I
The guests at the pub never stopped chattering, whether they were regulars or rowdy university students who just wanted a quick escape from reality. Empty pints littered the tables, coats and scarves were bound to fall to the ground. Business was booming, the town was alive and Harry was in for yet another shift.
He wasn’t supposed to be allowed behind the bar, being only sixteen. However his aunt and uncle had been getting unbearable with their nagging about how he only cost them money and never pulled his own weight. The owner had been a bit of a hard egg to crack, but once he knew who Harry’s guardians were there wasn’t really much to discuss. He didn’t mind the illegality of it, mostly he found it comforting that he wasn’t the only one who loathed the Dursleys’. So here he was; picking glasses from the tables and pouring pints until the crack of dawn, a weekend like any other.
“Oi! Pour me a Porter will you?” A large man sat down on one of the stools with a familiarity that wasn’t unusual around here, regulars had that way about them.
“Evening Elmer, how’s things?” Harry had taken a liking to the older man, even if he could sound a bit stern and had a rather rough look about him, he was nice to all of them.
Elmer sighed and nursed his beer, giving away a small smile when the brown liquid trickled down his throat. Harry knew very well he had been waiting for it all day. “Oh you know… Nothing new. The wife packed you a meal, left-overs from supper. I reckon that bitter hag doesn’t feed you properly?”
It always made him a bit awkward when the regulars mentioned the Dursleys, not that he didn’t agree. Aunt Petunia was certainly a hag, just as much as uncle Vernon was a troll, but he didn’t like that Elmer knew that. It’s natural for adults to pity the young without a home or family, Harry despised the feeling. But he hadn’t the heart to decline Elmers offer, the old man never meant any harm.
So he did what he always did, laughed it off and prayed to whatever was up there (because it certainly wasn’t god) that no one would notice his act. “Thanks! Make sure to tell Elaine I appreciate it.”
After a bit of rustling around in his rucksack Elmer handed Harry a container filled to the brim with, what looked like, Shepherds pie and rose his glass. “Cheers.”
The usual chit-chat took place with the rest of the regulars, the old men and women loved to tell him about their weeks and the hardships that came with them. How their children hadn’t called for (what they claimed) was a long time, something about the grocery stores upping their prices and how tobacco these days was no good. He loved listening to them and their perfectly ordinary lives, no shouting or banging on any doors while calling him a worthless piece of rubbish. It was quite peaceful.
When his routine with the customers (god forbid it ever changed) was over he decided that it was time to actually eat the dinner he had been provided. The manager of the pub was not much older than him, a girl named Orla who was about to turn nineteen. How she found time to manage the workers while studying at uni he would never understand, but she was nice. Nothing like what you would expect a manager to be like, she never really bossed them around to do the boring tasks and let them have as many fag breaks as they liked. However there was one thing that the rest of them were responsible for, and that was tossing out rowdy customers who refused to listen to her instructions on quieting down. So before he even had the time to stick his food in the microwave before she had flagged him down with a frustrated look on her face.
“Harry love, do you mind waiting just a minute?” He knew she didn’t want to interrupt his supper, but that she had no other choice but to do so.
“What’s up Orla?” He asked as he calmly closed up the container again.
“You see that group of kids? Your age I would assume…” Harry took a good look at the floor, there were a lot of kids his age there. No one really bothered to check their IDs, knowing they would get drunk in a field elsewhere if not here.
After a couple of minutes he spotted a group of teenagers he hadn’t seen before, a rather large group with abnormally many redheads. They were standing in a big circle, it definitely looked out of the ordinary. “Yeah.”
“Can you just ask them to sit down, every time I approach them they stare at me like I’m some sort of alien.”
“And what makes you think they won’t see me as an alien?”
She gave him a crooked smile before answering: “Because all you youngins are bloody aliens!”
***
“Ronald! Would you stop that? You can’t just muck around with it however you like.” Hermione was at her wits end with Ron at this point of the night, he had been trying to get his hands on the Time Turner since she admitted it was in her possession.
He winced as she swatted his fingers away, a bit too much like his own mother. “Oh come on Hermione! It’s not fair you’re the only one to have it.”
