Chapter Six
Back Home Again

Updated 9/27/2013

=ooo=

"Avada Kedavra!"

Even before the first syllable of the Killing Curse had been spoken Harry's hand was going for his wand. There was almost no time to cast the Disarming Charm but Harry had to try. His wand out, he aimed at the wand pointing at Mark and shouted, "Expelli—"

But even as both wands fired — the red jet of Harry's Disarming spell and the green glow of the Killing Curse — a figure suddenly appeared from nowhere next to Mark, dragging him out of the path of the curse, which exploded the ground where he'd been standing. Mark's savior pushed him to the ground, drawing his own wand and pointing it toward the black Testarossa hovering above him. Harry finally recognized the figure and gasped — it was Mad-Eye Moody! Dumbledore stepped protectively in front of him, bringing out his own wand in the off-chance Moody needed any help.

Moody's wand twitched and there was a scream from the Testarossa. The door slammed shut and the vehicle flew away, gaining speed until it vanished leaving a trail of flames behind it in mid-air. Moody growled in anger then remembered the boy he'd just saved. "Are you alright, son?" he asked Mark, offering him a gnarled hand for support.

Mark hesitated a moment, looking at the man's disfigured face and his many scars, but took the hand. "Y-yes, sir," he said as he dusted himself off. "What was that —?"

"Hold on," Moody interrupted. His Eye had perceived people beginning to notice him, if not the boy, who had an Ignore-Me charm on him like Potter did. He rapped the boy on the head with his wand.

"Ow," Mark said, rubbing his head, then shuddered a bit as the sensation of a cold cracked egg ran down his face and shoulders. He felt his head then looked at his hands, gasping in surprise when he could no longer see them. "What — what happened to me?!"

"Hold on," Moody growled. He twirled his wand around his body, casting Disillusionment on himself. "Now come on," he said, grabbing Mark's arm and pulling him off the street. The crowd of townspeople converged on where he and Mark had been standing, trying to figure what had happened and where the man and boy who'd been standing there had gone.

"Alright, boy, now listen," Moody spoke quietly so as not to draw attention. "Someone just tried to kill you. The reason why isn't clear, but it's something to do with whoever brought Potter back to this time. You know who I mean, don't you?"

Mark nodded. "You mean Harry," he said. "He told me men in the future wanted to kill him. Did they come back after him?"

"Hardly." A ferocious grin spread over Moody's face, though the boy couldn't see it. "Those inbred idiots don't know about traveling through time — fortunately!" The thought of Death Eaters traveling through time to wreak havoc wasn't an easy one to contemplate, but there was still no way for any wizard to travel more than six hours in the past — at least not without one of the time machines Doc Brown had created. "Right now what we've got to do is find Potter and see what he knows about that car, if anything."

Moody put a hand on Mark's shoulder and steered him between two buildings, away from the street and crowd still milling about, trying to figure out what had happened. Mark tried to stop him, pointing back toward the crowd. "Harry's back there!" he said anxiously. "I saw him just before you grabbed me!"

"Maybe," Moody muttered, still moving away from the street. "Hopefully Dumbledore knows where he's at. Dumbledore, you hear me? Oh, there you are. Where's Potter?"

"Who are you talking to?" Mark asked, then jumped as an elderly man suddenly appeared a few feet away, alone.

"Harry has been taken," Dumbledore said, his voice grim. "My attention was diverted for only a moment, but I did hear the sound of a Portkey activating. Someone took advantage of that vehicle's distraction to spirit him away."

"Where's Brown, then?" Moody growled.

"Rather than risk Apparating with a Muggle, I told Doctor Brown where he would find us. Ah, here he is now," Dumbledore added as a disheveled man with wild white hair rushed up to them.

"Where are they, Dumbledore?" Doc asked, seeing only the old wizard. Of his leather-clad partner or the boy there was no sign. "I thought we were meeting them here — Great Scott!"

The air next to Dumbledore shimmered and Moody appeared. He tapped the air next to him with his wand and a moment later so did Mark.

Mark didn't know who this new fellow was or whether he was a wizard like the first two men, but none of that was important at the moment. "What happened to Harry?" he wanted to know. "You said someone took him away!"

Doc gave Mark a pitying look; it would be difficult for the lad to understand what happened to the Potter boy. "It's rather difficult to explain —" he began.

"I understand about time travel," Mark spoke up. "I've read a couple of stories like that in school. But Harry told me that wizards can only travel six hours into the past, so something other than magic must be involved. My guess would be some kind of science from the future. Am I right?"

"Er —" Doc said, momentarily stumped. Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling with amusement, and Moody was giving Mark a lopsided grin. "Well, er, I suppose that could be considered a…more or less…accurate assessment."

"So I'm right," Mark said. "So if they just tried to kill me, what are they going to do with Harry?"

