Time Turners Can Explode
Regulus thought kidnapping Harry had been the stupidest decision he would ever make, but this definitely took the cake. Tampering with an illegal Time Turner to alter the timeline? Even Sirius wouldn’t have been that stupid.
A few months had passed since the day Regulus kidnapped Harry. Regulus had tried so many things, but all of them failed.
He’d tried breaking Sirius out of Azkaban, but security there was air tight. The cells were constantly changed around, so Regulus could never pinpoint where Sirius was. Regulus had never been able to cast a Patronous, so he didn’t stand a chance against the Dementors.
He’d tried destroying the Horcrux, but all his efforts proved fruitless. The locket was still intact, and so was the piece of soul inside it.
He’d tried contacting Lupin, but Lupin had gone off the grid. Barty was in Azkaban. Evan was dead, killed by Mad Eye Moody. Dorcas had been killed by Voldemort himself years ago. That only left Pandora, who was now married to Xenophilius Lovegood.
Regulus had finally acknowledged he couldn’t do this all on his own- breaking Sirius out of Azkaban, destroying the Horcrux, raising Harry. Harry wasn’t a handful by any means; he was remarkably well-behaved for being James’s son, but Regulus knew nothing about parenting. The first few days, Harry hadn’t stopped crying, and Regulus didn’t know what to do to calm him down.
So that left him one choice.
Flashback- December 1981
Regulus couldn’t believe he was doing this. He had spent two years trying to avoid this to protect Pandora. He had even cut their Soul Bond, and now, here he was- at her door with Harry’s stroller behind him.
Regulus debated running away. It’s what he had always done; it’s what he did best. But he couldn’t run away anymore. It got exhausting after a while.
Regulus knocked on the door. He heard footsteps inside. He debated running away one last time but kept his feet firmly rooted. He had to do this. He owed it to Harry. He owed it to Pandora. Maybe he even owed it to himself.
The door opened. “Hello, can I help- Regulus?”
“Hey, Panda,” he said, their old nickname for her slipping off his tongue with such familiarity, despite the two years since they’d seen each other.
Pandora stared at him. In a lot of ways, she looked just as he remembered, but she now had a haunted look in her gray eyes and dark circles under them. Regulus could even spot a few wrinkles spider-webbing around her eyes, despite the fact that she was only twenty years old. Her blonde hair was laced with gray, but as her hair was almost silver naturally, it blended in.
But she still wore her radish earrings dangling from her ears, and Regulus almost cried when he saw it.
She reached out a shaking hand, not believing he was real. Her fingertips grazed his face, and that was the moment they both broke. Regulus cried for the first time since Sirius left, and Pandora cried just as hard as she did when the Soul Bond broke. They fell into each other’s arms and sobbed like children, and for once, neither were ashamed of it.
After several minutes, Pandora pulled away reluctantly and said, “But… how…”
“It’s a long story, but uh, first…”
Regulus turned to Harry’s stroller, and Pandora noticed it for the first time.
“Is that a baby?” She said, shocked.
“Yeah,” Regulus said. “I promise I’ll explain everything, but… not out in the open.” Regulus looked around nervously, still expecting Death Eaters or Dumbledore to jump out from behind a bush, either to kill him, take Harry, or both.
“Of course!” Pandora exclaimed, scrubbing away her tears. “Come inside. Xenophillis is at work at the Daily Quibbler, so it’s just me and Luna.”
“Luna?” Regulus echoed.
“My daughter. She was born a few months ago- the Spring Equinox, actually.”
“You have a daughter,” Regulus whispered. His best friend had gotten married and had a daughter and he had missed it. He knew it was necessary, but it still hurt.
Pandora poured them both a cup of tea, and they sat on the love seat together. Regulus got Harry out of his stroller and held the baby on his lap. Luna was sleeping next to Pandora, in a bassinet that was twice the size of the one he’d found Harry in.
“Explain,” Pandora said. “You were dead, Regulus. I felt the Soul Bond break.”
“I broke it,” Regulus said. “I’m sorry, Panda, but I had to protect you.”
“From what?”
“The Dark Lord,” Regulus said. “You know that I was… struggling with being a Death Eater, what I was doing, what I was following. Well, I finally did something about it.”
