This chapter is a lot more dramatic than the last one. I usually don't write like this, so I'm not used to it.
See the bottom for the poll. Another one coming next chapter. Constructive criticism!

When Lee and Angelina reappeared, it wasn't much better than what they'd left. Though he knew Angie was right, he wished they had gotten out of there back in 1981. They approached the nearest fireplace, said the appropriate words, and seconds later, were back where they belonged in Diagon Alley.

"Are we here?" Lee asked after hesitating, because, to be perfectly honest, he couldn't tell. It looked pretty much like the place they had just come from. "Did you say 'Diagon Alley' clearly?" Lee finally turned to Angelina, annoyed.

She was too busy staring at the shops, which now looked like they sold things that were directly related to Voldemort. And it was very easy to believe, if you just looked at the people on the streets around them. There was one big group, huddled in a corner, whispering to each other, and occasionally one head would pop up, and yell, "No!" or something to that effect.

The people walking alone (which was most) had different qualities: all equally terrifying, from people with their heads walking beside them, to people who were 10 feet tall and skinnier than anything, to people who just looked like they'd had the worst life you could imagine. About half the people had their sleeves rolled up and were baring the Dark Mark proudly. The ones who didn't have them had them rolled up anyway, and had either drawn or tattooed a fake one on. Lee and Angelina immediately felt distinctly unwelcome.

"Uh, Ang?" Lee finally said. "I think we screwed up."

"Really?" she asked, though sarcasm was difficult when at any moment someone might jump out at you and possibly hit you with an Unforgivable Curse.

Lee helpfully ignored her sarcasm. "Oh my God. This means You-Know-Who's in power."

"Not necessarily," Angelina replied, though she secretly agreed. "It could just be out of control."

"Which means either You-Know-Who's in power or some idiot who is really good, but he can't control what's happening is."

"Fudge," they said at the same time. "Let's get out of here," Angelina added, and Lee was in no place to argue. They headed for the Leaky Cauldron. When they got there, they found it was completely different. Tom the bartender was gone, and replaced by a woman whose smile was too creepy for the two to stay long. They dashed out of there as quickly as possible and saw that the Muggle world was no better.

"You know what we have to do, don't you?" Angelina asked Lee, as they went into a Muggle coffee shop.

"What?"

"We have to see what happened to Hogwarts. How everyone's doing, if anyone's still alive. If we're—Oh my God, what if we're dead?!"
"We couldn't be dead, Ang. We wouldn't be here if we—are we?"

"We have to find out! If Fred's dead—oh Merlin if Fred's dead…" she closed her eyes, leaned her elbows against the table, and clasped her hands together in silent prayer. Within moments, she was back up, grabbed Lee's wand out of his pocket, and she had gotten up to leave the shop before he realized what she had done.

"Nice pickpocket skills," he commended her. "Now if I could have my wand back?" She obliged. "You just wanted my wand to show that off, didn't you?" She nodded, and pulled out her own. They ducked back into the Leaky Cauldron and Angelina told him she was going to the Burrow. They Disapparated at almost the same time, and Angelina beat Lee by a little bit getting there. She had been there more than him, anyway. They were just outside it, but the Burrow was completely gone. The whole house, everything. It wasn't an easy thing to get rid of, but they seemed to have. Angelina and Lee grabbed each other's hands, and squeezed. "Oh God."

"Do you think they're—" Angelina couldn't say the word.

"I haven't the foggiest," Lee said. "How could we find out?"

"We could ask someone." And within moments they were—again—back in the Leaky Cauldron. They were terrified of the witch behind the counter, so they went up to the friendliest-looking customer.

"Excuse me," Lee said politely. "Hi. We're new in town. Do you know what happened to the Weasleys? We've been in Africa for the past eight years."

"Yeah, there's where you belong," the customer said in a low voice. Angelina's fists clenched, but Lee took it all in stride. "Thank you, sir," he said, before walking away.

Angelina hissed in his ear as they walked, "Please, Lee, please, let me take him, please—I can use Unforgivables, they're practically legal now—" but he just shook his head and walked up to the next person with the same request. "Ugh, if Fred were—" she said without thinking, but she didn't dare finish the statement because of their current situation. The next customers, one fat, one redheaded, gave them the information.

"Oh, you didn't know? Wow—uh, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but You-Know-Who—he killed all of them. Right when he rose to fame. All of them but the girl—what's her name?" the pudgy one asked his friend.

"G—something with G—um, wasn't Gabrielle—"

"Ginny?" Angelina said, biting her lip.

"Yeah, that's the one," the ginger one said without a hint of remorse. "Done with the questions?" they asked rudely.

