Chapter 3:

James's eyes widened in shock, and his mouth fell open. "How can I have a son? I'm still at Hogwarts and I don't even have a girlfriend. Well, I have one in mind, but she hasn't said yes yet-"

"You mean, my mum?" Harry interrupted, startling James out of his rambling. "Lily Evans was my mother."

"Hey, congrats sounds like you finally got the girl, mate." Sirius clapped his best friend on the back.

"Wait, wait, you said was?" James held up a hand to hold Sirius back. "Lily isn't in this time?"

"No, I'm sorry. She died in the attack that killed you." Harry explained heavily. A large boom shook the castle, knocking the five teens off their feet. "I'm sorry to break the news at the worst time possible, but I have a very important task I must do. Can we talk about this later?"

"You're going to defeat Voldemort?" Sirius asked quickly, a light began to shine in his dark eyes that Harry had never seen in his adult self. A sense of adventure was rekindling in the youth; the itch to cause a little mischief was great.

"Yes, that is my mission. I have to find something, and quick." Harry turned from his father and the three Marauders he had looked up to for the past four years and hurried down the hall. With a quick tap, Harry muttered the words to clear the map.

"Harry, wait!" James called, running after him. Harry paused as the four boys caught up with him. "We want to help. If Voldemort killed me in my future, I want to take revenge."

"He didn't just kill you, D-James." Harry said quietly, turning back to the four boys. He noticed his father was the exact height that he was now. "He may not have killed all of you directly like James, but he had a hand. Sirius, you were killed by your cousin, Bellatrix. Peter, you were killed by your hesitancy to follow an order. And Lupin, you were-wait, I'm not sure how you died."

"That's a simple thing to avoid this time around. I hate my cousin. Nasty little ungrateful-" Sirius muttered himself into silence, acutely aware that he was at Hogwarts.

Harry couldn't help but laugh. "I've met her in this time, and she's a piece of work. I'm sure you'll have to wait in line to kill her."

"Harry!" A voice called from the other end of the hall. Harry turned and saw Hermione and Ron hurrying toward him, an armful of what looked curved bone. A mangled piece of metal hung from Ron's wrist. "Guess what we-are those who I think they are?" Hermione asked, stopping short at the sight of Harry's company.

"This is James, Sirius, Lupin, and Peter. When they were seventeen." Harry explained. "But-"

Before he could stop Ron from lunging at Peter, the wall behind them crumbled as a huge spider beached the wall. "We've got this, Harry. Run!"

Harry ran in the opposite direction, looking over his shoulder in time to see the four Marauder's transform into their Animagi. Or, rather three turn into their Animagi and Peter disappear from view as his Animagus was too small to be seen from Harry's point of view.

"I hope they'll be all right." Hermione worried as they rounded a corridor.

"I'm sure they will be. They may be seventeen, but they know more magic than we do, I bet." Ron pointed out. "I wonder how they came back, and why they couldn't leave that little rat behind." He added darkly.

"I don't know either, but now's not the time to go further in depth on that subject!" Hermione turned to Harry. "We've found a way to destroy the Horcruxes."

"You did? Why didn't you tell me before?" Harry demanded, his hope surging.

"We were being attacked by a spider." Hermione reminded him. Ron shuddered.

"How did you do it?" Harry asked, astonished, as he stared at the mangled remains of what he now saw was Hufflepuff's cup.

"These." Hermione gestured to the curved objects in her hands. "Ron got us into the Chamber of Secrets and we were able to get a few Basilisk fangs." She explained. "It was ingenious, really."

"Into the-how the bloody hell did you do that, Ron? You have to be able to speak Parseltongue!" Harry asked, gaping at his best friend.

"I did, sort of." Ron answered sheepishly. "I just made the same noise you sometimes make in your sleep and it worked."

"Brilliant. Now we just have whatever piece from Ravenclaw or Gryffindor and that snake and we can defeat him." Harry sighed and looked around. "How are we going to get a clue where to start looking?"

"Excuse me, excuse me, out of the way!" Squeaked a high-pitched voice as they looked around. Flitwick hurried over and began chanting spells quickly to shore up the defenses on this side of the castle.

