Forward to Times Past

sorry, there's something wrong with the spacing... but for the life of me, i can't figure out how to fix it...

---

At first, the changes were hard to get used to. Any grudging respect that had slowly been developing from the forced intervention in the Defense classes was destroyed overnight. The classes were now torture to teach. The students went back to their feuds, and couldn’t be trusted to duel each other. The malice was unbelievable.

Liam leaned over to Draco. “This is how it all started innit?” he whispered in his ear.

“Whad’ya mean Lee?”

“This,” he waved his hand at the bickering students eating in the hall. “Things were slowly getting better. Da’s group was slowly changing the opinion of their houses, and getting them to accept that the others were just as good as them. That they were human’s too, regardless of bloodlines.”

But now with the spell, their hate got transferred to us, their children.” Draco concluded, finally understanding where Lee was coming from.

They watched, silently, as Sev was targeted by the Maurders, and began to retreat into himself, becoming more and more bitter. Lily and James had started dating, and very incredibly obnoxious. Draco once commented on how dense people were to not recognize a lust spell when it was right in front of them. The twins were ostracized from Slytherin and were also picked on by the Maurders.

The real tragedy however, was found by the boys early one morning a week or so, ago. They were walking around the lake to get some peace when they stumbled upon Will. Apparently his parents had port-keyed him out of school in order to get the mark. When he refused, they tortured him, repeatedly. Liam was barely able to get the images out of the boys head before his mind fell into madness. He is currently in St. Mungos’ permanently insane. They couldn’t begin to fathom how Meg had reacted when her memories came back, when, because of the spell, she was never dating him. She wouldn’t talk about it, but the boys knew that both her twin and boyfriend had helped a lot when the memories came back.

They couldn’t do a thing to change it either. Too much of their future rode on their actions.

“I hate this Dray,” Liam confessed as he watched as a teacher once again broke up the fighting groups.

“I know Lee. I do too.”

Inside both were fuming. Before Sev left them, he made the two of them swear not to interfere.

---

~Flashback~


Sev stood facing the two boys on the couch. “I need you guys to promise me you won’t interfere.”

“But Da!”

“No. I mean it. I know what happens, and you can’t change it. You can’t take revenge on the others for my behalf either.”

“Now, Uncle Sev. Come on!”

“No, Draco. Same for you Liam. Things need to happen this way for a reason. Swear to me, both of you; swear to me that you won’t do anything. No revenge, no interference, no breaking the spell.”

Frustrated annoyance flashed across their faces as Liam got up and started pacing.

“Da, I hate this! It’s it’s. Ugh!” He trailed off, arms waving, unable to voice his frustrations.

“It’s unmoral, Uncle Sev,” Draco took up where his boyfriend trailed off. “How can you expect us not to do something? We both know how you were treated by you best friends. If we could stop this before it really started, Lee would have his family, wouldn’t be beaten up, or killed.”

“Stop Draco. Don’t you think for a moment that if there is any other way, I wouldn’t take it. This is hard enough as it is. You need to promise me to stay out of it.”

“Da-”

His father just gave him the look, and Liam sighed; not giving in, just mentally changing his argument. Draco however, read the hidden pain and anger in his godfather’s eyes; he didn’t like this anymore than they did.

“Come on, boys. Please do this for me.” Sev didn’t even have his trademark sarcasm under laying his tone. That’s how weary he was.

Draco sighed. “Yes Uncle Sev. We won’t interfere.”

“Liam?”

Lee just shook his head mutinously. Draco elbowed him, not even trying to mask the gesture. “Yes, Da.” He obliged, rolling his eyes.

“Swear.”

Their shoulders slumped, defeated. “We swear,” they spoke in unison.

---

“This is going to be a long few moths isn’t it?”

Draco didn’t even dignify that with a response.

---

~meg pov~



‘Bloody Fuck!’ echoed through my mind as I shot up in bed, drenched in a cold sweat. I gladly echoed my twins swearing, once again thanking the precaution of placing the Silencing Charms around my bed. I quickly got my breathing back to normal as I concentrated on my twin’s words.

“Baby girl?”

“Yeah Joe, I’m here.”

“Okay. Same ones?” This wasn’t the first time I’ve woken him up with my nightmares.

“Started out like them.”

“Shit. Do you need anything?” Meaning do I need him to come to me.

“No. I’m fine.”

“You know I can tell when you’re lying to me right?”

I sighed. I haven’t been able to lie to him since that summer, sometimes he let me slide, but if he thought it really mattered, and then he’d call me on it. Just like if I insisted, he would stay away. But the memories….

He caught my train of thought, and popped onto the bed next to me.

