"Can I borrow your invisibility cloak?"
The Marauders all looked up simultaneously with varying degrees of shock. As far as they were concerned, no one else besides themselves knew about the cloak.
"James," Fawn spoke again standing in front of the sofa on which he was sitting, "Did you hear me?"
James nodded, mouth agape, glasses slipping down his nose.
Fawn peered at him expectantly. "So?"
"Huh?"
She rolled her eyes. "Can I borrow the cloak or not?"
Sirius leaned over, elbows resting on his knees. "How do you know about the cloak? That's top-secret information."
Fawn paused, she hadn't considered the fact that neither of the four boys had mentioned this piece of valued information to her. "Oh erm—James told me about it over the summer."
"He did?" asked Peter, eyes wide with surprise. "He didn't even tell us about it until third year."
"Wait, I don't remember telling you about the cloak."
"Well you did, how else would I know about it?"
James pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose and shrugged. "Fair enough," he answered dumbly. "Why did you need it?"
She huffed frustratedly. "Do you really need to know?"
"Sneaking off to snog someone are you?"
Fawn groaned, tugging at her hair. "No, I certainly am not." She made a strangled sort of noise. "Is that all you lot think about, snogging?"
Sirius shrugged, shaking his shoulder-length locks out of his face. "Sometimes."
These boys would be the end of her. The librarian didn't allow access to the Restricted Section without permission, permission that could not be obtained without a specific reason. No one would allow a sixteen year old to explore the Restricted Section if they knew that it was for answers about time travel and it's boundaries or connections to the Department if Mysteries. That would only open more questions that would cause further confusion if answered. Besides, the type of answers Fawn was looking for may land her in Azkaban if the wrong people caught wind of it. After all, a teen girl looking for loopholes to time was certainly suspicious especially in a time of civil unrest such as was in the wizarding world as of late.
"Look," Fawn said sharply, "I need to get into the Restricted Section and I won't be able to get permission from any of the professors. I will not be answering any further questions."
Remus raised an eyebrow but said nothing while the other three boys' eyes sparkled with excitement.
"The Restricted Section, that's crazy!" said Peter, an expression of awe on his face.
Sirius looked far more concerned than others. "There's a lot of dangerous and dark information there."
"Yeah no shit Sherlock, that's why it's called restricted."
"Sherlock?"
"Muggle thing," muttered Fawn.
She turned to James. "So what do you say Jamie?"
He ran a hand over his face. "Fine. On one condition."
"What's that?"
"Never call me Jamie again."
"Deal!"
This led to yet another midnight adventure to the Library. Fawn was unable to ask for the Map seeing that her knowledge of the cloak had been a close enough call as is. Unfortunately this meant there was no way of knowing if any professors or Filch were prowling the corridors nearby.
By some miracle, the library was found without any run-ins and was easy enough to slip into without even disturbing the years of dust build-up on the front shelves.
"Alohomora," whispered Fawn at the locked gate. As expected, it didn't work but was worth a shot nonetheless.
Pulling a bobby-pin from her hair Fawn picked the lock with ease—despite being magical it was not immune to Muggle techniques—one of the many downfalls of Wizarding society was its underestimating of the non-magical.
She tiptoed into the section and ran her hands along the dusty spines searching for anything that would be of aid. Finally a book labeled The Curses of Time jumped out at her and was grabbed with haste. After a few more moments another tome; Time Travel Technicalities was acquired as well.
Fawn locked the gate behind her, books clutched in arm, and scurried quietly out of the Library. She hissed lowly when Filch turned the corner, nearly ramming into her and she flattened against the wall. He paused, his eyes flicking left and right, Mrs. Norris mewing softly at his feet before he passed allowing Fawn to continue on her way. That was another close call.
Finally she threw herself on the crimson duvet, pulled the curtains closed and began reading. After a few pages, sleep called and eyes flitted to a reluctant close, book left open to page six, cloak draping dangerously off the bedside as the early-morning hours slowly waned into dawn.
At breakfast Fawn slipped the cloak stealthily into James' lap as she served a generous amount of sausage to herself. The boy was half-asleep and mumbled a half-hearted thanks while he dosed over his pumpkin juice.
"Find what you needed?" asked Remus, leaning across the table to grab his own breakfast.
Fawn nodded. "I did."
