of the house elves followed suit.

The lurking figures glanced at one another, entered the Hall and separated. Each went down one of the four student tables, pouring a small amount of the contents of their beaker into each of the goblets. Once done, they quietly left the Great Hall and made their way to Gryffindor Tower.....

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

Winter, 1995

Ron woke up suddenly from a deep sleep.

Wondering what had caused him to wake, he glanced at his best friend's four-poster and saw that the curtains were open and the bed was empty. He quickly reminded himself that if Voldemort had succeeded in his plans to re-kill James and Lily, he likely wouldn't remember ever having a best friend named Harry Potter.

*So,* Ron thought to himself, *he's probably still in the Common Room.*

Ron quickly showered and dressed, all the while thinking that Harry was going to burn himself out if he didn't get some rest every once in a while. But Ron wouldn't actually say that, he'd let Hermione do all the worrying.

Down in the Common Room, Ron wasn't surprised at all to find Harry slumped over a book, drooling slightly onto the pages. Sighing, he made his way to the snoring form and began to poke at it.

"Wake up, Harry."

Harry mumbled something about a Bludger, snorted once then woke up. He looked blearily around before spotting Ron on the sofa opposite him.

"Time zit?" He muttered.

"Almost time for breakfast." Ron replied and almost immediately sounds could be heard from the dormitories above as students woke and began preparing for the day.

"Did you find anything?" Ron asked quietly once Harry seemed to know where he was.

Harry sighed loudly, "No, just a lot of stuff telling me time-travel is 'highly dangerous,' but nothing telling me how to actually *do* it."

Filled with frustration, Harry pulled himself off the sofa then wandered up the staircase to his dormitory and a much needed shower.

Fifteen minutes later, the Hogwarts Three (although none of them knew that the Daily Prophet had taken to calling them that) were in the Great Hall having breakfast.

Students around them were complaining about Professor Leek's latest Potions assignment (she had turned out to be a total bi... witch) or discussing Professor Wohlgenannt's last class (he, despite his appearance, turned out to be a great teacher who showed no favoritism for the Slytherins).

Hermione had a copy of *Ancient Languages and Symbols* propped open against a pitcher of orange juice. She'd munch a few times on a piece of toast, turn a page in the book, then glare at Ron and Harry as if to say "You should be studying too. The OWLs are only 7 months away!"

Ron and Harry were talking about last week's Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. The Hufflepuffs had improved their playing since the October match against Ravenclaw. The Hufflepuff captain dedicated the season to Cedric Diggory and the team seemed determined to win the Quidditch cup this year. The Gryffindor-Hufflepuff match had lasted four long, exhausting hours but only one goal had been made. Gryffindor had won 160-0, but, at first, Harry had found the victory oddly empty. As if he'd stolen it from Cedric and the ever-toiling Hufflepuffs. But then, Ryan MacKensie, a 6^th Year Chaser who had been made captain after Cedric's death, found Harry and congratulated him on the win.

"Harry, " he'd said, "we've been talking... and all of us want to thank you for bringing Cedric back last year... He's... dead... but he did win the Triwizard Cup. We're all proud of him..."

While Ron was telling Harry how he'd known that the Hufflepuff Chasers were planning a Porskoff Ploy by the small wink Anisia Richards had given to Kevin Barbour, Harry felt someone tap on his shoulder. Looking up, Ron immediately stopped talking, swallowed once then turned back to his plate.

"Potter," it was Professor McGonagall. "The Headmaster wishes to speak to you after breakfast." Her message delivered, Professor McGonagall promptly turned on her heel and walked (it looked more like a march, she was so stiff) back to the staff table.

Hermione looked up from her book. "What did you do this time?"

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

1975, Winter

Professor Dumbledore looked unremittingly at James. James looked back at him from across the enormous mahogany desk, marveling that he, James Charles Potter, was locked in a battle of wills with the famous Albus Dumbledore.

His eyes still on James, Professor Dumbledore spoke. "You did this alone?"

"Yes, sir." James nodded to emphasize his point.

"You had no help from... other students?"

"No, sir."

When the Hogwarts students had finally wandered into the Great hall for breakfast, they found a tasty new drink in their goblets. Nothing odd happened until a few students at the Hufflepuff table began giggling: some of their friends had turned into clabberts. The laughter grew louder when the rest of the Hufflepuffs became the small monkey-like creatures. Meanwhile, the Ravenclaws had become augreys, causing a slight panic among the younger students. The Gryffindors, minus the Marauders and Lily, had mutated into puffskeins (two had managed to pin down Peter and stick their tongues up his nostrils). All of the Slytherins, except one, turned into diricawls and began popping in and out of the air all around the Hall. Severus Snape, however, became a flobberworm.

