Don't worry, I didn't forget about this one. I ran into a small bit of a block as to how I wanted to wrap it up, because I think we're nearing the end of things within the next few chapters. This one's mostly Point A to Point B, but there's some fun chatter along the way.

Chapter Eleven: Time and Time Again

-DAPHNE-

Oh, come on, baby. Oh, come on, darling.
Let me steal this moment from you now.
Oh, come on, angel. Come on, come on, darling.
Let's exchange the experience, ooh.

O

In the several hours that it took to reach Nashville and reunite with the three missing members of their group, Daphne realized one or two things about herself.

First, she did not abide the cramped confines of a muggle van; crammed as she was between Terry and Tori (the name thing was really getting to her), she could at least appreciate that it was midwinter, meaning less sweaty bodies and more shared heat that was at least pleasant.

Still, it was a bit too close for comfort more often than not.

The second and more impactful realization, however, was that she had grown rather accustomed to Harry's presence. Embarrassing as it was to admit (and goodness, was it ever), Harry was…comforting to be around. Despite the fact that her life had only become a hundred times more exciting in some of the most dire of ways since falling in with him, something about Harry's bearing and calm demeanor in the face of all of the madness kept her quite at ease. Having only figured this out after spending nearly a full day in his absence, she was rather in a bit of a state and reacted somewhat emotionally to their reunion.

"Oh, there's the lot of them right-oof! Um…hey, Daphne. Miss me?"

It was only then that Daphne realized that she was hugging Harry, who after a glance at Hermione slowly gave her a bit of a squeeze back.

That was quite nice.

"I…um…" Daphne slowly extricated herself from the embrace, feeling her face heat up as she realized how very much she'd lost her composure there. Thankfully, Hermione offered her at least a way to diffuse some of the awkwardness by pulling her in for a hug as well.

"Missed us, then?" she asked, and Daphne shared a brief embrace with her while a pouting Mafalda flung herself at Harry next, a bit put out that she hadn't been the first hug.

"It's rare that I have to worry about my friends getting themselves hurt in a very real way," Daphne said. "The worst I ever fretted over with Tracey was that time she got herself singed by one of those foul skrewts of Professor Hagrid's."

"I suppose from an outsider's perspective, Harry's sort of danger can seem quite a bit much," Hermione acquiesced while Harry pried Mafalda away from him.

"I hope you're not…" Daphne trailed off, biting her lip as Hermione smiled at her.

"He's rather charming, isn't he?" she said with a look at Harry. "I have quite a bit of faith in him, though. And in you. Besides, goodness knows the boy could use more hugs. He's rather a bit touch-starved."

"I'll be happy to contribute my fill to the quota," Daphne said, snickering when she saw Tori now grabbing Harry in a hug. "If we can pry the others away."

"Oi, gerroff me, you madman!" Harry was now laughing as Terry went for a hug next.

"No, they all made it look so fun!"

…

"So, what's this about Gideon Graves being your cousin?" Daphne asked as they all sat for an early lunch at one of the many diners around Nashville's tourist center. While it was the off-season, the city was still bustling, and according to the adults, this was ideal—better to lose themselves in a crowd than attempt to hide.

"Actually, my first cousin twice removed," Harry pointed out. "His grandfather is my great-great -grandfather. Who also happens to be Grindelwald."

"That's a twist," Terry said. "Something right out of a soap opera, that is."

"Tell me about it," Harry said. "And we didn't even get a commercial break to put the kettle on and come to terms with it."

"Your great-great-grandfather was a bad guy?" Mafalda asked him, and Harry nodded. "But you're so nice!"

"Well, who your family is doesn't have to have anything to do with who you are," Harry told her. "Look who I was raised by. And I like to think I'm nothing like the Dursleys."

"Ew," Mafalda wrinkled her nose at the comparison.

"The real important bit is that he's after whatever's at the end of Ellis Locke's Mystery Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza," Sirius pointed out.

