“That’s a pretty necklace,” Teddy remarked, and Victoire felt her face turn scarlet--which was stupid. Teddy had been her friend for as long as she could remember. But ever since she had turned fifteen, everything had turned much more awkward between them.
Teddy was an odd wizard, which was to be expected. His mom was a Metamorphmagus, and his father a werewolf. He was registered in the D.A. as a Metamorphmagus, but in Victoire’s eyes, was not quite a full one. He could control his appearance at will, yes, but his appearance had a will of its own; mostly his hair. It changed colours at random, varying from a dull brown to an eye-popping orange.
“Thanks,” Victoire mumbled, fingering the gold chain.
“Where’d you get it?”
“I found it in the closet,” Victoire gestured to the crammed closet in the corner of the room. They were both sitting on the bed, looking out the window.
Teddy nodded, and didn’t ask any more questions.
“Any more news in the D.A.?” asked Victoire, as she always did. Being nineteen, Teddy was part of the D.A. He wasn’t a major person in the organization, though he had gone on some trips investigating every spot where Harry Potter was known to be the year he was fighting Voldemort. But he had been very careful about leaving traces behind, and they hadn’t found much. There were a few snippets of information lying about, of course, but not many.
Teddy shrugged. “We’ve confirmed that Harry had visited Godric’s Hollow, but that doesn’t give us any new information. Just that he was visiting the place where his parents were buried.”
Victoire sighed, and got off the bed, walking over and looking out the window. Where were you Harry? What were you doing?
Teddy put a hand on her shoulder, which almost made Victoire flinch. This annoyed her. All her life, the two had been like brother and sister. That was as far as their relationship had ever gone, but she couldn’t help noticing him in a different light.
“We’ll figure it out someday, Victoire.”
Victoire sighed. “Even if we do, Teddy, we’ll never fix everything. There will still be Death Eaters, and the Ministry will be hard to fight. Defeating Voldemort isn’t enough. It won’t fix the past.”
It was Teddy’s turn to sigh. “The only thing that we can’t change is the past. We can only change the future.”
Victoire sighed bitterly. “I know,” she said, and looked at the necklace. The hourglass sparkled on the golden chain. She turned it over in her fingers, watching as the sand fell into the other side. If only the past could be changed....if only Harry didn’t die....
Teddy sighed, and took the necklace in his hand. His brow furrowed. “Funny...this reminds me of something.”
But before Victoire could ask what it reminded him of, the hourglass tipped one more time, and the world tipped with it.
Victoire wasn’t spinning, but she wasn’t falling, either. She was just standing still while everything else moved about her. Blurs of colour seemed to zoom around her, as if she was caught in an eternally moving painting. There were sounds, too, laughing and crying, words that mixed together and echoed in her head. She saw Teddy right beside her, still holding the necklace. She was surprised to see the hourglass glowing, emitting light, as if the grains of sand were on fire. And then everything stopped. They were in the same room, but it was different. The bed was no longer a faint shade of pink, but orange--very bright orange. There was a pattern of Bludgers on it, too--no, cannons.
There were similar posters plastered all over the walls, with Quidditch players diving and feinting and shooting Quaffles. They all wore orange, with cannons on it. Victoire decided it was a Quidditch team. That hunch was proven almost immediately, as she spotted the words, ‘Chudley Cannons’ spelled fancily on the bottom of a poster.
“Where are we?” she asked in amazement, looking around. There were cluttered robes and other junk that belonged to a teenage witch or wizard scattered about on the floor. Teddy seemed to be in shock, and he quickly let go of the hourglass-necklace.
He opened his mouth, but then there were footsteps coming up the stairs. Teddy grabbed Victoire and pulled her into the closet--her closet?--and shut the door.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
“Victoire, you found the necklace in this closet?”
Victoire nodded. “Yes. There was a note attached to it too. It was from Hermione Granger, addressed to a Professor.”
“And you didn’t mention this?” hissed Teddy.
“Well...” Victoire trailed off. It was awkward enough to be this squashed next to Teddy, not to mention be lectured by him!
“Victoire, this isn’t a necklace! This is a Time Turner!”
“What’s that?”
Teddy seemed to be restraining himself--with difficulty--from yelling. “Victoire, a Time Turner takes you back in time. We learned about it in lessons. The Ministry’s stock was all destroyed when Dumbledore battled Voldemort in Harry Potter’s fifth year.”
“But if they were all destroyed, then how can this be a Time Turner?” asked Victoire in disbelief.
“Hermione Granger had a Time Turner in her third year--remember Aunt Ginny telling us about that? For classes, I think. Or something like that,” Teddy said, and his voice was becoming slightly panicked now.
“How do they work?” asked Victoire.
“As far as I can remember,” Teddy said slowly. “They take you back or forward in time, as far as you want. They’re very dangerous though. You can mess up time very badly if you’re not careful. They take you where you were last thinking of, dependent on how many times you flip the hourglass.”
“Now you tell me?” Victoire asked weakly, slumping against the floor.
“Well, how was I supposed to know that you had somehow acquired an extremely dangerous Time Turner? They’re not supposed to exist! It’s just like you, Victoire,” he added heatedly, and put his head in his hands. After a heartbeat, he seemed to calm down. “Okay. We just need to get back to our time.”
“You mean we’re in the future?” asked Victoire.
“Well, that depends,” said Teddy. “What were you thinking of right before we left?”
Victoire thought for a minute. “Well...I was thinking that maybe if we could change the past, make it so Harry didn’t die...then life would be better. He would have carried out his plan and defeated Voldemort.”
Teddy nodded as if his worst suspicions had just been confirmed. “We’re back when Harry was carrying out his plan. Probably around the time that he died.”
Victoire coughed as dust rose from the old boxes piled in the closet. “So...this room is Ron’s?”
Teddy nodded. “Yeah. But sadly, we’re not gonna be around her long enough to see him. We’re going home. Now.” He grabbed the Time Turner by the chain and lifted it off Victoire’s neck. His fingers brushed her neck, and Victoire flinched. Teddy peered at the dangling hourglass and took it in his fingers.
“Ow!” he cried, and promptly dropped it, rubbing his fingers as if they burned. But all that Victoire noticed was the hourglass shattering into a million tiny pieces, grains of sand flying everywhere.
There was a loud silence that seemed to ring in Victoire’s ears.
Then Teddy said, “Oops.”
As the Sand Falls by EnchantmentCamels
Chapter Notes: Yay! Second chapter's out. Sorry if it's a bit dry and long, but it's a key part of the plot. :)
Chapter Endnotes: A/N So, again, thank you Sagen for beta-ing this chapter. You are awesome! I hope you like this, the third chapter will be out sometime in the next week or so, depending on how busy I am.