…Harry saw Sirius duck Bellatrix's jet of red light: He was laughing at her. "Come on, you can do better than that!" he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room.
The second jet of light hit him squarely in the chest. The laughter had not yet died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock.
… It seemed to take Sirius an age to fall. His body curved in a graceful arc as he sank backward through the ragged veil hanging from the arch…
July 31 1981
Department of Mysteries
Sirius hit the floor with a thud.
"Arg," he clutched his chest where the jet had struck him. "Where is that Bitch?" Sirius spat as he stood up on the other side of the veil.
He angrily stormed around the arch to where Bellatrix Lestrange had been just a moment ago.
"Where did she go?" his voice rang through the empty hall. "Where did everybody go?"
At this point Sirius wasn't sure if he were angry or confused.
"What the Hell?" he said, deciding he was both.
Being careful not to disturb anything, Sirius made his way out of the department. He took the lift to the main level, not meeting anyone on his way out until the last moment.
"Sirius? Sirius Black? What are you doing here today?" inquired a strange yet familiar voice.
Sirius turned to see Fudge, the minister of magic, but he looked younger. It must be a new potion he's trying out Sirius thought.
"Minister?"
Fudge turned to look behind him and then looked back at Black, obviously confused.
"The Minister of Magic is on holiday in Scotland, Sirius. Can I help you?"
Sirius stared at Fudge wondering if his youth potion had backfired. He decided that he didn't have the time to fix the minister and didn't really want to anyway considering how much of an ass he was.
"Ah, no, no, I'll just come back later I guess," he said, quickly turning on his heels and exiting the ministry. He needed to know what had happened to Harry. He needed to see to Dumbledore. And the one thing he knew for sure was where Dumbledore was.
"SIRIUS!" he bellowed, "SIRIUS!"
"He can't come back, Harry…"
Harry awoke from his nightmare; sweat beading down his face and back. It took a moment for him to figure out where he was, and with deep sadness he realized he was back at number four Privet Drive. He groped for his glasses and shoved them on, standing up in the process.
Harry raked his hands through his hair, inhaling deeply several times in an attempt to calm his heart. He then glanced at his bedside clock, grimacing as he read the time: 4:53 A.M. He knew that he would not get back to sleep. He never could after a nightmare about Sirius. Staring out the open window, Harry let his thoughts wonder.
And of course the first thing that entered his head was… the prophecy. "Neither can live while the other survives… Born as the seventh month dies… Neither can live…" Harry shut his eyes tight, trying to block out the words. It was no use; they had been burned into his memory once he had heard them. He groaned in frustration. "… a power the Dark Lord knows not…" How was he, Harry, a fifteen-year-old wizard, supposed to defeat one of the most feared wizards of all time? Harry was confident in his defense skills, but kill Voldemort? His stomach turned at the thought.
And what was this power the prophecy talked about? He knew he had his mothers love to protect him, but that wasn't going to be enough, and Voldemort was no longer affected by it anyway. Harry massaged his temples, groaning again.
How he wished he could talk to Ron or Hermione. He had not seen them in two-and-a-half weeks and the urge to tell them about what happened in Dumbledore's office was growing. He would not risk writing it in a letter, because owls were likely to be intercepted, and he did not know when he would next see them in person. Hermione had hinted that he would see them very soon, but not a word of meeting up with the Weasleys or the order had been relayed to him. All he had gotten was a small yellow marble and a note that said: keep this with you. But so far all it had done was shimmer at him.
He sighed. He would think about it latter. So he scooted over to his desk, turned on the small lamp and opened his Transfiguration book. Harry didn't have a lamp or a desk or even a bedside clock last summer, but he had acquired several new things this summer due to the Dursleys' growing fear that the order would turn up on their doorstep. Which was fine with Harry since he seldom left his room. Thoughts of Sirius and that stupid prophecy filled his head nonstop these days.
Might as well get some homework done Harry told himself as he read the first and very boring line: 'Pictures taken with a Camera made for moving pictures cannot be transfigured or changed in any way by magic under the magically binding decree of 1922', but before he completely immersed himself into the huge text, his last thought was: What am I going to do?
