A/N: Another new story... I just can't help myself!
Chapter 1: The Accident
"What are you two doing?" Harry asked after entering his office finding his youngest and oldest hovering over his desk.
"Nothing…" Lily said looking the innocent. Harry wasn't falling for it. James was doing a better job at looking nonchalant but one hand was hidden behind his back, a dead giveaway to the very experienced auror and father that he was hiding something. Doing a quick glance around the room Harry was able to determine there were no WWW products lying in wait for the unsuspecting (and slightly paranoid) father.
"Where's your mother?" Harry asked assessing both his children not wanting to accuse them of wrong doing before knowing the full details.
"She took Albus to Diagon Ally to pick up a few things." James explained, his hand fidgeting with whatever was behind his back. "She said she was bringing back dinner."
Harry was going to inquire more but then he noticed something out of place. The box on his desk was open and empty, the box that held the time-turner Hermione had given him. Damn him for leaving it in the open like that.
"Give it to me James." Harry used his stern father tone and extended his hand. James shuffled in place looking like he was going to claim innocence but he knew that tone. He had learned at a young age that when his father used that tone things were serious. James handed over the time turner. "You two know better than to mess with things in my office. This is a very dangerous object."
"I thought all the time turners were destroyed." James asked curiously hoping to curve his father's anger and distract him as Lily edged around their father to disable the trap they had set. They weren't supposed to be in the room when it went off. They had been distracted by the time-turner and didn't expect their father to come back so soon.
"They were… this one is special." Harry said eyeing his children once again suspiciously. Usually at this point his children would scatter hoping to get out of the line of fire which Harry was willing to let them given the stack of paperwork waiting for him at this desk. "You two had better get your chores done before your mother gets home or I will tell her you were sneaking in my office again." Harry grabbed the handle to the door intending to usher his children out of his office.
"No Dad!" Both Lily and James lunged for their father hoping to stop him from opening the door which was trapped with a proto-type product Uncle George had given them. Whatever the prank was supposed to do the Potters would never find out. The proto-type exploded instead, which in normal circumstances would have just left a destroyed door and some ash covered faces, nothing new and fixable in the Potter household, but Harry was holding a precious time turner. It slipped from his fingers, spinning in the air, and crashed to the floor.
"Where are we?" James asked, his head spinning as if he had just been ejected from a portkey.
"Are you two alright?" Harry asked getting up and assessing the situation. They were in a familiar open field with a broken old house, its windows shattered and yard completely covered in weeds. To call the place a fixer upper would be generous.
"I'm okay." Lily said inspecting a charred spot on her blouse frowning. "I don't think that was supposed to happen. I'm going to kill Uncle George! This was my favorite shirt."
"Dad?" James looked to his father, who was scouting the area, his wand in the ready position. James took out his own wand but didn't sense any danger. "Where are we?" James asked again once his father seemed to relax, looking up at the run down house.
"I think the more appropriate question is when?" Harry answered looking at the house he thought he would only see again in picture and memory. "This is what home looked like before your mother and I were married. You see the stain glass windows. That's our future sitting room."
"Wow." Lily looked at the house with different eyes now.
"What a dump." James said looking at the overgrown, dead orchard next to the house which was later torn down and made into a nice quiddtich practice field. "You really lived here while it was looking like this?"
"Well, Uncle Bill helped me get the place into a livable condition before moving in but yeah…" Harry smiled. "Some of my best memories were in this 'dump'. There is something to be said about building a home from just sturdy foundations." And the foundations were just about the only thing original to the house. Other than the stain glass windows nothing looked familiar to the children. The office they had been standing in before the explosion was an expansion when Harry and Ginny became pregnant with Lily. Her bedroom sat above Harry's office.
"Can we go inside?" Lily asked excitedly. Harry knew that he should be chastising his children for the prank they had tried to pull on him but this was a rare opportunity for them and if Hermione had been correct, they only had a few more minutes in this time before the time turner would send them back. He was never good at disciplining his children, his wife constantly had to be the bad guy.
"We have a few minutes before we're sent back." Harry approved. "But be careful, there are a lot of rotted boards in there." Lily and James ran to the front door which was hanging off the hinges. Lilly grimaced at the cobwebs hanging in the window but both were Gryffindors and a few spiders weren't going to stop them.
"Wow, this place really does look different." James said pealing some of the crumbling wallpaper off the wall. "Isn't this where the bathroom is?" James was standing in an alcove off the 'kitchen' that was originally meant to be for a small dining area. Harry smiled as the memories flooded back to him. He had used the small alcove as his bedroom until Bill and he could stabilize the upper floor.
"Yup," Harry said, "That is also where I proposed to your mother." Let the children think that it was a well-planned out proposal at the kitchen table and not a spur of the moment thing after making passionate love.
"How romantic." Lily said sarcastically grimacing, not noticing the stupid grin on her father's face; or perhaps she was too young to understand. James, being almost 16, chose to ignore the stupid grin, not wanting to think about his parents that way.
After a few more minutes of exploring the ruin that was their future home, Harry looked down at his watch. It had been ten minutes since they landed in this time. He couldn't remember the specific time Hermione had told him but a bad feeling started churning in Harry's stomach. He went back outside where they had appeared. Searching the ground for the time piece proved to be futile. Perhaps Hermione had been wrong and it took longer than a few minutes… Harry's stomach churned again. He could count on one hand the number of times Hermione had been wrong.
