Hello people of the fanfiction. Sorry if this seems like a long Author's Note, it's mostly a list of the characters and their ages so no one's confused. This is my first fanfiction too, so please review so I know what you think.
This will end up being a time travel fic, but I have to get the story set up first so be patient. It starts out focusing on a few characters, but it will include the others soon. By the way, the year it starts out in is 2019 (two years after the epilogue in the Deathly Hallows) and here are the ages of the people who will be time traveling:
Teddy Lupin 21
Victoire Weasley 19
Dominique Weasley 15
James Potter 14
Fred Weasley 14
Scorpius Malfoy 13
Albus Potter 13
Rose Weasley 13
Molly Weasley 13
Roxanne Weasley 12
Louis Weasley 12
Lily Potter 11
Hugo Weasley 11
Lucy Weasley 10
Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for well, my story. That would all be me. Other than that though, nothing. Thanks for making me feel all poor.
Chapter 1: The Passage to Hogsmeade
The whole thing all started with a crazy plan, a secret passage to Hogsmeade, a cloak, a map, a frog, and Christmas. But, before we get too far, let's start at the beginning on an ordinary Christmas at a not-so-ordinary school full of witches and wizards and magic and of course, Weasleys.
In Rose Weasleys' opinion, Christmas was by far the best holiday at Hogwarts. It was a shame so few students stayed during Christmas. It was a tradition for most wizards to go home to their families over the holidays, especially after the Second Wizarding War was over people had wanted to keep their families close and together.
So far from what Rose had seen, the castle was beautiful. Decorations and trees lined all the hallways and the classrooms were full of ribbons and less distracting ornaments so the students could still focus on their studies. Twinkling orbs of light (they were rather like those you'd find on Muggle Christmas trees except they required no electricity to work, floated, and weren't connected by a cord) floated aimlessly about the castle. Hugo, Rose's little brother often complained that they were too bright and made it hard to sleep with them shining in your face. Apparently, no one in his dormitory knew the charm to turn the orbs' lights off. No one really felt like informing them how to do so either. Still, he claimed, the orbs were dead useful when it came to lighting as certain secret passages he and some of their cousins were always finding around the school were rather poorly lit. Rose disapproved of this, but decided to let it go since it was Christmas.
The Great Hall had been decorated the night before by the teachers so Rose and everyone else who walked in for breakfast got their first looks at it then. It was amazing. Snow fell from the enchanted ceiling right into piles between the tables that magically turned into snowmen and then, as if blown away by the wind, would topple over into snowdrifts again every time the door opened. Lily and Hugo watched in awe as one of the snowmen did a little jig before collapsing. It was their first year at Hogwarts and they had never seen such decorations, even at home or at Grimmauld Place, which was the usual place they all met up at for family reunions or holidays when they weren't at Hogwarts.
Behind the High Table, where the teachers all sat talking animatedly to one another, was a gigantic Christmas tree that nearly reached all the way to the ceiling. About a hundred fairies were fluttering around it and the rest of the room, almost as bright as the floating lights and the candles hanging from the ceiling. The Hogwarts staff had really outdone themselves with the decorations this year.
Rose sat down at the large table that was in the middle of the room for the students. The teachers would have joined them, but there were just enough students (namely Weasleys) left at the school for the kids to all have one table to themselves, regardless of what house they were in, for the holidays.
While Rose admired the decorations, her best friend, Scorpius Malfoy, sat down beside her along with her cousin, Albus Potter.
"Have either of you seen James or Fred lately?" asked Albus. "James reckons he found a tunnel leading out of Hogwarts, maybe even all the way to Hogsmeade. He and Fred went looking for it a few hours ago. They woke me up at about five o'clock just to annoy me, but I haven't seen them since."
Scorpius shrugged. "I haven't seen them anywhere. They'll be back sometime. They probably got lost or something. Who knows where all those passages lead! There are tons of them, and not even those two have found a way out of the castle yet."
"Actually, we have" came a voice right behind Rose. She jumped about a foot in the air and turned around to see James and Fred laughing at her, standing there as if they had been there the whole time.
"Where did you come from!" she yelled, still angry they had managed to startle her like that. Rose prided herself in being difficult for her cousins to scare and prank, a very difficult feat with them being as crazy as they were.
"We were here the whole time, "Fred said with a mischievous grin as he took a seat next to her, while at the same time stealing some marmalade from Scorpius, "Couldn't you tell, Rosie?"
Albus frowned, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. "No you weren't. I would have seen you."
James grinned. He loved to mess with his siblings, Albus especially. "Perhaps you need to get your eyes checked, Al, your vision's almost as bad as Dad's!"
Albus looked like he was about to argue, but luckily Scorpius stopped him. He had just remembered something that the two had said when they first "appeared" scaring Rose half to death. "And what, exactly, did you mean by 'we have'."
Fred answered him, "Exactly what we said. We found a tunnel that goes out of Hogwarts, and yes, Albus, it does go to Hogsmeade. We're going to check it out later. I got a letter from Mum saying Teddy and Victoire will be in the village today, maybe Percy, Audrey, and Lucy too. I reckon we ought to pop in for a visit."
"But you can't have found any tunnels to Hogsmeade! " Rose said, looking incredulous. "They were all either destroyed or lost during the War! The teachers even said so!"
Fred shook his head, "Tut, tut, Rosie. Haven't you learned by now? No one ever tells the truth about things like this. Can you imagine if the headmaster just shouted over lunch one day 'There's a tunnel out of Hogwarts on the second floor corridor!' or something like that?"
