'This is a LOTE'

A Tale of Two Times

Snatched through time at birth, Harry becomes a time traveller. He discovers this at five when he meets his real parents, and goes to Hogwarts prepared... but he hadn't realised Voldemort had a spy in Hogwarts and was trying to steal a dangerous artefact.

Chapter Twelve

Teaching Harry

Unknown Time: Unknown Month

Harry put his hands behind his head, and sighed, looking up into the starry night sky. He lifted a hand, and traced his fingers across the sky, making out the constellations. If he really wanted, he could find out exactly where he was by looking at these stars, but he honestly found it more interesting not knowing. He'd just willed them to a forest that would be good for this exercise. On his right, Cecil whimpered lightly in his dream, and rolled over. He cast his eyes over to the small bodies besides him, and sighed. They were so innocent, so trusting. They thought that nothing could hurt them. Well, they would learn. That was, after all, what this lesson was about.

There was a low moan, a slight sob, and Róisín tossed over, unfortunately rolling onto a rock. She was jolted awake by the impact of the rock in the small of her back, and she let out a slight scream. "Mama!" Since Rowena wasn't there, Harry was immediately at her side.

"Shh, Róisín, it's okay." She sniffled a bit, and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. A few tears escaped her eyes, and she sniffled into her older brother's chest. After about five minutes, she had calmed down enough, and confided in Harry what was getting her down.

"I had a bad dream, Harry. I had it last night and the night before and the night before that."

"Shhh, it's just a dream, Róisín, shhh, what was in the dream?"

"I saw you fighting a man who looked…" she searched for the word, before finally settling on "Ugly." Her eyes green flecked amber eyes were wide, and she was looking at him with utmost terror. "But… he wasn't all human, Harry."

"What do you mean?"

"He… he felt evil. It wasn't right. Buh… but Harry, he killed you! You died!" she let out a loud sob. "You was lying on the floor, all gone, all g-g-goooone!" she wailed, and buried her head in his stomach.

"It's okay, it was just a dream," he soothed.

"It didn't feel like a dream," she cried. Harry just rubbed circles into her back.

"Shhh… it's okay," Harry wasn't too worried about it, it seemed like a normal nightmare for a child. After all, when he had first met Godric and Rowena, it had seemed too good to be true, but when it had finally sunk in, he'd had nightmares that they'd died and he'd been sent back to the Dursley's. Of course, it hadn't happened.

She had finally stopped crying, weeping, and had calmed down considerably, when she looked up Harry with wide, trusting eyes. "Can you make sure that if he does come, you make him dead?"

"Róisín, I'm sure I'll be fine, but just I case, I'll do an extra hour training every day, okay?"

Róisín seemed to consider it, before nodding in a stubborn kind of way. Not moments later, she was fast asleep again. Harry stared at the sky for what seemed to be hours, before falling off to sleep himself.

He was awoken the next morning by Cecil, who was shaking him awake. "Harry, Harry, Harry" he chanted, and Harry sat up.

"Cecil, please. Calm down for a second."

Cecil still insisted on bouncing around with the enthusiasm of a demented rabbit. Harry rubbed his eyes. "CECIL FRANZ GRYFFINDOR!" Cecil stopped jumping, and fell down on his bottom. He looked up at Harry in a kind of 'terrified but not' way.

"Yes, Harry?"

Harry raised his eyebrows at his brother, but, satisfied that Cecil had calmed to some degree, proceeded to continue with his instructions.

"I am not going to follow you around and save you from every attack. I've taught you both some wandless magic, which I expect you to use to keep yourselves out of danger. You have the right to talk to animals, though you are to do so sparingly. Since mother and father haven't allowed you to purchase wands yet, as they don't want you using magic, you have very little magic at your disposal, and will have to rely on each other."

Cecil and Róisín nodded. They knew that if they were in any real danger, Harry would have them out in an instant, but he would let them get a little battered first.

Harry repeated the blinding spell, which he'd taken off before they'd gone to sleep, and with that, Harry, the tent, and the numerous blankets disappeared.

Cecil and Róisín turned to where they each knew the other was standing, before seeming to come to a mutual agreement, and grabbing onto each other's hands. With his spare hand, he picked up the rucksack and slung it over his shoulder. Róisín groped around on the ground for a few seconds, before finding the stick with the point me spell, and placing it on her palm. "Point me," she whispered. The twig spun around in her hand, and she felt along the top of it, before clasping her brother's hand, and heading north.

"And I," Harry thought, watching them walk away, "Will go and pick up where I left off.

