Only Time Will Tell
Chapter 7
A Vortex, A Crater, And A Makeover For Snape
Harry and James watched the Marauder's Map from underneath James's invisibility cloak, as they sat huddled outside of Snape's office. They followed the little dot on the map labeled "S. Snape" come down the dungeon stairs and walk down the corridor. Soon the dot's counterpart came into view, striding swiftly towards his office. Harry and James smiled. This would be classic!
As Snape unlocked his magically sealed office, Harry and James slipped through the open door before Snape shut it. James motioned to Harry to head for the storage room for the potions supplies under the cloak, and Harry nodded. "Inconspicou!" James whispered, and was once again ignorable. James walked up behind Snape, deciding where to begin. Hair, he chose gleefully, planning what was to be done.
Snape pored over the essays he was grading, running his hand through his hair absentmindedly. Hmm, hair's gotten rather long, he thought to himself, as he continued to comb through it with his fingers. Hair has gotten way to long! He realized, and pulled his goblet towards him to see his reflection off of the shiny sliver. James watched the expression on Snape's face turn from curiosity to shock. Waist-length, wavy hair (still oily, James noted) trailed down his back. Snape examined his new do, utterly bewildered.
"Highlitus Pink!" James said, waving his wand at Snape's hair. Snape almost fell out of his chair. The strand of hair he had been examining was now an obnoxious color of bright pink, the shade of a vivid pink highlighter. It really wasn't his color.
Harry held the book with the instructions for the potion in his arm, looking at the list of ingredients. They were most unusual, including red wine (drink of the youth), butterfly wings (speed up the affects of potions), and shredded root of an azalea tree (reverses the affects of potions). Harry scanned the room filled with bottles and jars, none of which were labeled or seemed to be categorized in any way. Great, he thought, now which ingredients are which?
Back in Snape's office, James was truly considering becoming a makeup artist. In addition to the lovely pink locks Snape donned (which had been curled into tight, spiral, ringlets), he also had very long, thick eyelashes that were making it very difficult for him to see. His nose had grown even larger and more hook-like, reminding James of a very ugly bird with an overgrown beak. Snape was trying to get rid of the unusual changes taking place with various spells to no avail. James was contemplating what shape to make his ears when Harry poked him in the back, still concealed by the invisibility cloak.
James turned to the direction he thought the poke had come from, and pointed to Snape. Harry had to stuff his fist in his mouth to stifle his laughter, which was very difficult to do considering his arms were full with potions ingredients. James slipped under the cloak, and the two headed for the door. James opened it, since Snape was still ignoring him, and was about to leave when Harry pointed his wand at Snape one last time and said, "Doornobius Earlobius!" And to top off Snape's new look, he had door knob shaped ears. James was very proud.
Collapsible Time Vortexes are very difficult to construct, as Ginny and Sirius were finding out. So far they had managed to simply blow a hole in the floor of the corridor, leaving a huge crater that was smoldering slightly.
"Well, that was good, actually, because now we have a good place to put the vortex!" Ginny told Sirius optimistically, who's attempt to blast a hole through the fabric of time had resulted in the crater. Sirius nodded.
"Your turn to try." Sirius told her, backing out of the way. Ginny glanced at the book one last time to be sure she was doing everything correctly. The goal of the spell was to snag a thread in the fabric of time, then basically unravel that fabric enough to create a hole, or a vortex. This was all well enough, but there was no guarantee you would make the hole into the right time, depending on the thread you snagged.
Ginny took a deep breath and held her wand straight out, half-expecting the Knight Bus to come barreling through the hall as the same motion was made to board the bus. Luckily, there was no sign of the violently purple double decker bus. Sirius seemed relieved at this, too. She closed her eyes and swept her wand in a left to right motion very slowly, concentrating on relaxing enough to feel the interwoven threads of time, crossing and diverging in a pattern that not even the most perceived seers could decipher completely.
It was an odd sensation that reached her, as though there was a very strong current dragging her wand along now. She held her wand very lightly in her hand, allowing it to be taken along. Quite suddenly there seemed to be resistance in the current, as though her wand was stuck or caught on something.
"Sirius! I think I snagged one! I think I've snagged a thread of time!"
Hermione nudged the second hand of a particularly grand pocket watch ever so slightly, aligning it perfectly with the 12. It was very slow and dull work, and she was beginning to regret assigning her and Remus such a tedious job. So far they had broken 3 of the pocket watches. No other real progress had been made, although Remus had managed to rearrange the gears so that the watch they were working on could tick forwards as well as backwards.
