"Dorcas, catch! Dorcas -- DORCAS --"

SMASH.

"...you pisser."

Despite Alice Meadows' ire, the sound of the falling armor had been dull in comparison to the uproar that was going on in the castle common room. Students from every House and every Year mingled here and there, catching up on what they'd missed during the long winter break. A group of second years played hacky sack in the northernmost corner. Gads of giggling gillies in their last year whispered and blushed of crushes and conquests by the door. Another gathering of Slytherins was beginning to form by the windowsill, talking in low tones and looking decidedly eager.

The corridor was crammed full. Every student returning to the castle would insist on diving into the mob to seek out their friends, only to emerge flustered, sweaty, and usually friendless. It was this way every single year, every single end of winter break. Nothing changed here at Hogwarts; everything was just as it had been for hundreds upon hundreds of years, and in such an inconsequential year as 1975, no one believed anything would happen now.

And then, something did.

But of course, everyone was much too distracted to notice.

Now that had been an interesting experience. The rushing sound, the whirlwind of light, the feeling of being stretched. It was indeed much like Apparition, but with added nausea and a complete lack of knowledge of where they were going to end up.

It didn't seem so bad at first. Fred looked around the room the six of them had just jumped into, and found nothing out of the ordinary. Large babbling group of students in the Common Room, check. Snow falling outside the window as it had been when they left, check. Same drab dress code of black robes on all the students, check. Well, he surmised, hands on hips and feeling rather proud of himself. At least we didn't end up in a muddy ditch during the Triassic era with a prehistoric gorilla on our tails.

All in all, Fred was feeling good about this. A quick glance over his fellow time-travelers told him no one had gotten Splinched, no one had been left behind in time...

Er, wait. That might not be correct. He took a quick headcount. Six. How many had been in the Common Room when they'd left? ...Well he wasn't sure, but it had been more than six. Here they had him, his brother, Petey Pan, that quiet Ravenclaw, Aisling -- thank Merlin for that; this would be a whole lot more interesting with her around -- and Katie. Oooh. He winced at her remark to George and decided to put off his own talk with Miss Veela for the time being.

He edged away from the group and moreso into the mob to continue his train of thought without the confrontation that was sure to arise soon. Right, back on track. That was six of them. What had happened to all the others? Were they in another time in the past? No, he didn't think so. The device had been programmed to send everyone in one group to the same time. But then, he thought sheepishly, the device had been broken by that DUMB DOG. He was so making dog stew of that mutt when he got back. If he got back. Where were they getting back from, anyhow?

He looked around at the people in the room. None of them seemed familiar, so they couldn't have been brought to any time within the last seven years of the present, or he would remember someone here. The hairstyles didn't seem to be before the prehistoric -- ahem, he meant fifties era. Even that was a tentative guess. Actually...there was a lot of feathery hair going on here, as evidenced by the scent of hair spray...now, when had that been popular? Sixties? No, that was beehives, wasn't it? Eighties? No, they had used a lot more hair gel. Which left...

No way.

He edged back over to his brother, hoping to avoid the others for the moment. "George," he whispered urgently, fearful of being overheard. "George, by my intelligent deductions, I have a feeling we're in the midst of a whole lotta hippies."

George Weasley, he was fairly certain, had never planned to grow up and marry a woman quite like his mother. Molly Weasley was certainly a force to be reckoned with, and she had every single person in her household under strict surveillance, especially him and George. He envied Bill and Charlie, who were already out of the house and continuing on in their life, but then he would remember that Molly sent both of them at least two Howlers a week for never Owling her, for never coming over and - this was usually Bill's fault - for not cutting their hair. The Howlers were worse than actually being there when she shouted, because in real life, one could at least amuse themselves by trying to count the colors that she had turned while yelling, or they could divert attention onto a sibling.

But, he reflected sadly, it appeared that he was traveling down the path that would lead him to be married to a Molly Weasley copy. And not just any Molly Weasley copy, but a Molly Weasley copy who happened to be centimeters away from his face. George chuckled uneasily as Katie threatened him, then stormed away from him. He straightened up, and fixed his robes. He certainly hadn't woken up that morning and thought "Hey, why don't I try to get Katie as pissed as I can, then see what happens?" No, that wasn't normally how his mornings went, but it appeared that today was a rather unusual day. After all, he had no idea where they currently were.

