PART 2: ACT 2

PART 2: ACT 2

The library was silent and deserted. Thankfully, being both the summer holiday and well past eight o'clock in the evening, Delphi and Severus had the library completely to themselves. Severus had told Delphi that it was a teacher's privilege to come and go from the library at any hour, and to be able to access every single book, including those of a more nefarious nature in the Restricted Section.

As she stepped through into the centre of the library, Delphi craned her neck and span around, taking in the sheer enormity of it. She guessed that there had to be tens of thousands of books resting upon thousands of shelves packed together in hundreds of narrow rows. Just the thought of all that knowledge waiting to be consumed made her giddy; the amount of time she'd spent chasing down rare tomes to find out about time travel and using unconventional means to discover Unspeakable secrets when all the while, the sum of wizarding noesis was probably right here at Hogwarts.

Severus led the way to the back of the library towards the Restricted Section, the sound of his boots clicking on the polished parquet floor. “The fact you did not attend Hogwarts leads me to believe that you are either very rich, or come from a strictly Pureblood family,” he mused aloud. She certainly had the fine cheekbones and fragile beauty associated with high-born wizarding nobility, even if her manners were somewhat lacking, he'd thought. And this had been gnawing at him since she had first mentioned it.

Delphi's eyes narrowed as she followed him through the winding bookshelves. “I told you, we're not discussing my origin story right now. I'm a fucking freak with Daddy issues is all you need to know for the time being. I'll bore you all about it when this is all over. But I need you to stop asking about it.”

This did little to appease Severus' curiosity, but from the hard edge in her voice he could tell he would get no more from her at the moment. Still, she hadn't denied anything, so his theory might yet be right.

Stepping carefully over the rope that separated the Restricted Section from the rest of the library, he lit his wand and began searching for Secrets of the Darkest Art. He found it after a minute or two nestled next to Magick Moste Evile on the top shelf, and handed it silently to Delphi, who turned it over in her hands with a disgusted expression on her face.

“Great. We've found the bloody book, now we need to go back in time.” She reached up on tiptoes and put the book back in it's spot, and then rummaged in her school robes for the Golden Time-Turner. “Are you ready for this? It's quite a weird sensation if you haven't done it before.”

Severus nodded, and Delphi wrapped the long thin chain of the Time-Turner around them both. Her face set in concentration, she murmured a calculation to herself as she wound the crown frantically. It seemed to Severus he could hear the sound of a bell tolling, and once Delphi released the crown the Time-Turner began to spin rapidly, the sands of time glowing bright blue, whilst everything around them became a blur of quickened motion. The light came and went as the sun rose and set giving a strobe effect, and all around them shadowy figures sped about, going about their day-to-day activities in high-speed reverse. Eventually, the action began to slow as the transition from night to day became longer and they landed with an undulating pop to what Severus could only presume to be the past. It was hard to tell though, as the library looked the same as it had for hundreds of years and it was the same time of day as when they'd left.

“Are you alright?” Delphi asked, rubbing her stomach. “I've not been back as far as this before and I'm feeling a bit queasy.”

Severus had to agree. He screwed his eyes up and took a couple of deep breaths in to steady himself. After a moment, the motion sickness abated and his thoughts jumped to more practical matters.

“How do we know what year we're in?” Severus asked, quite reasonably.

“That's always the tricky bit of time-travel,” Delphi conceded. “You have to make calculations and then trust you've come to the right time. Finding out when you are is somewhat of an art.” Her face then lit up with inspiration. “I've got an idea how we can find out.”

She headed off to the front desk with Severus hurrying after, his brow furrowed with puzzlement.

“What are you doing?” he asked, watching her riffling through the desk, clearly searching for something.

“Aha!” was all she said in response when she'd found what she was looking for: an old-fashioned librarian's date stamp and ink pad. With one quick motion she dipped the stamp into the ink and pressed it into the palm of her hand, holding it up for Severus to read.

AUG 29 1938

Severus couldn't help but look impressed, even if he wouldn't admit it, as he followed her back to the Restricted Section. Her intelligence definitely belonged in Ravenclaw, he thought, but he couldn't shake the feeling that she was right about being conflicted in her House loyalty as there was clearly a healthy dose of Slytherin in her too. He watched her take Secrets of the Darkest Art down off the shelf and scan the pages.

“Urgh, this shit is disgusting,” she said after a minute or two. “Really grim. I've found the spell section. Do you have the parchments?”

Severus wordlessly handed over the documents and watched as Delphi carefully erased the offending pages of the book with a flick of her wand, then magically copy the spell from the parchment on to the blank pages. The whole process took about ten minutes. When she was done, she got Severus to look over her handiwork.

“Looks convincing,” Severus agreed. “The book does not look like it has been tampered with.”

“Great. That's phase one done, then. But I've just got one more ickle teeny thing to do whilst we're here. It won't take a mo.” And with that, Delphi began trotting out of the library, leaving Severus outraged at this sudden addition to the plan.

“Delphi! Where are you going? We need to get our of here!”

“Just popping to the Chamber of Secrets,” she called over her shoulder cheerfully. “Be right back!”

Severus looked like his eyes would pop out of his head as he hurried after her, cursing loudly.