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Chapter 13: Late Nights and Time Keeping

'How did you know what had happened?' Harry asked when they had all sat down around the fire, each nestled in deep, warm armchairs.

'Pure luck, all of it.' Remus said, smiling. 'Dora and I came to at night-time, very close to each other at that. Everything silent of course, nothing out of place—we were both really rather confused because the castle was hardly how we left it. So we wandered around for a little while until Dora thought there might have been some sort of ceasefire, and the only place we thought the Order might be after looking in the Great Hall—also completely empty, of course—was here.'

'Not a soul in here, either,' Tonks continued. 'But it had a radio so we started listening and can you imagine what we felt like when it was playing adverts for things like self-trimming candles and not talking about the entire bloody war going on? We thought it must be a trick from You-Know-Who, to stop people coming to fight or something, and then in comes Fred—'

Fred rose to the occasion. 'I said bloody hell, Tonks, I could have sworn you caught a killing curse back there, and then I told Remus it was a pretty poor time to take a nap because I'd seen him lying outside the Charms classroom when I was duelling Dolohov and I would have bet on it that he looked done for.'

'They were both dead,' Harry said, and swallowed against his dry throat. A beat of silence followed their eyes around the room, wherever they had tried to look to escape it.

'How did you all find each other?' McGonagall asked. She was the only one who seemed to ignore the quiet and stared pragmatically at each of them in turn. Harry saw even Remus avert his eyes nervously. McGonagall looked especially at Lavender.

'I was the last,' she said in answer. 'I didn't come much after Fred though. I went through all the secret passages I could think of—I thought they were all little Death Eaters or something. And I didn't want to be seen because I'd stand out so much, what with their all wearing uniforms and me … well …'

'But how did you know?' Harry asked again, 'if the radio wasn't playing anything?'

'Kingsley's speech,' Fred said promptly. 'Talking about people looking like dead people coming back to life—I mean it wasn't had to fill in the gaps from there. Especially after the last thing I remember was a great bloody explosion and bits of castle flying everywhere.'

Ginny lowered her face to her hand and massaged the bridge of her nose between two fingers. She was taking several deep breaths, as she did when Al became obsessed with learning how to be a Parselmouth at the age of eight.

'We thought Tonks could go out and try to get information, you know, pretend to be a student.' Fred carried on, oblivious. 'Amazing room, made her a brand new Hufflepuff uniform each time.'

'And I went too, so Tonks didn't have to do it all the time.' Lavender said.

'You've got some strong blood there, Harry,' Tonks said, grinning, 'I knew as soon as I saw him, that he was your kid. Gets just as suspicious too—I'm glad you've found us because he's started to run away from anyone in a Hufflepuff uniform.'

'And the other one, uh, James?' Lavender said, continuing when Harry and Ginny nodded absently. 'I—sort of—camped out by the Great Hall at mealtimes to ask him about it. But I'm not sure I believe some of what he's been saying …'

'Sounds right,' said Harry while rubbing his face and shaking his head. 'He did say in his letter—oh!'

Harry looked at Ginny, and her head shot up to look at him. After a moment they started laughing in large huffs, Ginny clutching Harry's forearm for support.

'Er—' said Fred from somewhere nearby.

'Both of them wrote to us about it,' said Ginny.

'We only read them today, the letters—we just didn't think it would actually be—oh my god,' The thought jolted through Harry's mind and lodged there. They had met his children …

They stopped laughing quickly but Harry felt his cheeks quirk up involuntarily every now and then as they continued.

'I just can't believe it,' Ginny said. 'You're here, and you're all so young … I forget sometimes, how young we were.'

Harry nodded. His heart stopped at the thought of his children fighting a Dark Lord at the age he had. James would be just about off to face a colony of Acromantulas, if he followed in Harry's footsteps. An involuntary anger grew within him, old and gnarled, as he thought of all the adults who should have protected him from doing such things.