Professor Dumbledore sighed heavily then rose from his seat. He turned to a filing cabinet and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Leaning over his desk, Dumbledore scanned the papers for a few moments. Finally, he stood up and gazed at James once again with that unrelenting, uncanny stare.

James realized that he was sweating.

"You've a long history of mischief, James."

"Yes, sir." *Oh, why, oh, why am I agreeing with him?*

"You've also had excellent marks."

"Yes, sir." *What's he gonna do to me?*

"You're a prefect."

"Yes, sir." *This is gonna be bad...*

"You're also Captain of your House team."

"Yes, sir." *3 months detention, at least. If I'm lucky.*

"However, you are in a position to be of great influence to the younger students. And as such, I must make an example of you."

"Yes...., sir." *This is gonna be so bad.*

"I'm afraid I must revoke your position as prefect."

"Yes, sir." *What? Oh, god...*

"Please hand over your badge."

James placed his hand on his prefect badge, just over his heart. He was handing it to Professor Dumbledore when a large blast sounded, as if someone had set off a Muggle bomb.

The room shuddered violently as another blast went off and James' prefect badge slid out of his grasp and fell to the floor.

Dumbledore glanced briefly at James, his quick mind already at work forming possible reasons for the sound, then, just as quickly, discarding them.

"Stay here," he told James, before racing out of the room and down the moving staircase.

*They couldn't have...* James thought to himself while searching under the desk for his badge. *They wouldn't. I know Sirius is certifiably insane, but even he's not crazy enough to mess with Professor Dumbledore after this morning. And Remus definitely wouldn't agree to-*

Someone screamed.

Without thinking, James jumped up from the floor and ran out of the office, his badge forgotten.

Many wizards called the 1970s the "Dark Times," and some thought that Armageddon, the end of the world, was close.

James remembered when he was younger, going to Quidditch matches with his father, Charles, or spending the day at Diagon Alley with his mother, Sara. But that had been years ago, before Charles Potter had been shot in the back with the Killing Curse while apprehending a Death Eater. The world was indeed going through "Dark Times." Quidditch matches were attacked, grade schools (wizard and Muggle, alike) were destroyed, honest businesses were decimated, all by masked men who killed in the name of "wizard pride." The Dark Mark burned in the sky nearly round the clock, a constant reminder that no one was safe anymore. Except the Hogwarts students.

Everyone knew that Lord Voldemort was afraid of Dumbledore. No one knew exactly why, but that never mattered as long as it kept Hogwarts safe from him. But, Voldemort was steadily gaining power and finding more people to believe in his twisted creeds. Did this mean that Voldemort had reached the apex of his strength? Was he attacking Hogwarts because he knew that he would win?

Past the gargoyle statue guarding Dumbledore's office, James paused, listening.

More screams. Some laughter. Both were coming from the Great Hall.

At top speed, James ran to the Great Hall, his wand ready in his hand.

From the top of the great marble staircase, James heard voices. Two men... arguing, it seemed.

Tip-toeing down the stairs, James saw that both of the men wore long, heavy black cloaks. The taller of the two was masked and hooded. *He must be a Death Eater.* But the smaller one had no mask. In fact, he looked just like.... Peter?

James paused behind a suit of armor at the foot of the staircase. *What's going on?*

Looking around the suit, James saw that Peter was still arguing with the Death Eater.

The Death Eater was motioning with his hands, but Peter kept shaking his head, more and more forcefully until he finally shouted, "I said go!"

*What?* How could little, quiet Peter order around a Death Eater?

Past Peter, inside the Great Hall, James could see a few more masked men surrounding the students and teachers. On the hardwood floor lay a few students who had obviously tried to fight the Death Eaters. James saw Sirius standing in a corner, gripping his wand tightly, a fierce look on his face. Next to him, Remus stood in front of Lily, shielding her from harm. Remus was whispering something to Sirius, obviously warning him not to do anything rash.

Most of the rest of the students were huddled together, whimpering or crying.

James could see that the teachers, Professors McGonagall, Salny, Kurkland and Weinberg, were tied and gagged in front of the staff table. Professor Dumbledore was being guarded by 6 men.

The Death Eater left and Peter began talking nervously to himself. "Let's see... James told Dumbledore that he planned that trick by himself... then they went to his office... about 30 minutes later he met us in the Common Room..."

*Huh?* James hadn't been anywhere near the Gryffindor Common Room.

Slowly, James came out from behind the suit of armor and walked towards Peter, who was still mumbling to himself.

"Wormtail? You feeling okay?"

Peter's head whipped around.

*What the bloody hell is going on?!?!* Peter was *old!* Really old! He was going bald! He was fat! And his hand! What was wrong with his hand?!

