Turn Back Time

Comments: e-mail at sstar_luna@yahoo.co.uk or Review button below.
Rating: PG-13 for now, may change later. Will be slash later in the story: HP/?, JP/LE
Spoilers: Books 1-5. Do not read unless you have FINISHED The Order of the Phoenix.
Disclaimer: I don\'t own anything except the plot. All Harry Potter™ characters and settings are the sole intellectual property of JK Rowling, Warner Bros. and various others who all aren\'t connected to me in any way. No money is being made with this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 5: Decisions (Part 1)


James padded across the room and began to shake the sleeping boy awake. After a few moments, a small groan was heard and James sawepy epy blue eyes peer back at him. \"Padfoot!\" he whispered. \"Shush. Hurry up and get up, we need to have a talk. Come on!\" James waited for his best friend to get out of his bed before the two of them walked back to James\' bed, where Remus and Peter were already waiting. Both boys, who had also just been woken up, were rubbing the remnants of sleep from their eyes.

\"James!\" moaned Sirius. \"Why did you have to get us up this early? It should be made illegal!\"

James gave him an absent wave of the hand and sat down at the head of the bed, looking at his friends. Quietly he started to speak, \"It\'s about Harry. And Remus\". Seeing the confused look on Peter\'s face, he further explained, \"What are we going to do during the full moon? We certainly can\'t tell Harry about Remus\' condition. Firstly, it\'s Remus\' secret to tell and secondly, we don\'t know how he\'ll react. It\'s too much of a risk. Then on top of that, Harry can\'t find out that we are animagi. Illegal ones at that\".

Remus agreed with James. \"I know Harry seems like a nice person, what we know about him that is, but it\'s just that not everybody will react like you guys did. What if he thinks I\'m a dangerous beast? If Harry knew, he could easily get me thrown out of Hogwarts. Besides, he could report you to the Ministry. You could even be sent to Azkaban for becoming illegal animagi!\" he said. \"I don\'t think Harry would though, he seems too nice for that, but I think it\'s safer not to take the risk\".

Sirius, who had an uncharacteristic pensive look on his face, just shrugged his shoulders in agreement. James privately thought that he should have tried to find some tea for his best friend to wake him up properly. Peter on the other hand was trembling, most likely at the thought of being discovered to being an illegal animagus.

James agreed with Remus, Harry did seem like a likeable person, but he couldn\'t get rid of the nagging feeling that there was much more to him than he had revealed. He hadn’t yet confronted Harry about that first night when James had seen him lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing. Sirius, Remus, and himself had agreed to keep silent about it, but James knew that all of them were curious as to why the Headmaster did not seem to know who Harry had been at the time. Then there was the fact that there was a strange similarity between the two of them. At dinner last night Sirius and several other students at the Gryffindor table had commented on how alike they were in appearance. James had the feeling that life had just got a lot more interesting now that Harry had arrived, before he was brought out of his musing by Peter.

\"Umm guys?\" he asked, fingers fiddling with his robe. \"Should we be talking here, I mean he\'s in his bed. Won\'t he be able to hear us talking?\"

\"No Wormtail\" began Remus. \"Last night, before he fell asleep I heard him cast silencing spells around his bed area. I doubt that he could hear a thing until he takes them down\" he explained.

\"Why does he need a silencing spell?\" asked Peter.

\"No idea. Maybe he talks in his sleep about the embarrassing things that have happened to him, and he doesn\'t want us to know about it?\" replied Sirius sarcastically. \"Why do you think people use silencing spells? Especially when they\'re about to go to sleep? He probably has nightmares or something and doesn\'t want us to hear or even know about them\".

\"Good point\" agreed James, \"Nevertheless it\'s fortunate for us, since he won\'t hear us talking. So, we\'re agreed that we don\'t tell him anything. If he does find out, well … we\'ll cross that bridge when or if we come to it\".

\"Besides, there\'s always Professor Dumbledore\" Remus pointed out.

\"True. However, what do we tell Harry? The full moon is next week. We\'ll need to distract him somehow\", Peter asked.

\"I think we should wait and see, if there\'s an opportunity we\'ll use it. Otherwise, we could use one of Remus\' old excuses? I doubt Harry would become suspicious so soon\" James mused.