"That's a real good question," Moody agreed. His Eye had stopped moving and was staring straight at Doc.

"We don't have any proof who took Harry!" Doc objected. "He might've run away on his own after seeing Dumbledore!"

"That is unlikely," Dumbledore disagreed. "In the few moments I spoke to Harry before he disappeared, he did not seem unhappy to see me. Indeed, I sensed he was quite relieved I was here."

"Uh oh," Mark said suddenly. "That reminds me — I haven't seen my pa since before the shootout! I gotta go see if anything's happened to him!" He turned to run but Dumbledore put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Mark looked back up at the tall, old wizard.

"Please, mister!" Mark pleaded. "Let me go find my pa!"

"I shall," Dumbledore nodded. "In fact, we will go speak to him together."

"I don't know about that," Mark said doubtfully. The old man was dressed in a dark blue robe that had many strange symbols on it, and wearing an even stranger — "bonnet" was the only word that came to Mark's mind. "You're not dressed like — well, like anyone I've ever seen before. I'm not sure what Pa's going to think about that."

"I see what you mean," Dumbledore agreed, looking down at himself. "Well, when in Rome, as the old saying goes —" With a wave of his wand the robe and bonnet suddenly flowed, like they'd turned to water, becoming an old pair of trousers, shirt and vest; the bonnet became a tattered cowboy hat. "How do I appear now? More appropriate to the period and location?"

"Uh, yeah," Mark nodded. He shook his head. "Golly, I gotta get one of those wands!"

"I will return shortly," Dumbledore said to Doc and Moody, "after determining what Mr. McCain knows about Harry."

"He thinks Harry is named James Mallory," Mark interjected. "He thinks he's related to Lou Mallory, the lady that runs the hotel and the general store."

"Ah," Dumbledore nodded knowingly. "That explains his somewhat altered appearance when I saw him."

"You recognized him, then," Mark wondered. "Even though he didn't look like Harry Potter? How did you know?"

"Magic," Dumbledore replied. He looked at Moody. "I've always wanted to steal that line from Minerva!"

"Well done," Moody said sarcastically. "Why don't you go have your chat with McCain — Doc and I will stay here and watch."

"I can't see anything from here!" Doc protested.

"Then I'll watch and you can wait," Moody snapped. "You can be thinking about how we're going to find that car and your sons."

Leaving Moody and Doc, Mark and Dumbledore made their way back to the main street, where the crowd was still slowly dispersing. Mark could hear a lot of conversations about what people had seen — none of them could really say for sure what had happened. Something had appeared in the sky over North Fork — a lot of folks said it was like a dark cloud, others that it was a balloon or something. What looked like a man had fallen from it, he had reached up trying to get back into it, but it disappeared with a crack of thunder. A moment later the man (or whatever he was — some people said he looked more like a monster) had disappeared as well.

They finally came upon Lucas questioning some of the townsfolk on Mark's whereabouts. "Here I am, Pa!" Mark said, waving a hand above his head.

"Mark!" Lucas exclaimed. He rushed over to where Mark stood with an old man in shabby clothing. "Are you alright? I've been searching for you for 10 minutes now!"

"I'm fine, Pa." And that was pretty much all Mark could say, other than how the old wizard had said to introduce him to his father. "This is Mr. Dumbledore," he said. "He told me he wanted to meet you."

Lucas nodded toward the old man. "Hello, Mr. Dumbledore. Do you know me?"

"No, sir," Dumbledore replied cordially. "Mark and I happened to strike up a conversation outside the courthouse this morning, and he told me you were helping the marshal take those four men to their hearing. I wanted to meet you and talk to you about someone we both know."

"And who would that be?" Lucas inquired.

"A young lad named Harry Potter," Dumbledore replied. Mark winced as the old wizard said Harry's name.

"Harry Potter?!" Lucas said sharply. "How do you know him?"

"Perhaps it would be best if we talked someplace more private?" Dumbledore suggested.

Lucas looked at his son but said nothing. He pointed toward the marshal's office, a hard expression on his face. "We can talk in Micah's office. He knows about Harry Potter, too."

"Excellent," Dumbledore nodded, ignoring Lucas's sudden change of demeanor. The two tall men walked over to the marshal's office, with Mark following behind, until they reached the front door.

There Lucas stopped and looked at his son again. "Mark, you go wait for me at the general store," he ordered.

"But, Pa —" Mark objected.

"No buts," Lucas said firmly. "Go wait for me."

"This also concerns your son, Mr. McCain," Dumbledore said.

"I'll be the judge of that," Lucas snapped. But his expression turned anxious. "How does it concern Mark? The Potter boy tried to tell me Mark was a wizard, that he could perform magic. But magic is a tool of the devil, used to bewitch men and trick them into damnation."