"We're not calling it that," Remus said flatly.

"I am," Harry insisted. "We're not entirely sure why he's after it, but there's most likely some sort of…robot army?"

"The book calls them automatons," Hermione said, holding up the book of conspiracies surrounding the enigmatic inventor, "but it's the same principle. He apparently has developed…well, it uses a lot of words to describe what muggles call artificial intelligence. Basically a mechanical being that can think in really complex patterns, comparable to a human. Even most charms or transfigurations can only manage some basic movements and behavior matrices."

"Like McGonagall's chessboard in first-year," Harry said, and Hermione nodded.

"Chess board…?" Daphne asked before waving her hand. "Never mind, I'll find out later."

"It was this massive chessboard that she transfigured to move on its own and play against someone hoping to move past it," Hermione said. "It was a complex bit of transfiguration, but outside of a chessboard, those pieces would have been useless. These robots are able to think, to react to innumerable different situations and commands. They could be extremely dangerous if found and utilized in…whatever Gideon has in mind."

"They could also just be a pile of rusty bolts by the time we get there," Terry pointed out.

"That's not really a risk we should take," Remus said. "We have the only means of accessing them. We can put a stop to this before anyone even knows it's a problem."

"The only thing is, Gideon's probably anticipating this," Dora said. "He's most likely setting up camp at the finish line, waiting to ambush us."

"What about your cloak?" Mafalda suggested, popping a French fry in her mouth. "The one that makes you invisible?"

"Not a bad idea," Harry said, glancing at Remus. "Gideon doesn't know about it. Whatever defenses he's got set up, we could probably just sneak right past them."

"We'll keep that in mind as a possibility," Remus said. "For now, let's focus on getting there. We can't rule out the possibility that Gideon or one of his ilk might try to jump us along the way and try to coerce Harry or Hermione's cooperation with a hostage situation."

"Which is why I wanted to go ahead and not put you lot in harm's – "

"Oh, hush," Daphne told Harry, swatting him in the elbow. "We're your friends, we're not leaving you to the wolves."

"Present company excluded," Sirius said with a wink at Remus, who only rolled his eyes.

"As always, your vote of confidence is heartwarming," he said.

"Should we get to it, then?" Terry asked. "Best get this taken care of sooner than later, yeah?"

"Well, first thing's first," Daphne spoke up. "We need another car."

"Agreed," Dora said. "We're not cramming this whole lot in that little van. And honestly, if we find ourselves in another chase, we might pop the engine. Might be time to put it out to pasture and rent a couple of those great big shuttle vans."

"Oh, I rode in one of those for a school trip once," Mafalda said. "The seats smelled weird."

"We'll have to make sure to get ones without weird-smelling seats, then, won't we?" Harry said, reaching out to ruffle Mafalda's hair. "Give it the sniff test."

Mafalda made a show of inhaling deeply through her nose, which Harry gently poked, causing her to squeal slightly.

"Don't damage it, or I won't be able to sniff properly!"

…

-HERMIONE-

I'll stop the world and melt with you.
You've seen the difference and it's getting better all the time.
There's nothing you and I won't do.
I'll stop the world and melt with you.

O

While the truck and its caravan had been a rental (which Sirius had already sorted out over the phone with a substantial wire payment made to the company), the Volkswagen van and its attached trailer had been an outright purchase made by Sirius for reasons beyond the rest's comprehension. Unwilling to part with his "piece of automotive history", he instead decided to shrink it down and pack it into a box with the intent to mail it off to Andromeda once they reached a magic post office.

Until then, the next leg of their journey would be made in a large black shuttle van rented from some company near the Nashville International Airport. It was quite spacious, able to comfortably seat fourteen people—and the seats did not smell weird, according to a thorough sniff test by Mafalda.

"Should we pick up a trailer as well?" Harry asked with a glance at Remus, who shook his head.

"We've a month before we need to be concerned about my furry problem again," he said. "Hopefully we'll have all this wrapped up by then and be able to get back to our trip with proper accommodations."