Meanwhile, a strange thing was happening to Peter's face. It was contorting between a multitude of emotions; joy, wonder, grief, regret. Peter's eyes flickered over James' face then back to the floor only to return once again to James.

"It was fun, wasn't it?" Peter's voice was always high, but today it seemed abnormally so. "We... we were really friends..., weren't we?"

"Wormtail? What... what happened to you?"

Peter jumped at the sound of his nickname. He glanced nervously over his shoulder.

"Are you under the Imperius Curse?" James asked.

A once, Peter's expression changed from grief to terror.

In one quick motion, he rushed at James and threw a long chain over his neck. Just before the world dissolved in a blur of shapes and colors, James heard Peter shout, "Tell Harry I've fulfilled my debt."

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

Winter, 1995, James

James tried to scream, but wind was rushing so fast past his ears that the sound was lost as soon as it was made.

Suddenly, the ground reappeared under his feet, the whirling colors vanished and James collapsed onto the floor.

"Unh.." He slowly stood up from the floor.

Looking around, James saw that Peter had disappeared. There were no longer any shouts coming from the Great Hall.

"How did he Disapparate?" James asked himself. "I thought no one could Apparate or Disapparate on the Hogwarts grounds."

For that matter..., what had happened to Wormtail in the first place? How did he get so old? And what happened to his hand?

*It must be a curse.* That had to be it, James thought. Maybe poor little Peter had tried to fight the Death Eater's and was hit with some kind of aging spell or a disfiguring curse. But..., Peter was afraid of his own shadow, literally, and it seemed so unlikely.

*And what,* James thought to himself, slipping the thin chain from around his neck, *is this?*

It was a necklace, with a thin, long gold chain. It had a tiny pendant, shaped like an hourglass, hanging from it.

*Maybe...,* it seemed so impossible, but it was the only plausible explanation. *Maybe Peter didn't Disapparate, maybe I did. Maybe, this thing made me Disapparate. So, if Peter threw this around my neck, he was trying to get me out of there. But, then, why didn't he come with me?*

James' head was starting to hurt from all the thinking he was doing. He found himself wishing Lily was there with him, she'd figure everything out in about a minute.

"Mr. James Potter, I presume?" A voice said behind James, startling him.

James turned around and was shocked. Professor Dumbledore?!

*What the hell is going on here?* James thought.

"Yes, sir?" he asked, instead.

"Ah," the old man smiled, "right on time, boy." He walked towards James then reached out a hand.

James thought the headmaster wanted to shake hands, but quickly, before he could make a fool of himself, he realized that Dumbledore was looking at the gold chain in James' hand. James handed it to the headmaster.

Dumbledore looked closely at the necklace, before turning his attention back to James. "Would you come with me, please, James?" He then turned away and walked through a door hidden behind a tapestry. James quickly followed.

Soon James realized that Dumbledore was taking secret passages and hidden corridors to get where they were going. Why didn't he want anyone to see them?

"Sir? Could I ask you something?"

Professor Dumbledore stopped, turned and smiled again. "I'm sure there are many things you'd like to ask me about, but I'm afraid I must ask you to wait until we get to my office. Then I will answer any question you have, as long as it is in my power to do so."

James nodded numbly. "Yes, sir."

They walked in silence for a few more moments, before turning a corner and coming to the large gargoyle statue that guarded the headmaster's office and living quarters.

"Fizzing Whizbees," Professor Dumbledore said, and the gargoyle immediately leapt aside, allowing James and the headmaster to pass.

It seemed like days since he had last been in Dumbledore's office, not just a few minutes, and James found himself wondering if the headmaster would remember that he hadn't official relieved James of his status as prefect. He hoped not.

They moved swiftly up the moving spiral staircase, and finally came to the headmaster's door.

Dumbledore glanced back briefly at James, then he touched his palm to the oak door.

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

Winter, 1995, Harry

When Harry had arrived at the stone gargoyle after breakfast, he found that he didn't have to even try to guess the password; the gargoyle stepped aside for him almost immediately. Professor Dumbledore must have told it that Harry would be coming.

Unfortunately, Dumbledore wasn't in his office when he arrived, so Harry busied himself by looking around the large, circular room. Out of all the teacher's offices, Dumbledore's had always been his favorite. Pictures of old headmasters and mistresses covered the walls, strange mechanisms that whirred, whistled and smoked stood on small tables and, there, on a shelf behind the large desk, was the Sorting Hat.

In Harry's first year, the Sorting Hat had told him that he could have become a great wizard in Slytherin, but Harry, being terrified of Slytherin's history of turning out Dark Wizards, asked to be put somewhere-anywhere- else. In his second year, during a time when he wondered if he might have been the heir of Salazar Slytherin, Harry had asked the hat if it had put him in the wrong house to which the hat replied, "I stand by what I said before, you would have done well in Slytherin."

