Wizard Tarot Foxglove

1993-4

The train lugged to a halt, brakes squealing and turning up sparks. Jessie looked at Addison, who was half-asleep, but nonetheless very confused about this turn of events. Sam and Mar wore similar scared expressions, with Mar eliciting a high-pitched yelp when the train shook violently, near the frequency of God yelling at its creations.

“What the hell was that?” Jessie tried looking out of the window, but it fogged up too quickly to catch a glimpse of the outside. When the fog turned to ice, so, too, did her blood chill, and she got a very, very bad feeling about this. “I’m…going to go check on Harry,” she mumbled, tossing open the frozen glass sliding door and shutting it again before her friends could hold her back.

It was a unique bond the Potters held, despite not growing up together all their lives. Jessie and Harry just...knew. Or, more like, Jessie got a tingle that something was about to go wrong, and she would interfere, despite the vehement, macho arguments from her little brother. From the second Harry found himself on Hogwarts grounds for the very first time, Jessie was there, ready to...Well...Do what was necessary, unorthodoxy ignored. Harry was Jessie's only sense of duty and responsibility, where, in all other aspects of her life, she is woefully deficient.

Addi belligerently opened the door again and gave Jessie a disapproving, sleepy glare. “Wait, I’m sure everything’s fine! A teacher would have—”

A moan cut Addi off. It was coming from the part of the train Jessie knew Harry was in. The older, burdened sister predictably broke into a run, ignoring her friend completely. It was dark, and the air itself seemed to be frozen. Her lungs burned just to breathe it in…

After running passed twenty cabins and getting to the next car, finally, she saw the cause.

A dementor floated in front of Harry’s compartment, its bony and decayed hand outstretched towards the door’s handle, turning it without ever making contact. The creature was just as ugly as the illustrations in her DADA textbook, all gangly and cloaked in a hood that seemed to stick to its rotten form.

Jessie could have peed her pants, but her brother was in there. And, so, she did the only thing a highly irrational 15-year-old would do when faced with a monster she could not even hope to hex: she sprinted towards it, jumped, and tackled the thing with all of her might, yelling a battle cry which she had hoped would scare away her fears.

"FUCK YOU!"

She hit the ground hard and rolled with the ugly thing to a stop, crushing its bony neck in her embrace and hoping to God that dementors needed air to live. No such hope. Her arms felt tingly, like she had been dipped in ice-cold, Siberian water. The dementor wriggled free easily and rounded on her as she laid hopelessly immobile on the ground. The gaping hole in its face opened and breathed in something from inside her being.

Jessie felt cold everywhere. Not just outside, but in her own body. That dark, terrible, stinky and decrepit hole for a mouth...! She heard a scream, her mind replaying a familiar picture her darkest nightmares featured often: her mother dying in a flash of green.

And then came this wonderful white light. It chased the dementor away, and the ice receded, both from the train’s walls and from inside of her. Her muscles creaked, she groaned, snapping them back into function by curling her freezing hands at first. She could move again! The zombie was gone! The hallway lamps flickered on and the train slowly pulled forward. Jessie blinked, realizing she could do even more than just move her fingers. She shifted all the way up and cleared her bleary eyes, coming face to face with her cokebottle-bespectacled brother and his familiar, traumatized, green eyes.

“What…the actual fuck…Harry…” Jessie mumbled tiredly. Of course, she thought this all was his fault. It usually is.

“Not my fault,” Harry quickly responded. He always was on the defensive (especially when things were actually his fault!). “I have no idea what that thing was!”

“A Dementor,” a new voice supplied. The mustached and shabbily dressed owner of said voice dropped to one knee and observed Jessie with some concern. Harry looked at him judgingly, and Jessie shared that sentiment. Neither Potter gave Remus a single break. “Why don’t we get you up and into the cabin, okay?” The older man tried to encourage the siblings.

“Alright,” Jessie complied weakly, accepting the arm which helped her to her new seat. Students were popping their heads out of their cabins now that the danger and fuss was over. Just how many saw her hair-brained idea to sack a dementor, Jessie didn’t know.

Despite the creature’s absence now, she still felt…odd. Empty. She never thought dementors could be such awful creatures. In fact, Jessie used to be sure they just got a bad rap because other people thought they were weird—like thestrals. That made sense. People often fear what they don't know. But, now, she knew definitively that dementors were just as bad as her textbooks said…maybe even worse. It sucked the happiness right out of her.

