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Artefacts


It was three days, two skipped lunches, one missed dinner, a party in the common room, and a midnight trip to the library beneath the invisibility cloak to get into the Restricted Section later, that Remus Lupin ran through the halls, trying to find James Potter. “HAVE YOU SEEN JAMES POTTER?” he gasped, grabbing Carly Shaw’s arm.

“No?” she looked at Remus with disgust, tugging her arm away.

He raced away, trying to push out of his mind the look on her face, trying not to let the stupid people that occupied the castle bother him. He raced along, clutching a book, waving it about. “Seen James Potter?” he asked a group of Hufflepuffs, “Seen James Potter?” The Ravenclaws shook their heads. He was limping by the time he found Frank Longbottom, who said James had left the lunch table early to go down to the pitch to set up for Quidditch practice.

Remus stumbled down the path to the pitch, and burst through the door of the locker room, “JAMES, JAMES!! I RUDDY FOUND IT! I FOUND WHY THE TREES ARE IN THE COURTYARD EVEN THOUGH MARYROSE IS ---” he stopped mid-sentence as he tore around the corner of the locker room and found James and Maryrose - James’s back pressed ot the wall, as Maryrose kissed his neck and chin along the line of his scruffy traces of facial hair, “ --- here,” Remus finished.

Maryrose’s face as flushed bright red and her hair even turned red from the soft green it had been before, the colour just burning her all over. “Oh my stars,” she whispered, covering her eyes, burying her face into James’s shoulder.

James slid down the wall and away from her, “Excuse me.” He turned to Remus.

Remus was red, “I - I can tell you later, I don’t want to -- interrupt -- this --”

“No it’s alright,” James replied and he turned to Maryrose, “Hey, um, I gotta talk to Remus. Alright if I catch you up later?”

“Of course.” Maryrose took her wand up from the benches where she and James had laid them and she waved to Remus, her hair slowly turning back to it’s minty green shade, and rushed out the door.

Remus stared at James, “Well, you got over the shock of being with her right quick, didn’t you?”

James flushed. “I mean she surprised me. It wasn’t my idea. I’m actually glad you came along when you did, I was trying to find a way to stop it without hurting her feelings.”

“Right.” Remus said. Then he remembered how excited he was about what he’d found and he said, “JAMES! James! Blimey. Okay listen. We’re alone now, yeah?”

“Yeah,” James nodded.

“Alright. Look at this.” Remus shoved the book into James’s hand, letting it fall open to the page he’d been holding with his finger as he ran about searching for his mate. “LOOK AT THAT.” He jabbed his finger at the page roughly, making the whole book bobble in James’s grasp.

The Problem with Time Travel,” James read the title out loud. “The problem with time travel is the unpredictable nature of how even minor incidents affect other incidents of both inconsequential and important matters…

“Fifth paragraph!” Remus instructed, too anxious to sit through James reading the entire article.

Many travellers have reported seeing minor discrepancies with a revised timeline, where in there lies small clues or fragments from the previous timeline in the revised timeline, for instance one may bear a scar from an injury that no longer took place or find a photograph that was never taken. This is a phenomenon which is called Artifacting and is one of the dangers that time travellers have faced in the past, as they are driven mad by the artefacts that lead to things that never happened, which they wished had remained intact, such as a photograph of a child who was never born or the ring from a wedding never held. Many Time Travellers experience madness at the uncontrollable nature of such artefacts and the lack of understanding they receive from others in their new timeline. Nobody else recalls where these artefacts came from and, indeed, seem to believe that they have merely always existed for lack of better explanation. Typically the Traveller alone realizes the mysteriousness of their appearance. Artefacts are believed to be caused by especially important events having been undone - things that ought not to have been altered will leave these artefacts, like scars on the fabric of time. Famous artefacts are believed to include some of the great mysteries of the world, such as the heads of Easter Island and the Egyptian pyramids.”

“Artifacting,” Remus said.

James stared at the book in disbelief. “Artifacting,” he repeated and his finger trailed about the article. It was clearly meant to be a warning against using devices like time turners (which it listed about four other ways for a wizard to travel through time in the book as well, and James saw that it did indeed attribute the invention of the Time Turner to none other than Kostos Mopsus). He ran his fingers over the illustration of the golden trinket that spun in the book and he looked up at Remus, “So… so what do you think happens now?”

“I reckon you’ll go on noticing little bits of things that ought not to have changed. But don’t let it drive you mad,” Remus said. “You can always talk to me about it.”

James nodded, sort of numb.

