October 10th, 1981

"So let me get this right in my head, before I ask you to explain to me again," Sirius began, placing his coffee cup down with exasperated movements. He rubbed his temples and scowled at James again. "You're trying to tell me that you saw something in a Time Wheel, a vision of the future?"

"Yes," James confirmed.

"A future where that little boy," Sirius continued, pointing at baby Harry who, at that moment, was zooming up and down the living room on his toy broom. "Your son ... married a Weasley girl?"

"Correct," James nodded.

"Okay. Now, far be it from me to be the voice of reason and point out the bleedin' obvious," Sirius twittered. "But ... you know that's impossible, don't you? A Weasley girl? You're having me on!"

"I'm being serious," James argued back. "This is my serious face."

He made an exaggerated sort of grimace to demonstrate his point.

"Well, this is my Sirius face," Sirius smirked. "And I'm asking if you've finally lost your mind? Your son cannot marry a Weasley girl!"

"Ah! At last! Something we agree on!" James smirked.

At that moment Harry seemed to agree, too. Or, at least, he made some grunting noises from the top end of the room.

"Urgh! Urgh! No, no! Dada! Harry stuck!"

James looked over fondly, for Harry had gotten himself jammed in the corner of the room. His toy broom was knocking incessantly against the walls, with Harry unable to turn to freedom. James got up and trotted over, setting Harry facing back down the room again.

"There you go, son," James hummed. "Go for it!"

"Weeeeee!" Harry cried, as he zoomed off towards the giant skeleton in the other corner of the living room.

"We might agree," Sirius went on. "But the reasons are very different. Harry cant marry a Weasley girl, not because there's anything wrong with that, apart from the obvious - i.e. Molly - ... but more that they cant have daughters in that family. You know the story."

"Yes, yes, we all sat through Binns' lecture at Hogwarts," James replied dismissively. "Gellert Grindelwald promised them a daughter, one who would lead Britain into the future, as a Mother of the Greater Good, or whatever he was going to call them. A very dark future as he promised. And then this gentleman handed old Gellert his arse on a silver platter."

Dumbledore smiled benignly and placed his cup of Earl Grey down onto its saucer with a little clink. "I do not believe it is written on my Chocolate Frog card in quite the same way. And I consider achieving Frog immortality to be one of my crowning achievements. So, let us stick to the facts."

"The facts being that you defeated Grindelwald before he was able to cross the English Channel," James went on, tipping his own tea cup in a gesture of respectful salute. "And that the families who were waiting to welcome him, and provide him the social infrastructure he craved, were rightly and summarily punished, the Weasleys chief amongst them."

"That I cannot deny," Dumbledore allowed with a curt nod.

"But what does this have to do with the girl you discovered?" Sirius pressed. "That's where I'm losing track."

Dumbledore sighed and considered Sirius sternly. "As I mentioned, I have been receiving communications from an unknown source, a source pointing me towards events taking place in the future that will change our reality now. The messages are cryptic and often difficult to decipher, but they tie in to the Prophecy I heard regarding the defeat of Lord Voldemort ... and young Harry's role in it."

At the mention of his name, Harry turned his head and crawled over to Dumbledore. He was distracted by the moon spurs on the back of his hobnailed boots, giggling and gurgling as he span them round and round with his chunky little fingers.

"In fact," Dumbledore continued, beaming down at baby Harry. "I believe these messages are actually coming from the future. And the messenger has taken steps to protect me from whatever changes are coming."

"How?" asked Sirius.

"By sending me this."

Dumbledore reached into his robes and took out a little golden device. A wheel within a wheel, and between them a tiny hourglass was suspended. Sirius looked at it in wide-eyed disbelief.

"Merlin's big hairy bollocks!" he exclaimed. "Is that a Time-Turner?"

"It is," Dumbledore nodded.

"But ... I thought they were all destroyed?" Sirius hushed. "The Ministry deemed Time too dangerous to meddle with."

"You are quite right," Dumbledore smiled. "But, here one is. Not only that, but I know who constructed it."

"You do?" asked James, suddenly interested. "How?"

"An engraving, probably left by the craftsman," Dumbledore explained. "Remember, gentleman, that Time-Turners were originally invented by ancient alchemists - the quintessential Masters of Time - forgive the pun. The more they could repeat time, the more powerful their Elixirs would become and the more vast the gold they could acculumate. So whoever built this one must have been an alchemist of prodigious skill."

"And who was it?" Sirius pushed. "Can you show me the engraving?"

"Certainly."

Dumbledore offered the Time-Turner to Sirius, who looked at it closely and read the engraving.

"A.P.W.B.D?" Sirius recited. "And you know who that is?"

"Indeed, I do," Dumbledore smiled gently. "For that ... is me!"

