Callie opened her eyes slowly. She tried to adjust to the brightness of her surroundings. Thankfully her chestnut locks acted as blinders from a blazing light in front of her even though they weren’t long. She kept blinking to clear out the blurry vision and tried to focus on what was the blazing orange and warm light on her front.
She could still feel the wand and map in her hands. In her back pocket, her cellphone. Her face was buried on a soft velvety cushion that almost reminded her of her bed. Almost.
But as soon as her vision cleared, she jumped up from lying down as though she was struck by lightning. Her eyes widened in panic as she looked around what should be not a familiar room.
What greeted her wasn't her shelf full of merchandise nor her study table full of disorganised books and pens. But an awfully familiar (that shouldn’t be!) fireplace that she swore wasn't present in her room until now! But she was wrong. She wasn't in her room. When Callie craned around in surprise and horror, she found herself in Gryffindor's common room.
No, no, no, no. But Callie couldn't be wrong! This fireplace, the red velvet sofa she was lying on just five seconds ago, the red curtain outlined in gold having the Gryffindor emblem in gold outline. This couldn’t be a mistake. This was the Gryffindor's common room!
But how could this be possible? No. This shouldn’t be possible. This was probably just a dream. Yeah. That was right. Just a dream. And she would soon wake up from it.
Only it wasn’t. It wasn’t a dream. Everything was real. From what she could see, what she could smell, what she could feel. Everything was real.
Crap.
Her train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a voice asking her, "Who are you?"
Callie turned around quickly as though she was caught in the middle of a crime only to meet the gaze of someone she thought she would never meet; not in a million years.
It was Andrew Garfield in Gryffindor's robes, a wand in his hand pointed to her. No, wait. He wasn't Andrew Garfield, he was Remus Lupin!
Oh, my Merlin.
Behind him was Aaron Taylor-Johnson who was James Potter, Ben Barnes who was Sirius Black, and Dane Dehaan who was Peter Pettigrew.
Callie's eyes went even wider at the realisation. She wasn't just in the Harry Potter world, she was in the Marauders' timeline And the fan casts were a bullseye! How can this get any better?! Maybe if Andrew— or Remus, rather, lowered his wand?
Well, she couldn’t be really sure that he was Remus. But if she would refer to the fancasts, she could assume Andrew is Remus. Or whoever this person was standing in front of her. Oh my, wasn’t this confusing?
"I asked a question, who are you?" Remus repeated, slowly taking a step towards her, bringing her back to the present—or past… well, shouldn’t it be—never mind. He snapped her out of her thoughts.
As a fight-or-flight response, Callie raised her hands, afraid that she would be hit by magic and never see the light of the day again. She hadn’t even professed her love for these men—assuming they were the Marauders—so she couldn’t die yet! But it was a wrong move. She just showed them the wand she was holding and the Marauder's map that was slowly becoming void of any ink.
The sight of the map alarmed the four. Didn’t they just see the map in their dorm room? How come an unfamiliar girl wearing the same Gryffindor robes as they had?! And how did she even know about the map to have it?! They could swear to Merlin, that none of them told a soul, alive or not, about it.
"How did you get the map?" Sirius raised his wand as well and pointed it at the girl. It doesn't matter if she could or couldn't fight them. What mattered was how she got the map that no one other than the four of them knew about.
"I-it was a gift," Callie managed to answer despite her heart being stuck in her throat and her voice shaking with everything going down in less than five minutes.
Sirius scoffed. "Lies. There's only one Map."
"N-no, no, no, no, no! I'm not lying! I swear this is a gift! This map? It’s mine. It’s different than yours," Callie tried to defend herself desperately. "Let me explain, okay?!" Who knows what would happen to her if she couldn’t even convince them to listen to her explain her side?
The four looked at each other, as though talking through telepathy whether they should let the girl talk or stupefy her. There were four of them, they could easily pull her down and drag her to Professor McGonagall or Professor Dumbledore. But what benefit would that have on them? They first needed to know a lot.
Finally, after a few moments of eye-talking, Remus turned his head to the stranger. "Go on then, explain yourself." Remus and Sirius still had their wands pointed at her in case she did something out of the ordinary. Like breathing fire or something.
Callie took a deep and shaky breath, bringing her hands down to her sides but still raised a bit. Their stance didn’t help one bit in calming her nerves as she tried to process what was happening and how she could explain herself to these men. "All right. This may sound... mental but please hear me out first, okay?" she started as a warning with hand gestures.
The four once again looked at each other, unsure. And yet they didn't utter a word letting Callie proceed with her explanation.
"I'm from a different world."
Deadpan.
They merely stared at her, not batting their eyes.