A large black dog bounded swiftly towards a dark Hogwarts from an off road in Hogsmead. He had to talk to Dumbledore. Maybe he would have an idea as to what happened at the ministry. Back in his human form, Sirius opened the large mahogany doors of the castle. He vaguely wondered what time it was as he sprinted through the corridors to Dumbledore's office. It was pitch black outside and the corridors were completely devoid of any life whatsoever. As far as Dumbledore's office was concerned, that was easy to find considering he was the most frequent visitor in his own days at this school.
When he arrived at the griffin statue, Sirius started to spout out random candy choices, for it was a well-know fact among the order members that Dumbledore's password was usually a sweet of some kind.
At the words: "Cauldron Cakes," the statue revealed the stairway to Dumbledore's office. With Voldemort on the loose, the old headmaster would not be sleeping well and there was probably a good chance he would be pacing his office.
Sure enough, Dumbledore stood in the corner of his office, examining a large time turner.
"What brings me the pleasure of your company Mr. Black?" Dumbledore said with a somber expression on his face as he sat down at his desk. When Dumbledore regained his focus on Sirius, Sirius started to ask questions wildly.
"Where's Harry? Is he okay? What happened at the ministry? I fell only for a moment but the order was gone. You-know-who didn't get the prophecy, did he? What about the kids? Are they all right? And why are you looking at me like I'm mad?"
Dumbledore looked very solemn, but not nearly as weary as he had been lately.
"I am afraid I am not the Dumbledore you are looking for."
"Oh God, you're possessed!"
"No, Sirius, you do not understand. I am not the Albus Dumbledore you have just fought with at the ministry. You have traveled back through time. My future self contacted me with this letter and bag." He handed Sirius a letter with emerald green writing and a small burlap bag.
"Read the letter carefully; don't look in the bag and good luck."
"Good luck with what?"
"You'll see, now you better get going." Dumbledore retreated to his desk and started to pull silvery strings of thought from his mind to place in his pensive.
Sirius started to walk out of the office when a tiny marble on a shelf near the door caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it when Dumbledore's back was turned and then placed back on its pedestal. As he left, however the marble fell silently behind its stand and rolled to the back of the shelf.
Even though he was already two weeks into summer vacation, Albus Dumbledore sat behind his desk at Hogwarts writing letters. He had decided to stay there rather than number 12 Grimwald Place so he would be in position to receive owls (the whereabouts of the order was still to remain a secret).
An odd prickling sensation was taking residence on the back of Dumbledore's neck as he re-dipped his quill. The room started to blur as if it where boiling. It had only lasted a moment, but it had left Dumbledore with a strange feeling. He glanced around the room as if looking for an invisible intruder. As soon as he looked back at his parchment the funny blurring started again and the room seemed to morph. A flickering embodiment of Sirius Black leaned over his desk.
"And why are you looking at me like I'm mad?" said the flickering Sirius with a voice that sounded like an old recording.
Suddenly his office snapped back into focus and he heard a plopping sound behind him. The pensive rippled slightly in its bowl and across the room a marble fell from its pedestal.
"Oh, this is going to be a very long day…
A bewildered Sirius clambered out onto a street in Muggle London as a soft ban of purplish-pink began to blend into the horizon. He started to put his hand into the bag when he remembered that Past Dumbledore had told him not to open it. Instead he unfolded the letter that read thus:
Sirius—
You are in the year 1981, around October 11, I presume, and are rather confused about a few things. Firstly you are wondering about what happened to you in the Ministry. You were shot by Bellatrix and forced through the veil behind you. This veil was in the Department of Mysteries because no one ever came back once they had gone through. It was assumed that you were dead, or at least irretrievable. I felt a dimensional shift in my office and kept it open just long enough to confer with my past self and give him the bag and the letter.
By now I'm sure you've fully understood what time you have been thrown into. What ever you do, don't try to kill Peter Petigrew. To serve simply as a reminder, changing the past in any way may dramatically change the future. It may take a while to understand the exact meaning of my words above, but do not give up too soon and remember that no matter what happens: go with what's in your heart.
Good Luck,
Albus Dumbledore
PS The bag is to be kept with you at all times.