"It is nothing of the kind, Mr. McCain," Dumbledore spoke calmly but insistently. As if to demonstrate, he Transfigured his clothing back to his wizard's robes. Lucas's eyes widened in surprise. "Learning magic is no different than learning how to read — the only difference is that not everyone can do it. It is merely a matter of genetics."

"I don't know what — what 'genetics' is," Lucas said, doubtfully.

"It is a part of evolution," Dumbledore said. He gestured toward the door to the marshal's office. "May I explain, inside? With both you and Mark?"

Lucas was silent a long moment; finally, he nodded warily and he, Mark and the strange old man went inside.

Micah wasn't inside the office at the moment; he must be watching over the two outlaws that Doc Burrage was patching up. "I have heard of evolution," Lucas said. "It's some new theory about how man came from apes."

"It's called 'common descent,'" Mark supplied. "We learned about it earlier this year, just before school let out for the summer."

"I know about it, son," Lucas told Mark. "I'm on the school board, remember?" What he didn't mention was that the board had voted not to renew the teacher's contract, for precisely the reason that she'd tried to teach evolution in school, which was clearly an idea that denied the truth of the Bible. A temporary teacher was supposed to arrive in North Fork last Friday, but she'd been delayed. Lucas had sent Mark to school anyway, hoping he would remain there instead of with the crowd outside the courthouse. But now this old man…

"Mr. Dumbledore," he said to the old man, controlling his temper in front of Mark. "I don't know what you think you can prove to me, but magic is unnatural. It's wrong, and it's not something my son is going to get mixed up with! As for Harry Potter, he left town several days ago and I haven't seen him since. I suggest you look elsewhere for him."

"You are mistaken, Mr. McCain," Dumbledore said. "The boy you know as James Mallory is really Harry, disguised by magic."

"What?!" Lucas turned to Mark. "Did you know that?"

Mark had a hard time meeting his father's eyes. "Well, I figured it out who James really was after seeing him carrying a wand."

"A what?" Lucas shook his head. "Never mind, we'll discuss it later." To Dumbledore, "Why was Harry Potter disguised as Lou Mallory's cousin?"

"We would have to ask Miss Mallory that, Mr. McCain," Dumbledore replied. "The spells used to disguise Harry's appearance were well above his current level of Transfiguration education."

"What are you saying?" Lucas demanded. "If the boy didn't alter his own appearance, who did?"

"I presume Miss Mallory did," Dumbledore replied, surprising Lucas. "Ah, she has not yet confided in you. She is a witch, you see, just as your son is a wizard."

Lucas took an involuntary step back. It was one thing for a kid to tell him his son could perform magic, but quite another for an older, more knowledgeable person like this Dumbledore to do so. He felt like he had no choice but to accept the truth of what the old man was saying. But— "Lou's a witch?"

"I may have spoken out of turn," Dumbledore admitted. "We are supposed to remain silent about such things so as not to alarm people who cannot perform magic. Many people feel threatened by the idea of someone who can do things they cannot, especially if it confers a survival advantage."

"You mean like 'survival of the fittest?'" Mark suggested. Dumbledore nodded, impressed with Mark's quick grasp of concepts heretofore unknown to him.

"I'm not threatened," Lucas insisted, but the words were hollow in his own ears. "At least," he added, "I didn't think so, until now." He looked at Mark. "Son, I think I've been unfair to you, and to Harry. When we find him, he's welcome to stay in North Fork as long as he wants." He looked away, back toward the general store. "And I should have a talk with Lou about — things."

Mark smiled. It was good to see his father finally coming around. "I think Lou can teach me about magic, Pa — if that's alright with you," he added.

Lucas looked at his son, then at Dumbledore, who was regarding them both with a merry twinkle in his blue eyes. "It's fine with me, son," he said, really meaning it.

"Excellent!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "Now, on to the matter at hand — my companions and I will begin the search for Harry Potter."

Lucas looked up suddenly. "Companions?"

=ooo=

Harry squirmed silently in the seat of the Testarossa, between the two young men who had kidnapped him practically out of the hands of Professor Dumbledore. He had been bound by the Incarcerous Jinx and silenced with a Silencing Charm. Harry had been standing right behind the professor, watching as Mad-Eye Moody and Mark disappeared from sight, when he felt something touch his back. He tried to turn but had been caught by the hook-behind-the-navel sensation of Portkey travel, and was suddenly standing next to the black vehicle he had seen once before, hovering above him in the alley between Magnolia Crescent and Wisteria Walk. He tried to ask them what they were up to but before he could say anything he was bound, silenced and thrown into the car. Now the two young men, one with sandy brown hair, the other with blond hair that reminded him of Draco Malfoy, were having a row for some reason.

"You really are something, you know that?" the sandy-haired one, who was driving the car or whatever it was they were in, was saying to other. Looking out the windscreen, Harry could see they were in the air; he couldn't see a road or anything they were traveling along.

