Lost Time

My arms were squashed against my sides by the oversized limbs still squeezing me like some kind of human boa constrictor.

I was just about able to stretch my right hand down until my fingertips grazed the top of my coat pocket, which housed the only hope I had of getting free; my wand.

Yes, I celebrated inwardly.

My fingers skimmed inside the opening, searching frantically until I could feel the very tip of it brush my middle finger. I let out a cry of frustration. It was just out of reach. I made a mental note to myself to start keeping it in a higher pocket.

We were nearly at the edge of the town, and my captor's grip on me had tightened if anything.

"Let me go!" I shouted, angry and desperate now, trying to kick backwards again. "HEEELP!" I screamed out to no-one at the top of my lungs.

A large, clammy hand slapped firmly over my mouth to shut me up.

Acting instinctively, I clamped my teeth down on the delicate, fleshy skin of their palm as hard as I could. The salty taste it left on my tongue made me gag.

There was a deep, throaty cry of pain and I was dropped like a spider as whoever it was nursed my freshly made wound.

Should I have sprinted away without a second's pause as soon as my feet were on the floor? Yes.

Did I?

No.

Instead, I did what every horror film tells you not to; I glanced back to look into the face of my attacker.

Safe to say, what I saw stopped me in my tracks. I couldn't believe it.

"Anthony." My voice came out strained.

Anthony Javerhops held his injured hand like a gorilla defending its favourite banana. His eyes held a distinct look of accusatory hurt as he stared back at me, as if I had been the assaulter rather than the other way around.

And then, like a switch being pulled, he dropped his hand back down as if it no longer hurt, the harmless expression on his face evaporating.

The look in his eyes had changed in an instant, as if all of the life had been sucked out of them, like a television being turned off.

I quickly realised that he had been faking it all to throw me off-balance, to stop me from running immediately away as I should have done.

It was in that moment that I knew things were not going to be okay, and I was in serious trouble.

.o.

When he lunged forward towards me for the second time, it was like being attacked by a zombie. I can't even describe it, but it was as if his limbs were moving of their own accord, his brain activity long gone.

His huge spade-like hands thrust out towards my neck.

Cursing myself for not getting my wand out when I'd the chance, I did the first thing that sprang into my mind – I slapped him with all of the strength I could manage across the face, swinging all of my bodyweight into it as if my life depended on it.

His head sprang to one side from the strike. When he looked back at me, his vacant, dilated pupils had returned to normal again.

My head was spinning, trying to make sense of what was happening.

"What's going on?" Ant asked me, his voice sounding both confused and a bit scared at the same time.

I just stared at him, not sure what to believe. Did he really not know what he was doing?

If he was just faking the whole 'little boy lost' thing, then I knew what I was about to do would land me in grave and immediate danger, but I also knew that either way, I wasn't safe just standing there on the outskirts of the town with him. Besides, there was something in his eyes that told me he genuinely needed help.

"Come on," I said quickly, leading the way up one of Hogsmeade's many covered side passages to our direct right.

It would allow us to double back on ourselves, heading back up to the safety of the shops without having to go back the same way we had come and risk seeing Regulus and his vile friends.

Anthony followed me with the same pitiable expression on his face, and he had gone back to cradling his injured hand as if he'd somehow remembered how painful it was.

When we started to see the odd witch and wizard milling around going about their business, I finally allowed myself to relax a little and stopped outside the dark green shopfront of Barnes's Book Bazaar.

"Going to tell me what that was about?" I asked as he came to a stop in front of me, and I heard the edge in my voice as I said it.

The Hufflepuff's doleful blue eyes peered back at me.

"What did I do this time?" he asked, as if scared to hear the answer.

"This time?" I frowned, noticing his strange choice in words.

He winced as if he had let something slip.

I thought back to what Mary had said about him, when she had practically begged me to talk to him; she'd said it was like the 'light was on but no one was home' whenever she spoke to him.

I had put it down to the fact that her endless gossiping was probably just boring him to sleep, but now it felt like there really may have been more to it than that.

"How long has this been going on for?" I demanded of him, referring to what now seemed to be his recurring turns of violent unconsciousness.

He turned his head away from me.

"Ant, you just carried me halfway out of the town while I was screaming, I think I'm owed some kind of explanation."

He shook his head and closed his eyes. "I don't have one to give you," he muttered quietly.

He had the drained look of someone desperately fighting inner demons that no one else could see.

It triggered something in me strangely like sympathy. In that moment, he reminded me of Remus.