September: 1991

Travelling, Harry appeared in front of the Ravenclaw common room, and, after waiting about ten minutes for someone to come and give him the password, and nobody arriving, he knocked on the mirror. There was no answer. He slumped down at the side of the corridor, and slowly started to nod himself to sleep, even if he had just had a little doze. He'd never really made up for all those years of Jet Lag, sort of. There was a tapping on his shoulder, and he jerked awake. Professor Flitwick was standing next to him. "Mr Potter, the password is 'Agnitio'." The mirror shimmered for a moment, before admitting him. He smiled gratefully at his head of house, who directed him to the dorms. "There are five people in each dorm; the names are on a sheet on the doors. Once you've found your name, just head right in, but please, try not to disturb anyone."

Harry nodded his understanding, and made his way up the wide staircase that led out of the common room. There was a door on each level, each labelled with a year level. Seventh years had the bottom floor, while the first years had the top. Harry pushed the door open, and saw another mirror. What was with this place? It never used to have so many mirrors… There were two more doors, one said boys, the other, girls. Harry pulled the boys door, before realising it was a push door, and entering. There were four more doors, which meant, Harry calculated, that there were 25 male students in Ravenclaw, and, if we were saying that was an average, then that meant 200 students in year, which was 1400 students in total. That was heaps more than there were in his other time. The average was three students per house per year. His class had been extremely large, with five students in every house.

He scanned the lists on the doors, before entering dormitory 1R3B. He wondered briefly if Hermione had some nice people in her dorm.

Before he even had a chance to look at anyone else, to see who was in his dorm, he fell onto his bed, woozy from using so much forced magic while in the forest with Cecil and Róisín. Forced magic tired him out because it was raw magic, and used a lot of magic to get the desired effect. This was why he refrained from willing things to him more often.

And for the next 10 hours, he was blissfully unaware of the world.

He awoke the next morning to the bustle of people getting ready for school, well, that, and Dray shaking him awake. "Come on, Harry, we'll be late."

Harry groaned. That would make it the second time in two days. He got up quickly, and, in his confusion, put on his Gryffindor robes. Luckily, he noticed before anyone else did and used a simple switching spell to switch them with his Ravenclaw robes, which were a much more modern style.

He and Dray walked down to the common room, where they noticed that Hermione was waiting for them. "Come on, come on, we're going to be late!" she exclaimed, and they both rolled their eyes at her behind her back. "And stop rolling your eyes! Let's just go! I do plan to eat breakfast, you know, Harry James Potter!"

"Yes mum," he sighed, and she slapped him, just as they found their way into the hall. As they sat down, they could hear the screeching yells of a howler. "…SHAME OF MY FLESH, RONALD BILIUS! SLYTHERIN! EVEN HUFFLEPUFF WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER THAT THIS! WHAT A POOR EXAMPLE YOU ARE SETTING FOR YOUR SISTER AND YOUR COUSINS!"

"Ald has cousins?" asked Harry.

"Yeah," Dray said. "A grand total of eighteen on his mothers side. Dunno how many on his father's side. See, their father's brothers and sisters all moved to America at the start of the first war."

"How many brothers and sisters did he have?"

Dray counted under his breath for a moment. "13." He announced.

"Whoah. Mum's side?"

"2."

"2? And eighteen cousins? That's got to be about 9 each!"

"Yep. Their mothers brothers were twins, and they married twins from a good pureblood family, and every time one of Ald's Aunt's gets pregnant, so does the other. They always have the same sex as well. Then, if one is called Henry Phillip, the other is called Phillip Henry. Their mothers are Rosa Karen and Karen Rosa, and their fathers Gideon Fabian and Fabian Gideon." He frowned. "Or it might have been the other way around."

"How do you know all this?"

"Father made me learn about all the pureblood families. Every Prewett and Weasley has freckles and red hair. And all of them, except Ald, are Gryffindors."

He pointed over to the Gryffindor table. There were just under 20 redheads sitting at one end of the table, glaring at Ald. Ald shrunk back in his seat as four of them got up.

"That's Elizabeth Edith and her brother, Cleave Arthur. The other two are their cousins, Edith Elizabeth and Arthur Cleave."

If Harry hadn't had Dray telling him all this, he would have thought that Edith and Elizabeth were twins, and Cleave and Arthur were twins. Both pairs of cousins looked exactly the same. Harry looked at the table, and he could immediately pick the Weasleys from the Prewetts. The Prewetts all had doubles. There were even six of the same person sitting there. Two sets of triplets.

