Chapter 6

I ate the sandwiches Hoopy provided and stared at a cup of water. I told him no metal and no glass just to be safe. He managed to magic up some paper plates and cups.

I was still in the Room of Requirement. I locked the door just to be safe since apparently school was in session.

As I ate I tried to go over what I knew for sure. I knew my loops always reset to the end of third year when I found the artifact. I knew I was attacked by a strange creature I had dubbed a time wraith. I knew the artifact was now damaged. I strongly suspected the damage was connected to the wraith's attack.

The world cup attack took place on August 25, 1994. Apparently, it was now October 6, 1997, or the fall semester leading up to the Battle of Hogwarts.

I was still thirteen. It didn't merely move my memories to my older self in the time stream. History as I knew it changed. My attack on the death eaters happened. My entire self seemed to shift forward in the timeline.

I could only conclude the artifact malfunctioned as a side-effect of the damage. I actually had no clue how snakey worked in the first place. At this point, I basically held a mastery in runes, but I still had no clue how it worked. I actually hadn't even found any runes on it.

It was like when you're so clueless about a subject you don't even know what to Google. That's pretty much summed up how well I understood the artifact.

Before, my loops always reset at the Battle of Hogwarts. Now that my reset shifted so far forward, I had no idea whether that was a hard limit or it would have shifted as well. The worst case was that the limit stayed the same. That meant my amount of time in the loop, and with the snake's damage, my total number of loops had significantly decreased.

And out of all of this, the question that bothered me the most, as always, was what would happen when the loops ran out? If Voldemort winning was connected to the reset limit, and he still won on the last loop, would I exit?

Or would I be "trapped" inside and basically stuck in limbo? Or would I just flat out die? I couldn't rule that one out.

That was assuming the worst-case scenario where the limit in the loop hadn't simply been shifted forward with the reset point. Given my current state, I think assuming the worst was pretty safe.

I steeled myself for what I needed to do next. My first drink of water I chugged the whole cup without really looking. So far I hadn't heard any rasping. I took the cup and stared at my reflection in the water.

No rasping. No hands. Just my normal face, albeit haggard. I nodded and took a sip of water. As soon as I looked at my reflection again, my face shifted into a half-eaten corpse.

I spat out the water, dropping the cup clattering to the floor. "No worries, master, Hoopy will clean up this mess," he said making the water disappear with a gesture of his finger.

That was just a dream. Peabody appearing to me and calling me a coward and all of that. That was totally just a dream and not real.

Seeing his/my face just now in the water was just my mind playing tricks on itself. I was just short on sleep and stressed.

I told myself the same thing with the rasping sound and now look at me.

When I took over this body, I never gave it a second thought. I ended up in some kid's body in the Harry Potter world. I'd never felt guilty over the fact that I took over his body, seeing as how the whole thing was out of my control. It never occurred to me that some part of him could be...lingering.

I could just reconstruct the room to have a mirror, but I was hesitant to exit in case I was seen. I looked at my house-elf where he was cleaning up my mess and making even more sandwiches.

After the total sum of eighteen years in this world, this house-elf was my only friend.

That was probably pretty pathetic.

Half of what I did was only possible taking advantage of his elf-apparition. I shook my head.

"Hoopy," I said to the elf. I held out my arms. The house elf-looked at me in question. I gave the house-elf a hug. "You can be creepy and smell a little weird, but you're my best friend."

And my only friend.

The house-elf began to wail. "Master is too kind."

"There, there," I said. "Hoopy, can you go get me a mirror?"

"Yes, Master Peabody," he said.

"And Hoopy, stop calling me master. We're friends after all," I said. I tried ordering him to stop before, but house-elves tended to keep to their habits.

The house-elf's lower lip trembled as he apparated away. I shook my head. My life was so weird.

In just a few moments the elf returned with a mirror that I arranged leaning against the wall on a table. I sat down right in front of it staring at my face. After a second thought, I quickly scooted backward out of arm's length of the mirror.

When I looked back up I was staring into a half rotting face. "Hoopy," I said.

"Yes master friend," Hoopy said.

"Do you see anything weird in the mirror?" I asked him.

"Just master friend's face," he said.

"It doesn't look as if it's, you know, rotting?" I ask.

"Master friend does look rather tired," Hoopy said.

"Right, thanks," I said.

I went back to looking at the half-rotten face in the mirror. "So," I said into the mirror. I noticed the mouth didn't move with my own. The half-rotting Peabody just stared. "Are you the ghost of the old Peabody?" I asked.

"Are you the ghost of the old Peabody?" he said back in a high pitch voice. "Why, I thought that would be rather obvious bodysnatcher," he said.

"Oh, shit," I said rubbing my face.

"Or, oh, I know. Maybe I'm not really the ghost of the boy whose body you so cruelly stole, and you're just going insane," rotting Peabody said.

"Oh, man," I said shaking my head.

"Hmm, but I wonder why I would show up now. It's not as if the remnants of my soul haven't been locked away inside that vapid space you call a head. Gee, I wonder if it has something to do with you almost having your face sucked off by that dementor wanna-be."

"This is really awkward," I said. "Sorry I stole your body."

Rotting Peabody sneered from the mirror. He half sneered at least, since he only had half of his lips. "You're pathetic."

"You're much meaner than I thought would you be with a name like Peabody," I said.

"Says the Hufflepuff. I was destined for Slytherin, and now look at me," he said. "Even with the luck of Merlin himself, and near-infinite time, you still squandered it. A Hufflepuff playing a Gryffindor. Oh, I think I'm going to vomit," he said making fake gagging sounds. Well, they were fake except for the maggots and cockroaches he spat out.

"And another thing," he said. "What exactly is with you and the elf? That is my body you know. Have some respect!"

I looked at said house-elf who was aimlessly stacking sandwiches into a castle.

My total combined assets were a house-elf and the prick-ish past owner of my current body. Damn it, I really needed a Hermione.

"If shit gets any weirder, I'm just going to find a real dementor, and say to hell with it," I said.

"You would, you bloody Puff. All cowards," he said.

"At least I succeeded in killing Bellatrix once. I also did manage to save Fleur and Gabrielle," I said. "I need a new plan."

"Oh, sure. Go hug a house-elf. Oh, wait, you already did that. Which was quite sickening, by the way. What's next, a mud-blood?"

"You were only eleven when we changed places, which, by the way, I really can't seem to feel guilty about. Is this the way eleven-year-old purebloods talk?"

"Yes, you replaced me when I was eleven, dimwit, but I've been here this entire time. We're the same age," he spat out.

Well, minus the before life. I got up. "And where are you going? Do you know how long it's been since I've had a conversation? Don't you owe that much bodysnatcher!"

"I need a shower," I said. "And then, I think I need to check out my new lead. I need to see if there are any witches alive named Olivia Stone."