A/N: Got a nasty bit of flu, so I took a sick day and figured I'd write. so I finished this up and did one more.

Chapter 5

The three occupants in the room all stared at the final clue for a moment, before Emily started to laugh. It was on the verge of a cackle. She suddenly wrapped her arms tight around her husband, "Brilliant. I told you I needed that head of yours working at full capacity."

Emily planted a large kiss on the side of Harry's head, before gently closing the locket and handing it back to her daughter. "Its late. We've been at this for hours. Lets go to bed, and continue this in the morning. I assume there is no urgent need for you to return to the future?"

Delphini shook her head. "No, the device I have lets me travel to and from my present at my will."

Emily's eyebrows rose. "Powerful item. Make sure you give it to your father when you return home. Possessing such an artifact can put you in rather terrible danger."

Delphini smile at her, "Of course, mother."

"Good, lets get you settled in one of the guest rooms."

Once again her daughter smiled at her. "I'll just go to my room, if that's okay?"

Emily was rather shocked to hear this. "You mean to tell me that we raise you in a muggle home?"

Delphini's smile turn soft, "No, not really, but when you disappeared dad and I left the home I grew up in. He said he couldn't stay there. So we moved here. Dad always seemed more comfortable in the muggle world without you."

Emily scoffed, "Well I do suppose he was raised by muggles. So that's not too surprising."

Emily escorted her daughter to her room regardless and left quickly, casting a simple spell as she made her way to her own room. She knew for a fact that if Delphini were going to interrupt it wouldn't be for another hour at least, meaning she had an hour alone with her husband. She was finally going to scratch the itch that had been plaguing her for hours.

Later on, Emily watched as her husband softly breathed in and out in his sleep. He had earned his rest, for it had been a long day for him. She however, could go without sleep as she knew she had to depart soon and was waiting for the moment to do so. The small golden hourglass in her hands reflected the small amount of moonlight that shone through the window. Finally, she felt the small ward outside her bedroom door break away and she quickly turned the hour glass eight times, to go back eight hours.

The room began spinning in her view and then, suddenly, the light of day shone on her face. Emily had finally taken her first trip through time. Quickly she rose from the bed, and made her way outside. She and Harry were due to arrive home from their wedding at any moment. She knew she would have to remain hidden, and there was only one item that would allow her to do so from herself successfully. Harry's invisibility cloak. Only it could hide her from her ability to sense magic. Fortunately, she had already swiped the item from her husband in the future and had in within her possession now.

Her skin crawled uncomfortably. It didn't take long for her to notice the reason why. Her entire body was covered in a red painful rash. She hadn't realized it at first because she had a remarkably high pain tolerance and she had not been paying it any mind, due to her rush to make it outside.

"My magical body must have adverse side effects to time travel. Perhaps the powerful charms that move a person through the time stream are similar to the magicks in ritual magic. That is... unfortunate." The last thing she desired to see was what would happen should her body dissolve during a temporal trip. Would her soul be deposited at some random point in time? Would it be lost forever in a sea of nothingness, stranded outside of time itself? Perhaps, at one point in the future, she was forced to travel through time and that was the entire reason she vanished from existence. Could her disappearance in the future be tied to this tiny trinket that was wrapped around her wrist?

Of course, for all she knew, this was the exact reason that time turners had a five hour limit on them. Maybe her body was completely fine and no one could travel further into the past without such results. Maybe that was why it took her daughter so many years to travel back, because a safer way to travel had not been discovered. There were so many unknowns and no way to find out answers. The secrets of time travel, or rather, all of the secrets in the department of mysteries, were more heavily guarded than the minister himself. Stealing a prophecy was child's play in light of attempting to break into that department's archives.

Such ruminations would remain unsolved, regardless. She would not be making another trip ever again. This was a one time deal.

Wrapped safely in her husband's family heirloom, she gazed at the front of her house patiently, until a barely younger version of herself and Harry Potter appeared at the doorstep. The two of them were so wrapped up in one another that Emily almost wondered if the cloak had been a bit too cautious. Possibly the most horrible part of this entire trip however, was watching her husband look at someone other than her, with such longing. Well, it was her, but it wasn't the present her, or would it have been the past her? In either case, she had to squash the burning envy she felt as she stared at herself. Fortunately, the scene lasted only a few seconds before the two of them were inside the house.

Emily didn't realize she would feel such intense dislike for her past self. She waited most impatiently for her daughter to hurry and interrupt their activities. She could feel her husband's growing desire, though it felt weaker, as though instead of her being able to enter his mind, she was able to funnel what he felt away from the connection to the other her. Strange.

After what seemed like an age, but was only a few seconds longer her daughter appeared with a crack. Another odd occurrence. Clearly her daughter had arrived via apparition, and not time travel, so what had she already been doing here. She hadn't thought the time travel would leave her with more questions than answers.

