Tumble Through Time

UmBITCH

The next morning at breakfast, the three Marauders sat with Lily, talking quietly to themselves, piecing together what they learned.

"Harry is my son," James said. "That's about all I got."

Lily rolled her eyes. "I saw a Daily Prophet story on in the dorm last night. Says he is lying about You-Know-Who returning."

"Are you calling my son a liar?" James challenged.

"Honestly, Potter," she huffed. "It's simply an observation. Besides, everyone knows the prophet is rubbish."

"Voldemort was defeated?" Sirius asked in between shoveling food into his mouth.

"Yes, well according to Harry, he returned," Remus added, not looking Sirius in the eyes for more than a few moments. How could he? The two have a kid together!

"There's gotta be more-" Lily was cut off by the arrival of two students.

One had bushy brown hair and dark eyes and the other was a lanky ginger.

"You must be the transfers Nova told me about," she said sitting next to Lily. "I am Hermione Granger and this is Ron Weasley."

The ginger, Ron, waved before piling food onto his plate.

"What year are you guys?" Ron asked through his food, which earned him a look from Hermione.

"Fifth years," James replied gloomily. None of them were particularly thrilled about Dumbledore putting them back a year, but they all knew it was temporary.

"I here ya, mate," Ron chuckled. "O. W. L. year. Bloody Hell! Hey, 'Mione you remember when our biggest concern was Fluffy?"

Hermione seemed to find it amusing and laughed. Before Sirius could ask what they meant, the entire Great Hall went quiet. Their attention turned towards the doors as two students walked in.

Harry and Nova walked in. Whether they were oblivious to the silence or didn't care, they didn't even acknowledge it. The two were simply laughing at something that Nova had said. Unlike the night before, they both wore the correct uniform.

As they sat down, the Great Hall turned back to their prior conversations, but Lily heard Nova and Harry's names bouncing around.

"What took so long?" Ron asked, raising a suggestive brow.

"Get your head out of the gutter, Ronald," Nova said, cutting her pancakes. "I had to show Harry something and we ran into Peeves."

"Was it your human anatomy?" Ron smirked. Harry turned bright red, and Hermione sniggered.

Sirius shot James an accusatory glare.

Nova threw a pancake, hitting him in the face.

"Alright! Eesh!" Ron said as he pulled the pancake off his face. "Now I syrup all over my face!"

"It's still edible," Nova shrugged. "Maybe have Hermione lick it off."

Sirius barked in laughter and James' lips quirked up in a smirk.

"How did I get dragged into this?" Hermione began turning a bright red.

"D'you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?" Harry asked, changing the conversation.

"Not really," said Ron slowly. "Except . . . well . . ."

He looked rather sheepish.

"What?" Harry urged him.

"Well, it'd be cool to be an Auror," said Ron in an offhand voice.

"Yeah, it would," said Harry fervently as James agreed. It was Lily agreement with the two that threw the older Potter off. It had never occured to him that she would be interested in something like that.