IMPORTANT-A chapter has disappeared between this chapter and the last. I'm not sure what happened-maybe it didn't save properly, maybe it got deleted, but I don't think there was anything super duper important, okay? I'm really sorry about this, I'm pretty upset too. But they are out of the underground and now I guess they are...well, you'll see.

So if anything's a bit confusing, you can blame my laptop for the lost chapter. Again, sorry about that. :)

Chapter 16- Oddity of the Sands

Can't anybody find me, somebody to love -Queen "Somebody to Love"

"The Jungle of Chutes," I read off the locket, brow furrowing. The night before, James and I had stumbled, half-asleep, into a muggle hotel and slept until noon. Now it was late afternoon and we had been trekking for several hours, following the locket out of muggle vicinity and into a forest I was sure was on no muggle map. However, the locket seemed to know what it was, because we had our first worded message flash across the map-side.

"I wonder why it's called that," James said thoughtfully, peering over my shoulder.

"Guess we'll find out," I said grimly.

We pushed through the brush, the forest brightly green colored. Everything was an almost unnatural shade of green. The flowers and all of the other plants were as vividly colored as poisonous frogs-which reminded me of a morbid fact, which I reminded James of.

"The more colorful something is, the more likely that it's poisonous," I relayed this happy bit of information.

"Hopefully we won't be in here long enough to run down on our food supply," he remarked grimly, pushing his hair back that was already damp with sweat-it was extremely humid. I pulled at my t-shirt that was clinging to my body with the humidity. James looked away, turning red, which of course, caused me to turn red as well.

"Of course not, we refilled it at the inn back there, rem-whoa!" I gasped as the ground gave away below me.

Not so much gave away-more like began to sink.

"What's going on-why am I shrink-quicksand!" I shrieked, beginning to panic. I trashed around before remembering to stay as still as possible, as moving would only increase my rate of sinking. I reached for my wand in my pocket, but I was already waist-deep and couldn't reach it-

"Hang on, Lily! Accio Lily!" James shouted, whipping out his own wand. Nothing happened-

"Get a branch, James, a branch!" I yelled frantically, shaking with terror but trying not to move at the same time.

"Take this!" I lunged out at the branch he was feeding me, missing the first time and losing several inches. My hands slapped at the sand, sending bits of it everywhere. On the second try I managed to grasp it, just barely-he let it slide a bit so I could have more of a grip, and began to pull. He grunted with exertion, but to no avail-I was helplessly stuck. Tossing the stick aside while I began to hyperventilate he laid himself out on the ground, grabbing both of my hands and trying to pull me up. The lower half of my body was going numb, and I was in up to my armpits now. James held onto my forearms with a death grip, digging his toes in and trying to pull me backwards.

I began to sink even more, and I let out a high-pitched, startled scream.

And just when you'd think it couldn't get any worse, it did. One wrong turn, and suddenly, James was in the sand with me.

"James, we've got to get out! Hold still, try to float!" But he was already in just as much as me, and then, it seemed, out bodies went onto auto-pilot, going completely against logic. We thrashed and tried to kick, but it was obviously not going to work-

"Wait-Lily-I-" shwoop. With a sick sucking noise, James was pulled under.

"JAMES!" I screamed, vision going fuzzy-and I was pulled under as well. I gulped in a deep breath, arms pinned above my head-suddenly, I was no longer struggling to breath, but was gulping in breaths of fresh air. The bottom of the sand pit had opened up into thin air-I let out a scream of relief-but also terror-and fell with a smack onto some sort of ground.

"James?" I blinked, eyes adjusting to the dark. I could see a faint outline of where we were, but not much.

"Lily!" He exclaimed, wrapping his arms around me enthusiastically.

"James!" I said crossly as he spun me, pushing myself away from him off of his hard stomach. "Next time I am about to die, do not think you can just die with me! We both-we both could have-and then you-" Then I did something that really surprised me. I sat down, and burst into tears. Maybe it was from being over-tired, or adrenaline from the near-death experience James and I had just had, or maybe it was that I was still messed up from my time with the Death Eaters. Maybe a bit of everything. But all I could think about was James dying-which, somehow, seemed legions worse than my own death. And someday, someone finding our skeletons in that horrible sand pit...

