Mine in Time

By Kukaburry

Chapter 1 – Lucky Guess

Disclaimer: I own basically nothing in this story. The fabulous J.K. Rowling owns her characters. My characters are my own-ish. You'll see why I say 'ish'.

Twelve Years Ago:

"Poor Mariah. To lose her parents at such a young age."

"It is quite alarming, indeed. And did you hear of Dean's mother?"

"I did, just yesterday. The Woodman children's mother was there too."

"Such a tragedy. So many families torn apart by one madman."

"Too true. I wonder what will happen to the children? Sarah and Ellie's father has no business raising children by himself; he is half-mad. And little Dean's father is so stricken that he'll surely forget about his son."

Mrs. Weasley shook her head sadly. "I will do anything I can for Sarah and Ellie. They live quite close to us, you know. Only a few kilometers. I knew their mother from Hogwarts."

"I heard about their father. Poor, poor man. He was one of the best Aurorers of our generation," the woman gave a lengthy pause, "until he lost his leg in that one horrible battle."

She nodded, remembering the battle well. "I lost a good friend in that battle. So many of the Order was injured. We thought we would never see that happen again." She sighed. "Until last week. We shouldn't have sent so many of the Order in there to fight." A tear slipped down her cheek.

"Now dear, don't fret. This is no one's fault. They chose to fight."

"I'm glad Mr. Weasley came back to me in one piece. Our little Ginny would have never met her father." She looked at the tiny baby wrapped snugly in her arms. "Yes, I will do what I can for Sarah and Ellie. As for the other two, I only hope someone with a good heart will take them in."

"Ellie Lee Woodman, where are you?" Mrs. Weasley's shrill voice resounded throughout the house. It was easy to tell that she was angry because she only used full names when someone was in trouble. "Your father is waiting, Ellie."

Sarah Woodman stood obediently next to Mrs. Weasley with a subtle grin on her face. She knew exactly where her younger sister was: concocting a potion to try to clone her blonde hamster, Ziggy.

"George, Fred! Bring Ellie down, now." She continued yelling up the stairs unsuccessfully. "Don't make me come up there. Sarah, dear, I'm sorry for making you and your father wait."

Mr. Weasley, Bill, and Charlie sat at the dining room table eating large helpings of meat and muffins. All three looked at the elder Woodman daughter and shook their heads in warning. After twelve years of visiting the Weasley household Sarah knew better than to make Mrs. Weasley angry.

Mrs. Weasley huffed again. "For goodness sake, they're seventeen now. They should know better."

A small 'bang' sounded down the stairs and every person steeled himself or herself for a larger eruption. It only took one near-catastrophic occurrence to train everyone to watch out when strange noises emitted from Fred and George's lab. A feminine squeal of excitement rang down.

"What have they done now?"

Something furry bumped from step to step until it came to a stop in front of Mrs. Weasley. The little ball unfurled and waddled towards the dining room table. "It's Ellie's hamster." Sarah identified as she bent down to pick it up. "But how did it get down here?"

A quiet rumble began making the staircase tremble and suddenly a wave of gold-colored fur descended into the kitchen. "Merlin's beard it's a tidal wave of hamsters!" Charlie roared through the din of squeaking.

Ellie's head appeared around the staircase followed by George and Fred. "Oh no, I think it made too many." She said towards the twins.

"You think?" George asked while chuckling.

"Well I thought I had the balance right. I don't know why this happened. It was supposed to make two, not two thousand."

Fred picked up a handful of chattering hamsters. "Hey, you can make a profit on them though. Just think of all the eight-year-old girls that want a cheap hamster. Five knuts a pop."

"Fred Weasley put those down now." Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "Evapsio!" Several hundred hamsters vanished.

"No, there go my galleons!" Ellie yelled while wading towards Mrs. Weasley.

"Woah, woah, I'm drowning in hamsters here," Sarah cried out as she found herself flailing under a particularly large pile of furry creatures.

Charlie surged forward and grabbed her hand. "Here I got you." He pulled her forward, freeing her from the smothering cuteness. "Evaspio!" The pile of hamsters vanished.

"T-thank you," she stuttered while blushing a light maroon color.

