Thanks a lot to PeridotPi(ffnet) who helped with the first draft of this chap some years ago, and to reallybeth, my reliable beta who is helping me with this story now as well.
When James Potter rushed like a wild stag into the living room, Hugo had no other option but to follow his cousin. James was a box full of surprises and when left to his own devices, he had even fewer senses than usual. Besides, Hugo was curious about what he had come up with this time.
"Come on! It has to be Norway!" Fred proclaimed as loud as he could.
Fred Weasley was Hugo's cousin as well. He was about the same age as James, which was around four years older than Hugo. Fred was perhaps a tad shorter, though he had a stronger build and dusky tone to his skin that James certainly lacked.
James appeared to be impatient as he glanced around the living room. Aside from their grandmother, who was going about making lunch in the kitchen, they seemed to be alone. All of Hugo's other cousins were outside greeting each other and Hugo expected a game of Quidditch to be organised any moment now. Which made him wonder — not for the first time — why in Merlin's baggy pants had James dragged Fred inside?
With an amused grin, James turned to Fred, "You're nuts! I would put my money on France over Norway any day of the week."
The three boys were at their grandparents' home. It was a house with several floors where each one was placed precariously on top of the one below. Despite the outlandish design choices, the old construction rose sturdy and unchallenged in a landscape of greenish countryside. The furniture inside was every bit as old, though undeniably cosy. An odd assortment of patched couches and battered chairs dominated the living room, all of them more comfortable than they appeared. They were surrounded by family photos, aged trinkets and practical magical objects that had been part of Hugo's best memories ever since he could remember. Everybody called that house The Burrow, and it was usual to see people coming in and out of it at all times. Even more so during holidays or at eating hours.
"Are you kidding me? France is a joke. It hasn't been a serious contender since before Hugo was born," argued Fred.
Hugo wasn't as good at playing Quidditch as some of his cousins, but he knew his stats better than them. How could he not when he spent so much time near his sister?
"France formed a good team this year," Hugo reminded them, "Bellard and Phaneuf made a solid defence."
"You and I have a different concept of solid. Ireland crushed them in the quarter-finals," replied Fred.
"It's not the defence's fault that they don't have a good seeker," the younger boy argued back, "They couldn't keep holding up forever!"
"They were lucky to reach the quarter-finals, if you ask me. France is not a solid team, Hugo. You should stop listening to Louis. He knows a lot of things, but in Quidditch he's as thick as a troll."
Hugo Weasley snorted. Their cousin Louis had cheered for France because he had obvious strong ties to the country. Hugo had his own reasons to support the team, and those were objective reasons. In his opinion, a team didn't need to win to prove they'd done well.
James led them to the stairs, "It's still better than Norway, though."
A loud laugh came out of Fred as he patted James on the back. "You're delusional."
"Sorry, James, but I'm with Fred on this one. Between Brazil and Norway, I can't see Brazil winning. Rosdahl always scores over 80 points just with his own hands!" said Hugo as they continued walking upstairs.
"Aww! Not you too!" said James. Fred was grinning.
Hugo shrugged. It was true that Brazil had done better in the last tournament, but Norway had formed an impressive team based on younger talent since then. It would greatly surprise Hugo if Brazil went home with the cup.
With a begrudging huff, James continued on his way up. The skinny boy had dark messy hair, which was kind of a family trait. For the last two years, he'd been wearing a pair of round shaped glasses as well. He didn't need them that much but the boy had grown oddly fond of them.
Once they all reached the top floor of the old creaky house, they ran into the last bedroom there.
If it weren't for the beds, one could say the room was empty. The wall was covered with old orange wallpaper that had faded almost to whiteness and was peeling off at some parts. There was no nightstand and the shabby chest of drawers didn't have anything other than forgotten boxes with dust-covered games. The room was there only for an occasional night of sleep, as Hugo was very much aware.
"Why did you bring us here? Everyone is outside. If we make her wait for too long, Rose will start forming the Quidditch teams without us."
Because they were on summer holiday, it was a common thing for all the cousins to gather up in one place to play Quidditch and catch up. Having the most suitable field, the Potters' house was a common destination. However, today they'd all agreed to spend the day at the Burrow. In the evening, Hugo was expecting the whole pack to be there for the last family dinner before Saturday's trip. Friday, of course, was going to be all about preparations.
"It'll be only a moment. And your sister would be nuts to start a game without the best player at Hogwarts," James said, sporting a grin that made him look utterly full of himself.
