Only Time Will Tell

Chapter 2

219,144 Hours Into The Future

As it was a Saturday, the curfew for being out of bed was later (10:00 versus the usual 9:00 p.m.), and the Marauders were so excited about traveling through time, they decided to go ahead and attempt the spell that very night. First, however, many calculations had to be made if they wanted to land in the correct hour of the correct year.

They decided going 25 years into the future would be the perfect place to visit. In this amount of time, they would hopefully be well established in their careers, and would be able to see significant differences in the world. They would be around 40 or 41 years old, visiting the year 1996.

So, 25 years into the future meant 9131 ¼ days into the future, and had remembered to include the leap years. Converting that into hours meant that they had to go 219,144 hours into the future.

Next, as they were traveling forward in time, they would need to face west when saying the incantation, as the earth rotates east to west. Then there was the matter of where to land in that time period. They had finally agreed to land in the Gryffindor common room, but would be initiating the spell inside the Shrieking Shack to have privacy when performing it. The students and the villagers all feared the Shrieking Shack, as it was believed to be haunted. The truth was only known to the Marauders and Dumbledore, and so it had served as their hideout for a number of years. It would be perfect for doing the spell.

At ten exactly, the Marauders snuck out of the common room under the invisibility cloak and set off for the Shrieking Shack. This wasn't as difficult as it may sound, trying to fit four 16 year old boys under one cloak, because Peter transformed into his rat-form, and James carried him in his pocket as they went. Using the useful Marauder's Map, created by them in their 3rd year, they were able to avoid any potential threats they might have met in the hall ways. Outside on the lawn, the boys crept up to the Whomping Willow, and Peter (still as the rat) would dart through the branches and press the knot. The tree was suddenly still, and the boys snuck through the opening into the trunk right into the secret passage that led to the Shrieking Shack.

"It's good to be back!" Sirius sighed as the passage inclined upwards, opening into the front parlor of the house. James looked around the room, and felt that it was good to be back. They could only manage to come up here once a month anymore, and that was usually only when it was a full moon to roam Hogsmeade in their animal forms. The house did not look as one would expect a house occupied by four teenage boys, one of them a werewolf. Only one room was trashed, the one that Remus used when he became the werewolf, but all the others were actually quite cheery (despite the boarded up windows). James and the others made their way up the stairs and into one of the larger rooms, the one they used for planning pranks.

Boxes of Filibuster's No Heat Wet Start Fireworks were stacked in one corner, next to the jars of Stinksap and bags of dung bombs. A chalk board (stolen from one of the unused classrooms in the school) hung on one wall, and was used as the drawing board for plans. All sorts of objects from Zonko's and Dervish and Banges were all over the room, along with many dangerously humorous objects of the Marauders' own concoction. All that was left to do now was to sit and wait til' midnight.

At 11:58, James stood up, and the other boys followed suit. He muttered "Point Me" to his wand, which spun around and pointed north. They repositioned themselves so they were facing exactly west, and all held out their wands, James holding the Invisibility cloak in his other hand. Seconds passed, and it was very silent. Less than a minute to go.

"Everyone ready? Think of the number, remember 219,144, Gryffindor Common Room!" Remus told them unnecessarily, as they all had been thinking it for the last minute. James counted down the seconds aloud.

"Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one…" He said, looking up from his watch and facing west with the others.

"Vicus Eo!" They all shouted, concentrating hard on 219,144, imagining the Gryffindor Common room.

James experienced a sensation that he was flying. Not the type of flying on a broomstick that he was used to, but a feeling that he was flying forward at the speed of light around a ball. There were short intervals of light and dark, and it took him a moment to realize what exactly was happening. He was rotating with the Earth about its axis, from east to west, at the speed of light. The change from light to dark was the change of day to night. He was witnessing time pass over 25 years.

WHOOSH!

James rocketed into something hard as the flying sensation stopped abruptly. He had smashed headlong into one of the plush chairs in the Gryffindor Common Room. He heard Sirius crash into a table, Remus hurtle into a pile of schoolbooks, and Peter smack into the stone wall. The boys remained silent for a moment, catching their breath and recovering from the combination of their less than graceful landing and the experience of traveling 9131 days in an instant. James looked down at his watch, and watched in amazement as the second hand moved from exactly 12:00 to 12:00 and 1 second. The travel had taken no time at all!

Nearby James heard Remus stand up and pick a newspaper off of the table Sirius had crashed into (he couldn't really see this, as it was the dead of night and the fire had been extinguished with the WHOOSH they had made). James muttered "Lumos" and went over to see what Remus was looking at. By the wand light, James read, "Daily Prophet, October 4th, 1996." It had worked, they were exactly 25 years in the future.

The Marauders stared at the paper for a moment in an awed silence, taking in the enormity of what they had done and where they now were. The silence was broken by distant footsteps coming from one of the staircases leading to the dormitories. The boys exchanged terrified looks, James extinguished his wand, then grabbed the Invisibility Cloak and threw it over them, hiding them.

The shadow of someone was barely visible in the dim light, and they couldn't make out any features on the face. The person was soon joined by another, who spoke.

"Did you hear it too?" came the voice, a young male voice, probably close in age to themselves. The Marauders all held their breath.

"Yea, sounded like a gust of wind, and then a whole bunch of crashes!" came a second voice, sounding to be in the same age range.

"Lumos!" the second voice said, and immediately the room was thrown into light by the same spell James had used only moments before. The person owning the voice caused James to gasp, and Sirius had to punch him.

A skinny boy of about 16 was looking around the room, searching for intruders. He had untidy, jet black hair, just like James. His glasses were perched on a nose identical to the one that James had his own glasses perched on. The boy looked to be about James's own height, and they could pass for brothers, twins even. Except for the green eyes darting around the room, James felt as though he was staring at his mirror image.

"Do you think, not you-know-who, He couldn't be here, do you think, Harry?" the second boy, a tall, gangly kid with flaming red hair, asked James's double nervously.

"Nah, we would know if it was him. Probably just Crookshanks or something." Harry decided, reassuring the red-headed boy, but looking almost directly at the spot where the Marauders lay hidden. "Let's go back to bed. I'm bushed."

And with that, the two boys went back up to their dormitories, and the Marauders were alone in the darkness once more.

"James, no doubt that was your kid back there, the one named Harry." Sirius muttered after a moment of silence. James felt very numb. He had had no idea that it would be this weird to see his own kid, especially when he looked almost identical to him. James could not speak, so he just nodded.

"Wonder if there are any other little Marauders running around here?" Sirius wondered, not feeling as weird as James was right now, chatting away amicably. "Close shave though. He almost looked like he knew someone was hiding here with an invisibility cloak on. Let's go talk to him!"

Before even James had time to drag him down as Sirius stood up, Remus tackled him for James.

"Sirius, are you mad? Harry'll think he's going mad, seeing his dad his own age in the middle of the night!" James felt another wave of numbness with the word dad describing him. A father? Very weird.

"Besides, if we talk to him, we could disrupt the future! Or even our pasts! Which would wreck the present! Which would wreck the future!" Remus rambled, very scared at their predicament.

"Fine. We won't talk to Harry at the moment. But let's plan some fun for this future Hogwarts, er, I mean present." Sirius consented, although a little confused at his own words. James finally snapped himself out of his numbness of realizing he was a father.

"I was thinking we could pull some of our old ones, give the teachers some major Deja-vu!" James told them, grinning. And with that, the four Marauders fell asleep on the floor of the Gryffindor Common Room, concealed by the invisibility cloak in the year of 1996.