"Where will we sleep without a caravan?" Astoria asked as they all buckled in and set off.

"We had a couple tents packed away in the van," Sirius said. "Rather spacious on the inside. Actually, Harry, your father and I used to go camping in one of them, in the Forest of Dean."

"Oh, I've been camping there," Hermione said, smiling fondly at the memory. "With Mum and Dad. We always put up near Coppett Hill."

"We just apparated into the wilderness and put up a tent," Sirius shrugged. "Sometimes we'd turn into Prongs and Padfoot, go scare some locals."

"Naturally," Hermione muttered.

"Alright, Hermione, where's that way-finder telling us to go?" Remus asked, and Hermione dug around in her bag, producing her thrice-modified pocket watch. Still, the needle continued to point staunchly westward, wobbling a bit with her movement before settling.

"Just…westward," she said. "It's not the most specific navigational device."

"Then off we go," Remus said, glancing to Dora. "Shall we?"

"Alright, let's see what this beast can do," Dora said. Moments later, the engine rumbled to life, and they were off.

"So, what d'you suppose lies west of here?" Harry asked, dropping into a seat next to Hermione. Scooting closer, she nestled into his shoulder, drawing the book about Ellis Locke onto her lap. "Any theories?"

"A few," Hermione said, and she looked up to see him peering down at her with a knowing smile on his face. "Well, alright, several."

"What's the prevailing one?" he asked, and Hermione quite enjoyed the way she could hear his voice with her head against his neck.

"Well, there are numerous mentions in Ellis Locke's recovered journals and letters to Mary-Jane of projects he's working on," Hermione said. "Some of it's…rather intense stuff. He wasn't just building machines, he was attempting to design AI as I've said before, but there's also talk of time-travel. Mostly theoretical musings, his desire to tap deeper into the surface-level progress we've already made."

"Wait…time-travel is a thing wizards can do?" Harry asked, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Harry, it is," she said. "We can't really go back more than a few hours without some serious quantum damage and causal breakdown, and it's strictly prohibited to interfere with the past in any meaningful way, but there's a whole section of the Department of Mysteries devoted to studying time. They've…even been known sometimes to loan out a device called a Time-Turner to the occasional enterprising student so she can attend all of her classes."

"…Wait a minute," Harry spoke, realization dawning on his face. "That's why you were going spare all last year? You were using a Time-Turner to – "

"Yes, and I've since realized how…well, rather ill-advised it was, so we don't really need to get into it, alright?" Hermione said, pouting very slightly up at him. It was Harry's turn to roll his eyes with an exasperated little sound.

"Well, if you've realized the error of your ways, I suppose there's no point hounding you over it," he said.

"At least we eventually reconciled," Hermione said.

"And then some," Harry chuckled, leaning in to press a small kiss to her lips. "So, the prevailing theory?"

"Oh, right, right," Hermione said. "Many think, and I agree, that there actually is some secret workshop of Ellis Locke's at the end of this, but one that puts what we saw in Lockesburgh to shame. This was his personal hideaway, where he worked on the things he alluded to in his letters, his passion projects and not just government contracts. It's probably big, complex, locked up tight, and very dangerous to someone trying to break in."

"And we have what might be the only functioning key," Harry added.

"I'm almost certain we do," Hermione said, tapping the book. "This was only published about a year or two ago, and there's no mention of the amphitheater outside of an offhand mention of Ellis Locke enjoying the occasional show there."

"Any thoughts where this secret base actually might be?" Harry asked, and Hermione hummed thoughtfully.

"I have a feeling it's somewhere rather innocuous," she said. "He wouldn't want anyone jumping straight to the end without even finding the watch or anything. If he made it somewhere significant to him, there would have been a real risk of that. So he made sure people would have opportunities to learn and use their knowledge of his past to help them find the way, but not to skip over the search."

"Wouldn't want to ruin the ride, after all," Harry observed, and Hermione grinned.