Twenty minutes later Ellie stood in the middle of the slightly tilted kitchen holding a single hamster. "What were you thinking? You could have hurt someone. You almost smothered your own sister." Mrs. Weasley paced back and forth angrily. "I know you're not allowed to do very much at your father's house, but what made you think you could clone thousands of hamsters in MY house?" George sniggered behind his hand. "And you two!" She turned around and stared down her twins. "I'll bet one of you put her up to this."

"No. It was all me," Ellie continued to insist. "Honestly, it was my idea. I shouldn't have done it, I know, but I just wanted to see what would happen if I made the potion correctly."

A vein throbbed at Mrs. Weasley's temple. "At least no one got hurt, right sweetheart?" Mr. Weasley said while leaning towards his wife. "No harm done. We should let the Woodmans get back to their father."

"Oh right, papa will be getting worried if we don't get home soon," Ellie piped up, concerned that her father might start looking for them and worried about what Mrs. Weasley might do if she remained inside the house any longer.

"Oh very well," Mrs. Weasley finally acceded. "George, go with them to make sure Mr. Woodman doesn't get too upset."

Ellie groaned loudly. "You do know that papa will make him stay the night, right?"

Mrs. Weasley nodded. "I'm aware."

"I'll go too, mother." Charlie offered. A strange look passed between them and she nodded quietly.

"Very well," she looked at George and Charlie sternly. "Be nice to Mr. Woodman, boys. Don't think I won't ground you if I hear otherwise."

"I'm twenty-two mum," Charlie whined, giving an embarrassed side-glance to Sarah.

Sarah, Ellie, Charlie, George and Fred all stepped into the fireplace to prepare to floo. "Fred, what are you doing in there?"

Both twins began talking at the same time. "What are you talking about? I'm George."

"Don't play games with me. Get out of there now."

"Bye mum," the twins said in unison.

They arrived with a 'pop' inside an elegantly carved fireplace. On either side stood lion statues made from a dark Italian marble. Red velvet chaises and high-backed sofas furnished the ostentatious room. Only a light layer of dust hinted at its infrequent use. Everyone began cackling their heads off in remembrance of the look on Mrs. Weasley's face. "That was too excellent. Mum looked ready to breathe fire."

"She's going to knock your heads together when you get back," Ellie chortled.

"Is that you Ellie, Sarah?" A frail voice called out from the adjoining room.

"Yes, dad!" Sarah called back. "We just got back."

They entered the study to find Mr. Woodman sitting curled up by another fireplace, wooden leg dangerously close to the sparks. "Papa, you know better than to sit like that," Ellie chastised and pulled her father further away from the flames.

Barely noticing that his youngest daughter was pulling him across the floor, he continued somberly, "I was getting worried about you. You were supposed to be home an hour ago. You know it's not safe to floo at night. What would you do if you ended up in the wrong house?"

Ellie and Sarah exchanged glances. "Everyone got here safe. We just had a small accident delay us, nothing to worry about."

"Which reminds me, I need to put Ziggy away," Ellie settled her father against a plush leather couch and ran upstairs to deposit the hamster. She hurried back down the polished mahogany staircase, half-sliding on the ornate banister with ravens carved into it.

"Ellie, I wish you wouldn't do that," Sarah whispered to her sister. "You'll tumble off one of these days."

"Yes mother," she bit back sarcastically.

Their father wobbled to his feet and looked around cautiously before settling into the leather couch. "You did remember to turn off the floo system didn't you?" He looked expectantly at Sarah and Ellie. "We don't know who might show up during the night."

"Like our mum!" Fred quipped. "Quick shut it off before she comes after us."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "She is hardly going to waste floo just to tell you off."

"Yeah, but she's our mum. She's crazy enough to do it."

Mr. Woodman finally settled his tired gray eyes on the ginger-haired trio. "Ah, Weasley's again." He said, not unkindly.

"A pleasure as always sir," Charlie held out his hand.

"Yes, yes. Bill was it?"

"Charlie, sir. Bill is my older brother. Black hair?"

"Ah, yes of course, Charlie. What are you doing home? I thought you were training Dragons."

A small blush crept up his neck. "I'm uh visiting family for a couple of weeks. I'm leaving next week when everyone goes back to Hogwarts."

"Yes, good good. I like a family man," Mr. Woodman said distantly. His pupils retracted as he stared into the gaudy light fixture above him without really seeing anything.

