THE ETERNITY of TIME

Chapter One "Superseding Time"

DISCLAIMER: The characters and story plot of the Harry Potter franchise do NOT belong to me, I am just one of the many privileged enough to write on J.K Rowling's marvellous novel series.

In the highland hills of Scotland, standing tall with all it's tower peaks and old stone walls rested Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The pale lit moon of the night sky casting the ancient castles large, magnificent shadow across the rolling slopes of green grass. A cool breeze made the trees of the Forbidden forest sway as if in a coordinated dance and although most of the castle seemed to be in a blackout state, there was however a soft amber glow shining through the arched windows of the common room high up in Gryffindor Tower.

Inside the tower, while most students of Gryffindor House were off to sleep in their dormitories a few stragglers in their Seventh Year remained awake. Sitting comfortably nestled on one end of a plush sofa in front of the common room fireplace with a bottle of butterbeer held carelessly in his hand, James Potter, the newly declared Head Boy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry stared with utter boredom into the flickering flames. With the top few buttons of his dress shirt undone and his Gryffindor tie pulled loose, James swirled the sweet tasting liquid in the bottle around a few times before bring it to his lips for a few thrown back gulps.

At the opposite end of the tacky coloured plush sofa sat Remus Lupin, an advanced transfiguration textbook sprawled open on his lap. His gentle eyes flicking from left to right as he read, fully enrapt and unaware of his surroundings.

Sitting in front of Lupin with his legs crisscrossed was the small and chubby Peter Pettigrew, a pile of opened chocolate frog packages littered in a half circle around him while a neat stack of wizard cards neatly towered in front of him, his small sausage likes fingers fumbling to open yet another chocolate frog.

"How many is that you've eaten now, Pete'?" James asked, oddly amused by the amount of sweets his friend was able to consume at one given time.

"Fourteen, no fifteen!" replied Peter, his head cocked over his shoulder to look at James, his teeth and lips darkly stained with melted chocolate. "Almost set a new record for myself."

James snorted while shaking his head. "To be honest, I'm not actually sure if that's even a record you should want to be breaking, isn't the right Moony?"

"Hmm?" mumbled Remus absently, his eyes not once lifting from his book.

"Merlin, is it so hard to stop reading for one bloody minute and talk?" James questioned exasperated.

Slowly dragging his eyes from his textbook, Remus looked to James and then down to Peter. "You've got a little something on your face."

"Where?" asked Peter as be brought the sleeve of his Gryffindor jumper up to his mouth.

"Well your... Face." Remus answered, unsure of where to quite begin pointing out Pettigrew's mess.

"Not helpful," Peter replied, his words muffled as he wiped and scrubbed at his face with his sleeve.

Chuckling to himself, James downed his butterbeer and looked to the old muggle wristwatch strapped to his wrist. "Ah, thank goodness another ten minutes and Padfoot will be free from Filch and his detention and then there may actually be some decent banter tonight."

"Not enjoying our company?" Remus asked as he placed a tattered looking ribbon in between the two pages of his textbook and closed it.

"It's not that I'm not enjoying it, it's just well you're reading and I've been watching Peter stuff his face with Chocolate Frogs for the last hour, now does that sound exactly thrilling?" James countered.

Shrugging his shoulders as a tiny smile twitched at one end of his mouth, Remus gave his old friend a nod to show he could understand James' boredom. "Might I suggest you and Lily talk about your duties? Being that Dumbledore saw you both fit to be Head Boy and Girl this year."

"You say that like it's simple to just go over and strike up a lengthy conversation with Evans," James said, he looked past Remus to where Lily Evans sat doing some homework a small smile gracing his face as he watched her brush a few strands of auburn hair out of her eyes and behind her ear. "You know, I worked really hard last year to turn my reputation around and she's still not giving me the time of day to try and show her that I've changed."

"It's only the first week of the semester, Prongs. We've the entire year still left for you to try and swoop her off her feet." pointed out Remus.

"That's just it, all I have is this year," James grumbled, the ever looming realization that graduation was to come at the end of this year wasn't a comforting thought. "Once we graduate this could be the last time I ever see her, who knows what she'll go off and do after school."

"I'm quite certain she won't be going into hiding once we graduate and that you will have more than likely several more chances in which to ask Lily out." Remus said calmly.

"You're right, what am I worried about," James replied, he kicked his legs out and slouched down in relaxation as Remus' words put him at ease. "You know, Evans has bound to come around this year. I think it's time I make my vow."

Remus rolled his eyes. "James, you really don't have to do that..."

"Don't stop me, Remus. It has to be said," James stated, he took a deep breath and placed a hand over his heart as if making a pledge. "I vow to make Lily Evans my girlfriend before the end of the year!"

"Didn't you make that vow last year?" questioned Peter, cocking a brushy eyebrow up at James.

