Disclaimer: All characters and stuff belong to JK Rowling. I'm just a fan who dreamt a little harder.
A/N: There is a part that sounds like the book, but it's kinda necessary to explain things, I didn't copy it word for word though, just from memory. So please don't accuse me of plagiarizing - EVERYTHING that sounds like it's from the book, probably is, but only to explain parts of my plot! All of it belongs to Rowling, Ok? Ok. Don't forget to read, review and recommend! Thank ya! Also the statue part - I got the idea from this one fanfic, but I honestly don't remember where from, since I've read so many already. So I apologize to the person who had a similar idea and would like to give credit to them...except I don't know how. Sorry! I have changed most of it though.: D
The main doors creaked open and the six accidental-time-travelers stood at the center of the hall, unsure of what to do.
"Well." Ron coughed. "Shall we?" Harry led the way, pushing aside his awkward feelings about Dumbledore, Harry knew that he was the only one they could go to for help. As they passed the Great Hall, sliding of chairs and the dropping sounds of cutlery could be heard amongst general babbling from the students enjoying lunch before their next period. Hermione looked up at the clock. Five minutes till lunch is over. She motioned for the others to hide behind a statue located in a corridor that was rarely used. Or so she thought, forgetting that the times had changed. The students began piling out of the Great Hall and to Hermione and everyone else's dismay, many were heading for their direction.
"Great idea, Hermione!" Harry hissed, thoroughly irritated.
"I'm sorry!" Hermione whispered back to the others, apologetically. "It's hard to remember that we're in the future! I've only been in the past!" The sextet tried to keep out of sight, or at least as natural as the other students who were walking to class. Perhaps they were trying a bit too hard, for they had pushed Neville up against the statue, crushing him, unaware, however, when Ginny turned around she couldn't see Neville.
"Neville! Where are you!" she yelped.
"I'm right behind you, Ginny, can't you see me?"
"Where? Neville, this is not the time to be playing hide-and-se - "
"Go!" said Hermione, shoving everyone into the statue.
"What are you doing?" Ron seethed.
"Shh." The sextet remained quiet until the last student had passed them and out of earshot. "Don't you know what this is?" Hermione asked excitedly. "I've read about them and I've been trying to look for one for months!"
"What did you read about?" asked Harry. "Look, can we talk about this elsewhere, it's just that I can't breathe too well with you lot crushing into me."
"Right. Sorry, let's get out then."
"Well, Hermione?" Ginny asked.
"There are some statues, like this one," she said, indicating the one that they were hiding in, "that are enchanted to look solid, but in reality, they don't have mass for you to feel it, so it sort of works like an invisibility cloak!"
"You mean…hiding in it or behind it can make you invisible although others see it as a solid object?" Harry asked. Hermione nodded enthusiastically.
"How did you know it was there?" Ron quesitoned. Hermione rolled her eyes as if it was obvious.
"Remember when Ginny kept asking where Neville was because she couldn't see him? But Neville persisted that he was right behind her?"
"No."
"You're hopeless."
"Shh!" Ginny hushed. "I think it's a prefect or something like that!" Again, they huddled behind the statue ("I am not hiding in it again!" Harry protested.). When the prefect (who turned out to be from Hufflepuff) passed them and was out of sight and sound, they crept out of their hiding spot.
"Let's go find Dumbledore," Harry suggested. Two minutes later, they found themselves outside the familiar looking gargoyles. "Er…lemon drops? Cockroach cluster? M&M's? Mars bar!"
"Let me try!" said Ron, pushing Harry aside. "Bert - "
"Well, well, well. What have we here? Skivers? What are you doing, hanging around the headmaster's office, hmm?" Harry was torn between relief that it was someone from the order and annoyance.
"Professor Snape?" Snape stood still. Stunned to find Potter, Weasley, Granger and the others standing there, looking like they hadn't aged a day older.
"What is this?" Snape spat. "What game are you playing at, Potter?"
"I think it would be best that we discuss this elsewhere in case some student walks inon us. Perhaps Professor Dumbledore's office? That's what we were planning on doing. Sir." Harry said, coldly. Snape scoffed, muttered the password (Droobles best blowing bubble gum) and led them to the headmaster's office. When the door opened, Dumbledore looked up.
"Ah! Severus…what have you there? students -" he paused and surveyed them closely. "Harry?" Harry nodded. There was a long awkward silence. Harry stared at the ancient professor, who had a significantly increased amount of wrinkles etched into his gentle and calm face, who was also staring intently back at the pair of green eyes. Neville looked at his feet and twiddled his fingers. Luna gazed out of the window - apparently in her own world. Ron and Ginny glanced from Harry to Dumbledore. Hermione looked around impatiently.
"Professor Dumbledore?" she began. Dumbledore inclined his head in her direction to acknowledge her presence. "May I ask, what happened...er…fifteen years ago?" Her question brought Harry out of his trance and everyone on the edge of their seats. (It's a figure of speech, I realize they weren't sitting to begin with.) Dumbledore looked down at his desk, then almost immediately looked up, waved his wand and conjured four extra squishy, purple chairs.
"Please sit. This may take awhile. Severus, will you be staying?"
"No. I have a class to prepare." Snape bowed his head once, turned around and walked out.