"Professor Flitwick, can I talk to you? This is important." Harry approached the little Charms professor.

"More important than ensuring You-Know-Who can't enter the castle? I doubt that." Professor Flitwick returned to his chanting.

"I need to know if there's anything that Rowena Ravenclaw is famous for. Anything at all."

"The only thing that I know is connected to Ravenclaw is the Lost Diadem, but there's no way that could be pertinent to this battle!" Professor Flitwick's voice grew even more squeaky in his annoyance of this line of questioning.

"Do you know where the diadem is?" Hermione asked, anxiously.

"Miss Granger, I would not have called it the Lost Diadem if anyone in living memory knew where it was!" Professor Flitwick insisted. "The diadem is lost."

In living memory. Something struck a chord with Harry. "Sorry to bother you, Professor." Harry apologized and led the other two down the corridor.

"You have an idea?" Hermione asked, her interest piqued.

"I do. In living memory. That means someone who knows it might be-"

"Dead." Hermione finished it for him. "But is there a ghost here that would know?" Hermione asked, confused.

A ghost with an extravagantly plumed hat on top was drifting across the corridor ahead of them. "Hey Nick!" He called, running toward him.

"My favorite three Gryffindors!" Nick exclaimed jovially, shaking their hands in turn. They winced; the feeling was as unpleasant as dousing their hands in ice water. "How may I help you?"

"We need to know if there is a ghost of Ravenclaw Tower in the castle." Harry answered at once, panic starting to rise inside his chest.

"The Grey Lady, of course. Last I saw her, she was on the floor above us floating along." Nearly Headless Nick pointed a transparent finger to the ceiling.

"Thanks Nick!" Harry exclaimed, heading for the nearest staircase. Hermione and Ron followed, still unsure of the plan.

As they mounted the stairs to the next floor, they saw a ghost of a dark-haired woman drifting along the corridor.

"Hey, hey wait up!" Harry called after her, approaching her. "You're the Grey Lady?"

"I am." The ghost responded, with a slight nod. "But I cannot help with whatever you seek."

"What d'you-?" Harry asked, as she started to drift away. "Please don't go."

"You're Rowena Ravenclaw, aren't you?" Hermione asked, in a desperate stab in the dark.

The ghost turned to her, her transparent face expressionless. "No. I am Helena Ravenclaw, her daughter. We were always confused for each other. I looked so much like my mother when she was young."

"Then you must know where your mother's diadem is hidden." Harry answered, desperately.

"I repeat, I cannot help you find the diadem." Helena turned away from them, drifting down the corridor again.

"Tom Riddle tricked you into telling where it was, didn't he?" Harry asked, making another stab in the dark.

"Where did you get that information?" Helena said sharply, rounding on him. Her face was no longer expressionless. She was furious, he could tell.

"I took a guess. I know he can be very persuasive." Harry said at once, grateful that he had her attention.

"Yes, I told that ungrateful child where my mother's diadem was. He was charming and used me for his own means. I had left it in a tree trunk in a forest in Albania after I stole it from my mother."

"Thank you very much, that's all I need to know." Harry hurried away, followed by a confused Ron and Hermione.

"You know enough information from that?" Ron asked, astonished.

"Yes. Voldemort hid in a forest in Albania after he lost his powers when he attacked me. What are the odds that he wouldn't find a diadem in a tree?"

"That explains where You-Know-Who got the diadem, but where is it now?" Ron asked, pointing out the obvious.

Another memory surfaced in Harry's mind. The bust of an ugly warlock with a discolored taira, perched on a filing cabinet. "It's in the Room of Requirement."

"Then we need to get there. Can you tell if the route there is clear?" Hermione asked, anxious again at once.

Harry pulled out the Marauder's Map. He gave a cry of shock as new words appeared on the map when it activated: "Mischief Managed." "The map, it doesn't work anymore."

"What?" Hermione and Ron gathered around him, gazing in horror at the map.

"The map no longer works." Harry answered, shakily. "Does that mean-?"

The other two were too horrified by the implication to speak.