Today, Harry was sure that he belonged in Gryffindor, but he wasn't sure what the headmaster wanted with him. To his knowledge, he hadn't broken any rules lately. Unless you counted sleeping in the Common Room, but, surely, Professor Dumbledore wouldn't get involved in something as minor as that.

So Harry waited for the headmaster, occasionally glancing at Fawkes, Professor Dumbledore's pet phoenix. Fawkes had helped Harry out repeatedly in the past, but today, the majestic bird was preening his gold and red feathers regally.

Finally, when Harry began to wonder if he should just go to class and come back later, he heard footsteps outside the enormous oak door.

"Wait here, please," he heard the headmaster say, talking to someone hidden from Harry's view.

Dumbledore walked into the room, saw that Harry was there and nodded shortly, as if to remind himself that he'd asked Harry to be there.

"Hello, Harry. It's good to see you're doing well." Dumbledore circled his large desk, then sat down opposite Harry. "How was your summer?"

*Huh?* Harry thought. *He brought me here to ask about my summer?!*

"Uh, it was okay, I guess."

The headmaster nodded once again.

"Well, that's good." He smiled benignly down at Harry, who was very confused. "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you here. All will be revealed in a few short moments, but if you don't mind I'd like to give you a little history lesson."

*Wha?* "Okay, sir. Sure."

Dumbledore looked around the office, his gaze lingering on the door, before he began. "Twenty years ago, I'm sure you're aware, your father, James, attended school here."

Harry nodded, wondering where this was going.

"Twenty years ago, on this very day, a group of Death Eaters attacked the school. They managed, somehow, to break past the many defenses guarding the castle. Your father, at the time, was in my office, being reprimanded for a small prank he and his friends had played on the school." His eyes twinkled briefly at the memory, then grew serious. "Within moments however, the Death Eaters dispersed, and Apparated from the castle. Afterwards, the teachers followed standard protocol and did a head count of the students. One was missing. Your father."

"What?" Harry jumped out of his chair at this. "You lost my father?!"

Dumbledore raised a hand, signaling for Harry to take his seat. "We did not lose your father, Harry." He motioned for Harry to stay quiet. "Thirty minutes later he returned. But during that time he was no where on the Hogwarts grounds."

"So where was he?"

Dumbledore watched Harry, with that odd, uncanny stare he'd used so many times. Harry knew for sure that Dumbledore was deciding whether he was ready.

"He was here."

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

Winter, 1995, James

James had positioned himself on the topmost step of Dumbledore's moving staircase. He was facing the door, ready to jump to his feet the instant it was opened.

Through the door, James could hear two voices, one unmistakably Professor Dumbledore. The other voice didn't talk as much, obviously Dumbledore was telling that person something.

*Are they talking about me?* James asked himself.

He mentally reviewed everything that had happened that morning. First, the prank. James proudly admitted to himself that it had been a rousing success. Snape had been humiliated, students had been rolling on the floor in gales of laughter, even stodgy old McGonagall had cracked a smile.

Second, his meeting with Dumbledore. James' shoulders slumped. He wasn't a prefect anymore.

Well, technically he was still a prefect. He hadn't handed over his badge to the headmaster.

Which brought him to the third point of the day. The Death Eater attack. How did they get past the wards? When James was a child (he liked to think of himself as a grown-up, even though his voice was still choir-boy high), he remembered his father talking about the defenses around Hogwarts. "No one person knows every spell protecting the castle. And they're changed all the time. Soon as you get through one charm, three new ones pop up..."

That meant a spy. Someone on the inside who could gather information and then pass it on to Voldemort. Was it a teacher? But there was no way Dumbledore could be tricked into trusting a Death Eater. Maybe a student? But, who?

This brought James to the fourth item of his day. Peter. What happened to him? James had seen Peter at breakfast and he didn't look old then.

James shook his head, mentally sweeping those troubled thoughts from his head. He tabulated his total for the day: Prank, good; Meeting with Dumbledore, uncertain; Death Eaters, bad; Peter, uncertain.

*Hmm,* James thought. *One good, one bad, two uncertains. I guess it's too early to decide what kind of day I'm having.*

Suddenly, James heard shouting from the other side of the door.

"YOU LOST MY FATHER?!" the second voice said.

James heard Dumbledore's voice speaking quietly, he couldn't make out what was being said.

Standing up from his sitting position, James leaned against the heavy oak door, pressing his ear to the frame. He still couldn't make out the words.

Then, there was a dull, quick thumping, like footsteps, the door was flung open, and James came face to face with his twin.