Chapter one
Lily Potter sat sprawled out on an armchair in the Gryffindor common room quietly surveying the other occupants who hadn't made it off to bed yet. Her brother Albus sat at the table next to her his head bowed down as he scrawled notes from the large dusty book he was reading while her other brother James flipped nonchalantly through another.
"What on earth are you looking at" she asked surprised at the fact that James would even pretend to be looking at a book.
"ahh… nothing really just trying to find something to help me with my divination assignment. Thought I had saw something in here before. Can't find it now." He said as he continued to flip through.
Lily lifted the cover of the book to have a look at the title. "Spells that should never be tried" by T.G Tuggleton.
"Where did you get this?"
"Dad's library"
"Dad doesn't like it when you take books from his library" Albus said looking up from his book "you know that."
"Um.. James you did happen to catch the title right" Lily said, giving James a dubious look.
"Yeah of course that's why I swiped it in the first place. 'sides which I'm a never say never kinda guy ". He flashed Lily a grin which fell as she gave him a look that was very reminiscent of the look his mother gave him when he was about to do something wrong. Apparently the look was inheritable.
"Promise Lil's I won't try anything, just looking for ideas to start me off. Swear."
"Whatever" she said sitting back in her chair and turning to watch a group of first years playing a game of exploding snap.
Lily tended to avoid the big groups of giggling, gossiping girls in preference for her family members. Not that she was shy in fact far from it. How could she be when every time she sneezed in made the Daily Prophet? It was the same for all of Harry Potter's children. What they thought, what they wore, where they went all was news and barely a week went by without a mention of the Potters. They were always set apart right from the day they were born. They were different and whether consciously or not all three were made to feel it. James handled it the best. He was a bit wild and seemed to feel it necessary to live up to his namesakes which of course made him very popular. Lily loved her parents but there really were times where she wished she came from a normal family. One where she wasn't the daughter of a hero. Where she didn't have to watch everything she did and said for fear it make it to the papers and send the gossip columns into frenzy.
"Finally" Albus mumbled under his breath. The group playing exploding snap had finished their game and were heading off to bed giggling all the way the stairs. They were the last to leave the common room.
"Come on Al you've been workin' all night can't you take a break" James said giving his brother a pout.
"No" Albus said shortly.
"Bargh" James waved a hand in disgust at his brother and went back to flipping through his own book.
"Right well as much fun as you both are…" Lily said looking between each of her brothers "I'm off to bed".
"Night Lils"
"Ahha.. I found it" exclaimed James ignoring Lily.
"Found what?" she said trying to look at the page James was on.
"Umm… nothing of interest. Go off to bed. Have a good night sleep" James tried to shield the book from his sisters eyes as he read through the incantations on the page.
"James that stuffs probably dangerous you shouldn't be reading it. Dads got some pretty unsafe stuff in his library."
"Lily's right James you…" Albus didn't get to finish what he was saying there was a bright flash of light that surrounded them and then darkness. They felt like they were falling Lily tried to call out to her brothers but no sound would come out and then… thud.
They were all sitting on the floor in a tangled mess. Lily quickly disentangled herself and stood up but not before whacking James hard across the head.
"Ouch…headache" he mumbled rubbing the back of his head.
"What did you do?"
"Nothing I sware. I was just reading through the spell in my head. Didn't even read it out loud"
"Some spells don't need to be read out loud just thought" said Albus getting himself off the floor and straightening out his uniform.
"Well that's stupid I bet the editor of that book wasn't too impressed. Constantly being thrown into the future every time he did a read through."
"Woah… what we are in the future" Lily cried out.
"Yeah… well I guess so… I told you I was trying to find something to help with my divination assignment. We have to predict what will happen in the future and the more right we get the better we do"
"Right so instead of making up something incredibly vague so that it has to be right you thought you would go into the future. You are such an idiot"
"Look it didn't really work anyway we are only a few hours into the future." He said looking up at the clock. "No one would have noticed we are missing. We won't have to even travel back. Which is good because I have no idea how we would do that."
Lily rolled her eyes.
"Who's feeling a little peckish? Lets' say we all head down to the kitchens and forget this ever happened?"
Both Lily and Albus snorted at this. Lily was still furious at her brother but she was feeling hungry perhaps it was the time travel.
The three headed out of the portrait hole and down the stairs. They had almost made it to the main stairs when they heard a loud clunk in front of them that made them all look up.
"What was that?" asked Lily seeing nothing ahead in the corridor.
"It was probably Finch's cat" said James.
"We should have brought the cloak".
"Are do scared of getting caught ickle Albeywalby"
"No! But some of us aren't looking to set the detention record…"
"Pisst…James is that you?" a whispered voice down the corridor interrupted them. They all raised their lit wands but none of them could see who had spoken in the darkened corridor ahead.
"Ahh… yes?" replied James a little unsure.
"I thought you said that you were going to stay in the common room." said the voice.
"Did I?" James struggled to remember if he had said that and if so to who exactly.
"Yeah, you did!" all three of them jumped as someone suddenly appeared in front of them.
He looked about James's age probably in fifth or sixth year. A Gryffindor scarf was wrapped around his neck which confused Lily as she had never seen this boy before. She appraised his shaggy brown hair that stopped just above his shoulders, lightly tanned skin and muscular build and she decided that she would definitely have noticed him before. May be he was new.
"Hey that's an invisibility cloak!" exclaimed James as the boy in front of them slithered his arm out of the cloak.
"Yeah, its yours." The boy said sarcastically.
"Well what the hell are you doing with it?" James was angry, which was not completely uncalled for. It was not uncommon for people to try taking things of theirs to keep as their own Potter memento. But a quill was very different to taking the cloak. James however was known to have a bad temper and this could get out of hand quickly.
"What do you mean?" the boy looked confused obviously sensing James anger "you gave it to me. You alright James?" the boy said as he flashed his wand to see James's face better. "Hang on… who the hell are you? You're not James or have you taken some polyjuice potion?"
"What?" Replied James disgruntled clearly this person was having a go at him.
"Hey that's the marauders map" Lily suddenly shouted out looking down at what the boy was holding.
"I thought we had decided we weren't going to tell anyone else about the map. But on that note who is this with you anyway? The map listed them as Lily and Albus Potter but you don't have any relatives here at Hogworts"
"What on earth are you…" James stopped talking as Lily had suddenly covered his mouth. She pointed down at the map indicating where they were currently standing. "Oh god James" exclaimed Albus as it suddenly dawned on him what had happened.
"What?" said James leaning over to get a better look at the map. Had it not been so dark it would have been possible to see all the colour drain from his face. On the map four names were indicated in the spot where they were standing. The names James, Lily and Albus Potter could be clearing read as could the name of the boy standing in front of them.
Sirius Black.
They had not travelled into the future at all they had travelled into the past… way into the past.
Review and tell me what you think… should I continue???