A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews, favorites and follows! We are back with Max this chapter. You can follow me on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter six and be on the lookout for chapter seven soon!
Things between his parents were much worse than Max had initially thought. When he'd stumbled on them in the library arguing, he thought it might be a one-off or a temporary disagreement. Talking with his mum had been the first tip off that they might not be in the best of terms.
But then talking to his father...oh Salazar, Max never could have imagined the amount of animosity that he seemed to hold for his mum! He didn't have a single good thing to say about her. It left Max feeling like there wasn't any hope that they would end up together, as Headmistress McGonagall had promised they would.
And that simply would not do.
Max very much enjoyed being alive, and he wasn't going to let his parents' stubbornness get in the way of it. Not to mention, he was sure that his sisters and brother would appreciate it, too.
He'd already planned on nudging them in the right direction, but now he was more certain than ever that he was going to have to get a little bit more involved than just gently prodding them into realizing that they were perfect for one another. That they were meant to be together. And he knew that this wasn't something he could handle on his own.
The Adrian Pucey that he talked to did not resemble the wizard that he knew as his father, and so he was going to need some inside information from someone who did. First thing in the morning, Max made a visit to the owlery, borrowing a few school owls to send quick messages to his father's friends. Then he went to visit Headmistress McGonagall to let her know that he would be heading into Hogsmeade for the day.
The Headmistress had looked a little suspicious of his true purpose in going out to the village, but not enough to question him further. Max was glad for it, though, and headed down to the Hog's Head around lunch time.
He waited in one of the back booths, hoping that his father's friends would actually show up. At the very least, their interest should be piqued. It was the weekend...what better did they have to do but to come and talk to the mysterious wizard who'd written to them?
It was a little bit after their appointed meeting time when Marcus Flint, Cassius Warrington and Graham Montague rolled into the dingy little pub together. Max lit up immediately, having known them practically his whole life. It was good to see some more familiar faces, even if they appeared to be much younger than he remembered them.
The trio of former Slytherin Quidditch players did not seem as enthused to see him though. "Who the fuck are you?" Marcus Flint asked. "And why did you call us all the way out here?"
"I'll explain on the condition that you not tell anyone about our discussion," Max said, holding his wand down by his side. "I would hate to have to obliviate you."
Cassius snorted. "Let's get out of here," he said, not liking the way Max was talking to them one bit. "I'm not about to be threatened by a scrawny little school boy."
He turned away from Max, and Graham and Marcus seemed game to follow as well. Worried that he'd overplayed his hand, Max ran around in front of them, holding up his hands to stop him. "Wait, I can explain," he practically begged. "I'm Max...Pucey, and I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm Adrian Pucey's son."
Graham laughed at that. "You are right," he answered. "That does sound ridiculous."
Luckily, though, his words seemed to convince Marcus. "Wait a second, he does look a bit like Ades, doesn't he?" he asked, grabbing Max by the jaw so that he could turn him to the side. "I mean, he's not an exact clone, but they've got the same eyes and hair...same face, same build."
"Tell us something about Adrian that only we would know," Graham prodded.
Max thought, trying to think of something that his dad would have told both him and his friends. "Um, he broke his nose when he tried to kiss a witch in his sixth year, he said. But he blamed it on a Quidditch injury," he finally offered.
Cassius couldn't stop the smile from his face then. "Daphne Greengrass," he said with a smirk. "That was a funny one."
Feeling that they were finally believing him, Max felt himself relaxing. "Will you please come back to the table?" he asked. "I really need your help."
The three of them looked between each other, having some sort of silent conversation, before they agreed to stay. Graham went off to the bar to bring a round of drinks, while the others slid into the booth next to him.
"So, if Adrian is your father, who is your mother?" Cassius asked, peering at his face, trying to identify the unknown witch from his looks, but he came up empty handed.
"Hermione Granger," Max said, simply, not expecting too much of a reaction. Marcus nearly spit his beer halfway across the table though when he said it, leaving him feeling utterly confused. "What is it?"
"It explains a lot," he said with a laugh, while Graham pounded him on the back. "Especially you threatening to obliviate us. I should have recognized the haughty tone."
Max felt his face flush, and wondered what his mum had done to deserve this kind of reputation. All three of them were quite fond of her in the future, even though they didn't always see eye to eye on things. Maybe he hadn't gone back in time at all...maybe he'd gone to some kind of parallel universe.
"Well, go on then, tell us what you need help with," Graham prodded.
He wasn't really sure where to start. "As you may have guessed, I had a mishap with a time turner and I've ended up back here," Max started.