\"Okay. Anyway, we\'d better start getting ready soon. It\'s almost time for breakfast and we\'ll be getting our new timetables as well. Come on!\" exclaimed Remus, as he caught sight of the time.

Sirius agreed. \"We definitely want to make breakfast today\" he said, a mischievous look in his eyes. \"Don\'t we Prongs?\"

Remus walked back to his area shaking his head. \"I don\'t want to know. Really I don\'t\" he muttered under his breath. Sighing he turned around and looked at the two grinning boys. \"It\'s Snape isn\'t it?\" Receiving no reply, Remus shook his head at their behaviour while successfully hiding his smile at the same time. Instead, he approached Harry\'s bed intending on waking the pingping boy.

**********

Harry felt as if he was still in a dream as he followed Sirius and Remus down to the Great Hall for breakfast. The previous night had been anything but restful for him. Memories and dreams, from his parents\' final words to reliving that day at the Department of Mysteries had plagued Harry all night. He had received several odd looks this morning after he had opened the curtains surrounding his bed. When he had looked in the mirror, Harry realised why the four boys had looked so shocked. He looked terrible. There were light purple bruises under his eyes, which were empathised by the paleness of his skin, and his eyes were red, due to the fact that he had cried several times due to his dreams. Luckily, Harry had remembered to erect silencing spells around his bed, which had stopped his new dorm-mates from hearing his screams, but he was betrayed by the hoarseness of his voice.

The more logical part of his brain, which sounded suspiciously like the older Remus, was telling him that the dreams were a direct result of being confronted with his dead mother, father and godfather, as well as their traitor. The irrational part of him instead insisted that their deaths were his fault and that he deserved the dreams. \'After all, being able to meet and talk to Lily and James surely was too much of a good thing?\' Harry sighed. He wished he could take some dreamless sleep potion before going to sleep, but then he would have to explain why he needed the potion, which would only lead to more questions and he was supposed to be keeping a low profile while he was in the past.

Harry sat next to Remus while James, Sirius, and Peter sat down on the opposite side, facing the Slytherin table. Harry had noticed that James and Sirius were both sporting mischievous grins as they had dressed that morning. Harry wondered whom their victims were this time but knew that whatever they were upto, it was most likely not on the same level as what he had witnessed in Snape\'s pensive. At least he hoped that was the case. It had taken many conversations with Remus over the summer before he could forget the sheer maliciousness of what his father and Sirius had done to Snape.

Harry grabbed a single piece of toast and placed a small amount of scrambled eggs on his plate. He began to nibble on the toast, content to sort out his thoughts, letting the conversations around the table pass over him. He thought back to dinner the previous night. He had received many curious looks as he entered the Great Hall, especially after he sat down at the Gryffindor table. Dumbledore had then stood up and introduced Harry as a transfer student who would be entering the Sixth year.

Harry knew he had turned as red as the Weasleys\' hair as everyone in the Hall had turned around to look at him. Slouching slightly he tried to hide his blush, much to the amusement of James and Sirius. Remus had taken pity on him, and instead engaged him in conversation, pointing out certain Professors and students of note. James and Sirius added their comments and regaled stories of pranks they had played against such persons.

It was at dinner that Harry had got his first look at Lily Evans, his mother. She had been seated further down the table, sitting with a small group of girls. Harry had discretely managed a look or two, but had been unable to talk to her. He had also noticed several looks aimed at both himself and James. Unsurprisingly several faces at the Slytherin table openly showed their disgust at the new Gryffindor, but then Harry had not expected anything less from them.

The shaking of his arm jerked Harry from his thoughts. Looking up, Harry blushed as he saw Sirius looking at him with a slightly concerned look on his face. Harry apologised. \"Sorry Sirius, I was lost in thought. You know, what with being in a new school, lots of strangers and new teachers\" he explained with a small shrug.

A corner of Sirius\' mouth curled up in amusement, before the concerned look returned. \"Harry? Are you ill?\" he asked, looking pointedly at Harry\'s small breakfast. \"It\'s just that you didn\'t eat all that much last night either, and well you are rather thin\".

James nodded in agreement. \"There is thin, and then there is thin. If you\'re not feeling well, we\'ll take you to see Madam Pomfrey and she can give you something to help\" he offered.

Harry felt a warm feeling at the concern the teenagers were displaying, but at the same time was embarrassed that they had noticed his lack of appetite. He recalled that at Grimmauld Place, everyone had become used to Harry\'s lack of appetite and although Mrs Weasley had continually tried to make him eat more, she had rarely succeeded.

