As the judges were making their marks for Cedric, Oliver Kent had a very strange thing happen indeed. He had been sitting and eating that bloody pretzel Declan brought around, tearing it up and manically chewing out of nerves through the entire battle between Cedric and the dragon. He remembered looking over at Declan at one point, hiding his face in Declan's shoulder (when Cedric was on fire, when Oliver was sure Cedric wouldn't make it) and Declan had been saying, "No it's okay Oliver, look - he's alright now!" But when Cedric's time in the task was over, Declan wasn't there.

It was like he had simply vanished.

Oliver got up, his knees like jelly from the relief of his nerves. He had to get down there to see Cedric Diggory.

He wished Declan was there - he didn't fancy going alone down to that medic tent, where he already knew Walter Grant was. Declan would have been the perfect distraction, the perfect amount of snark to put Wally off while Oliver focused on Cedric... but wherever Declan had one off to, Oliver didn't have time to find him.

Oliver hadn't realized until Cedric - the poor boy - was fighting for his life, literally on fire on the ground in the ring, just how much Cedric had come to mean to him in only a few weeks. Every heart string that Oliver had kept safely from attaching to anyone else besides Colin for all of these years, in a sorry attempt to protect himself from that sort of pain, had, at some point, attached themselves to Cedric Diggory. All on their own. But he realized it now and he felt clammy and dizzy and -- Merlin, he had to get down there and see the boy was alright with his own two eyes.

He wasn't the only person rushing for the tent, either. Cedric's real parents were up and rushing from the stands the moment the dragon had been stunned, and Cedric saw Herbert Fleet launch himself over the seats and sprint out of the seating area as well.

Oliver was halfway up the stands, however, when he ran into Declan Alectric. And here is the weird thing that happened: Declan was carrying those two pretzels and four butterbeers just the same as he had been when he made his way into the stands before Diggory had begun his task. But this time, Declan's hair seemed the wrong shade, as though he were struggling to keep it blue, and his face was pale, his hands shaking slightly and he was trying at catching his breath, as though he had run here. Oliver looked him over with confusion.

"Declan?"

"Oliver!" he said, trying at his usual bright tone, he forced a smile and his hair brightened. "I got us refreshments for the big event. Where are we sitting? About to start, isn't it?" He looked over Oliver's shoulder then and saw the dragon handlers woeking to get the Swedish Short-Snout out of the enclosure and others to reset the nest and prepare for the next Champion's battle.

"Oh no. I'm late. I - I'm sorry, Oliver."

"You alright?" Oliver asked.

"Yes, uh. Yes of course. I'm splendid! I'm sorry. I'm a bit off my game, I've just... had a funny turn. That's all," Declan said.

"I see," Oliver said, "Look, Declan, I have to get down there to see Cedric."

Declan nodded. "Alright."

"Are you coming with me?" Oliver asked. "I'd really like it if you--"

"No I - I'll catch you up," Declan said in a tone very much unlike Declan.

Oliver hesitated, then, "Look let's talk about whatever this is at the Inn tonight, alright? Talk later?"

When Declan nodded, Oliver pushed around him and rushed off up the stands.

Declan stood there for a few moments, watching blankly as the trainers finished resetting the enclosure for the next champion.

If Oliver thought Declan's vanishing was odd, it was nothing compared to how weird it had been for Declan. Nothing of the sort had ever happened to him before in his entire life.

He had been sitting there beside Oliver, trying to watch the task, knowing Oliver needed the supportive arm... when suddenly a jerk behind his belly had wrenched him away. It was like being involuntarily disapparated across time, with no warning, no reason... He was simply in the stands at the Tournament, and then he was not. Instead, he was laying on his back in his bedroom in his Gran's house in the future... or, rather, his present.

His heart raced.

The room looked exactly the same as it had when he left. It smelled of his gran's cooking and the awful after shave he's been obsessed with when he was seventeen. The poster of Oliver Kent on the wall was faded, already an old relic by the time he'd gotten it at a vintage shop in Diagon Alley, the memorial date printed on... The radio was still playing the same bloody song it had done when he left - Uptown Funk, which he'd had stuck in his head for decades without any of friends understanding what he was singing. The time turner lay on his chest, dropped from his palm.