"Sorry-I-just-" I was gulping, and my breath was heaving as James sat beside me, pulling me into an embrace, and I rested my head on his shoulder, trying to get a hold of myself. This wasn't delicate, silent tears-I was a gulping, sobbing, sandy mess.

"Lily, we're both okay!" He said, completely stunned as I cried even harder.

"But-b-but we almost weren't!" I cried, completely breaking down. I would be completely embarrassed and ashamed of myself later, but right now I was picturing a life without James. Which was completely illogical because I would have died as well. I continued to sob on James's shoulder while he rubbed my back. The sand was beginning to crust on our clothes and hair, and finally, my crying abruptly stopped.

"Oh Godric," I sighed, pulling away and covering my face in my hands. "That was so embarrassing."

"Lily, it's okay," he said gently, tilting my chin up so I would look at him. "You've had a rough...well, three years, actually," I couldn't see him, but I could tell that he was smiling bitterly. "Now let's try to find a way out of here."

"Alright," I said, still completely embarrassed, standing up. "Should we just start walking, then- whoa!" I gasped, almost losing my footing. I scrambled backwards, pulling James along with me. "There's no floor there!" I cried, and suddenly the tiny, circular room we were in lit up. Candles that had been lining the edges of the floor flickered to life, and looking up and behind us I saw the sandy circle in the ceiling that we had fallen through. The rest of the small room was carved out of dirt-we were, without a doubt, underground.

"I'm guessing the locket will say something stupid like to jump into that hole," I sighed, opening said locket. "Yup. It's the only way out of here," I looked at James grimly, who looked rather humorous crusted in sand.

"Same time, then?" he said, offering his hand.

"Let's jump!" I said with false enthusiasm, taking it and counting backward from three. On one, we both jumped. We weren't in the air for long before we landed, hard, on the smooth ground, sliding down, and then up, screaming all the way. You'd think we'd have been used to that sort of thing by now, but it still felt like my stomach was doing flips, and that my only anchor to the world was James's hand, which no doubt had no blood flow at the moment. I supposed mine didn't either.

"Look-I see light!" I screamed, pointing ahead of us, and suddenly the slide-or chute, I realized, coming to fit this piece of the puzzle along with the jungle's name-tilted upward. Our speed and momentum kept us going and we shot up, hands still locked, flying through the air, flailing and screaming.

"Arresto Momentum!" I screamed wildly, hoping the wandless spell would work. So far, wandless magic had...Either that, or we would have broken bones-we were sailing above the tree tops.

For a horrifying second, nothing happened. Just as we could count the ants scurrying on the floor, our fall stopped.

Then it began again, and we were dumped unceremoniously on the ground several inches below.

"Jungle of Chutes," James groaned, jamming his glasses bag on his face. "Hopefully that was the first and last.

"Chutes, James," I noticed, getting to my feet. "Plural."

"Ah, at least it will keep us on our toes," James grinned.

"Whooooo!"

"Did you hear that?" I whipped around, senses on edge. Over the last couple of days, I was starting to appreciate the fact that here, a simple "who" could mean we were about to be tested by a mermaid, dumped into a river of lava-turned-water, or-

"Hey, it's my owl! C'mere, Javvy!" James clapped his hands as the snowy owl circled before landing on his outstretched arm.

"Beautiful owl," I murmured, walking forward to stroke the snowy feathers.

"Thanks, she was a gift from my mum. Short for Javros," he rolled his eyes sheepishly. "Mom's rubbish at naming owls."

"I think it's cute!" I protested, smiling as she hooted appreciatively at my comment on her name. My grin faded a bit as I was reminded of my own owl, Maverick. I wondered what had happened to her.

"From Sirius!" He exclaimed, nudging my arm with his elbow.

"Dear Prongs," James read aloud.