"It's not my fault he was disguised!" the blond bloke retorted, waving his wand (a wand!) at the sandy-haired bloke. "He looked like Marcanus! Or at least what I thought Marcanus looked like when he was fifteen!"

Harry leaned over so he could see himself in the rear-view mirror. He looked like himself again, with black hair, green eyes and round, black-framed glasses. He nudged the blond guy, trying to get to remove the Silencing Charm. The blond finally sighed and flicked his wand at Harry. "What do you want?"

"I want to know why you bloody kidnapped me!" Harry said loudly. "Now and before! And what the hell are you doing with a flying car in 1885?!"

"We weren't trying to kidnap you, Potter," the sandy-haired bloke said. "My moron of a brother thought he was Marcanus."

"Who's Marcanus?" Harry wanted to know.

"He's the wizard who destroyed the world," the blond said.

=ooo=

"What the hell are you talking about?" Harry demanded.

"You wouldn't know anything about it," the blond said. "The only reason you even exist right now is because we took you from 1995 and brought you 100 years into the past, the year everything changed for the world."

"We screwed up," Sandy-Hair said grimly. "We were just having a bit of fun. Our father, Emmett Brown, had just bought this car and was going to install time-travel circuitry in it. We — my brother Verne and I — I'm Jules, by the way — decided we would do it for him, as a surprise.

"Well, after everything was installed we decided we would have it hover-converted as well, so we took it forward to 2015."

"But," Verne took up the story, "when we got to 2015 we found our accounts hadn't accumulated enough interest to pay for the conversion, so Jules and I kept going forward until we got to 2085, when molecular nanotechnology had been perfected and a hover-convert was almost a no-cost update for any vehicle. We even got the drivetrain converted over to fusion technology — you can run the car on water now."

Harry had no idea what they were talking about, except that the vehicle they were in could fly and travel in time. "Where do I come in on all this?" he wanted to know.

"Oh, you," Vern laughed mirthlessly. "Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, Voldemort-Killer. You're here because we wondered what a wizard like you would do if he suddenly found himself stuck in 1885 for a while."

Harry shook his head, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"In 2015 you're the Head Auror —" Verne began.

"Verne!" Jules cut in sharply. "Ix-nay on the uture-fay, dude!"

"I'm Head Auror?!" Harry gasped. He hadn't even considered becoming an Auror! True, he was decent at Defense Against the Dark Arts, but you had to be pretty smart to become an Auror. "When did I become Head?"

"You took over from Gawain Robards in 2007," Verne said. He looked past Harry toward his brother, who was frowning disapprovingly. "Oh stop being such a retard about it, Jules — he's not going to remember any of this anyway!"

"What makes you say that?" Harry asked anxiously. "You're not going to Memory Charm me, are you?"

"Don't have much choice now, do we?" Jules growled from the driver's seat. The car had slowed and was moving downward. "Loudmouth Verne let the cat out of the bag, didn't he?"

"'Twere your idea to bring Potter back in the first place!" Verne shouted. The car bumped as they touched down. "None a' this would've happened if it weren't for you, Jules!"

"What's he mean?" Harry asked as the two young men pulled him from the vehicle. "Wait a minute! Explain to me what's going on!"

"We have to make things right," Jules grunted as he and Verne set Harry on his feet outside the Testarossa. "It's our fault the world is ruined — our fault!"

"But what happened?! Tell me!" Harry pleaded with them.

Verne looked at Jules, who nodded. "It's like this, Harry," Verne said. "Jules had this idea —"

"We both had the idea!" Jules objected.

"Alright!" Verne snapped. "We had this idea that you'd be like a fish out of water if you found yourself back in the Old West back in 1885. We come from this time — I was born in 1888, Jules was born in 1886."

"So you just thought you'd drop me a hundred years in the past with no way for me to get back home on my own?" Harry asked, incredulous. These two were as impulsive as Fred and George, but without any common sense! "What the hell were you thinking?!"

"We were going to come get you in a few weeks," Jules said defensively.

"But when we got back to the future," Verne went on. "We found everything — changed. Changed in the worst way possible."

"Everything was different," Jules said. "The United States was under military law. We had to go into hiding to avoid being taken into custody."

"All of the non-magicals had been enslaved," Verne said. "They believed God was punishing them for their wicked ways, that he had sent His prophet Marcanus to purify the world for Him."

"You said his name before," Harry remembered, looking from Jules' face to Verne's. "Who is Marcanus?!"

"It took us a while to figure that out," Jules said. "We spent weeks sneaking around, piecing together bits of information from discarded computers using future technology to recover information from the hard drives. We had to watch out for Marcanus's Sorcery Police — they enforced martial law on the non-magicals."

"Alright, I get the idea!" Harry snapped. "But who the bloody hell is Marcanus?!"

"He's Mark McCain," Verne said.

