"Something should be said about Potter luck." a quiet voice muttered from ahead.

"Clearly Potter luck isn't everything so shut up Elain!" another voice bit back.

"You better hope that Dad didn't use up all that luck before he died because luck is the only thing that is going to help us at this point stupid."

"Father told you to stop calling me stupid!"

"I'll stop calling you stupid when you stop being stupid!"

"Oi! Elain and Jai shut up before we get caught." a third, older voice growled out.

"Yes, Armand." Both complied sulkily.

Armand was feeling nervous as they made their way into the bowels of the ministry to find the time room in the department of mysteries. It was all too easy to get there, Armand had been here several times with his Dad and after he had died it felt like the whole world was mourning, the ministry on a skeleton crew until Father came out of his self-imposed exile, no one dared make any moves without him around.

"Okay, the time room will be the third door to our left once the room quits spinning," Armand orders the others quietly. He knew if their Dad was still here, he would have killed him for bringing his younger siblings along on this dangerous task, but he couldn't bring himself to leave them behind when this affected them too.

"Are you sure this will work Armand?" Elain asked with a shaky voice, she had never broken the rules like this and the uncertainty of it all was getting to be overwhelming for her.

"I'm pretty sure this will work, this is part of the project that Dad was overseeing. I have all of his notes and while no tests have been done, in theory, this should work." Armand tried to say with confidence in his voice but he was sure he came off just as scared as Elain at this point.

"Oh Great." the twins, Rhodri and Rhosyn muttered in sync.

"Come on, the sooner we do this, the sooner we return." Jai tried to say to instill some confidence in their trip.

"If we return…" Elain said under her breath in doubt.

Armand hushed them again and hurried them into the time room. Pulling out Aunt Hermione's bottomless bag that he had 'borrowed' from her for this task. If all went well he would be returning it to her before she even knew it was gone.

"Okay, Jai and Twins go into Dad's office and grab the spinning gold bobble from the cabinet behind Dad's desk. Make sure you grab it carefully, it is very fragile and it stops spinning it will be useless to us. Elain, you help me sketch out this runic circle on the floor of the ritual room over here." Armand spoke quickly, handing out the tools everyone would need for their task. For once in their life, his siblings listened and got to work with little fuss or arguing. They all knew how dangerous this task was by this point.

The ritual room was thankfully bare and clean so they didn't have to cleanse the room of the last ritual. Armand had admittedly forgotten to bring anything to cleanse the ritual space anyway, so this was definitely some good luck on their part. Elain immediately got to work sketching out the runes on the floor with the chalk that Armand had given her. Armand would be going over the runes with his own blood mixed with a potion he was going to prepare now.

"You seriously couldn't have brewed that before we left? What if your brewing interferes with the ritual?" Elain criticized uneasily.

"Just do your part, I know what I am doing. This potion has to be as fresh as we can make it." Armand mutters as he focuses on setting up his cauldron correctly, pouring in the base he had made earlier in the month under the full moon. All he had to add was the leftover chalk from the rune drawings that Elain was finishing now and then six ounces of his own blood. The twins and Jai entered the room carefully carrying a small gold glowing orb that looked to be made of silk but felt of steel, turning in smooth liquid-looking rotations.

"Good, place that on the center rune and then get in your places on the edge of the circle." Armand both praised and ordered. Elain passed over the chalk after she finished the circle, Armand dropped it in whole and then took his Father's athame that he had given Armand when he received his Hogwarts letter, and cut the palm of his hand, measuring out six ounces of blood. Elain healed him as he added the blood to the cauldron, making the mixture change to a dark red, each clockwise stir making the potion grow darker until it was black as ink. Armand began to pour the potion from the cauldron into a silver-lined bowl, everyone in the room felt the air grow heavier.

"Okay, Elain pack the potion supplies back into the bag and keep that bag on you, then get into your position. Once I begin to draw the runes with the potions there will be no going back, are you sure you all want to come with me?" Armand asked them nervously. Looking into his younger siblings' eyes, a fierce need to both protect them from the world and bring them with him so he wouldn't be alone.

"You aren't getting rid of us that easily." Rhosyn snarked, sounding very much like their Uncle Severus.

"Yeah, plus you get to tell Dad and Father that it was your idea that got us in trouble this time," Rhodri said with a smile, hiding his nerves.

"Of course I am coming with you to save Dad!" Jai exclaimed.

"If you think I am trusting this task to you, Armand, then you are an even bigger idiot than Jai," Elain said disdainfully. Armand smiled sadly at all of them before nodding and beginning his task of redrawing the circle with the potion. It didn't take nearly as long as he thought it would, but this was a simple if crude and dangerous ritual. No words were required just power. As soon as the last rune was drawn with the inky potion, the circle began to glow.

Moving quickly, Armand poured the last remains of the potion over the gold device in the center before retreating to his position in the north direction of the circle's edge. They grabbed each other's hands and closed their eyes, if time travel was anything like a port-key they didn't want to see it. As Armand closed his eyes he felt the temperature of the room rise, hotter and hotter till he didn't think they could stand the temperature anymore, and then all of a sudden the heat was gone and they laid on the floor of the ritual room covered in sweat, panting hard.

"Did that work?" Elain gasped out.

"Nothing looks any different," Rhosyn said softly, filled with doubt.

Armand climbed onto shaking hands and knees, looking around for some clue that the ritual had worked. Besides the smoking broken bobble in the middle of the ritual circle, nothing seemed different.

"Fuck." Armand moaned hopelessly. "It didn't work… I am so sorry."

"Armand, you tried your best…" Jai spoke softly, crawling over to Armand to hug him.

Before anyone could say anything else they heard noises in the main time room.

Oh hell, Father was so going to kill them.