November 27, 2015

It was Black Friday and I was standing in a line outside of Target, of all places, freezing and bundled up, waiting for a super great deal on a pair of headphones I'd been covering for some time. Like, they were hot pink and the sound was supposedly amazing but they were also usually like $250 and the door buster that night was bringing them down to a nearly-justifiably $96 and I could actually pinch that out of my check that week, thanks to the mountains of leftovers Thanksgiving had provided, meaning I was saving on groceries and -- It was cold, and I wished I had a cup of coffee as I stood there, watching my breath rise up in front of me and checking my phone for the time and to see if there were any notifications on the latest chapter of The Marauders on Wattpad.

It had been about four months since Declan Alectric had dropped me off at work in East Nashville with a handful of vials full of iridescent liquid.

"These are their memories," he'd said.

Sometimes, I still thought I had lost my mind when I sat in my bedroom, poured a vial into a large orange salad bowl I'd bought at TJ Maxx for like seven dollars, and stuck my face into the liquid to see the memories. The first year of the Marauders had been quite the roller coaster of scenes to watch, and I'd been hard at work, dutifully transcribing what I saw with as much love and care as I could. A lot of it had been quite surprising to me... and I'd started posting it early on in the Fall, beginning in early September, describing their first time on the Hogwarts Express and such. I was completely shocked by the amount of readers I had - there were like twenty people actually actively leaving comments and coming back each time I posted - and I was addicted to refreshing the app on my phone after posting a chapter to see what they had to say, if they had the same reactions I did to the scenes I'd shared.

That night before leaving to go to the midnight sale at Target, I'd posted a scene of Severus Snape and Sirius Black having a detention. They'd been doing maintenance trimming the twigs on the broomsticks in the Quidditch lockers - something I wasn't sure I understood the need for. I had a list of questions for Declan next time he showed up. Like, did the brooms keep growing? Why would they need to trim the twigs? Were broomsticks alive? 

I also wanted to know what was so horrible about Snape? It seemed like James and Sirius were arrogant little pricks (even in their own memories!) being unnecessarily mean to the poor kid. It really upset me. I'd been bullied as a kid, after all, and I knew all too well what it was like to be in Snape's shoes, picked on for no apparent reason except the other kid was an asshole. I'd had a bully once pull me down a flight of stairs by the back of my romper. The teacher hadn't even yelled at her and when my mum escalated it to the principal after I'd come home with nasty bruises and what, looking back, was likely a mild concussion, the principal had said "that's what kids do" and told her that I needed to work it out with the bully myself. Seeing James and Sirius be little bullies themselves made me feel really angry with them and really bad for Severus Snape.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about as I was standing there, waiting to get into Target for my headphones when suddenly Declan Alectric himself stepped up beside me as naturally as though he'd been standing there all along.

He was holding a cup of coffee, the cup as blue as his hair and branded from a place called Caffe Nero. Still steaming. He held the cup out to me and I gladly took it, looking at the logo on the side. "Here," he said.

"Caffe Nero?" I asked, having never heard of it.

"You've called it British Starbucks," Declan explained, taking a sip from his cup. 

"Interesting," I said.

I wasn't about to turn down coffee even if it was gas station swill at that point and I took a sip, pleasantly surprised to find not only was Caffe Nero good, but he'd also remembered to put a bit of vanilla in it for me, which even my own sister, who got coffee with me every single day, never remembered to do.

"Thank you," I said when I lowered the cup. "I really needed this."

"Yes, you usually do."

"Fair," I answered.

"Besides, I have -- a favor to ask of you," Declan said, watching me drink the coffee. "Caffeine was sort of a bargaining tool."

"Oh?"

"Yes and it's quite an important one, I'm afraid... Fixing something very important."

"Alright. What is it?" I figured I'd gotten something wrong in the fic, that he'd been reading it and had some correction. "I can edit whatever it is on my phone right now. I have the app and --"

"What app?"

"For Wattpad?"

"Oh it's nothing like that. I need you to come with me to Hogsmeade for a minute."

"Hogsmeade?" I glanced at the people behind us to make sure his nuttery wasn't being overheard. The man behind us was half asleep in a folding chair. (How brilliant do you have to be to think of bringing a folding chair to the lines at Black Friday? Seriously?) He was wearing a Call of Duty T-shirt and I figured he was there for the video game consoles that were on sale. He wasn't paying attention at any rate. I looked back at Declan and he was fishing the time turner out of his shirt. "What? Like, now?" I asked, confused.

"Yes like now," he replied, rolling his eyes.

"I'm sort of standing on the line if you didn't notice."

"Don't worry, we'll be back in time for you to get your headphones. But they don't have pink so you get teal and you wear them all the bloody time until you lose them on a flight and end up buying air pods duty free. You like the air pods better. Until you lose the left one in 1980 and it's a whole fiasco. Just wait." Declan rolled his eyes, shaking his head, chuckling under his breath at a memory he had that hadn't happened to me yet.