"Where the bloody hell have you been? And what's this business about a long-lost friend? It's not Lily, is it mate? If it is, tell her to get her arse down here right now and explain her three year disappearance! You haven't gone and eloped now, have you Prongsie? How could you?! We always planned that I WOULD BE YOUR BEST MAN!" James laughed, looking up from the letter.

"He's not mad, is he?" I asked nervously.

"Um...no, but...well, he's not mad. Definitely not. He's just...well, it would take a good deal of convincing him that you weren't a ghost, if he saw you," he nodded, apparently satisfied with his explanation.

"And what about the others? My friends?" I asked timidly, almost scared of the answer.

"Oh, Flower. I can't tell you that, now can I?" He shifted his weight to his other foot, his grin widening. "Who they've married, what their kids look like-that Neville, he's a cutie..."

"James Potter!" I screeched, lunging for the letter. "Tell me!" I dashed after him as he began to run away, cackling madly.

"Why spoil the fun, Lily-Flower? Don't you want to wait and find out the proper way?" He shouted behind him.

"That's absurd! Proper is overrated!" I squealed, jumping onto his back as he slowed down.

"Oof!" He stumbled and begun to spin, trying to throw me off. I only locked my ankles around his torso in response, giggling and refusing to be thrown.

"Now, who's kid is Neville?" I said next to his ear after he dropped to his knees, panting from running and spinning.

"Not-telling," he gasped, falling onto his stomach with a dramatic "OOOF! You're heavy."

"Hey!" I protested. "You're never supposed to mention a girl's weight, James!" I socked him. "Fine, fine," I stood up, offering him my hand. "Keep reading!" I said expectantly.

"Well anyway...if it really is Lily, tell her to get down here so we can catch up. Have you two-" James looked up from the letter, blushing. "Erm...can't read his handwriting here. Anyway...blah blah blah... "and if it's not Lily, you'd better write me back fast cause I've already got my hopes up! Anyway, COME BACK PRONGSIE! WE HAVEN'T DONE PRANKS TOGETHER IN...WHAT HAS IT BEEN, A FEW DAYS NOW? I think I shall die if you don't return to me.

Padfoot

"Interesting letter," I snorted, holding back a laugh.

"I've gotten stranger, trust me," he laughed. "So, should we keep walking?"

"Aren't you going to write him back?"

"I will tonight, if we haven't found Daivat by then," he nodded to himself, stuffing the letter in his pocket and sending his owl on it's way back to Sirius with a leaf.

"He'll love this," he chuckled as he tied to leaf to the owl's leg.

We walked until nightfall, only stopping to eat. The jungle was true to its name-almost every half an hour, periodically, we would fall down a cleverly concealed hole-no matter how we tried to avoid it, we couldn't. When we shot up out of the slide, we'd be in a completely different area. Our only hope was that the chutes were bringing us closer to our destination and not further back.

"Look! Up ahead!" I gasped after a glance at the locket.

"What? I don't see-wait, that glowing tree? Weird..." James ran up to the otherwise normal looking tree, running his hands along the green-glowing bark.

"Yeah, weird..." I murmured. "It's on the map, too, look at this..."

"So we were supposed to find it, then? What if we had been walking by it in daylight, and missed it?" James said, sticking his pinky in in an odd-shaped hole.

"We don't have to worry about that-James, what are you doing?" I cried, pulling his finger out. "Maybe if you put your finger in there we'll fall into another one of those horrid chutes!" I yelled, still holding his wrist.

"Or maybe, we'll discover that it's a keyhole, and possibly our way out of here," he smiled devilishly.

"What are you-hey, it's a keyhole," I said weakly, untying the key's ribbon from the chain.

"Uh huh. Does it fit?"

I inserted the key into the lock-

"Stand back!" A mechanical voice warned, and James jumped, startled.

"What was that?" He panicked, jumping back wildly.

"It was a machine, I think," I pondered, not bothering to think that because he was a pureblood, he wouldn't grasp the concept of a robot.

"A machine?" He said blankly as the ground around the tree began to rise like a giant hatch.