=ooo=

"You've got to be kidding," Harry said when he recovered enough wits to respond. "Mark is a good guy — he'd never turn Dark!"

"You might not think so," Verne said soberly. "But things happen to a person that sees his father shot down in cold blood by outlaws."

"What?" Harry was speechless for the second time in seconds. "When did that happen?"

"Today, just hours ago," Jules said. "Right outside the North Folk courthouse. It took us weeks to track down the day and hour when it occurred, that moment in history when Mark McCain became Dark."

"We figured the only way to set things right was go back and prevent it from happening," Jules said. "But we miscalculated the time. Instead of arriving early enough to prevent Mark's father from being shot, we arrived after it occurred."

"But —"

"We couldn't try again," Jules cut over Harry's protest. "We decided the only thing to do was cut our losses and stop Mark before he could turn into Marcanus. That was why Verne tried to kill him."

"But —"

"But, some other wizard spirited him away," Verne nodded, misunderstanding Harry's remark. "We figured he's got someone here teaching him. That wizard hit me with a Stinging Hex," Verne complained, rubbing a spot on his chest. "Jules pulled away before I could recover, and we lost our chance to kill Marcanus."

"But —"

"But we didn't give up, you're right," Jules agreed. "We figured we'd go back a few hours and capture him this time! We landed Pa's car outside of town and searched for a powerful magical presence. When we found it, Verne Portkeyed to that place and grabbed a kid who looked like an old daguerreotype we found of Marcanus when he was a child.

"However," he went on ruefully. "He got you instead. Why were you Transfigured to look like Marcanus anyway?" Jules wanted to know.

"I wasn't!" Harry insisted. At least, he was pretty sure he didn't look like Mark when he'd been disguised as James Mallory. Maybe Lou had unconsciously made them look similar. "But listen, you've got it wrong anyway! Mark's father wasn't killed in front of the courthouse today! He shot two of the robbers dead inside the courthouse when they tried to escape!"

"Are you sure?" Jules and Verne looked at Harry skeptically. "We traced Marcanus's beginnings back to that day, when his father Lucas McCain was killed as he pushed Mark to safety at the door of the courthouse."

"I was there," Harry said. "I was inside the courtroom using an Ignore-Me spell so nobody would see me, and I —"

"Are you daft?!" Verne exclaimed. "There's no guarantee an Ignore-Me Charm will keep anyone from seeing you! Why didn't you use Disillusionment, or better still, your Invisibility Cloak?!"

"Because I don't have my Invisibility Cloak!" Harry snapped. "And I can't cast Disillusionment yet! I've only had four years of school so far!"

"Oh yeah," Verne said, as if he'd just remembered. "We did aim for August 1995. I forgot you hadn't had your O.W.L.s yet."

"We getting away from the main issue," Jules argued. "How could Marcanus's father still be alive when we traced the beginnings of Marcanus back to his death?"

"How could it have happened in the first place?" Harry wondered. "My friend Hermione told me that time couldn't be changed anyway, that anything a wizard did in the past was really a part of that past, not something that could alter it."

"Would that be Hermione Granger?" Verne asked. Harry nodded. "Hermione Granger the smartest witch of her age?" Harry nodded again. "Hermione Granger, who got the third-best set of scores for the O.W.L. class of 1996?" For that question Harry could only shrug.

"I dunno," Harry said. "We haven't taken our O.W.L.s yet, I've told you that."

"Well it doesn't matter," Verne said. "She's wrong. You can change time—you just can't do it with a Time Turner. The magic of the Turner locks you into a causal loop that prevents you from altering the past. They're only meant to allow students to attend more than six hours of classes per day, not to alter the past.

"But with a time machine like this one," Verne pointed to the Testarossa, "we exit the bounds of our space-time continuum, traversing along a closed-timelike-curve, a path that begins and ends at the same point in space-time."

Harry waved his hand back and forth over his head several times. "I'll take your word for it," he said evenly. "But Mr. McCain is still alive. At least he was just before you blokes kidnapped me!"

"That doesn't make any sense," Jules said to Verne. "We saw what we saw when we went back to 1995."

"Maybe we should go back to town and talk to Professor Dumbledore," Harry suggested. "He and Mad-Eye came back for me. Maybe they know what's going on."

"They came back for you?" Verne echoed, frowning. "Even in 1995 no wizard can travel more than six hours into the past. Unless —" he looked at Jules, as both of them paled. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think so," said Jules, hoarsely. "Pa's time locomotive!"

"There was someone else with Dumbledore," Harry said, remembering. "A man wearing a cowboy hat and a white coat, with really strange-looking white hair."

"Merlin's pants," Verne moaned.

"Holy shit," Jules cursed. "We're totally busted, dude. What do you think we should do —" Both he and Verne suddenly collapsed to the ground.

Harry looked down at them, not understanding what they were doing. "Falling on the ground is probably not the best thing to do," he said. He knelt down, shaking first Verne's, then Jules's shoulders. "Hey — are you two okay?"