Pandora nodded, not seeming too surprised.
“I found a way to defeat the Dark Lord.” Regulus told her everything- the Horcrux, the cave, the Inferi.
Pandora was not easy to surprise, probably due to her Seer abilities. Her Seer visions were always too confusing for her to know anything exactly, but they gave her hints.
Pandora always used to have nightmares about Regulus drowning. They had both hoped it wasn’t a Seer vision, but of course, it had turned out to be one.
Pandora listened attentively until Regulus finished. “And the baby?” She asked.
“Well…” Regulus lifted Harry’s bangs to show the lightning scar.
Now, Pandora was surprised. Her eyebrows shot up as her eyes widened.
“Harry Potter?” She realized. “They say he was kidnapped a month ago. So you…”
“James and Lily wouldn’t have wanted him to stay with the Dursleys. You know that as well as I do,” Regulus said.
Pandora looked down guiltily. “I know. I should have fought Albus more, but he was set on taking Harry to the Dursleys. James, Lily, and I weren’t friends, and of course, no one knew about you and them, so why would he listen to me?”
Regulus reached for her hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Panda. But when I found out, I knew I had to do something. I went to the Dursleys. They kept him in the cupboard under the stairs.”
Pandora covered her mouth as she looked at baby Harry in pain for this child that had known so much love, only to have it snatched away and placed in a family that didn’t love him at all.
“But Panda, I don’t know what to do,” Regulus said. He was overwhelmed, completely and utterly. He put his head in his hand, using the other to hold Harry. “I was always scared of becoming a parent because what if I’m just like my family?”
“You’re not,” Pandora said, firmly. “You’re so far apart from your family. Would your mother or father have tried to destroy the Dark Lord? Would they have saved Harry from a neglectful family? No.”
“I know, but… I don’t know how to be a parent. I didn’t exactly have good role models except for Sirius,” Regulus said. “And he won’t stop crying, Panda. Then, there’s Sirius and the Horcrux.”
Regulus took a shaky breath and looked up at his best friend.
“I can’t do this alone, Panda.”
Pandora reached for his hand again, and she held it in hers. “You don’t have to. Not anymore.”
Flashback Ends
Pandora had been the one to come up with the idea.
Flashback- January 1982
“You know, even if you defeat the Dark Lord, it won’t bring James and Lily back,” Pandora said one day.
Regulus looked down. “I know.”
“But what if there was a way to?”
Regulus looked up in confusion and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of hope. “What do you mean?” Regulus asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.
“I mean, this,” Pandora said, reaching into her pocket. She pulled something out and held it up: a Time Turner, glinting gold in the sliver of mid morning light shining through a gap in the drawn curtains.
“Where did you get that?” Regulus wondered. Time Turners were highly monitored, kept in a secure room at the Department of Mysteries. Every one was catalogued, and the room was guarded by Unspeakables around the clock. Stealing one was nearly impossible.
“A friend in the Department of Mysteries,” Pandora answered. “And a very convincing fake.”
Regulus nodded in understanding. “But Time Turners only go back a few hours. We’d need to go back at least three months to save James and Lily.”
Pandora smiled. “Leave that to me.”
Flashback- April 1982
Regulus knocked on the door to Pandora’s workshop, as she called it. She experimented with a great many things there, but her major project as of late had been the Time Turner.
“Come in!” She called, and Regulus opened the door. He cast one final glance back at Harry, who he’d left to play with Luna, the two of them crawling on the floor. Harry normally cried whenever Regulus was out of sight, but he was so busy playing with Luna, he barely noticed Regulus slip into Pandora’s workshop.
“How’s it going?” Regulus asked, looking over Pandora’s shoulder at the Time Turner on her desk.
It looked like any old Time Turner, but Pandora had been working relentlessly to lengthen the time it went back. She’d managed extra hours, even days, but had yet to achieve over a week.
Regulus had tried to help wherever he could, researching Time Magic until his eyes felt like they’d bleed and passing the information onto Pandora. He probably knew more about Time Magic than some of the Unspeakables did. Pandora was better at the spells, and Regulus was better at the research, so their system worked out well.
Pandora sighed, heavily. “It’s going. I’m pushing the spells almost to the breaking point, but the enchantments shatter before lengthening the amount of time. It’s like… trying to stretch a glass tube. You don’t get very far before it breaks.”