“It means you changed stuff the fates meant never to be altered. The stuff that’s been artifacted serves some significant purpose. In the future, I s’pose you know the significance of each thing.”

“I spose,” James whispered. “Blimey.”

Remus said, “But there you have it. An answer. You aren’t mad.”

James took a deep breath and, much to Remus’s horror, ripped the pages of the article out of the book. “I need this,” he said. “I need to read this when I’m feeling like I’ve gone mental when I think of all this stuff.” He folded the pages and tucked them into his pocket.




Lily was sitting in the stands of the pitch with Alice Prewitt, waiting to watch Frank practice, when Peter Pettigrew sat beside her, and, without any greeting or pretense, grabbed hold on the front of her cardigan. Lily let out a shriek of surprise and pushed him off her, “What are you doing?” she demanded as he tumbled onto the row of benches below her.

He scrambled, “I was counting the buttons on your jumper!”

Ali looked affronted, “You don’t just grab a girl’s jumper!”

“I didn’t mean it like that, I needed to see the buttons!”

“Why do you need to see the buttons on my jumper for, Peter?” Lily demanded, “What business is it of yours?”

Peter’s face burned bright. “Because - I - I think that’s James’s favorite jumper!”

Lily stared at him and Ali did, too. “What?” Lily demanded.

“James Potters’ going mad looking for a jumper just like that, with the patches on the sleeves and the third button missing and everything - and I told you it smells like his cologne! It’s been missing for months, and he’s searching for it and I remembered the other day in the library when you and Jasper were talking about it and --”

Lily ran her fingers over her beloved mystery jumper. “But - it can’t be James Potter’s” she argued. She didn’t want to give up the jumper.

Peter shrugged, “It’s just funny that you’ve no idea where that one came from and it smells like James Potter and it looks like James Potter’s missing sweater.”

Lily flushed.

“Bugger off, Pettigrew,” said Ali and she sprayed him with a bit of water from her wand and he squealed and hurried away, scrambling across the stands to where Remus and Sirius were sitting in the corner, Sirius leaning against the boards and Remus looking bored.

Lily looked at Ali Prewitt. “It doesn’t smell like Potter… does it really?”

Ali said, “It certainly smells like Old Spice cologne, that’s for certain.”

“But is that what he wears?”

“Same as Frank,” Ali nodded.

Lily flushed even harder. “No…”

“Yeah,” Ali said, “Although I’ve noticed James doesn’t wear it all the time, only part time. I don’t know why that is.”

Lily remembered hearing about the incident with the cologne that caused Remus to pass out at the Yule Ball. Remus had told her about it when she’d returned from holiday one of the times they’d talked… Blimey, it had been awhile since she’d talked with Remus Lupin, she realized suddenly, and she looked over his direction, where he was sitting a few seats away from where Sirius and Peter appeared to be in a deep conversation about something on the pitch. Remus was reading a book, his spine curled forward ‘round it, his hair falling over his forehead… She wondered how he was, and she realized suddenly that she’d been so wrapped up in being about Jasper Odair that she hadn’t even talked to Remus when he’d broken up with Sirius Black.

But all that to realize that it made sense James wouldn’t wear the cologne during full moon cycles when it was bothering Remus Lupin.

Still didn’t make sense how she’d got his sweater, though.

And she still didn’t want to give it up, either.

She looked at Alice. “I like this sweater,” she argued.

“Of course you do,” Ali said. “Nobody can resist a man that smells like Old Spice.” She grinned as Frank flew past on his broomstick and waved.

Lily said, “Unless that man is James Potter.” James was right behind Frank.

Alice smirked, “I s’pose.” She watched as James tapped Frank on the shoulder and said something that set them both to laughing. “I still think you ought to have given him a chance after holiday. All that he did for you at Christmas?”

“But he hurt Severus Snape,” said Lily quietly. “I couldn’t trust him.”

“Oh and you trust Snape? After what happened with Mary Macdonald? After what he did to you?”

Lily stared straight ahead. “Slughorn punished him.”

“Yes but that doesn’t make it right. You’re just lucky Horace Slughorn came out of his office when he did or who knows what might have happened…” Ali looked quite angry. “The slimeballs, the whole lot of them, Snape and his nasty little friends! They ought to have been expelled. And if it had been any teacher besides Slughorn that had found them - they would have been. Picture McGonagall putting up with that rubbish? They’d have been turned to toads.”

Lily tugged the jumper tighter ‘round herself and looked down at her toes on the bench before her.

“Keep the sweater, Lily. If he notices it then you can worry about it then. Peter’s probably just crazy.”

Lily nodded and watched as James and Frank flew off down the pitch together.