Oh my God. Oh my God. He’d just turned Frank Longbottom’s son into an armadillo and in the future, no less. When they found the boy rolling around the floor, Remus was going to be in so much trouble. Dammit, dammit, dammit…

He knew the rules of time travel, and ‘Don’t Do Anything to Get Noticed’ is number one. So what did he do? He broke it. He broke the goddamn rule. A whole flurry of unknown words stormed into his vocabulary, and personally, Remus didn’t want to know what they meant. Cussing like a sailor, he was. Remus, the prefect. Remus, the Marauder who didn’t really, truly, get into trouble. Look what the future had made him.

Okay. He’d already broken one rule; so he supposed he could break just another one. As much as Remus hated to admit it, he was at a dead end. All of his friends had disappeared, and for now, he was stuck. He hadn’t a clue of where they were. And he needed help.

Teachers were always a good place to start. Who would help him the most? Okay. Not Potions. Slughorn would likely invite Remus to tea and then discuss his ‘little problem’ with a whole bunch of students from the future- that is, if Slughorn was still alive, anyway. The Divination teacher, Professor Cassiopeia, was a bit spacey, and if possible, the Arthimancy teacher even more so. Besides, both of them were fairly old. Remus needed to think of a new teacher, one that would still have a chance of staying at Hogwarts for a decade of so…

Then it hit him. His Defense teacher! Why hadn’t he thought of her before? She was young, friendly, intelligent, funny and very, very attractive… Okay. Don’t think about Professor Decca. But she was the perfect choice, even despite the whole “Defense Position Is Cursed” thing. Remus even had to admit it- not just because he had a rather large infatuation with her, but because she would know exactly what to do.

He ran up and down the stairs, getting confused what with all the portraits having changed positions since the 70’s, until he found the Defense door, first leaning into the door, listening to see if a class was in session. He heard nothing. Okay. Don’t hesitate. Just go in, and explain to an older Professor Decca what exactly had gone on-

But when he stepped in, he was rather shocked to see a man sitting at Professor Decca’s seat, unhurriedly grading papers. Okay. So Professor Decca must have left… Back out slowly, Remus… you don’t need to alert this fellow you’re here…

Of course, stealth had never been Remus’ finest suit. So when he attempted the silent back-off maneuver, he tripped over his own feet, lying in a heap on the ground. Even this could be done without an extreme amount of sound, but Remus, being Remus, shrieked with surprise as he contacted the hard, stone floor. If he were ever going to attempt to become an Auror, he was definitely going to need to practice.

Groaning slightly, he sat up whilst gently massaging his head. It really had been quite a bad fall, no matter how comical it looked. No one had been there to see it anyway, so he shouldn’t be that upset-

Wait. Of course there had been someone there! A sudden jolt of panic hit Remus, and he jumped up, stumbling as he hurriedly ran for the door. He’d been seen by someone he didn’t even know. He’d been seen! Professor Decca was supposed to be there!

He could feel the man’s gaze on his back. This was it. He was going to end up killing himself in the future, or something. He’d been seen. It didn’t matter by whom, but this man was going to do something that would affect this and then that would affect that, and soon, the whole world had changed. He’d just destroyed the whole universe. Remus Lupin, the werewolf boy, the do-gooder, the coward, the nobody was going to end up causing the whole world to collapse on itself.

“Wait… stop! Stay there!” he heard the man shout behind him. It wasn’t as if Remus had a choice. He was having a hell of a time trying to open the door. Resignedly, he turned around to face the inquiring Professor.

The man’s face looked rather bleak and weary, although at the moment, it also looked severely distressed. The rest of his appearance looked just as dismal. His robes were practically in tatters, and his hair was already quite grey, although he seemed relatively young. The very first thing Remus thought was, How did he get this job? It looks like he’d flop over at any second.

“Who are you?” The man’s voice was hoarse and quiet, and seemed more questioning than accusatory. Remus stayed silent. He was getting bad vibes from the mystery Professor and a nagging feeling that he’d known him in the past.

“Who are you?” the man repeated, this time more sternly.

“I… I’m… Remus Lupin.”

The man paused and cursed under his breath, running his hand through his thick hair. No matter how distraught he appeared, however, it was undeniable that he had been severely startled.

“I mean… I’m not… Wait… I just… you know… I… I need help! Please!”

A sigh came from the Professor, and as he turned around a while after, he gazed straight into Remus’s eyes. “James and Lily are here,” he whispered. “They’re… they’re safe. Yes,” he continued, looking at Remus’s frightened expression, “we know all about their little escapade- and Sirius’s as well. Is Peter here?”