"A little anticipation never hurt anyone," she said.

…

"Sure you're alright to drive, Moony?" Sirius's voice spoke, and Hermione felt a vague sense of awareness returning to her. Had she dozed off? Well, she mused, nestling into Harry's chest, she was quite comfortable. The sun had gone down during her nap, and the interior of the van was dark save for the small bit of light coming off the dashboard. Outside, Tennessee sprawled around them, covered with a fine dusting of snow that was currently lit up by the light of a waning moon. Mafalda was snoozing across the aisle, while the other three had apparently gotten bored of Road Bingo and were also having a nap.

It seemed Dora was doing the same up front, leaving the two Marauders the only others awake.

"I'm fit, Padfoot, don't you worry," Remus insisted. "Driving's actually nice. Gives me something to focus on."

"…Can I ask you something?" Sirius wondered.

"Well, you just have," Remus told him, and Sirius scoffed.

"Alright, I walked into that one," he said. He was silent for a moment before a small sigh sounded from him. "Remus…why did you never check up on Harry? Never wrote him or…tried to keep in touch?"

For a long moment, there was only silence, and Hermione held quite still, pretending to be asleep. The only other sound was the steady hum of the van as it sped along through the night.

"Of course I thought about it," Remus finally spoke. "I felt it was only right, the last Marauder checking in on the child of a fallen brother and all that. I even brought it up to Dumbledore once, wrote him a letter asking if he could deliver something to Harry. But Dumbledore said it was best not to disrupt Harry's life, to let him grow up…normal."

"Old bastard," Sirius muttered. "But…surely you could have found some other way."

"Part of me yearned to," Remus went on in pained tones. "To…say dash Dumbledore's wishes and just track him down using my own channels. But I owed him so much. He gave me a chance at a normal education, gave me…you lot. And what could I do for Harry? I was…I am…dangerous. He couldn't live with me. He couldn't even visit, given how unstable my living situation was. I was…ashamed. A coward."

"Remy…"

"It was easier…it's always…easier, to simply isolate myself, to not dare to wish or hope that I could have something resembling normalcy," Remus went on. "To have anything was to have to imagine losing it, and I had already lost so much. I guess in a way I failed Harry, but…that's going around, isn't it?"

"…You know, I could have easily escaped Azkaban years ago," Sirius sighed. "Gone on the run, looked after Harry from afar or even made some effort at clearing my name. But I was…despondent. James was gone, Lily was gone, Peter—got away with it. Everyone thought I betrayed them, that I murdered all those muggles. Like you, it was easier to give up and throw in the towel. When I finally escaped, all I wanted was revenge. If I'd put that aside, if I'd spent ten bloody minutes and just followed Harry home as a friendly stray, I would have seen what those Dursleys were doing to him, could have done something. But I let myself get swept up."

He was quiet for a moment, and Hermione glanced up, stifling a gasp when she saw Harry's eyes open and gleaming in the darkness. How long had he been listening?

"So, if you failed Harry, so did I, I suppose," Sirius concluded.

"Well…I suppose we'll simply have to do better from here on out," Remus said. "Once we sort out this situation with Gideon."

"D'you think he's telling the truth about it all?" Sirius asked. "That he and Harry are both related to Grindelwald?"

"Whether he is or not seems entirely irrelevant," Remus said. "Harry is who he is, and nothing about that has changed. I believe it's simply Gideon hoping to establish some level of connection with Harry and coerce his cooperation in whatever scheme he's going on. And it's our duty as Marauders to keep him safe, no matter what."

"Yeah," Sirius said, sounding emboldened. "Maybe we didn't do so well in the past, but we're here now, aren't we? And he's…happy. Happier than I've ever seen him."

"I do believe Hermione's playing a substantial part in that," Remus chuckled, and Hermione felt her face heat up as Harry planted a small kiss against her hair.

That felt quite nice.

"Potter boys have a type," Sirius said sagely. "Smart, vivacious, willing to kick 'em in the arse."

