Yeah, this still isn't the sequel to 'Fallen From Grace', featuring the lovely Midori Evadine. Oh well. I've only got one or two chapters left to write with that, I've just been more inspired with this story. I've got about ten other stories on the go, most of which I'll never finish. Such is life.

Forgive me if I write 'color' instead of 'colour', or things like that. The spellcheck on this program only checks American English and doesn't recognize proper English as being actual words, so it tries to correct them by taking out u's or changing s's to z's. Sometimes I change it to American English to appease Microsoft Word, sometimes I don't. You'll have to bear with me.

Oh, and since I started writing this before book seven came out, please consider it AU and forgive my glossing-over of Voldemort's defeat.

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Wednesday, 1st September, 2007

9.50am

First day of a new school year – my seventh year. I hope it's okay. I'm on my way to the train station.

Scarlet Lennon, a pretty Slytherin girl of around seventeen, closed her diary and shoved it unceremoniously into the satchel at her feet. She had chin-length, deep blue hair; vibrant purple eyes with flecks of silver; skin so pale it was almost white; and glossy red lips. She was wearing a pair of loose black jeans and a plain black t-shirt, and was seated in the passenger seat of the car her parents had given her on her seventeenth birthday. The driver was her best muggle friend, Pete, and Scarlet had agreed to let him borrow the car while she was away at school on the condition that he treat it well and return it with a full tank of petrol.

"You okay?" Pete asked, breaking Scarlet out of her trance-like state.

"Yeah, sure," Scarlet said, bewildered. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You're pretty quiet over there," Pete replied, taking a left at a set of traffic lights.

"Oh… I just like looking out the window," Scarlet explained, returning her gaze to the rush of grey buildings zooming past her in a blur. She fished around in her top, looking for the necklace she had been given at birth. It was a silver circle around a beautiful sapphire, and she had a habit of flicking the sapphire when there was nothing else to occupy her mind. She felt something metal but then realised it was the timeturner her grandparents had given her for her birthday and dropped it. After a moment, she found her sapphire necklace and drew it out from underneath her t-shirt. She flicked the gem and it spun wildly.

The car screeched to a sudden, jerky halt, and Scarlet threw her hands forward and grabbed the dashboard. "What the fuck?" She cried.

"Sorry," came the answer. "I haven't got the hang of this 'gradual stop' thing."

"Well, I don't want you fucking up my car's brakes, so maybe you should improve your driving skills," Scarlet laughed, as she exited the car and slung her satchel over her shoulder. Pete popped the boot of the car and dragged out Scarlet's trunk, clearly thinking of carrying it for her. "Pete, I can carry my own trunk –"

"There'll be time for carrying your own trunk later. I won't see you for months, I want our last moments to be wonderful," he said overdramatically, raising his arms to the sky and shaking his fists as his tone of voice slowly rose.

Scarlet laughed. "You're an idiot, Pete. You do know that, don't you?"

"You love it," Pete smiled in return, following Scarlet as she made her way across the train station towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten. As they reached the barrier, Scarlet smiled up at Pete and took her trunk from him.

"Thanks," she said gratefully, "You're a good guy."

"I know," Pete said, drawing Scarlet into a tight hug. She hugged him in return for a moment before glancing at the clock.

"Look Pete, I really have to go," she said. "See you later –"

"Will you come back for Christmas?"

"Maybe."

"Do you want me to pick you up?"

"If I'm coming back. I'll owl you," Scarlet said quickly, looking at the clock. She grasped his shoulder for a moment, and then vanished into the barrier between platforms.

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"What're you listening to?"

Scarlet was sitting in a compartment of the Hogwarts Express with her Ravenclaw boyfriend, Simon. She was staring out the window, as usual, and she had an iPod in her ears. The problem of electricity not working around Hogwarts had been solved a year or so before Scarlet began attending Hogwarts, a simple bubblehead charm did the trick. Once the charm was completed successfully, the bubble was moulded into the shape of the appliance so that it didn't give the device an odd, distorted look. The discovery of this was a godsend for Scarlet, who loved music more than anything else and couldn't bear to live without it.

"Stuff," she replied to her boyfriend. Simon's black hair covered part of his face, including his right eye, and there were blue chunks dyed in it. He also had a silver stud in his lower lip. "What're you reading?" She asked, gesturing to the old-looking book he held in his hand.

"Stuff," he mocked her. Scarlet smiled, and drew out what she thought was her sapphire necklace. She flicked it a couple of times, and saw Simon's curious expression turn into shock. "Is that a timeturner?" He demanded fearfully, eyes wide. Scarlet looked down, and sure enough, the tiny hourglass was spinning wildly.

"Si-" Scarlet shouted, throwing an arm out, but it was too late. The carriage spun into a mesh of blurry colours, and by the time Scarlet's nausea subsided she found herself face-down on the floor of the same compartment, but it was devoid of her boyfriend. "-Mon," she finished lamely, her right arm stretched out to nobody. She stood up, brushing herself down, and realised she was not alone in the carriage. It contained three people whose faces were not unknown to her. They had been plastered over every magazine cover, textbook and shop window Scarlet had cared to look at for the past ten years. They were the legendary trio who had vanquished Voldemort – Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger.

"What?" Cried the redhead boy Scarlet recognized as Ron. "How did you… what?"

"Timeturner accident," Scarlet said, breathless. Simon… she thought to herself as she fished the timeturner out of her top. It was perpetually smashing, then re-forming. Of course, she thought. I broke it when I landed. Why did I have to land face down?

"Oh my," Hermione said. "I think we'd better get you straight to McGonagall when we get to the school."

"And with the vanquishing of the evil Lord Voldemort, the trio returned to Hogwarts for their final year. Studious Hermione, Harry, who only wanted to be where he had felt at home, and Ronald, or 'Ron' to his friends, who wanted to be near his friends no matter what the location." Scarlet remembered the book she had read for Defence against the Dark Arts, detailing the trio's defeat of Voldemort just before their seventh year at Hogwarts had started. So she need not worry about keeping their accomplishments secret from them, as they had already happened. Scarlet felt a huge weight lift from her mind as she realised that she wasn't going to be changing the course of history anytime soon.

"Are you from the future or the past?" Ron asked curiously.

"Future, ten years, I'd say," Scarlet said. "Man, you would not believe how sick I am of seeing your faces on everything. Cereal boxes, too! Talk about overkill!"

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Well, it's all 'Ron Weasley, the man behind the moustache' –"

"I get a moustache?" Ron asked eagerly, stroking his upper lip thoughtfully.

"Ronald, you're not to ask… I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name," Hermione said, turning to Scarlet.

"It's Scarlet, Scarlet Lennon," Scarlet said quickly. Hermione smiled gratefully.

"Thanks. Now Ronald, you're not to ask Scarlet any more questions about the future, or you might change it."

"But if I could just –"

"NO, Ronald," Hermione said sternly.

"Who are you, my mother?" Ron demanded. Hermione glared at him. "Never mind, with that face, you are my mother."

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Questions? Comments? Don't hesitate to drop me a line.