It took a couple of hours walking but we managed to get to the Hogsmeade Train station. Weird how I never really thought about this as a place muggles used until now.

Albus and Scorpius were looking at a stationmaster, apprehensively. I wasn't sure what had them worried.

Albus looked at Scorpius. "One of us should talk to him, don't you think?"

Scorpius looked dubious. "Hello, Mr. Stationmaster. Mr. Muggle. Question Did you see a flying witch passing here? And by the way, what year is it? We just ran away from Hogwarts because we were frightened of upsetting things, but this is okay?"

Albus grumbled. "You know what annoys me most of all? Dad will think we did it deliberately."

Scorpius looked at me and groaned. "Albus. Really? I mean, really really? We're trapped, lost… in time… probably permanently, and you're worrying what your dad might think about it? I will never understand the two of you."

Albus There's a lot to understand. Dad's pretty complicated.

"And you're not? Not to question your taste in women, but you fancied . . . well . . ." We all knew who he was talking about.

Albus looked embarrassed. "I did, didn't I? I mean, what she did to Craig . . ."

Scorpius saw the look on my face. He heard what I said about promising Craig. "Let's not think about that. Let's focus on the fact that we have no wands, no brooms, no means of returning to our time. All we have is our wits and… no, that's all, our wits. And we have to stop her."

But back to the matter at hand. "Why are you worried about talking to the stationmaster?"

"Well…" Scorpius admitted. "We don't really know what to say…"

"Oh for pities sake…" I looked at both of them amused. Leave it to me. I went to the stationmaster. "Excuse me sur whin wull th' train be 'ere"

The stationmaster replied, in very strong Scots, I hoped I had guessed the wording correctly. "Ye ken th' auld reekie train is running late, lass?"

Scorpius looked confused between us. "Sorry?"

The stationmaster tried again. "If you're waiting oan th' auld reekie train, you'll need tae ken it's running late. Train wirks oan th' line. It's a' oan th' amended time buird."

"Ta fur th' speirins, sir." I replied.

He looked at Albus and Scospius, they look back bewildered. He frowned and hands them an amended timetable. He points to the right bit of it. "Late."

Albus took it and examined the take. His face changed as he seemed to take in enormous information.

Scorpius just stares at the stationmaster and then looked to me.

I sighed. "I asked him when the train will be here. He said it was late because they are working on the line and the updated information is on the board. I thanked him for the information."

Albus sputtered. "I know where she is."

Scorpius looked at him surprised. "You understood that?"

Albus handed him the table. "Look at the date. On the timetable."

Scorpius leaned in and read aloud "The 30th October, 1981. Day before Hallows' Eve, thirty-nine years ago. But… why is she? Oh." Scorpius' face falls as he realized.

Albus sadly looked at us. "The death of my grandparents. The attack on my dad as a baby . . . The moment when Voldemort's curse rebounded on himself. She's not trying to bring about her prophecy she's trying to prevent the big one."

Scorpius didn't understand. "The big one?"

Albus recited. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . ."

Scorpius joined in. ". . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies."

Scorpius' face fell with every word. "It's my fault. I told her that prophecies can be broken I told her the whole logic of prophecies is questionable…"

I hugged him. "Scorp she had just tortured you. I think you can be excused for not…"

Albus interrupted. "In twenty-four hours' time Voldemort curses himself trying to kill the baby Harry Potter. Delphi is trying to prevent that curse. She's going to kill Harry herself. We need to get to Godric's Hollow. Now."

We had to wait for the train and then sneak on board, but hey at least we were sneaking on not off and we were inside this time.

A few hours later and we walked through the center of Godric's Hollow and it was a bustling, beautiful little village.

Scorpius looked about. "Well, there's no visible signs of attack that I can see . . ."

Albus breathed in sharply. "This is Godric's Hollow?"

Scorpius looked at him curiously. "Your dad's never taken you?"

Albus looked ashamed. "No, he tried to a few times but I refused."

