1977
Abigail Wright sat motionless in the prefects carriage and only just managed not to gape at James Potter. He had just walked through the door and he was wearing the gleaming badge that proclaimed him to be Head Boy. Rumours had been flying around about him receiving the coveted position even faster than the time that Stanley Lovegood had proclaimed Lucius Malfoy to be related to a Muggle farmer and how he had got out of that incident alive, Abigail would never know. But yes, getting back to the point; she was still shocked that for once the Hogwarts grapevine had been correct.
A pair of reproachful hazel eyes peered through curly brown hair at Abigail and she smiled apologetically at Anthony Summerby who had sat down beside her when they had boarded the train.
Right. Paying attention now.
Confident, commanding words were now coming from the mouth of Lily Evans, who was delivering the obligatory start of year speech to all the prefects. The attractive redhead occasionally glanced to her side and her vivid green eyes always rested on the face of James Potter; his appointment as Head Boy seemed to have surprised her most of all, and there was an unidentifiable expression on her face. Abigail focussed her gaze on the Head Girl, and listened to her talk of working together and forging friendships in these dark times. She had heard it all before because she had been a prefect for Hufflepuff since her fifth year, but it was especially important to listen now, considering the terrifying murders that had happened over the last couple of months.
Once the meeting had concluded, Abigail patrolled the corridors with Anthony, occasionally laughing at an anecdote about his holidays, or a joke he had thought up.
"Okay, well everything seems to be going fine Abby, I think we can stop patrolling now."
Abigail stopped and nodded; Anthony had a point and she was supposed to have met up with Felicia almost ten minutes ago.
"Right, well I'll see you at the feast then!"
With a bright smile and a quick wave of her hand, Abigail had gone to find her friend and had left behind a rather disgruntled looking Anthony who had been hoping to spend a bit more time with the pretty blonde before they got to Hogwarts.
"Urgh, these kids are getting worse every year," the Hufflepuff girl complained good naturedly as she sat down opposite Felicia Alford, who peered over the top of her thin-rimmed glasses at Abigail as she rolled her shoulders and pretended to be severely uncomfortable.
"It's either that or you're starting to slack off, Wright," Felicia murmured teasingly.
Abigail scoffed and tossed a crumpled up Drooble's Gum wrapper that she had found in her pocket across the compartment. For once she actually got something to go where she wanted it to, and the glossy, brightly coloured packaging bounced off the neatly plaited black hair of the other Hufflepuff.
Ignoring the giggle of triumph that immediately issued from between the lips of Abigail, Felicia cleared her throat. "Did you have a good summer?"
"Yes it was okay, but a bit boring. How-"
"What about your sister Amanda? You said she was pregnant, didn't you?"
"Oh yes," the girl replied with more enthusiasm. "She isn't due for quite a while though, and they still don't know if it's a girl or a boy."
"Have they any ideas what names they might choose for the kid?"
Faint lines appeared across Abigail's forehead as she thought back to the conversation she had had with her older sister a few weeks before. "Well of course it's all a bit soon to make final plans but I think they liked the name Andrew – named after Michael's father - if the baby is a boy. If it's a girl, it might be Melinda - after my Mum, or Patricia - after my Gran. And-" she stopped for a moment, breathing excitedly as her cheeks flushed rosy pink, "I'm going to be the Godmother!"
Felicia was genuinely pleased at the news, but still saw fit to proclaim, "Oh no, that's horrible!"
"What happened to all that 'Hufflepuffs are loyal and good to their friends' stuff Leesha?" Abigail asked dryly. Her friend pushed her glasses up her rather long nose with one finger, and straightened the glasses so she no longer looked off-balance.
Felicia rolled her dark eyes, but couldn't stop the giggle that determinedly fought its way from her mouth. "You know you're my best friend you dolt, and how is pointing out the truth being disloyal?"
Before Abigail could think of a reply, Felicia had glanced around the compartment, then slid shut the blind on the door so that no busy bodies from the corridor could peak in. She slowly turned around to face the other girl once the door was definitely shut securely. "You know how I wanted to take those extra classes this year but I wasn't going to have space in my timetable? Well Dad finally managed to convince the Ministry that I should be allowed to have a Time Turner, isn't that amazing?" Without stopping to hear Abigail's response, Felicia continued. "Do you want to know what the annoying thing is? Some of those wan-…idiots…in the Ministry seemed to believe that because I was a Hufflepuff, I wouldn't be able to handle such a powerful magical object. Seems like they only think Gryffindors or Ravenclaws would be suitable candidates to use them!" she ranted.