He sat up and the grey cat at the foot of his bed looked up at him, yawned, and stretched lazily. "Dobby?" Declan asked, seeing the cat, and the cat looked up at him and slid off the bed, padding over to the pool of mid afternoon light on the floor by the window.

For a moment, he feared it had all been a dream. He'd never gone back to the seventies at all.

He glanced to his bedside table and saw the old parchment, his father's handwriting, and the box that had held the watch now on his wrist.

There was a knock on his door. "Birthday boy! Dinner's nearly ready and everyone will be here shortly!" his Gran was calling through the door. "You gonna come downstairs?"

"Be - be right there," he stammered.

He had nearly forgotten what her voice sounded like.

"Come down quickly and you can have a go at the extra frosting from the cake," she tempted him before leaving. He listened as her footsteps carried her away.

Declan grabbed the time turner off his chest. "What the hell happened?" he'd asked, looking the Turner over and then he prayed - begged it to still work.

After all, the dates on the poster were still the same and there was still a box and parchment instead of a Dad who had handed the watch over himself.

Neither of his missions were a success. Not yet. He wasn't finished. He had to go back.

Please let me go back, I haven't even properly seen my Dad yet. Please.

He was confused and scared and emotional - afraid all the things he'd done already were undone, afraid he'd wasted all that time, all those feelings... afraid he'd wasted the time he'd had distracted and now - now, what if the time turner had broken? What if he'd foolishly focused on the wrong thing and would lose hope of saving his father in the end after all that?

He twisted the turner and it did work, it did. But it come out in a different place than he'd left and he was unsure of the time in the past - he'd figured it out according to the watch before but now he'd been away and come back and any manner of minutes; hours could have passed, he'd turned so quickly, he feared he wasn't sure he'd hit exactly the moment he needed... Unsure what was happening, if he was returning to the same world be had left or if his disappearing for a moment had changed it all again.

But then he saw people rushing in the stands of the Triwizard Tournament and he foolishly assumed it was just beginning and he had to get back up to his seat beside Oliver. And how much of that pretzel had he eaten? Did he need another to be believable that he'd never left? What about the butter beers?

And he'd mistakenly redone things he'd already done. And Oliver had looked at him funny. And --

Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder and he turned around. It was Hannah. "Oh thank gods it's you," he said, seeing who it was. He threw himself at her practically, still so shaken by the funny turn, and he wrapped his arms gratefully around her shoulders.

"Hey," she said, hugging him back. "It's alright. Deep breaths, Dec. We've figured it out and there's nothing to be freaked out over."

"You have?"

Hannah nodded. "Come one this way. I'll explain." She took his arm gently led him from the stands and out of the arena. He was still carrying the pretzels and butterbeers, his brain reeling, not having quite caught up with himself yet. She led him to a large tree that had fallen over, just at the edge of the woods. He sat down on the log as she stayed standing, pacing as she explained.

"So when you originally told me about this a few years ago," she started --

"But this just happened."

"I know, but I'm ahead of you right now.  You came and told me later and we've been trying to figure this out all this time. But now it's 2017 for me and a new thing just came out, giving us all new information. And it explains this. And other stuff. You said it was important we come tell past you and I'll say with how panicked you looked.  So -- here I am."

Declan stared up at her with concern.l

"You're okay. It's OK. The time turner's working, everything is just like it was except we have some figuring out to do with this new thing because - I think it's gonna mess with some stuff."

"What stuff? With Oliver?" Declan asked, worried.

"Well. Some but more with 1981."

Declan looked confused. "How does me being sent home in the middle of the Tournament effect 1981? How did I get sent home to begin with? I mean, I know the outro of Uptown Funk is unending but bloody hell I've lived two decades and it's still on in my room."

"Well according to this new thing... you weren't the only time traveller here."

"What?" Declan's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"I mean there are others, and they're messing with things surrounding the tournament and it affects the Time Turners."

"Who?"

Hannah hesitated.

"Tell me!"

"Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy."

"What?" Declan's face was confused. "No that can't be, I would've heard about it if they had done."

"Do you even know them?" She asked.

"Yes!" Declan said.

