Sanne (Guest): Thank you for reading and reviewing! It always makes my day and I'm so thrilled you've been enjoying the fic and I hope you continue to do so with the epic rising climax of my favorite book!

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Frank landed as uncomfortably as ever, with no clue what he was fixing to crash into as he went sliding along the floor and his nose was a hair width away from entering a very odd looking object.

They were all surrounded by beautiful, dancing, diamond-sparkling lights. As his eyes became accustomed to the brilliant glare, he saw clocks gleaming from every surface, large and small, grandfather and carriage, hanging in spaces between the bookcases or standing on desks ranging the length of the room, so that a busy, relentless ticking filled the place like thousands of minuscule, marching footsteps. The source of the dancing, diamond-bright light was the towering crystal bell jar that stood right in front of him.

It appeared to be full of billowing, glittering wind, and even as he watched a tiny, jewel-bright egg rose in the jar, cracked open and a hummingbird emerged, which was carried to the very top, but as it fell on the draught its feathers became bedraggled and damp again, and by the time it had been borne back to the bottom of the jar it had been enclosed once more in its egg, and the loop continued.

Alice came up beside him and took his hand, helping him to his feet and guiding him carefully away. He did not protest, nobody spoke a word in the room.

The ticking was vaguely terrifying for some reason, the dark shadowed corners were of no comfort to anyone as the Marauders were just as lost in here as everyone else had been in the forest. Frank spotted the book leaning on a glass cabinet full of odd, miniature hourglass-looking necklaces.

"Don't touch!"

Frank startled and dropped his hand before he grabbed the book, only to look around and see it had been Pettigrew scolding Regulus Black. His fingers were still half-extended towards a coo-coo clock that was spinning 360 degrees in all directions for no good reason.

He dropped his hand, looking thoroughly chastised even as his eyes roved hungerly around, but Frank was a tad terrified to look at anything too long, the magic radiating from this place felt as powerful as the book he gingerly picked up as if new all over again. He realized why as he weighed it for a moment and truly felt the magic in the air, it all gave off the same sort of energy. Time magic.

"Nobody touch anything," Potter's voice agreed with absolute sternness. "Merlin knows what half this shite is, and I am not looking forward to being a dad so much I'll cart around one of you lot as an infant."

"The most sensitive thing I've ever heard you say," Lily told him.

Frank fought very hard not to laugh at the stunned look on his face as he went looking for his chapter. A collective groan went up from the present fifth-years, but he tried to tell them all, "look at it this way, it's almost cheating. You'll be getting some firsthand account of what to study, more than I ever got. Can't wait for Harry's seventh year for that."

Lily at least looked delighted at this point of view, but the Marauders still grumbled their distaste at having to hear a whole chapter over Harry's OWLs and moved even farther away.

It started with Ron still captivating attention over Gryffindor's win though, and Harry and Hermione weren't trying very hard to pull him back from that with news of Hagrid's 'small' giant of half-brother. Sirius had been in such a state he'd read right over a game victory and not even realized it. 'It's not like I care,' he kept reminding himself as he stalked off to the farthest corner. 'One less thing to worry about, they don't care about you anymore just like you wanted! No makeup required, problem solved!'

He was still staying well out of the way, leaning dangerously against a steaming purple cauldron. Merlin what he would give to go off somewhere with Remus and pretend this wasn't going on right now, but he wouldn't have dared even if they weren't in such a highly strange and potentially dangerous place. He needed to talk to James about why he kept doing that, he knew that now, though he and Remus hadn't exactly gotten to talking about it recently, and it had been Moony's idea to hide it in the first place.

James and Remus both came over slowly anyways, though he didn't notice until they were right in front of him, too busy glaring at absolutely nothing.

"I told you not to touch anything," Prongs sighed, frowning as he sat on the lip.

"You're touching the floor," Sirius shot back.

James made sure to look him dead in the eye as he drew his wand and tapped himself with it, and was now hovering a few inches above the ground. Sirius couldn't help it, he chuckled and got off, hands raised in surrender.

"I'm fine," he insisted as they kept frowning at him like he was mad enough to dunk his head in that thing, let alone actually mess with anything around here. "I don't care, honestly, good on Pete finally growing some and telling us to shut up."

Remus's mouth actually opened in surprise while James rolled his eyes in disagreement. Peter and Sirius obviously still needed to have a conversation they were avoiding, and he had no clue why Peter lost his temper when Sirius had tried!  At least Padfoot wasn't flying into a temper and starting a fight with them in retaliation. This new, passive, approach felt alien in comparison though. It was what they'd asked for, right?

Sirius really was trying though, rather than giving those two a piece of his mind about constantly wandering off and being annoyed with him for trying to join in, he forced himself instead to nod along and feel sympathy for Ron as he was let into the news of Grawp the giant. Some part of him even did mean it, he honestly respected Peter just a tad more now than he ever had before, finally standing up to anyone in his life. He just wished it hadn't been him, about Regulus!

Whatever his little brother's problem was before though, Peter seemed to have helped. He'd always been best at that, listening to them, just sitting patiently and hearing them out, giving practical advice that never felt too insulting for not getting there on your own. James had a tendency to just talk at you and refuse to relent until you laughed which helped soothe most of Sirius problems, and Remus was great about giving space. Sirius...never helped with anyone's problems. He usually was the problem! He huffed miserably and ran a hand through his hair as he really felt the guilt dancing along his every thought and tried valiantly to push it all away and focus on the story.

Prongs began doing exactly that now as he saw this, going over in detail and ever increasing unrealistic proportions of each of Ron's spectacular saves they hadn't been privy to in hopes to get a laugh out of Sirius. He watched Remus wander off and give him his space, and tried to tell himself this was good, this was normal.

