Hello, back again and here's your new chapter! Thank you for (still) reading up to this chapter and I am truly sorry for the wait.

ENJOY!

Disclaimer: J.K. ROWLING TOTALLY OWNS HP. if i did i'd be super rich by now


Chapter 9 Mysterious Times II

As expected, everyone spiralled down into a mad frenzy of worried chatter while Severus sat back and watched the show. It became too noisy to actually listen in on any of the conversation being thrown around but the general idea was understood.

'What if you-know-who finds them?'

'They'll be hurt!'

'Why wasn't something done to prevent this from happening?'

'If they die then how will that affect the future?'

'Oh shut up, you know that if they stuffed this up then we wouldn't even be here in the first place.'

'What do you mean by that Mad-eye? Why wouldn't they end up killing themselves and end up changing time and history?'

'Hey I'm sitting right here.' For once Sirius Black was the voice of reason, but idiots are deaf to reason.

'Professor Dumbledore, could you please explain how this has been allowed to happen, under your watch.'

'If they die now then what will happen to Holly?'

'Like I said, I'm sitting right here-'

'Shut up Sirius.'

'What the fuck why? Isn't this discussion about me?'

'It's about you but not the you now.'

'Stop that it's giving me a headache.'

Eventually, Snape realised that the room had been divided into two sections. The section with the people whom he could tolerate since at least half of their brains were clearly functioning. This side agreed that although this time travelling business is very dangerous in their current situation, everything will be fine because James Potter must have returned to the past to have - dear Merlin he feels sick - a child with Lily Evans and thus Holly is upstairs safe and sound, at least they hope she is. Not to mention Sirius Black was also sitting in front of them all alive and whole –because Severus was doomed to a life of disappointment- at least he appeared to be.

The other side, Severus concluded, were a bunch of brainless fools whom the order was wasted upon. No matter how many rational arguments were put against them, they just couldn't wrap their minds around the idea that James Potter must have returned to the past because his 16 year old daughter is obviously in existence.

Everyone simply turned a blind eye to Black.

Having decided that enough of his time had been wasted, he brought up the main problem. Silently casting a small sonorous charm– he only needed to be heard above this squabble not all of London – he spoke and silenced the room as if they were a bunch of first years. That always worked. 'Now that the Dark Lord knows of our situation, how will we respond?'

'Obviously we have to keep the boys safe, until this whole catastrophe is over.' Thank you Mrs Weasley, we all know that you'll love to add more to your nest.

'More guards, I've always said this. If there were more guards in the first place then Potter wouldn't even have been seen!' Mad-eye Moody kept pushing his point, of course he would, paranoid as he is.

While everyone started shooting off suggestions, many of them reasonable. Albus looked at him with a serious twinkle. Does that twinkle have eyes of its own?

'Voldemort-' their reactions had improved compared to the beginning of last summer but there were still visible jerks and shudders 'knows, and we will work with that. But the question is how did he find out? Has there been a leak from within the order?'

Ever since the polyjuiced Moody incident Dumbledore placed more value on identity security than ever.

'Not that I know of, the Dark Lord found out from a source within the Inner Circle.'

A muttered 'probably told on them yourself' was heard followed by a round discrete nods. He ignored this, it was not the first time his loyalty was doubted and it would not be the last. He entered the Order as a traitor to his sworn master and he would live the rest of his life as an oath breaker.

'A source from Hogwarts?'

'Unfortunately.'

This was acknowledged with a grave nod, it was clear he already guessed who it was, he probably knew from the moment Severus broke the news. 'How much do they know?'

'Not much, but enough to harm.'

'Explain please, Severus.'

'James Potter was seen.' More muttering among the group.

'How exactly?'

'I assume his polyjuice was wearing off and the moron-

'HEY!' don't interrupt me you mutt

'-forgot to take a refill in time.'

'Was his identity fully confirmed?'