"I know we're not exactly best friends," I said, "but you can tell me if something's going on. I might be able to help."

"You can't help," he snapped with sudden feriocity.

It made me jump, and he exhaled deeply.

"Honestly," he said tiredly, "I couldn't tell you what's going on even if I wanted to, 'cos I have no idea myself. All I know is, I haven't felt right in weeks."

I peered up at him, waiting for him to continue.

"Why?" I asked when the silence stretched out between us.

It was as if he couldn't find the right words to describe it.

"I think I'm losing time," he said finally.

"I don't understand," I replied honestly.

He shook his head, "I knew you wouldn't. No one can. Listen, thanks for trying and everything, but there's nothing you can do. It's better if you just stay out of it."

He went to step away from me.

"Anthony!" I called, but he carried on walking. "Ant! Stop!"

He turned back around to face me, along with a few other witches and wizards who happened to be walking past to overhear my racket.

"Please," I said to him, "come back."

The other shoppers all looked at him expectantly, as if they had stumbled into a soap opera.

Under the gaze of the nosy onlookers, Ant must've felt he had no choice. He hulked his way back to me.

"Alright, alright," he said, "just keep your voice down."

"You said you're losing time," I reminded him, wanting to get to the bottom of what was happening, "what do you mean?"

"Just what I said," he replied.

When I continued to look at him, he sighed again.

"Alright, fine, it's like, I'll be going somewhere, okay… like down to dinner or something, and the next thing I know, I've ended up somewhere completely different, with no clue how I even got there."

I tried to make sense of it. "Like sleepwalking?"

He shrugged, "I guess, except I'm not asleep. At least I don't think I am," he added more uncertainly. "Remember that night on the grounds, with the dog?"

"When you followed me down there?" I asked in a slightly accusatory voice.

"Except I didn't!" he said defensively. "I know I was there, I get that part, but I have no idea how I got there in the first place. I had been heading towards my common room. The next thing I knew I was out on the grounds and you were there."

"And so was the dog," I reminded him.

"You have every right to be angry," he said, "I get it; I just left you there to deal with it on your own, but I panicked. Imagine waking up all the way out on the grounds at night, and there's this massive dog there looking like he's going tear you into strips."

"Yeah, I can only imagine how scary that must've been, considering you ran off and left me with it," I replied.

"I'm not a Gryffindor, Cheryl," he said imploringly, "I'm not brave or anything, but I swear to you, if it had been any other time I would've stuck around to help. It was the first time anything like that had happened to me, losing time like that. Like I said, I panicked; I don't know what else to say. I'm just glad you're alright. I don't know what I would've done if…'

He seemed to be on the precipice of a breakdown.

"Okay," I said in a gentler voice, wanting to calm him down. "Let's just forget it happened."

I needed to find out more from him and it was never going to work if I made him too worked up to speak to me.

"You said it was the first time that you'd lost time like that, so it's happened to you again since then?" I asked.

He looked broken. "Two or three times, maybe. And that's just what I can remember. It might be more. If it happened while I was sleeping and I somehow managed to get back to my bed afterwards, then I might not even realise I'd done it."

"That's... pretty scary, " I observed.

The thought of someone as huge and strong as Ant roaming the castle at night was not a comforting image, especially if he couldn't control his actions.

He could pack a serious punch if he wanted to. Or worse. Much worse.

"Have you been to the school nurse about this?" I asked.

He shook his head animatedly. "No chance. The boys will never let me live it down if I go to Pomfrey about sleep walking."

By the 'boys', I assumed he meant his friends in the Muggle Studies rugby team.

"You need to do something," I said, "Someone's going to get hurt."

He looked guiltily back at me.

"Or maybe they already have?" I realised slowly. "Ant?" I pressed, when he didn't answer.

"The second time it happened I woke up with blood on my knuckles," he confessed.

"Yours or someone else's?"

"I-I'm not sure," he stammered. "Probably mine."

'Probably yours?"

"I have to go now, Cheryl, I'm supposed to be meeting the boys."

"You could've hurt someone without even realising it," I said. "You can't just pretend it didn't happen and hope it goes away."

"I'll see you around," he said, making it clear that that was exactly what he was going to do.

"At least go to your Head of House," I called after him, "Talk to Professor Sprout." I had no idea if he actually heard my advice, but if he did, he didn't turn around.

I was left standing alone in the middle of Hogsmeade wishing more than anything that Dumbledore hadn't chosen now to go swanning off to Durmstrang. We needed him now more than ever.