I stared at him. "I really hate you when you do that."

He grinned.

"No like, really, I --"

"Are you coming with me to Hogsmeade or what?" he interrupted me.

I  sighed and drank a big mouthful of my coffee.

"C'mere," he said, taking my sigh as an agreement, and he looped the long chain of the Time Turner's necklace around my head, grinning as he twisted the golden hoops.

I could've sworn I saw a flash of us returning just as we disappeared. Weirdest. Feeling. Ever.

It was night time in Hogsmeade, too, when we arrived there and Declan hurried me along, not really giving me time to look around, although I stared in awe at the village. It was so tiny and cozy and exactly what I'd pictured - stone buildings with wooden signs, just a bit wonky, unlike the cold, sharp architecture of America. He dragged me by my wrist past a water fountain and into the front door of an inn. He didn't pause at the concierge, instead, pulled me up a flight of stairs. He muttered a spell as we stepped out of the stair well and onto the second floor - (Apparently the second floor is called the first floor in the UK, something that messed me and Declan up quite a lot and the second floor is what the US would call the third floor but in this instance I'm saying second floor in the US way... just for the record, since Declan says I have to be clearer about these type things.) - and suddenly, I could hear raised voices carrying down the corridor from one of the rooms. He yanked me into a room just across the hall from the shouters and closed the door.

He looked very nervous, I realized suddenly, now that I could see him better. 

I set the blue Caffee Neros cup on a table and turned to look at the door as the raised voices carried through the walls, barely muffled.

"--- WHOLLY INEFFECTUAL AGAINST A DRAGON, YOU ARSEHOLE!"

"I COULD CERTAINLY GIVE IT A GO INSTEAD OF SIMPLY ABANDONING EVERYONE TO GO AND PLAY ALPHA...."

I looked at Declan. "What's going on?"

"That's Remus and Sirius, fighting," he answered. "In the room across the hall."

My jaw dropped and I looked at the door, then back to Declan. "But -- why?"

"You'll understand better as you work on the story but right now I just need you to do me a favor."

"Okay?"

"Go break it up."

"What?" I laughed, "I'm sorry. What?"

He stared at me without smiling or laughing.

"Are you serious?"

Declan opened his mouth to answer but before he could speak, the raised voices carried through the walls again --

"TWELVE YEARS IN AZKABAN WITH DEMENTORS!!!"

"That is Sirius," Declan said.

"You want me to go break up a fight between two people I've never met and who never have met me --"

"You've not met them YET, but they've met you - though they might not realize it and --"

"Declan, I can't just go across the hall and knock on a random hotel room door and interrupt a fight. What am I supposed to say?"

Declan looked around, snatched two pillows off the bed and shoved them into my hands. "Say housekeeping."

I stared at the pillows, then looked up at Declan. 

"You're fucking insane."

Declan grinned.

"Why don't you go knock on their door and do it yourself?" I asked, trying to shove the pillows back at him, but he refused to take them. "And how does this fix anything?"

"Because, darling, I have another job that I have to do and if they keep shouting they're going to wake Oliver Kent up --"

"Who?"

"-- and I won't be able to get done what I need to do and trust me, it's very important that I do what I need to do. It fixes quite a lot actually. You'll understand eventually." He turned me around by my shoulders and pushed me to the door. "Besides, I can't be the one that knocks on the door."

"Why not?"

"Because Remus is the one who answers it." He pushed me across the hall. "Off you pop," he said. "Oh. Offer turn down service and keep them busy in there for a few minutes. About five if you could?"

"What?"

"I just have to go down the hall, get something, and get back before you're back here. That's all. Then we'll go get our headphones, won't that be lovely?" He winked.

"I'D RATHER DIE THAN BETRAY YOU!"

"THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU COME TO ICELAND?" 

The voices echoed through the hallway.

I stared at him as he waved with the tips of his fingers and closed the door, leaving me standing there in the hallway with a stack of pillows and a stomach full of turkey and coffee that was turning with nerves.

Did I mention I'm extremely socially anxious and the thought of knocking on that door made me want to sob? Even if it wasn't closing in on midnight in a strange place and time to face strangers that I knew but didn't know and who didn't know me, when they were in the middle of a fight that was shaking walls and sounded just so horrid, I still wouldn't have felt comfortable knocking and pretending to be a housekeeper offering turn down service.

I stared at the door, wide eyed, shaking and clutching the pillows.

I was shaking when I knocked.

"Housekeeping!" I shouted.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

It took what seemed like an hour before the door opened and there stood a man - a man who didn't really look like David Thewlis but who looked in a way that I could see why the casting director might've cast the way they did. Maybe. If they were squinting. Or perhaps told to catch a likeness without actually letting the person look like the real person. He was a lot skinnier and he leaned on a cane and his eyes were vibrantly green, hair falling over his forehead, curled, an expression somewhere between annoyance and anger on his face as he flung open the door and stared at me.