"Ok, try the incantation again." She said wearily to Remus, getting thoroughly tired of trying the incantation over and over again. He sighed but nodded.
"Reloj Vicus Eo." He chanted sending little gold sparks at the watch. Nothing happened. Hermione sighed.
"Should we just chuck this whole idea?" She asked him, feeling defeated. She hated giving up. She believed where there was a library, there was a book, and where there was a book, you could use a wand, and where there was a wand, there was a way. But it seemed there was no way they were going to get this way to work.
Remus yawned as he stretched. "I s'pose, or at least for right now…" He said, sharing her feeling of defeat. There were a lot of similarities between him and her, he realized.
"Let's go find Harry and James. Harry isn't exactly the world's greatest Potions brewer…" Hermione told him, standing up.
"He must have inherited that from James!" Remus said, laughing a little.
Ron had never felt more awkward in his life, sitting here at this table with Peter. It was one of those times where it is dead silent except for the random and annoying elevator music playing in the background (although there really wasn't any elevator music, but there really could have been: then again, Ron or Peter wouldn't know what an elevator is, so the concept of elevator music would be lost).
"So, you're an animagus?" Ron asked, breaking the silence, startling himself with the question.
"Yea, I am!" Peter said excitedly. And with that he transformed into the rat that Ron recognized so well, who had been his faithful pet, who he had let sleep in his bed. Yes, there was no doubt it was Scabbers from the past. Ron shuddered, and felt he would very much like to step on that rat.
What if he and Harry could get rid of Wormtail now? Then maybe Harry's mum and dad wouldn't be revealed to Voldemort! But that would change everything in the present… Ron sighed. Killing Peter now would probably not be good in the long run. Scabbers became Peter once more.
"Let's get back to work, shall we?" Peter suggested timidly, and so Ron and Peter went back to sitting in silence amongst the elevator music that should have been playing.
"This is way too complicated…" Harry said dully as he and James began to read the instructions for brewing the potion. They were sitting on the floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Harry figured if it had been a good place to brew an illicit potion once, it would work again. Myrtle was very keen to have Harry visit her again, anyways.
"So you're no good at Potions either? You definitely inherited that from me. Sorry for those genes." James said, in the same tone as Harry. There was no way anyone other than a very skilled potions master could brew this potion.
"We need something from the day we are trying to go to, anyways." Harry reminded him, but James's face had just lit up.
"Sirius!" he exclaimed.
"No, actually, you named me Harry…" Harry reminded him, misinterpreting him.
"I know that… I meant that Sirius has a piece of homework in his pocket from the day we left! We could use that!" James told him.
"But we still need someone to brew the potion…" Harry said, but then his face also lit up. "Hermione could do this! She's pretty decent at potions!"
So Harry and James set off to find Sirius to get his homework, then they would find Hermione.
They soon came across to the corridor where Ginny and Sirius were trying to set up a collapsible time vortex. At the other end Sirius was standing back from what they could see as a large crater, and Ginny had her arm stretched out, and was moving it ever so slightly.
"Say the incantation!" Sirius said excitedly. Ginny nodded her head slightly.
"Vortexium Collaportus!" Ginny shouted, swiping hard with her wand. What happened next was very unusual indeed.
Usually one thinks of a vortex as a doorway or a hole that one can step through on their own will. Ginny and Sirius were seriously mistaken by thinking this. True, when Ginny swiped her wand, a large gash in mid-air appeared, as if she had cut the air itself. But Ginny had not planned on going through the vortex herself. But alas, she had no choice.
The gash emitted a large quantity of light, blinding even Harry and James as they tried to get closer to Ginny and Sirius. Before Ginny or Sirius could even react to the sudden hole in the fabric of time, they suddenly felt the current sucking them into the vortex.
"AHHHH!" Ginny yelled, helpless to prevent her self from being sucked into the vortex. Going back, or even forward in time (as they still had no idea of where this vortex would go) was definitely something that she had not planned on. Too bad.
James and Harry threw up their arms to try to shield themselves from the blinding light. About a half second after Sirius and Ginny were sucked into the vortex, they too began to feel the pull. James was impressed. This vortex had a very nice range on it. This did not make him feel any better, as he had no idea of where this vortex might lead. Harry tried to grab onto something, anything, that would stop him from being pulled in, but there was nothing. As they were pulled towards the source of the light, Harry realized it was going to be a little more difficult than anyone anticipated getting the Marauders back to their own time, and now he and Ginny back to their own time…