"You?" James hushed. "You know how to build a Time-Turner?"

"I do not, and I have never constructed one before," Dumbledore confessed. "But ... evidently ... I will. And, at some point in the future, I will give this Time-Turner to whoever the mysterious messenger is who returned it to me."

"And that's how you found out the name of the girl?" Sirius pressed.

Dumbledore nodded. "The Time-Turner not only allows travel through time, but the viewing of the events it witnessed. The Wheels, you see, are the key. They allowed me to see who the person was who used it last, to learn who she was."

"Her name is Hermione ..." James breathed lowly, his heart hammering under his ribs as comprehension settled on him.

"Her name is Hermione," Dumbledore echoed.

James sat back to consider the enormity of it. For a while, the only sound was the soft clicking of the moon spur where Harry was spinning it madly at Dumbledore's feet.

"This girl ... this Hermione ... used the Time-Turner with Harry," Dumbledore went on quietly. "They did two things of great importance, and when they did, she became a Master of Time. Able to change the future for good, without destroying the very fabric of existence."

"Destroy the what?" Sirius asked, slightly overwhelmed.

"Meddling with Time is extremely dangerous," Dumbledore went on. "To change the past you are also changing the future of whatever came before. No single event stands randomly in time. If you change something significant, then you change all the events that led up to that point. So the ripples travel backwards through the space-time continuum, as well as changing your reality in the future. If done recklessly, the very tapestry of existence would simply fall apart.

"But young Hermione was able to change time without causing such catastrophe. To be able to hold all those variables in one moment would require a remarkable mind, and the sort of power even I cannot begin to comprehend."

"That's some skill," James grinned. "She'll make him a proper wife. Harry, son, I very much approve of Hermione!"

"Her-my-marry," Harry babbled.

"Yes, Harry, marry Hermione!" James laughed.

"Marry Her-my-mamary," Harry promised as faithfully as a fifteen-month-old could. Then he went back to his spinning.

"So, what were these two great deeds?" asked Sirius.

"The first one was saving an important life," Dumbledore began, his eyes twinkling. "And the other was setting their own union off down an inevitable path to lifelong happiness, for they flew together on a Hippogriff after saving its life."

"And that's important?" James queried.

"It is," Dumbledore smiled. "For to save a symbol of love from being killed, they received a blessing in return ... the gift of a powerful and eternal love between each other."

"One divine, selfless act deserves another," Sirius nodded in understanding. "And who was the important life they saved?"

Dumbledore leant forward dramatically. "Why ... it was yours, Sirius."

Sirius blinked in his shock. "Me? They saved me?"

"From the Kiss of a Dementor, yes," Dumbledore confirmed. "And as for why you are so important, the reason is simple and two fold. Firstly, Harry will need a parental figure in the future, as I believe James has told you."

"He has, but I'm still determined to stop that," Sirius insisted bullishly. "I am the Secret Keeper of this cottage, Dumbledore. And I'd sooner face Avada Kedavra myself than give that secret up!"

"An admirable sentiment, but ultimately futile," Dumbledore smiled sadly. "James and Lily will die ... they must ... to protect Harry now and in the future. Your task will be to make sure Harry is safe and well for when they return. You must also act as a gentle guide to Harry, to prompt him towards realising his love for this girl without being overt about it."

"That sounds like a fun game," Sirius quirked. "Why must I be so subtle, though?"

"Because Hermione says you must be," Dumbledore explained. "She knows that to provoke Harry into a relationship would make it unnatural. They are destined to be together, it is the gift they have been given and it is what both their eternal energies desire above all other things. But it cannot be contrived for any purpose ... it has to just happen. To intervene in any sort of blatant way will pervert the natural order of things. Harry must come to the realisation organically. That is what happened with the Weasley girl. Somewhere, somehow, nature has been subverted ... and the effects are damaging all our futures."

"But how are you sure that this girl and the one Lily met are the same?" Sirius asked to James. "I'm sure there are plenty of 'Hermiones' out there."

"You may be right, but you are forgetting our history," James grinned knowingly. "The Weasley family curse, remember? They weren't allowed to have daughters, so that Grindelwald's Promise wouldn't come to pass. And do you remember the name of the wizard who placed the curse? A wizard who - curiously enough - appears nowhere else in the historical record ... almost as if he simply popped into being to perform this famous deed. Do you remember his name?"

Sirius gasped in surprise. "It was ... Granger ... Hector Dagworth-Granger!"

James nodded smugly.

"Remember the name as long as you can," Dumbledore advised darkly. "Because, if things keep changing as they are, his deed may be completely forgotten by history. Or, should I say, her deed. And my old friend Gellert may get his wish after all."