Life’s hard. Life’s hard when you’re a teenager. Life’s hard when you’re a teenage girl. Life is extremely hard when you’re told you’re a blob of nothingness and sent back in time to live with your parents when they were youthful, and you make up time-travelling spells and go visit all of your friends in the far-future and watch their perfect lives whilst trying not to cry, and then you go back to find your parents and bring them back to the correct times – and you know what, I stand by what I first said: life’s hard.

So, basically, when I woke up staring at the ceiling of the hospital wing, I wasn’t really shocked at all.

“Good morning, Willow,” Dumbledore said to me. “It is good to see you are awake.”

“How long was I out?”I asked, scratching my head and trying to sit up. His hand forced me to lie back down.

“You have been unconscious for almost three months.” He said gravely.

“What?” I shouted, forcing myself against his hand and sitting up. “You’re joking!”

“Unfortunately, I am not.” Dumbledore took a deep breath before continuing. “After you and your friends returned from your trips in time, you fainted. You were left in a coma, and frankly, we thought you would never wake up.”

“What happened to me?” I asked him, feeling traumatised. Was this how Hermione felt when she woke up from being petrified?

“Your body seemed to go into a – as the matron called it – toxic shock. It was a bad reaction to time travel, as far as anyone knew.”

“What about Peter? Did they get Peter back?”

“I think that is enough questions —“

“Dumbledore, don’t you fucking try to put this aside. I need to know.” I demanded, staring at him pointedly.

“There have been several attempts to locate him.” Dumbledore informed me. “But they all were failures, and were almost catastrophic. I called off the search. We told his parents that there was a tragic incident and that he was eaten by the giant squid. As a result, the squid was exterminated. Peter has been declared deceased.”

“That’s disgusting.” I growled at him. “What did James and Lily say about that? Huh? And Sirius! Remus! Didn’t they fight you on it?!”

“As a matter of fact, they did. But there was nothing else to be done on the matter. I modified their memories. They think he drowned, like everyone else ... To make the story more believable, we invented that Severus Snape tried to save him.”

“What the fuck! You can’t do that to people!”

“In hindsight, it was not the best of plans. He tried to kill himself twice because he felt inadequate. The other three and Lily have befriended him now.”

I sat there in shock by his words, completely numb to the world around me. What the fuck! What the fuck! What the fuck! Wait – but that means –

“Nononono! Dumbledore, you complete twat,  do you realise how much of the future you’ve completely changed? Peter was meant to betray my parents and Snape was meant to become a Death Eater because he hated himself, and now neither of these things will happen. Did you consider that?” I shouted. “You asshole!”

“It’s okay,”

“I’ll go find Peter —“

“You can’t, Willow.”

“I’ll help everyone remember again —“

“You can’t.” Dumbledore said firmly. “You’ll forget about this in a few minutes —“

“I’ll be damned if I do.” I snarled, and I snatched my wand up from the bedside table. Pointing it at myself, I shouted, “Poster Gracetium!”

Future, here I come. To save the day. Or something.

***

30 mins

***

My head was spinning and I fell to the cold ground, coughing up what felt like a lung. Time travel was a bitch.

“Ugh! Death is coming.” I groaned to myself.

“It most certainly will if you do not tell me who you are and how you got here.” Snarled a voice. I ceased coughing and rolled over, looking into the face of a very familiar looking red-haired woman.

“I’m Willow Tr-Po-Mal. I’m just Willow.” I said, giving up on having a last name altogether.

“Willow!” She said, staring at me terrified. “No you can’t be. Willow died, a long time ago.”

“You know, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.” I sighed.

“You look just like her.” She went on. “But she died. We had wacky time-travel adventures and she died from them ... Just after Peter drowned.”

“Oh fuck.”

“Don’t swear at me while you’re wearing her face!”

“You’re Lily Evans.” I lay back down on the floor. “I - fuck.”

“It’s Lily Potter now, actually.” She told me. She still hadn’t lowered her wand.

“For fuck’s sake, Lily. It’s me. Willow. The Willow you knew. I woke up from that coma, and Dumbledore tried to – I escaped and transported myself here.” I stared at her, hard, until she looked away.

“What did Dumbledore do?” She asked feebly.

“He lied about Peter. He changed all of your memories. Peter didn’t drown in the lake, and Snape didn’t try to save him – We accidentally sent him to an alternate universe. But while I was in a coma, no one could find him, and so Dumbledore altered everything, and god damn it!” I shouted the last few words, “Take me to Dumbledore.”

“I can’t, Willow.”

“I’m getting awfully fucking tired of hearing the word ‘can’t’,” I growled. “Can’t or won’t.”

“I actually, can’t. He’s dead. He died – well, years ago, now.” I shut up for once in my life.

If Dumbledore was dead ‘years ago’ that means it’s like 2-10 years since the battle of Hogwarts ... which maybe didn’t happen. What the hell.

“Shilly, who is in charge of the school now?”

“Severus is the headmaster.”

“That asshole!”

“Whoa, Willow. A lot changed since High School. He tried to save Peter —“

“That didn’t happen, Lily.” I reminded her.

“Regardless, he became one of us. He’s been a member of the Order of the Phoenix for as long as I have.”

“Wait.” I said suddenly. “You make it sound as though the Order is still a thing. Isn’t it all over? What fucking year is it? Jesus Christ.”