Realising he need to reassure James and Sirius, Harry smiled. \"No, it\'s okay. It\'s probably due to the travelling. I\'ll be back to normal soon enough\", he explained. Realising that his voice still sounded hoarse, Harry took a sip of pumpkin juice to soothe his throat before adding \"Really, don\'t worry about me\".

Although the concern remained evident in their eyes, luckily for Harry, they did not force the issue. Harry decided to change the subject. \"Has the post come yet?\" he asked.

\"Yes, about 10 minutes ago, while you were still in la la land\" Remus teased with a smile, having heard the question as he returned to the table. Harry felt a spark of disappointment, he had hoped to see Hedwig and check that she had arrived safely. Deciding to visit her later in the Owlery, he looked back up to see Remus handing out their timetables. Grabbing his, Harry scanned the parchment quickly, noting his subjects for the day.

Leaving the remainder of his breakfast, he rose from the table intending to return to the Tower and grab his books for the day. Remus rose to accompany him and they had almost reached the large wooden doors when they heard a shout. Looking in the direction the sound had come from, Harry could not help himself. He laughed. The centre of the commotion was no other than a 16-year-old version of the Potions Master, Snape. Harry and Remus joined the many students in filling the Great Hall with laughter, accompanied by several noises of disgust from others.

It seemed that Snape had ingested a hair-growth potion in his breakfast. He currently sported knee length black hair as well as a substantial beard. The truly disturbing thing was that not only was his hair greasy, but so was his beard! Harry, along with many others students were caught between laughing at Snape or grimacing at the sight. Snape on the other hand, looked truly mortified. Although most of his face was covered in facial hair, a bright red blush was evident on the usually sallow face. However, from anger or embarrassment, Harry could not tell.

\'Most likely both\', Harry mused. \'I wonder how my dad and Sirius managed to get it into his food?\' Harry definitely did not consider himself big enough to actually feel any sympathy for Snape at that particular moment, especially considering their last encounter at Order Headquarters.

Harry turned his eyes to the Gryffindor table and saw the satisfied looks on both James and Sirius\' face, thus confirming Harry\'s suspicions. From Harry\'s vantage point, he could see McGonagall approach the two troublemakers, but before he could warn them Remus had taken hold of his elbow and was pulling him out of the Great Hall.

\"Remus!\" cried Harry, resisting the movement. \"Shouldn\'t we try to help James and Sirius? It looks like McGonagall is about to give them detention or something?\"

Remus kept tugging the black-haired boy forward. \"No need\" he explained as he made his way to Gryffindor Tower. \"I doubt Professor McGonagall will do anything serious to them just yet, it is the start of term after all. She\'ll probably only tell them off, that is if those two don\'t charm their way out completely\" he said with a chuckle.

Harry followed the werewolf through the corridors of Hogwarts, accepting that Remus knew James and Sirius better than he did. The two boys quickly hurried to their room and grabbed their bags, as well as those of the others before hurrying to their first lesson - Transfiguration. Harry, trying to keep up the pretence of not knowing his way around Hogwarts, followed Remus and only paid the minimum amount of attention to what he was saying. Instead, Harry was thinking about what he had heard about his parents.

He remembered when he got his wand, how he had been told his father\'s strength lay with Transfiguration, while his mother had been gifted in Charms. He could feel butterflies in his stomach as he realised that he would be able to see James and Lily practice in their fields first hand. Immediately following this thought was the worry that Harry would be unable to compete on the same level and thus would embarrass himself in front of the others. \'No!\' he promised himself. \'I won\'t. If I can\'t do the magic in the lesson, I\'ll practice and practice until I can. I will not embarrass myself in front of James or Lily, or even Sirius or Remus\'.

Luckily, Harry and Remus arrived at the Transfiguration classroom before the bell had rung for the beginning of class. After they had handed the other bags they had been carrying to their respective owners, James and Sirius quickly informed them that McGonagall had only given them a warning this time, but they felt it had been worth it just to see the look on Snape\'s face.