"Thank you -".

"Papa, the floo system is turned off," Ellie interrupted cheerfully, "and we rang for the cook to start dinner." No one bothered to ask Mr. Woodman why he had not asked the cook to start dinner an hour earlier.

Ellie pulled the twins towards the staircase. "You have to see what I bought last weekend."

"Besides the multiplying potion?"

She stuck her tongue out. "Yes, besides the potion. I found this little thing called a puffskein. It's too cute!"

"Oh no, Fred, another 'cute' thing. Last year it was a hedgehog."

"The year before was a Niffler."

"The year before that was a Chinchilla."

"And the year before that was a Knarl."

"And the year before that..".

"Yeah, yeah we get it. I like cute pets," she sighed, exasperated with the twins already. She turned to look back at her sister and Charlie and shot them a cheeky grin . "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Once the three of them were safely locked away in her bedroom, Ellie began pumping her fist in the air. "Oh can you guys believe it? Charlie and my sister are in love!" She walked over to her large four-poster bed and sat on top of several plump purple pillows.

George and Fred looked at her with unblinking eyes. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, come on. Haven't you seen the way they've been acting lately?" The twins shook their heads. "They can't stop looking at each other and blushing like crazy. I've never seen my sister blush in all twenty years of her life."

"Come off it. There's no way our brother and your sister are secretly dating. Someone would have noticed by now."

"Think about it. Neither of them has dated anyone in the past year. They work for the same department. They can't look away from each other. What more do you need?"

"Um, I need to see them actually dating." Fred replied challengingly as he sat down in a black leather chair. "You can't just pull that stuff out of the blue, Ellie. You're absolutely wrong. Nothing is going on between Charlie and Sarah."

Ellie distractedly curled her short blonde hair around her index finger. "Sometimes a girl just knows these things."

The twins looked at Ellie then looked at each other and began laughing hysterically. "I can't believe she just said that."

"Come on, Charlie actually asked to come with us. No one in their right mind would face my father voluntarily." Many people would have been shocked to hear Ellie talk of her father that way, but she had seen so many versions of her father that she just accepted the fact that he was mad and nothing was going to bring him back to the way he was when she was young.

George tapped his fist against his hand. "You're right, he must have an addled brain. Do you think your sister gave him a love potion?"

Instead of acting outraged, Ellie pondered the question for a moment. She stared at her vanity mirror as though it would offer insight. "No, Sarah was terrible at potions. She might've bought one though. Where in the world do you find those, though?"

"I was just joking, Ellie." George gave her a wary side-glance.

"Yes, who are you plotting to use love potions on?" Fred asked slyly.

She rolled her eyes defensively. "Like you two haven't imagined using one on someone."

"Um, no."

"Nope, I haven't."

"Boys," she muttered under her breath.

"Ellie, Fred, George! Come downstairs." Sarah's voice echoed from underneath the door.

Ellie looked at the clock above her table. "Is dinner done already? Ugh, I hope they didn't make macaroni salad again."

Fred turned a slight shade of green. "Does your cook make macaroni salad a lot?"

"Yes, mostly because she knows I don't like it." When Fred and George gave her querying looks, she continued with an abashed smile. "I may have let my chinchilla run around in the kitchen, and she may have chewed all of the cooks favorite flowers."

"You sure know how to win people's hearts."

"I think I see why she needs that love potion now."

"Oh hush up you clowns."

As they entered the dining room Ellie immediately noticed her father's worn, pale face. Something terrible must have happened. "Father, what's wrong?" She asked, leaning down and capturing his frail hand within her own.

Sarah cleared her throat and sought Ellie's attention. "He's just being dramatic as always." She motioned for Charlie to come over to her. "Everyone, there's something I have to tell you." Their hands webbed together and their eyes locked with intense passion. "Charlie and I are getting engaged." Ellie turned to the twins with a superior smile.

Fred leaned his head forward and whispered in Ellie's ear, "Lucky guess."

As always I love hearing your reviews. I make an effort to respond, especially if it's a question about something.

Woohoo new story! Oh man I feel like a train ran over me, I'm so sick. I took the day off from work and class just to relax.. and write. I've been writing THREE new chapters in the past two days. You'll see updates on a couple of my other stories within the next few days I imagine. Ta ta for now mis filles ~Kukaburry