Erase the Future (Collab with BookwormCM18)

Chapter One

DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN HARRY POTTER!

~First Chapter written by LaGranPepita

The buildings passed by in a blur. A mass of burned wood platforms crowded around rocky cobblestone pathways, twisting around and through the dark alleyways, long since abandoned.

Flicking street lamps lined the broken paths, crumbling under the rough footsteps of those passing over them.

A woman, short and thin with black hair and sharp gray eyes, bounded across the old pathways, clutching an unknown object to her chest. Her dark blue robes fluttered gracefully as she bounced across the trail, the white lining shimmering in the gentle light of the moon. Her footsteps, though quick, were quiet and light, almost afraid to touch the fragile stones of the track.

The men behind her, however, seemed to care none for the flimsy rocks. They trailed along after her, long wooden sticks outstretched in their hands. They paid no mind to the burdened rocks beneath them, their footsteps pounding. Black fabric danced in the wind and white masks radiated fear.

"Get back here!" A man's rough voice sounded through the cool night air, shattering the near silence.

The woman paid no attention to the men. She tore through the weeds growing up from in between the stones beneath her, bare feet slapping the cool grass as she turned right into a field.

Mistake.

The men were persistent, and they surrounded her in seconds. The woman clutched the object in her hands desperately, but her face was a mask.

A man walked forward casually, his face barely visible beneath the mask, but the woman could make out two straight lines down his face all the way down to his neck. Scars, she presumed, the Cruento War was the bloodiest war of the Wizarding ( and muggle, but they are forbidden of talking them) World, for both sides.

The woman resists the urge to flinch back; she can't fully see his face, but she knew people who fought in the Cruento War, and their wounds are deep. Deeper than the scars that line their skin.

She was only a little girl when the Cruento War was fought, five or six, so she doesn't remember much. But there was one thing she remembered. Something she could never forget. Something no one could forget.

The death.

The sheer force of the Dark Lord's army hit muggles and muggle-borns alike, sparing none. The woman was lucky to be a Pureblood, or else she would be dead. Just like her friends.

The man, presumably the leader of this particular group of thugs-sorry Death Eaters-, turns his mouth up into a small, smug smirk. He holds on his hand as if he was in a business meeting.

"Rhea Esmeray," the man addresses slowly, "I believe you have something that belongs to us. If you hand back the time turner, we will go peacefully, no harm will be done to you or anyone close to you."

The man's tone was polite and sympathizing, but Rhea isn't stupid. She knows that tone, the tone used by the Dark Lord during the panicked aftermath of the Cruento War to 'reassure' citizens. It didn't fool her then, and it won't fool her now.

But Rhea is smart. She knows if she plays her cards right, she can escape with the Time-Turner. She can change the past, and make a better future if she succeeds. If they get together.

Rhea decides to play stupid, her mother always said it wasn't hard. She blinked innocently at the man, still cradling the time turner in her arms. "Time turner? What... this thing? But it's a necklace.."

Rhea sees a vein protruding from the man's face and she resists the urge to smirk.

"Miss Esmeray," the man starts, barely contained rage evident faintly in his voice, "perhaps we got off on the wrong foot."