I tried to stay strong but the dreams always left me weak, weaker than I liked. He always had been the only one who’d seen me shatter.

I buried my head against his shoulder and started to cry, silently. They always did say that crying silently was the worst of reactions; you’d known that crying wouldn’t solve anything. He just wrapped his arms tightly around me, an' let me cry.

Awhile later, I finally stopped. “Sorry.” I muttered as I pulled away, whipping my eyes.

He just rolled his eyes; he had long given up on making me stop apologizing for every little thing. “I only caught the tail end of the dream, can you elaborate please?”

I sighed, but knew it would be for the best. “It started out with them torturing me. Been there, done that, you’ve seen the memories. Then it flipped to me cutting.” I broke at that. The rush I felt, the blissful emptiness, I didn’t want to go back to that. I had promised, as well as I could, not to cut, an’ get help. But recently, I’ve been dreaming of the bliss, an’ it was scaring me. I knew Joe was monitoring my thoughts, just so if I got to that place again, he’d step it. But I’ve forcefully had him stay out, and let me fight the battle myself.

Joe squeezed me tighter. “I am here for you, I will help.”

I just smiled sadly at him. I knew my twin would do anything for me, just like he knew I would do anything for him.

Taking a deep breath, I continued.

“Well you know what happened, but not in the dream. That’s when it swerved off. I could see my body below me, still cutting, as I flew off above it. I was transported to a room. It looked like a classroom. The Defense Professors were there.

There were a group of students surrounding them. Us, Will, Snape, Potter, Black, Evans, and Lupin. Pettigrew was hidden in the shadows. I could hear everything clearly. The professors were explaining something about a spell created to erase/change memories. Then it flashed to a group of us putting things into a pile before walking out of the rooms. From what I was able to see, there were two sets of wedding rings.

It moved back to the classroom were Professors Williams and Winters were sitting.

---

“I know you don’t have much time Meg, but we need you to listen. We really didn’t plan on talking to you guys, once the spell was set, but there’s something about twins an' psychic abilities.”

Professor Winters interrupted. “What Lee is trying to tell you is that because of you an' Joe’s bond, you can reach out with your mind. Lee an' I have the same ability as soul mates.

I know Liam agrees with me that this is for the best. I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but this all happened for a reason. An if we break the spell, who knows what the consequences will be.”

“Plus Da forbad us,” Liam interrupted.

Draco ignored him, and continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I need you to promise me-”

“Us.”

“-us something. Once you an' Joe graduate, don’t fight, not if you can help it. Just go. Travel to America or something. Just stay out of England for the next 4 years or so, at least. And stay away from Dumbledore!”

“But-”

“Megan please. Out of everyone, you need to listen. You’ll understand why in a few years, if you’re alive this time of course.”

“Wait. This time?”

For an answer, images appeared. It seemed as if I was standing in the middle of a battle. The destruction of the house was horrible. It was smoking and collapsing upon itself. The ruins however left my attention as I caught site of the bodies. There were three adults and a baby…”

---

“Gods Joe, it was horrible.” I broke off, tears threatening as the images passed through my head. I tried shaking my head to get rid of them; it didn’t help. “I couldn’t tell who they were, but I got that feeling, you know? An I knew without a doubt that it was me, you, Jay and my child. But that was when you were pulled in. You saw what happened with Pettigrew and Dumbledore, an the Order, an how they killed everyone…” My brother stopped my tearful rant. “Fuck. Bloody fuck.” I cursed as I knuckled the tears out of my eyes. I hated crying. Thankfully he knew this and didn’t push, just let me deal with it, while keeping a comforting presence in my head.

“What should we do?”

“Is there anything we can do? You know no one would believe us with that spell in place.”

“True. But what about the two Professors, Joe? They obviously know something.”

“It could be a trap.”

“But they seemed genuine.” I argued.

“It’s not like we could know. I mean we don’t remember anything different, only that there’s a possibility that there’s a spell in place.”

I just pouted at him. He sighed, ran his hand though his hair, and sighed. I knew I won then. “So we’ll go see them then?”

“I suppose. I can’t help.” He gave in.

I just smiled at him in thanks.

“You going to be okay?” he changed the topic back to the original problem at hand.

“Yeah, well, you know what I mean.”

He rolled his eyes. “Right. Go back to sleep hun.” He got off my bed and made sure I was covered up. I rolled my eyes at his mothering, but didn’t say anything; I knew it was his way of dealing. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

I just sighed; patience was never a virtue of mine. “Yes. G’night Joe.”

“Fine! I’m just making sure.” He leaned down an kissed me on the forehead. “Love you. If you need me, just call.”

“Yes mother. Love you too, of course.”

“Of course.” He disappeared. “Sleep.” He commanded.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”