I knew I needed to share this with someone, and I couldn't think of anyone else I could trust as much as Lily. Trouble was, Lily was more than likely still in the pub with all of our friends.

Somehow it didn't feel right to share Ant's dirty little secret with everyone like that.

Besides, I knew Marlene would probably have a barrage of questions waiting for me as soon as I crossed the threshold about how my date went. She wouldn't care that all of the Marauders were there or notice my embarrassment.

That thought alone was enough to keep me well away, and I ended up heading back to the carriages as a single rider.

As I was whisked away from the scene of the crime, I couldn't help but wonder what in Merlin's beard I going to tell Mary when she asked if I had spoken to Anthony yet.

.o.

As soon as she had me trapped in bed that night, Marlene had not been able to resist her questioning about how my first ever date had gone. And oddly enough, it was actually a blessing in disguise.

It gave me a chance to reflect on just how amazing Jesse had been, as well as putting the whole thing with Anthony to the back of my mind for a minute. It had been weighing heavier on me than I had realised.

Another huge bonus was Mary's reluctance to question me about my conversation with Ant while all of my friends were around.

Overall, the worst I'd had to put up with that evening was Dorcas and Lily's giggling drifting from the beds at either side of me in the darkness of our bedroom. I had told them about Jesse's slight awkwardness as we said goodbye, and apparently it was 'definitely' because he'd wanted to give me a goodbye kiss.

"Or a farewell hug," Dorcas added informatively.

"Or maybe even an 'adios' bum squeeze," Marlene grinned.

.oOo.

"So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Lily asked as we looked out at the sea of pristine green lawn in front of us.

We'd separated from the group after breakfast the next day and ended up on a bench just outside of the Herbology greenhouses, overlooking the empty Quidditch training grounds, which were somehow a perfect jade colour even though everywhere else was covered in a thin layer of ice.

We both had a free period that morning, with Slughorn allowing his Potions class to have a 'study hour'. Though we all knew it was probably an excuse for him to sit in his office chomping through his stash of Slug Club gifts.

Burrowing my chin into my woollen winter cloak, I tried to prepare myself for what I was about to say.

"Something happened yesterday, in Hogsmeade," I started, sightlessly watching the blanket of grey cloud move slowly across the sky. "But if I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not yet, anyway."

Lily looked at me interestedly. "Between you and Jesse, you mean?"

I shook my head, "No, nothing to do with Jesse. Someone else. But you need to swear not to tell anyone."

She didn't answer and I knew without looking at her why that was. She wasn't the sort of person who would make a promise unless she was absolutely sure she could keep it.

"Please?" I asked, forcing myself to meet her eye.

"Cheryl..." she replied imploringly.

I released a small gust of air.

Who was I kidding? I knew I was going to tell her what had happened with Anthony whether she promised not to say anything or not. It wasn't like I could keep it to myself any longer, it was eating me up.

As usual, Lily was the only person sensible enough to share it with.

Starting at the part where Anthony grabbed me from behind, I told her everything that had happened in Hogsmeade, from me screaming for help to his apparent 'waking up', completely unaware of what he had been doing.

"But when?" she asked in disbelief. "We were together for most of the day. Then you went off with Jesse." She thought on it for a second. "And why?"

"He said he'd been sleepwalking," I replied, remembering how creepy Ant's zombie-like expression had been. "Waking up in random places with no idea how he got there or what he'd been doing. That's what he said happened when he grabbed me yesterday."

"Do you believe him?" she asked.

I looked into her solemn green eyes and thought back to the almost robotic-type way his limbs had moved with almost in-human strength.

"Maybe," I replied, not really sure myself.

"That must've been terrifying," she murmured.

"It was," I realised. Terrifying was exactly the right word for how it'd felt thinking I was going to die. "Apparently he woke up with blood on his knuckles the one time," I added, remembering what Ant had told me with a shudder. I was just lucky that I'd got off lightly in comparison to whoever that had belonged to.

Lily's expression changed in an instant.

"Are you serious?" she asked, her brow furrowed. "He had blood on him and he didn't know where it'd come from... Cheryl, you do realise what this means don't you?"

I stared at her with blank wide eyes.

"Well have you heard of anyone being brutally attacked at Hogwarts lately?" she demanded.

"No," I replied, not yet seeing what was so wrong about that.

"Exactly," she replied. "So where is the person he hit hard enough to draw blood?"

"Oh." Oh.

"Please tell me you've told a teacher about this?"