Callie knew they didn't believe her. Who in the right mind would? They were definitely thinking she was mental. Someone who escaped an asylum and broke into Hogwarts. How did she do that anyway?
And Callie, on the other hand, wanted to be swallowed by the ground. Whole. From top to bottom. She wished that the ground below her would open like a mouth, ready to eat her like a munchkin. She felt that small. Like a munchkin.
She just embarrassed herself in front of her beloved characters! She always dreamed of making an impression on her favourite fictional characters when one day she met them. Of course, back then, in her mind, such an event would be beyond impossible. But it was all planned out! Perfectly and smoothly. But now that it was happening in real life, in real-time, this was the opposite of perfect and smooth.
"I'm serious," she insisted.
"I am Sirius," Sirius remarked despite the atmosphere earning a glare from Remus and a snort from James, Peter, and Callie.
"Oh, my Merlin. It’s a dream come true hearing that in person," she commented more to herself than to the boys. But their earshots caught it, furrowing their brows.
"What do you mean by ‘in person’?" asked Remus.
That wiped the smile on Callie's face. "Well, uh, I told you. I’m from a different world. And I know, I know it's hard to believe. But you, uh, this," she stammered in her sentence. But she knew that this wouldn't help her situation. So she recomposed herself and sheepishly explained again. "You, this place, this world." She waved her hands around whilst explaining. "You're all fiction in my world."
Deadpan. Again.
The silence reigned shortly when James, Sirius, and Peter laughed their hearts out as if Callie just cracked the funniest joke. But Remus remained confused. His brain could not comprehend any logic beyond what he knew. Sure, they lived in a world of magic and wizards. But another world was still a different topic.
"Oh, Merlin! You're funny," James commented.
“I think she needs help from Madam Pomfrey,” chimed Sirius, using James to keep himself standing.
"I'm not kidding! And I’m not crazy as well. I know I sound like one but what I said was the truth! Yes, it’s hard to believe but it's true! You, Hogwarts, Voldemort, you're all just part of books, of movies in my world! You didn't exist." The mention of Voldemort ended the laugh the three were sharing. Their happy faces fell and turned into serious ones.
"She said You-Know-Who's name," Peter says as if frightened for the girl.
Callie nodded in answer. "Of course, that's his name, isn't it? Okay, look, I know what he will do. And I also know how to stop him."
Silence enveloped the five of them. The boys looked at her with wary expressions. Could she be trusted? How could she possibly know how to stop one of the most terrorising creatures in the world?
She looked like a girl who just stuck out like a sore thumb in Hogwarts. None. She's a stranger for goodness' sake! A stranger who was claiming to have information about the evil wizard and said that she was from a different world. Why would they believe her?
And if she was telling the truth, then that means they can stop Voldemort from his evilness. But the girl has to prove herself first. How could her small stature contend against the darkest wizard alive and free?
"How can we trust you?" Remus asked.
Callie opened her mouth to answer. But nothing came out. Because she, herself, didn’t know how could they trust her. Her words sounded absurd, even for their world.
Telling them the scenes in the movie wouldn't help her very much. Most of them happened in the future that none of them certainly knew.
Come on, Callie, think! She bit the inside of her cheeks as she rummaged through her mind full of Harry Potter facts and trivia. Her phone wouldn't be of much help either. There were images of them in there, but those were fan-edited. Those might never actually happen in this timeline.
Finally, she found a possible answer to her prayers!
She shot her head up with a smile. She just found the right card to play in this game. "I know that Remus is a werewolf and the three of you turned yourself into animagi to—"
Callie couldn't finish her sentence as Sirius had his hand over her mouth in a swift movement.
"Shh! Shh! All right, we get it!" he hissed in a low volume. His eyes are wide, plastering panic.
Their inches-long closeness made Callie's heart do acrobatics. His warm hands and breath didn’t help either. And, oh my god, his perfume smelled like it was made for gods. Never in her life had she dreamt of being this close to Sirius Black. Hell, she never even dreamt of any of this! But she's certain there's a pink tinge on her cheeks. And Callie wasn't wrong.
"We're not real..." Peter whispered in disbelief, suddenly undergoing an existential crisis.
Callie's eyes landed on him. In her eyes, everything he did flashed before her. Peter joining Voldemort. Him betraying his friends. Him being the cause of their deaths. Her knees weakened, almost unable to hold her whole body. All of a sudden as if all her energy was snatched away.
Their deaths flashing in her head made her shiver. They weren't just fictional people. They were real people. And they suffered. Or in that timeline, would suffer. And Callie wouldn't just stand there and let the same fate befall them. Not when she was given a chance to alter their reality she knew and grew up with.
Taking off Sirius' hand from her mouth, she sternly looked at them, "I need your help."
°°°
Originally posted: 01.09.22