"It's a muggle thing-you know what a robot is?" James looked at me blankly.

"Ah, never mind-look, it's opening!" I drew James's attention back to the ground-hatch.

When it finally stopped, the tree leaning out of it like some weird handle, it revealed a man-made hole.

"Stairs!" James exclaimed, bounding forward and running down them. The outer ring was lit up, shedding light on the inside-on the helicopter-looking vehicle.

"What is that?" James gasped, looking up at the copter.

"It looks like a...helicopter..." I muttered. "It's a flying muggle machine," I clarified.

"And we get to fly this thing?!" James exclaimed, jumping into the front seat. "And...wear these ugly things," he said in disgust, holding up what looked like a thick, grey wet suit. "I am not wearing this."

"James, think about it," I looked at him sternly. "If we're going to be flying into danger, and this Daivat person wants us to wear the suits...think about what we've already faced. If we didn't need suits than and do now..." I trailed off, letting his imagination do the rest.

"I think I'll wear the suit," he consented, tossing me mine. "No peeking!" He called playfully.

"Wouldn't dream of it," I rolled my eyes. "And same to you!" I remembered, changing as quickly as I could. The suit was drab, and tight-fitting but puffy, and...well, wet-suit like. What good would it do?

"Ready?" James called.

"Ready!" I responded, and we both entered the cockpit of the helicopter, tossing our clothes in back. I tucked all of our belongings in a pocket on the thigh.

"Lookin' good, Lil," James laughed, shaking the hair out of his eyes. The suit was tight, but it hardly mattered because it was so puffy.

"Shut up," I growled, waddling over. "I could go hide in the back, you know, and leave you to operate all by yourself," I looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh Lily, I don't know how I could flip the on switch without you!" He cried dramatically, pointing to a pair of levers. One was marked "On" and "Off", and one was acceleration. There were two seats and two wheels-though I didn't know how two people could steer at once. The controls were extremely elementary, thankfully. A first-year could have flown this.

"Thanks, King of Sarcasm," I rolled my eyes, pulling the two straps over my chest in a cross.

"You're quite welcome," he said cockily, strapping himself in as well. "Care to do the honors?"

"Oh, yes!" I grinned, pulling up on the lever. The copter hummed to life, the dark inside lighting up with a screen in between the levers, showing a GPS sort of map-opening my locket, the map was exactly the same. "It's the same as the locket," I thought aloud. "So we don't have to keep looking back and forth."

"Impressive," James said. "Shall we start it?"

"How?" I looked around the extremely simple dashboard.

"Pull the wheel up, I guess."

"Go ahead," I nodded, wrapping my fingers around the wheel. We slowly began to ascend-

"James! Look out for the ceiling, keep it straight!" I screamed, looking out the window as we gently bumped the sides, giving off the not-so-subtle screeching noise of metal rubbing on metal.

"Sorry, sorry!" he apologized-"Wait, it's you who's got the side to side controller!" He shouted as we continued to push against the metal wall, propellers whirring above ground. My arms were locked on the steering wheel, pushing it forward-the direction we were pushing into the wall.

"Oh-sorry!" I blushed, slowly letting it back up. As soon as we were centered properly James shot us up and I was pushed into my seat by gravity.

"Whoa!" I gasped, glancing at the map-we had to head north. Dead ahead. I pushed the wheel ahead slightly, keeping an eye on the dark ground below us. We were steadily climbing higher and higher, until even the distant outlines of the trees below us looked like toys.

"Beautiful, huh?" James looked at me, hazel eyes looking brown in the lighting.

"Yeah," I said softly, my stomach swooping oddly. "And, James? Even if Daivat doesn't let us...it was still worth it. This was fun, even with the ten near-death experiences every day," I grinned.

"Definitely stories to tell the grandchildren," he agreed.

"That's what Dumbledore said!" I exclaimed, remembering the headmaster's words.

"Wise man!" He shot us upward even more, higher than the clouds. It was completely and totally pitch dark- "I wonder if there are...what are they called, headshiner lights? I think the Hogwarts Express has them," He swung his head over to me.