"What do you want?" he snapped.

Beyond him stood another man, equally skinny, with long black hair and a thin, long sleeve shirt, whose sleeves covered half his hands as he twisted his fingers together in irritation as he stared, his chin held high, eyes beadily assessing me.

He also did not look like Gary Oldman, but also sort of did in the same way.

They were both younger than the actors that had portrayed them.

I shivered.

"What do you want?" The man I realized was Remus Lupin repeated, his tone firm and commanding - a teacher or a parent's tone.

"S-sorry, just offering turn down services - for you - for the um - to turn down - your bed," I stammered. I have this thing where I get nervous talking to people and I forget how to English. And I become aware I'm not Englishing properly and I get worse at Englishing.

Remus Lupin's eyes narrowed. "Now?" he asked. "Do you realize what time it is?" and he looked at a watch on his wrist. A very old, worn leather watch that I -- God help me, it looked familiar, and I glanced over my shoulder at the door behind me, then back to Remus Lupin.

"Sorry it's late," I nodded, "Yes, but um, I got... caught up... doing other stuff."

He stared at me, then stepped back, sighing as he let me into the room.

I noticed the other two men in there then. One was thin and laying on one of the two beds, though not under the covers, and the other stood next to a cot that was pressed against the wall, large and built in a way that reminded me of that one dude from Game of Thrones - Drogo.

All of their eyes were on me as I walked across the room, carrying the two pillows.

Sirius Black bit his lips into his mouth and looked at me with incredulity, then looked at Remus Lupin, and back to me, his brows raised in an expression that could only be thinking one thing:

What the fuck?

I grabbed the covers on the bed and pulled them down - I assume this is what turn down service does, I don't know, I've never stayed anywhere fancy enough to have a turn down service. Like I am a Holiday Inn kind of girl. I sprang for a Hilton once and spent more on the hotel room than I did on the whole rest of the trip and vowed to never think myself fancy again. I put down one of the pillows and fluffed it.

In my head, a mental timer was running.

Five minutes is an extremely long time to fluff a pillow by the way.

Especially when you have a bunch of guys - two of which you thought were completely fictional less than six months before by the way - staring at you.

I smoothed the blankets like six times, trying to draw out the time.

"Thank you," Remus Lupin's voice was pinched, "Thank you very much, I really appreciate your - the service, but we're - a bit in the middle of something and --" 

I turned, my mental count down rounding on about three and a half minutes spent, and I walked painfully slowly across the room. Sirius's head nodded forward slowly with aggravation, the way mine does sometimes when I get stuck behind an old woman in a grocery store that's walking about thirty steps per second slower than any human being should be capable of walking while still being in motion.

Like cold molasses moving uphill in the snow, my mum used to say when I dragged my feet like this.

"I hope your stay is... delightful," I said.

"It's really fucking great," muttered Sirius Black and he turned, shaking his head and reaching into his pockets, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes and shaking the box open.

I'd not thought about any of the Marauders smoking before that point.

I mean, I was only to the first month or so of Year One in writing and they were eleven and mostly innocent - that way at least  - and although I'd read a bunch of head canons about them, I'd never really thought about things like them smoking or - or whatever. So it surprised me. 

Remus Lupin gave Sirius a funny look, then shook his head and opened the door to the corridor - facing me, his arm outstretched to hold open the door. "Thank you, once again," he said hurriedly.

Luckily, he didn't look out into the corridor because Declan was just rushing back up the hall and ducking into our room across the corridor, glancing at me with wide eyes as he did, then flashing a thumbs up.

"Okay, yes, um y'all have a - a very good - a great night - and I'll um - just - go - now, so - yes. Goodnight." I practically ran through the door and heard Remus close it behind me.

"Ferfucksake," came Sirius Black's voice, loud and annoyed.

I shoved open the room Declan was in. He looked up. In his fist was an orange bottle of pills and a pair of balled up socks. He shook it at me. "Got what I came for," he said.

I stared at the bottle, then said, "You better have a really good explanation about that."

"I'll tell you while we wait on the line," he answered, holding up the chain of the Time Turner again.

I was still shaking with nerves as I walked over and ducked into the chain with him.

"Was that really Remus and Sirius?" I asked.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Why are they fighting?"

Declan sighed, "It's what they do, I guess. I don't know. They have like zero communication skills that I've seen."

"But aren't they together?"

Declan looked at me with amusement, "Fighting doesn't mean they don't love each other," he said. Then he added, "In fact, I reckon if they didn't love each other they wouldn't have anything to fight about and that may just be even more tragic than the fighting."

When we reappeared in front of Target, I saw the flash of us leaving as we appeared.

The guy in the folding chair woke up with a snort of breath and the person in front of us turned around at the sound.

Declan had been right.

I ended up with teal headphones.