"I-"
"Of course not," continued James, interrupting Rose. She glared at him. "That would be disastrous. All the students would go looking for it. So, to solve the problem of curious students, they tell a simple little lie about how they had all been destroyed in the war, letting all the goody, goody rule-followers like you lot believe them, and –voila!- no more students trying to find the passages!
"Until you idiots came along"
"Now, now, Rose. No need to be rude. But, you're right about the whole 'until we came along' thing. I always knew you should have been a Ravenclaw."
Rose sighed dramatically. "Instead I'm stuck in Gryffindor with you freaks. You're so lucky you're in Slytherin, Scorp. I feel like my head will implode if I have to study in the common room while they're in there with all of their pranking stuff one more time!"
"You think you've got it bad!" Albus said, "I have to share a house with one of them even when we aren't at school!"
James and Fred had looks of mock hurt on their faces.
"We aren't that bad!" they said.
"Yes you are, "the other three chorused.
"Well, maybe sometimes. But that's beside the point," James said.
"And what, exactly is the point?" asked Scorpius. He was beginning to tire of listening to the two pranksters confusing speech. It always somehow made you forget whatever you were supposed to be talking about. This, he supposed, was their strategy of getting out of being blamed for their pranks by the teachers. It was a very efficient strategy.
James thought for a moment. "Oh! Of course! Now I remember what we came to talk to you about. Well, we did find a passage to Hogsmeade and we are inviting you all to come visit it with us! We'll probably invite all of the other cousins too. Meet outside the Gryffindor common room, just by the portrait of the Fat Lady in an hour. We'll tell you more about it then, should you decide to come. And, Rose, dear, don't think of trying to tell the teachers on us. We already have an alibi. Besides, it's not like we're going to be hurting anyone."
Rose scowled at that. Why did everyone always think she was a snitch (the tattletale kind, not the Quidditch kind) who told the teachers everything? But they did have a point about one thing, which she hated almost more than being considered a snitch. How could exploring a little passage to Hogsmeade possibly harm anyone? Maybe in their parents' time it would be dangerous, but certainly not now. What could possibly go wrong?
When she looked back at James to answer him, she stopped. Where did he go? For a second she thought she saw a faint shimmer in the air as though the light had moved or something and then- was that a hand floating in the air? She shook her head. That was impossible. They must have left while she was looking away, but how had they gone so quickly?
Rose turned to Albus and Scorpius for an answer, but Scorpius looked just as bewildered as her and Albus looked confused and suspicious.
Albus was the first to speak. "Where did they go?"
The other two shrugged in response.
"But they couldn't have left so quickly with none of us seeing them, could they?" Scorpius asked.
Albus suddenly searched his pockets, as though he thought they had stolen something. He seemed to still have it as he simply looked all the more confused.
Rose thought she heard some faint laughter. She looked around, but didn't see anyone who was laughing. Perhaps those Ravenclaw girls down the table, but no, the laughter had sounded much closer, like it was right behind her.
Scorpius seemed to have heard the laughter too, but didn't say anything about it. Instead he said, "So, what do you think?"
Albus looked distracted. "About what?"
Scorpius shook his head in exasperation. "About what James and Fred said? The passage to Hogsmeade? Ring a bell?"
Rose answered immediately. "We're going," she said.
Scorpius and Albus looked at her in shock.
"What!"
"I said," she repeated, a little impatiently, "we are going to go see what they're up to and if that means following them, then we'll do that."
They were still staring at her with their jaws almost down to the floor.
Rose frowned. "Fine, I guess I'll just go on my own then if you don't want to come"
"No!" shouted Scorpius, rather loudly. He received a few strange looks from the other people in the Great Hall. "I'll come with you. I just can't quite understand why you want to go. Normally, you wouldn't approve of this."
"I don't. I just want to see what they're up to. They'll probably get everyone into trouble if I don't. Who knows if they actually found something or if it's just some trick they're playing on us."
Scorpius nodded. "And the world makes sense again."
Albus, however, was still frozen in shock, and Rose looked at him, a bit annoyed by his overreaction.
"Are you coming or not, Al?"
He nodded slowly, as though he wasn't quite used to moving his head. "I-I just can't believe-Rose-breaking the rules!"
Rose ignored him after the nod and stood up.
"It's decided then."
And with that she walked away.
So? What do you think? Please tell me! Unfortunately, I can't read your mind through my computer screen, so you'll have to REVIEW!
Just a few notes:
It will get to the time travel soon, I promise. I just want to have a plot so I can actually finish my story, and so it isn't like everyone pops into a different time for absolutely no reason at all. And I will try not to focus on any one character too much (unless it's needed for the sake of the story) and to give them all a turn in the spotlight.
Do you think I got their personalities right? I kind of modeled Fred and James after the twins, Rose like Hermione, and I'm going to try to make Albus a bit like Harry, but I feel like he kind of has his own personality and I'm trying to make him like he was in the epilogue. Scorpius is a bit tricky though, he'll be a bit like Draco, but we know that he changed in the end and he's not a Death Eater anymore, so he'll be nicer and I decided to make him friends with Rose and Albus, maybe some other Weasleys too.
Also, about the whole 'passage to Hogsmeade thing', it's the one behind the one-eyed witch statue that Harry used in Third Year. I'm going to have the adults who know about it pretend it didn't exist or was closed off. The passage is important to the story though. And I don't know if it was closed off or not. In my story it isn't.
Please help me with what houses everyone will be in. I already know a few; I just don't think every single person would have been in Gryffindor. It would be a bit crowded there then, now wouldn't it? That will also help with people who are less of main characters personalities. It's difficult to write a story with so many people in it. I don't know how some people can do it so easily.
Sorry for the long Author's note, you don't have to read it though I would appreciate it if you did. Bye, for now.
-Green nook