Scorpius tried to cheer him up. "Well, there's no time for a tour we have a murderous witch to save the world from but regard The Church, St. Jerome's . . ."

Albus looked at it in awe. "It's magnificent."

Scorpius grinned. "And St. Jerome's graveyard is supposedly magnificently haunted," he points in another direction. "And that's where the statue of Uncle Harry and his parents will be…

Albus looked surprised. "My dad has a statue?"

Scorpius walked forward. "Oh. Not yet. But he will. Hopefully. And this… this house is where Bathilda Bagshot lived, lives . . ."

I just stared at the cemetery. I had never been to my mother's grave…

Albus whistled. "The Bathilda Bagshot? A History of Magic Bathilda Bagshot?"

Scorpius practically hopped up and down. "The very same. Oh my, that's her. Wow. Squeak. My geekness is a-quivering."

Albus and I together admonished him. "Scorpius!"

Scorpius looked at a large beautiful house. "And here it is…"

"The home of James, Lily, and Harry Potter . . ." A young, attractive couple leave a house with a baby in a pushchair. Albus moved towards them.

Scorpius pulls him back. "They can't see you, Albus, it might damage time, and we're not doing that… not this time."

Albus looked so relieved. "But this means, she hasn't . . . We've made it . . . She hasn't . . ."

Scorpius threw up his hands. "So what do we do now? Get ready to fight her? Because she's pretty . . . Fierce."

Albus bit his lip. "Yes. We haven't really thought this one through, have we? What do we do now? How do we protect my dad? We tell my granddad and grandma?"

Scorpius looked doubtful. "That they'll never get to see their son grow up?"

Albus looked after Lily. The aunt I am named for I felt a lump in my throat.. "She's strong enough. I know she is, you saw her."

Scorpius looked at Albus sympathetically. "She looked wonderful, Albus. And if I were you I'd be desperate to talk to her. But she needs to be able to beg Voldemort for Harry's life, she needs to think he might die, and you're the worst spoiler in the world that didn't turn out to be true . . ."

I thought about it. "Dumbledore. Dumbledore's alive. We get Dumbledore involved. We do what we did with Snape…"

Scorpius was not convinced. "Can we risk him knowing Uncle Harry survives? That he has kids?"

Albus was on my side in this. "He's Dumbledore! He can cope with anything!"

Scorpius shook his head. "Albus, Lils, there have been about a hundred books written on what Dumbledore knew, how he knew it or why he did what he did. But what's undoubtedly true, what he did, he needs to do and I'm not going to risk messing with it. I was able to ask for help because I was in an alternate reality. We aren't. We're in the past. We can't fix time only to create more problems if our adventures have taught us anything, they've taught us that. The dangers of talking to anyone infecting time are too great.

Albus thought again. "So we need to… talk to the future. We need to send Dad a message."

Scorpius laughed unhappily. "But we don't have an owl that can fly through time. And he doesn't have a Time-Turner."

Albus looked excited suddenly. "We get a message to Dad, he'll find a way to get back here. Even if he has to build a Time-Turner himself."

Scorpius carefully nodded. "We send a memory, like a Pensieve… stand over him and send a message, hope he reaches for the memory at exactly the right moment. I mean, it's unlikely, but . . . stand over the baby and just repeatedly shout HELP. HELP. HELP. I mean, it might traumatize the baby slightly."

"Only slightly." Albus was fluent in sarcasm.

Scorpius A bit of trauma now is nothing compared to what's happening . . . and maybe when he then thinks — later — he might remember the faces of us as we — shouted —

"Help." I was unconvinced this was a good plan. Or a plan at all.

Scorpius looked at Albus. "You're right. It's a terrible idea."

Albus snickered. "It's one of your worst ideas ever."

Scorpius snapped his fingers. "Got it! We deliver it ourselves. We wait forty years, we deliver it…"

Albus leaned against a fence. "Not a chance once Delphi has set time the way she wants she'll send armies to try and find us. Kill us…"

Scorpius looked around. "So we hide in a hole?"

