The Marauders: Year Seven Part Two

A Visit From the Blind Seer

"Evans destroyed all your clocks, Mophead," James said, resorting to the old jab that he and the other Marauders had once referred to Mopsus with in their school days subjected to the creepy old man. "Whatever time you think you've stored is gone."

"Not all of my clocks," said the rasping voice - and it came from directly before them. James came to a halt and Lily pressed against his back. "There remain a precious few, Mr. Potter," Mopsus breathed. "A very... precious... few." He paused for a long moment, letting these words sink into their very souls, and then added, "And the clocks... were not my only means of time manipulation, my boy, but rather time that was needed for others... a great many others whose lives will now end brutally sooner than they ought to have, if my clocks had not been harmed... A great many lives that were preserved... will now see demise, thanks to your lovely Evans."

Lily shivered.

James hesitated. The stairwell lay before them now, he just knew - just beyond the Blind Seer, who was blocking their path forward. His mind spun through the various options that he might take to defeating the old man - everything from anaticula to expelliarmus to a fit of brute strength crossed his mind... after all, what match would the crippled old man be to his athletic muscle?

Mopsus mused quietly, and they could hear the shuffle-clunk-shuffle-clunk of his old feet and the cane he carried on the stone floor. "I shouldn't try it if I were you, Mr. Potter," he said quietly.

"Try what?" James challenged.

"Mopsus sees all."

Lily's voice trembled slightly, "What is it that you want... sir?"

"Ah," breathed the Seer quietly. "You see, here is a smart girl. Bright girl, you are, Miss. Evans."

"Th-thank you," Lily replied.

"You've already got your precious seconds," James said, "From both of us. And a good many others as well. You've got no need of anymore, you selfish old bastard." His voice was rough.

"Oh James, don't," Lily begged quietly.

"They aren't for me, boy," the Seer replied. "Have you not been listening?"

"What choice have I got, with you prattling on like you are - short of blocking my ears up with my fingers, I don't reckon I could do anything but listen to you." James's foot had found the first step of the stairs, whatever the old Seer thought he was doing - they were about to escape.

"Lumos," the old man said and a blinding flash of light illuminated the tip of his wand and the whole room lit up, long shadows casting across them.

James hadn't found the first step after all, but rather a plinth, and the stairs were there across the room, the opposite way from which they'd come.

The plinth was two steps high, and set into a round room off of the main one with a wide mouth of an opening. Fine Persian rugs lay overlapping one another all over the entire space and in the center was a chair, highbacked and rigid, cushioned with a dark maroon velvet. The walls were lined with shelves, heavy ornate bookcases with glass doors that locked and contained thousands of glittery balls - orbs of glass that contained smoke of varying colors, which swirled and misted all around.

Mopsus stood - though a very different version of him than they had known at Hogwarts. A younger version - not terribly younger, but a bit. The hair was still gray, the eyes still milky-white with blindness, and the skin still puckered with wrinkles and scars - but there was more life in them, the gauntness that had been present when last they saw him wasn't yet present.

"Time turners," James murmured, suddenly catching on. "You don't move about in time by making yourself younger using the precious seconds, as Mr. Scamander and the rest of the Resistance thought... You've used time turners, all your life, scattered yourself about everywhere, haven't you?"