"That was my doing, Harry," a familiar voice next to Harry said, and Harry started as Professor Dumbledore suddenly appeared beside him. "I've rendered them unconscious so we can discuss the situation we find ourselves in."

"How did you find me, sir?" Harry wondered.

"You spoke my name a few moments ago," Dumbledore replied, taking what looked like a lighter from his robes. "My Deluminator picked that up and I was able to use it to immediately locate you and Apparate to this location while Disillusioned."

"You mean whenever someone says your name, you hear it?" Harry asked, staring at the device in Dumbledore's hand.

"Yes, that is correct," Dumbledore nodded.

"I see," Harry said, resolving not to say Dumbledore's name aloud anymore unless he was in dire straits. "Well, so what are we going to do about these two? They think Mark is going to become a Dark Lord because his father was supposed to be killed today, but that didn't happen."

"I see," Dumbledore murmured in turn, regarding the two unconscious young men thoughtfully. "It appears a temporal paradox of some sort is in effect at the moment. We should discuss the situation with Doctor Brown."

"Who is Doctor Brown?" Harry wanted to know. "That guy with the cowboy hat?"

"He is the father of these two young men," Dumbledore replied. "And the inventor of several time-traveling vehicles, of which this —" he gestured toward the Testarossa "— is one example."

Dumbledore gestured with his wand; two cushioned chairs appeared next to the Testarossa. "If you would help me make these two lads more comfortable, Harry —" His wand pointed at Verne, who rose into the air and floated into one of the chairs. Harry followed his lead, floating Jules into the other chair.

"I will return shortly with the others, Harry," Dumbledore then told him.

"Wait," Harry said, before Dumbledore could disappear. Dumbledore waited politely for Harry to speak. "Er — what if they wake up while you're gone, Professor? Verne is a fully-qualified wizard."

"I do not believe someone who has successfully held off Lord Voldemort will have much difficulty handling a 'fully-qualified wizard,'" Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. "But do not worry — I will be only a few moments."

"Couldn't we at least tie them?" Harry asked, plaintively.

"Doctor Brown is rather protective of his sons, as any father should be. I would rather he not find them bound or constrained when we return. As it is, he will probably be distressed to find them sleeping." Dumbledore nodded. "I will return shortly, Harry."

"But —" Harry tried to stop the Headmaster again but he had vanished with a barely audible pop. Harry sighed, hoping the professor would return as quickly as he promised. He looked around for the first time since getting out of the car, trying to figure out where he was. There was nothing but hills and brush and rocky terrain in every direction he looked. He had no idea how far from North Fork he was. He looked at the Testarossa; if worse came to worst, he could also fly it out of here, like he and Ron had flown Mr. Weasley's Ford Anglia from Kings Cross to Hogwarts. And how well did that work out for you, he reminded himself. They'd crashed the car into the Whomping Willow, damaging it, and were nearly expelled. The car itself had fled into the Forbidden Forest. Ron's mum sent him a Howler, and he'd gotten his father in trouble as well; the Ministry held an inquiry and fined him 50 Galleons, and Lucius Malfoy had called for his resignation.

Maybe, Harry decided, trying to fly the Testarossa wasn't such a good idea.

There was a sudden whoosh of air as five figures suddenly materialized nearby: Professor Dumbledore in his deep blue robe, Mad-Eye Moody in dark leather and a black cloak, a wild-eyed, wild-haired man in a white coat who fell over backwards as he appeared, his friend Mark, and Lucas McCain. Harry smiled seeing Mark again, and nodded at Mr. McCain, who was looking around in obvious astonishment.

Once the wild-haired man had regained his feet (Harry deduced he was Doctor Brown) he rushed over to the chairs where his two sons were. "What's wrong with them?" he asked excitedly. "What's happened?!"

"They are asleep, Doctor," Dumbledore said calmly. "I cast a sleeping spell upon them so they would not flee while I was returning here with you."

Mark had walked over to Harry. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "Professor Dumbledore found me." He nodded toward Jules and Verne. "These two kidnapped me from 1995 and brought me here for a prank."

"Why would they wanna go and do such a thing?" Mark asked, surprised.

"Just a silly joke," Harry muttered, watching as Professor Dumbledore twitched his wand at them, awakening the two young men. "They thought it would be funny to bring me back to 1885, that I wouldn't be able to take care of myself in this time."

"That sounds pretty mean of them," Mark said, frowning. "Are they gonna get in trouble?"

"What were you two thinking?!" Doc shrieked at his sons now that they were awake. "Time travel is a privilege, not a right! You should know better than to go gallivanting off into the future and past without any regard for others!"

"Pa, it was just a joke —" Jules began.