"Every 'set' of cousins was born on the same day," Dray said lightly. "The rest of the wizarding world think that the Prewetts are under some kind of curse."

Harry nodded and the subject was closed.

Harry and Hermione surveyed the food, plates of bacon, platters of toast, trays of egg, bowls of cereal, tubs of yoghurt, dishes of porridge, jugs of juice, making their mouths water. "Em and Liz would love this," Hermione moaned appreciatively as she filled her bowl with yoghurt.

"Mmmm," Harry agreed, his mouth full of fruit loops.

He had just piled some bacon onto his plate when he felt someone's eyes on his back. The hairs on the nape of his neck prickled, and he turned around and his mouth dropped open in absolute shock.

Unknown Time: Unknown Month

Meanwhile, or not so meanwhile, Cecil and Róisín had run into a little bit of trouble in the forest. "Did you hear that, Síny?"

"Hear what?" she asked.

"That." There was a crackling in the background. Róisín gripped Cecil's hand tightly.

"I wish I could see whatever it is!" she answered. Cecil nodded his agreement, then, realising that she couldn't see him, he worded his agreement.

"Yeah. I wonder what we can see though. Hazza said there was one thing we can see."

"Well, we won't see it by keeping our eyes closed, will we?" she told him.

"But we might walk into something, and poke our eyes out or something."

"Harry won't let that happen."

"Merlin would."

"Yeah. Do you remember that time Merlin accidentally let Harry burn his hand?"

"Oh, yeah. It was red for weeks and he couldn't do anything about it. I remember he told Hermione, Lilly, Louise, Greg, Sandy, Pan, Chris, Trent and Dean that he'd dropped a pot of hot tea on it."

"Yeah. And Mum was furious with Merlin."

"Mum doesn't like Merlin. Neither does Dad, come to think of it."

"I wonder why?"

"I think Merlin took Harry when he was a baby, and they didn't see him until he was bigger than us. Can you imagine if we never met Mummy and Daddy, and had to live with mean people?"

"How do you know that?"

"I overheard them talking one day."

"Oh. Where was I?"

"Begging Harry to take you to the future."

"Oh." She stepped on a twig and it flicked up onto her leg, tickling it. "Ahhh!" she screeched loudly, before realising what it was. "False alarm."

"Síny?"

"Síny what?"

"Do you think…?"

"Do I think what?"

"Stop that. Do you think that..." he was cut off as he stumbled into a tree, and released Róisín's hand, and she went tumbling over the root, and dropping the spelled twig.

"Blast!" she cried out, hearing the twig snap. "Now we'll never get out of this damned forest." Rowena would have tried to wash her mouth out with those words, and then have turned on Harry, who taught her them.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, we still have our friends."

"What do you mean?"

'A forest is sure to have animals'

'Yes, but Harry said not to do it much.'

'Oh, come on! One monkey won't hurt," Cecil protested, slipping in and out of Lingubestian.

"Monkey?"

"I saw one before," he said, shrugging. Róisín had my now managed to get her foot from under the tree root, and was gripping onto the tree as she stood up.

"Great." She drawled sarcastically. "The one thing that we can see is a monkey."

"What's wrong with monkeys?" Cecil asked, before realising what Róisín had moments earlier. "Great."

'What on the flat earth was he thinking?' came a voice from the sidelines.

'What are you talking about' Cecil asked, clueless. Before the monkey could answer, he had launched into a round of questions. 'Who are you? Do you live here? Can you help us?'

The monkey skipped by the first three questions and went straight to the last. 'Well, that depends what you define as help.'

Cecil and Róisín looked at him blankly. The monkey sighed. 'What do you need help with?'

'You'll help us'

'Probably.'

'Well, first, can you help me find all my stuff and stick it in this rucksack,'

The monkey ran around for a few minutes, before stopping, asking Cecil to repat himself, and, once that had been done, it shook his head. 'That sack is ripped. I'll help you get all your things though.'

Cecil sighed disappointedly. 'Can you help us find our way out, too?'

'Sure, but, uh, well,'

'What?'

'Your water bottle has split down the side as well.'

'Oh no! We needed that, Cecil!'

"Don't you think I know that, Róisín?"

"Well, yes."

"What'll we do?"

Róisín thought for a moment. 'Can you lead us to a waterhole, or a river or something?'

'It would be my… pleasure…' said the monkey, its bottom lip curling upward.

Neither Cecil nor Róisín really though that the monkey could have more sinister intents, after all, it was a monkey, an animal, and animals had never, ever lied to them or tried to hurt them in their lives. And besides, the monkey was cute.

