CHAPTER 1 - Tumbling Through Time

(1976 Autumn, Hogwarts. Not even a week into the first term.)

"What do you mean we can't go back?!"

If one were to look for a picture definition of irate, Sarah's face would have provided a perfect example for the word. Jenelle, on the other hand, was edging more towards representing shell-shocked.

The two of them had come from Ilvermorny as part of a summer exchange program between their school and the illustrious Hogwarts. They'd had the time of their lives taking in the gorgeous landscape so different than what they usually saw in New England. There was similar yet vastly different architecture between the two castles, not to mention sexy hot accents, and those were just a few of their favorite highlights.

Even studying was surprisingly fun as well, and from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon they spent their time attending classes, some of which were not offered at Ilvermorny.

There were some definite culture clashes though and not all of them benign. Which all boiled down to this: Sarah and Jenelle had been temporarily Sorted into Gryffindor and Slytherin respectively, and yet still continued to spend the majority of their free time together rather than with their house peers.

Their seemingly incomprehensible friendship had caused raised eyebrows from the older students, and incredulity or derision from those fifth years and below. In the eyes of Hogwarts a Snake and a Lion willingly spending time together, foreign or not, was baffling.

Sure, such things had become more common ever since Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy had shown that it was possible to be in opposite houses and yet still be friends, but hundreds of years of suspicion and bias against the houses did not just disappear overnight.

For most students and the parents they wrote back to it was still borderline unnatural; many agreed that perhaps the kind thing to do would be to inform their hapless cohorts from overseas just what their houses said about their underlying personalities.

Namely, that a Slytherin is just as likely to shake your hand as they are to stab you in the back, and that a Gryffindor is more than happy to treat anything that wasn't considered light as evil without exception.

The girls didn't take the 'advice' well.

Things came to a head in their History of Magic class a month into their stay. A cabinet of rare Time-Turners had been put on display by the professor as part of the day's lesson.

The problem was that their class had been comprised of Slytherins and Gryffindors, and in the middle of a free discussion period, a smarmy Slytherin had insulted Sarah's status as an adopted child. Jenelle had leaped to her friend's defense immediately but was then attacked by an obnoxious Gryffindor, accusing her of only being friends with Sarah for her money.

That just riled everyone up, and within seconds a brawl had begun, much to the panic of the professor.

Sarah, in the process of drawing her wand and giving out a smackdown of epic magical proportions, had neglected to watch her back and had been hit with a knock-back curse, thrown into Jenelle, and both were propelled into the cabinet that housed the Time-Turners.

In slow motion, a class of now stilled students and one horrified professor watched as the fragile glass containers crashed onto the stone floors below, the sand housed inside whipping up into a tornado of cutting winds. It only took seconds for the sands to flutter to the floor, calm once more, but the two Ilvermorny girls were nowhere to be seen…

Where they ended up just so happened to be about thirty years in the past, give or take a handful of months.

Their sudden appearance in the same classroom they had been in might have caused a minimal amount of fuss, had it not been filled to the brim with students.

Twenty-seven teenagers and one ghost froze in bafflement as a few grains of sand began spinning near the front of the class. More and more sand quickly following until a veritable storm of it had appeared.

Just as quickly as it had appeared it went away, leaving two strangers lying in a heap on the ground. Needless to say, they had been promptly taken to the Infirmary amidst whispers and speculation, escorted by a harried McGonagall who had been dragged from her class by an unusually frantic Professor Binns to levitate them off the ground and down the corridors.

Jenelle awoke first, groggy and confused, the pounding headache forcing her to squint at the vaguely unfamiliar room. It somewhat looked like the infirmary of Hogwarts, but certain things were decidedly off.

She and Sarah had both been given a tour of the facilities on their first day at Hogwarts, and while the Healing Wing from her memory had certainly followed the theme of 'ancient magical castle from the Dark Ages,' there had been small indications of modern influence: updated bed frames, a magazine or two on the latest celebrity gossip, small but significant changes.

Now the metal cots, the decorations, the miscellaneous medical paraphernalia, everything looked in a word: vintage.

Jenelle's scattered memories of what happened slowly came back and her entire body stiffened in awareness and caution. She swung her head left and right, frantically looking for her friend.

Luckily she didn't need to look far; Sarah was laid up in the bed next to her.

She reached out, the other bed was quite close, and began pushing insistently against the girl's arm. "Hey, Sarah, wake up, wake up."

Sarah's eyes snapped open quickly before she winced, a hand coming up to cradle her forehead.

