1. DISCLAIMER. The obvious. I do not own anything. Thanks to Ms Rowling for giving us such wonderful stories, even if I don't agree with her recent statements.

2. Thanks a lot to PeridotPi who helped with the first draft of this chap some years ago.

3. I decided to publish this without getting it beta in its most recent version. Let me know if you see something off

4. Enjoy.

When James Potter rushed into the living room like a wild stag, Hugo had no other option but to follow his cousin. James was a box full of surprises and, when left to his own devices, he had even fewer senses than usual. Besides, Hugo was curious about what he came up with this time.

"Come on! It has to be Norway!" Fred proclaimed as loud as he could.

Fred Weasley was Hugo's cousin also. He was about the same age that James, which was around four years older than Hugo. Fred was perhaps a tad shorter, though he had a stronger build and dusky tone to his skin that James certainly lacked.

James appeared to be impatient, glancing around the living room. Aside from their grandmother, who was going about making lunch at the kitchen, they seemed to be alone. All of Hugo's other cousins were outside greeting each other, he expected them to organize a game of quidditch any moment now. Which made Hugo wonder, not for the first time, why in Merlin's baggy pants had James dragged Fred inside.

With an amused grin, James turned to Fred, "You're nuts! I would put my money on France before Norway any day of the week."

The three boys were at their grandparents' home. It was a house with several floors placed awkwardly on top of one another, yet impossibly sturdy. The furniture around was old but cosy; an odd assortment of patched couches and battered chairs that were way more comfortable than they appeared to be. All of that was surrounded by family photos, aged trinkets and practical magical objects that had been part of Hugo's best memories ever since he could remember. Everybody called that house The Burrow, and it was usual to see people coming in and out of it at all times, especially during holidays or at eating hours.

"Are you kidding me? France is a joke. It hasn't been a serious contender since 2006," said Fred.

Hugo wasn't as good at playing quidditch as some of his cousins, but he knew his stats better than them. How could he not when he spent so much time near his sister?

"France formed a good team this year," Hugo reminded them, "Bellard and Phaneuf made a solid defence."

"You and I have a different concept of solid. Ireland crushed them in the quarter-finals," replied Fred.

"It's not the defence's fault that they don't have a good seeker," the younger boy argued back, "They couldn't keep holding up forever!"

"They were lucky to reach the quarter-finals, if you ask me. France is not a solid team, Hugo. You should stop listening to Louis. He knows a lot of things, but in quidditch he's as thick as a troll."

Hugo Weasley snorted. Their cousin Louis had cheered for France because he had obviously strong ties to the country. Hugo had his own reasons to support the team, and those were objective reasons. In his opinion, a team didn't need to win to prove they had done well.

James led them to the stairs, "It's still better than Norway though."

A loud laugh came out of Fred as he patted James back. "You're delusional."

"Sorry James, but I'm with Fred in this one. Between Brazil and Norway, I can't see Brazil winning this one. Rosdahl always scores over 80 points, just from his own hands," said Hugo as they continued walking upstairs.

"Aww! Not you too!" said James. Fred was grinning.

Hugo shrugged. It was true that Brazil had done better in the last tournament, but Norway had formed an impressive team based on younger talent since then. It would greatly surprise Hugo if Brazil went home with the cup.

With a begrudging snort, James continued his way up. The skinny boy had dark messy hair, which was kind of a family trait. For the last two years, he had been wearing a pair of round shaped glasses as well, he didn't really need them that much but had grown oddly fond of them.

Once they all reached the top floor of the old creaky house, they ran into the last bedroom there.

If it weren't for the beds, one could say the room was empty. It had an old orange wallpaper that was peeling off at some points, but not much more. There was no nightstand and the dressing cabinet didn't have anything besides a couple of boxes with old games. It was really just a room with beds, made for occasional sleeping. As Hugo was very much aware.

"Why did you bring us here? Everyone is outside. If we made her wait for too long, Rose will start forming the quidditch teams without us."

They were on summer holidays, so it was a common thing for all the cousins to gather up at one place to play quidditch and catch up. Having its own field, the Potters' house was a common destination. However, today they had all agreed to spend the day at the Burrow. In the afternoon, Hugo was expecting the whole pack to be there for the last family dinner before Saturday's trip. Friday, of course, was going to be all about preparations.

