The Protector of Time

By GallifreyanMaiden

Summery- At thirty, Lily Potter is a prominent Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries. She is the Mistress of Time; the ultimate authority on Time and anything to do with it in the Department. When Time appears to be changing, one small event sending it spinning out of control, Lily must go back and set it to rights before the darkest time that her world has ever known returns to send Time itself spinning into chaos.

…

Chapter 1: The Vortex

Lily Potter stared tiredly at a mixture of numbers, runes and symbols, stopping only to take another long sip of coffee. Her posture sagged as she looked back down at her mess of papers; she quickly ran her thin fingers through her hair before picking up her quill and returning to work. Had anyone chanced to come by Lily Potter's office at that moment, they would have been left with the distinct impression that they were looking at a woman on the verge of collapse; her skin had the coloring and texture of the aged parchment that she so frequently consulted and her dark auburn hair stuck out at odd angles, hinting at the fact that she had fallen asleep at her desk more than once. She rubbed at her liquid brown eyes with considerable force, but nothing would remove the harsh purple bags from under them but sleep.

A timid knock sounded at her door, "Madame Potter?" called out the mousey little voice of Lily's secretary, June.

Lily threw down her quill in frustration, "What, June?" she snapped, "What could possibly be wrong? I swear to Merlin, if Klein's gone and fudged the timeturner information again because he was too goddamn lazy to look it up…"

June blushed floridly as she spoke again, "N-no, it's nothing like that…um…it's just that you were supposed to be at the induction of the trainees five minutes ago…"

Lily looked down at her watch and cursed loudly as she realized that this was indeed the case. She ran down the hall at full tilt, charming her hair and face as she went, her black pumps clicking against the hard granite and her cheeks flushing as she ran. It would be quicker, she decided, to get to the Halls of Time via the main entrance, rather than the roundabout way that she normally took from her office. Upon reaching the circular room that contained naught but a few doors, Lily took a moment to compose herself before gently laying her hand on the wooden door in front of her.

"The Halls of Time," she whispered hastily, her voice high and breathy, even as the walls around her began to spin. She grabbed ahold of the aged handle that stopped before her as the walls stopped their spinning and carefully composed her face into a mask of utter calm before she pulled the rough hewn door open. The soft click of her heels as she walked up to her appointed seat went unnoticed as all of the eager trainees gazed up at the Department head with uniform looks of wonder. Lily shook her head slightly with a mixture of amusement and disbelief; it was hard to believe that she'd ever been that young. She settled herself serenely into her seat, her back straight and her legs demurely crossed, sitting as if on a throne. From the raised dais that had been spelled into the middle of the room, Laura Madley, a woman of intermittent age who was the Head of the Department of Mysteries shot a glance at her and raised an eyebrow quickly. Lily responded with a wry smirk and simply sat up a bit straighter; in a few moments, she was on.

"And now," said Laura, in her large, carrying voice that Lily knew one naturally developed within weeks of obtaining a position of authority, "I present to you a woman who almost all of you will likely either work with, speak with or report to. Madame Lillian Potter-" Laura waited patiently for the excited whispering that always accompanied the mention of the name 'Potter' to subside, "As I was saying. Madame Potter is the Department's Mistress of Time; she works with and oversees any and all departments having to do with the aforementioned subject. She has proven herself a dedicated Unspeakable over her thirteen years with us and I cannot think of anyone better to introduce you to your newly chosen field."

