Memories of the Future

To be completely honest, Harry wasn’t even surprised anymore when time travel came into the mix. In his defense, he had just learned magic was real like two years ago and yeah, he hadn’t really given time travel much thought but he wouldn’t have discredited it. Either way he tried his best to stay quiet when everyone started acting like the video tapes from the future were a sign of the apocalypse. He was about two minutes into his third year and already he’d been attacked by a dementor and been at what seemed to be a major historical event.

The professors were all grouped together, talking in hushed voices while the students’ murmur grew more and more unsettled. Harry leaned closer to Hermione and Ron.

“So uhhh, what are the chances this has absolutely nothing to do with me?” Hermione glared at him.
“The entire fabric of the universe could be coming apart due to those memories and you’re making jokes!” Harry tried his best to look thoroughly chastised but Ron snorted into his pumpkin juice.

“With your luck it’ll be all about you and Voldemort huh.” Ron elbowed him, grinning.

“Oh so Ron’s allowed to joke but I’m not?” He complained when Hermione didn’t scold him as well. Ron stuck out his tongue.

“Quiet!” She hissed at them, eyes completely transfixed at the head table. The professors seem to be arguing.

“Maybe we should learn to read lips,” Ron mused. “We do run into this situation quite a lot.”

“I think they sent an owl to the minister,” One of the twins, Fred, materialized near Harry’s shoulder. “I saw Filch tear out of here when this whole thing started.”

“Not even we could’ve made him run that fast.” George said wistfully.

“Students!” Harry jumped as Dumbledore’s voice echoed through the great hall. “Everyone please return to your common rooms immediately. Prefects, please make sure everyone stays in their common room until instructed otherwise!”

“Well I guess that’s the end of it then.” Ron sighed, grabbing the half a roll still left on his plate as he stood to follow the stream of Gryffindors exiting the great hall. “You live through historical events and you don’t even have the clearance to learn anything cool.”

Privately, Harry really didn’t want to know what the tapes had on them that was important enough to mess with the fabric of space. He had enough on his plate as it was.

When he walked into the common room the following morning there were aurors waiting for him and he didn’t even have it in him to be surprised.

“I think you jinxed us mate,” Ron whispered as they were escorted through the halls. Harry scowled.

The escorts had grabbed him, Hermione, Ron, and the rest of the Weasley brood out of the common room while the rest of the Gryffindors got to actually go eat breakfast and get their schedules for the new year. Never had Harry been more jealous of a group of individuals in his whole life when he saw who was in the room they were being taken to.

“Great, look who's here.” Ron muttered under his breath and Harry agreed. Draco Malfoy wasn’t the person he would choose to be stuck in a room with indefinitely, especially without breakfast. The other members of the ragtag group forming in an empty classroom included Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, along with two older boys both with flaming red hair that Harry assumed were the older Weasley siblings, Charlie and Bill. Although the sight of Mrs. Weasley usually put him at ease, now it just made him more nervous. McGonagall was there as well, talking quietly to R. J. Lupin who was looking ten times better than he was the previous night. Pomfrey must have gotten to him shortly after accosting him. Lucius Malfoy hadn’t changed at all from their brief meeting the previous year, and the lady standing next to him looked enough like Draco that there was no doubt she was his mother. There were other people he didn’t recognize. An older couple with a lady with hair that as he watched changed quickly from pink to turquoise and back again, a grizzly looking man with a peg leg and an eye that whizzed around in its socket at a sickening speed, and a couple other witches and wizards that Harry did not recognize.

“Alright ‘Arry?” The clap on the back almost sent him prowling, but he grinned up at Hagrid anyways, trying not to let his nervousness show on his face. The rest shuffled in behind him, immediately making a beeline for the Weasleys but not before Harry heard the noise of the lock clicking into place behind them. The cold feeling in his stomach was growing. What the fuck was going on.

“I mean there’s only one explanation isn’t there?” Hermione said when he questioned her later over the breakfast they were sent. “The memories involve us somehow.”

They didn’t confirm anything for hours. The adults went in and out as they wanted, talking in hushed voices to each other that were starting to get on Harry’s nerves. Whenever he questioned anyone, they were denied answers. Mr. Weasley’s ears turned an alarming shade of red as he said he didn’t know anything and, in a particularly desperate moment where he asked McGonagall, he was admonished for his lack of patience. He was incredibly fed up with everyone by the time Dumbledore appeared.

“As I’m sure you are all aware,” Dumbledore started, “Something incredibly unusual happened last night. It has been deemed appropriate for us to show it to you, and only you.”

The way he said this, looking over half-moon spectacles at them, suddenly felt threatening. The pink haired witch piped up.

“Is it really the future? That’s what I heard.” This caused a low mummer to start spreading across the room. Apparently everyone knew less than they were acting like they did, Harry thought bitterly. Even the Malfoys had their heads pressed close together.

“That is correct. For those who are not aware, memories such as these can be viewed in a pensieve and these such memories have not taken place.”

Everyone started talking at once, but Harry couldn’t hear them above the roaring in his ears. He had a mass murderer after him and now he was somehow involved in memories of the future. He needed a break. Desperately. Suddenly everything felt intensely claustrophobic.

“Harry?” The hand on his shoulder made him jump. Hermione flinched back and he immediately felt bad.

“Sorry,” He murmured. “I don’t know where I went.”

She smiled, but he could tell that he was worrying her.

“We’re going now. To the pensieve that is.” Ah yes. The future awaits.