The five teenagers walked into the classroom. Peter had scurried around to take the seat next to James. Sirius, after giving Peter a dirty look, sat down next to Remus, behind Peter and James, while Harry took a seat at the table next to Sirius. Harry was hunched under his table, looking for his quill, when he felt someone sit down next to him. Straightening up to greet the student, Harry\'s words were suddenly caught in his throat. Lily Evans, his mum, had sat down next to him!

Lily, who decided to say hello, saHarrHarry the embarrassment of imitating a fish out of water. \"I\'m Lily Evans. I saw you last night but that lot surrounded you. I doubt you would have noticed me. I\'m a Sixth year Gryffindor as well\".

Harry smiled. \"Hi Lily\" he said, \"I\'m Harry Granger as I\'m sure you already know. Pleased to meet you\".

\"Same here. I thought I\'d be late for my first lesson. I had to take a package back to my room you see. My sister hid some of my things and so my mother had to send it by owl post\" she explained. \"Then one of the stairs changed on me and it took me ages to get back here. I really thought I\'d get into trouble, but luckily I got here with a little time to spare. Anyway enough about my troubles, what subjects are you taking Harry?\"

Feeling slightly sorry for his mother when he heard what Aunt Petunia had done he smiled sympathetically at her. \"Lucky I\'m an only child I suppose\" he said. \"I\'m taking DADA, Potions, Charms, Magical Creatures and Healing as well as this. What about you?\"

\"Mostly the same as you actually\" she replied. \"Instead of Magical Creatures I\'m taking Runes. I don\'t really have a large affinity for animals unfortunately. It\'s interesting enough with just my owl\".

Harry chuckled at the forlorn look on her face, which caused Lily to smile, but the entrance of Professor McGonagall stopped any further conversation between the two. The Professor, after glaring at James and Sirius, told the class that they were going to do a quick review of their OWL studies. After handing out several items, she told them to transform the white mouse into a cat, the quill into a vase and to make the goblet disappear. Reminding them that points would be awarded for creativity, she set the students to work.

Harry looked at the three objects and decided to tackle the goblet first. Taking a few moments to compose himself, Harry held his wand and searched his memory for the correct spell. Miraculously, or perhaps due to the extensive reading Harry had done over the summer, he managed to perform the Vanishing spell successfully on his goblet, causing it to disappear on his first attempt.

Harry then decided to tackle the mouse. It was halfway through the lesson when he had finally managed to transform the mouse into a similarly snow white kitten. The only thing that disturbed Harry was that the kitten had red eyes. He had tried several times to change the colour but had not succeeded. Harry unconsciously shivered as he looked at the cat, remembering Voldemort\'s blood red eyes.

Harry pushed the feeling aside and focused on turning his quill into a vase. His first attempt was rather poor he thought. Admittedly, he had created a basic cylindrical shape, but the vase was covered with small feathers. Harry grimaced. He tried to reverse the transfiguration, but in his haste, he managed to only further stabilise the transformation, thus unable to transfigure it back into its original shape. Harry sighed and decided to see how the rest of the class was doing with the tasks.

He noticed that Professor McGonagall was standing in front of James, a disapproving look on her face. James it seemed had finished his transfigurations and had been chatting to Sirius when McGonagall had caught him. Before he could lose any points, he said \"But Professor, I\'ve finished! You didn\'t assign us to do anything else so I was merely discussing with Sirius here, what would be an appropriate item to conjure. After all, it is still Transfiguration. Surely you wouldn\'t penalise us for that?\" he asked, hazel eyes wide in an attempt to convince the Professor that he was sincere.

\"And pray Mr Potter, what did you decide upon?\" she asked, her tone clearly saying she didn\'t believe a word.

Rather than tell McGonagall, Harry saw James flick his wand he conjured a bunch of yellow roses and placed them in the Vase. With a smirk, James presented the vase, complete with roses, to his shocked Professor. Harry was impressed that James had managed to conjure up the roses, especially when McGonagall had told him Conjuring was NEWT level work. It seemed he was not the only one, for the attention of the entire class was now on James and McGonagall. After a few seconds of silence, she managed to regain her senses and awarded Gryffindor 10 points before moving onto a Ravenclaw student. Harry\'s attention was still on his father who had turned round to help Peter, who was also struggling with his quill transfiguration and still had to Vanish his goblet.

A nudge in his side drew his attention to Lily, who cast a disdainful look towards James before turning her attention onto Harry. \"That Potter! I don\'t know\", she said, shaking her head. \"He\'s incredibly gifted at Transfiguration, Black too, but all they seem to do is show off in lessons, eventually distracting everyone from their work\" she complained.