"Good."
He looked tired, dark circles under his eyes, scars more prominent than usual, eyes slightly bloodshot and there was a distinct smell of coffee coming from his mug.
The realization hit quickly, tonight would be the full moon. Nothing could be done besides what the boys had finally completed the previous year so Fawn opted to feign ignorance to Lupin's ailment. He wouldn't thank her for making what he would think were assumptions about his condition, he'd tell her when the time was right.
"Game today!" Sirius was chipper, gobbling down eggs and pumpkin juice with impressive speed. "You excited Fawn, James?" James lazily put up a thumb and smiled.
"Wait what do you mean there's a game today?"
Fawn had completely forgotten that this would be the first match of the year and was seriously hoping that Sirius had the date wrong.
"James' been telling us for weeks, November sixth is the first game of the season, today's the sixth. Duh!"
She laughed it off. "Obviously I knew that."
"Right, sure you did."
The game went well, it was against Hufflepuff and the Seeker wasn't particularly skilled so Gryffindor took the victory. They had another party but due to exhaustion from last night and Sirius' birthday, Fawn chose to take refuge in her dorm and possibly find answers to her situation.
The first two chapters of The Curses of Time gave nothing except explanations of what exactly Time-Travel was and how to go about safely. This of course was under the assumption that a Time-Turner would be the vessel to obtain such a phenomenon, this was clearly not the case for the sixteen year old witch.
Then the book went on to explain how it was dangerous to travel beyond your own lifetime and how it could erase yours and others existences because of butterfly effects, messing with the space-time continuum and other information that was of no real use given that that damage was already done.
A woman had apparently traveled so much, at one point when she returned she aged so much that her body couldn't handle the rapid changes and ended up dying. This was not a particularly worrying situation, if ageing became the case, Fawn would only add twenty years to her life and aging from sixteen to thirty-six wouldn't be nearly as drastic as this book made it out to be.
Finally chapter four caught her attention; Travel Without a Turner.
This was exactly what she needed. At first it only detailed that there were spells for such a thing and apparently potions but neither of those had been what had happened to her.
"Time Travel?"
Fawn slammed the book shut, jumping quickly out of her chair, snatching her wand instinctively turning around to point it at the wizard that had been watching her.
The boy who she now recognized as Regulus Black held up his hands in defense.
"Woah," he breathed.
The shock quickly dissipated from his features, his visage turning impassive once again. He eyed the wand shoved at his throat. "Expecting me to attack you?"
Fawn lowered the wand, hastily shoving back into her robes. "Sorry, force of habit."
He studied her, she didn't look like someone who was actively dueling, he hadn't seen her in Dueling Club and none of the Slytherin's had attacked her as far as he knew so why was it instinctive of her to expect ambush?
"Habit is it?"
"Inquisitive are you?" she shot back with an equally impressive glance.
Regulus' lips twitched in respect. "Touché."
"Why were you watching me?"
"You think I was watching you."
"That's why I asked."
He chuckled lowly. "I was simply passing by Briggs, forgive me that the large font title intrigued me."
His eyes drifted over to the book once more. "That's from the Restricted Section."
"So what if it is?"
Regulus nearly grinned. "Did you get permission?"
Fawn was glaring at the younger boy with mistrust and disdain. "Going to tell are you? Going to take some points away?" she gestured to his prefect badge, "Please do, Merlin knows your brother could use some humbling."
This girl was certainly not the normal sort of Gryffindor. Normally Regulus would be mocked and insulted if he even got a centimeter too close to one of the lions. Fawn Briggs though, didn't tell him to piss off or call him a Death-Eater, instead she matched his energy and challenged him as he did to her. It was admirable.
"I am not," he responded calmly seeing the confusion flit in between the brown. "I was only curious."
Fawn nodded slightly. "Alright."
Regulus tilted his head slightly. "May I ask why you are researching this topic?"
The girl surveyed him to see if he was worth her trust. As far as she knew, he was a Death-Eater who had died early in the first war, there was no reason to trust the youngest Black.
"You may not."
He mummed softly. "Well alright, I will see in Astronomy then," he nodded to Gryffindor and left the Library leaving a very confused girl in his wake. He really didn't seem like the villain the elder Sirius Black had made him out to be during that summer in Grimmauld Place.