"I told him to talk to his Head of House about it," I replied, feeling defensive.

"And?" she pressed urgently.

"Well he probably has."

"Probably?" she echoed. She got to her feet in an instant. "He's a Hufflepuff, isn't he? I'll tell Professor Sprout myself."

I grabbed her arm on reflex to get her to stop. "Please don't. If we tell his Head of House, he'll know it was me."

"He's hurting people in his sleep, Cheryl," she said, as if I was mad for even asking her not to tell. "How will you feel if someone gets seriously injured and we haven't even told anyone?"

"But you don't know he's hurting people," I tried desperately, dropping my hand. "Not for definite. Maybe it was his own blood?"

"So he punched himself?"

When she put it like that, it did sound unlikely.

"Or a wall maybe?" I said quickly, "That could make his knuckles bleed."

She stood there and blinked at me. "I'm going to Professor Sprout," she said resolutely.

Without any halfway reasonable argument to stop her from doing it, I had no choice but to let her leave.

As far as I knew, I was the only person Ant had trusted with his secret.

When he was facing the wrath of Sprout, he would know exactly whose fault it was. And it wouldn't be Lily's.

.o.

I managed to get through my first lesson, Transfiguration, without any other news about what had happened.

Squeezing my way out through the bustling Transfiguration corridor, I headed unwillingly for my next class.

If I was going to hear anything about the whole Ant situation it would be in Herbology. Both Lily and Professor Sprout would be there, probably getting ready to tag-team interrogate me.

"Coming through!" a voice called as it barged straight through the middle of a throng of students trying to get to their next lesson.

Turning to see what was going on, my thoughts were distracted when I saw Sirius stagger out the other side, not seeming to notice the chaos he had left behind him.

He took a step to his left, only to swivel in the opposite direction and do the same thing all over again.

"Sirius?" I said eventually, alerting him to the fact I was watching him act like a fugitive from Azkaban.

His eyes met with mine, only just realising I was there despite the fact I was less than a foot away.

"Sirius!" a girl's voice echoed from across the other side of the student barricade, causing many heads to pop up to see what was going on.

He muttered a swear word, raking a hand through his hair.

Even though the girl was blocked from view, it wasn't hard to tell she did not sound happy. She sounded absolutely furious.

"Sirius Black!" the unseen girl screeched again. "Get back here right now!"

Even I had to stop myself from flinching.

"You're in trouble now," a fourth year Hufflepuff girl sang, looking to Sirius from her place in the outskirts of the crowd he had just pushed through.

His eyes darted around, scanning the area as if hoping for somewhere to hide. They finally came to a rest on a dusty old tapestry hanging on the wall right next to me.

"You're only in trouble if you get caught," he said, shooting the young Hufflepuff the trace of a grin. She and her friends began giggling at his unexpected attention.

In an instant, he had rushed past me towards the wall hanging and slid behind it, disappearing like a shadow.

My gaze moved to the bottom of it, half expecting a pair of feet to be sticking out, but there was nothing. It looked like it was somehow completely flat to the wall.

It reminded me of the time he'd yanked me behind a similar tapestry in the common room months ago to warn me to stay away from his brother.

How many more mysterious hideaways did Hogwarts have, and how did Sirius always seem to know about them?

Before I had chance to even try and find out where exactly he had gone, the seventh year Slytherin Ursula Darin had managed to push her way through the crowds, storming towards me with a face of thunder.

"Have you seen Sirius?" she demanded.

I paused for a second, trying to resist the urge to glance at the tapestry.

Don't get me wrong, the old me would have happily told her exactly where he was.

Now, however, the idea of giving him up to an older Slytherin out for his blood didn't seem to hold as much appeal.

Whatever the reason for it, I found myself pretending to look around in search of him before replying, "No?"

She looked at me derisively. "Are you asking me that or telling me?"

Feeling my hackles rise, I shrugged unhelpfully, feeling increasingly less guilty for my lie.

"Haven't seen him," I repeated unapologetically.

She glared hard at me as if she could tell I was lying. Taking one last look around my shoulder, she made a final noise of disgust before stalking away.

Releasing a breath, I watched her furious, swinging ponytail disappear down the corridor.

Holding back the temptation to walk away and leave Sirius in his hiding place, I yet again went against what the old me would have yearned for and leaned towards the tapestry.

"She's gone," I called through it, just loudly enough for him to hear.

There was a tiny bit of movement at the edge and Sirius's face appeared in the gap. He peered up the corridor as if to check, and then stepped out in front of me.