But it withered when he glanced over McGonagall's drawn face, and then died when his gaze rested on Remus, who stared back. He looked weary … a sadness in him that Harry struggled to remember not being present. Perhaps he, too, was thinking about how much he would have liked to protect Harry when he was younger. Or how much he wished he was there to protect Teddy.

'You must stay in here, for now.' McGonagall said, staring into the fire. 'The Room provides for you, after all … and there is no safer place than Hogwarts school.'

'I agree,' Harry said. 'You'll only be kept in a cell of some kind. Separated. That's where the others are stuck, until we can get this moving and prove it all.'

'You remind me,' McGonagall said, 'I will send a letter to Mrs Weasley, to give her permission to use the full extent of the Hogwarts library for her research.'

'She'll be thrilled,' Ginny said drily.

Then Fred shouted. 'Excuse me! There's more of us? Do we know them?'

All four stared between Harry, Ginny and McGonagall. Harry squirmed.

'Harry,' said Tonks as her eyes narrowed. Harry thought briefly about how she might want her job back, now.

'We had Marlene McKinnon and Fabian Prewett come back together, at the Ministry,' he said, to a shuddering gasp from McGonagall. Remus' head bowed in shock, and Tonks rested a hand on his shoulder.

'There was Scrimgeour, too—you know, the old Minister that was killed.'

'You mean the one that died less than a year ago,' Fred said smartly. Ginny glared at him.

'But, well,' Harry steeled himself, 'before that we had Sirius. And—Dumbledore.'

He stared at his knees, but he felt the eyes upon him all the same. Tonks swore softly, and Fred rather loudly. Lavender shook her head over and over again. Later, Harry would find it quite amusing, how these dead people were so shocked at other dead people being alive.

'You're keeping Dumbledore in a cell.' Fred said suddenly. Harry heard the grin on his lips before he looked up and saw it.

'Oh, Fred,' said Ginny, shaking her head.

'I can't believe it … Dumbledore … and Sirius.' Remus' hands covered his mouth and his eyes shone. Tonks was frozen next to him, staring over his shoulder.

'Believe me,' Harry said, 'I know.'

Everyone began talking at once, all with an air of disbelief. There was a dreaminess to the conversations that was not entirely the fault of the warmth of the fire or the windowless walls. Time stood still in the Room of Requirement, though it would have stood still anywhere else too. Harry watched Lavender talk with an increasingly emotional McGonagall clinging to her arm … watched himself talk with Remus and Tonks as they asked more and more about their son … watched Ginny be pulled aside by a serious Fred, asking about his twin.

The Christmas just gone, Harry had felt so very complete. He had sat with his family around him, painstakingly built by hours of friendship and shared hardship, constructed over the decades with both chosen and unconditional love. And somehow, in this room, he found he was more complete than ever before.

Harry returned to work the next day both brighter and heavier. He was tired from the taxing reunions and late-night conversation with Ginny, but overjoyed they had reason to happen at all. But he felt the familiar foreboding that a long, steep road was ahead of him and he could not tell how long, nor how steep it would be.

As usual, the Auror office was heaving. The thing about the Aurors was that they weren't the only ones who covered a case—there was Hit Wizards and Witches waiting to be sent out for minor offences, Accidental Magical Reversal Squad members reporting back on suspicious circumstances … and, apparently, the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office loitering on the waiting stools which had seen better days.

'I just can't quite see the point,' Mr Weasley was saying with an intense look on his face. 'Surely they could simply burn the bread on the fireplace? With a rack of some kind, perhaps?'

Rupert was slack-jawed. Harry knew how he felt; even after all his years in the magical world the ignorance of his older superiors still struck him. Unfortunately, Mr Weasley had somehow discovered Rupert was muggle-born. Harry suspected it was something to do with the Tottenham football scarf pinned to the side of his cubicle.

'Most muggles don't really have open fireplaces …' he said weakly. He only saw Harry approaching when he cringed at Mr Weasley's aghast expression.

Following Rupert's eyes, Mr Weasley spotted Harry too with a large smile. He clapped Harry on the shoulder and said 'Harry!' with glee.