"We'll be here only for a moment. And your sister would be nuts to start a game without the best player in Hogwarts," James said, sporting a grin that made him look utterly full of himself.

"Best player in Hogwarts? I didn't know you had invited Meredith Fenwick over," said Fred.

James almost knocked him to the floor with a swing of his backpack, which was obviously heavy. "I meant me, you git. I didn't get named quidditch captain for nothing."

"Woah! What do you have there? Hagrid's rock cakes?" asked Fred, pointing at James' backpack.

"Glad you asked," said James as he took off the backpack. Fred and Hugo got closer to their cousin and saw him pulling a weird and thick book out of it. The old book was lined in blue leather with golden runes written over the top. A weird drawing that was supposed to be featured in the middle had been worn out by the years.

"A book? Really?" asked Fred, suspiciously.

"Oh, shut up. I reckon you'll like it."

"Let me doubt that. When you said that you had something brilliant to show us, I thought that you meant a more quidditch...ish thing. We could be playing right now, or talking about the upcoming game! How often can we see a World Cup final?"

"Every four years."

"It was a rhetorical question, Hugo."

Hugo was overly eager for that game as well, and he couldn't believe the seats they got. Having famous parents certainly had its advantages. Still, James didn't look as if he was going to drop whatever he was planning now.

Playing the part of the host, James made wide arm gestures, as if he was presenting the most awaited of surprises. He then opened the book, as slowly as he could manage.

Once he was finally able to get a look inside, Hugo noticed that the book was packed with strange drawings and scribbles that were difficult to understand. The blasted thing wasn't even written in English. Hugo and Fred exchanged a look before turning to their cousin as if asking what they were supposed to be seeing.

"Is that a man or a bear?" asked Hugo of a certain drawing, confused. "Where did you get this?"

"Grimmauld Place's library," answered James, looking proud of himself.

"And what were you doing in a library?"

"Very funny, Fred. I was cleaning, of course. Mum wanted us to help Kreacher put the place in order. That house-elf is ancient, you know."

"Why clean that old place? Isn't creepiness part of its charm?"

"Dad says we need to use the place more often," James shrugged, "To me, it felt as if Mum just wanted to keep us busy over the summer."

Hugo continued checking the book. Here and there, he found annotations referring to wand movements and time windows — whatever those were. It was plain that he still couldn't see what James wanted them to notice.

"And this book is awesome because...?"

James let his hand fall on the book with a thud, then started flipping through the pages, "Look at this!" he announced once he stopped.

The heavy book was now opened over the nearest bed and, on the left side of the text, there was a drawing of a man looking at himself through a flying window. The text was again in some foreign language, but there were more annotations written over the instructions on the next page.

"To see the past into the future," Hugo spelt out quietly. "And what does that mean?" he asked, baffled. The words really sounded out of place.

"Well, here is a window," James pointed at the drawing. "And based on that phrase, I was thinking that maybe we could see something... something that has already happened," he proposed, looking at them with a huge grin.

Hugo was getting a bad feeling out of this.

"And how did you find this page among all the other pages and books there?" asked Fred, looking a little more interested.

"The book kind of fell over my head. And it opened at this page."

Fred chuckled.

In a quick movement, James smacked him on the shoulder. "Oi!"

"Focus. Don't you want to use this? We need to do it quick, Grandma could be calling for us any moment now. Or worse, Rose could come over."

"But what would you want to see? Where you left your socks?"

"Guys," Hugo interrupted, "I'm not sure about this. Casting a spell that has most of its explanation in some old language that we can't even understand is a big red flag. You know Mum gave a speech about Time not being a toy last year."

"Hugo, Hugo, Hugo," said James, putting an arm over his cousin's shoulder. "We're not going to mess with time, we're not stupid. It's a window, we'll only give a little peck. Besides, your Aunt Hermione's speech was all about the dangers of sending information to the past. There is no problem with us seeing the past, the real problem would be them seeing us, right?"

"I guess..."

It was a sign that something bad was about to happen whenever James started to make sense, in his own twisted way.

"Well, it appears to be interesting enough. What are we seeing, then?" Fred asked.

James turned to Fred with a mischievous look. "In honour of the occasion, I say we try with the Quidditch World Cup. I'm thinking about the one in Dad's fourth year. I want to see Krum in action!"

"You did so in Argentina."