"Is everything okay dad?" James had come out of the house, Lily trailing behind him.
"Are you guys hungry?" Harry asked in the calmest voice he could. There was no need to alarm of something wrong, after all he didn't know that something was actually wrong… but every second they didn't pop back into their time Harry's panic grew. Not that he would let his kids see it. "There's this little café in the village that closed down just before Albus was born. Your mother cried for three days after they closed. Don't tell her I told you that though." Harry's kids may not be Ravenclaw material but they were far from stupid. They gave each other apprehensive looks before taking their father's arms. Harry apparated them away from the only home they had known.
The village was smaller than even Harry remembered. There was still a gas station on the corner at the exit of town but it had changed owners, the brand was unfamiliar to Harry. The little café Harry remembered was kiddy-corner to the gas station. The parking lot was empty at the moment but it was a little early for the dinner rush. Harry ushered the kids inside. The place looked new, everything was white instead of the slightly yellow Harry remembered. The menus were pristine and the waitress was quick to get the kids some water and a pot of coffee for Harry. There was a television behind the café bar showing the nightly news but otherwise the place was empty and silent.
James and Lily started hissing at each other. Harry ignored them. All three of his children were gifted with parseltounge. It frightened Ginny the first time she heard Albus speaking to a snake in the garden. Discrete tests were done and it didn't take long for them to discover that Lily and James had the gift as well. The Potters kept it a family secret but at home Lily, James and Albus would have hissed conversations to each other… they didn't need to know that Harry and Ginny both, having had the gift at some point in their lives could understand them even if they could not speak the language or to snakes themselves anymore.
"He's doing it again." Lily hissed.
"He's worried about something." James hissed back. They were discussing the way Harry was staring into his cup of coffee, his finger circling the rim. Harry did this when he was contemplating something big, like a hard case at work or ministry politics. "We aren't supposed to be here still."
"What do you mean?" Lily hissed. It was hard to put emotion in hissing but somehow Lily managed it; she was scared.
"That's enough you two." Harry said as the waitress brought two plates of food to the table. Harry had only enough muggle money on him for two dinners. He had a decent amount of wizard money on him but until he knew how long they were going to be here and when they exactly were he would avoid the wizarding world. The last thing he needed was for someone to recognize him.
Harry stared into his coffee once more, the children silently eating. What was he going to do if they were stuck here? Could he get a message to the future somehow? Perhaps hide something in the house… but how would Ginny know to look there at this precise time. He could write a letter and send it in the post with instructions to deliver it only at the right time. Harry sighed. The muggle post was unreliable in the best of circumstances and he would need to entrust the letter with someone in the wizarding world to get it to them through owl. Harry had no trust in either of those options. Something caught Harry's attention away from his coffee…
"… The public is warned that Black is armed and extremely dangerous. A special hot line has been set up, and any sighting of Black should be reported immediately." The newscaster reported. Harry turned around in his chair to see the picture of his godfather on the screen. He had forgotten the first time he had seen his godfather had been on a muggle television. He had also forgotten how grizzly Sirius looked in that picture, choosing to remember him as he was at Grimmauld Place or the picture he had of him and his father before Sirius had gone to Azkaban.
Harry sighed when the report turned to a different story. At least he knew when they were, not that knowing this piece of information comforted him in any way. Turning back around, he surveyed his children. Lily was picking at her food but James was watching him, a frown on his face.
"We're not supposed to be here still." James stated this time in English. Lily stopped picking at her food and looked to her father. Harry took a deep breath before answering.
"No." Harry kept the response short not trusting his voice to keep the emotions he was feeling at bay.
"The time turner didn't come through with us." James stated.
"No." Harry confirmed.
"It probably broke in the explosion." James was working through what Harry had already figured out.
"Probably." Harry said sipping on his coffee.
"Which means when they see it they'll know what happened and come get us?" James concluded. Harry shook his head.
"They wouldn't even know where to start looking. It's like a needle in a hay stack." Harry answered. "An endless time of haystack."
"So we tell someone and they'll know when." James said.
"The moment we interact with someone we change the future James." Harry replied.
"So we send a letter or get a message to someone without telling anyone." James voice was more insistent. He was starting to panic, coming to the conclusion Harry already had.
"I already have the intention of doing so." Harry explained. "But by having the intention someone should have already come through that door." Harry, James and Lily all looked at the door as the bell chimed. In walked an older couple. The waitress greeted them and sat them at one of the tables. Lily started to cry.
"There has to be something we can do." James said his voice cracking with emotion. Both children understood now what coming here meant. It meant never going back, never seeing their friends or family ever again; at least not in the same way as they remembered.
Lily leaned into her brother's side and he put his arm around her. Harry grabbed his son's hand firmly across the table hoping to convey some form of comfort.
"I don't know." Harry said, his voice betraying him and shaking. "But I don't think so." A tear fell down Harry's cheek. James's hand gripped his father's tighter. Tears fell freely as father and son stared at each other in grief, hanging on to the only thing they had left in the world.
A/N: Yeah, yeah, another time travel story. I enjoy messing with the world JK Rowling has created. Let me know what you think. I think I'll post the next chapter in the next day or two...