Harry was not as happy to see his father-in-law as Mr Weasley was to see him. Flashes of Fred stormed through his mind, and his stomach dropped as he saw similarities between father and son. Harry imagined losing James, Al or Lily, but he simply couldn't. And at that, he was unsure how open he would be to the idea of someone actively keeping them from him like he was doing with Fred.

What if they got some back but lost others because of it?

'—something we found,' Mr Weasley was saying. 'Simple enough raid of course, quite routine, only in Bromley—flat above a closed down Muggle shop and a children's home I think. The lads brought it back and I'm glad they did because it's got some rather nasty spellwork on it.'

He looked at Harry expectantly, and he saw they had been moving towards his office. Mumbling, Harry wrenched open the door and crossed the threshold quickly. He eyed the growing pile of parchment on the corner of his desk with the feeling of dread thumping to the bottom of his stomach.

Mr Weasley sat on the old sofa; a cast off from the staffroom. He removed a lumpy cushion from beneath him with a small smile which Harry didn't think he was meant to see. He tapped the teapot on the filing cabinet next to the door, warming the tea within.

'Here,' said Mr Weasley, withdrawing from his pocket a wooden box. He placed it on the table between them; Harry on the green chair usually reserved for visitors on the wrong side of his desk.

'What is it?' He asked. Mr Weasley simply opened the lid.

Expecting something ghoulish or rancid, Harry was taken aback to see a relatively small alarm clock. Even more strange was its Muggle nature—it was electric. the batteries were still in, and the time flashed back at Harry in bright green. He frowned.

'Alarm clock? An electric one?'

'Yes. That's what was so confusing to the team. They usually ignore anything of the sort, and with how Muggles are these days there are more artefacts in their homes with electric than without.'

Harry still considered his Christmas-time rudimentary explanation of electricity to Mr Weasley his crowning achievement of the year 2005. It was also the year James was born.

'Was it a Muggle home? The flat?'

'Well, it was, but not anymore. We're certain some dark wizards have been holed up in it for some time.'

'And the spellwork?'

Mr Weasley scrubbed at his glasses. 'That's the tricky bit. It's heavy with all sorts of compulsion charms, privacy charms, the odd hex and repellent. An odd little piece of warding against any older people getting a hold of it, too.'

'But it's battery powered …' Harry murmured, still staring. He moved closer.

'Don't touch it, of course,' Mr Weasley said hurriedly. 'But yes, yes … it was the electricity that had us stumped. For that amount of magic and for the clock to still work …'

'It's got to be a powerful wizard. Or at least, quite clever.'

'Exactly.' He halted and seemed worried which made Harry uneasy. Mr Weasley was never without a smile. 'The magic … it's very dark, some of it. And, you know, dark magic—requires a lot of intent. We also found some traces of the Doubling Charm.'

'There's more of them out there, with the same spells? You think?'

'Almost definitely. You don't go through all that trouble just to get another Muggle clock. They're being used for something, but blast if I know what for.'

Harry turned the idea over in his head. Somebody was taking Muggle clocks, cursing them to oblivion, and yet was still managing to make them function with multiple spells running through them. Briefly, he considered this being something to do with Sirius, Fred, Marlene, the rest … perhaps they had been summoned through time? Then his mind drifted onto the thought of all the different years they had come from, and how they looked good as new without a scratch on them. The dead coming back to life was impossible but even more so was time travel to that extent.

He doubted it was all an after-effect of a few cursed clocks.

'We'll look into it,' Harry said firmly. 'And find more of the same thing, too. Or rule out there being more at the very least.'

Mr Weasley looked grateful. They spoke a little more, and when he left jovially waving back at the other end of the corridor, Harry waved back, trying to wave away the guilt of keeping Fred from him.

AN: Hi everyone—sorry for the delay. Gleefully quit my job the other day so as you can imagine I've been sorting out lots of life stuff. I should be back on my fortnightly uploads now—next update scheduled for 17th November. But—the plot thickens! Some actual plot! Please let me know what you think; I am not overly happy with my writing this chapter but glad things are moving.