Harry grinned ruefully down at Hermione at that remark, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Petrol station," Sirius finally observed. "How're we looking?"

"Definitely in need of a fill-up," Remus said. "I bet some of this lot could do for a loo break as well."

Minutes later, they were pulling into a 7-11, and a sleepy troupe of teenagers and preteens ambled toward the convenience store in varying states of wakefulness. Mafalda climbed onto Harry's back and had to be coaxed down to use the loo, and Daphne beelined straight for the cappuccino machine after emerging from restrooms. Hermione joined her, though she settled for hot cocoa.

"Feels surreal, doesn't it?" Daphne asked while the machine whirred away and dispensed their drinks. "Dire magical battles and secret hidden treasures, yet here we are at a 7-11, gassing up and buying cheap coffee."

"And slushies," Hermione muttered with a sidelong look at where Harry and Terry had commandeered the slushy machine. "In the middle of February, honestly."

"D'you think it's going to be quite dangerous?" Daphne asked. "When we get there?"

"Gideon seems to have some sentimental attachment to Harry," Hermione said. Nearby, Mafalda ambled up and sleepily leaned against her while reaching for some coffee, but Hermione batted her hand away. "You'll stunt your growth. I'm not sure how far his sentimentality extends, but he was very willing to attack him to get the way-finder. What—Mafalda, what are you doing?"

"Piggybaaack," Mafalda whined, attempting to clamber up Hermione.

"You rotten little girl," Hermione sighed, reaching to help her climb up and settle in place. At least she was light. Daphne watched with apparent amusement, sipping at her coffee and quirking an eyebrow.

"Both you and Harry with that girl," she said. "You're all just so precious."

"Well, she's a bit rough around the edges, but I suppose I'll keep her," Hermione sighed theatrically, and Mafalda let a sleepy huff into her ear.

"Always so cruel to me," she whined.

"Yes, giving you piggyback rides and stopping you from drinking gross coffee," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes. "Unaccountably cruel."

"At least you understand," Mafalda said.

…

As they passed from Tennessee into Arkansas (crossing over the "mighty" Mississippi River and marveling at the glittering water), Hermione kept one eye on the way-finder and the other poring over the pages of Ellis Locke's biography. There was one last place of relative significance to the enigmatic inventor.

"High Lackland Air Force Base," Hermione said when Harry peered over her shoulder.

"The military?" Harry asked. "Did Ellis Locke serve?"

"No, but a very good friend of his did," Hermione said. "Henry McCabe. During the Westlands Civil War."

"They had a civil war?" Harry asked, and Hermione nodded grimly.

"A messy one, at that," she said. "In 1915, they got into a huge fight over the Freedom of Magical Beings Act of 1912, which prohibited the subjugation of any magical being with sentient intelligence, including elves, goblins, and trolls."

"Trolls?" Harry asked. "Trolls are sentient?"

"On a base level, yes," Hermione said. "They can be reasoned with and taught, so…they get classified as sentient. But Lonestar and the Gulf, their economy leaned heavily on the subjugation and enslavement of 'lesser beings', so to speak, and they rather took issue with the Freedom of Magical Beings Act."

"Enough to start a war over it," Harry said. "And Henry McCabe served during it?"

"He was conscripted to serve Lonestar," Hermione told him. "And a magical conscription is…well, rather similar to the Goblet of Fire's binding magical contract. It's a horrible thing to try to get out of."

"What happened to him?" Harry asked with a bleak expression.

"He…died," Hermione said. "During the Battle of Fort Nestor. He was one of dozens of casualties of that battle alone. Ellis Locke was despondent over it."

She turned several chapters over in the book, to where a transcription of a journal entry from Ellis Locke had been printed:

March 15, 1916

I am broken. Grief gnaws at me, pitting and hollowing my very being. My worst fears have come to pass, inevitable and inexorable as the setting of the sun, bringing darkness to the whole of my life.