"Or Slytherins, if their snotty parents paid them all enough money," Abigail pointed out with a frown etched on her features. "Can I see it then?" she asked hopefully.
Felicia nodded and reached into the top folds of the black robes she was wearing. "Of course, I had to get the Time Turner that looks to be about a hundred years old, but the fact is that I got it," the girl proclaimed proudly. She held up the sparkling glass Time Turner that was attached to a gleaming silver chain and it appeared to have been scrubbed very hard to get it clean. As if to emphasise that she, Felicia Alford, had a highly magical object in her possession, she gave it a little shake in order to let the glass catch the light from the candles on the walls.
That really was the wrong thing to have done, and Felicia realised the instant that the part connecting the silver chain to the tiny hourglass snapped and sent the precious Time Turner tumbling downwards. Abigail's face froze in a look of absolute horror and her large, dark blue eyes widened to resemble saucers as the Time Turner struck the floor of the compartment and shattered into thousands of tiny pieces of sparkling glass.
Felicia, who had scrambled to try and catch the Turner as it fell to the ground, stood there with her hand still outstretched, staring at the ground in shock. A nasty moment's silence descended on the compartment, and she made a scared choking noise in the back of her throat. "I…I have to go see if I can find a teacher," Felicia turned and hurried off to the front the train before her friend could point out that the professors would all be at the school by now.
Seeing her friend's dark eyes brimming with tears felt like a kick to the gut for Abigail, and she dropped to her knees beside the scattered glass. Sweeping it all up and disposing of the remnants seemed like a horrible idea, considering how hard the Alfords had worked to get it in the first place, and an ice cold determination settled in her stomach when Abigail decided that there was no way on Earth that the Ministry wasn't going to give her friend a replacement Time Turner. She could have been killed if it broke while she was using it!
When annoyed, Abigail unfortunately became irrational and when she looked at the wand in her hand, she struck the tip down into the centre of the pile of glass shards where the shiny, dark wood contrasted brilliantly with the glittering remains of the Time Turner. "Reparo!" she cried, with more emphasis than was needed.
Her wand had always been temperamental, the core of it was to blame, and the actions of hitting it hard against a magical object, and shouting out an incantation when calmness was required both combined to create an imbalance in the magical field of the compartment. Abigail's wand went burning hot to the touch, as did the glass and she relinquished her grip on the wand as she scrambled to her feet. Right when she stood up, the carriage suddenly lurched to the side and there was a flash of white light that got followed by two heavy thuds. Abigail still had her eyes screwed shut out of fright, and couldn't possibly imagine what had just happened, until she heard rustling robes and her eyes flew open.
Two redheaded boys had shakily stood up off the floor and dusted soot and bits of glass off each other while they muttered something about firecrackers. Two suspicious looking sacks lay abandoned on the floor between them. I must have hit my head or something, because I'm seeing double, Abigail murmured to herself, feeling a little delirious. It was only then that she realised that there was actually two people standing in the compartment when it had been empty only seconds before, and she gave a little squeak of fright.
Fred and George whipped their heads around to find the source of the noise, and saw a slim girl, who was a little shorter than them, standing in front of the window with a look of shock spread across her features. She had wheat blonde hair that fell just below her shoulder blades, and it looked like it would usually be neat if it wasn't blown all over the place from the force of their firecracker exploding. The girl seemed to have gotten over her shock, because her dark blue eyes were looking at them with a mixture of suspicion and dread, though neither Fred, nor George, could tell the reason for the second emotion. One twin glanced at the other, and without having to speak a word, they each agreed that they had never seen this girl before. She was obviously the same age as them, or maybe a year younger, but she could never have been to Hogwarts before because the twins kept very careful tabs about who the prefects were in any current year. However, she was wearing a prefects badge, which only served to confuse them even more than the odd ringing they heard in their ears.
Neither party said a word; the Twins were looking at Abigail with interest, and she was looking at them with something akin to horror.
She had never seen these strangers before, but something about them looked familiar. Merlin, they look like Weasleys, Abigail thought dimly as her eyes dropped to the pieces of the shattered Time Turner that the redheads were currently standing in. Her stomach lurched and a tingle of excitement was quickly squashed as Abigail forced herself not to be amazed at what she had just done. This was her doing, and she was responsible for fixing the situation.
How she was going to manage it, Abigail had no idea.