“I’ll take you to Severus. He can explain this better than I can.” She told me, and we began to walk to the Headmaster’s office, she sent a patronus ahead of us. Upon arriving, Snape walked down the stairs and smiled – HE SMILED – and told us to sit.

“So Willow, you’ve come from twenty-one years in the past?” Snape said kindly. It was so bizarre that my skin crawled.

“Apparently.” I shrugged.

“In that time, I have become a double agent for the Order of the Phoenix. I’m a Death Eater, and I’ve been getting information about their next move.”

“Pfft, I’ve seen that before.” I snorted. “And you ended up dead.”

He stared from me to Lily who shrugged, “She says bizarre stuff like that all the time.”

“When did Dumbledore die?” I asked.

“Nearly ten years ago,” He said. “ I —“

“Shut up, I’m counting. Seventy-seven. So he died in eighty-seven. And then mum and dad were meant to die in eighty-one, but Peter wasn’t around – Snape, I’m assuming you didn’t relay a prophecy to Voldemort?”

“What? No. I —“

“Shut up, I’m busy! So eighty-seven plus eleven is – how much is that?”

“It’s —“

“Shut up, I’m not an idiot. It’s ninety-eight. So we’re in nineteen ninety eight?” I asked them finally.

“Yes, we are —“

“I need to talk to Harry Potter.” I demanded.

“Who?”

“You know, Harry Potter! Yay high –“ (I gestured a height a few inches above my head.) “- black messy hair, Lily’s green eyes, The Chosen One, your fucking son.”

“James and I never had children.” Lily said, looking alarmed. “There’s too much going on with the war and all.”

“Of course you didn’t have kids.” I groaned loudly. “Alright, so if you didn’t have Harry, then the prophecy would be — Alice and Frank Longbottom! Did they have a son?”

“Yes, Neville —“ I ran out the door, and got about three steps before turning back.

“Where can I find Neville Longbottom?”

“He should be in his dormitory.”

“Where’s that?”

“The dungeons.”

“He’s a Slytherin?!” I asked in shock.

“Everyone is in Slytherin now.” Snape explained to me.

“Can you just take me to see him? It’s a life or death kind of thing.”

“Willow, I can’t just barge into the common room –“

“Yes you can! You’re the headmaster. Dumbledore did weird shit like that all the time!”

“I’ll tell you anything you need to know about Neville,” He said. “But you can’t see him.”

“Alright, are his parents dead or alive?”

“Dead.”

“How did they die?”

“Voldemort killed them.”

“And then Voldemort tried to kill Neville and died.” I rolled my eyes. “I know the story. I’ve got to see him.”

The pair of adults stared at each other and then back to me.

“Where did you get this whole idea that You-Know-Who died?” Lily asked me. “He has never died. This war has been raging for nearly twenty years now.” I sunk back down into my chair. There was no chosen one. There was no prophecy. There was no Harry. “Half the muggle population has been wiped out. Muggle borns are dead, I don’t know how I survived.” There was no Hermione. “Rebels, such as ourselves, were wiped out by the hundreds.” There was no Ron. No George. No Weasleys. “Lupin joined them, it was easier to succumb to the werewolf tendencies. Sirius died just after we thought you did. James died ten years ago ... “ Lily stared at me. “This isn’t the world you left, Willow.”

“Hogwarts is the last defence against The Dark Lord.” Snape told me. “We’re the only people left fighting the good fight. It’s hard to know who to trust nowadays. We can’t trust people like Neville, or anyone. They stay locked in the dungeons because it’s safest down there.”

I took a deep breath.

“So the world’s gone to shit.” I sighed. “Come back with me, and we’ll alter the future again.”

“We can’t travel in time, Willow. Our bodies can’t take it. The spell we made when we were sixteen was rough then. We were all in the hospital wing for weeks after that massive journey all those years ago. Somehow, you can still do it. We worked out that it was an age thing. Sirius died from trying to do it after he turned seventeen ...”

“Lily, I don’t even know how old I am anymore! I could die? What the hell.”

“Willow, you dumb ass piece of shit. I don’t even know how I’m still existing right now.” Lucy muttered in my head. “You’re a ball of nothingness, don’t forget it.”

“Thanks, Lu! Great inspiring speech!” I shouted aloud.

“Use your brain, asshole. I made it for you.” Lucy said, pissed. “You can manipulate your own existence by thought. You can make your body fifteen, or fucking ten, I don’t care.”

“Wait, are you basically telling me what I think you’re telling me?”

“Yes!”

“Willow?” Lily asked, alarmed at my complete and utter insanity.

“This just in: the world is ending, and I’m the only one who can save it.”

-----

A/N: sorry that this doesn’t particularly make sense. It’s 1am, and the fact that I had to write something sort of sprung up last minute... So this was meant to be by Rebecca4Eva, but shit happened.

Anyway.

A summary of this: Peter missing means that the Timelines are 100% fucked. Voldemort is winning the war, Harry doesn’t exist. Hermione and Ron are either dead or don’t exist. Sirius is dead, James is dead, Dumbledore’s dead. And Willow has to somehow save the day by further altering timelines, hence, she probably won’t get any recognition for her efforts.

Just another day in the life of Willow.

The next chapter is by Dobby_Lives_On!

If you want to join our writing team, go to my about me page, and click on the little green house that says ‘my website’ and it’ll take you to our page. [Join us at your own peril]

-Sleepy_Secret_Ninja