Only Time Will Tell

Chapter 8

Same Place, Different Time

James had not been expecting being sucked into a time vortex, but he had at least expected the traveling through time part to be somewhat similar to the traveling around the earth as before. Well, this was very different.

Once inside the vortex, it didn't feel like he was moving at all. It was very dark, he could barely see Harry to his right, and Sirius and Ginny were no where in sight. He felt the strange sensation that he was standing in the exact same place, but this couldn't be, as things around him that wouldn't be moving were flying past. Actually, as he squinted at the objects flying by in the semidarkness, it looked like long threads were zooming past.

The threads were growing larger, as if James was coming closer (though remaining stationary). Upon closer inspection, the threads were not threads, but more like ropes, with millions of spindle like strings intertwined, wrapped together, and diverging and connecting in many places. The ropes were also connecting, weaving, intertwined into what should have looked like a very large, tangled ball of string. But the beauty was that it didn't look like this at all, more like an intricate patchwork quilt with a pattern so complex that James couldn't find it. He had the shrewd idea that there was one, some sort of repeating pattern. Thinking this as he and Harry (who also looked very bewildered by this time travel, as he had never traveled over years before), descended upon one area of spindle strings in particular, James made the connection of what was going on.

He was looking at strings of time, every person's own timeline of life. Strings intertwined with others, some strings branched off from others, and then even some doubled back. The fabric of time… the woven threads of history. The pattern that he couldn't grasp… history repeating itself. Mind blowing.

"James, does it look like we are following two thread-thingys in particular?" Harry asked, his voice sounding as if it were coming from a long way off. James searched the tangle of threads, and was surprised that he hadn't noticed it before. They were undoubtedly following two threads.

"They are our own timelines of our lives, our own threads in the fabric of time!" James said excitedly, and Harry's eyes widened in surprise. Their conversation was caught short, however, by a sudden jolt that made James sure that they were moving now. The spindle strings approached rapidly, and James soon felt his face pressed against a silky barrier… surely not the fabric of time! He was trying to grasp this concept when the silk, stretched very taut against his face, ripped open, and he felt himself fly out of the odd dimension they had just traveled to.

Harry fell out right after he did, and the realization of what had just happened and where they were standing hit them very hard.

"We're in the exact same place as we started off!" Harry gasped in surprised, as he and James looked down the very same corridor they had just left…

Or was it? Harry felt there was something very different about this hallway, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Just then they heard footsteps coming from around the corner.

"What should we do? Should we hide?" Harry asked James urgently, but James shook his head.

"Let's find out where, or what time, we are in… for all we know we could have gone back in time so far that even I haven't been born yet, or so far into the future that no one remembers James or Harry Potter!" James told him, but Harry seriously doubted his own name would be forgotten so easily from history. Then again, James doesn't know about this, he reminded himself as they waited for the person to come around the corner.

As she stepped out into view, Harry nearly passed out from shock like the first time he had seen his father standing in his own time with the Marauders. Of all the people, of all the times, who could it be but…

"Evans! Hey Evans!" James called out next to Harry, oblivious to his shock. A very pretty, slender, red haired girl noticed them at the end of the hall.

"Pretty lucky, huh? Landed in the right time period first try!" James told Harry, who still had a stunned look on his face. His mother was striding towards them as James spoke.

"James Potter! Please do not tell me you were trying to travel through time. You and your Marauder friends are always up to something!" She said sharply to him as she got nearer. James's stomach did a backflip, how did she know about the time travel? What day was this?

"What time travel, Evans?" He asked her innocently, deciding denial was the best choice of action.

"I found a certain book, 'Unusual Tricks of Our Time" in the Common Room, as if you didn't know…" She replied curtly, but then noticed Harry for the first time. "Who's your friend?"

James also turned to look at Harry, trying to find the best way to cover this up… Harry was Lily's kid too. He had forgotten all about that, marrying Evans and having Harry… he and Lily Evans had never really gotten along that well.

"Oh, him? This is Harry, my cousin. Don't you see the resemblance?" James lied, putting his arm around Harry, who nodded vigorously. Lily's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but asked no more.

"So, you didn't travel through time? Because I just went outside looking for you and your fellow Marauders, thinking you were about to perform some Vicus Eo spell…" Lily asked him again, and James smiled broadly.

"Be serious, Evans. Don't you think time travel is a little far-fetched, even for us great Marauders?" James joked, and Harry smiled at the irony of this statement.

"Whatever." Lily said, waving it all away with her hand. "We'd better get back to the common room if we don't want Filch to catch us out this late…" And so Harry followed his 16 year old Mum and his 16 year old Dad to the Gryffindor common room, feeling things couldn't get any weirder.

Ginny turned to look at Sirius, who had stepped out of the unusual place they had just traveled through.

"Well, I guess there was no harm in that. We're right back to where we started from!" Sirius laughed optimistically. Ginny wasn't so sure.

"Maybe it's the same place, but perhaps not the same time." Ginny told him, and his laughter stopped rather quickly at these words.

"We need to find someone, ask them what day it is, or more so what year." Sirius said after a moment. Ginny nodded. They set off in the direction of the kitchens, deciding that house elves would answer their questions without asking too many questions themselves.

"Wonder where James and Harry ended up." Sirius asked after they had walked a short distance.

"Well, if we've gone back in time, they probably didn't go as far back as we did, as we were sucked into the vortex first. But if we've gone further into the future, they probably didn't go as far into it as we did. Then again, they could be anywhere in time…" Ginny explained, not fully understanding it herself. Just then someone turned the corner in the corridor ahead of them. Feeling it was too late to hide themselves now, Ginny and Sirius stayed put as a tall, very handsome boy approached them.

"What are you doing out so late, Gryffindors?" the boy said in a cold voice. As he got closer Ginny could see he was a Slytherin by the robes he wore. There was something about that voice that Ginny didn't like, it sent a chill down her spine, yet it was oddly very familiar.

"We have as much of a right to be out as you do, Slytherin!" Sirius replied fiercely, though the boy's cold voice bothered him too.

"How dare you speak to me like that, Gryffindor! Do you know who I am?" He said, now only a few feet away. Ginny felt as if she would get sick, that voice seemed to penetrate her, cut right through her.

"We don't care who you are! Even if you were Head Boy or Minister of Magic!" Sirius shouted, shaking his fist at him. Ginny felt weak, she couldn't bring herself to look at the face of the handsome boy with the cold voice.

"Well, that's too bad, for I am Head Boy, and someday I will become even more powerful than any Minister of Magic, even Dumbledore. I am Tom Riddle!"

Ginny fainted.