It's Christmas Time Again: A Time-Traveling TMS Holiday Extravaganza

Christmas Holiday, 2012 (Part Three)

"James Potter," Dierks said, nodding, confirming.

I stared at him, confused and intrigued, about twelve thousand questions filling my head.

There was a knock on the door - then Gran pushed it opened. "Lights out boys, it's late," she declared.

"Yes Mrs. Tonks," Dierks said, turning 'round, and it was like I'd been talking to an entirely different person. "We were just talking about how knackered we were actually."

I nodded.

Dierks said, "Here's your jumper, Teddy." He tossed a jumper onto the bed, perfectly covering the Prisoner of Azkaban book that lay on the blanket in front of me before Gran could see it. I was so dumbfounded by everything he'd just said, I'd forgotten the contraband.

I nodded again, my brain only half comprehending...

"Is Dobby in here? Is that why you had the door closed?" Gran asked.

I nodded.

"He's here under the desk," Dierks said, pointing.

"Alright, good," Gran smiled.

I nodded.

The door closed with a goodnight from Gran, and I looked at Dierks, still dumbfounded as Dobby indeed came out from under the desk and curled up on the jumper.

"Close one," he said, nodding at the cat and jumper covered book. He turned to his piles of clocks, slowly putting them all back into the box, carefully kept in their groups he had separated them into. The Mickey Mouse watch lay on his pillow.

"But Harry was the Chosen One," I said, resuming our conversation as though it was never interrupted.

"He became the Chosen One when Voldemort chose him," Dierks said, "But he wasn't the one who was Prophesied. Harry's involvement - Kostos Mopsus didn't entirely see it coming before it happened. He worked after the fact to make some things work the way they have, manipulated things, used Precious Seconds to alter and maintain the change... but it was never supposed to be Harry. It was supposed to be James who killed the Dark Lord."

"How do you know?"

"Because he told me."

"He told you."

Dierks nodded.

"Mopsus told you?"

Dierks sighed. "It's a lot. I know."

I stared at him.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tell you like this."

"But you did mean to tell me?"

"Eventually. When the time was right," Dierks said.

My thumbs were flying over George Michael's buttons, Dobby rubbing his face against my knee and purring, my foot shaking, trying to eliminate the stress coursing through me... I looked at the box of cogs and wheels, the broken bits of clocks...

"It isn't theoretical, is it?" I asked. "All your talk about time traveling and - and how it works. You - you know how it works because you've done it before."

Dierks hesitated. Then he got up and he grabbed my desk chair, turning it so he was straddling it backwards beside the bed, and his voice was low, barely above a whisper. "I'm doing it now."

I felt a chill shiver up my spine. "Now? Right now?"

Dierks nodded.

"If you're fucking with me," I hissed, swearing because the moment called for it. "I will - I will be - really - mad."