"Thanks for covering for me," he said, and it was hard to miss the slight tone of surprise in his voice.

"You helped me get Mike back for his love potion plan. I owed you one."

I tried to brush off my help as meaningless, but it didn't sound as convincing as I'd hoped.

"So what did you do to upset Ursula so much?" I asked, trying to act normal.

His mouth pulled up at the corner. "Let's just say it may have involved laxatives and a regurgitating toilet."

"Gross."

He gave a laugh. "Yeah well, Remus said he saw her kicking a Niffler across the grounds the other day, so if anyone deserves to face a fountain of their own-"

"Fair enough," I said quickly, not wanting to hear the graphic details.

He gestured around us at the quickly dispersing population, "You don't seem in too much of a hurry to get to our Herbology class," he noted with a hint of suspicion.

I shrugged noncommittally. I wasn't about to tell him about the whole Anthony kidnapping thing.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Feeling rebellious eh?"

I could already see the cogs moving in his head.

"We could always just... not go," he suggested.

"Skip the lesson?" I replied uncertainly. "Together?"

Sirius looked like he was holding back a smirk.

"That was the general idea. As friends, obviously," he added, referring back to our previous agreement. "Spending an hour together wouldn't be all that horrific, surely?"

No, I realised, it wasn't all that horrific. In fact, the idea of spending an hour alone with him wasn't nearly as unappealing as it should have been.

My conscience quickly reminded me of the promise I'd made to McGonagall to be on my best behaviour from now on. I was pretty sure that didn't include skiving lessons to hang around with a boy. Particularly not this boy.

The last thing I wanted was for her to follow through with her threat to force me back a year, not after everything else that had happened.

"If you're worried I'll mention your date, you needn't be," he added, as if that would somehow convince me.

The last shred of my temptatìon came crashing back down to earth.

It had been beyond naive to hope he wouldn't bring up Jesse, especially since he and all our friends had watched us leave The Three Broomsticks together. It had only been a matter of time.

"You mean like you just did?" I stated irritably.

Sirius's face hardened slightly.

"You said it yourself; you want us to be friends," he said exasperatedly. "Correct me if I'm wrong... telling one another how a date went is precisely the kind of thing friends talk about. When James goes out with Lily it's all we can do to get him to shut up about it."

"I'm going to Herbology," I said, unwilling to entertain it.

I could still remember him snatching Anthony's love note from my hand and laughing while he read it aloud to all our friends.

With that in mind, I started to walk quickly away from him towards the courtyard entry door, heading for the greenhouses. Sprout and Lily had to be easier to handle than this.

But Sirius immediately matched my pace.

"We all saw you leave the pub holding hands. What's the point in acting all coy about it?"

"Why do you care?" I shot back between puffs of breath.

He looked like he was momentarily lost for words.

"Fine, don't kiss and tell," he said instead. "Unless, of course, you didn't kiss and there's nothing to tell?"

"Sirius."

"I'm joking, calm down," he replied, shaking his head. "Kind of," he added under his breath.

He made space for me on the dirt path next to him as we crossed the damp grass, walking at the fastest speed I could manage, though he was strolling along as if it was nothing.

"You know, if you don't want people to know about you and Mederos, you should probably tell Marlene and Dorcas to stop going on about it," he advised. "They spent the entire first half of the Hogsmeade trip going on about what a 'cute' couple the two of you were."

I closed my eyes momentarily, cringing internally. Bloody Marlene.

The mildewy glass panels of Greenhouse number 5 had never looked as inviting as we approached them. Hurrying to cover the last few feet, I took a grateful step in through the sliding glass door.

The muggy warmth enveloped us like a hug.

"Chezza!" James greeted before I'd even spotted him, using the nickname he knew I hated. "And Padfoot..." he added, noticing Sirius following close behind me.

James raised his eyebrow and shook his head like a disapproving old woman.

"Tsk, tsk," he chastised me as I walked past his table, "What would your new boyfriend say if he found out you were out cavorting with other men?"

"Shut up," I snapped tiredly.

James raised his brows.

"What a polite young lady you're turning into," he remarked.

He turned to look at Sirius as he sat down next to him.

"You want to watch yourself too, mate," he told him in a lower voice. "You know what Marlene's like when she's seeing someone new. She won't be too happy if she finds out you're still sniffing around Morland."

Sirius glanced up at me, and both boys seemed to only just realise I was still listening.

I stood there, dumbfounded for a second.

"You're going out with Marlene?" I asked him before I could stop myself.