Time Bender

Chapter 3: The Simple Mistake

            The next day, Harper awoke and made her way to the Great Hall. She had enjoyed walking with Sirius…and the rest of the Marauders. It had been a great time, and although it had taken her awhile to finish her homework afterwards, she enjoyed it thoroughly. She ate breakfast at her end of the Ravenclaw table, exchanged some pleasantries with fellow 5th years, and made her way to Arithmancy. The class passed slowly, but that was okay, she enjoyed it.

Her next class was Honours Charms with Professor Flitwick. She loved him dearly, though she wasn't quite so advanced in charms as she wanted to be. He asked her to stay after the class to discuss how her advanced classes were going for her. As head of her house, he was required to ask about her but he took 20 minutes, and if she didn't hurry, she'd be late. Finally, he ushered her out of the door. She ran down the corridor towards the staircase to Advanced Transfiguration as she reached in her pocket and squeezed the time bender. Finally she reached the end of the hallway and belatedly stopped squeezing the time bender. She put her hand into her bag to get her book out when she ran into somebody.

"Excuse me, I wasn't watching where I was going," she heard a man's voice say. She looked up to apologize, but was startled by the familiarity of the person standing in front of her and by the shock now seen in his eyes. He gasped and touched her arm lightly.

"Harper….Harper Rylie?! Is it really you?" the man asked. His shaggy looks reminded her of someone but as of yet, she couldn't remember who.

"What do you mean, am I really me? Who are you, sir?" she asked taking a step backwards.

"It's me Remus."

"Ha, that's funny. You expect me to believe you aged twenty years in one period? Who put you up to this? Sirius? James? Surely not Remus himself?"

"Harper, you've been missing for twenty years!" The man said tears coming to his eyes. "I thought I'd never see you again. I thought I'd lost my little 'sister'"

"Very funny….let me by. Stop joking!" She ran by the man and dodged as he tried to grab her. She was too upset to go to class, so she made her way up to the Marauders old hangout. "Slytherin's are Greasy" she semi-sobbed the password. As she stumbled in she started to plan the punishment of whoever had hired that guy to scare her. It was a rotten trick and it wasn't going to pass unpunished.

"Who's there?" rang a man's voice from behind her. She whirled around and found herself face to face with a man who looked remarkably like Sirius Black, but older. 

"Who are you?" Harper asked with her back against the door. The man took a step towards her.

"Harper, is that you?" the man asked in disbelief. A look of shock passed over his face, "It's me, Sirius," shock changed to nostalgia as he remembered the day she disappeared. " I never thought I'd see you again. God, it's been twenty years!" Harper looked at him in wonder at what this man was saying. Then it clicked. The blasted Time Bender. It had brought her here!

Harper looked a bit stressed at what she had just realized. "Oh dear…Sirius, I think I have a problem. You see, I just used the time bender to get to Transfiguration…I think I might have run in the wrong direction…," then rolling her eyes at the situation she said, "Twenty years in the wrong direction." She sat down on the concrete floor, pulling her knees to her chest. It was then that she noticed that the old hangout had been converted to a bedroom. She cocked her head to the side, "Sirius? How come the hangout looks like a bedroom?" Sirius looked at her, about to explain some things, and then changed his mind, "I don't think I can tell you that…Can you bend the time bender and go backwards?"

Carefully Harper pulled the time bender out of her pocket and squeezed it. No lines appeared. Nothing happened at all.

Sirius took a look at her shocked face and the time bender in her hand. "I think we need to go see Alb- er…Professor Dumbledore." He said and helped her up. Perhaps the wise headmaster would know what to do. 'And in any case,' Sirius thought, 'he should know who appeared at my room.'

Harper immediately agreed to go see the Headmaster, as he always knew what seemed to be best for his students. "Sirius, Are you a teacher at Hogwarts?" she asked, curious about her friends. "I saw Remus a minute before I came into the hideout. Is he a teacher too?" Sirius regarded her questions carefully, "Harper, think about something. You should probably not know a thing about what's going on right now. If you go back, and I am sure you will, you would know things. It's a possibility that things would change, which would not be good no matter what. I cannot tell you why I am here, or why Remus is here. It's a danger to the future of the past. Does that make sense?"

Harper nodded, "You're right, it's just so aggravating not being able to know why you all are here, and what is going on in the world. With every step I take a new question comes up. But I know I can't ask them. It is a danger to the future of the past, however strange that may sound."

They had reached the statue of the griffin, and started to ascend towards Dumbledore's office.