'They – Misters Potter and Black along with Miss Potter - were followed to the Gryffindor common room and James Potter was walking along the hall way when his polyjuice was wearing off. No questions were asked but I'm sure that you all know the degree of which Miss Potter resembles her father. No questions were needed.'

'Only James?'

'Yes.'

'They did not see Sirius.'

'Only in the polyjuiced form but the Dark Lord was able to accurately predicate who he was after being told a recount.'

'I'm honoured that he would know me so well.' Sirius piped up sarcastically.

Eyes rolled.

Tap tap

Dumbledore's little habit of tapping the table –with his good hand of course- while thinking could be heard by everyone, just a pity that the same could not be said for those thoughts.

He leaned his head on the other, carefully concealed the damages with his long sleeves, closed his eyes and started planning. But Severus knew that Dumbledore was already well prepared.

Everyone watched him, no one dared to make a sound. Afraid of breaking his train of thought.

Each tap sent their hearts beating.

At last, after what felt like days, the tapping stopped, and everyone collectively breathed a sigh of relief in silence.

'This is difficult indeed.'

'No shit' always rely on Sirius Black for comic relief


'So, how will we deal with the ferret?'

Padfoot was in the mood. Ever since the Christmas feast at Hogwarts, he'd been feeling uneasy about Lucius Jr that Malfoy kid.

'Honestly Padfoot I think we should just go easy for now, it'll upset Holly if we do too much.'

'No can do. My marauder heart is telling me that mischief must be done!'

'Then you have a devil in that black heart of yours.'

THUMP

'Hey! Don't throw a book at me.' Even if it's well deserved

'Mischief managed' said Padfoot as he presented his well-practiced puppy face.

'Stop that, it makes me feel sick.'

'Well sitting here doing nothing all day also makes me feel sick.'

James knew that he had a point. They spent so much hard work on this spell to take them to the future (which already broke a few laws and more than enough school rules to ensure their expulsion) to find out about future events with the full intention to behave like Satan's favourite devils. And yet once they realised what a bleak future they have, they end up sitting on their bottoms following instructions all day.

So much for not changing the future, once they returned to their time James knew that Sirius was gonna hex the hell out of Pettigrew. He briefly wondered what that would do to their friendship and the effects on the timeline.

'Just wait, while I think of something.'

Sirius saw it straight away, the devilish glint in his eyes that declared to the world 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' It brought joy to his heart.

'That's the spirit Jamie boy.'

'Shut up.'


Meanwhile, in another part of the house, Holly was feeling extremely lost. Having done the favour for Neville, and not in the mood for homework, she settled for staring at her room. It had clearly seen better days, even though she attempted to give it a more personal touch by covering the gloomy walls with her favourite shade of green. It always amused her friends to think that the jewel of Gryffindor's favourite colour was the very colour of their rivals, but for Holly it had always been more about the connection to her mother.

She wondered what James thought when he first saw her; being someone who had his face, or her eyes.

She wanted to tell Ron and Hermione about them, but didn't want to deal with their reactions. Ron would, no doubt, be wonderfully fascinated and talk about quidditch all day with her father, which she thinks he would be very happy to.

Hermione on the other hand, would have a fit. Ever since the debacle her best friend had with time-turners in third year, she has remained wary on the subject of time travel. To make it even worse, they had used a spell which they never used before, Merlin help those two if Hermione wanted to give a combined lecture on the dangers and risks of time travelling and use of unknown spells.

She sighed.

Stuff related to time travelling always caused headaches.

Those 'Hey friends, Merry Christmas! By the way my father and god-father has travelled through time from 20 years ago. But don't worry about that, we've got it all covered. Bye!' messages would have to wait a bit.

But really, it was quite difficult for her to not spill the beans on such a huge matter, and they always dealt with problems together as a trio. Despite what Dumbledore says about her being the chosen one and Snape's snide remarks of Hermione being the brains and the rest of them brawn - she could agree with that one to a certain extent – they always worked as a team and that's how they work best.

A skill passed down from her marauder predecessors no doubt. Having thought that, she wondered what the subjects of her headache were up to and decided to check on them.