"I don't think so-there can't be much to run in to up here, though, can there?" I looked at the map. We were on the right track, following a clean green line that still was heading straight north.

"Y-y-yeah," James said, yawning.

"Look-it's nearly ten o'clock," I pointed to a digital clock on the corner of the map.

"You should sleep," James consented, shaking his head to keep him alert.

"I'm not as tired as you," I argued, giving him a wide-eyed look just to show exactly how un-tired I was.

"Fine, fine," he grumbled. "But anything comes jumping out at the copter, wake me up, alright? And wake me up when you want to sleep, too," he added as an afterthought. "Night."

"Good night, James," I said, dimming the lights until only the outline of his slumped over form was visible in the chair. For a while, almost two hours, I alternated between watching him sleep-not in a creepy way, just making sure he wasn't going to choke himself with his seat belt. He looked peaceful in his sleep. He had taken his glasses off, hooking them on the on-off switch on the control panel in front of us. Ahead of us, my eyes were slowly began to adjust to the dark now that they lights had been dimmed in the helicopter, and I could make out the outlines of clouds below us, and the moon. It looked oddly bright from up here-a full moon. Remus was a werewolf tonight, I startled myself by thinking automatically. I wondered if he had settled down with anyone. If Sirius had, either, or Peter-though he had always been the type to freeze up when a girl walked even close to him, I remembered with a smile. Alice and Frank...had they gotten married? The backs of my eyes hurt, and I tried to hold back tears. I had missed so much...I was an aunt now, I realized with a start. An aunt. And I had probably missed many weddings, the births of my friends' children...I looked at James once more, and wondered what could have been. I was falling for him now, would I still have, given time, back when things were...normal?

Yes, I would have, I shocked myself by thinking. Tearing my gaze away, I began to think. Could James and I be happy together? Yes, I answered myself immediately. I bit my lip, frustrated. What could have been. Could being the imperative word.

I looked down to the map, jolted out of my thoughts at a new appearance. A circular shaped funnel was being pointed to by arrows-I was torn, considering wether I should wake James-but the map had never lead us astray before, had it?

Shrugging, I impulsively turned the copter, heading directly for the circle.

After a while of moving slightly left or right, depending on which way we were straying, we entered the hole. In the window in front of us, I could actually see it-it looked to be some sort of tunnel, and the air around it was glowing blue-

My eyes widened and I took a breath in sharply, hands glued on the wheel as control was wrenched from my grip. We were hurtling through the tunnel at hundreds of kilometers per hour, wrenching turns that would have thrown me against the wall had it not been for my seat belts. Looking next to me, James had not so much as rolled over, not wavering in his deep sleep. I kept my eyes glued to the window, glancing away only to check the map or James.

I endured only thirty seconds of this torturous, unknowing feeling until it stopped. The tunnel abruptly spit us out, and-I widened my eyes. It was lighter now, like the sun was rising-had we gone through not only space, but time as well?

I didn't give myself much time to think that over, because what I saw next shocked me more-we were flying over glaciers.

"James!" I yelled, not yanking my wide-eyed gaze off the softly illuminated ice that completely covered every inch of the ground below us. A river cut through the harsh, barren land, but even the river was dotted with gigantic chunks of ice.

"Whazzgoinon?" James shot up as much as his bindings would allow him, hair standing completely up on the side he had been sleeping on, even more than usual.

"Look!" I whispered hoarsely, gesturing downward. He squinted, jammed his glasses onto his face, then gasped.

"Lily-how long did you let me sleep?" He rose an eyebrow at me accusingly.

"We're-North Pole-that's the first thing you thought of?" I asked incredulously.

"Well, the second, really. Are we really in North Pole?"

"I-I went through this-this tunnel thing, or wormhole, for-for a minute, at the most, and it just-now we're here!" I said haltingly, still amazed. To our right, a sliver of the red sun was beginning to rise, tinging the sky above it pink.

"It's not the right time for the sun to rise," James muttered, looking at the clock.