She sighed and kept a safe distance from her friends grubby little hands, trying not to cause too much of a commotion. This group was already a bit too much for her to handle as it was. When professor McGonagall had asked her to go on a mission to find The Boy Who Lived this was certainly not what she had imagined. Sure, Ron was pretty much a guaranteed partner for the task, but Malfoy? She had to be having a good laugh in her office as it was right now. And she couldn’t wrap her head around why her (beloved) professor would ever let the twins be a part of something as delicate as this. The entire operation was bound to be a disaster. Especially now when Fred and George had insisted on executing the whole thing in a pub, claiming that no one would notice them in the environment. It was obvious that they said it to get a “muggle pint”, whatever that was, but Hermoine wasn’t in the mood for arguing.
“Oh shut it! You don’t even know where it is we’re going.”
Fred snickered next to her and boxed his brother on the arm. “Feisty one, isn’t she?”
“Watch it Fred, she might bite your head off.”
Sometimes, most of the time, the twins amused her with their witty remarks and silly pranks. However, this was definitely not the time. She wasn’t the only one who thought so and to her surprise Malfoy came to her rescue. “Can we please hurry this whole thing along? This is not the time for childish delusions of fairness.”
The three brothers looked at him sternly, but didn’t say anything else. They all knew the severity of the situation, they had to find Harry Potter; and quickly. “Thank you, Draco. Now, where was I?” She took the golden ball and pulled out the long chain, it would fit around all of them without any difficulty.
Just as all of them had gotten the chain around their necks, standing in a close knit circle so that they wouldn’t take up too much space. Their attempts of discretion apparently weren’t good enough, because just about as Hermoine was about to turn the dials they were interrupted. A hand grabbed Dracos shoulder and stern voice startled about everyone in the group. “Hey guys, sorry to bother you but what exactly are you doing?”
The unthinkable happened before any of them had the chance to answer the boy behind them, Hermoines fingers slipped and turned the dials far more than she had intended. The world around them started going backwards, people walking out and the entire history of the pub being showcased before them. There was no stopping it now, surely a muggle wouldn’t be able to travel back in time with them anyway? She could hear Malfoy curse under his breath and started to feel a bit queasy herself, she had never gotten used to the turmoil that was time and space.
***
It could have taken them hours or mere seconds, it was difficult to tell whenever time turners were involved, until they landed on solid ground again. Hermione took a deep breath in an attempt to not throw up, she wasn’t the only one. Ron was hurling right next to her, wetting the grass in the disgusting fluids. The smell of it didn’t help anyone but luckily Draco was quick enough to snap out of it to cast a vanishing spell over the mess.
Fred was leaning forwards with his hands on his knees, panting heavily. “Bloody hell Mione, couldn’t have warned us?”
She did not have enough strength in her to tell him that she had in fact told them to keep their grubby hands of the artifact, not that it mattered anyway; soon enough George filled in for his twin. “Shut it Fred, tryin’ not to vomit over here.”
She was the second after Draco to regain her own composure, and she was not a minute late to give each of them an earful. “You lot are absolutely unbelievable! Didn’t I tell you to not touch the blasted thing!? Now I’ve got no clue where or when we are, and I honestly have no idea how to fix it either.” Ron was mumbling something inaudible from his place on the grass which only ticked her off more. “What was that, Ronald? An apology perhaps?”
With great effort he managed to push himself in an upright position. “No. What I said was; we didn’t touch your sodding trinket.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, here they were; stranded in time, and he still wouldn’t admit to his mistakes? You could say many things about Ron Weasley, but him being open for change was definitely not one of them.
Before she had the opportunity to tell him that it was impossible for her to just turn the dials far too many times without one of them being at fault, Draco stepped in with a disturbingly calm tone. “No, Weasley is right. It wasn’t one of us. There was a bloke… at the pub.” She stared at him blankly while trying to recall a memory, a boy… right! There had been an employee around their age, but no, that couldn’t have been a possibility. Not unless…
“Er…” A queasy voice interrupted her train of thought. “What the fuck?” All of them turned around on the same beat, and there he was. The culprit. A rather tall, lanky boy with wild hair was staring at them with bewildered eyes. He seemed familiar, she thought.
Fred let out a hearty laugh, how he managed Hermione couldn’t figure out, and said: “Ach such vile language! Don’t you reckon George?”