"And the year and the year before that?" added a grinning Sirius Black as he came up behind the sofa James and Remus sat on. "If I were you mate, I'd move on before you've wasted all your time here on Evans. There's plenty of witches in the wizarding world you know."

"I'm not wasting time, there's just something about her. And very funny but I swear this is going to be the year, it just has to be," James said as he placed his empty bottle on the edge of a nearby table. Turning with earnest excitement to Sirius he looked his friend over. "Now come on then, where is it?"

Sirius' grin dropped from his face as he ran a hand through his dark curly locks. "Well there's been a bit of a hiccup in our plan."

James sighed. "A hiccup?"

"I couldn't find the ruddy map anywhere in Filch's office, I don't know where the old gargoyle has it stored away but I didn't see it," Sirius answered as he stepped up and over the back of the sofa to drop into the vacant seat in between Remus and James. "On the bright side, the git thinks it's just a piece of spare parchment, he doesn't know what it really is and I was able to snatch something else from his office in the maps stead."

"Snatch something else? Please tell me you didn't take one of Filch's cats Sirius." Remus groaned, reaching over and pulling open Sirius' robe to see if a cat was hidden underneath.

Pushing Remus' hand away with a snort, Sirius dug into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out an oddly shaped object wrapped in old weathered parchment and tied securely with frayed twine. "I did not grab one of Filch's cats thank you very much Moony, I did however manage to swipe this little beauty here."

"What is it?" asked Peter as he clumsily shifted on to his knees and shuffled closer to his mates.

"It's a... Well, it's uh... Honestly, I have no idea what it is." Sirius said as he twisted and turned the small package between his fingers.

"Perfect, we've still lost the map and in exchange we're now the proud procurers of an unknown object from Filch's office. Please don't let it be some old furball he's kept wrapped up." James drawled with sarcasm.

Sirius chuckled as he pulled the twine undone. "Anyone fancy putting a wager down on what it is before I take off the wrapping?"

"Two knuts says it's some old chewed up gum that was stuck under a desk that Filch scrapped off and is keeping as a Christmas gift for himself." James proposed.

"Okay, we've got two knuts for old chewed up gum, any other takers?" Sirius ventured out, his eyes shifting from Peter and Remus.

"I'll bet a knut it's something from potions." Peter answered as he dug a hand in his trousers and pulled out a coin for Sirius to take.

"You've got to be more specific than that, Peter." Sirius said as he grabbed the coin from the stout teens chubby fingers.

"Fine, uh... Remus, what's that rock called that's used in love potions and stuff?" Peter asked, his beady eyes locked on Lupin.

"You mean a moonstone."

"There we go, I bet a knut it's a moonstone!" Peter announced.

"Yeah, I heard Moony," Sirius said, he shook his head at Peter. "What about you, Remus, what's your bet?"

"I'm not getting involved with this one." refused Remus.

"Fine, have it your way. But, before I start the grand reveal, James you've lost already since this feels way to hard to be some old gum," Sirius announced, slowly peeling back the old weathered parchment that was crumpled around the unknown object, suspense took hold of the Marauders. "And it is a..."

"Hourglass?" chorused the four teens in unison disappointment.

Squinting his eyes to examine it closer, Sirius grumbled a few incoherent curses under his breath.

"Could it be a timeturner?" ventured a guess from James.

"A timeturner doesn't have that many turning rings around it," pointed out a feminine voice from behind that made all the occupants on the sofa jump.

"Lily?!" James exclaimed, he stood from the couch and immediately buttoned up the top buttons of his dress shirt as if it would make him appear more presentable.

"Save it Potter," Lily asked, her inquisitive stare made Sirius grin broadly. "Where did you get that, Black?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, unfortunately for you this little object is for Marauder eyes only." Sirius explained just as Lily reached out like she had the hands of a seeker and grabbed the object from his grasp.

"Oi! That's mine!" Sirius shouted, he fumbled about the sofa before managing to stand up on the middle cushion so he towered over the petite frame of Lily Evans. "Give that back!"

"Tell me where you got this or as Head Girl I'll have no other option but to hand it over to Professor McGonagall." Lily retorted firmly, the hourglass object held behind her back far from Sirius Black's reach.

"Come on now Evans, hand it back to Sirius. You can't just go taking other students property." James interjected tentatively, he had worked so hard over the last year he wasn't looking to get into a row and lose all the progress he'd made with Lily.

Lily looked at James disbelievingly. "Do you truly expect me to believe that this is Black's personal property?"

James hesitated and he knew at once the hesitation had cost him.

"That's what I thought," Lily said.

"Oh give up the goody two shoes act already," Sirius snapped as he jumped down off the back of the sofa so he stood toe to toe with the Head Girl of Hogwarts, his hand held open in front of him. "Hand it over."