"Well, I don't know. I just know it says they got a time turner and they came here to try to save Cedric Diggory. This is in some new project Skeeter's working on. She's suddenly talking shit about Harry, accusing him of being a bad father and --"

"Harry Potter? A bad father!"

"Well he doesn't seem great at it in this new book thing. But anyway, they're here trying to mess with the Touney and something happened in the woods here that made their time turner malfunction. Rita Skeeter and the other writers - they either didn't know what caused the malfunction or else couldn't say what it was, so they all made up something about time turners having time limits, but we both know they don't."

Declan blinked up at Hannah as she spoke.

"W- wait. What? Albus and Scorpius were here?"

"It's a really bizarre plot."

Declan rubbed his eyes. "What did they do?"

"Well in the thing it said they did an expelliarmus on Diggory, but obviously that didn't happen... He defeated the dragon just like it happened in Goblet of Fire. Right?"

Declan nodded, "He did well as far as I know... I missed half of what he did, though."

"Well I think they got pulled back to their time before they actually did it."

"So what happened? What messed them up?"

"You're what happened, Declan."

"I am? What do you mean?"

"Your presence here did to them what Ottalie's presence in 1981 did to us when we tried to go back. They got kicked out because you're here. We think it's because yours is the same time turner as theirs, and it's the same time turner as Ottalie's in 1981."

Declan's palm covered the lump of the turner under his shirt. "It can't be the same. I got mine from Ottalie."

"It is. Ottalie gave you her Turner, so yours is from the past. Somehow when you've finished with it, it makes its way to Hermione, and that's where Albus and Scorpius got it from, I think. I'm not positive I understood it right. It is incredibly hard to read; it's written like a play to be performed on Broadway, and there are parts of it that just don't make a whole lot of sense and you can actually tell it's being patched together from hearsay and some of the details are left out and others are just pure fiction. But I think that's what's happening. And you do, too, in the future. We think the same time turner can't be in the same place from different times. It sends both instances of itself back to the time it came from... That's how you ended up in your own time - when they came too close, it reacted and sent you home. Just like what happened to you and I in 1981."

Declan nodded slowly. "I - I suppose that makes sense." He paused. "When did we go to 1981?"

"Just recently for me, but in your future."

Declan sighed. "Wait. Did they see me?" He looked at her with worried eyes. "Al and Scorpius, I mean?

"The book doesn't really give details about what they did or didn't see... but you're definitely not mentioned. But that doesn't mean they didn't really, though. I'm telling you,  it's written like propaganda or speculation, like it's partly true and partly somebody who has no idea what they're talking about, you know? Those rags at the grocery store - National Enquirer level dribble."

Declan shook his head.

"But they were here and your being here sent them off. I'm less interested in their appearance here than I am in how this explains the problem with 1981 and possibly how we can fix it. We need a new time turner to get there. If this one is reacting to itself, we need a second one in order to avoid this happening again."

Declan looked Hannah over. "So how are you here now if not with the same time turner?"

"Future you brought me here, and I just came all the way from London to talk to you. The Turner's there - we realized I had to come without it to talk to you to keep the Turners separated."

Declan asked, "So they're trying to save Cedric?"

"Long story. But yes. And they end up going and seeing Lily and James and -- Well, you and I are trying to figure out how much of the story is true and what really happened because that mess - well if it's all true, it directly affects our mission to save the Marauders."

Declan shook his head and looked down with a sigh of frustration and worry at impending defeat. "They saw Lily and James???"

"Yeah and the explosion."

"Shit."

"Listen, let future us worry about that, alright? We're working on it, and right now you have to go find Oliver."

Declan looked up.

"He's down by the champion's medic tent and trust me, he really needs you."

Declan sprang up to his feet, still holding the pretzels and butterbeers. "Of course he does." Declan nodded, took a deep breath, and said, "Do I look alright?"

"Yeah of course, you always do."

He put the pretzels and butterbeer down and pulled her into a hug.

He needed that hug.

He'd been reminded of why he was there, of a purpose he'd partly lost sight of.

And also newly refreshed the beat of Uptown Funk in his mind.

"Thanks," he said.

She nodded. "You're welcome." And she watched as Declan rushed back toward the stands.