"Granger," Cassius teased, with a smirk on his face.
"Anyway, Headmistress McGonagall has given me a limited amount of time to return to my own time, but I don't feel like I can leave in good conscience when things are in their current state," he explained, running his fingers around the rim of his pint. "You see, I've only talked to them a few times, but it's becoming very clear to me that my parents do not seem to like one another."
"Well, you are still here, so they must end up together, right?" Graham questioned. "Otherwise you would have just winked out of existence."
Max rolled his eyes at him. "Honestly, you sound just like Headmistress McGonagall," he said. "It's obvious that my presence here is the only hope for them to end up together. If I were to leave, who knows what kind of future I would return to...if I would at all!"
Again, they did that annoying thing of sharing a look, as though they knew something that he didn't. "Okay, what have you seen that makes it so hopeless for the two of them?" Marcus asked.
"When I first got here, they were arguing in the library," he explained.
"A common occurrence, I hear," Cassius quipped.
"Yes!" Max said in agreement. "So, you know then. They have so much animosity between the two of them. Mum was quick to explain that my dad is always picking arguments with her over books, just to annoy her."
"Oh, we've heard all about it," Graham agreed. "Granger and her books are just about the only thing Adrian will talk to us about these days."
"I'm not surprised," Max agreed, glad that they were able to see the issue at hand. "Because when I talked to him, he had absolutely nothing good to say about her. He seemed to think that she was expecting special treatment or something ridiculous."
"He can certainly wax rhapsodic about her," Cassius added.
The overly verbose comment from Cassius caught Max off-guard, but he continued. "But, I can tell that they have so many things in common, and they are obviously well suited to one another," he said, frowning into his pint. "I just don't understand why they can't see it."
The three of them started laughing at his introspection, as though he'd just told the funniest joke they'd heard.
"What?" Max asked, feeling offended.
"Please, can I tell him?" Marcus asked, looking at the other two wizards for confirmation. Once they gave it, he could barely hold back his glee. "We just can't believe that you can't see what's right in front of you...just like Adrian. He clearly has the biggest crush on Granger."
Max felt utterly dumbfounded. It seemed to defy everything that he'd seen so far. "What?" he repeated, needing some clarification.
"Salazar, he's obsessed with her," Cassius smirked. "If I have to hear him talk about how the sunlight hits her hair one more time...or how it's really not as bushy as it was when we were kids, I think I might just tell him myself."
"Think about it kid," Graham said.
Max disliked being called kid, seeing as they were really not much older than he was, and Graham certainly wasn't as tall as he was, but he wouldn't argue with them at this point.
"He goes out of his way to talk to her everyday," Graham continued. "He's just too thick to see that it's because he enjoys talking to her, rather than him needing to scold her. I bet he hasn't scolded any other student while he was there."
"But, he just complained about her so much," Max said, feeling a bit stupid. Were they reading more into it than him? He supposed he should listen to them...he had figured that they would know this version of his dad better than he did, but he wasn't sure that they really knew what they were talking about.
"You've only just talked to him about it the one time," Marcus assured him. "If you talk to him five times, he is going to find a way to bring up Granger every time, and make some kind of complaint about her looks. Just you wait."
"Huh," Max said with a frown. "Well then, I think it's obvious what I have to do...I need to help him realize that he's just attracted to her, and taking it out on her because he can't face the truth. Maybe I should lock them into a broom closet together."
"Don't be ridiculous," Cassius answered. "That won't convince Ades of anything...he is going to have to come to the realization on his own."
"Besides," Graham added. "We have no idea if Granger likes him back either."
That was an excellent point, one that Max hadn't really considered yet. He was now hopeful that maybe the sparks of attraction really were taking hold in his father, but he had had no indication that it was returned...and why should it be? If his dad was being nothing more than a total jerk to his mum, she had basically no reason to like him. She thought that he wanted nothing more than to annoy her.
"Well, how do I make him come to the realization on his own?" Max wondered. This was not something he could simply leave to chance. He wouldn't feel comfortable leaving until he knew his parents had acknowledged their feelings for one another.
"Well, maybe she could make him jealous," Marcus suggested. "If she was with someone else, maybe he would realize that Granger was going to slip between his fingers."
"That is a great idea," Max agreed, nodding. They were going to need more beer for this, though. Hopefully the trio would be able to suggest the person most likely to make his dad snap. "And we need to brainstorm how to make him treat her nicer. She is never going to like him if he is a jerk."
"I think Granger won't be too much of a problem, either," Cassius said with a smirk. "She has a type, and even if she wouldn't admit it, Adrian fits the bill."