Only Time Will Tell

Chapter 11

Familiar Places And Anger With A Pocket Watch

Stone walls were beginning to materialize, though very different from the ones of the Great Hall that had just disappeared. Everything around them was very blurry, except for Ginny and Sirius themselves. Tom was also there, though also looking slightly out of focus. Sirius made a wild swipe at him with his fist, but lost his balance as the room they were in came into focus.

"Trying to hit me?" Tom sneered at Sirius missed from being off balance. Ginny was not looking at Tom, however, but was looking around at the room they had arrived in. It was very familiar, oddly familiar.

"Welcome, Gryffindors, to the Chamber of Secrets!" Tom announced in his cruel, high-pitched voice. Ginny nearly passed out again at these words, and realized why this dark, dripping dungeon of a room looked so familiar.

"Yea, yea. Good trick, Tom Fiddle or whoever you are." Sirius scoffed, as though Tom had been trying to be funny . "It would have been a convincing joke, but everyone knows that the Chamber of Secrets is just a myth!"

"Sirius, he's not joking…" Ginny whispered to him warningly. Tom's eyes flashed with anger at being called "tom fiddle", but he dropped it and smiled at Sirius some more.

"Interesting that you think this is a joke, this makes it even more clear you are not from here. What did you say your name was?" Tom asked in a would-be polite voice.

"I didn't say, but it's Sirius, Sirius Black." Sirius told him, trying not to let Tom intimidate him.

"A Black in Gryffindor? That's interesting, too. And what about you, girl?"

"What are you going to do to us?" Ginny asked him instead, feeling that it would be a bad idea to reveal her identity to him, even though they wouldn't come face to face until much later in time.

"Never mind. You want to know why you are here? I'll tell you… I want to know when you have come from, for I have never seen you here before, yet you dress like students." Tom asked, dropping his smile and polite tone.

"We are students here. We are from Hogwarts!" Sirius replied, still thinking that Tom was playing some ill-humored prank on them. Tom stared at him for a moment, before smiling again.

"No, no, no. I think you misunderstood the question. I asked not where do you come from, but WHEN do you come from. It is obvious you have come from the future, and you could have valuable information. Can you answer that?" Sirius looked to Ginny, who was looking very pale and scared.

"Who do you think you are, anyways?" Sirius asked in disgust. Ginny thought this was an odd question, but then she remembered that Sirius didn't know about Voldemort and such.

"I see you won't be talking easily, like a Gryffindor you are brave, arrogant, but difficult. I think you may not fear me because you do not know who you speak to so rudely. Let me tell you more about myself, then I will ask the same of you. I am Tom Marvolo Riddle, a Slytherin 7th year and Head Boy. I am the heir of Slytherin through my mother's side, and you are indeed in the Chamber of Secrets." Tom began impressively, but something didn't make sense to Ginny.

"How did we get here, then. I thought you had to enter through the tap in the girl's bathroom on the second floor?" She interrupted, and Tom looked at her incredulously.

"How do you know about that? Only the heir of Slytherin can get in here! You'd have to be a parselmouth! And I am the only, and last one at Hogwarts!" Tom demanded of her, and Ginny instantly regretted mentioning she knew how to get into the chamber.

"Wait, so there really is a Chamber of Secrets? And we are in it? I never would have guessed!" Sirius said in an awed sort of voice.

"Never mind how you know, I'll deal with that in a moment. I transported you here using an ancient magic, only one that the heir of Slytherin can use to enter the chamber at will. I will soon no longer be known to the wizarding world as Tom Marvolo Riddle, but as Lord Voldemort!" Tom continued, but was interrupted again, this time by Sirius, who was sniggering. "What? What could you possibly be laughing at?"

"Lord Voldemort? Ha! What a cheesy name!" Sirius remarked inadvertently, not noticing the way Ginny had cringed at the name. Tom no longer looked amused at Sirius's antics, he looked positively livid.

"How dare you mock the name of Lord Voldemort! I will one day be the most feared wizard in the world! Maybe I am not in power during your time, but tell your future friends to be wary. Lord Voldemort shall rise!" Tom shouted, shutting up Sirius's laughter.

"Can't say there are any Voldemorts that I know of in my time. What about your time, Ginny?" Sirius asked Ginny, and Ginny felt her insides go numb. Not only had Sirius revealed her name, but that they were from different times.

"How is it that two people from different futures come to be in the same past?" Tom asked curiously, circling Ginny with interest. "Any Voldemorts where you are from, Ginny?"

"And here is the lake, where the Giant Squid lives." Lily pointed out to Harry, who felt very bored on the tour of the school he had been going to the past 6 years of his life. Lily hadn't seemed too interested about the details of Harry's life, for which he was grateful. Lily sat down under a large beech tree, and Harry joined her.

"Sorry about stopping like this, but there is something that has been bothering me about you." Lily said abruptly as she turned to face Harry. She had been feeling very strange around this boy all day, knowing very little about him but feeling like she knew something about him that was important. If Lily had been a mother at this time in her life, she would have recognized that she was feeling for this person whom she knew so little about because this person was her child, and she would have been able to pick him out of a crowd never have seeing him before. As such, she had never been a mother (not yet, of course!) but felt that she really liked this boy… even loved him, but yet sort of different than a boy-girl love, like marriage and such. She didn't know it, but it was the love of a mother to a child, a natural instinct for all mothers. But Lily couldn't have possibly known this, so she was very confused by the sudden rush of emotion towards this apparent stranger.

