Time After Time

I have a feeling...

Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting-John Russell

End of September 1992

Annie sat secluded to her own little space at the empty Ravenclaw table in an extremely bare Great Hall. There are many disadvantages to rising early, lonliness being one of them. She propped up the Daily Prophet with one hand as she held a spoon with the other. She carefully dipped into her porridge breakfast, avoiding spilling any onto her crisp blue tie and robes. The young girl strummed her fingers ever so carelessly as she paroozed over the plebeian presentation of the wizarding world's daily events. It's really very sad when the most newsbreaking story is how Gilderoy Lockhart achieves his bouncy and behaving coif.

The newly sorted Ravenclaw pulled her head up as a group of noisy fifth year boys entered the previously quiet hall, disrupting the peaceful reading and eating mood Annie had going. She shook her head as she realized just whom the jeering teenage boys were, three parts of the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team... three extremely obnoxious boys in Annie's opinion. There was Logan Davies, the overtly cocky tall-dark-handsome type, Max Bradley who was slightly snobbish, and lastly Casey Chambers, how he made it into Ravenclaw, Annie would never know. The three were jokesters, no where near as good as the marauders, but still funny.

Annie had done alot of people watching during her first few days at Hogwarts, she had become somewhat of a loner and passivist in her house, not ready to throw herself into the arena that was making new friends. She had barely seen Harry, considering they had no classes together, they were in different houses, they were in different years, and ate at different tables at different times. Annie had spotted Ginny once in the corridors with her head in that awful journal, and wondered what the appeal was to the musty old diary. .

This is pathetic Annie thought to herself, it was ridiculous to separate children into segregated groups based on their personalities. Didn't Hogwarts know that there's this thing called too much of a good thing?! You can't put nearly identical personalities together, it just doesn't work... So tonight she would pay visit to the Gryffindor common room. Annie nodded her head decisively to herself and thought Note to self, stop talking to self in one's own head and returned to her mediocre newspaper, and realized her very bitter and sadistic mood. Distantly she heard someone on the other side of the Hall holler, "Max go long!" but put it off in her head, getting distracted by an article about a house elf activist in London arrested by aurors for protesting magical beings in the presence of muggles. That was she was distracted until she saw a flash of something gold out of the corner of her eye and instintively stuck her hand out, clasping the object one handed, without even letting her eyes stray from the text she was so avidly reading.

It wasn't until she heard scattered Whoas and felt herself be joined by three teenage boys, one on each side of her, and another sitting across from her, did she put down her paper and meet the eyes stairing at her with awe. Annie barely realized what she did until she unclapsed her fingers held around the seemingly small object.

"We've been watching you.." Max said conversationally...

"Ah... I've always wanted to be Jodie Foster," Annie spoke in an uninterested tone.

"What?" Confused and beffudled looks graced the boys faces

"Nothing, continue." Annie sighed, her muggle pop culture references were really wasted in the wizarding world.

"Have you ever thought about playing seeker, Annie?" Davies who was sitting across from her leaned closer with a spark of dangerous mischief in his eyes.

The Gryffindor common room held an air of warmth as it's evening fire blazed on. Studiers and procrastinators alike enjoyed the comfortable chaos of the cozy space they so often spent their time in. Annie took a slow deep breath before approaching the portrait of the fat lady that guarded the commons and dorms. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet,

"Er... Hi..." Annie cleared her throat and greeted the fat lady nervously.

"Password," the painted woman spoke in a cold and dignified tone that froze Annie to the bone and rooted her to her spot.

"Right...well you know I was thinking a fine and er trusting, and uhm beautiful woman such as yourself would forgo all of that formality..." Annie rambled on neurotically.

"Password?!" the lady said in an annoyed way, firmly standing her ground until she got what she wanted.

"What is your problem lady?! It's not like I'm freakin Voldemort...I'm not going to attack your precious little Gryffindors! Who by the way, could probably protect themselves without you!Hmph!" This lovely statement is what caused Annie to be outside Gryffindor Tower throwing rocks at what she hoped was the common room window, she ducked as pebbles fell down on her.

"Harry! Ahh...Ouch..." Gravity was playing a cruel trick on Annie as more pebbles plummeted back to the ground, hitting her in the forehead and then... it started to rain. "Is this punishment for making a cruel Jodie Foster joke?" Annie yelled at the sky with her hands thrown up in defeat as she was pelted with rain drops the size of galleons. Within thirty seconds, she was drenched to the bone, she bent down to pick up one more pebble and began to throw it at the window when she felt someone next to her.

