Disclaimer: I am not JK Rowling and nobody has ever mistaken me for her. I am merely playing with the world and the people that she has created.

4. The Marauders

"What's the plan?"

Hannah was just about to step into the hall when she heard the voice in her ear. She looked quickly. "What in Merlin are you doing here?"

"You summoned me," Ron Weasley replied with a look. "You left a note."

"I did?"

"You will do, then, I guess. Tricky stuff time travel, isn't it? Anyway, I know how to get back."

"Get back?"

"Using the Time Turner."

"Can't I just spin it back in the opposite direction?"

Ron sucked his teeth. "Oh dear. Oh dear me. It's a good thing I'm here. It just so happens that I'm a bit of an expert at Time Turners."

"Really? You've studied them?" It sounded unlikely.

"No, Hermione has, which comes to the same thing." A thought struck him. Hannah could see its progress on his face. "Hannah?" he asked. "Do you think I'm sexy?"

"Ron!"

"Sorry. Shall we go back then?"

"I need to find Neville."

"You can't. That's what your note said."

"Note?"

He pulled it from his pocket to show her.

Hannah frowned as she read the strange parchment which was discoloured by age but clearly in her own handwriting. "Neville won't know how to get back either, will he?" she said eventually. "We still need to find him."

"Ok. Suits me. I don't mind hanging round here – I mean now – for a while. So what's the plan, then?"

Hannah pointed round the doorway into the Great Hall. "I was going to talk to them," she said.

Ron followed her finger. "Is that Harry's dad?"

"Must be. He looks just like him, doesn't he?"

"So those are the Marauders."

"The what?"

"Never mind. That must be Sirius, he's the right height. He doesn't look like he did when I knew him at all. Azkaban really did destroy him."

"You knew Sirius Black? How?"

"Tell you later."

"I think he looks quite, um..." Hannah blushed.

Ron chuckled. "Yeah. Very good-looking. Handsome, I suppose. You want me to do the talking?"

"I'll be fine. He's not my type at all, actually."

Ron looked at Hannah then, trying to work things out. "Go on, then, tell me the secret. Who is your type?"

Hannah just blushed again. "I think we should get on with it. Professor Lupin looks quite similar to when he was teaching us – just a younger version, don't you think?"

"Why are you chasing after Nev?"

"Never you mind," Hannah muttered. "Can you work out which ones are his parents? I can't. That's who he's come here to find. Frank and Alice, but I don't even know what her surname would be."

Ron took his gaze from her face. He looked smug, though, as though he'd had his answer without her giving it. "None of the kids on the Gryffindor table look like Neville, do they? Not really."

"I thought that if I asked that lot where Frank Longbottom was, then we might find Neville with him."

"Worth a try. Hang on, Hufflepuff, you're wearing Gryffindor robes!"

"You're not. You should be." She pushed him back against the wall behind a suit of armour and transfigured his clothes.

As they were walking back towards the entrance to the Great Hall they heard a wave of laughter and rushed to the doorway. The boy who looked like a tall Harry was standing facing a petite redheaded girl. Something viscous and yellow dripped from his hair and everyone in the room seemed to be laughing at him. She looked furious, but then so did he. He was biting it back, attempting to salvage some dignity.

"I'll take that as a 'no' then, Evans," he said in voice which only wobbled slightly.

"I don't suppose you will," she snapped back, "you haven't managed to take any of my other refusals at face value."

The smell had reached them now; it was the stench of bad eggs. Harry's dad walked carefully back to his place at the table, where his friends were laughing as hard as everyone else in the room. The young woman who must have been destined to become Harry's mum stormed out of the Hall past Ron and Hannah.

They walked into the Great Hall as Remus Lupin cleaned up his friend with a few spells and then cleared the egg stench. Suddenly the Hall smelled just the same as it always had done for the first few years of their schooling. The post-battle Great Hall they had just left smelled completely different: smoke and blood.

Nobody took much notice of them until they stopped by the Gryffindor table and Hannah said nervously, "Um, excuse me."

The boys looked up. Sirius flashed them a dazzling smile and for a moment neither Hannah nor Ron could speak. It didn't escape Hannah's noticed that Ron was just as affected by Sirius' good looks as she was.

"Um, do you know where Frank Longbottom is, please?" she managed eventually.

"You don't want to waste your time with Frank, my dear. He's as dull as ditch-water. Why don't you come and sit here beside me?" Sirius shoved a chubby blond boy up the bench and then patted the space beside him. "You can explain to me why I've never noticed such a delectable little filly as you around the school before."

"I need to find Frank," she insisted.

"That's me," said a young man on the opposite side of the table.

She hadn't noticed him before and now that she did, her first impression was that he looked nothing like his son. As she looked closer, though, she could see it. There was something familiar about the arrangement of his features. In fact, that was the very same nose. She became aware that she was staring and also that he was staring right back at her.

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Ron couldn't stop staring either, but it was James Potter he was transfixed by. On the surface, he looked exactly like Harry. Ron had got used to adults telling Harry that he looked just like his father but with his mother's eyes, but it was completely different to see it in the flesh.

The scar was missing as well as the green eyes. In fact, the more Ron stared, the more superficial the similarities seemed. This boy was light-hearted and carefree, which Harry had never been allowed to be. He had got over his earlier anger in a heartbeat. There was amusement in his eyes – a twinkle like Fred's had been a few hours ago. That twisted Ron's belly, and that was when he noticed that James Potter was looking back at him equally intently.

Hannah moved round the table to talk to Neville's dad, even though Neville clearly wasn't with him. Most of the Gryffindors were watching her as James leaned towards Ron and whispered, "Sit down?"

Mesmerised, Ron sat beside the man wearing Harry's messy black hair and Fred's glint.

"You want to watch out," said the chubby blond boy, "James has got a thing for gingers."

"Shut up Peter."

Peter? Mid-sit Ron turned his attention to the boy sitting next to Sirius. Peter Pettigrew the traitor? He looked at his eyes and tried to see something of Scabbers in him.

"Not again," Sirius said, tearing his attention away from Hannah. "Evans is never going to take you seriously if you keep consoling yourself that way every time she knocks you back."

"I don't care!" James announced. "I've given up on her! I was perfectly polite this time. You all heard me. That's it, I'm not interested anymore."

His friends made disbelieving noises.

"She refuses to take me seriously. I've had it. I give up on women, they're too complicated and it's not worth it."

"Perhaps the reason she doesn't take you seriously is because every time she turns you down, you have a fling with a pretty boy," Sirius observed.

Ron looked back at James. Really? Well, that was one thing he certainly wouldn't be mentioning to Harry when he got back. It wasn't something he would want to know about his own father.

James was looking back at him. It was a strange look.

"No more girls. I told you. I don't care whether any of them take me seriously or not. I'm not interested in girls any more."

Ron felt a hand on his thigh. He was about to push it off and move away when James asked, "So, you sexy thing, why haven't I seen you around here before?"

Sexy? Really? Ron paused. He looked into James' deep blue eyes and he thought that what he could see might be desire and he knew he'd never seen that before. It was what he had been waiting for.