“Chocolate? It will help.” The mystery man handed her a piece, and she took it dazedly. The part of her that would usually question a stranger handing her food went away for the time being. Even worse, this guy looked like he had crawled through a bar fight this morning.

“Thanks.” She nibbled on it absently. Hermione and Ron stared at her with bug eyes. They didn't have the heart to say anything yet, choosing, instead, to sit in the corner like the two understandably catatonic children that they were.

“What’s a…dementor?” Harry asked.

“One of the guards of Azkaban,” the older, poorly dressed man answered. Jessie slowly started to notice all of the scars on him and how they perfected the image of somehow she definitely shouldn't have accepted chocolate from. “Don’t worry, it’s gone now. It was searching the train for Sirius Black.”

“Blimy, and Jessie just tackled it,” cried Ron, worriedly squeezing his rat hostage in his arms.

“Yes, that’s certainly the first time I’ve seen someone attempt that method against one of them,” the man chuckled. “Effective, though, if only for a moment.”

Jessie smiled, too, more at her idiocy than anything else, but then reality hit her. “Wait, so, um…who are you, exactly?” She asked suspiciously.

“Remus Lupin. Your next professor in Defense Against the Dark Arts.” He smiled kindly, but Jessie just narrowed her eyes.

“And do you always keep chocolate on hand for dementor attacks, Professor Lupin?”

“Only lately,” he replied, still good-natured and unbothered by her distrust.

Jessie approached Lupin’s desk after the rest of the class had filed out. He was busying himself with putting away the projection pictures of Ghouls, but smiled and put down the last reel when he noticed her.

“A question, Miss Potter?”

“A loaded one,” Jessie confirmed, opening the book in her hands to the marked page and placing it down on Lupin’s desk for him to see. It was the first page in a chapter on the Patronus Charm. “I realize it’s optional for the practical exam portion of O.W.L.s, but…the circumstances don’t seem optional. I need help learning it. Tackling can only get me so far, this isn’t rugby.”

Lupin smiled at that quip. “I can’t agree more. Even though you are a regular Naas Botha.”

'Botha these nuts', Jessie compulsively thought in response.

BANG! Thin, snakelike cords burst from the end of Snape’s wand and twisted themselves around Lupin’s mouth, wrists, and ankles; he wobbled and fell to the floor, unable to move. With a roar of rage, Black started toward Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black’s eyes.

“Give me a reason,” Snape growled. “Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will.”

Black stopped dead. It would have been impossible to say which face showed more hatred, Black's, having survived 12 years in Hell, and Snape...Well, no one knew what Snape had faced.

Harry and Jessie stood there, paralyzed, not knowing what to do or whom to believe. Her brother glanced around at Ron and Hermione. Ron looked just as confused as he did, still fighting to keep hold on the struggling Scabbers. Hermione, however, took an uncertain step toward Snape and said, in a very breathless voice, “Professor Snape — it wouldn’t hurt to hear what they’ve got to say, w-would it?”

“Miss Granger, you are already facing suspension from this school,” Snape spat. “You, the Potters, and Weasley are out-of-bounds, in the company of a convicted murderer and a werewolf. For once in your life, hold your tongue.”

“But if — if there was a mistake —”

“KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!” Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged. “DON’T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” A few sparks shot out of the end of his wand, which was still pointed at Black’s face. Hermione fell silent.

“Vengeance is very sweet,” Snape gloated, even daring to raise his lips in a smirk at Black. “How I hoped I would be the one to catch you…”

“The joke’s on you again, Severus,” Black snarled. “As long as this boy brings his rat up to the castle” — he jerked his head at Ron — “I’ll come quietly…”

“Up to the castle?” said Snape silkily. “I don’t think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the Dementors once we get out of the Willow. They’ll be very pleased to see you, Black… pleased enough to give you a little kiss, I daresay… I —”

What little color there was in Black’s face left it. “You — you’ve got to hear me out,” he croaked. “The rat — look at the rat —” But there was a mad glint in Snape’s eyes that Harry had never seen before. He seemed beyond reason.

“Come on, all of you,” he said. He clicked his fingers, and the ends of the cords that bound Lupin flew to his hands. “I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the Dementors will have a kiss for him too —”

Harry had crossed the room in three strides and blocked the door.

