An excited eleven year old weaved around the crowd of people rushing to catch the train. She skidded to a halt in front of a wall built in between platform 9 and 10.
"Wait up!" a voice came from the midst of the crowd.
"Rhea Arquette, you will not zoom around like you've had a Fizzing Whizbee!" called out a stern, female voice.
"Let her be, Abrielle. She had waited patiently in the car, after all." A man spoke, amused.
Rhea and her parents, along with Harry, stood in front of the wall.
"Why are we standing here, Mr.Arquette?" asked eleven year old Harry, puzzled.
"You will see," Audric grinned. "A shame your uncle and aunt couldn't witness this—an amusing sight it would have been, don't you think?"
Harry and Rhea laughed, while Abrielle tried to maintain a stern expression, all the while trying to fight off a smile.
"Right," Abrielle said. "Off you go."
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Luna remained calmly in her seat, while Rhea fidgeted and threw occasional glances at the headmaster. She had given quite a show while choosing her seat in the Headmaster's office, roughly pushing aside Luna, and occupying the other chair. Of course, neither of them knew why she so adamantly wanted the chair not directly facing the Headmaster.
Dumbledore looked closely at the two queer girls. He was quite certain they didn't attend Hogwarts, and yet they seemed a little too familiar with his office...
Clearing his throat, he sat up straight in his chair, and looked directly at the taller girl-Rhea-with his usual piercing stare. He was surprised to see she met his stare unflinchingly, and was even more surprised when he couldn't read any of her thoughts. She is a strong Occlumens, he decided. All the more reason to be weary of her.
The girl seemed to know what he had done, for she smiled grimly. Luna looked between the two of them with an expression of boredom.
"So, " Rhea asked, rather awkwardly. "It's summer for the students now?"
"Yes," Albus stated cheerfully. "It all becomes rather quiet, of course, without the extraordinary tactics of our students."
Another long pause.
"You don't go home for the vacations, then, sir?" Luna asked politely.
"Ah, Hogwarts is home, my dear," the headmaster replied, beaming "I say, do you care for an—"
"Acid Pop?" Rhea guessed. "Of course, sir, I am starving."
Dumbledore wore a mask of shock, before handing out Acid Pops to Luna and Rhea.
"Sir," Rhea started in a muffled tone, mouth full of Acid Pop. "I think it will be easier if you would use the assistance of Veritaserum."
Raising his eyebrows, he looked at the two witches in front of him with mounting respect. Then he reached for his drawer, and drew out a small vial.
"Before that," Luna interrupted, her usually dreamy voice carrying a hard edge. "You should know we are from the future. However tempting it might be, asking us questions about the future may be fatal—for the past, and the future."
"Bad things happen to those who meddle with time," Rhea recited quietly.
Albus hesitated, and then nodded. He would come to that out later.
Rhea and Luna each took 4 drops of Veritaserum. Though only two drops would have sufficed, it was crucial that Dumbledore believed them.
The interrogation was short, and straightforward. He asked the right questions, and their answers were prompt.
To say Albus Dumbledore was shocked would be a huge understatement. They were from the future—twenty two years, no less—and travelled through time via a door. Which, incidentally, was present in the Room of Requirement.
Still, he managed to keep an impassive expression, but continued to stare at the two girls, who looked enormously relieved now that they had shared their burden.
"Extraordinary," was all Dumbledore managed to utter. He had been very careful with his questions, asking them what their names were, what year they came from and how they managed to come here.
"Well," he began. "The Room of Requirement?"
"Yes, sir," Rhea said. "The cupboard—I mean, the doorway—it brought us here."
"And now it's destroyed. Burnt to ashes." Luna trilled.
Dumbledore sighed. These were dangerous times. He shuddered to think what would happen to the time travellers if Voldemort heard even a whisper about them. He also knew there was a war in 1997; he hadn't asked them, but their appearances showed that much. Brushing away his musings about what would have happened to him in the near twenty years (Rhea had been emotional when she saw him, so something must have happened), he stood up.
"It would be easier, Miss Arquette and Miss Lovegood , to show me this magnificent room."
"Yes Professor."
***
I need a place to go back from where we came from.
I need a place to go back from where we came from.
I need a place to find all hidden things.
After walking up and down the corridor three times, the door opened at the last requirement Rhea had made. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows, and stepped aside to let the girls enter first.