In his immersion in Dumbledore's letter, Sirius had not seen the many passer bys and had in fact bummed into a rather ruddy looking man with very little neck. The man gave Sirius a scolding glare, his face slipping into a deeper shade of puce. Sirius ignored him and dashed to the other side of the street.
Suddenly the noise of screeching tires and the smell of burning rubber hit Sirius with a strong sense of foreboding. Slowly he turned to see a mess of broken glass and splattered blood. The man he had bummed into lay motionless on the gray concrete. Sirius knew under normal circumstances, this would not have been his fault. But had he somehow caused this man to die before his time?
The sun danced on Harry's face, or at least he thought it was sunlight. It was in fact the reflection of a mirror as it moved up and down. Harry opened his eyes to see Ginny Weasley staring at him. He sat up with a start.
"Sorry," she said "I didn't want to wake you, but… I've been having bad dreams again."
"Where am I?" Harry said as he scanned the room.
"You're at the burrow, silly," Ginny said with a pretty smile.
"Of course," Harry said sarcastically as he wiped his eyes. "What time is it?"
"Around five I think. And again I'm sorry—"
"It's okay, I was just wondering why you didn't wake Ron or somebody."
"Wake up Ron? Are you insane? He'd kill me as soon as look at me. And why would you of all people suggest that, I mean you guys hate each other," Ginny said with intense dislike.
"What are you talking about? I don't hate Ron." Her remark had to be a sarcastic, but she sounded serious.
"Yeah, yeah, you love him 'cause he's our brother, but we both know you two have never been the best of chums, now have you?"
"Where are my glass… did you just say Ron and I are brothers?"
"Are you alright Harry? Maybe I should be worried about you instead." She moved her hand forward and Harry flinched.
"I was just going to check your temperature," she said smoothly.
Harry decided to let her do it if it would make her feel better, but something was seriously wrong.
"Where are my glasses?" he said as he glanced around the bedroom.
"Glasses? You never wore glasses. I mean Mum and Dad said they got your eyes fixed when you were a baby…." Harry now noticed that his vision was not blurred, though the room was dark. "We both know how mad Ron always is when you get something special. He thinks they give you all the attention because you are the famous Harry Potter. And he might be right, but now that he hangs around with those snooty Slytherin friends of his…. And all that fuss about him being the only one not in Gryffindor, he's just a whinny baby.
He stared at Ginny wondering what to think of her little charade. Harry being adopted by the Weasleys? Ron in Slytherin? Harry was convinced she was making it all up, though he could not explain the miraculous healing of his eyes that suddenly gave him 20-20. Harry decided to make light of it and grinned.
"How'd you do it, eh?" he said rubbing his eyes.
"Do what?" Ginny asked.
"How did you fix my eyes over night like that?"
"Honestly Harry, I have no idea what you are talking about," she said in the sort of exhausted way a cat tries to explain to dog that he's chasing his own tail.
"Alright," he said still grinning foolishly. "Whatever you say. Just tell me about your dream."
She raised her eyebrows and said, "It's the same dream I have all the time, the one about Voldemort possessing me, except this time when we leave the chamber Ron's there with us. Isn't that weird?" At this point, Harry was starting to get annoyed with her.
"Yes, that would be weird if he wasn't, in fact, there to begin with."
"Will you please stop messing around? I came in here because I thought you would want to talk about this. You always made things make sense, but now you're just confusing me." At this she started to tear up and Harry gave up his frivolous attempt to wrench the truth out of her. Maybe some spell backfired and she was mixed up inside. Whatever the explanation was for her odd behavior, Harry put his arm around her.
"Let's look at old pictures," Ginny said. "That always makes things better."
She left the room momentarily and came back with a large maroon Album. As they began to flip through the pages, Harry noticed immediately that everything was all wrong. Harry was in a moving photograph with the Weasley's when he was just a toddler. How did all these pictures get changed…? Suddenly, Harry remembered the line in his Transfiguration text: Pictures taken with a Camera made for moving pictures cannot be transfigured or changed in any way by magic under the magically binding decree of 1922….
Harry flipped through the rest of the pictures at a rapid pace, each one telling a life Harry couldn't remember living.
"What's wrong now?" Ginny asked.