Henry is gone. Absolutely and unequivocally, never to return, he has been taken. He did not march bravely to his demise, did not defend a cause noble and irrefutable—his was a death pointless, preventable, and indefensible. Men in offices, men in suits, decided for him that his life was worth their money, that they could rest on feather mattresses knowing he slept muddied in a trench. To them, he was a number on a page, a weight on a scale that was yet not enough tipped in their favor.

War monetizes lives, prices the priceless and then sells them for that cost, paid in bullet and blood. Henry will never again return home, will not know love, fatherhood, the rigors and trials of a life truly lived. And the men in their offices who sold him for a pittance without ever knowing his name, sleep again on feathers and down, in sheets of cotton and silk.

And what can I do?

I suppose we shall see.

"He had a way with words," Harry said, glancing up from the page. "And a real issue with politics."

"By the end of the war, the loss of life was…bad," Hermione said. "Ellis Locke devoted himself to his research on automatons, artificial intelligence, anything he could do to ensure that the next war would be fought by machines and not men."

"D'you think he was digging at time-travel intending to go back and change things?" Harry asked. "So Henry McCabe didn't die?"

"…Perhaps," Hermione hummed thoughtfully. "But that would be exceedingly dangerous. The fact is, wizards don't yet really understand time-travel and how it works. Some say it's a linear flow and not to be messed with, others posit the many-worlds theory as evidence that we could create stable branching timelines that run parallel with each other. There are a few that believe time exists outside of our capacity to even understand it, that it's a massive intertwining ball of four-dimensional…stuff, with rules that rewrite themselves the longer you look at it."

"And yet all three could be true at the same time," Harry said. Hermione favored him with a warm smile.

"Exactly," she said. "But I think…maybe Ellis Locke figured something out. He disappeared so suddenly, without a word, but he left a trail behind him just in case. I think he knew that what he was digging into had the potential to go quite badly, and he wanted to make sure that his research lived on, that someone that knew him and understood him and even sympathized with him would find it and put it to good use, for the right reasons."

"So what does High Lackland Air Force Base have to do with it?" Harry asked.

"It's the base where Henry McCabe went through basic training, back when it was the Palmer Military Complex," Hermione said. "It was bombed during the war, but it was rebuilt as a floating base above San Antonio, and there's a memorial museum there now as well. It's a popular tourist spot all year round due to the warm climate."

"Is Henry buried there or something?" Harry asked, and Hermione shook her head.

"No, no there are no floating graveyards in the Questlands," she said. "That would be somewhat macabre, I should think."

"Too right," Harry said wryly.

"There was actually no body with Henry," Hermione went on with a sad frown. "Dragon attack. He was…well, vaporized. But Ellis built him a little memorial statue at the museum, and that's what I'd like to go and see."

"What d'you suppose are the chances Gideon Graves will be there waiting for us?" Harry asked. Hermione let a small and annoyed huff in response.

"Rather high," she admitted. "That man is ruining a perfectly good treasure hunt with his megalomaniacal agenda."

"How rude of him," Harry said. "We'll just have to be on our guard, I suppose."

"And if we see Gideon, we punch him in the nose," Mafalda added from across the aisle. With a firm nod, Harry gestured to the smaller girl.

"See, Mafalda's got a whole plan."

000

-SIRIUS-

It's the same old theme, since nineteen-sixteen.
In your head, in your head, they're still fighting.
With their tanks and their bombs, and their bombs and their guns,
In your head, in your head, they are dying!

O

If Gideon was in San Antonio, Texas, he wasn't making it obvious. Not that hiding was a concern to anyone looking to lose himself in the massive city; San Antonio boasted a population of well over a million people, and while it wasn't as dense as New York City, the sprawling streets were certainly easy to disappear into.

"So, where is this floating military base?" Daphne asked as they rolled through the streets of the city. Hermione was alternately consulting her way-finding thingy and a map of San Antonio, her brow puckered in concentration.