The monkey started to lead them towards the river, as was requested. They could hear the water running in the distance, yet they could only see the monkey. They could see that he seemed to be gripping some of their things in his feet and he swung through the branches, yet they could not actually see the things. Cecil had a hold of the bags of chips, while Róisín had the blanket. The monkey had the decontaminator and the pocket knife, and their toothbrushes were in their pockets, Cecil was able to carry the crossbow by threading his arm through it, though the monkey had his elfin broadsword. Their plastic bracelets glowed luminously on their skin, causing the monkey to glance at them every ten seconds.

Eventually, they seemed to be on the waterside. The monkey spoke again. 'Cup your hands together and drink like this,' he said, cupping his hands and collectingsome water in his palms, and pretending to sip at it. 'Come, drink,'

Cecil and Róisín shrugged, and did so. Straight away they started to feel drowsy, and not even seconds later, they dropped to sleep. They hardly noticed that they could see the water. By the time they had regained their consciousness, night had well and truly fallen. 'What happened? Hey, monkey, are you there?'

The voice that answered was not the one that they had expected to hear. 'That unfaithful beast has left this place. He is working for the tribe shaman, who has the same ability as you, that of speaking to animals. He took your belongings with him.'

'What!'

'Which things did he take?'

'He had with him a bottle of water, a blanket, and some other things which I could not see as they were concealed in a rucksack.'

'But that water and the sack were ruined!'

'Lies are the words he speaks.'

'Who are you, anyway?'

'My name is Rodor, I am a beast of the blue-sky.'

'You mean a bird?'

'If that be what you call the beasts of the blue-sky.'

"Look, Rodor, whether you like it or not, you are a bird. But I really don't like you speaking in that ridiculous way. Please, plain Lingubestian!'

'Fine.' Rodor huffed. 'What do you want?'

'Can you tell us where the monkey went?'

'The monkey went home to his master. His master is the shaman of the Willow tribe.'

'Great, uh, can you direct us to the willow tribe?'

Rodor seemed to be considering. 'Cross the river and follow along it's path until you come to a fork. At the fork, you should turn your heads to the north and walk straight.'

'How should we cross the river?'

'If you go south for 100 meters, there is a fallen tree which you can go across.'

They followed Rodor's directions, and, as they came to the fallen tree, Róisín volunteered to go first. Balancing very carefully, she made her way to the middle, where there was a stable platform as the tree branch forked, she called out for Cecil to follow. Cecil shivered as the raging winds threatened to knock him off the log, but he clung on stubbornly each time, his grip on wandless levitation charms no doubt helping.

He had just made his way to where Róisín was standing and clutched her hand in his when a very fierce gust of wind swept around them, and the sky began to cry down on them, the clouds creating a gloomy atmosphere as thunder crashed about in the sky, before it came to life and struck a tree nearby them. Róisín whimpered and held Cecil's hand tighter, she had never liked the lightning. Cecil just curled up to her. "Come on, Síny, we need to keep on going. Get off this log." But Róisín was frozen in absolute fear.

"No," she whimpered back. "If we go there, we might get hit by lightning." She refused to budge. So, instead the two siblings huddled up together on that forking point of the branch, clinging to each other for warmth, stomachs rumbling loudly, and mud, dirt and grime clinging to their skin, as the storm took out its anger on the world.

Because of the noise of the storm and the running water, Róisín and Cecil failed to notice the sound of nibbling on the wood. There was a few minutes, before they heard a rather loud creak, and on side of the log snapped, and they held on tightly, just about to fall off. There were a few seconds before the other side snapped also, and the log plummeted into the fast flowing river.

"Great!" Cecil groaned.

"Beavers!" Róisín finished for him. They both let go of the log as it rolled in the water, as although the river was quite deep, there were a lot of rocks on the bottom, and many of them weren't small, and they weren't too fond of the idea of being ripped to shreds by sharp rocks. Cecil and Róisín grimaced at the bitter frostiness of the water, and the fact that it was raining and it was night time didn't help any either. However, they didn't have long to think about how cold the water was, because the river was moving extremely fast, and they had already gone about 500m west, and had reached the fork. Cecil and Róisín clung to each other, and when a medium sized branch whacked into them, ensuring that they'd have impressive bruises the next day. Cecil latched onto it, and they flew down the right fork, which was, unbeknownst to them, the wrong fork, and incredibly dangerous at that. They soon discovered this however, as they heard what sounded like thousands of litres of water falling straight down. Suddenly, their vision was swamped by a massive waterfall.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

Revised: January 2006