Harry didn't answer. He just stared at her. What had happened to him? This must be some crazy dream. How could he live in a world were he was adopted by the Weasleys and his best friend hated him?
Sirius stood in the corner of the small room in confusion. He had crashed in a cheap London hotel after that incident with the man on the street. It had taken him awhile to get to sleep, but now he was having one hell of a dream. The occupants didn't seem to notice his being there and, even stranger; it didn't feel like a dream at all. In a dream you usually find yourself involved in some ridiculous situation, but, as you are in a dream, you find the situation to be perfectly normal. Sirius, however, felt that the situation was very ridiculous and rather wondered what he was doing in the burrow as this scene unfolded.
He watched as Harry paced about the room after he had flipped through the album. Suddenly Harry turned and started yelling at the frightened looking Ginny Weasley. Shortly after this, Molly and Arthur stormed in to see what all the commotion was about. Sirius got a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach like this was somehow entirely his fault. Harry started to yell even louder now.
"I live with the Dursleys—my aunt and uncle."
"You don't have any other family dear," Mrs. Weasley said calmly.
"I do so! My Uncle Vernon, you know… a stout sort of fellow with a ruddy complication! Angry at the world for being different, ring any bells?" The three Weasleys stared at Harry with deep sadness.
"You know I do think I remember Lilly mentioning her sister courting a fellow named Dursley…" Mr. Weasley began meditatively.
"Oh dear," Mrs. Weasley said quietly. "I remember now. Lily told me all about it. Her poor sister Petunia married that man, but she killed herself when he was hit by a car in a London street. They had a baby too, but he didn't make it with out his medicine." There was a silence in the tiny room and then Molly said: "However did you know about them?" The death of the man on the street had been Sirius' fault after all.
At this point the room got very cold and dark. Death eaters appeared in their black robes and with flashes of green light the three Weasleys fell around him.
"With out the protection you had at the Dursleys, Voldemort can find you," Sirius said, though he knew he could not be heard.
The Sirius ran in the room, trying to save Harry, explaining that it was all his fault that Ron hated Harry now and that the Dursleys and now three of the Weasleys had died. But as soon as he was close enough to touch Harry, Harry disappeared with a puff of smoke, leaving Sirius in a cheap London Hotel room alone.
Sitting in a coffee shop in downtown London, Sirius re-read Dumbledore's letter. So he was sitting in the past reading a letter from the future… or was it the present. Not this present, because this present is really the past and the future was also the present, just a different one.
"My head hurts…"
"Then maybe you should have some coffee," said the girl from behind the counter. She looked annoyed and her hair seemed to flush red with contempt.
"Some people actually buy coffee when they come to a coffee shop and don't just sit there loitering about," said the girl said leaving Sirius with a strange feeling of Déjà vu.
"Tonks?" he said incredulously.
" 'ow you know my name, mister?" Perhaps he should have thought before he spoke out like that.
"I'm… er… am a friend of the family," he made up poorly.
"Friend of the family, eh? 'ows family?"
"Um…"
"Wait, I do know you! You're that Sirius Black chap, aren't you? Dumbledore's told me all about you. You look a bit old though. I'm joinin' the er… order too you know. I know I'm kinda young, but…. What has Dumbledore said about me to you, eh? Nothing bad I hope." This was all rushed together and said in a hushed whisper as she leaned over the counter.
"Hey you! I don't pay you to pick up costumers, girly. Back to work!" Tonks rolled her eyes and began to clean out the coffee mixer, though Sirius could see a distinctive space between her hands and the mixer.
He couldn't risk running into too many people now he had seen the effects of his presence here. The whole time paradox thing was alright with Sirius. He knew that he wouldn't fully understand how this was all possible, but he wanted to know why Dumbledore and Harry were immune to the time shift as well and why he could see what was happening with Harry. It didn't make any sense unless it was all just part of a complicated spell that just happened to have those side effects. Those closed to you will see as you see or some such nonsense.
Sighing deeply he tried to decide what to do next. Dumbledore had told him not to kill Peter… that was oddly specific. But the rest was sort of a nudge, nudge, wink, wink kind of deal. Go with what's in your heart. Well that was a scary thought. His heart said to hunt down Voldemort and strangle the bastard with his bare hands—or maybe that was his bulging blood vessels that popped out of his neck that were telling him that.