Chin held high, Lily shook her head with firm determination. However unbeknownst to her, Peter Pettigrew had curled himself into a ball in front of the sofa just out of her sight and after checking to make sure no one was watching, he transformed himself into his animagus form.

Shrinking down into a fat, mousy brown coloured rat, Peter scurried underneath the sofa and out the back, brushing up against Sirius' ankle as he past by his friend.

Feeling something brush his foot, Sirius' glanced down to see the all to familiar plump rat that was Peter run right through the gap of space in-between Lily's feet. "Oh naive Evans, you should have just handed it over."

"Is that a threat, Black?" Lily countered, her eyes narrowing at the pompous boy before her.

Ensuring the common room was in fact just as empty as it had been before their ongoing dispute, Peter phased back into his human form just behind Lily, his sausage likes fingers prying the hourglass object from Lily's one hand with ease.

Yelping at the unexpected touch, Lily spun around to find a snickering Peter Pettigrew now in hold of Black's mysterious object. "Peter! But how... You were just..."

"He was just what? Have you gone barmy, Evans?" teased Sirius, a smirk stretched across his handsome face.

Ignoring Sirius, Lily pointed a finger at Pettigrew. "If you're not looking to get detention along with Black, I suggest you turn that back over to me, Peter."

Seemingly torn for just a split second of whether or not to hand the object over, Peter lobbed the item over Lily's head in hopes for Sirius to catch, however the object landed in the unsuspecting hands of Remus Lupin.

There was a brief moment of silence in which Remus looked from James, to Sirius, to Lily and then to Peter. Heaving out a huff, Remus knew all to well what was coming and as expected all four other occupants of the Gryffindor common room lunged towards him from all directions. Tumbling off the sofa in a mess of tangled limbs, shouting and cursing, the Marauders and Lily wrestled amongst one another for hold of the hourglass, with robes and bodies rolling all about the place in such a flurry it wasn't uncommon at one point or another for some of the Marauders to be wrestling one another.

"ENOUGH!" roared Remus when he finally managed to poke his head out of the ensuing wrestling match from the very bottom.

The flailing arms and legs came to a stop as the other participants of the common room brawl focused on Remus, the only one of the Marauder's who no one had ever heard raise his voice to that decibel before.

"Are we not in our Seventh Year, can we not solve this rationally by using reason?" Remus asked aloud to them all, he breathed heavily under all their combined weight. Hands clenching the hourglass protectively to his chest with what felt like at least one hand of every other person within the piles on top of his own.

"Sorry Moony, but finders keepers and Evans didn't find it," Sirius mumbled, his face mushed up against either James or Peter's shoulder, he couldn't tell.

On top of the pile, Lily's eyes glared daggers down on Sirius Black. Her hair a tousled mess and her cheeks flushed red. "Hah! So you admit it's not yours then?!"

Sirius' only response was to pull a face.

Shoving an elbow from his side, James squirmed within the pile, all the while keeping his hand on top of all the others that had been fumbling to get a hold of the hourglass. "How about we all climb off of Remus before we squish him and talk this out?"

"I would if Black was capable of having a conversation and not acting like a first year that will just grab the hourglass and run off the moment we get up," Lily snapped, primarily from all the built up frustration of the situation. "You're Head Boy now, Potter how long are you going to indulge in Black's terrible ideas that get you into trouble and cost us all House points?"

"Did you ever think that maybe the reason we all lose House points is because you run off and tattle on him and us to the nearest Professor you can find every chance you get." James defended.

"I do not tattle, I was a prefect and now I'm Head Girl, that's my duty!" Lily retorted, her hand unknowingly underneaths James as they all held fast to the hourglass. "Merlin, I can't wait for the future day when I no longer have to argue and deal with the likes of you and your friends!"

James felt a prickle of pain in stomach at her words until he felt a strange tingling sensation near the tip of his fingers on the hand that overlay the rest of everyone else. "Does anybody else feel that in their fingers?"

"It's moving!" exclaimed Remus in surprise as the turning rings that surrounded the hourglass began to spin within his palms.

"What's moving?" squeaked Peter, the tingling sensation that been in his fingers had strangely turned into a tugging feeling as if someone was pulling on his hand.

"The hourglass, it's rings are turning!" shouted Remus as a bright light began shining through the cracks of space in their over laying hands.

In the blink of an eye the five Gryffindor students that had been sprawled out on top of one another vanished in a flash of white light leaving nothing more behind than the flicker of flames in the common room fireplace.

A/N: Hello there! For anyone who has read any of my other work, you may know I haven't started a new story in quite some time, however I felt the need to start something else to occupy my time and switch on to when I have writers block on my other fic's. I've always wanted to do a timeturner fic and I hope this goes well. Thank you everyone for checking this story out and reading, feel free to leave a review and until next time. Farewell!