Careful not to wake the hidden banshee near the entrance, she made her way to their rooms, only to find it empty and a note stuck under the door

Don't worry about us, we're just off to find a life

'Bloody idiots.' She muttered quietly before stuffing it into her pocket and praying to any God who would listen that their boredom would not lead to something life-threatening.

The one place she did not expect them to go to was in fact the place they chose to go to, the library.


'Careful there James, pretty sure some grudge-holding ancestor of mine cursed them out of fun.'

'Interesting hobby.' James replied as he scanned the row in front of him. Although they were covered by a thin sheet of dust, he could still feel the power from those books. Curses fade with time but who knows how strong this grudge was.

'Yeah, probably did it coz some kids kept running in here to play with those precious books' James watched as Sirius looked around him with an obvious appearance of contempt but he knew that his best friend was always curious about those books.

Carefully taking a thick volume with a spirally gold title curling around the spine in a language he did not understand into his hands, he was mildly relieved that it did not bite his hand off on the spot although he did feel a tingle.

'Maybe the curse wore off overtime.'

'Maybe, but we – they have always been diligent with the quality of their curses. I remember once a book over there burned off half of Regulus' hair.'

Sirius grinned at the memory. Walburga had been furious afterwards and even gave him a severe beating while Orion sent Kreacher to find the best hair recovery potion for the family favourite.

It was only his grandfather Arcturus who heard of the incident and came to visit a week later that told him the same had happened to him decades ago, except it was he himself who bore the brunt of the curse and commended him for his actions because it was 'most befitting for the heir to our proud house to be so cunning at such a young age'.

It was this remark that put Sirius off from going to the library again for leisure activities.

Being so cunning meant that he was destined for Slytherin, and being the perfect heir.

James left Sirius to his wool-gathering while he scanned the pages. It was written in old English and difficult to understand, even the occasional illustrations did nothing to help him understand what he was looking at.

'Hey Padfoot, what's this section of the library?'

'Not sure, but I remember Uncle saying that this is where they keep the interesting ones, whatever that means.'

'Not sure if our "interesting" share the same meaning...' James muttered but stopped as he flicked the page.

The tingle he felt on his finger before had spread to his hand, but it wasn't strong enough for him to notice until it spread to his arm.

'Padfoot…'

'Yeah?'

'You said the curse burns hair off.'

'Yeah…'

'Does it also cut arms off?' it was getting stronger.

'Not sure, but I wouldn't put it past them to hide a nasty thing like that in a book.' Suddenly catching on to the meaning of the questions. 'Prongs? Is something wrong?'

'Uhh, maybe?' He shut the book nervously and placed it back on the shelf before patting his arm, which was going numb. 'Just a tickle really, don't fuss.'

Carefully walking towards him, Sirius glanced at the book that James had just been holding. It wasn't one he had a personal experience with, but now he might be grateful for that.

'First a tickle, then a trickle of blood and before you know it you're one-armed.' Growing up with parents like Orion and Walburga Black had given him more insight into dark magic than he ever wanted.

'I won't be unarmed that quickly, I can disarm better than you.' That pun was as dead as the creator of the curse.

Sirius rubbed a hand over his eyes, hoping that when he opened them again James would be laughing it off as another prank. But he didn't.

'How's it now?'

'Starting to sting a bit, like a sunburn.'

'Then we better think of a way to fix it before Holly finds out.'

'What am I going to find out?'

Their heads turned so quickly she could hear their necks snap.

'Uhhh…'

'Nothing.'

Holly rolled her eyes. She basically inherited their way of hiding information. It didn't work for her, and it wouldn't work for them.

She was going to interrogate them again, but other things helped her.

The pain had escalated from a light shower to a thunderstorm of sharp needles stabbing into him. Groaning in pain, James Potter clutched his arm and bent over.

TBC


Another cliffhanger, another mystery.

Thanks for reading and I'll do my best to update this as soon as I can. :)