Albus made a gagging face. "As pleasurable as it will be to hide in a hole with you two for the next forty years . . . they'll find us. And we'll die and time will be stuck in the wrong position."

"It wouldn't work anyway." I reminded them. "She plans to kill Uncle Harry."

"No." Albus agreed. "That would definitely kill the plan. We need something we can control, something we know he'll get at exactly the right time. We need a…"

Scorpius threw an arm around each of us. "There's nothing. Still, if I had to choose companions to be at the return of eternal darkness with, I'd choose you and Lilliana."

Albus poked him the side. "No offense, but I'd choose someone massive and really good at magic."

Lily exits the house with baby Uncle Harry in a pram, she carefully puts a blanket on him. "Kind of hard to be mad at him when he is so small and helpless." I chanced a peek.

"His blanket." Albus looked sad. "She's wrapping him in his blanket."

Scorpius shrugged. "Well, it is a moderately cold day."

Albus' voice cracked. "He always said it's the only thing he had from her. Look at the love with which she's put it on him. I think he'd like to know about that. I wish I could tell him."

"And I wish I could tell my dad…" Scorpius paused. "Well, I'm not sure what. I think I'd like to tell him that I'm occasionally capable of more bravery than he might think I am. But I want to tell my Mum I am so sorry I left and…"

"I wish I could tell my father I never blamed him." I murmured. "I wonder if he will ever see Miss Bones again."

"Hey!" Albus sounded excited. "My dad still has that blanket."

Scorpius sighed. "That won't work. If we write a message on it now, even really small, he'll read it too soon. Time will be spoilt."

Albus looked at me. "What do you know about love potions? What's the ingredient they all contain?"

"Amongst other things, pearl dust." I replied. "I mean I don't actualy MAKE them you know!"

Albus was pacing. "Pearl dust is a relatively rare ingredient, isn't it?"

Scorpius answered for me. "Mainly because it's pretty expensive. What's this about, Albus?"

Albus looked up. "Dad and I had a fight on the day before I went to school."

Scorpius tented his fingers like he was praying for patience. "This I am aware of. I believe it kind of got us into this mess."

"I threw the blanket across the room." Albus confessed. "It collided with the love potion that Uncle Ron gave me as a joke."

Scorpius hid a smile. "He's a funny guy."

"The best." I agreed.

"The potion spilt and the blanket was covered in it" Albus explained. "And I happen to know for a fact Mum hasn't let Dad touch that room since I left it.

Scorpius and I exchanged glances. "So?" He was as confused as I was.

"So it's coming up to Hallows' Eve in their time as well as ours and he told me he always finds that blanket, he needs to be with it on Hallows' Eve it was the last thing his mum gave him so he will look for it and when he finds it . . ." Oh poor Uncle Harry…

Scorpius was no closer to understanding. "No. Still not getting you."

"Wait!" I looked at Albus with a smile. "I think I get it!"

Albus smiled back at me. "What reacts with pearl dust?"

"Several things," I told him. "What effect are we going for? It is said that if tincture of Demiguise and pearl dust meet . . . they burn."

"And is tincture of…" Albus paused unsure how to say the word. "Demiguise visible to the naked eye?"

Scorpius was getting the plan finally. "No."

Albus looked excited by his plan. "So if we were to get that blanket and write on it in tincture of Demiguise, then . . ."

Scorpius finally understood how this could work. "Nothing would react to it until it came into contact with the love potion. In your room. In the present. By Dumbledore, I love it."

Albus looked defeated for a moment. "We just need to work out where to find some . . . Demiguises."

Scorpius looked across the street. "You know, rumor has it Bathilda Bagshot never saw the point in witches and wizards locking their doors."

And we had just seen Bathilda leave. Quietly and as stealthily as we could we went to her back door.

Albus reached out and turned the handle.

The door swung open.

Rumor was right.

Time to steal some wands and get potioning.

...