"Not quite," Lee insisted. "Do you know where she is now?"

"How the bloody hell should I know?" the first guy said. "I'm not her fucking stalker."

The second one took pity and informed them, "Yeah, but my sister's her maid. The Weasley girl's location changes so often it's almost impossible to find her, which is the whole point. You-Know-Who's going after her like he did for Potter."

"What a shame that was, eh?" the tubby one said. "Eluded him for so long." Angelina's face fell, but neither Tubby nor Ginger seemed to notice. "He had to go sometime. You-Know-Who's just too—"

"Her location, please?" Lee demanded, for the first time frustration in his voice. He had been insulted for being black, just been told his friends were dead, and now these cretins were complimenting the creature who did it.

"I've heard tell she's currently outside of London," the ginger one whispered. "Islington. 224 Summit Ave." Without a trace of a thank you, the two had already walked out the door, and were immensely relieved to be out.

"That's not even far from here," Lee grinned. "You wanna—"

"Lee Heracles Jordan," Angelina interrupted without even looking at him, "we are not going to walk there." Lee looked around nervously in case someone had heard his middle name.

"Don't call me that," he hissed.

"Shut up. Saving Fred is a million times more important than your foolishness," Angelina said, sounding an awful lot like Professor McGonagall (except without the Fred part). She then Apparated to the one place of Islington she knew: the part when you enter it. Luckily, Lee appeared next to her a few seconds later, but she was already halfway down the road into town. He sprinted until he caught up with her.

"Hey, Mom," he annoyed her, "Why didn't you wait?"
"Joking may be the way you handle your best friends' death, but it's definitely not mine. Now get your ass into gear," she said, as she speed-walked past him. Lee just stood there, gaping. As she suspected, he was running beside her within seconds, but this time was serious.

"Ready?" she asked, the whole time avoiding his eyes.

"Sorry," he said in answer. She nodded to show that she had forgiven him. They wandered around (but did it briskly) until they found Summit.

They knocked on the door, and it wasn't opened for a long time. Angelina bounced around; she was having trouble stopping now that she was going. Finally they heard locks clicking, lock after lock, there had to be twenty or so. Finally, the door opened, and there was Ginny.

"Can I help—" she began, before she realized who they were. "Oh my—Lee? Angelina? Is that you?" And for some reason they didn't know, she ran out and hugged them. She quickly dragged them inside though. "Sorry about that. Can't be seen outdoors. They're after me."

"So we've heard," Lee said gently. "We've come to help."

"Oh, that's so nice, but—"

"No buts," he continued. "I have some bad news."

She threw up her hands. "More?!" He looked confused. "That's all I've heard for the past four years! 'Sorry, Ginny, but your parents died,'" she mimicked. "'Sorry, Ginny, but Fred and George have died! Sorry Ginny, sorry Ginny, sorry!" She sat down on the couch and put her head in her hands. "I just don't know how much more I can take." Angelina and Lee approached her cautiously, as if she was a bomb going to explode at any minute.

"You know, there's people whose spouse dies, and they crack up. They go completely insane. Or their kid dies or parent dies or something, I don't know. Then there's me. My brothers and parents have been dead for so long. And I've survived it somehow." She curled her skinny legs into her body, and she looked so small and scared that Angelina somehow wanted to protect her. She was only fifteen after all. "And I keep wondering—when am I gonna crack up? What's gonna drive me over the edge? I can barely survive in these times. I try my hardest but—" and she was crying now, flat-out crying. Angelina ran over to comfort her.

"Ginny, we just have to tell you this. I know why this happened. Why everyone died," Angelina took her head off her soaked shoulder to look her in the face. "Listen, and please don't be mad." Ginny's eye twitched dangerously. "This whole thing is our fault." She paused and let that sink in before she continued. "We were given a mission to time travel and we failed. We didn't do anything bad purposely, but somehow it came to this. We're so sorry. We're as devastated about this as you are."

"What?" Ginny barked, though she had heard it perfectly clearly.

"We're so sorry."

"What?" Ginny repeated. "You're as devastated about this as I am? As I am?! You will never be this devastated in your life. Imagine your six brothers and parents dying before you're fifteen. Then the guy who might actually be the love of your life dies with them. Then, a horrible Dark wizard takes control of the universe. And to top it all off, you have to run and hide before they kill you too. You change your home every other day, and you have to bewitch poor Muggles so they'll give you their house. And you live alone. No one there ever to talk to you, to guide you. I'm fifteen years old and my life is already horrible. You had better fix this!" she charged at them now, the tears still staining her cheeks, but her voice was fierce and hard. "You had better fix this." She paused, and then all of a sudden she started laughing and sank down on the couch like a doll. "I can't believe I haven't cracked up yet." She lay down on the couch and cuddled into a ball, laughing.