"Whatcha doin'?" Harry rocked on the balls of his feet as he mirrored Annie and staired up at the sky.

Annie turned her head towards him and just muttered, "I hate you."

"Do I want to know why you were throwing rocks at the Astronomy Tower?" Harry asked with a smirk on his face...

"The Astronomy Tower? I was throwing rocks... at the Astronomy Tower." Annie paused and contimplated this for a moment, "God, why must you hate me so?"

"Come on, lets get you inside." Harry began pushing Annie towards the entrance doors as she yelled various obscenities at the sky, making her look more than slightly insane...

"Wait a minute, what were you doing out here, weren't you in there...? Why am I out here if you weren't in there? Gahh! Stupid Fat Lady, stupid Gryffindors, stupid Quidditch boys!"

"Oh right, I forgot... you're crazy." Harry said as they entered the castle.

"You know, if I wasn't me, I would be a little offended by that. I have something to tell you by the way."

A dripping Annie and Harry walked through the portrait hole minutes later. Everyone in the warm common room seemed to stop and stare at the Ravenclaw and the Gryffindor who didn't seem to notice others in the room shooting looks that could kill at Annie.

"They're stairing at us..." Annie said in a frank voice to Harry.

"And gathering their pitchforks..."Harry added quietly...

"Gryffindors own pitchforks?Hm... good to know..." Annie said in deep thought, as Harry gave her a questioning look. "You know, for chasing the Slytherins around the castle with some day..."

"Fun,"

"Big fun..."

"Are they still stairing?" Harry asked with a bit of worry in his voice...

"Listen people I know I'm gorgeous but must you stare? I mean really have some descency, some self worth, some... I'm gonna run now..." Annie slowly backed away as a mob of Gryffindors began to rise from what they were doing, to prevent any outsiders from getting into their common room... But before she could leave she just had to add, "It's going to be so much fun kicking your guys' butts in quidditch, really, I'm looking forward to it."

After the Gryffindors vs. the lone Ravenclaw debacle in the common room, Harry and Annie agreed to make more time to spend together (on neutral turf of course.) It was the beginning of October, which marked the beginning of Quidditch practices for all four houses.

Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, and Annie Black were all uncerimoniously pulled out of their beds by their insane quidditch captains one very early Saturday morning. The sun hadn't even dared to break the horizon, making it not only very dark, but very cold. Harry slowly made his way to the Great Hall to eat a hurried breakfast when he abruptly rammed into two other sleepwalking figures.

"Ugh..." Came from all three of the young seekers who looked at those who had hit them with distaste.

"Potter." Malfoy spoke with his permanate sneer plastered across his pale face and angular features.

"Malfoy." Harry answered back with hate dripping off every syllable and giving Malfoy a look that could scare Voldemort shitless...

"You know your face is gonna freeze like that." Annie tilted her head and spectated the staring contest that was occuring in front of her at such an early hour.

"You know you're crazy right? You filthy little..."

"I get the point peroxide head..." Annie tucked a loose curl behind her ear, smirked and began to walk towards her destination, the two feuding boys in tow, fighting the entire way to the Great Hall. "Instead of fighting with eachother can't you two just agree and blame the crazy quidditch captains of the world?"

"Agree with each other?" Harry and Draco both said at the same time with a look of ludocrasy towards Annie.

"Make love, not war boys..." As they reached the hall Draco pratically ran away from the Ravenclaw and the Gryffindor and headed for his own house table while Harry and Annie made their way to the Gryffindor and Raveclaw tables respectively.

"Thanks for being on my side there," Harry said sarcastically.

"Hey! I'm always on your side, it's just, what if I prefer to be neutral? What if I want to be Switzerland?"

"So Ravenclaw equals Switzerland?" Harry glanced at her questioningly, "I get the whole nice watches and chocolate thing, but not being able to have an opinion...?"

"So your saying I'm naive and contrived?"

"No! Well...Naive, maybe. Contrived, it's a definite possibility..."

"Eheh! I'm a little hurt by that statement, take it back!"

"Someone has an opinion," Harry taunted in a sing song voice.

"Jerk," Annie mocked angry.

"Hypocrit," Harry crossed his arms and pretended to be mad back. "So we'll hang out later?" Harry stated more than asked.

"After Quidditch practice." Annie began to walk away, "Man, a whole days worth of conversation all before five a.m."

"Five a.m?! I'm going to kill Wood... Hey I just realized something, If were practicing, and your practicing, and Slytherin is practicing... who gets the pitch?" All at once twenty one quidditch players dashed to the quidditch pitch faster than women at a shoe sale.The battle of wits, well not really wits persay, but quidditch captains had begun. In the blustery courtyard of the school three quidditch teams gathered in conflict...