"Got it!" he said, receiving several strange looks as he stood rapidly to his feet. Now he knew how Archimedes felt as he yelled 'Eureka!' while running down the streets of the city naked.
He knew exactly what he was going to do, but not exactly how to do it. He needed a low budget disguise so he could pay a visit to a rather handsome young fellow that bared a striking resemblance to Sirius himself.
A youthful and innocent Sirius Black sat in deep thought at an old, wobbly wooden desk. This decision had been plaguing him for weeks, but now he thought he had made up his mind. 'It's for the best,' he tried to convince himself unsuccessfully. It was just that Peter was so… impressionable. Sirius loved the old sod, but could he trust the lad?
"It's all for the best," he muttered under his breath. The truth of the matter was that he was simply too obvious. Voldemort would surely come for him first and try to wrench it out of him. It would fail, of course. Sirius would rather die than give up his friends, but maybe this way no one would have to die. Peter was less apparent and that was that.
Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the door behind him. Sirius shuffled clumsily with the papers on his desk and quickly locked them in a drawer.
"Have a message for you from one Lemond Drop," came a husky voice from beyond the door.
"Right, hold on," said Sirius as he waved the various security spells away like cob webs with his wand.
The door creaked open and a man about his own height handed him a note with the words printed in a neat cursive: Don't trust a rat to do a dog's job.
"If you would please sign right here," said the man. He began to reach for the pen, but hesitated. This seemed legit. Dumbledore often found clever ways of getting a message across without having to worry about owls being intercepted. And he always used some ridiculous candy name in there somewhere to assure you it was really him. Taking the pen he signed in a flourish that would have sent a graphologist to the zoo with all the analyzing that could be done.
"Thank you; have a nice day," said the man, who then turned abruptly and left. Sirius shut the door, sat back down at the desk, unlocked the door, and ripped up the papers.
The fuzzy gray darkness seemed as though it could have lasted an eternity… or perhaps just a moment. It was hard to tell. Harry sat bolt upright in a luxurious bed with a fluffy comforter. There was an ornate clock on the wall that read 4:53. Looking around he could see that the room was lavishly decorated with gold and silver curtains and the thread count on these sheets had to be more than 1000. It took him a few seconds to realize what had woken him up exactly. A large boom had resonated from somewhere below him and it happened again; this time with the accompaniment of shattering glass.
Running out of the room, Harry followed the sound of the staggering booms. It seemed as though it were getting louder as he jumped several steps at a time to reach the lower level of this oddly familiar mansion. Maybe he had seen it in a dream once. Maybe this was all just a dream.
A man was slouching over a display table in the foyer. He looked like shit. His hair was greasy and his complexion indicated he had been sick several times in a toilet of a rather dingy pub somewhere. Harry tried not to be surprised when he found out who the man was. He simply strode over to him and helped him get over to the couch. The man slobbered and stuttered in confused fear as he looked blankly at Harry.
"Oh, it's you," he agitatedly mumbled. This was all beginning to be a little too much for Harry at the moment. Why was this happening? Was he just going to keep changing realities until nothing was real? Or was this all a plot of Voldemort's? Nothing seemed to make any sense anymore.
"Are you going to just stand there, boy? Or are you going to get me a damp cloth and some coffee?" Harry just stared at him, trying not to let all his discontent seep through, but it didn't work.
"Why are looking at me like that? Why do you always look at me like that? Like I'm this great disappointment to you? James would never have looked at me that way. He would have wanted to be taking risks with me instead of being so judgmental. James would have—". Something snapped inside of Harry. Something that was there in the last days of Sirius' life that he had regretted feeling after his death, but now Sirius was here—right in front of him—and the anger came swelling back.
"I'm not my father," he said through gritted teeth.
"What was that you said to me, boy?"
"I said: I'm not my father. And if I was I don't think I would like it that you were wasting away or taking risks that could end up getting you killed!" Harry yelled with a voice that shook of restrained weeping as he jumped to his feet.