"Jen?" her voice was a little rough. "What the hell happened?"

Her friend shrugged as well as a person lying on their back could do. "I don't know. We were in class, then those assholes started that figh-"

"OH MY GOD you're right!" Sarah interrupted with way more energy than someone laid up in bed should have a right to, in Jenelle's personal opinion.

"Those ASSHATS!" Sarah continued to rant as she pounded the bedding at her side with a fist. "I can't believe people ACT like that! I mean, seriously what the fuck?! Who the FUCK goes around saying shit like that and then ACTUALLY THROWS SPELLS AROUND LIKE A CRAZY PERSON!"

There was a cough from their left. Startled, the pair whipped their heads towards the source of the noise, their eyes landing on the entrance to the infirmary where an old man with a magnificent beard was standing.

The ancient-looking elder draped in glorious aubergine robes was pointedly staring at Sarah, a raised eyebrow enough to show his opinion on her choice of language.

Unknowingly, both the girls shared a thought, 'Gandalf?' before Sarah smiled sheepishly and lowered her flailing arms from over her head.

"Ah, sorry Sir," she began. "I got uh, caught up."

The man chuckled as he waved his hand in the air. "It's quite alright my dear. Why, were I in your position, well perhaps my choice of vocabulary would not be so blistering, but I completely understand the sentiment."

His words had the freezing effect worthy of any paralysis spell, and both Sarah and Jenelle stared at him dumbly.

"Our...position, Sir?" Jenelle asked timidly. That didn't sound good to her.

The wizard sent them an unreadable look, but then broke into a gentle smile. "Ah yes, we do need to discuss that. Before we begin though, let me introduce myself, my name is Albus Dumbledore."

'Balls.' was the only thing Sarah could think.

Jenelle teetered backward in a dead slump.

"Did you hear me, I said, what do you mean we can't go back?!"

Albus Dumbledore had just broken the news to the two displaced girls standing in his office, and the petite one was not taking it well.

Although he acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, he could not stem the tide of his curiosity towards the two. Hogwarts had not participated in a summer-exchange program with another magical school in centuries for many reasons. Cost, logistics, and credit transference were just a few of the problems that made exchange students an administrative nightmare, not to even begin mentioning cultural clashes and the current political climate.

To think that within the next fifty years Hogwarts would once again have its hall graced with welcome guests was something that Dumbledore was ecstatic to hear. It also gave him a hint, no matter how seemingly unconnected, towards the state of the future that both girls refused to expand on.

Miss Waterbrooke (and he was positive that at least her last name was a pseudonym, precocious child) had been adamant on that point, and with admittedly good reason. The two girls had been quite tight-lipped on everything but the absolute bare bones of their plight, now dubbed 'the Fight-That-Caused-This-Crappy-Situation' by the fiery Asian.

The name had been contested with a; "Sarah that's way too long for a name," only to be met with an amusing; "No, it's not it's fine, shut up."

The two were obviously good friends, despite the glinting silver and burnished gold reflecting in their ties.

Any questions that seemed to lead to something they considered unnecessary caused them to do their best to imitate clams, but Dumbledore was not Supreme Mugwump for nothing.

Using skills he had developed from decades of wading through political tete-a-tete's and advisory sessions with broody teenagers, he gleaned useful tidbits wherever he could from their stilted sentences and grudgingly given information.

And from what he had learned so far, Dumbledore had much to contemplate over.

But he would be keeping those thoughts to himself to ponder over later. Instead, he pulled his attention back to the girl, Sarah, who was growing more and more angry at his lack of response.

"Now now, Miss Waterbrooke, that's not what I said." He had a frown on his face that slowly caused Sarah to back down and hunker into her chair begrudgingly. "I simply stated that we currently do not have a method for sending back you and Miss, ah, Montagnard?"

"Yes, sir." The other girl said absently from her seated position, still shocked over the news and staring ahead at nothing.

"Ah, French, my girl? How lovely, how lovely. Yes, as I was saying, Your method of reaching this time, unfortunately, was in such a way that we simply do not have the resources nor the starting point to begin rectifying your situation. You will be sent back eventually, make no doubt about that, but with the way things are now, it seems only logical that we make contact with the MACUSA, inform them of the situation, and allow them to head the investigation. And speaking of, neither of you would happen to remember how many Time Turners were in that cabinet before it broke, would you?"

Waterbrooke and Montagnard shared a look, but Sarah shook her head; obviously, she hadn't been paying that much attention. Luckily, Jenelle had.

