Disclaimer: Will never and have never owned anythng Harry Potter related. I am the copycat with an original twist, as mentioned before. Thank you.
McGonagall had had her doubts, but they were soon overruled with some persuasion from Prongs. It meant his life and the life of his friends and even though he fantasized about altering the past, he knew his duty lay in the future, where a bespectacled boy with messy black hair such as his, was near death. Somehow he knew he had to save him.
James had had a vision, crazy as it sounds, he did. He had awoken not but two nights before in a cold sweat at having seen a blinding white light and at having heard a frail cry. It was a distant cry and it reminded James of someone, himself. “He’s here Lily, take Harry and run!”. Who Harry was, or why Lily was a part of the vision, James could only guess, but his own voice haunted his dreams and soon he could not ignore it.
The most profound of these dreams was one with a boy. Himself, he thought at first, but he knew he had never worn glasses. The boy was screaming something into the air, pointing his wand upward, shrieking with everything in him, “Expecto Patronum!”
A ghastly council engulfed the boy, James could no longer see him, but could hear the boy crying out the spell. James wished to help, he would have done anything to help, the boy was dieing, he was dieing and his patronous was failing. That’s when the vision ended, and it frustrated James all the more. He would have shrugged the dream off, and put it behind him as the result of a swig too much of vehement vodka, but it was the boy that confirmed to him how very real and serious things were.
“I can’t base your need of a time turner on assumption Potter!” McGonagall had informed him, when he came to her office early yesterday morning. “Users of such much have concrete evidence as to why they need one.”
“But professor, what more proof do you need, I saw this kid, he was dieing!” James insisted, firmly.
McGonagall looked him over warily, suspicion in every line of her face. “You perhaps thought you saw him Potter, there were no eye witnesses to this account, so I cannot call it valid.”
“Of course there were no eye witnesses!” burst James, flailing his arms up. “It was a dream!”
McGonagall pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose, and replied tersely, “Then that proves enough that you do not need one. Dreams are dreams, though your divination teacher may tell you otherwise, but I would not trust the judgment of Mistress Hasenbrook.”
“I’m not taking divination professor, and that’s besides the point! You don’t hear him, so you don’t know!”
McGonagall’s eyes flashed with something of shock. “Hear him Potter, what exactly do you mean?”
James looked down, unsure how to explain with out coming off as a loony. He was also a bit ashamed to be hearing voices in the first place. “Well it’s just that he... professor what’s a patronous?”
“Excuse me?”
“A patronous, what is it?”
“You know perfectly well what a patronous is, you covered that fifth year.”
“What’s the incantation though, professor?”
McGonagall didn’t bother looking up but shuffled through a stack of papers and uttered, “Expecto Patronum I believe it is, Potter, why?” When James didn’t answer she looked up. “Why Potter?”
James’ eyes were widened, his brain was doing clockwork, buzzing with a million thoughts at once. “Then that’s it.” He said quietly to himself.
“What’s what?” McGonagall was beginning to fear the sanity of her pupil, fearful he might be a tad mentally ill.
“That’s what he says, Expecto Patronum and he’s pointing his wand at something.”
McGonagall raised a single brow, “Sounds like a case of bad lamb shank to me, I’ll take it up with the house elves, maybe it’s something in the food.”
James banged his fists down on her desk, furious that she wasn’t taking him seriously. “I saw him, he was conjuring a patronous!”
“No boy could produce a patronous, why it’s never been done! That proves your dream is a falsehood right there. I doubt many teachers here could produce a patronous, let alone a child!”
“He was trying to anyway!”
“Listen Potter, you say you see a boy, in your dreams, who tries to produce a patronous and is somehow... dieing, however unlikely, and you seem to think that a time turner will solve things? However do you reason? How do you know it’s to happen in the future, perhaps it happened in the past, and perhaps it didn’t happen at all! This is ridiculous and I can see no reason to allow you permission to use one. Out Potter, I’ve had enough.” McGonagall pointed to the door, but James did not move from his seat, adamant to have his way.
“I’ll prove it.” He growled, crossing his arms and looking grudgingly to the floor.
“Then please do and be done with it!” McGonagall fumed.
“You think dreams would tell me things like... the Order.”
McGonagall’s jaw dropped, and she recovered shakily, “What? W-where, Potter how on earth did you...”
“It’s really not fair that you all should be fighting behind our backs, some of us would like to join-”
“We take no children,” McGonagall said quickly, coming to her senses. “And if you dare speak a word of this Potter I’ll...”
“Mums the word Minerva dear.” Smirked James.
McGonagal pursed her lips, but ignored the comment. “All right Potter,” she said dryly, “I’ll hear what you have to say.”
James smiled broadly, “Knew I could count on you!”
It was after this that James was granted the permission to possess a time turner, but for reasons that only he and McGonagall knew.
It was late afternoon, and a stag stood at the edge of the forbidden forest, watching the sun set, eagerly awaiting the moment when he would see the boy and the patronous...
So tell me your thoughts. “Amalynne O’hara