"A joke?!" Doc screeched. "Do you see anyone here laughing?!" He pointed a finger at Verne. "And you! Trying to curse this boy —" he pointed at Mark "—with some kind of spell I've never heard of before! What is Av — Avada Kedavra supposed to be, anyway?!"

Verne had paled when his father said the words to the Killing Curse. "Pa, we had no choice — we were — we were trying to s-save the United States — the world — from evil."

"What evil?" Doc demanded. "What are you talking about?"

"Mark McCain," Verne said, pointing toward him. "After his father died he became —"

"What are you talking about?" Lucas spoke up. "I'm not dead!"

Jules and Verne both looked at him in surprise. "Are you Lucas McCain?"

"I am," Lucas said firmly. "What makes you think I'm dead?"

"We were sure you d-died today," Verne stammered. "It was reported in the Santa Fe paper!" He reached into the Testarossa and came out with a copy of the Santa Fe Daily New Mexican dated August 28, 1885. The front-page title read, "Lucas McCain, 'The Rifleman,' Mysteriously Killed in North Fork."

"Holy cow!" Mark exclaimed, grabbing the paper. He read quickly. "Pa, it says you were killed on August 24 during a hearing in the North Fork courthouse! But that's not what happened!"

Doc Brown snatched the paper from Mark's hands, staring at the headline and article. "Of course! I've seen paradoxes like this before! When Jules and Verne brought Harry to this place and time, they set in motion a series of events that led to Mr. McCain being killed on the 24th."

He turned toward Dumbledore and Moody. "But when these two gentlemen forced —"

"Watch it," Moody growled.

"Er — requested —" Doc amended, "— that I return them to 1885 to find Harry Potter, we created yet another alternative track, one in which Mr. McCain didn't die, returning the time stream to its former state and eliminating the future where young Mark here does not grow up to be a Dark wizard. It's very simple, really."

"Right," Harry said sarcastically. "Too bad we can't prevent Voldemort from being born, then."

"Hmmm," Dumbledore murmured, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"Don't even think about it, Albus," Moody growled.

"Yes," Doc agreed fervently. "We can't just run around changing the past to suit our own personal desires! You've already seen what a profound effect even the smallest change can have! Look!" He held up the paper he'd been holding.

As they stared at it, the headline was blurring, changing before their eyes. It finally became, "Unexplained Happenings in North Fork Mystifies Townfolk." Mark took the paper back and began reading. "It says here," Mark read, "Lucas McCain, a resident of the town and widely known as 'the Rifleman,' said that the mysterious object that appeared in the skies above the town was probably just an usually low dark cloud or flock of crows that passed over the town."

"That doesn't make any sense," Lucas objected. "Crows don't nest around here."

"It doesn't matter," Moody said cynically. "People will believe it because they want to believe it."

Lucas shot him a look, but thought better of saying anything. "Well, now that's settled," Jules said, trying to gloss over any further details. "We ought to get back to 1995 and get ready for school."

"Oh, yeah," Mark said, remembering today was supposed to be the first day of school. He looked at Harry. "But — what about Lou…?"

"I will discuss the situation with her," Dumbledore spoke up. "Perhaps she will be able to instruct young Mark here in wizarding matters."

Mark smiled, but quickly looked at his father. "If — if that's alright with you, Pa," he asked, silently hoping Lucas had changed his mind about magic.

Lucas slowly smiled and put a hand on Mark's shoulder. "It's fine with me, son. Education is important, as I've always told you — even if I don't always understand what's being taught."

Harry beamed and nudged Mark in the arm, happy to hear that his father had come round.

Dumbledore was smiling as well. "I may be able to be of further assistance," he added, reaching into his robes. "I understand you require one of these," he pulled out a wand and handed it to Mark, who stared at it like it was a brand-new rifle.

"Gosh!" he said, holding it carefully. "Thank you, sir!"

"I'm no Garrick Ollivander," Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling merrily, "but why don't you give it a shake and see how it reacts?"

Mark held out the wand, looking around at everyone watching him, then brought the wand down quickly. Green and yellow sparks shot from the wand and Jules, Verne and Harry all applauded, followed afterward by the adults.

"Very good!" Doc Brown congratulated him. "You'll make a fine wizard one day, just like my son Verne!"

Harry glanced at Lucas, who was looking proudly at his son. He was glad Mark was going to have his father supporting him instead of being against him using magic. How different would his own life have been, Harry wondered, if his aunt and uncle approved of his use of magic instead of considering him a freak and discouraging any use or even mention of magic around their home? Well, that didn't matter now. What mattered was getting Lou to agree to teach Mark. That shouldn't be a problem, Harry decided, given that Lou thought of Mark like a son.

And even though he'd been brought here against his will, Harry would miss these times, just a little. Mark had been a real friend to him while he was here, and Lou as well, even though she'd kept him busy in her hotel and made him attend school (which never really happened, he reminded himself). Now he would go back to the future and deal with his problems there: Voldemort, Death Eaters, and Draco Malfoy, not to mention whoever they got for a Defense professor this year.

