With the castle asleep, the entirety of the names on the map were very sedentary, and it wasn't until Harry had moved his wand closer to the map, about to mutter mischief managed, that he noticed movement.
The movement was curious for a number of re...
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"DAD WOULD WANT US TO HELP HER."
Rory had no idea why she was helping Aulani in the first place, or why she hadn't let the Ministry take care of her while they were in Diagon Alley. It went against everything she had made herself to be after her husband's death - cold, closed off, and completely unimportant to the greater scheme of things. She only had three rules and yet, in a matter of hours, she had broken all of them - and for what? A teenager who claimed to be from the future?
She's seen rock bottom more times than she would ever care to admit, but she's never seen someone who looked so terribly lost in her entire life. She couldn't help the heartbreaking sensation that sprouted when Aulani had said that all she wanted to do was go home. She was Dorothy in Oz, and right now, Rory was the closest thing she had to a yellow brick road. But it was exactly that - her helplessness, her innocence - that made her dangerous, because so often, innocence is only manipulation.
"We're doing the right thing, Mum," Eleanora assured her mother, picking up on her hesitation. The young girl stood no taller than her mother's elbow, but at times such as this one, she made Rory feel like the child. "Dad would want us to help her."
Rory was astonished that her daughter could even think of saying that after accusing Aulani of being one of the people who was responsible for her father's death. It was absurd to her how quickly Eleanora's opinion of the stranger had changed. The two of them had engaged in a single conversation, one that involved little more than exchanging names, but suddenly Eleanora was putting her trust in this girl like she would a friend. Rory knew she had a lot more to teach her before sending her to Hogwarts - if it'll ever be safe to go there again.
She took her daughter's hand and led her to the sitting room, where Aulani stood waiting, tightly clutching her copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to her chest. What was with her and that book? "I assume you've never Disapparated before?"
Aulani turned to the mother-daughter pair, looking as though she was distracted, which she, of course, was. The little time she had alone had been spent as every other moment she's had alone since Diagon Alley - trying to wake herself up from the most vivid dream she's ever had, with no success. She shrugged, conceding to this reality. "Can't be much different from traveling twenty years back in time, can it?"
Rory wouldn't know. She stepped closer, grabbing a hold of Aulani's wrist and pulling Eleanora closer to herself. "Just know - "
"Most people puke their first time?" finished the girl, looking at her magical counterpart sheepishly.
Rory looked at her in shock for a moment, but quickly shook her head, stopping herself from asking a question she knew she'd regret. "Now, listen closely," she continued, looking from Aulani to her daughter to make sure they were both paying attention. "I'm going to have to Apparate us right inside, so as not to set off any alarms, alright? When we get there, do not make a single noise until I put a silencing charm on the room. It'll be risky enough with the crack of Apparition. Any questions?"
With furrowed eyebrows, Aulani had several, but she couldn't seem to get a word out. How were they going to Apparate inside of Hogwarts? Doesn't she know there are protections against that?
Hearing no questions, Rory gave Aulani a curt nod. "Right," she said. "Here we go."
Before Aulani was prepared, a feeling that was definitely not comparable to reading a book and ending up in a different time period overcame her. The way Harry Potter had described it in the books was extremely accurate: a feeling of being pressed through a very tight rubber tube; though at a certain point it seemed different, because for a moment, Aulani felt as if she were neither here nor there, but in both places. She didn't remember Harry ever experiencing that.
The world came back into focus, their surroundings changed from Rory's small sitting room to an even smaller, dingy, basement-like room. If it was Hogwarts, and Aulani wasn't convinced it was, it had to be somewhere in the dungeons. She opened her mouth to speak, but she caught Rory's wide eyes, her pointer finger pressed to her lips, and remembered what she had told them before they left. Aulani held her tongue until Rory had silently waved her wand, and nodded.
"Where are we?" Aulani asked at once in a whisper.
"Yeah?" added Eleanora, who seemed to be just as confused as the time traveler.
"Honeydukes," Rory answered. "Well, the cellar, at least." Aulani leaned her head back as it suddenly made sense to her. Of course they didn't Apparate into Hogwarts - they'd Apparated to the entrance of one of its secret passageways.
"How did you know this was here?" she wondered aloud to Rory, thinking that only a limited number of people (including Harry, Fred and George, the Marauders, and anyone to ever read the books or see the movies) knew of the hidden passage.
"I used to work here over the summers while I was at school," Rory answered. She suddenly realized that her question implied that Aulani had already known of it, and looked at the teenager curiously. "How do you know about it?"
Aulani shrugged, knowing she had dug herself into a hole with her question. She answered very vaguely, knowing Rory didn't want to know about the future. "Future, I guess."
Rory rolled her eyes, and Aulani had the feeling that maybe she was warming up to her. She reached down to the floor, and pulled up the trapdoor, which had been undetectable against the old floorboards. Aulani looked at it, surprised, though she knew it would be there. This was all too real for her.
She watched as Rory picked up a random artifact - an empty jar - from the shelves, and tapped it with her wand. As if it had burned her, Rory quickly set the jar back down, and Aulani and Eleanora stepped closer to it curiously. Before their eyes, the jar began to shake, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker, a blue hue forming around it. Just when Aulani thought it was going to shatter, it stopped altogether, looking as normal and unassuming as ever. Wracking her brain, Aulani couldn't figure out what Rory had done to it. "The Flumes normally come down the store about an hour before opening, so you only have about four hours - exactly four hours to get to Hogwarts, talk to Dumbledore, and get back here to meet the portkey, alright?" Portkey, Aulani thought. Of course. "It will take you back to my house, but if you're even a minute late, it won't take you anywhere, understand?" Aulani nodded. "If you don't get back here in time, you'll be on your own. I won't come looking for you." She hesitated this time, feeling slightly abandoned, but after a second, Aulani nodded again.
Eleanora, hoping to later convince her mother not to abandon Aulani, ran up and hugged the sixteen year old, worried that this might be their last time seeing each other. "Be safe, Lani," she whispered. Aulani was almost brought to tears, being greatly reminded of her best friend, stuck back at Barnes & Noblein the year 2016. She had an overwhelming longing to get back home, and with that thought, the book that had brought her here tucked into her jacket seemed to become very apparent to her.
"Thank you," she said to the two as Eleanora stepped back to her mother. "For everything you've done for me."
For a moment, Rory put aside her suspicions of Aulani Kalawai'a, the maybe-witch-maybe-Muggle from 2016, and saw, briefly, a girl that reminded her so much of herself. "Just try to find your way back home," she responded sincerely.
Aulani took a deep breath and nodded, before crouching down and going into the secret passage that would take her to Hogwarts, and hopefully, home.
It was only moments after the trap door was shut behind the young girl that Rory realized what she might have just done. "Expecto Patronum," she whispered with the flick of her wand. A blue, mystic fox was emitted from it, running through Honeydukes, and off to the castle. Rory prayed, with all her being, that it would get there before the girl with the book.