"The floating base is accessible only through the Floo Gate station near the muggle Lackland Air Force Base," she said. "I guess it's easier for them to track visitors and maintain security."

"I think I'd be a bit disappointed if it was easy enough to just pop into a military base," Dora said.

"Too right," Terry agreed.

They parked in a sizable lot near the San Antonio Floo Gate Station, which resembled little more than a rather standard muggle train station, albeit one unconnected to any sort of railway. According to Hermione (their unofficial tour guide), the place boasted a number of muggle-repellent charms and looked like an oppressively boring office complex to them.

"What if someone happens to like oppressively boring office complexes?" Harry asked as they disembarked the van.

"They're very likely obliviated and sent on their way," Hermione said with a shrug. "No fuss, unless they somehow manage to blend in long enough to wander into a Floo gate."

"And then what?" Terry asked.

"Eventually, I assume they're discovered, obliviated and sent on their way," Hermione reiterated with a snicker. "Perhaps with a memory of getting lost to cover the gap."

"You just have all the answers, don't you?" Daphne observed, grinning at Hermione, who rolled her eyes.

"I have several answers, and I extrapolate more based on known information and conjecture grounded in an understanding of – "

"Oi, that bird look familiar to you lot?" Terry's voice overrode Hermione, who looked mildly affronted at the interruption before following his pointing hand and gasping.

"That's Birdman!" she blurted. Sirius's eyes shot up to follow her gaze to where a large and ugly-looking black buzzard of sorts had alighted on a nearby railing at the edge of the parking lot. Beady red eyes fixed on the group, it sat and watched them contemplatively. Unconsciously, Sirius reached out and placed a hand on Harry's shoulder; the strange bird had thus far been a helpful presence, but that didn't rule out ulterior motives.

"Hello there," Remus said, ever the diplomat. Luckily, there was no one else about at the moment to see them chatting with a carrion bird. "How are you?"

The bird seemed especially intrigued at Remus's presence, though Sirius noted that his gaze lingered on him as well. Just as he was about to ask if he had something on his face, Sirius saw the bird hop from the railing and glide to the pavement before them. Scuttling forward on its talons, the bird hunched its wings up, its form shifting and growing in a manner rather familiar to Sirius. He had certainly seen enough animagus transformations in his time to recognize one.

He also, horribly, recognized the human that eventually coalesced, clad in jeans, a jumper, and a black duster. Smoothing out his coat, Peter Pettigrew fixed his fellow two Marauders with a hesitant smile.

"Moony," he said. "Brushtail."

Suddenly and with an intensity that shocked even him, a snarl of rage twisted through Sirius's head, and he lunged forward before he'd even time to think. Luckily, Moony was there, sticking an arm out and holding him back from strangling Pettigrew, who seemed unsurprised and somewhat resigned at his reaction.

"Peter Pettigrew?" Harry asked, joining in Remus's efforts to restrain Sirius. "But you're…"

"Rather young, aren't I?" Peter agreed, and Sirius then noticed that he did look rather fresh-faced, not too much older than he'd been right after leaving Hogwarts. He'd dropped a bit of weight, as well, missing the paunch that Sirius had come to associate with his friend. The face was one long familiar, though, framed by his nondescript brown hair that he'd evidently taken to keeping long.

It was certainly Peter Pettigrew. But only sort of.

"Are you from the past?" Hermione asked. Pettigrew regarded her with pensive expression.

"I…am, sort of," he said.

"But you turn into a rat," Harry pointed out. He had one arm still held out, ready to restrain Sirius (or attempt to, at least) should he decide to renew his strangulation efforts. "Not a vulture."

"Well, that's where 'sort of' comes into play," Pettigrew said.

"You're from an alternate timeline," Hermione whispered, her voice awed.

"Right again," Pettigrew said with a smile. "And I need your help to try to get back to mine."

How about that?

This is a very different Pettigrew, you'll come to find out.

Feedback is always appreciated.