"I reserved the pitch for today weeks ago," Logan Davies huffed in contempt at Montague and Wood.

"Well I reserved it at the end of term last year." Oliver puffed his chest out slightly...

Fred and George leaned towards Annie and sniggered, "Thus proving his need for a bed in St. Mungos..."

"Yeah well your Momma's last year..." Silence creeped through the courtyard after Montague stated this...

"Did he just make a 'Yo Momma' joke?" Annie asked incredously.

"A really bad one too..." Harry chimed in.

"Yeah well by the looks of him, the brain... not all there..." Harry, Annie, Fred, and George all tilted their heads to the left and pondered this.

"Who's missing, we've got Slytherins, Gryffindors, and Ravenclaws. Ah Hufflepuffs, where are the hufflepuffs?" Fred asked

"Being Hufflepuffs..." George stated.

"So their cowering in the corner avoiding conflict and sending their message of love. Good to see the sterotypical pecking order in check." Annie said sarcastically.

"Why don't you get in there. You want to be taken serious as a player..."

"You've got to fight like the big boys."

"What and hit people thus being completely and totally barbaric... I think I'll pass... They can all murder eachother first, could be quite entertaining, my money's on Wood, he's got that manic look. Do they realize this could all be solved in an extremely simple way?"

"How?" Fred and George said at the first time. Annie walked forward, pushing Malfoy slightly as she approached all three Qudditch Captains.

"May I see those?" She asked Wood and Montague for their teacher's excuse notes, taking them in her hand before saying, "Ooops..." and ripping the Gryffindor's and Slytherin's teachers notes into little bitty pieces, "My bad." Wood literally choked as he saw his precious note on the ground ripped into little pieces of nothing... "Now we have a note from Professor Flitwick to practice on the field...how about you two?" Annie smiled sweetly and said, "See problem solved." before turning around and walking away but not before stopping in front of Fred and George, "I intend to fight like a girl."

Logan Davies couldn't help but smile as Wood and Montague looked about ready to cry and murder, "Sorry boys, but what can I say? First years, their too emotional, too uncontrollable, too friggin awesome...Well I have a practice to run." He tried to say as he faught back chuckles...

The end of October approaced too quickly for Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Annie. The warm autumn weather had turned blustery and cold as the leaves fell off the thousand year old trees surrounding Hogwarts castle. Students retired light layers for heavy sweaters, cloaks, and scarves. Ginny, if possible, had become even more distant from Annie, emersing herself completely and totally in Riddle's diary. Harry and Annie made valid attempts to keep touch with Lily, James, and Sirius on top of their studies and quidditch but it had been a busy start of term for all.

Annie ran to catch up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione in a crowded hall one night after dinner. They had tried many times to hang out all together in the Gryffindor common room, but after the quidditch practice massacre of '92, the Gryffindors still didn't want to let an outsider in their commons.

"Hey!" Annie panted out of breath as she finally reached her Gryffindor friends.

"Small fry..."

"Sasquatch," Annie and Ron greeted each other in their normal disgruntled tones.

"Hey Annie, are you going to participate in the Halloween festivities too?" Hermione asked in a friendly tone. Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, so Hogwarts students were planning day long parties and candy binges.

Annie and Harry gave each other fleeting looks. Their entire lives, everything bad happened on Halloween, Voldemort, Peter Pettigrew, unknown prophecies being unfufilled...but later on in their lives, bad things would just happen, no matter what the date..."You know, I don't think so, Hermione." Annie spoke supersitiously.

"Why not...?" Ron said in shock that anyone would pass up free candy.

"I just have a feeling...that's all." Annie said in a drifiting voice and walked away.

Intuition isn't the enemy, but the ally, of reason.-John Kord Lagemann

Authors Note: This chapter may be my least favorite to write so far. First I just think it portrays my two main characters in a bad way, and secondly I'm not sure if it's even relavant to the story. I guess I'll let you all decide. It's also kind of my favorite foreshadowing chapter, I think if you read between the lines you'll see alot of the later internal/moral struggles between Harry and Annie and their extensive vocabularies... eh heh... Hope to see you all at the next update! PS: I also changed Roger Davies name to Logan Davies.

What will come of the Quidditch season?

What will happen on Halloween?

BTW: The answer to what was out of place in the last chapter was, "Save the cheerleader, save the world." Is a quote from promos of the show Heroes, which began in 2006, so how would Annie know that if it was '92? No one seemed to catch that this time around...