Hey! Sorry for the long wait -- School you know, and Evil Math Teacher, he didn't help either... (Okay, he's not evil, but he teaches math for crying out loud...)

Ginny's POV

Sixty Seven hours left

Myrtles' bathroom was becoming steamier and more uncomfortable by the minute as the hot vapor from the potion permeated the room. I wished there was a window in here.

"Okay," said Rose suddenly. "Now we need to add a – be prepared it's quite disgusting – a toe hair from each of the time-travelers."

Ugh. That's kind of gross…

"Seriously?" said Lily II, grabbing the book and looking to see for herself if the dire announcement was indeed necessary. Apparently it was. She groaned dramatically in a way that I thought was appropriate for someone who just found out they needed to have a finger amputated, not a toe hair. "No!"

"For goodness sake, Lily," I reproved automatically, "It's not like you're getting your toe cut off. Don't be so dramatic."

"Mum, but it's still gross, you have to admit-"

"Hurry up! This potion isn't going to stay opalescent very long!" warned Rose, who had already added her portion.

"Right," said Lily II. She sat on the floor with the others, removed her shoes, and yanked out a hair from a toe, looking disgusted.

"Er," she said awkwardly.

"Drop it in," Rose instructed, and Lily obeyed. All the time travelers added their hairs with varying degrees of disgust and/or embarrassment on their faces.

A few seconds after the last hair was added the potion turned a vivid, acid green, and it spat and bubbled like mad.

"And to think, our toe hairs did that," said James II, shaking his head as he looked at the potion.

"Be grateful it was toe hair and not something else," said Rose, stirring the potion.

"What could be worse than toe hairs?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Erm..."

"Good, because I'd really rather not."

We continued making the potion, or to be more accurate, Rose continued to make the potion while we followed her instructions.

"All right," said Rose, standing up and wiping her hands on her robe, "Now we have to let it boil for seven hours."

"Okay. What do we do after that?" asked Hermione hoarsely. It was the first thing she'd said in over two hours.

"We keep adding ingredients until we're done."

We all stood there awkwardly until Harry suggested, "Why don't we go to the common room and get some sleep?"

"Good Idea," I agreed.

"Hey Harry," I said quietly as we climbed up a staircase to the fourth floor. A problem had just occurred to me.

"Yeah?" he said quietly back.

"Where are they going to sleep?"

He thought for a moment. "Good question. Um… they could sleep… er…"

"Exactly."

"In the common room?" I gave him a look. "Okay, that wasn't a good idea."

"No, it was a fine idea, only there's that little problem of kids who like to study into the wee hours of the morning."

We kept mulling around ideas until we came to the decision that Lily and Lily would sleep heads-and-tails in my bed, James I and Al would do the same in Harry's bed, and Harry, James II and I would sleep in the Common Room. We figured that we could pretend to be studying and then fall asleep, which happened very often, and our new friend and exchange student, Jamie Porter, was studying and fell asleep too.

We got to the Common Room and, having explained our plan on the way, put it into action.

Harry and I ended up falling asleep on arm chairs right by the fire, it was warm and comfortable and all too soon…

"Wake up. Wake up, Ginny. The potion's ready." It was Lily II.

"Huh, what?" I mumbled, barely awake.

"The potion is ready," she said again.

"What? But it's only-"

"We let you and Harry sleep, and finished the potion ourselves."

Even through my groggy mind, I knew I ought to feel glad about this news, but somehow, I couldn't find it in me. I glanced around and saw Harry looking at me, and his face looked the way I felt.

"Come on. We're going back to Myrtle's bathroom."

"Okay."

We followed her out of the barely-lighted Common Room, and for some reason, I had a feeling that it was my last time doing so.

Rose was stirring the now purple potion, muttering under her breath and looking a lot like Hermione on exam day. "It's ready," she announced as soon as she saw us.

"I have the glasses," said Al, handing small, slightly dusty shot-glasses around to the time-travelers.

Everyone was in here; James, Lily, Hermione, Ron, James II, Al, and Lily II, and of course, Harry.

Rose was standing now and was holding her own glass. She cleared her throat. "I just wanted to say… thank you, Harry, Ginny, Mu- Hermione and Ron. Thanks for helping us. I guess… I'll see you in June, then." She sat down again, took the ladle from the potion, and poured its contents into her glass.

Hermione went to her and hugged her shoulders.

"Yeah, thanks," Al murmured, filling his own glass.

"I'll see you in June," said Lily II. She took the ladle from Al, filled her glass, and then handed it to James II.

"Yeah, we owe you one… even if you did sleep through the putrid smell, and didn't have to sacrifice more body parts than I cared to know about…" I managed a small chuckle at this, and he smiled as he filled his glass to the brim.

James took the ladle and filled his glass. He handed it to Lily. "Thanks," they said at the same time, whether to me or to each other, I wasn't sure.

Lily filled her glass.

"Oh," I said all of a sudden. I rushed to my kids and gave them each a bone-crushing hug that I knew would be familiar to them.

"Thanks Mum," Lily smiled.

"All right," said Rose. "I think this will feel like apparition. Try to take deep breaths if possible, and bend your knees to prepare for impact." They all bent their knees. It looked a bit funny.

"On the count of three, then," She said nervously, and they counted together, "One, two, three!"

They gulped down their potions, and for a second, nothing happened. Then the air started trembling, and their forms were quivering, blurring. Their glasses fell to the floor with a tinkling crash. The whole room took on a purple-ish/ blue-ish tint, and the floor started shaking, then rumbling. I watched them spin round and round, like bizarre spinning-tops and I knew it was happening, they were about to leave this time.

Suddenly, there was a high-pitched, painful wail. I automatically covered my ears.

Something was wrong.

"What's happening?" Hermione yelled over the noise.

As if in answer to her question, the noise stopped. The motion stopped. And all of the time-travelers fell to the ground.

They didn't get up.

Dun, Duhn, DUHN!!