“You’re right Fred, and in the mouth of a child! We ought to wash your mouth out with soap, young man.” The twins snickered at each other as if this was the funniest thing they had ever said, which they did anytime they said anything.
Harry was absolutely baffled at the others' words, who were they? How the hell did he even end up here, he was at the pub just a couple of seconds ago. Maybe this was just some horrible dream. No, it didn’t match up with the usual ones. The ones where a woman screamed his name and green light covered his entire line of vision. This had to be real, which was even more confusing.
A blonde boy walked up to Harry with a sour face, there was something about his aura that made him instinctively scowl. After taking a good look at him, as if he were a piece of clothing to be estimated, he said: “And who exactly are you? I don’t recognise you from Hogwarts.”
Normally Harry would have mocked his posh accent in a way to retaliate, but the odd name threw him completely off his wagon. “Hog-what?”
“Hogwarts”, Ron corrected, “School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?” Harry just stared at him, having no clue what the red headed boy was talking about.
“Are you taking the piss at me? Oi, you sure you haven't taken anything weird? I know speed and stuff of the sort has gotten all the rage lately, but it’s seriously not good for you mate.”
The Weasleys and Malfoy had their turn to stare at him with confusion, not having the slightest clue of drugs that were gaining popularity amongst the young people of London. Hermione, however, caught on quick enough to figure out what was happening.
“No, he’s not on speed.” Turning her head from the strange boy and towards her friends, or mostly at least, she continued: “Boys, don’t tell me we brought a muggle through time and space?”
“A what through where!?” It wasn’t an unexpected reaction, not really. She mostly wanted to make sure that he was in fact a muggle. Now they just had to obliviate him before figuring out how to turn back time. Turn front? Whatever, she didn’t have the time for grammatical rules.
“Draco, you’re quite experienced with oblivion, no?”
He gave her a crude look. “Was that an attempt to make a stab at me? Either way, yes I am. Shall I get to it?” She nodded her head, tired from everything that had happened. The Statue of Secrecy had to let this one slide, honestly. Draco took yet another step towards the strange boy and pointed his wand at him.
Harry had never believed in wizards or anything of the sort, it was really rather childish, but he knew that when someone pointed a bloody stick at him it was never good news. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” The blonde boy only gave an annoyed ‘tch’ as an answer and inched even closer. “Look mate, no need to get all violent with me.” He hoped that would be enough to make him back off, but apparently this only resulted in an eyeroll of the extravagant sort. Now the stick was far too close to his face and quite honestly, Harry was fed up. “That’s quite enough actually.” He grabbed the stick from the other boy with a movement that might have been a bit too fierce, because somehow the blonde guy flew about ten meters backwards as if Harry had hit him with an iron fist. “Bloody– Sorry mate, that wasn’t my intention.
Draco was laying flat on his back the second Harry had grabbed his wand, he couldn’t wrap his head around how a muggle was able to channel energy through it. Unless… The thought didn’t have time to linger in his mind for too long, Hermione was already searching for answers in his eyes. “Something tells me we don’t have a muggle on our hands, Granger.”
She gave him a nod, everything about this was just a cluster of unanswered questions. However, the boy being a wizard would explain why he had been able to tag along their side all this time. She once again looked at the boy ahead of her, and noticed a small change. It wasn’t small per say, a scar reaching like tree branches across his forehead and down his nose. No way, she thought.
“Uh, I’m sorry, but what’s your name?” She couldn’t help but shiver in her voice, if here suspicions were proved correct she truly had no idea about what they should do.
He looked at her sceptically before deciding that it didn’t really matter if they knew his name or not. “Harry, Harry Potter.”
Ice ran through her veins, bollocks. Fred and George were fully recovered and grinning from side to side, as if they each had a coat hanger stuffed in their mouths. Ron, well it was unclear to her if Ron had any idea what was going on. Somehow he always managed to look confused no matter the information thrown at him. Hell, you could inform him of his own birthday and he’d still look dumbstruck.
The only one who actually spoke a word about it was Draco, he simply couldn’t believe it. All these years he had heard the tales about Harry Potter, the wonderchild, the boy who lived, the great saviour of them all. After all those grande stories and myths here he was, a regular dishevelled teenager working the bar at some manky pub. Naturally, the only thing he could muster up to say was: “Oh Merlin, are you really?”