\"I doubt they\'re really that bad. Perhaps you just need to get to know them better\" suggested Harry, feeling pained at the dislike that coloured Lily\'s tone.

\"Just you wait and see. I\'m sure you\'ll find out for yourself\", she warned.

Harry decided there and then that he would do everything he could to at least make Lily like James. \'After all\' he rationalised, \'I\'m not actually going to change anything that hasn\'t already happened, so it doesn\'t matter all that much. I\'m just going to make Lily see James\' better characteristics while at the same time make James more likeable, I guess. No problem … none at all\'.

\"How are you doing with the review?\" he asked after deciding to take the conversation back to safer grounds.

\"Not bad, but not well either. Transfiguration isn\'t really my strongest subject\" confessed Lily in an undertone. \"I managed to vanish the goblet and I have a vase … well it could pass as a vase I guess\" she said, motioning to an object on the desk. To Harry\'s surprise and amusement, he realised that Lily had attempted to transfigure the quill into a ceramic vase. It was a perfectly fine vase, as long as you didn\'t intend to put anything larger than a single flower in it. Harry snickered before remembering his own half-finished attempt.

\"At least yours doesn\'t have feathers sticking out of it!\" assured Harry. \"Mine\'s stuck at the moment and I don\'t have a clue what to do\" he moaned.

Lily looked over and at once recognised what he had been talking about. Harry closed his eyes in shame as Lily began to giggle. \"Oh Harry! Sorry, I don\'t mean to, but look at it. It looks so cute!\" she said between her giggles. Harry blushed, but nevertheless smiled back at his teenage mother.

\"Humph! At least my kitten is in a better state than yours!\" he gloated.

Lily looked down at her kitten, well mouse-kitten hybrid. The kitten still had the ears and tail of a mouse. The poor thing looked rather pitiable. \"That\'s true I suppose\" she conceded.

Harry turned back to his sorry excuse for a vase. He cast another spell that increased the length of the vase, but did not manage to get rid of the feathers. Harry let out a silent groan. \'Where was Hermione when you need her!\' Harry poked at the feathers with his wand several times but he was disappointed when nothing happened. Harry stared at his vase, wondering \'if I stared at it long enough would the feathers suddenly disappear\' when he felt a tingling at the base of his neck. Glancing around the room, he noticed that Sirius was staring at him.

\"Hey\" he said softy, so not to distract Lily or anyone else from their work. \"I guess you\'ve finished the review as well?\"

\"Yeah\" replied Sirius just as quietly. \"Just after James. I like what you\'ve done\" he commented with a small grin.

\"Ah yes, the feather thing. I can\'t seem to get rid of them!\" Harry complained. \"Transfiguration isn\'t really my strongest subject as you can probably tell\".

\"I wouldn’t say you\'re bad at it though\" reassured Sirius. \"After all you managed to do the other two haven\'t you?\"

\"I suppose\" Harry admitted.

\"Well then!\" admonished Sirius. \"Don\'t worry too much about it. Besides, if you\'re stuck or don\'t understand something you can come and ask me, I won\'t bite!\" he offered with a wicked smile. Sirius moved his gaze to the vase for a moment before catching Harry\'s emerald eyes again. \"Perhaps you should try a sticking charm on the sides?\" he suggested. \"Make it look as if you intended to decorate the vase with feathers\".

Harry looked at the vase, wondering if the idea would work. Flicking his wand while muttering the incantation for a sticking charm, he saw to his astonishment, the feathers had been glued to the side of his vase. Although not considered pretty by any means, Harry now had a usable vase. With a grateful smile, he thanked Sirius for his help before attempting to get Professor McGonagall\'s attention so he could inform her he had completed the review work.

**********


Notes:

This is only the first part of this chapter, but the file was huge and quite bulky and it was just not happening. Chapter 5 in total is over 15000 words but I\'ll post the next chapter soon! Forgive me? Responses to reviews for the last chapter will be posted at the end of the last part.

I apologise in advance for any mistakes, spelling, grammatical or otherwise. It is all my fault since this is unbeta\'d. Please review (long is good!) and send any helpful comments, all will be appreciated. Any flames, however, will be, in all honesty, read then disregarded. Thank you for reading!

SStar