"He was good, but slow. I want to see him at his peak!"

The interest grew in Fred. On the other hand, Hugo was troubled. He wanted to see that historic play made by Viktor Krum as much as James did, but he still doubted.

"Are you sure it's okay for us to do this? We're not even sure of what that spell does," the younger boy asked.

"Don't be a killjoy! It'll be fun. We know what it does, it's written here. SEE. THE. PAST. Clear as an Invisibility Cloak," James said, pointing at each word in the book at the time. "SEE. Not alter. Not change. Just see."

"If you say so..."

That was all James needed.

"So, that's what? Twenty-five years ago?" asked Fred.

"Twenty four," corrected Hugo, uneasily.

James quickly pulled out his wand and proceeded to read the incantations, having some trouble with trying to use the proper movements according to the date he wanted to see. "It's easy, twenty-four years exactly, isn't it?" asked James. He did so mostly to himself, as he continued without waiting for an answer.

Something happened then that cut James' words short. On the wall in front of the boys, a circle of light was drawn, its borders shining like gold. However, the interesting part wasn't the borders, because inside the circle they could see a different wall. A weird nightstand with a few Quidditch toys was visible where they knew there was nothing but wall. The wallpaper looked brighter too, but the orange patterns seemed to be the same.

"That doesn't look like a quidditch game," said Hugo.

James looked gobsmacked in his place.

"I did everything as the book said, twenty-four years. Wait, was the game on the 22nd or 24th?" he asked, putting a finger on his forehead and frowning.

"Hugo?" Fred asked, considering the younger boy knew the answer.

"I… I'm not a living history book. I don't know that much," Hugo hurried in panic, "Why didn't we check this before James started with the spell again?"

Fred's eyebrows went upwards, "Er, James? When you did this, did you follow instructions to change the place you wanted to see in the past? Or did you really think they had chosen this old dusty bedroom as the right venue for a Quidditch Cup final?"

James' eyes widened, looking back at the annotations in the book, "Oh that's a good question. You see, there were no instructions for it, so, I kind of missed that part."

To say Hugo was afraid would be an understatement. They hadn't just gone on with a stupid plan, but they did so without really thinking on the specifics of it before the fact. Hugo was about to ask James to cancel the whole thing when a few whispers came from the other side of the circle and everybody froze. The circle was also starting to grow, slowly.

"Wow! That can't be right," Fred said.

"I think you may have chosen a day before the game," Hugo said, looking at the book as he remembered James wand movements. Not really sure of himself.

"That doesn't matter, Hugo. Look, the ruddy thing is growing!" Fred got his cousin's attention.

"Blimey! Do something!"

At Hugo's plea, James reacted and he did so without thinking, again. The boy threw his backpack at the circle, and that thing just swallowed it whole.

"What did you do that for?!" Hugo yelled.

"I don't know, you asked me to do something!"

"Not that!"

"I panicked, alright?"

As James and Hugo continued arguing, Fred caught their attention. "Er? Guys?" He was pointing at the circle, which was now half as tall as the wall.

"James!"

In a rushed attempt, James started reading incantations from the book as Fred tried to help him, moving the pages rapidly. Nothing worked.

"Bloody circle! Why don't you just close?" Fred shouted.

"Oh, Grandma will kill us… not to mention Rose..." Hugo said. "Merlin, we're in so much trouble… If Mum were here, she would know what to do."

"Are you mental? Don't summon her! Your Mum would kill us faster," Fred said.

James adjusted his glasses, in the rush they had almost fallen to the floor. "Now what? Now what? Think, James, think," he muttered to himself.

Hugo was considering that calling their grandmother was the lesser of two evils when James picked the book and lifted it over his head.

"Woah, James! What are you...?"

But Fred's words came too late. James had already thrown the entire book into the circle, "Take that, you stupid—"

The circle closed at once.

"... window," James finished with a low voice.

The three boys let themselves fall to the floor in complete shock, heaving as they contemplated the plain wall again. It was back to normal and everything was eerily silent now.

"Why the hell did you do that?!"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Let's not do it again," Fred suggested after a pause.

The other two boys nodded weakly.

"Boys! Where are you?!" their grandmother's voice thundered from downstairs.

The three boys looked at each other fearfully and, without saying another word, stormed out of the bedroom.

Next Chapter: The Wrong Burrow