“How… how do you know…?”

The older man appeared to be deep in thought as his brow furrowed very slightly. Finally, he said softly, “Dumbledore has entrusted me with the care of James and Lily. I know all about what’s going on. Trust me.”

For a moment, Remus considered running out the door. But looking into the angular, yet warm face of the man in front of him, he felt an overpowering sense of security. Besides, what did he have to lose?

“Let’s find James and Lily,” said Lupin quietly.

“Yeah…” Remus agreed and unquestioningly followed the older man out the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sirius stepped hesitantly towards the building. The door was covered in badly colored pictures and a sign that read “Adults Keep Out”. It seemed as if the little kids inside were quite the warmongers. Oh well. He was a warmonger himself, so stepping inside couldn’t hurt.

When he stepped in, Sirius could hardly see a thing. Toilet paper was flying everywhere and a little girl was throwing marbles at anything in sight. This seemed fun. Picking up a half-used roll of toilet paper, Sirius ran across the room, screaming his lungs out. Although he had a feeling that this wasn’t the best way to introduce himself to the preschool teacher, it was his own method, and bully to anyone who disagreed.

Soon he had amassed the whole rest of the preschool who were all running around behind just as crazily. The only one who stayed behind was the teacher, who looked on with cautious wariness, but then gave all to the wind and jumped into the line.

After a half-hour of this, Sirius seemed to have been accepted into the small circle. The little girl had offered him her noon-time snack (which was a huge, economy-sized bag of pretzels. Sirius had the suspicion it had been stolen from the grocery store down the road, but said nothing) and the boy gave him his badly-colored picture. Meanwhile, the teacher, who appeared quite scary with his gaunt and pale face, had been staring at him for a while, his brows knitted in what seemed to be fierce concentration. Finally, he eased up, his eyebrows releasing into their regular position. Sirius blamed it on constipation. Sure enough, the teacher went off to the restroom.

“So… dance contest, anyone?” Sirius cried, and the kids crowed with delight.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“What’d you do with your scar, Harry? Give it to Mad-Eye to add to his collection?” Fred asked, face shining with unrepressed enjoyment, but when he turned to his brother, George looked more stunned than amused.

Hurriedly James plastered his wet bangs back across his forehead. “Um… yeah. I was kind of fooling around with… er… Ron, and we kind of dulled the redness… and stuff… I mean, it’ll be back in a couple days or so, maybe even sooner…?”

Although Fred jumped on James, excitedly blathering about what spell he used; why did you choose now to get rid of the scar- George remained wary, carefully scrutinizing the evasive visage of James. Did he know? James thought nervously, watching George stride behind Fred and went by James, placing an arm around his shoulders.

“Well, Harry, we’d certainly be interested to hear about the disappearance of your scar- and just precisely how you did it- so why don’t you just follow me over here?” George said smoothly, his face betraying nothing as to what he suspected. Anxiously, James glanced from Lily back to George. Lily looked worried too, but gestured towards George, realizing there was no way out of it.

You can convince him you’re Harry..... You can… Reluctantly, James followed George towards the entrance courtyard of Hogwarts, when George suddenly stopped and turned on him.

“All right. I have no idea who you are, but what’s going on here? Ron’s been so evasive lately, there’s some girl with you that wasn’t at Hogwarts last time I checked, and lastly and most importantly, Harry would never play Opposite Day.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he might. But he would never say that he was his father from the future, anyway. So who are you and why are you impersonating Harry Potter?”

Was it best to tell the truth? James wished Lupin was with them; he would know what to do… He licked his lips nervously but still said nothing.

“Well.” George appeared quite disappointed, as if his show hadn’t made the effect he’d wanted it to. “I’ll find out who you are in a couple of minutes, anyhow.”

“What?”

“The Polyjuice potion,” said George proudly. “The potion must’ve been wearing off, so that’s why your scar had disappeared. As a matter of fact, your face is changing back too; lookit that! Your eyes are hazel. You can’t hide for much longer.”

Although James hated to rid people of their pleasures, he couldn’t help it when he hadn’t turned into a crotchety old villain. George appeared very confused and disheartened, once even shaking James by the shoulders and shouting, “WEAR OFF! WEAR OFF!” When at last there seemed no hope of Polyjuice being the cause of the situation, George sat down, almost pouting.

“You’re still not Harry,” he muttered as James gave him a slight wave and started to head off towards Lily. “I’ll find out about you yet.”