"I think.." the taller girl started hesitantly, not wanting to make a mistake, "I think there were seven? No, wait, nine. There were nine."

This was troubling news indeed to the Headmaster, and his brow furrowed in consideration.

"Hmm... nine you say?" He sat back in his chair, stroking his beard lightly. "If that is truly the case, then you might be here a bit longer than I had previously estimated."

"How so?" Sarah bit out, looking like she was trying to keep polite by the skin of her teeth.

Dumbledore's gaze sharpened as he brought his hands to lace under his chin. "What I mean is that each time turner holds a specific amount of sand which in turn holds a finite amount of time traveling power. A single Time Turner has the capability to transcend years, hence why you seem to have been knocked back so far."

"Now normally," he continued, "a time traveler would simply wait out the amount of time he or she travels, since that amount is usually no more than a day at most. Time would catch up to itself and realign. But that is with the guiding control of the Time Turner, unbroken and whole."

"And ours were, in a word, not." Sarah responded, looking less agitated, but far more worried now as she took a seat next to her friend.

"Correct Miss Waterbrooke," Dumbledore tilted his head toward her in acknowledgment. "Without a Time Turner to mediate its power, the Sands of Time became unstable. I do believe your government will have a field day sorting this particular mess out."

Jenelle spoke up at this, "But we can return, right sir? That's what you said, right?" The thought of never seeing everything she had ever known seemed to be finally sinking in, and she looked sick.

Dumbledore smiled gently at her in reassurance, amused by the two extremely different personalities before him. While Miss Waterbrooke seemed to be the type to deal with unease through actions, Miss Montagnard was a much more passive and anticipatory being.

How very quintessential of their Houses.

"Have no fear, my dear girls," he looked to Sarah as well, and was glad to see her slowly relax her tensed posture. "Even if things can not be hastened by our own actions, the Sands of Time will always right themselves. However with the amount of Sand that was in play, instead of a single day you two might be looking at a matter of months to a year before you are, for lack of a better word, blown back to your present time."

"Worry not though! In the meantime, we should discuss your living situations. Now, I know you've both mentioned wanting to stay at Hogwarts for the duration of your little venture, but are you absolutely sure, my dears?"

He gave them both slightly concerned glances. "You are more than welcome to stay of course, and Hogwarts will welcome you with open arms, but I must admit that perhaps it would make things a bit easier were you two within easy reach of the department heading your investigation."

The two girls exchanged glances before looking back towards him. Miss Montagnard spoke up hesitantly. "Actually sir, we figured that since the accident happened in a classroom here in the castle, we'd rather just stay here. Just in case, you know?"

"That and the fact that I want to finish DADA," Waterbrooke chimed in with a weak grin, clearly trying to find humor in the situation. "Ilvermorny's great, but the Dark Creature curriculum here is a lot different and I'd hate to miss out."

There were a few quiet chuckles and a single pair of rolling blue eyes before things fell quiet, the crackling of the fireplace filling the air with a relaxing atmosphere. There was plenty more to discuss, but for just a few moments things did not seem as convoluted as they were, and Dumbledore let the moment stretch for as long as he could.

Later, as the two were escorting themselves to the healer's wing again, Jenelle was finally able to ask a question that had been bothering her ever since they had come to this time.

"Hey Sarah?" she began, whispering out of the side of her mouth while looking forward. No need to tip off the paintings above their heads and alert unwanted listeners.

Sarah gave a hum to show that she was listening.

"Why did you tell the Headmaster that, thing, about our names?" Namely, that she had changed them to the versions that they wished they had, the product of a late night conversation born of too much homework and not enough sleep.

"...To be honest," Sarah started slowly, gathering her thoughts, "thaaaaat might have been a mistake."

"Sarah!"

"Wait wait wait, hear me out!" Sarah hissed as she raised her hands defensively. "All I meant is that it would take us a little while to get used to, but trust me, we really don't want to be using our real last names."

Jenelle's sideways stare as they walked was all Sarah needed to keep talking.

"I mean, no matter what, we shouldn't change crap to do with time, right?"

"Of course."

"And we don't want people connecting anything we do while we're here to our current families back in the States, right?"

"I mean, I guess so."

"Annnnnd...I like the sound of Waterbrooke and Montagnard better..."

"...point."

"I thought so too. So yeah," Sarah finished as they reached the doors at the end of the hall, "that's all I got."

"Said the Gryffindor," Jenelle muttered under her breath, but not quietly enough.

"I will bite you."

"Of course you will."