"How dare you speak to me like this? It was me took you in after your parents died. It was me who raised you. You have no right—"
"Oh, shut up. You're no better than the Durselys. The Sirius my dad knew wouldn't be coming home drunk and using his son as a twisted way of reliving his past!"
"You never knew your father."
"And you just love to remind me of that don't you!"
"Don't give me this now. And stop yelling; it's giving me a headache."
"I will not stop yelling! Maybe you should stop coming home drunk!" Harry didn't really know how often this happened, but he had been so angry with Sirius about him treating him like his father that any yelling made him feel better.
Sirius swung blindly and missed Harry by about three feet.
"Look at yourself! Can't you even hit me? You're pathetic! I don't know which was worse, though. Your being a drunk and thinking I'm James, or your being sober and thinking I'm James. Why couldn't you have just been there for me when I needed you? I hate you. I hate you! And now your dead and you can't even really hear, all 'cause you took a stupid risk! I hate you!"
Sirius nearly choked on his own tears.
"I'm here! I'm here, Harry! I didn't die! I'm sorrrrrry," he sobbed as he fell to the ground. The other version of himself swung stupidly again and fell off the couch as he passed out. Crying, Harry kicked the man repeating that he hated him until he feel to the ground himself in anguish. And it was dark.
"It's alright. It will all be fine. I just need to… I can still fix it—"
"Talking to yourself, Sirius?" Sirius was in fact talking to himself and looked up from the street to see two twinkling eyes staring back.
"I thought you stopped that habit a long time ago, or was it tomorrow?" said Dumbledore with a humor that seemed to escape Sirius at the moment. They were standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk, yet no one seemed to notice the tall, elderly man in rich crimson robes; though they did notice a haggard man in dull clothing obstructing their passage.
"Let's get out of, er… the way shall we," gritted Sirius as several passer bys knocked into him on their way to their top floor business meetings. They ducked into a nearby pub and the exhausted Sirius ordered a Bloody Mary. He could feel Dumbledore's eyes on him as he did this.
"What? I can't order a drink?"
"Sirius, you need to do what you came here to do." Sirius looked blankly at the Wizard in front of him.
"Which one are you?" he said with narrowed eyes. Dumbledore raised his eyebrows and continued on as though he had not been asked a vital question.
"You need to save Harry's future." Another blank look.
"Seriously, are you the old one or the, well, aged one. Let me try that again—"
"Go to your young self as you. There is no more time for skirting around it. We have to fix things while we still can. He is going to tell Voldemort in a matter of days where Lily and James are hiding…"
"I do what? No! I would have never…"
"You saw what Harry saw," Dumbledore said plainly.
"I'm going to find my younger self and kick my ass…"
"You will have to get through a mess of death eaters and into the dungeons of Voldemort's hideout first. They are torturing you there. Soon they will bring in something to convince you. Hurry and head for the clock tower. A portkey awaits you there." With his last words he disappeared, but Sirius was already out the door of the pub. The bartender turned around.
"'Ere's your… bloody hell where did 'e go?"
Sirius wasn't sure what he had expected, but when he remembered Dumbledore's words 'death eaters' and 'dungeon' he was almost certain that the portkey had been tampered with.
"Would you like to try our new sent? Utopia for Men. It's all the rage in Paris," said a middle-aged blonde in an American accent. For a moment Sirius contemplated this.
"Really? All the rage? Wait… what? No. I'm sorry I think I'm terribly lost. I don't suppose you know where Lord Voldemort's dungeons are, do you?" He was losing it.
The blonde smiled in pleasant confusion. "Are you talking about the Dungeon Tavern? The restaurant? It's just down there and to your left," she offered gesturing to the end of the atrium.
Sighing heavily he picked up a strip of tester paper and smelt Utopia for Men. It wasn't actually half-bad. Only 1/3.
"Down and to the left you say? A restaurant… hmmm… what are they going to do? Threaten me with mozzarella sticks?"
"Pardon me, sir?" the women said hoping it some British slang for 'I'll take 20 takes of your lovely perfume.'
"Ah… nothing. Thanks for your help." This wasn't making any sense. Where was he? America maybe? But why? More important was the question of what they were going to use against him, or his past self, to get him to fess up.