"What is it?" Harry asked tentatively, afraid of what Lily might say or ask. Green eyes looked into identical green eyes… it amazed Lily how much Harry resembled James except for those green eyes similar to her own. Lily had a strange desire, but couldn't resist. She leaned towards him and kissed him on the forehead. Harry looked as frightened as she did at what she had done.

"Oh, I am sorry! I don't know what came over me." Lily said, blushing at what she had done. "I don't know what came over me, you make me feel very unusual, like I know you, but I know I've never met you before. And yet, I just feel like, I don't know, that I like you so much… I just had this desire to kiss you, but not like a romantic kiss, but a kiss that, oh I am sorry, Harry!" Lily apologized in a very rushed but confused voice. Harry knew why she was feeling like this towards him.

"It's like I knew you in a different life!" Lily finally summarized for her feelings, and Harry was amazed at how close to the truth his mother had guessed.

"Or another time…" He muttered to himself as they headed back to the castle as the sun set over the lake.

"I feel sorry for you, being James Potter's cousin and all. I don't think I could stand being related to that jerk!" She told him, and Harry couldn't help but smile at yet another irony.

"He's a good guy, you know. He may act like he's the greatest and all, but he only does that to impress, um, someone." He replied. Harry had been about to say that James only did it to impress you, but decided James might not like Lily to know that he fancies her.

"Who is he trying to impress? Practically every girl at this school swoons every time he flashes that crooked grin, or ruffles his untidy hair. Who is he going after that he can't get?" Lily asked him in wonderment, and Harry decided now would be a good time to play matchmaker, something Hermione usually did.

"You said practically every girl… He must be trying to get the one that isn't swooning over him. You must know someone who is not swooned by him?" Harry hinted.

"Well, I of course do not swoon over some Quidditch star with an overlarge ego. Surely you don't mean…?" Lily began, but didn't finish her question. Harry smiled at her and nodded.

"Oh. Well, I would prefer if he didn't go around trying to convince me that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread…" She tried to sound annoyed at this, but Harry could tell she was pleased.

"Just give him a chance, okay? Some people aren't as, well, as mature as they should be at certain ages, but he'll grow up eventually… I'll tell him that he should go easy on the ego stuff…" and with that they walked through the large oak doors into Hogwarts.

James rushed up to them as they entered the Great Hall for dinner. "Have a nice tour with our representative here, Harry?" He asked as Lily led Harry to him.

"It was, well, very interesting." Harry commented as Lily waved and went on her way, smiling at him as she left.

"If only she would smile at me like that…. Hey, why would she smile at you, her future son, like that?" James asked, suddenly alarmed.

"It's not that kind of smile, let me assure you." Harry told him, and James looked greatly relieved at this. "Don't worry, I put in a good word for you. And, maybe lay off of the hair ruffling for a change…"

All in all, James and Harry sat down together at the dinner table in good spirits, although there was still no sign of Sirius, Peter, or Remus. And if they couldn't find a way for them to get back by Monday morning, and Harry to get back to his, own time, there would surely be trouble from the teachers…

"This is stupid!" Ron cried in exasperation after many hours of pouring through books related to time. He slammed shut the heavy volume he had been searching through (A Test of Time), and Peter did the same.

"We've been here for hours, and we've found nothing! I refuse to look at another one of these books!" He stated finally. "If Hermione needs some more ideas she can look for them herself, but we are not going to sit here and look at books when we could be trying out other ways for you Marauders to get back."

"Where are Hermione and Remus anyways?" Peter asked, and they looked around the common room. The pile of pocket watches was there, but Hermione and Remus were no where to be seen.

"That figures…" Ron muttered as he picked up one of the pocket watches. It had stopped ticking, he noticed. "I mean, you and I are perfectly useful!" he exclaimed as he tweaked the gears of the watch absentmindedly, Peter nodding in agreement.

"Okay, sure, I know I'm not as good at magic as Hermione, for example, and Harry is more of the adventure-having type, but Ginny's a year younger than me, and I am good at some stuff!" he shut the back of the watch and began to turn the hands clockwise to the right time.

"I mean, I did knock that mountain troll out with its own club in our first year, and I've gotten really good at stunning ever since the DA!" He huffed, tossing the watch back and forth between his hands.

"What's the DA?" Peter inquired timidly, a little unnerved by Ron's anger.

"Dumbledore's Army… a defense club for us to protect ourselves against Voldemort and Death Eaters." Ron replied glumly, still playing with the watch.

"Voldemort? Death Eaters? What are-?" Peter began to ask, but Ron clapped a hand to his own forehead.

"NO! YOU SHOULDN'T KNOW ABOUT THAT!" He shouted, realizing he had said too much. He slammed the watch down against the table, much as he had to the book. A screw popped loose, and the hands swung freely, spinning around the face in a rapid, clockwise direction. The watch face glowed gold, almost blinding with light.

"What the-?" Ron wondered, unable to see anything because of the bright light. He heard Peter whimper nearby, and waved his arms wildly about, still having no idea what was happening. The blinding light was extinguished almost as suddenly as it had come, and Ron and Peter found themselves sitting in total darkness.

"Wha- What happened?" Peter asked timidly after a moment of shocked silence.

"I dunno, but something tells me we're not in 1996 anymore…" Ron replied, feeling very apprehensive of where in time they could possibly be.