"Best player at Hogwarts? I didn't know you had invited Meredith Fenwick over," teased Fred.
James almost knocked him to the floor with a swing of his backpack, which was obviously heavy. "I meant me, you git. I didn't get named Quidditch captain for nothing."
"Woah! What do you have there? Hagrid's rock cakes?" asked Fred, pointing at James' backpack.
"Glad you asked," said James as he took off the backpack. Fred and Hugo scooted closer to their cousin and watched him pull a weird and thick book out of it. The old book was lined in blue leather, and had golden runes written over the top. A weird drawing that was supposed to be featured in the middle had been worn out by the years.
"A book? Really?" asked Fred, suspiciously.
"Oh, shut up. I reckon you'll like it."
"Let me doubt that. When you said you had something brilliant to show us, I thought that you meant a more Quidditch-ish thing. We could be playing right now, or talking about the upcoming game! How often do we get to see a World Cup final?"
"Every four years."
"It was a rhetorical question, Hugo."
Hugo was overly eager for that game as well, and he couldn't believe the seats they got. Having famous parents certainly had its advantages. Still, James didn't look as if he was going to drop whatever he was planning.
Playing the part of the host, James made wide arm gestures, as if he was presenting the most awaited of surprises. Then, as slowly as he could manage, he opened the book.
Once he was finally able to get a look inside, Hugo saw that the book was packed with strange drawings and scribbles that were difficult to understand. The blasted thing wasn't even written in English. Hugo and Fred exchanged a look before turning to their cousin as if asking what they were supposed to be seeing.
"Is that a man or a bear?" asked Hugo about a certain drawing, confused. "Where did you get this?"
"Grimmauld Place's library," answered James, looking proud of himself.
"And what were you doing in a library?"
"Very funny, Fred. I was cleaning, of course. Mum wanted us to help Kreacher put the place in order. That house-elf is ancient, you know."
"Why clean that old place? Isn't creepiness part of its charm?"
"Dad says we need to use the place more often." James shrugged, "To me, it felt as if Mum just wanted to keep us busy over the summer."
Hugo continued checking out the book. Here and there, he found annotations referring to wand movements and time windows — whatever those were. It was obvious that he still couldn't see what James wanted them to get excited about.
"And this book is awesome because...?"
With a thud, James let his hand fall on the book then started flipping through the pages, "Look at this!" he announced once he stopped.
The heavy book was now opened over the nearest bed and on the left side of the text there was a drawing of a man looking at himself through a flying window. The text was again in some foreign language, but there were more annotations written over the instructions on the next page.
"'To see the past into the future'," Hugo read out quietly. "And what does that mean?" he asked, baffled. The words sounded out of place.
"Well, here is a window," James pointed at the drawing. "And based on that phrase, I was thinking that maybe we could see something... Something that has already happened," he proposed, crossing his arms over his chest. A huge grin was plastered across his face.
Hugo was getting a bad feeling about all of this.
"And how did you find this page among all the other pages and books there?" asked Fred, looking a little more interested.
"The book kind of fell on my head. And it opened to this page."
Fred chuckled.
In a quick movement, James smacked him on the shoulder. "Oi!"
"Focus! Don't you want to use this? We need to do it quickly, Grandma could be calling for us any moment now. Or worse, Rose could come over."
"But what would you want to see? Where you left your socks at?"
"Guys," Hugo interrupted, "I'm not sure about this. Casting a spell that has most of its explanation in some old language that we can't even understand is a big red flag. You know Mum gave a speech about Time not being a toy last year."
"Hugo, Hugo, Hugo," said James, throwing an arm over his cousin's shoulder. "We're not going to mess with time. We're not stupid… It's a window. We'll only give a little peek inside. Besides, your Mum's speech was all about the dangers of sending information to the past. There's no problem with us seeing the past. The real problem would be them seeing us, right?"
"I guess..."
It was a sign that something bad was about to happen whenever James started to make sense in his own twisted way.
"Well, it appears to be interesting enough. What are we seeing, then?" Fred asked.
James turned to Fred with a mischievous look. "In honour of the occasion, I say we try with the Quidditch World Cup. The one in Dad's fourth year. I want to see Krum in action!"
"You did so in Argentina."
"He was good, but slow. I want to see him at his peak!"
The interest grew in Fred's expression. On the other hand, Hugo was troubled. He wanted to see that historic play made by Viktor Krum as much as James did, but he was still unsure.