“Get out of the way, Potter, you’re in enough trouble already,” snarled Snape. “If I hadn’t been here to save your skin —”

“Professor Lupin could have killed me about a hundred times this year,” Harry said. “I’ve been alone with him loads of times, having defense lessons against the Dementors. If he was helping Black, why didn’t he just finish me off then?”

“Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works,” hissed Snape. “Get out of the way, Potter.”

“YOU’RE PATHETIC!” Harry yelled. “JUST BECAUSE THEY MADE A FOOL OF YOU AT SCHOOL YOU WON’T EVEN LISTEN —”

“SILENCE! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THAT!” Snape shrieked, looking madder than ever. “Like father, like son, Potter! I have just saved your neck; you should be thanking me on bended knee! You would have been well served if he’d killed you! You’d have died like your father, too arrogant to believe you might be mistaken in Black — now get out of the way, or I will make you. GET OUT OF THE WAY, POTTER!”

“Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!” Jessie cried over the boys, or men, as they pretended to be. Snape’s wand flung from his hand, and ropes wound around him, much to the same effect as Lupin.

Snape looked ready to kill her. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING—!”

“—EVERYONE, SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Jessie screamed, interrupting Snape’s tirade with one of her own. “I am fucking sick and tired of the BULLSHIT said in the past five minutes! I don’t give a single fuck about what happened two decades ago. We’re going to do this my way, Juliet Bravo style. Silencio!” With a final spell, the charm slapped Snape into true silence, though he still looked at her quite murderously and, in vain, screamed his head off about it, just for the sound to be completely mute.

“We attacked a teacher… We attacked a teacher…” Hermione whimpered, staring at a manic, soundless and screaming Snape with frightened eyes. “Oh, we’re going to be in so much trouble —”

“Oh, chill the fuck out. Worse has happened!” Jessie snarled. “You!” She aimed her wand at Lupin, who was trying in vain to escape his ropes. “Muffliato!” She chanted, hitting Lupin straight in the face with yet another spell. White sparks shot out from his hair, making it shoot up like static had gotten ahold of it. Now, he won’t hear what Sirius Black has to say and she can compare their testimonies. “Levicorpus!” She rotated the bound Mr. Lupin around like a doll so he could not read their lips. “Mr. Escaped Convict, you’re up. Why should I give you this rat? Convince me,” Jessie ordered the criminal, pointing her wand at him.

“That rat is Peter Pettigrew,” he spat, though his hatred was severely diminished since Snape was immobilized. Sirius looked more...disturbingly fond of the situation, though still greatly anxious to move everyone along.

“Right, you said that. Firstly, tell me why I should give a shit about Mr. Pettigrew.”

“He’s the one who sold out your parents and killed those Muggles. Not me!” He said emphatically, pleading for Jessie to understand. “When James and Lily were on the run from Voldemort, we cast a Secret-Keeper charm. We knew that I would be the most likely person for it, so we gave the job to Peter, instead. Only, he went straight to Voldemort with their location!” Black seethed.

“Ah, I get it now…trying to break into the common room, Ron seeing you with a knife by his bedside…It’s like Caddyshack, you’re the idiot, Carl, except instead hunting of a gopher, there’s a rat Animagus,” said the girl a heaping pile of attitude, and comparing things the only real way she knew how--through love of TV, which was so rarely given to her. Jessie bit the inside of her lip, thinking deeply. “Okay, and so then why didn’t your friend, Professor Lupin, try to get you a fair trial? Why wait all this time to help you, and illegally, at that?”

“Because there was nothing he could do, even if he did believe I was innocent! Peter escaped, but not before faking his own death. There! On his foot! Do you see a toe missing? All that was left of Peter was a finger!” He shouted hysterically, tugging on his binds, even though he made no progress getting out of them.

Jessie glanced back at Ron, pointed the wand quickly at his rat and chanted, “Stupify!”.

“Scabbers!!!” Ron cried, juggling the unconscious rat in his hands. “Why would you do that!!! Black is mental!!!”

“I’m not going to hurt your pet, Ron. You know me. I just knocked him out, okay?” Jessie held her hand out, and Ron reluctantly put the passed-out rat in her palm. Jessie observed the creature. There was, in fact, one toe missing, but it was possible Black just saw from that distance, even in the dark. It wasn’t definitive. “How did Peter frame you exactly?”