Only seconds ago, he had been standing in the Common Room at Hogwarts with a gaggle of his friends, staring down at the ruined remains of what had been one of his favorite inventions to date, before a lonely little spark had risen out of it and sent them all to hell. George turned slowly in a circle, then realized that, no, this was not hell. It was still Hogwarts, only he was certain that all of these people hadn't been here before. He didn't even recognize half of them, except - wait! Wait a tick! George reached out and grabbed Fred, turning him around to face in the direction of a certain woman who he was sure that he had seen before. So very, very certain.

"Forgive me, Fred, but would you not say that that is our mother? Only, perhaps, years and years younger?" George breathed out, instinctively looking for something to hide behind. Apparently, even in the past (Which it seemed they were, from all of Peter's remarks that George was only half paying attention to), he couldn't escape from his own mother. He couldn't help but wonder if she was going to live forever, just so that she could torture him and Fred and remind them to change their underwear daily. As the girl passed by, though, he heaved a relieved sigh. It wasn't their mother, but some other ginger haired girl who looked remarkably similar to her. He grinned at Fred and clapped him on the back. "False alarm, chap!"

George then shot an irritated look at Peter, who was still talking. "Yes, Peter, I do realize the severity of this. I just wish that you would stop prattling on for five minutes and let us get our bearings, at least. If you haven't noticed, we are missing half of our group." Then, his eye was caught by a group of boys who were perhaps a year or two younger then them. He rubbed his hands together. "Excellent. Excellent." The fact that they were in the same time period as the Marauders just made everything okay again. The pranks he could get up to with them! Oh, Hogwarts would speak of them for years to come! He'd just have to be careful not to ruin the time line or anything, or he might never even be born. Boy, would that suck.

>> "George, by my intelligent deductions, I have a feeling we're in the midst of a whole lotta hippies."

George smiled at Fred. "It is times like these that I worry about the fact that I'm the smarter twin. Of course we're amidst the hippies! Who else was around in the roaring '70s?" His eyes cut across the room to Katie, and he desperately wanted to go tell her that things were going to be fine, like they always were, but she could pack a punch, and he wasn't looking to add some black and blue to his wardrobe just yet. "Oi, Katie!" he called out to her. At least if she charged, he might be able to run by the time she got over to him. "We should probably stick together!" They didn't need to go and get lost on top of not even being in their own time period. He took a step towards her, only to have the same blonde that Peter had been feeling up a moment earlier cross into his path.

Oliver Wood had been perfectly happy...wherever he was. Even he wasn't sure where he was, although he had been assured that it was neither heaven nor hell. He liked to think of it as a kind of purgatory, with good food (Yeah, he still couldn't believe that you had to eat after you died, but then again, what did he know about dying?) and a giant Muggle TV that let you view whatever you wanted on Earth. Most of the time he was either eating or watching Katie on the TV, and as creepy as that sounded, it was rather relaxing. She had been calling on him less and less, and instead of making him worried, it actually made him feel better for her. He wasn't entirely sure what to think when she had first started dating George, but he knew he was a good guy and that she would be happy with him.

So it came as a huge surprise that he was suddenly being sucked through what felt like a too small tube, and he ended up in front of Katie in what was certainly not the Hogwarts that he had left. Oliver looked around him, choosing not to speak just yet. There was a group of people that he recognized standing a ways away from them, consisting of Peter, Fred, George and a Ravenclaw girl that he had met once or twice. He looked down at Katie, his eyebrow cocked upwards, but his attention was soon diverted by a guy walking down the hall, conversing with a girl. His jaw dropped, and he was moving forward before he could remember that, one, he was a ghost, and two, his parents wouldn't know him anyway.

Oliver stepped back, allowing himself another moment before he spoke, his dark eyes following Miles and Hestia down the hallway. "What the bloody hell is going on?" Not his best question, but it certainly served its purpose here. Since dying, Oliver had had a lot of time to think and be alone, so it led to him being a generally quieter person, who thought before he spoke, although whenever he was back on Earth, he found himself slipping into old speech patterns. "Katie, why are we back in the 1970s? And why am I here? You haven't called on me in ages." There were so many pieces of this puzzle that just weren't fitting together.