A polite smattering of applause followed as Lily walked smoothly up to the dais, nodding at Laura as they passed each other on the steps, "You are too kind, Madame Madley. Thank you," she quickly turned her attention to the new recruits and without any preamble said, "Today, you join the ranks of some of the brightest witches and wizards in the wizarding community. Today is also the day that you join the ranks of the most unrecognized talents ever," Lily paused. Only silence met her. She smiled inwardly and went on, her voice more severe, "If you take only one thing away from this speech today, take this; an Unspeakable's greatest honor is the keeping of her silence. Nothing, not life nor death nor pain nor glory, is more important than the keeping of the secrets that we uncover within these walls. If you cannot live up to that, than you may as well leave now," she stopped her speech again to look closely at the small crowd. Not one person had moved an inch. She went on, "No truly great Unspeakable has taken this job to garner power or glory. It is not in the nature of our work. We work and research and discover in silence. The wizarding world at large may not know of what your work has resulted in for decades. Even then, you may not be given credit. We labor for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of uncovering the secrets of this world. The sweetest satisfaction any Unspeakable can hope to achieve is to be able, even if it is just for a moment, to see past the hodgepodge and the chaos and to see the beauty and order that the universe so carefully weaves. We sacrifice a fair few freedoms that other wizards have in order to obtain that single moment, however, plenty of Unspeakables have declared it one of the most meaningful in their lives. I finish this speech with only one with; the wish that you might experience that moment during your career with the Department, and that you might appreciate its full value when you do."

The new trainees looked at her with something beyond awe. Lily allowed herself a bit of self-satisfaction as she nodded modestly and left the dais to thundering applause.

She was good.

…

Still glowing from the success of her speech, Lily shoved aside her complex jumble of notes and treated herself to a nice cup of hot tea. She smiled genuinely for the first time in ages as she raised the steaming mug to her lips and lifted her trim legs to rest upon the desk. She began to drift in a pleasant haze almost immediately after her first sip and closed her eyes as she raised the mug for a second.

She felt that she was justified in being more than a bit annoyed when June's knock sounded at her door.

"Yes?" she called out flatly, still put out that her first moment of relaxation in months had been interrupted.

"Artemisia Wilkes to see you, Madame Potter. She says that it's urgent," June said timidly as she poked her head through the small crack in the doorway.

Lily readied herself hurriedly, "Yes, yes, send her in," she replied as she quickly made herself respectable. June nodded once and shut the door.

Lily had just settled herself as soon as a young blonde girl walked in. Her curly hair flounced down to her waist and was held back by a thin red headband, her dark blue eyes looked serious as she marched silently up to Lily's desk and took a seat in front of it, "We have a problem, Madame Potter."

Lily raised one delicate, plucked eyebrow, "Care to elaborate, Miss Wilkes?"

Artemisia nodded wearily, "It's the Vortex. It's gone rather funny, warping far beyond the normal levels. It's even gone off-color. None of the researchers can solve it and it's been decided that you should look into it before Time begins to suffer."

Lily looked stricken for a moment and then replied hoarsely, "Are you sure?"

Artemisia quirked a thin eyebrow in reply, "Would I be here if I wasn't?"

Lily nodded gravely and stood, "Right, well, follow me," she said, leading Artemisia at a fast clip down various hallways and past offices until she reached a great wooden door, to which she hissed her favorite flavor of jam, "Cherry." The door swung open obligingly and she raced to the smaller wooden door behind it, "The Vortex," she whispered breathlessly after hastily laying her hand against the door. A soft click sounded and Lily entered the room at a run with Artemisia following quickly behind her. She tucked a flyaway red strand back behind her ear before she stared intently into the small pool before her. This pool, which looked a bit like an overlarge pensive, was contained within a golden bowl and, under normal circumstances, was a black vortex shot through with blue and purple. However, as Lily stared into its depths, gripping the golden sides until her knuckles turned white, the Vortex was shot through with ever increasing amounts of red. She knew what this meant, but she hardly dared to believe it, Time was changing and the Universe was struggling to allow for it.

She looked up at Artemisia, gasping for air, "Fetch Madame Madley, quickly!" she said, abandoning any pretense of relative calm that she had held before, "Tell her to meet me here to discuss the immediate activation of Temporal Protocol One!"

Artemisia simply gaped at her in shock, "Go now!" Lily hissed at her as she stumbled over to a chair and collapsed. Artemisia ran to get the Department head whilst Lily ran a hand nervously through her hair. Something had changed in the past, something small, but that small thing had initiated a series of events that could not have been predicted. All of these events, though, would soon cumulate into one thing.

The return of the darkest wizard that her world had ever known.