“I knew what he had done, because your parents had been killed. He must have been the spy. But when I went after him, he screamed that I was the one who betrayed the Potters. He cast a blasting curse before I could even draw my wand, killing twelve people! And then the bastard ran off as a rat! But not before cutting off his finger!”

Jessie pursed her lips, ruminating over that. “So, even Lupin and Dumbledore thought you were guilty. But that doesn’t explain why Lupin suddenly supports you.”

“I know why,” Harry stepped up. “I had a map. It gives you the location of everyone in the castle. One night…I saw Peter Pettigrew’s name on it. Lupin confiscated it, and probably saw his name too.”

Jessie stilled, looking to the rat in her hand. Next, she raised her wand to Lupin, rotated him back around, and cancelled the muffling and gaging spells. The man looked at her gravely, and yet calmly, like he understood her situation and didn’t blame her for attacking a professor. “You’re next,” she said gravely to Lupin, unsure of what she would do if things went south. Run? She couldn't possibly do worse. Terrified of the answer, she still asked him, “Why are you suddenly on Black’s side, even when you thought he was guilty for twelve years?”

“Our map. Harry somehow got ahold of it. It lets you see people’s names all over Hogwarts, where they are. Harry admitted to seeing Pettigrew,” Lupin answered.

Well, that was it. They corroborated their story.

Jessie sighed to herself, thinking through an okay plan. If Pettigrew was in animagi form, either Lupin or Sirius will have to get him out of it. Sirius is the better choice, because he is 12 years out of practice, emaciated, exhausted…

“Alright, this is what’s going to happen.” Jessie nodded to her brother. “Harry is going to post up behind you, Sirius. You will use a wand, and turn back the rat—given it really is Peter. If you so much as change your wand angle a single degree towards me, you’ll be cursed in the back. How does that sound?” Jessie laid the sleeping rat on the floor carefully and backed up a few feet in wide, careful steps.

“Yes, okay, Li—Jessie,” said Sirius quickly, obviously eager to show the truth to his claims. Jessie, with a flick of her wand, unwound the binds from him and tossed him a wand. He pointed it at the rat and, with an invisible spell, the grey, little body suddenly swelled, growing larger and larger and larger, until a large man with grey, wispy hair was laying before them, still asleep.

“Huh…honestly, I wasn’t expecting that,” Jessie mumbled, too shocked to be truly relieved. She has another passed-out criminal to deal with now! The stress crushed her eyebrows together. “Okay, so…I guess we’ve just solved the mystery and cleared an innocent man. We’re like Scooby-Doo! Way to go team!” Her sarcastic, begging-to-be-positive cheer fell on deaf ears.

A groan interrupted the faux celebration. The DADA professor’s face was pained and twisted. Given Hermione’s earlier admission that he was a werewolf, Jessie was able to quickly put two and two together.

They…were…fucked.

“Oh…shit!” Jessie pointed her wand at Snape and hastily cancelled every spell.

Lupin let loose a tortured scream as his face and hands became more distorted, bones breaking and flesh mending into the right form. The cracks, the blood, the screams and howls...! Jessie couldn’t think straight, the kids did nothing but freeze in terror at the sight! Jessie's professor was transforming into a vicious animal before their very eyes! Every damaging spell she knew came to mind, but she hesitated, not wanting to permanently damage the man who was the wolf. Sirius, in tune and well used to the danger, transformed into the familiar black dog and growled, getting ready to fight.

A flurry of ropes burst forth from Snape’s wand and wrapped around a half-Lycan Lupin, stealing everyone’s attention. “Out! Get out!!!” He screamed wildly at the kids.

“But Pettigrew!” Harry shouted in protest as the passed-out murderer laid on the ground, unaware of his predicament.

“Harry, we’ll be killed!” Hermione tugged on Harry’s hand and forced him to run with Ron towards the exit.

Lupin’s wolf form was almost complete. Tortured yelps and the sounds of shattering bones pierced Jessie’s ears, but she didn’t dare look back. She heard Snape’s heavy footfalls right behind her, and echoes of canine yelps and snarls pushed her onward, legs moving as fast as they possibly could. Is Sirius strong enough to hold Lupin off until they escaped?

Hermione’s crazy brown curls disappeared into the tunnel and Jessie crawled for her life after her. In mere moments, she found herself outside with the whomping willow ready to crush them all. She couldn't see the damn thing swing--It was so dark! Snape grabbed her arm and pulled her away from an incoming branch.

