Harry Potter and the Quack in Time

By cascade

Rating: PG

Genre: I don't think there exists a genre for this sort of… well, whatever it is.

Warnings: If Rowling ever read this, she would come after me with assorted dead otters ready for the swinging…

Disclaimer: I own only the non-canon characters and the basic idea.

A/N: This is a temporary (and apologetic) birthday gift for my dear friend Michelle.

A/N 2: PLEASE NOTE--this was started Iong before HBP was published, and is obviously being continued as though the events in Book 6 had never happened. (Oh, yeah, and any similarity between Jess and Tonks is purely coincidental--Jess was born in my mind and in this story before I read about Tonks in OotP.)

Prologue

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"Oh…no…"

Jessie Torrence stepped back reflexively and groaned. Why did everything have to go so phenomenally wrong? She looked at the mess in front of her, then quickly looked away again, moaning. What was with this? It was a simple spell, one even she should be able to manage alone, but apparently not. It crossed her mind briefly that this just might be why this particular spell was forbidden for first-years, but she quickly pushed the thought away, telling herself that it was only against the rules so that the most enterprising students would accept the challenge.

No amount of eleven-year-old logic, however, could erase what lay before her or the sheer degree of trouble she would be in when her…mistake…was discovered. She thought about her classmates and teachers and she knew she would never live this down. Jessie glanced back at the results of her dabbling and winced. What was she thinking? Of course she would never live this down--she was as good as dead!

Then she heard a small squeak near her left foot. Oh, yeah.

So.

Very.

Dead.

The small girl scrubbed a hand back through her ultra-short, spiky black hair, then absently slipped her fingers down to scratch under the back of the worn-out collar of her "lucky" DragonBall t-shirt as she tried to think her way out of this mess. Unfortunately her thoughts, which up to now had involved a lot of running and hiding and praying, were interrupted when the mess woke, sat up, looked around, and promptly started to scream.

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