It was a quaint little place with plastic wall paneling that was supposed to look like wood. Standing behind a host podium was a tall figure clad in black with a non-threatening also plastic scythe.
"Table for one?" the figure said with a very deep and dramatic voice.
"Er… no. I'm with the Voldemort party. Strange snake-looking fellow with a man that looks rather like a younger me…"
"Oh yes," the figure's voice seemed to waver as though the memory of the snake-looking fellow sent him back under the covers.
"I believe he said his name was Slytherin. He said he didn't wish to be disturbed—"
"Oh nonsense. Is he in a party room somewhere?" Sirius said as he glanced at the restaurant behind the figure.
"Yeah, it's up the stairs behind you, but he—" the host had lost all of his pretence now and had the accent of a frightened American teenage boy.
"I'd run as far away from here as I could if I were you," Sirius said in all seriousness as he approached the stair case at a run.
Harry awoke to the smell of bacon. The aroma wafted him out of a soft bed and into a cheery, sunflower wallpapered hallway. His subconscious would have thought this all a dream if it was capable of anything other than motor functions. Down a flight of stairs and into a sunlit kitchen, Harry landed into a wooden chair in front of the tiled kitchen table on which the bacon and other delectable breakfast foods rested.
"Good morning, son," said a warm voice as a strong hand ruffled his hair.
"Morning," Harry said sleepily.
"Looks like the weather's going to hold today," the man said conversationally.
"What was that dear?" A woman had now entered, barring a pan of muffins. Harry's eyes traced the muffins to a pair of shocking green eyes.
"Oh I was just saying the weather looked good for today's event."
"What event?" Harry said, too mesmerized to be in shock at the sight before him.
"Oh, Harry, always such a kidder," the woman said with a giggle as the man laughed lightly towards his wife.
"Eat up, tiger. We don't want to be late," Harry's father said with a gentle nudge on the chin. Harry smiled and resumed his breakfast.
At a leisurely pace, the three family members stepped into the dazzling sunlight and followed the massive crowd that overran the streets and lanes of London. They came to an abrupt halt in Trafalgar Square where a maleficently handsome face enticed the populous swarm on a large screen.
"I, your lord and master, do proclaim from this day forth that all muggles and half-breads will be decimated by our faithful dementors in my newly constructed death camps." There was a cheer from the masses as Harry looked in horror upon his parents' evilly contorted faces.
"I'm discussed to even be related to those squirmy, magicless vermin," Lilly Potter spat.
"That's alright, my dear. You have been renewed in their blood and rebaptized when you murdered them the night we meet Our Sacred Lord in Godric's Hollow," said James. His eyes were bloodshot and glazed over.
"I remember it like was yesterday," she said with a dreamy gaze. "We were disillusioned then. We thought Our Lord was wrong for trying to rid us of all those disgusting mud bloods. It was that fool Dumbledore who had made us blind to the righteousness of it. If Sirius hadn't killed Dumbledore earlier that night, we might have never seen the truth."
"HE DID WHAT?" Harry yelled and several people turned to either stare at him or shush him.
"Keep your voice down, Lad. We don't want to draw attention. It's time for the daily bowing," his father said as clumps of people feel to their knees and stretched their arms out in front of themselves. Harry backed away from his parents and tripped over bowing bodies behind him. His feet slipped and he banged his head on the hard concrete. The last thing he heard was Lord Voldemort's voice being blasted through the square.
"I DID WHAT?" Sirius exclaimed before he found himself back in the closet he was hiding in. He must have dosed off while he waited to hear conversation from the other room. The door to the party room had been cracked and he had seen a flickering light from inside, but he had heard no voices—until now.
"I'll never tell you where Lily and James are! Never!" Sirius heard his younger self swear.
"Perhaps this will make you change your mind," a slithering voice hissed.
"Dumbledore!" Young Sirius wailed.
"Dumbledore?" Older Sirius whispered to himself in confusion.
"Yes, Dumbledore," the vicious Lord Voldemort spat at the younger Sirius in the party room of the Dungeon Tavern. Older Sirius peeked outside of his closet to find the door to that room was now guarded by four death eaters in masks.