"The sun schedule's different up here," I explained vaguely, repeated something I had learned in fifth grade, my last year before Hogwarts.

"Did the map say to go through the tunnel?" he asked, turning toward the screen.

"There were arrows pointing toward it," I answered timidly.

"Hey-look-I think we're supposed to land there!" He switched tracks, pointing to the arrow which signaled to a red target over-I looked ahead. Apparently, we were supposed to land...

"In the river?" I said doubtfully, eyebrow crinkled.

"It's going to be freezing," James said in the same doubtful tone.

"Maybe that's what the suits were for," I said.

"I think we should land on it, then," James nodded. "On one of those glacier things..."

Soon we were flying directly over the river, daring to go extremely low-we were inside the chasm cut by the river, and our propellers were in danger of chopping off the icy sides.

"Look!" James exclaimed, pointing to a giant, red button that had not been there last time I looked at the dashboard-it had taken the place of the map, and was flashing green.

"No James, wait, don't push-" too late. The seat belts disappeared as we fell a surprisingly short way, the cold air biting, and landed roughly on-

"A boat? How did this get here?" James asked, looking around at the tiny rowboat. With no oars-go figure. There were two seats, and James was occupying the one across from me, facing backwards as we floated down with the current, view partially obscured by giant chunks of ice.

"Yeah, and-whoa, where's the helicopter?" I yelled at the distinctly empty air above us. Something landed with a thunk on the floor of the boat not half a second after I asked, and my eyes travelled down with the noise, as did James's.

James pulled it up, bringing it to his face so he could see it in the dark.

"This is weird-our hands and face aren't covered, but they're still warm," I muttered. "This suit is awesome. I think the warmth in the suit must somehow be reaching up to our hands and face, too."

"Look, it's the helicopter!" James looked down at his hands, but what he said didn't make sense. Had the thing that had fallen into the boat-

"It's tiny!" I gasped at the miniature model of the chopper we had just rode. "Is that the one we just rode?"

"Look at the side," James pointed to a big black skid mark-right where I had rammed it into the wall on our first ascend.

"What happened to it?" I exclaimed, taking it into my hands.

"I dunno-do you think we could use it again?" James questioned. "Put it in our bag with the other stuff, just in case," he advised as I unzipped my pocket, waiting until I heard it drop to the bottom of the bag.

"Odd sort of souvenir," I commented. "As is the key and locket-I wonder if we'll be able to keep them."

"You mean, if you'll be able to keep them," James corrected.

"What do you mean?"

"Well...if we succeed in turning back time, I won't remember, will I?" He said slowly, a bit sadly. "Lily?"

"Yes?"

"If it works, and everything goes back to normal...will you tell me...the old me, of course...about what happened? I probably won't believe you, may even think you're bonkers..."

"You already thought I'm bonkers for refusing to date you all those years," I said teasingly.

"Yeah, that too," he grinned widely. "But will you tell me? And show me the locket, the key, and the hellocopitor?" He looked at me earnestly.

"I promise," I vowed. "And maybe then we can figure out what this latin message is," I pointed with my pinky at the words on the face opposite the map. "And look-we've got a long ways to go, I think-the destination isn't even on the locket...mind if I sleep for a bit?"

"A bit? Sleep as long as you need, m'lady," James smiled as I handed him the locket.

"Wake me if-if..."I yawned deeply. "If you need me." James muttered something incomprehensible, and I curled up on the floor beneath the seats, tucking my legs into my chest and resting my head on my arms.

What seemed like seconds later, I was awoken by the booming, deep voice of a stranger-

"Who seeks out the workshop of Daivat Frobisher?"

A\N Sorry again for the lost chapter. ONE MORE VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE!

I have started another fanfiction (Don't worry, I'll still update this one regularly!) But I want to see how it is, I need an opinion. No sugarcoating. Okay? Not a beta, I just want someone who will be willing to read the first chapter and tell me if it sucks or not.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED PLEASE CONTACT ME THROUGH REVIEW OR PM.

-Cassia4u