All five of them ran in different directions, escaping to the edge of the murderous willow’s reach. All was still for a moment, blood rushed through Jessie’s ears, and it was all she could hear. Then, a howl, and large grey abomination they knew to be Lupin escaped from the tunnel, launching itself towards the Golden Trio. Jessie raised her wand, but Sirius, in his Animagus form, shot from the trunk of the tree and interfered, mowing down Lupin just meters from her brother.

Jessie tried to think of what to do. Would a stunning spell work on a werewolf? Would it be strong enough? She had Snape here, maybe a combined effort would do the deed?

She didn’t have time to voice her theory, as Sirius was brutally scratched and tossed aside, a yelp resounding. Lupin leapt toward Jessie, his disfigured face wrinkling back to reveal canines as long as her fingers, and claws even twice that size! But before it could reach her, an unknown spell from Snape stopped the werewolf midair, but it did not knock Lupin out. Before he could rise and attack again, Jessie shot a stunner, and a similar red flash of light from Snape followed. The rest of the children screamed at the flare.

This time, the werewolf stayed down.

All was still for a moment, and Jessie reluctantly turned to face Snape, knowing the first words out of his mouth were going to be something to the effect of an impending expulsion from the Headmaster.

Snape. Was. Furious.

But before he could say a single word, Hermione pointed to the edge of the clearing. “Peter Pettigrew! He’s escaping!”

Sure enough, the scuttling movement of a tiny rat through grass could be seen momentarily before darkness swallowed the traitor up. The trio ran, followed by Snape bellowing furiously after them to stop.

If hell hadn’t broken lose before, it certainly did now. The following events happened so quickly, Jessie barely had time to ruminate on what occurred. Ice began to cover the clearing, and the first round of Dementors swooped down to attack Sirius Black, who had passed out from a deep gash caused by Lupin. Hundreds of those vile, robed creatures materialized, extending as far as she could see in the moonlight. She ran to Sirius’ side, with him in his feeble and human form, and tried, in vain, to cast a Patronus charm.

“Expecto Patronum!” She cried, over and over, commanding the spell to work, but the icy feeling seeped passed her skin and infected her entire being. She couldn’t find the energy to think up something positive. It was one thing to cast the charm in the safety of Lupin’s office, against no enemy. But it was quite another altogether when faced with the disgusting creatures, when the only other, flimsy connection she had to her old life, other than Harry, was dying right under her useless hand. One by one, the deathy figures took turns sucking the souls out of Sirius and Jessie. As her surroundings blurred, Jessie thought that was how she would die, until the sound of something even more frightening met her eyes.

Lupin was awake.

In the final moments before darkness, Jessie saw Snape transfigure a muzzle on the awoken werewolf and get slashed by its claws for standing between it/him and her. Behind them, the image of her own self appeared from behind the cover of the trees, a white light emanating from the doppelganger’s wand. It was a shark. Jessie knew that shark.

Jessie woke groggily. After a few moments of blinking away her exhaustion, the events of the night hit her, and she bolted up, just to meet Madam Pomfrey’s hand as it shoved chocolate in her face.

“Here, eat this, dear,” the nurse said, but Jessie batted it away. She felt like a toddler who didn’t want to eat, and the nurse’s airplane hand was not having it.

“No, just wait--!” Jessie pleaded, finding everyone had been decimated just as badly as her, and were waiting like invalids in their beds. Snape looked the worst, a bandage on his neck betraying speckles of blood. Another bandage was taped around his head. It was clear he got clawed by Lupin, who was nowhere to be found. They stared at each other a moment, both looking very confused. Jessie took her chance and was about to apologize profusely for attacking him and beg forgiveness (it was just now hitting her that she could be expelled!), but a voice interrupted her and drew both of their gazes to the door.

“Shocking business…shocking…miracle none of them died…never heard the like…” The Minister walked in, along with Dumbledore. Jessie kicked her feet out from the bed before the Minister's expensive cloak could be removed in faux reverence for the scene.

“You must eat the chocolate!”

Jessie dodged Madam Pomfrey’s chocolate again. “I’m fine! Just wait! I need to talk to—"

“Sirius Black is innocent! We saw Peter Pettigrew!”

That meant Harry was awake.

“We did! We swear!” Hermione followed. Jessie realized they all looked like a bunch of loons.