"He was called by a collaborator of mine and poisoned not but thirty minutes ago under my direction. If you had just given the secret keeper job to Peter as I had planned, it would have not needed to come to this. I suppose Wormtail was not as convincing as I had hoped he would be," Voldemort continued.
"Peter works for you? Then I was right to trust the… my instincts."
"Tipped off, were you? No matter. You must tell me now or let the old fool die. Whose life do you value more? Your best friend's or your leader's?" There was a long silence and both Sirius's held their breaths.
"We don't have all day, Black. Tell me now!" The Sirius in the closet imagined a grotesque Voldemort digging his wand into a limb Dumbledore's neck.
"Wait!" two voices in unison said as one Sirius got to his feet and the other broke out of the closet. The commotion outside of the room caused Voldemort himself to fling open the door, revealing four death eaters struggling with a middle-aged Wizard.
"Who are you?" he hissed.
"Sirius Black, come from the future to save my past."
"You're a little late," Voldemort snarled. "There's nothing you can do now to stop me from reaching Lilly and James. With Dumbledore dead, his Secret Keeper charm will unravel easily. I just never thought I would be able to trick the old man into drinking the poison, but Severus made it look like stealing candy from a baby. I don't really need either of you. I was just going to blame your younger self for killing Dumbledore and use it as a lever for more supporters."
"What have I done?" The older Sirius fell to his knees and put his hands to his face. "All I wanted to do was save Lily and James and all I did was make it worse!"
"You're more pathetic than I thought, Black. Get rid of them." Voldemort said as he turned to a Death Eater to his left.
"Nothing I could have done would have saved the past. Even if I knew Snape was a traitor, I probably would have just made it worse anyway. I was given a second chance and I blew it! I wish I was better to Harry when I had the chance. Why did I leave him like that? How could I? I just thought I could change destiny, but I was wrong. No one can change their destiny." His last word echoed against the cheaply paneled walls and the room began to spin. He was caught in the swirling vortex and everything blurred.
Sirius found himself being sucked through an archway and thrown unto the marble floor of the ministry. Dumbledore was standing patiently nearby as he picked himself up off the ground. They stared in silence for a moment before Sirius burst out in confusion at a calmly grinning Dumbledore.
"Why do you keep smiling like that? It's over; I failed! Lily and James still died. No matter what I did I couldn't change it. If anything I made it all worse by turning them into Voldemort's puppets. Stop smiling!"
"Sirius, don't you realize? This was what it was about all along. The veil traps people in their worst memories; forcing them to relive them with the full knowledge of what terrible things await them. Most stay there forever; convinced they can fix the past, but you figured it out. You found out you can't change the past, but instead you must make a brighter future with what you have. We're back, Sirius. In the present. Just as you left it." Sirius goggled at him.
"What was all this talk about: 'You know what you must do, Sirius. You must change Harry's future, blah, blah, blah'?"
"You have changed Harry's future simply by coming back. He has been most distraught over this tribulation."
"So did he really go through all that?" Dumbledore nodded.
"But, why?"
"That was my doing. I figured out what the veil did when I felt a temporal shift. I thought it was true time travel, but when I checked the pensive, nothing had been added. My office was just the center of a random opening between dimensions. I managed to hold it open long enough to explain it to my counterpoint and decide a plan of action."
"But how did you get Harry in all of this? And why?"
"It was always with you. In that bag I gave you." Sirius had forgotten all about the bag. He dug in his jacket pocket and opened it. Inside was the marble he had first examined that day in Dumbledore's office in the past.
"What is this?"
"It's The Eye of Horus, or one of them at least. It gives sight to the blind. You were given the moon eye and Harry was given the sun eye. With these you were both granted vision into one another's eyes to give sight back to your blind souls. Once you really saw what you had been missing from your life the eyes where thrown back to each other. Back to the dimension in which they were created and you with it."
"I see… ha ha."
"Yes, we all see now. I think it's time for you to have a long awaited chat with young Mister Potter." Sirius nodded. He was getting good at nodding.
"He's waiting for you at Grimwald Place. A portkey is just outside these doors."
Sirius smiled and pushed open the doors of the ministry. And it was light.