It was something Dumbledore had never seen—centuries of hidden things, epitomes of guilty possessions, illegal things, robes and books.
Suddenly he halted and immediately cast shield spells over the three of them.
"There is someone here," Dumbledore stated calmly.
Luna and Rhea looked at each other wearily. Then Luna muttered, pointing at a random direction, "Accio stalker,"
Rhea looked at Luna incredulously, while Dumbledore's eyes twinkled bemusedly.
Nothing happened. There was no 'stalker' zooming towards them, nor a trace of movement.
"Of course," the Headmaster stated apologetically. "I might have been mistaken."
"You're not," Rhea said immediately. "There is someone here"
"Must be a boggart," Luna suggested, though she was trying to convince herself.
Reluctantly Rhea agreed, and signaled to the Headmaster to follow her. She stopped in front of the ashes.
"It's not formed back into the cupboard," Rhea muttered. "It should have. We need to go back. We—"
"The doorway was here?" Dumbledore interrupted. The girls nodded. "And you mentioned the Fiendfyre destroyed the doorway, but didn't spread into this room?"
They nodded again.
Dumbledore fell into silence, looking around thoughtfully. Hesitatingly, he started, "I assume you cannot tell me why you had come to the Room of Requirement in 1997?"
Rhea shook her head sadly. "No, sir. It will destroy the very fabric of the timeline."
Luna, who was humming a tune that sounded suspiciously like Winky, Blinky, Dobby, chirped, "We cannot go back. The doorway is destroyed."
Staring at her in shock, Rhea sputtered, "What do you—Of course we need to go back! We have a task! We need to destroy—"
She stopped abruptly, receiving a curious look from Dumbledore.
"Perhaps we need to take this conversation in my office," Dumbledore suggested.
Nodding tiredly, the two girls and the Headmaster went back to the office. They walked in silence, lost in their thoughts—one was distraught, the other was curious, and the third was planning on how to convey his suspicions to the teenagers.
"It seems that," Dumbledore started as they seated themselves in his office again. "there is no possibility of you going back to 1997."
He paused, letting the news sink in. Folding his hands on the table, he looked over his glasses at the two witches. Rhea just looked at him impatiently, while Luna was humming under her breath.
"The year you came from," he continued, cautiously. "is now a part of our future. Your present has now become our future."
Rhea looked confused. "Time Turners don't work that way. I know how they work, I've used them before," she added on Dumbledore's questioning look. "We can travel to the past, but only a few hours at most. And then, we come back to the original time. This doorway ought to have another door that takes us back to 1997."
"Yes, Rhea," Luna said with exaggerated patience. "But it is destroyed now."
Shaking her head stubbornly, she retorted, "No. There might be another one in the Room. We need to check—"
"Which we did a few minutes ago," Albus interjected gently.
Sensing an argument from the Legilimens witch, Dumbledore continued hurriedly, "You see, the doorway exists in every timeline, from the time it was created. Time is not a straight line, Miss Arquette. It is a chain, connecting the past, present and the future."
"Now, the Doorway had two doors, did it not? And you chose the left one," he chose to leave out the little detail as to how they chose the door and continued, "and turned the knob, thus coming to 1975."
"Wait!" Rhea said sharply. "We turned the knob! What if the knob was a time turner? And we twisted it and—"
Dumbledore chuckled, and said, "But Time Turners don't travel back decades," he reminded her.
Comprehension dawned on Rhea's face, and she allowed Dumbledore to continue.
"It is crucial for one to understand, time is not a straight line," he repeated. "The fire burnt the Doorway in 1997, and that is the reason it burnt the Doorway here, in 1975."
"So you mean to say, the fire never followed us here?" Rhea asked. "The reason the Doorway burnt here, was because it connects all timelines?"
"Yes," Dumbledore nodded. "That means, in every year—a year ago, decades ago, and also in the future—the Doorway is destroyed. It was destroyed in 1997, and it is destroyed in every other timeline."
"Why? Why does it work like that?" Luna asked, in slight confusion.
"Because, my dear, the Doorway connects all timelines. If it is destroyed in even one timeline, it is destroyed in the others as well."
There was a long silence, each to her—and his—own thoughts. Finally, Rhea broke the silence.
"So we can't go back?" she whispered, crossing her fingers under the table.
Dumbledore looked at her somberly—the way he had looked at her when Rhea had thought she would die along with Harry.
His silence was enough.