However her daughter made no moves to knock, and Emily could feel Harry's desire growing. She wanted her daughter to get a move on, and interrupt them before she damn near blew a gasket. When it was obvious that the girl wasn't going to knock on the door any time soon, Emily lost her patience and cast a compulsion charm on the girl. She kept the magic subtle, the child wouldn't notice. The compulsion charm, though subtle, had more force on it than she probably intended as she watched her daughter all but hammer on the door. That would explain how the two of them had heard the noise over their activities in the bedroom in any case.

She heard the door opening, followed by the strangled cry and her daughter's leap a few moments later. Once the girl was actually inside the house, Emily made her way to sit by the side of the front door to wait. While waiting she came to the realization that it was not her daughter who had kept interrupting her private time with Harry, but it was, rather, herself. She had detested the idea of anyone touching Harry that she even interfered with her past self. It was something she'd have to get over, of course, seeing as she most definitely succeeded in getting him all to herself tonight. She knew she had succeeded there because she had already planned to be hiding in Delphini's room when she left her daughter there later. The two would spend some quality time together, and then Emily would make her way back to her room, tripping the ward she had placed to let herself know the timing was right to leave.

After waiting a long two hours in which she idled away watching the clouds, she finally heard approaching footsteps from inside the house. She would have to move fast. Harry looked out the window only seconds after her daughter closed the door so, Emily would have to throw the cloak over her as soon as the door was still.

Emily watched as the silver haired youth walked out of the door and for the briefest of moments, she paused. Delphini was a child still, and in truth, her husband wasn't much different. And it was her actions and decisions that made the two most important people in her life suffer. In a single quick motion, she shrouded her daughter with her in the cloak, aware that their feet and probably some of their legs were showing, but Harry wouldn't be able to see that from his vantage point at the window.

"Mum!"

Emily smiled at her daughter's bewildered look. "Your not the only one capable of time travel, dear."

Delphini hugged her mother underneath the cloak, and Emily soaked in her daughter's presence. She couldn't dally long, she still wasn't happy with what her husband and herself were about to get up to. "Sorry, sweetheart, but I'm afraid you can't go to the future just yet. Things haven't come to a close here yet."

"How did you travel to the past, Mum? You've always been against time travel."

Emily grimaced. She never knew that keeping a hold of that time turner would cause such scrutiny. "Never you mind that. You need to go back and tell me and your father that I missed a small detail in our conversation on my disappearance."

"What detail? Why not just tell me what it is?"

Emily softly laughed at her daughter. "You'll know soon enough. There is much you will come to understand before you lay your head to rest tonight."

"Okay, I... I guess I'll see you soon?"

"Of course, I'm right in there, after all. There is one more thing I must tell you, and I'm sorry, but its a rather vague something. There is a final clue. I will tell you no more than that. You must not reveal that to anyone until someone mentions it first, do you understand?"

"Of course. I won't mention it until then, I promise."

Emily smiled. "Excellent, you're a good girl. I'll see you very soon. Now be a dear and march right back into that house and interrupt me, I'm about to do something vexing."

Delphini returned her mother's smile, "You can count on me, mum. I'll prevent it, and everything else that will happen. Together we'll figure everything out. You, me and dad, we're the best team for it."

Emily knew now why her daughter had burst into tears when she heard her father say the future couldn't be changed. Her daughter thought it could be done. She even thought that she was about to do it now. But her daughter was simply waltzing to a tune that had already been played. There would be no altercations.

Emily waited another few hours before her husband left to run the errands she sent him on. When he opened the door she slipped through and made her way to what would become her daughter's room. It would be here that she would wait for Delphini and for the first time, do something she didn't know the outcome of. What would they speak of, what would they do?

Eventually her past grew ever closer to her present as she heard the door to the room open and the petite figure of her daughter entered the room. Though she had planned to reveal herself, she found herself holding back, just observing the girl. Delphini quietly shut the door, before doing a rather giddy, happy dance that Emily found herself smiling wryly at.

"I can't believe mum is right here. It's been so long."

The silver haired teen made her way to the bed and sat down on it. "What am I going to do?" As the girl dropped her head into her hands, the sudden change from giddiness to depression caught Emily by surprise as she kept watching her daughter. "How can I fix this, if the future is already set in stone?"

In the end, Emily did not reveal herself and stayed silently with her daughter as the girl settled into bed for a fitful night's sleep. Though she did wish to comfort the girl, she didn't have the answers Delphini needed. Soon enough she felt as though the moment where she leapt through time had come and she made her way to her room, knowing that her past self was waiting to depart.

Perhaps, things would be solved by her husband's future self. For all she knew, Harry had already found the answers and they all lay waiting inside that locket. For now, she could only rest until morning and they would continue moving forward.