"Now, Miss Granger, your question. Yes. Yes." he said, clarifying the details more to himself than to them. "It was fifteen years ago. Well, where shall I begin?"
"Professor, you had been kicked out of Hogwarts because of - " Harry had to restrain his language, " - that old bat, Umbridge…sorry -" Dumbledore nodded his head for Harry to continue. "When I was taking my last OWL exam, I…I fell asleep. I saw Voldemort - " there was a sharp intake of breath in the room, " - and he had Sirius! He was threatening to kill him if he didn't do something for him! I got scared and I decided to go find Sirius. I even checked if he was home and that foul elf said he wasn't! That's only when I decided to go to the Ministry of Magic!" he felt a need to justify his actions, a need to clarify himself.
"Well, Harry. This is what we know. After you gave Professor Snape that message and didn't return from the forbidden forest with Umbridge, Professor Snape grew worried and contacted several members of the order to come to your aid, assuming that you had gone to save Sirius, who was in fact upstairs tending to Buckbeak, who was wounded by Kreacher on purpose on orders from the Malfoy's. Sirius and the others went to your aid but could not find you. They, however, found the Death Eaters, but they managed to escape. From then on, we could find no trace of you. Yet you are here, before me, looking as young as you were fifteen years ago."
"Professor?" Hermione piped in.
"Yes, Miss Granger." Hermione blushed.
"How…how come you couldn't find us? If we were thrown into the future, shouldn't there be another copy of us? An older version? Because it doesn't make sense that there is no older version of us, but there is of you and everyone else." Dumbledore chuckled.
"Intelligent as always, Miss Granger." Dumbledore remarked quietly. Hermione blushed a deeper rouge. "When I arrived at the site, I examined all the possible rooms and when I came across the - "
"- arch room." Harry whispered.
"Yes. I noticed that the engravings above the arch were still glowing slightly. Then. Then, I knew that you had accidentally traveled somewhere in Time. You see, that arch that you came across is very intriguing. Had one of you fallen through the arch, you would have dropped onto the side where others have passed away. And if you had traced the engravings, like you did, you would have been sent somewhere in time - it is not known if they are sent to the past or the future and for how many years behind or ahead."
"I have some more questions, professor." said Harry. "Where is Sirius now? What happened to Voldemort? How can we get back to our time-period?" Dumbledore hesitated slightly.
"Sirius…Sirius is a free man. The Minister saw the Death Eaters and Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic, with his own eyes. He finally believed our version of the events and therefore, freed Sirius. Voldemort? He was furious when he could not find you. What could he do, now that his return was revealed? He fled. He went back into hiding because now the magical world was aware and he knew that it would be more difficult than the first time to take over. He is, however, still convinced that we are hiding you." Dumbledore sighed deeply, and his eyes closed to rest. After a suitable period of silence, Hermione broke it again.
"Professor? Would it be possible to obtain a time-turner and go back to our time-period?"
Dumbledore shook his head, "I'm afraid not, Miss Granger. What you went through, warping time and going into the future, cannot be easily rewound. You see, you used the time-turner to go back to the past, something that had already happened and then returned to the present. Complicated enough. But the arch. The arch is something much different. You went through time by the arch and disappeared from the present. Those who dwelled in the present continued to live on and produced what you, at that time, call the future. Yet you see, although you appear here now, you have already changed history for us."
"But professor!" Hermione protested, "If we go back to our time, you won't know that we disappeared! It would work the same way as the time-turner, right?"
"Logically speaking, yes. Magically speaking, no."
"WHAT?" Harry, Ron., Hermione and Ginny yelled. Luna was observing silently and Neville stared, at a loss for words.
"The arch is a different matter from the time-turner. The uniqueness it has - it works like a malfunctioned, muggle-imagined time machine." The quintet stared, Luna gazed gently. "It only functions every so often. It works and then ceases to function for perhaps five minutes, a year, ten years, a hundred and sometimes more. We don't know. It can throw the traveler back in time for ten years, a hundred, to the beginning of time - or it can throw the traveler to the future."
"You…you mean, it's not set and organized like the time-turner? It's random in its works?" gasped Hermione. Dumbledore nodded.
"In fact, before you disappeared, the last time the arch functioned…was two hundred years ago. Therefore, I don't know how you will get back, because the force and power of the time-turner does not match against the arch and will therefore, not work. Even if you did manage to work the arch again, it may very well send you a hundred more years into the future or back a thousand." There was a terrible silence following those words.
"RON!" Harry screamed. "WHY DID YOU TOUCH IT! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Ron cowered under Harry's glare.
"Harry!" Hermione and Ginny said, warningly.
"It is completely understandable, how you feel, Harry, but it can't be completely blamed on Mr. Weasley. The arch does have a slight luring power, whether to get you through the arch itself and onto the other side of death or somewhere in Time." Harry sat in his chair at a loss of words and emotion. "Now." Dumbledore began, writing something on a piece of parchment, "Give this to Professor McGonagall - she should have a free class right now. The letter will explain things briefly to her, I will give her all the details, myself, later. You will get some food and bed rest. We will deal with everything else, later. Harry, I'd like a word with you." Harry nodded and sat back down, while the others trudged out of the office. "There is something I would like to inform you - about Sirius."
A/N: Remember to please, please read and REVIEW! Thanks.