Angelina and Lee glanced at each other. "Ginny, trust me, everything will be okay. We're gonna fix it. Look, here's the Time-Turner. We're going to fix it. Be safe. We love you. See you soon." Angelina coaxed as they left Ginny, who was still cackling.

"So what do you think went wrong?" Lee asked Angelina when they had gotten back to London. "What did we do?"

"Well, there was the fiasco with the cop (that's probably it, that was a huge mistake), there was the Hagrid disaster, and then there was the creepy guy at the place we bought the Time-Turner."

"What day was that, did you ever find out?" Lee asked.

"Yeah, it was July 31st. Don't know why, it seems kind of—"

"July 31st. That was—that was the day before school started."

"Yeah, so?"

"The day before Harry started his first year."

"So?"

"And we started our third year."

"And?"

"You don't think that has anything to do with it? You think it was just a coincidence? Why was Hagrid in Diagon Alley? Maybe he was going to pick up Harry on that day and buy his supplies with him."

"Yes!" Angelina finally got it. "That would make sense. And we delayed him."

"Understatement," Lee informed her. "Anyway, so he was late for picking Harry up. Maybe he didn't show up at all."

"But Harry went to school that year," Angelina said. "But then who took him there?"

"Maybe someone else did, because Hagrid didn't show up. But who?"

"Dumbledore." Angelina stared straight ahead. "He sent Hagrid, but when Hagrid never showed up, I guess Dumbledore figured he'd better do it himself."

"That makes sense," Lee agreed. "So…something horrible must have happened because of that. What could've—"

Angelina gasped. "What if he got fired? That'd be horrible."

"Yeah, but it wouldn't have been that bad because McGonagall would have taken over. She wouldn't let anything horrible happen to the school."

"True, but Dumbledore still wouldn't have had any power, and he's the best."

"But it doesn't add up," Lee sighed. "Sure, McGonagall is no Dumbledore, but still—she wouldn't have let this happen. Something really bad happened. Maybe they appointed a really corrupt person to the job of Headmaster."

"Well, why wouldn't McGonagall have taken the job?"

"Dunno. But we could go to the school and find out who."

"Or better yet, we could look in Hogwarts: A History and see if it's even still around."

"Don't say that," Lee's teeth chattered, though it was quite mild outside.

"Lee, it's probably true." He put his hands over his ears and la la la lahed. "I sound like Hermione Granger, talking like that."

"I wonder what happened to her," her friend asked. "She's probably dead too."

"Everyone is nowadays." And feeling quite depressed, the two went to look for a copy of Hogwarts: A History.

Lee had to catch Angelina when she fainted. Well, it wasn't a real faint, but she was aiming on heading straight for the ground. He uprighted her, but she immediately fell back into a chair. She tried to think of words to say, but eventually just rested her head on the desk of the library. "I just—I can't—"

"Believe it," Lee finished. "Umbridge? This has to be a joke." He jumped when Angelina suddenly stood up from her chair and in her speed, she knocked over the chair she was sitting on.

"We're gonna do this," she said. "We're gonna do this and do this right. We're gonna find out what we did wrong and we're gonna fix it. Because we are Americans," her chest puffed.

"Britons."

"Britons!" Angelina finished her speech.

"Wonderful speech, Ang," Lee applauded. "I especially loved the choice of words. 'Do this' had to be the best part." But nothing could bring Angelina down right now. She ignored him, and gripped the Time-Turner tightly.

"We're going back to 1981, and we're gonna make absolutely sure that Harry gets to school so Dumbledore doesn't have to get him, that Dumbledore doesn't get fired because he missed something very important when he did this, and hence, save the day!" She smiled broadly, and seemed to be talking not to Lee, but to an imaginary audience. "Because we are—" she paused for effect. "BRITONS!"

Lee again applauded and whistled. "Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. But Ang, you do realize that after this, our work isn't gonna be done. We still have to improve the world, not just get it back to normal." This took a few seconds to sink in.

"Goddamnit."

Sorry for the shortness of chapter, but it's just I really wanted to get this chapter up. It also isn't the best because of this reason. Anyway, I need an opinion to see how I should update in the future. This story could grow to be quite long.

Which do you prefer?

A) Frequent (weekly to two weeks) updates—like this chapter, shorter, and less quality

B) Less frequent updates (monthly or maybe more)—like last chapter, longer and better

Thanks. -Grace