'Ouch –!'

'Your fingers are in my nostrils –'

'Your hand's on my groin you pervert – Geroffme!'

'Silence! All of you! It's almost curfew!'

Lily got on her feet and shrieked. It was probably inappropriate for her to shout for silence and take points when she was the loudest, but whatever. Her purpose had been fulfilled; the boys quieted down in an instant.

'Um,' someone said – oh yes, she knew that voice, that tone so well it could trigger an immediate reaction, it was bloody James Potter – oh NO since when did she know anything about him? – 'your dress's turned up…'

She smacked the hand away, conveniently also smacking that damn glasses off that annoying face. She breathed a sigh of relief in secret when she saw that the hazel eyes were politely snapped shut. But her relief was soon replaced by irritation: there were three more Marauders around her - more like under her - as they lay on the floor, groaning. None of them except Potter had bothered to look at how her dress had turned up.

She examined the surroundings, puzzled. She wouldn't admit it, but it did seem that she, prefect of Gryffindor, had also participated in the mess the boys were making, judging by how she had struggled to get up from the pile of bodies. But she was definitely reading a book seconds ago. It was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and Potter's gang just ruined her fun. She was pretty sure it was like that when Mr Darcy just proposed to Elizabeth.

'Ouch,' Potter groaned again.

Lily squinted. 'I'm going to –' report to McGonagall. 'Heal you. There's a big bruise on your forehead,' she found herself say.

'What?' Potter's mouth hung open. 'You're going to what –? Ow. Ow.' He touched his bruise and furrowed with a pained expression which Lily was sure was an exaggeration, though she couldn't help but take a step forwards.

'Well,' she snapped, after casting a healing spell, 'get your friends and go back to your room. You are enough of a nuisance as you are.'

Later that night, she still couldn't put her finger on what had got into her head. Something was different. Somehow, Potter looked more like a bird nest with two eggs hanging under than ever.

She laughed heartily. Tonight would be a good night.

Remus's heart was throbbing. The corridor was dark and quiet, Mrs Norris's padding and Filch's mumbling were fading away in the distance. Sirius's hand was on his wrist, pulling him forwards as the caretaker's shadow disappeared behind the corner. Remus's steps were light, though reluctant; but Sirius was so unrelenting that his grip on Remus only grew tighter and tighter, the very reason why Remus was out of the dorm and had not been able to sneak back when Lily was having a fit about breaking curfews.

'Well,' Remus waited until Filch's name on the map vanished completely from the floor they were on, 'I fail to understand why you had to nick it in the first place if you are going to return it not ten minutes later.'

'Ten minutes?' Sirius yelped. He quickly looked around the empty castle and whispered exasperatedly, 'It feels a lifetime ago.'

As much as he attempted to sound dramatic, Remus had recognised the fleeting look of shock. Sirius's head was cocked to one side, the glint of confusion in his eyes as bright as the light from his wand tip. 'Must be my conscience growing.'

'Didn't know you had one,' Remus said sarcastically, though he, too, could see no more than Sirius could past the events of tonight. The moment of Sirius coming in with the delicate hourglass was very much fresh in his mind, yet at the same time so distant it was like admiring an old oil painting of an historic event from afar. It had, for some strange reason, felt so pivotal a point in their lives that had changed them all.

Had it?

'Admittedly, I'm glad that you have it in you,' Remus said hastily, pulling his hand from Sirius's grip. He felt heat slowly creeping up his cheeks.

Sirius gave him an annoyed look. 'What is wrong with you?' He made a show of closing the map and tucking it under his arm, and grabbed Remus's hand again, a bit more forcefully this time. 'I'm not letting go again.'

'I never left,' Remus pointed at himself irritably, but he let him. If he hadn't been in the midst of a midnight mischief, he would have thought he was watching a cheesy romance film written by James, and he and Sirius were reading straight off that crappy script.

They moved along in silence, successfully avoiding Nearly Headless Nick. And then they waited impatiently behind a large pillar until a Slytherin boy decided he had kissed his Hufflepuff lover enough and buggered off. Hogwarts, whether in day or at night, was never asleep.

'Wanna hear a riddle?' Sirius said again after they finally reached the end of the corridor, climbed a few staircases and neared Dumbledore's office, his voice hardly more than a whisper. 'Although, if you want a hint, you'll have to promise to be Keeper against James –'

Remus knew it before it came. At a distant time from now, in a distant corner in the Hospital Wing, from a distant part of his memory, Sirius had asked the same question after a rough full moon, the nearly unconscious Remus beside him.

… and the flying umbrella stopped right over my head, and I was like "geez I couldn't have been luckier having it in a rain." And you know what? The next thing I knew was dung pouring all over me…

… Now, do you know who sent that bloody umbrella?... it could be Regulus the brat… or James the prat … or Kreacher the gnat. Make a guess: which one do you think it was?

'I think you asked for a hint,' Sirius said smugly, pointing at the magic Galleon that Remus had taken out despite his knowing.

'I don't even know what this is.' Remus closed his palm around the Galleon, its edges warm and familiar against his skin, the spell to activate it as clear as day in his mind. He tried to look as nonchalant as possible, but judging from the sly looks Sirius sent him, it was needless to say that he had failed to achieve even one tenth of the intended effect.

Sirius laughed quietly. He led the way through the gargoyle door and into the Headmasters office. It was empty save for the soft glowing lamp on the desk, and the piles of books on Dumbledore's desk. Neither Dumbledore nor the phoenix was here.

'So you'll be my Keeper?' Sirius asked as he rounded the desk, stopping at the first wooden drawer under it. He held out the hourglass right above the open drawer, and Remus held the other side of it solemnly. The whole act felt holy. The soft glow given off by the hourglass was like a ring of halo, and he couldn't help but feel reverence towards it.

'Only if you'll be Chaser,' said Remus, heart beating fast.

Sirius held his gaze. Eventually, he nodded. And then he gave a slight click, and together, they lowered the time turner into the drawer, its interior filled with some vintage sweet wrappers, ink boxes and stamps.

'I'm surprised that, of all things –' Remus closed the drawer with an air of finality, arching an eyebrow – 'this caught your attention.'

'It's fate.' Sirius shrugged as he gave the drawer one last glance, sorry that he had to let his trophy go. 'It's like I'm attached to it. Call me superstitious, but I have a feeling it will bring us luck.'

And so it did, in more than one way possible; in the future so buried deep in the undulating currents of time. Until it saw light again, it would lay there, in this wooden drawer, safe from the chaos of the world, the change of night; all while its previous owners slipped away, one by one, borne back ceaselessly into the past –

And the future stretched on, unknown.

-Fin-

A/N: Thanks for reading! How this affects the future (if it does at all) is up to YOUR imagination! Love ya xx