“My goodness, children,” the minister chuckled. “What a preposterous thing! It’s clear you’ve all been severely confounded by the convict—”

Jessie, once again, dodged Nurse Ratched’s chocolate bundle. “They’re telling the truth. I saw it. Peter Pettigrew is an Animagus. A rat. That’s how he evaded capture.” She stood up, felt extreme vertigo, and sat back down again. At least this time, Pomfrey left her side and, instead, attempted to shove chocolate down Harry’s throat.

“Ridiculous…ridiculous…” The minister continued to laugh it off.

“Snape can tell you, he was there, too!" Jessie desperately continued. "He saw everything when we figured it out. Peter Pettigrew pretended to be Ron’s pet rat after he caused the blast that killed twelve Muggles. He cut off his finger and disappeared, leaving Sirius Black to take the fall!”

“He was always the Secret-Keeper, not Black!” Hermione added as Harry was forced to choke down chocolate like it was the new, hip water-boarding technique.

Snape still didn’t take his eyes off of Jessie. “There were two of you…How could there be two of you…?”

Jessie stared, slack-jawed. And then she remembered. There were two of her…No, that can’t be right.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say, Professor Snape was confounded,” the Minister said haughtily.

“No, he’s just got a concussion!” Jessie argued. “Please, Professor Dumbledore,” she addressed the sanest adult in the room, which was a severely troubling thought. “You have to believe us. Professor Lupin saw it all, too!”

“Well, he could hardly help at the moment. He’s Merlin-knows-where,” the Minister chuckled again, and Jessie had to stop herself from screaming in frustration.

“Then we wait for him!” Harry demanded, having swallowed the chocolate whole. His face was covered with it.

“Minster, Professor, I must insist that you both leave!” Madam Pomfrey said angrily. “My patients should not be distressed after what occurred! Please, Miss Potter, lay back down!” the nurse tried to force Jessie down again.

“No, get off—!” Jessie cried, and Madam Pomfrey took that moment to shove a piece of chocolate into her mouth. “AAHHHH!” Jessie screamed through the chocolate.

“Professor Snape, please! Tell them!” Hermione pleaded.

Snape still looked a bit out of it. And, by a bit, Jessie would say, 'he is higher than a fucking satellite'. “Peter Pettigrew is alive...I saw him.”

Jessie wished she could have called him convincing.

“Right, just as you saw two of Miss Potter, I’m sure…” The Minister continued smiling like it was all some big joke.

“For heaven’s sake!” said Madam Pomfrey hysterically. “Is this a hospital wing or not? Headmaster, I must insist —”

“My apologies, Poppy. Only a few more moments,” said Dumbledore calmly. “I have just been talking to Sirius Black. His story matches, though there is little reason to believe his word. Nor the testimonies of three children and a concussed and grievously injured professor.”

Snape’s eyes brightened for a moment, his latent spite for an insulted pride making him keen. “Albus, I have seen—!”

“—And he will be executed for his crimes at dawn,” the Minister said proudly, ignoring Snape.

“No! Please!”

“You can’t!

“He’s innocent!”

Madam Pomfrey looked ready to explode. “Please! You must leave! They need rest and recuperation!”

“If only we had a little more time…” Dumbledore said cryptically, eyeing Hermione. Everyone was stunned into silence with that as the headmaster and the minister began to leave. “Madam Pomfrey, may I speak with you just for a moment concerning Professor Snape’s injuries?”

The nurse sighed angrily and nodded, following the two out.

Jessie looked to Hermione. “What the actual fuck is going on? Am I in the Twilight Zone?” Jessie looked at Snape. “Are you a demented Rodman Serling?”

“There were two of you,” he repeated. “What did you do?”

She tossed up her hands. “Jesus Christ—”

“Jessie!” Hermione called. She had a golden necklace on, and her brother was sharing it with her. “Come on!”

“…Is that what I think it is…?” Jessie ignored her lightheadedness as she stood and crossed the room to get a closer look. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Snape’s right! There was two of me!” She squeezed her head between Hermione’s and Harry’s.

“Is that a time turner?” Snape’s characteristically bitter voice returned. “What are you doing with that? Granger, do not—”

“—Professor, I’m really sorry for this.” Jessie raised her wand.

“DON’T YOU DARE—”

“Confundoe! Stupefy!”

Jessie realized she would have to do that again...or, rather...for the first time, in the past, because she already had.