"Here we go, George," Fred said, thumping a huge heavy book down in front of his brother, "I think we've got something here."

The sixteen-year-old Weasley twins had been sitting in the library for two hours – a feat which, up until then, most, if not all, teachers in Hogwarts would have found impossible for them to achieve for two minutes. Even the librarian was getting suspicious. She had approached them more than once to ask what they were doing.

"Just revising, my dear librarian," George – or was it Fred? She could never tell the difference – would reply, "OWL season draws near, and we very much would like to get good grades."

"That is to say," the other twin added, "We need to get good grades…"

"…or our dear, but slightly hysterical mother…"

"…will kill us!" they finished in unison. Madam Pince sighed and walked away. It gave her a headache when they talked like that. She couldn't keep up with which twin was saying what. She figured it was best to stay out of things, and leave them well alone. If they started a riot, or brought out any of their ridiculous boxes of sweets, then she would intervene.

The twins pored over the huge book – Charms and Potions For Intermediate Cheats and Geniuses – with identical grins on their identical faces. To give them credit, they had been telling Madam Pince a half truth. They were working for their exams, and their mother would kill them if they failed again. However, they weren't intending to revise for any of said exams. They had much more important things to do than that. Places to go, people to annoy.

Instead, they were looking for a simple, yet effective way to cheat. The year before last they had attempted to write the answers on their arms with charmed quills, so that the writing would be invisible to everyone but themselves. That hadn't worked, and it hurt like hell. The previous year, they had attempted to use polyjuice potion to sneak into the teachers' lounge and switch the exam results. Two weeks of detention, that had earned them, not to mention the fact that the polyjuice potion was vile. Never again.

This year, they had come up with a much cleverer idea. They were going to sit the exams, just like they would have if they had revised. Then they were going to use a time charm to go back, check all the answers and sit them again, passing with flying colours and not getting murdered by their mother. It was perfect. Foolproof. The only problem was, time charms were painfully advanced, and pretty illegal.

"This is going to take days," Fred sighed, reading over the instructions, "It's pretty advanced. I doubt even super-witch Hermione could do this."

"But it'll be worth it," George pointed out. His brother nodded and grinned.

"Even Dumbledore won't see it coming," he said.

They needed an object to charm to create their time turner. After a bit of debate, they had decided to use one of George's old quills, the most inconspicuous object they could think of.

"Hormius Reverso," Fred muttered to himself, practicing the wand movements with a piece of spaghetti pinched from the kitchen – they were never sure why they had it.

"Don't mess this up," George warned him. Fred frowned at him.

"I won't," he insisted, "I've been practicing."

"It works better if you practice with a wand than some pasta," his brother commented, handing his wand to him and waving the quill in front of his face. Nodding solemnly, Fred snatched up the quill, laid it gently on the table in front of him and aimed the battered old wand at it.

"Here we go," he muttered, "Hormius Reverso!"

The wand emitted a flash of light and a tiny puff of smoke. The quill floated into the air and fluttered gently to the ground. Fred and George blinked ion unison and glanced at the book.

"That doesn't look right," Fred muttered, looking from the book to the quill on the floor and back.

"No it doesn't," agreed George.

"I think I'll…"

"Try it again, good idea."

"I thought so."

Returning attention to the quill again, Fred repeated the phrase, flicking the wand gently. If Hermione Granger had been there, she would have freaked. A good wizard would never use the same object again without checking it first. But Fred and George Weasley had never been good wizards. Fantastic jokers, and the best pranksters Hogwarts had seen in almost thirty years, yes, but never good wizards.

This time, the quill was shot into the air by a concentrated beam of light. When it returned to the ground, it had a browny red glow to it. The twins looked at it, grinning like identical evil geniuses.

"Better," they said in unison. George picked it up as if it was the most precious object in the world.

"Do you think we need a test run, Fred?" he asked.

"I think we do, George," his twin replied, "Nothing too big for starters, we're not Hermione Granger. Just thirty minutes or so."

"Good idea."

Grabbing the sleeve of his brother's robes, George took his wand and aimed it at their brand new time turner. The quill floated into the air, where it rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.

They waited with anticipation and, for a second, nothing happened. Then, the common room around them dissolved, to be replaced by… the common room.

"Looks different," commented Fred.

"As different as something thirty minutes ago can," agreed George.

The thing was, it did look different. The armchairs looked less worn than before, and some of them were completely different chairs. One or two people were milling around, in fairly dated clothes and hairdos. George looked at Fred with his eyebrows raised.

"You know what, Fred?" he asked.

"I don't know, George, what?" Fred replied.

"I think we might have gone a bit further back than thirty minutes ago."

"You know what, George?" Fred said.

"I don't know, Fred, what?"

"I think you might be right."

The twins left the common room and made their through the familiar, yet incredibly different halls of Hogwarts. By now, they were sure that they had gone back further than they had intended. They didn't know anyone there apart from their old friend Peeves, and even he had acted as though he didn't know them, and had instead thrown a chair at them.

Finally, after almost an hour of wandering round aimlessly, they got outside. It was pretty sunny and crowded, and they could tell from the atmosphere that it was the beginning of term. Fred grabbed his brother's arm and pointed across to a group of people sitting by the lake. One was a wild-haired boy with a massive smile which spread all over his face. Another was a tidier looking boy with mousy hair, who was talking very calmly to a shorter, fatter boy, who looked slightly rat-like. In the centre of them, talking loudly and animatedly to the wild-haired boy, stood a tall boy who was very clearly their leader. He had unruly black hair and glasses, and both twins recognised him immediately.

"Harry!" they cried, rushing towards him. At first, Harry didn't turn round. When the twins reached him, Fred grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

"Thank Merlin, Harry!" he cried, "What's happened?"

"How did you get here?" George panted.

"We can't find anyone else we know!"

Harry turned and looked at them with one eyebrow arched, looking incredibly confused, yet confident, in a very un-Harry way. It wasn't until then that the twins realised that this wasn't Harry. For a start, he didn't have those bright green eyes. His eyes were grey and much more expressive than Harry's had ever been. His face was slightly different too. His hair was a bit more unruly, and his grey eyes looked almost permanently crinkled up in a smile.

"Sorry…" they muttered in unison, "Thought you were someone else."

"What's going on, James?" the wild-haired boy asked, coming to his friend's side. The twins recognised him immediately. He was younger, yes, and looked a lot less tired and worn, but his face was unmistakable.

"Sirius?" George asked in shock.

"Yes," the young Sirius said, confused, "Do I know you?"

The twins looked from Sirius to the other boys. The tidy haired one they were sure was Lupin, and though they didn't recognise the fat boy, they could safely assume this was Peter Pettigrew. So that meant…

"Are you James?" Fred asked the Harry lookalike.

"James Potter?" George chimed in.

"That would be me," James replied, "Who are you two bookends?"

For what was possibly the first time ever, Fred and George were speechless.

"You know what, Fred?" George asked finally.

"Yes, I do know what," Fred replied, not bothering with their usual twin act, "I don't think we've moved back thirty minutes."

"No," his brother agreed, "I think we've moved back thirty years."

OK, this is just a tester chapter, so please review and tell me what you think. I'm still working on the characterisation a bit, but I promise it'll get better! If you have any criticism, make it constructive. If you flame me, I may be forced to hack both your hands off with a machete. Just a warning.

BNRH