Regulus sighed, too, hearing that. “Pandora, what if this isn’t even possible? What if we’re doing all this work for nothing?”
“We’re not,” Pandora said, resolutely. “Magic can achieve incredible things when the intent is there. Long ago, no one even imagined time traveling a few hours, but now, we have Time Turners. There has to be a way. We just haven’t figured it out yet.”
“But what will we do, even if we do manage to go back?” Regulus asked. “We haven’t figured out how to destroy the Horcrux yet.”
“But this buys us time,” Pandora said. “The Dark Lord could come back tomorrow, and we’d be no closer to defeating him. This gives us the time to figure it out while saving James and Lily and whoever else we can.”
“I’ve read every book on Horcruxes and Dark Magic I can find, and there’s hardly anything. The Dark Lord was counting on that,” Regulus muttered bitterly. “What will going back a few years do?”
Pandora looked away from the Time Turner and faced him. “It’ll save James and Lily.”
Regulus looked at the ground. Images of James and Lily flashed before his eyes- of James’s smile, Lily’s sweet voice, studying with Lily until the sun came up, snogging them in broom closets, practicing Quidditch with James in the dead of night when no one was around to see them, the I love you Regulus whispered right before he Obliviated them.
He wanted to save them, but was he capable of it? Regulus had always been a coward and a selfish one at that. Could he really stand up to the Dark Lord to save James and Lily?
“The Dark Lord told you to go after James and Lily once, thought they were too much trouble,” Pandora said, like she knew what he was thinking. “So what did you do?”
“I went after the Horcrux in an Inferi-invested cave and drank a basin of poison,” Regulus said, dryly.
“Exactly,” Pandora stated. “You say you were taking the coward’s way out, but you weren’t. You did that for James and Lily.”
“A lot of good it did them,” Regulus said.
“Yeah,” Pandora said, ignoring the sarcasm in Regulus’s voice. “It gave them two more years, allowed them to have a son, and see the first year of their son’s life. That’s not nothing, Regulus.”
Regulus sighed. “I know.”
“If you had done what the Dark Lord asked, Harry wouldn’t be here,” Pandora said. “You aren’t as much of a coward as you think, Regulus. Sometimes I think you should’ve been in Gryffindor.”
“The Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Hufflepuff,” Regulus said.
Pandora laughed. “No! Really?”
“Yeah, said my loyalty was what set me apart. I was kinder then, too,” Regulus said. “My family hadn’t managed to Crucio it out of me yet.”
They both sobered at that.
“Your family didn’t take your loyalty, though,” Pandora said. “Or you wouldn’t be doing any of this. Destroying the Horcrux, making an illegal Time Turner, raising Harry. You’re a lot braver than you think, Regulus.”
Regulus wanted to argue, to bring up every time he wasn’t brave and someone else paid for it, but as his eyes drifted to the Time Turner, he froze.
The Time Turner was glowing red and pulsing with a heat he could feel from a foot away. It vibrated radically on the tabletop. They’d been so wrapped up in their conversation, they hadn’t noticed.
“Pandora, get down!” Regulus screamed, and he tackled Pandora to the ground, covering her with his body.
The Time Turner gave off a wave of magic, the magic exploding outwards. Blistering heat rolled over the room, and Regulus shouted as it burned his back, searing straight through his robes and down to the skin. He smelled burnt flesh and hair and watched as the glass vials of potion scattered around the room burst from the heat. Potion splattered across the walls; glass rained down; any metal nearby melted.
A few seconds passed, and the magic died down, retreating back into the Time Turner. Regulus stayed on top of Pandora for another moment, breathing heavily. His back was in agony.
Regulus forced himself to his feet, and Pandora followed him. They both looked at the Time Turner.
It was somehow still intact, the red bleeding away and returning to gold. It was vibrating, but the vibrations were slowing until it was still again.
A little bit later, Pandora was patching up Regulus’s back, dabbing dittany over the burns.
“See?” She said. “You’re braver than you think.”
Regulus wanted to disagree, but any arguments were cut off by a hiss as the dittany worked its way into the wounds with a sting.
It took them almost eight more months to figure it out. Luckily, there were no more explosions of magic.