=ooo=

"HARRY!" Hermione squealed, embracing him tightly as he stepped into the bedroom Mrs. Weasley had said was his. "Ron! He's here!" Hermione pulled back, beaming happily at him even as she kept talking a mile a minute. "We didn't hear you arrive! How are you? Dumbledore didn't tell us where you'd gone, only that you were off doing something for him. And the Dementors! He told us about them — it's just outrageous the Ministry wanted to expel you! But they can't do it, they can't expel you, they just can't. There's a provision in the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery for the use of magic in life-threatening situations, you're covered under that —!"

Ron, who had arrived in the doorway behind Harry, was grinning as he closed the door behind them. "Give him a chance to breathe, Hermione," he said. "So what were you up to, mate?"

Harry didn't speak right away. He and Dumbledore had talked about this during the trip back to 1995 in Doc Brown's rather unusual steam locomotive. He hadn't felt either Ron or Hermione should hear about time-traveling locomotives or Testarossas, and suggested to Harry that the "mission" he'd been on should be better left unexplained until a time when they were ready to hear about it.

Harry had to agree. Ron would have been jealous that Harry had traveled to the past in a flying car, and Hermione would want to know the principles of time travel, which Harry could hardly conceive of himself, much less explain to her. "Well, it's all rather hush-hush," Harry said slowly, resisting the temptation to tell them anyway. After all, they hadn't been very forthcoming when he'd tried to write to them asking when he would be coming to visit them, or find out what was happening with Lord Voldemort's return. "Dumbledore asked me not to talk about it."

"Oh, come on, Harry!" Ron whined, clearly hoping to hear more than that. "Dumbledore asked us not to say anything to you about You-Know-Who, but —"

"And you didn't, did you?" Harry pointed out, growing a bit annoyed. "Kept your promise to Du— to the Headmaster, didn't you?" Did "Headmaster" count as saying Dumbledore's name, Harry wondered. "But now you want me to spill everything that I did?"

"Harry!" Hermione looked stricken at his words. "We're not asking you to break your promise!"

"It sure sounds like you are," Harry argued, folding his arms across his chest.

"Well, then keep your bloody secret!" Ron snapped petulantly.

"Ron! Language!" Hermione said warningly.

"Bollocks!" Ron told her. "He's the one who's not trusting us!"

Harry turned, threw the door open and walked out of the room. "Where're you going? You're not supposed to leave!" Ron called after him, but he didn't stop. He went down the stairs to the ground floor, through the main hallway past the troll's leg umbrella stand, past the moth-eaten curtains and out the front door. He walked across the street to the park on the other side of the road, where long shadows were being cast by the setting sun shining between the grimy buildings surrounding Grimmauld Square. He threw himself down furiously on a park bench across from an elderly man who was tossing bits of popcorn to the birds fluttering around him.

Who the hell did Ron and Hermione think they were, expecting him to tell them everything about what he'd been doing, when they'd told him nothing about what had gone on in July, while he'd been stuck on Privet Drive? Harry shook his head angrily, trying to figure out what he would do next. Was he going to tell them about North Fork and what had gone on there? Maybe. Someday, after he'd gotten over being mad at them. Which at this rate would take quite a bit of time as far as he was concerned!

"Popcorn?"

Harry looked up. The old man from the bench across from him had walked over and was holding a bag out toward him. "Excuse me?" Harry said, looking at the old man.

"You seem a bit worked up, young feller," the old man said. "You want to give the birds some popcorn? Might make you feel better."

"Oh. No, thanks," Harry said. "I actually ought to get back inside," he pointed vaguely behind him.

The old man smiled and sat down on the bench next to him. "I understand. You can never be too careful these days, what with Voldemort being back and all."

Harry sat bolt upright. Was this old man a wizard? "How d'you know about —"

"I've known for over a hundred years now, Harry," the old man told him, smiling. "Have you recognized me yet?"

"I — uh —" then everything suddenly connected for him. "Mark?" he said, astounded. "Is that you?"

"It's me," Mark smiled gently. "I know it's not a good time for you right now, but I wanted to come by and say hello before it was too late. I'm 125 years old, Harry, and I've had a good life. I'm not supposed to tell you about your future, but I want you to know that things will get worse before they get better. You just need to keep on trying, don't give up."

Harry smiled at his friend. "Thank you," he said. "I won't give up. Ever."

"Good." Mark patted Harry's shoulder. "Time for me to go, then. Good to see you again, Harry." Mark stood and nodded to him, then disappeared.

Harry stood as well. Perhaps he should go back inside Grimmauld Place and talk to Ron and Hermione, apologize to them. And maybe — just maybe — he could tell them a little of what happened on his summer holiday.

=ooo=

The End