Alice was distracted from watching a handsome wristwatch spinning backwards by Frank's voice getting an uneasy tone for Griselda Marchbanks, an examiner, being mentioned, and didn't understand why until Neville explained his gran knew her.

She grimaced with distaste with more reason than ever and tried not to let the memory of that photo creep back across her mind at a time like this, instead turning to Lily and asking, "I would never, but I am curious, if we used one of those time-turners, think that would get us back to when we started?"

"I haven't the foggiest," Lily sadly said as she turned away from a sundial with the phases of the moon etched along the edges back to her. "You're right too, best we don't try, tampering with time magic is worrisome enough, let alone trying to mix it." She was eyeing that cauldron in the corner with heavy curiosity but refusing to allow herself to go investigate it; Potter and his friends were around.

Regulus was still drifting off by himself, hands firmly in his pockets now, but with a look of almost childlike wonderance for his surroundings. Peter watched bemusedly as he was also clearly still taking in every word of Harry's exams, the Charms one now being described in detail. He was surprised to see Remus disengaging from James and Sirius to come over, watching Regulus with a bizarre expression. He supposed, if you hadn't been paying attention to him, it was very far off from the usual stoic way he kept himself at most times.

Peter tried to tell himself Remus was the least likely to tell him off for how he'd dealt with Sirius, but he still couldn't help but get a bit defensive as that seemed exactly what he was about to do when he sidled up and scuffed his foot for a moment, building himself up to say something Peter wasn't sure he wanted to hear.

"Regulus is going through something, and Sirius has shitty timing!" Peter tried to say calmly, but he was failing a bit by the end. "I notice you and James keep telling me to be patient with him! I wonder if you two are over there with the same old tosh to Sirius, oh he'll come around! Padfoot can't control his temper, let Peter whine it out!"

"Actually," Remus managed through gritted teeth, "he's been trying to work on that!"

"Oh," Peter said quietly in surprise, instantly mollified.

Remus breathed through his nose for a moment, unclenching his teeth so he could continue, "yeah, he's really trying Wormtail, but he's got it in his head you two don't want anything to do with him now."

"How's that my fault?" Peter tried not to snap back. "He ignores me unless he wants something, been doing that to Regulus his whole life! We're not all just here for his entertainment!" He wasn't quite shouting, but his voice still sounded sharper than he meant to.

"Just," Remus pressed his face into his hands, rubbing at his tired eyes before looking back at him in exhaustion. "Nobody wants a fight, right? Can't we all agree on that? He's trying Peter, I still hope you are too. And Regulus," he added after only a moment of thought as he watched him again.

"Yeah," he quietly agreed. "Regulus still cares what he thinks too," he added. He'd never come out and said it, but Peter could tell in the same way he still watched his big brother.

Remus sighed in relief that was at least a good start, now eyeing the gap between the lot and trying to figure out whether to call Sirius and James over here or get Peter to go over there, it was like a never ending tug of war with those two lately.

Regulus answered the problem for him, he'd circled the whole room by now and was right beside them without even seeming to realize it, nose dangerously close to the potion as he watched it bubble.

Sirius reached over and grabbed the back of his robes, pulling him back and tutting. Both of them moved over on instinct, but he'd already let go and said with only pure exasperation, "where's all this curiosity come from then?"

Regulus blushed rather than answer, he looked chastised when Sirius had only sounded curious himself for his brother's sporadic change in his usual tight-faced character.

Peter eagerly jumped in, "he's actually been asking me loads, that's a lot of what we've been talking about, he's quite curious about the world."

"Oh," Sirius looked genuinely impressed, he'd really never thought he'd even progressed past questioning his parents, let alone asking for more than they'd ever offered in their 'lessons.' What else had he missed?

They all almost missed whatever was going on with Umbridge and Hagrid, but quickly spun back to Frank as his voice began edging with concern.

"No," Lily started chanting under her breath in disbelief. "No, no, no, no!" Hagrid was the nicest person in that school, offering a friendly ear and a cup of tea to any students he came across on the grounds, like a lonely girl crying to herself in the shade of the Forest. How was it possible Umbridge could force him from the school like this?

Then McGonagall got involved, and she felt like screaming. She began backing away from Frank and shaking her head, trying not to even hear of this disaster, she heard the gasp and looked on instinct to see Potter with his wand in hand and a look of outrage on his face for their head of house being attacked like that. Alice caught her before she could back into that strange hourglass, and they held hands fighting back their own galloping fear for the state this school was in.

Professors Flitwick and Sprout, at least, were still trusted members of staff to turn to, but the slowly dwindling numbers had them fearing Umbridge would somehow manage to get rid of them before the exams even finished!

Frank found it hard to believe Harry was forced to just go off to his last exam like nothing had happened after that, he felt like the chapter should have ended with that kind of mess, what else could happen during Harry's exam? He shifted and muttered impatiently the whole way through the History of Magic questions, it was one of his better subjects and even he'd been grateful to drop it, he couldn't concentrate on a single thing Harry was forcing himself to recall in his sleep-addled mind.

Then Harry started dreaming again, except they were never just dreams, they never had been. No, Harry started seeing again, right into You-Know-Who's mind as he finally got past all the doors that had been blocking him all year, and into an entirely new room all together, one that terrifyingly sounded similar to this place. He read the next description as this place was bypassed with dread as Harry began to explore and Frank tried to convince himself not to throw the book away in fear Harry was about to come across a dead body, that they weren't headed to this cathedral-sized room and row ninety-seven next to find out whose fate would be gone.

You-Know-Who was right there, right on the other side of one of these doors. It wasn't some random bystander like Bode though, it was a member of the Order again. It was Sirius Black.