"Are you sure it's okay for us to do this? We're not even sure of what that spell does," the younger boy asked.
"Don't be a killjoy! It'll be fun. We know what it does, it's written here. SEE. THE. PAST. Clear as an Invisibility Cloak," James said, pointing at each word in the book as he spoke. "SEE. Not alter. Not change. Just see."
"If you say so."
That was all James needed.
"So, that's what? Twenty-five years ago?" asked Fred.
"Twenty four," corrected Hugo, uneasily.
James quickly pulled out his wand and proceeded to read the incantations, but was having some trouble with trying to use the proper movements according to the date he wanted to see. "It's easy, twenty-four years exactly, isn't it?" asked James. He did so mostly to himself, as he continued without waiting for an answer.
Something happened then that cut James' words short. On the wall in front of the boys, a circle of light was drawn, its borders shining like gold. However, the interesting part wasn't the borders, because inside the circle they could see a different wall. The wallpaper looked brighter inside, though the orange patterns seemed to be the same.
"That doesn't look like a Quidditch game," said Hugo.
James, for his part, looked gobsmacked.
"I did everything as the book said! Twenty-four years! Wait, was the game on the 22nd or 24th?" he asked, putting a finger on his forehead and frowning.
"Hugo?" Fred asked, imagining the younger boy knew the answer.
"I— I'm not a living History book! I don't know that much," Hugo hurried in panic, "Can someone remind me why didn't we check this before starting with the spell?!"
Fred's eyebrows went upwards. "Err, James? When you did this… Did you follow instructions to change the place you wanted to see in the past? Or did you really think they had chosen this old dusty bedroom as the right venue for a Quidditch Cup final?"
James' eyes widened as he looked back at the annotations in the book, "Oh, that's a good question. You see, there were no English instructions for that… So, I kind of passed it."
To say Hugo was afraid would've been an understatement. They hadn't just gone along with a stupid plan, but they did so without thinking about the specifics of it beforehand. Hugo was about to ask James to cancel the whole thing when a few whispery sounds came from the other side of the circle and everybody froze. The circle was also slowly starting to grow.
Frightened, Hugo turned to his cousins. The voices sounded as if coming from afar. He didn't know what they were saying, but a girl was definitely yelling.
"Wow! That can't be right," Fred said.
"I think you may have chosen a day before the game," Hugo said hesitantly, studying the book as he tried to remember James' wand movements.
"That doesn't matter, Hugo. Look, the ruddy thing is growing!" Fred got his cousin's attention.
"Blimey! Do something!"
At Hugo's plea, James reacted and he did so without thinking, again. The boy threw his backpack at the circle, and the thing just swallowed it whole.
"What did you do that for?!" Hugo yelled.
"I don't know, you asked me to do something!"
"Not that!"
"I panicked, alright?"
James and Hugo continued arguing until Fred called out. "Er? Guys?" He was pointing at the circle, which was now half as tall as the wall.
Lowering their voices made Hugo notice that the voices on the other side had grown louder, if not more clearer. There was an unmistakable whooshing sound coming out of the circle now, and a light wind was coming out of it.
"James! Hurry!"
In a rushed attempt, James began reading incantations from the book. One after the other. Not truly certain of what he was doing. Fred tried to help him, moving the pages rapidly. Nothing worked.
"Bloody circle! Why don't you just close?" Fred shouted.
"Oh, Grandma will kill us! Not to mention Rose!" Hugo said. "Merlin, we're in so much trouble! If Mum were here, she would know what to do."
"Are you mental? Don't summon her! Your Mum would kill us faster," Fred said.
James adjusted his glasses. In the rush they had almost fallen to the floor. "Now what? Now what? Think, James, think," he muttered to himself.
Hugo was considering that calling their grandmother was the lesser of two evils when James picked the book and lifted it over his head.
"Woah, James! What are you...?"
But Fred's words came too late. James had already thrown the entire book into the circle, "Take that, you stupid—"
The circle closed at once.
"... window," James finished with a low voice.
The air and sounds coming from the window were gone. The wall appeared as normal and unremarkable as it had been before they opened that stupid book.
The three boys let themselves fall to the floor in complete shock, heaving as they studied the plain wall again.
"Why the hell did you do that?!"
"It worked, didn't it?"
"Let's not do it again," Fred suggested after a pause.
The other two boys nodded weakly.
"Boys! Where are you?!" their grandmother's voice thundered from downstairs.
The three boys looked at each other fearfully and, without saying another word, stormed out of the bedroom.
