Disclaimer: No.
AN: Hello. Been more than a week. Oh god, it's been over a month. I FEEL SO BAD RIGHT NOW! I'M SORRY FORGIVE ME PLEASE? Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed/voted/added to your library/ bugged me about updating. IT WAS MUCH APPRECIATED! :) AND IT GOT ME WRITING THIS!
Chapter Twenty One- OWL Scares, and James is Dying a Painful Death
OWL's were fast approaching. And by fast I mean…. BOOM! I had apparently been doing nothing the past few months as May had snuck up upon me, the Marauders and the girls like a snake slithering through the ocean. One moment we were playing around at Christmas and the next it was Spring Break time and Lily had made us all, including James, study schedules, and life plans for the next fifty years.
To be honest, though I kept telling my friends and Dumbledore that I wasn't that worried about OWL's, I was scared out of my mind that I was going to fail and be sent back to my original time.
Was that me admitting that I fit in more at Hogwarts 1975 than I did in Ohio, during 2011 (well, it would be 2012 now)? When this started, I couldn't see my life getting any worse. But now? It would have a hard time getting better.
One memorable Transfiguration class, McGonagall was doing a demonstration on animal transfiguration from last year and 'accidentally' turned both Sirius and James into cockroaches. It was quite funny, but also REALLY creepy watching them scuttle around over the desks, while still screaming HELP US in their normal voices, as McGonagall also 'forgot' how to transfigure something wholly into something else. Please. She just wanted the joy of seeing her 'favorite students' freaking out over basically nothing.
The Dumbles meetings went on much the same, though I was letting him teach me more advanced stuff. I was in the process of preparing to learn how to be an animorphmagus. Because apparently you need to prepare to LEARN to become one. You can't just learn how to become one, oh no, you have to PREPARE MENTALLY to learn how to become one.
Yet again, please.
Also in our lessons we were exploring about whether what I was doing would really affect time, as no one knew whether time followed the circular or the linear model or some other one that wasn't as popular. For the people who don't really care about these theories or already understand them, feel free to skip the next paragraph, but for you normal people, here's what they basically mean. Linear means that if you went back in time and changed something, or made a different decision, you would split off from the original timeline into a new one, or a different dimension. So basically, every time you make a choice, even a little one, multiple new dimensions are created, one with each possible choice and decision. Some may be more odd, or different from normal, and some may be almost exactly the same.
The circular theory, however states that time is like a cycle, and everything that happens will always have happened. If you go back in time to change something, you are basically making it so that time is the way it is now. So say that you wanted to go back and change something. If you went back and changed it, what you would really be doing would be ensuring that the future remains the same, if that makes sense to anyone besides me.
I tended to think with the linear theory. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the circular theory, not sure why. Dumbles, however, went with the circular. When I asked him why they brought me back to change the future if, according to his beliefs that I couldn't, he said, with that stupid twinkle, that then I needed to be here anyways because that was what was meant to happen.
Stupid Dumbledore. Stupid time theories. Stupid world.
"HAYLEY! WHY AREN'T YOU STUDYING DEFENSE AGAINST THE DARK ARTS POTIONS WHAT?" Lily screamed at me while we were in our dorm one lonely Saturday night.
I rolled my eyes at her before answering slowly, "Because, darling Tiger Lily. OWL's aren't for like three months."
She looked at me like I was crazy, before saying even slower than I said my piece, "Hayley. OWL's start in two weeks. It's May. Have you not listened since like March?"
"OH MY GOD WHAT?" I screamed, throwing my iPod off my lap, which had magically stayed charged these past months. I'm pretty sure my screaming might have woken the vampire bats in Transylvania, but at the time I really couldn't have cared. OWL'S WERE IN TWO WEEKS!
"EXACTLY!" Lily screeched, her auburn hair flying into her face, and sticking up in the craziest of places. I would have laughed if, you know, I wasn't so dreamed out about our OWL's.
"B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-" I stuttered, staring at the wall. I missed the door being flung open by the rest of our roommates, I was too busy hyperventilating.
"What's wrong with her?" Mary whispered, as if she were standing at someones deathbed and didn't want to be disrespectful. Marley said much the same thing, in less polite, quiet and generally happy tones. Alice just stood there, looking at me with concern while Lily rolled her eyes.
"She found out that we have OWL's in two weeks," And thanks Lils, for setting off a frenzy.
Apparently Marley had no idea OWL's were so soon either, and she went into the same state as me, staring at her poster of the newest wizard boy band while nervously twisting the glittering bracelets she had stacked upon her slender wrists. Mary had fervently opened a textbook, for Potions no doubt, her worst subject, and Alice had run downstairs to inevitably get the nearest plant and try to use that to study Herbology.
Lily stood in the middle of the room, her pale cheeks flushed with annoyance, and her jade eyes sparkling with something dangerous, that was going to get Marley and I killed. It was her mad look of vengeance upon us for not studying for 'the most important thing you'll ever do.'
I snapped out of my state of vegetable-ness and shoved Marlene so that she came out of hers too, before stealthily directing her gaze over to Lily. Marlene flinched and I nodded. I showed her three fingers, symbolizing that on three we would bolt to our sanctuary, the Owlery. She nodded her agreement.
After counting down, I screamed NOW!
Pulling Marlene's wrist so she could keep up, we ran down flights of stairs, back up some, through secret passageways and the like trying to lose Lily, who was hot on our heels.
Suddenly, as we were passing a broom cupboard we heard some noises that suspiciously sounded like people 'snagging' as the brits say. I raised my eyebrows suggestively at Marls, knowing that no matter how much we wanted to pass up the wrath of Lily, there was no way we were leaving this alone.
As one, we pulled out our wands and blasted the door open, while shooting confetti up in the air and singing our song about kissing. It goes like so:
HEY! You're getting some!
AND NOW? You're getting none!
SO PUCKER UP! And have some fun!
CUZ NOW WE'RE HERE! So let us watch!
When we saw who was in the broom closet though our laughter slowly died out. Finally, when it was dead silent, Lily wandered up to us and started grilling us about the whole OWL thing before noticing who was in the closet, and the awkward position they were in.
"James?"