Marauders - Always - Part One

Summer 2015: You Don't Know Me Yet

I needed coffee.

I took my lunch break and went to a coffee shop in hipster East Nashville, an place whose big draw was that they used a myriad of mugs the owner had collected from all over the world. It was more expensive than coffee should be, but the atmosphere was nice and not far from the print shop. I was sitting at a table tucked in a corner behind a big plant and scratching out some thoughts I'd had for a fan fiction - just something fun to destress, nothing too big.

I'd had the thought of it the month before, when I'd gone to Universal. Wandering around, I'd been wondering what it would've been like for Sirius Black in that one scene outside the Dursleys, when Harry first sees "the Grim". Like, knowing how the story went with him and the Marauders, I found myself thinking about how he, Sirius, must have felt seeing James Potter's son the first time after thirteen years. I wondered if I could really do a whole story about that, though, and, if I could, would anyone even read it?

Suddenly the chair across from me pulled out and a shadow was cast over my notebook.

"They'll read it."

I looked up. Declan Alectric leaned back in his seat, his gangly limbs sprawled over the chair. He smiled. "Picked up my cards," he said. "Thanks for designing them. They look brilliant. You made the lightening bolt shiney."

"That's the Spot UV."

"Well they're real nice. The blue was perfect, too."

"Great," I answered. I stared at him.

"Well Oliver thought they were really sharp. Spiffing was the word he used." He grinned, "Isn't that the most old fashioned British word you ever heard? Spiffing?"

In spite of myself, I laughed.

Declan's eyes lit up. "Hey, you can laugh."

"Yes, I can," I answered.

"You haven't really."

"Well you've got a knack of making me uncomfortable," I said.

"Sorry," he answered. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just keep forgetting you don't know me yet."

"That. It's stuff like that which makes me uncomfortable. Like what's that even mean? I don't know you yet? You don't know me either."

Declan leaned forward. He studied me a moment, then said, quietly, "What if I do?"

"Except you don't."

"Except I do." He glanced around, then reached into his shirt, and he pulled out a gold chain. At the end was a tiny hour glass with glimmering dust inside. He held it up for me to see, discreetly, raising one eyebrow as he stared into my eyes.

I stared at the necklace a long moment, then met his eyes.

"You know what this is. I know you know what it is," he said.

I bent down and grabbed my keys from my purse and held up my keychain. It was nearly identical to the necklace he was holding up, bigger, with a tiny oval charm with the Wizarding World logo embossed on it. I raised my eyebrow back at Declan. "A great souvenir," I answered.

Declan chuckled, "Yours is a souvenir. Mine is how I got here."

I drew a deep breath through my nose. "You're insane." I reached for my mug of coffee, took a sip, and made a face. It had gone cold and the sugar had settled. Gross.

Declan leaned back again, watched me put my mug down, then he smirked, twiddled his fingers, and nodded to my coffee cup.

I looked down.

The cup was full.

Steaming.

I looked back up at him in surprise.

He tossed his head back and the blue curls at the front of his hairline flipped back off his forehead. He laughed at my face. I knew I must have looked shocked. I felt shocked.

I picked the cup up, half expecting there to be a trick nozzle on the table, half looking for a hidden camera crew. Pranked, tricked, something. Somehow. How? I looked the cup over. He was still laughing.

HOW?

Like no, really. How?

I looked at him.

Declan was grinning, nose flared a bit.

He stood up and came over, pushing onto the bench seat beside me on my side of the table. My heart was slamming in my chest so hard I thought for sure I was about to pass out.

Declan pulled the gold chain and it was more than long enough to loop over my neck as well as his if he leaned in a bit closer at least. His eyes bore into mine and he smiled.

"You want to know about this, huh?" he asked, holding up my notepad.

I glanced at it. I had bullet points scribbled across the page. Questions to consider when I wrote.

"Yeah," I breathed.

Declan held up the little hour glass, and he adjusted a little bead-like slider that moved around the rings surrounding the hour glass. "Dierks Bell was the one that figured out how to make the date turning more effective. The old turners only could be estimated, unless you knew the exact number of days you needed to move, it was impossible to hit a specific day and time. This model Dierks made -" he held it between us and moved the sliders as he spoke, "It's more efficient... You can choose the date, and it's so accurate you can get within an hour or two of a specific time..."

My heart. I swear. I could hear it in my ears.

Declan handed me my notebook. "Don't wanna leave this behind. You'll wanna take notes, knowing you."

I hugged it to my chest.

Declan laughed. "Hold on tight to it, love. You don't want to lose that somewhere in the nineties."

And as I watched, Declan let go of the hoop of gold... and it started to spin.