AN: This story is complete at XX chapters - it's more fun for me if I don't tell you how many. I'll post as I edit and get feedback from my betas Slytherclaw and KaGoGoGadgetMe.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

The first time Harry killed someone as an auror was just a few years after he defeated Voldemort. He stared transfixed as the blood ran down the man's throat. Little rivulets of red, a stark contrast against rapidly paling skin. He watched expressive brown eyes struggling against death and losing, growing more vacant by the second.

"Potter," his boss voice broke him from his thoughts.

"Sir?" he replied.

"There is nothing that can be done for him."

"I know," he said tonelessly. A cutting curse to the neck and no immediate treatment, of course there was nothing that could be done for him. The man was 'lucky' to still be alive.

"Then come here and help take the rest back to HQ."

"Yes, sir," Harry said as he watched the man take his final breath. This was the first time Harry had killed a man directly and he didn't even know his name. He was just some Death Eater thug that had escaped the aurors until today. The rest would be facing trials soon, more people that would never hurt anyone's loved ones again. Tearing his gaze from the cooling corpse, Harry went over to his comrades, where they stood around the captured criminals.

"Thomson, Farley, you secure the scene with me," his boss said, "the rest of you take these men to HQ holding cells."

"Yes, sir," they replied in unison.

Elsewhere and else when, in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Minerva McGonagall Transfiguration Mistress and seasoned combatant was hurrying down a corridor. She was trying to catch up to Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and leader of the Order of the Phoenix.

"Are you sure this is the right course of action?" Minerva asked slightly out of breath. She had asked this question a thousand times and still was not sure of the answer.

"My dear, you know as well as I do that the alternatives are no better," Albus replied gravely, not slowing down his brisk walk. "Would you prefer another raid and more dead? More innocents drawn into this war? Alastor is talking of attacking Diagon Alley next, you know, and many are agreeing."

She could imagine who was agreeing, the Weasley's for example and Hermione Granger. Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley had been the first to die in this war, even if they hadn't known it at the time. Their friends and family were the most determined to do something to finally stop Voldemort, no matter the cost. Others had lost loved ones, but by then it had been open warfare. They weren't quite as bitter and their loved ones hadn't been quite as young and innocent as those two.

"They can't be serious!" Minerva exclaimed anyway, "The other targets were at least Death Eater gathering points." She preferred to think of it that way. Calling their targets Death Eater homes would mean acknowledging that they were no different than the Death Eaters themselves had been, before they became the respectable side of things.

"Oh, he only wants to attack aurors. He thinks such a high profile target will draw out Voldemort. He is probably correct in that assumption," Albus commented lightly, his hard eyes belying the tone of his voice.

"We are talking about Moody here, right? "Constant vigilance", "Mad-eye" Moody?" Minerva asked, "He has to know that innocents are sure to get involved if we attack Diagon. No matter how many aurors are stationed there."

"Of course he knows," Albus sighed.

Minerva nodded grimly, not really having expected any other answer.

"It will not be as bad as you think, Minerva. The ritual is designed to summon someone who fits into this dimension. Who wants to be here. They might be a bit disoriented in the beginning, but it will all work out in the end," Albus tried to reassure her with the words he had repeated hundreds of times over the last few weeks.

"I hope you are right, Albus. I hope you are right."

The rest of the way to the Hogwarts ritual room was passed in silence. Minerva and Albus were some of the last to arrive, the rest of the Order, or what remained of it, was already gathered. Most of the week long preparations for the ritual had gone into readying this room. With the dawn of wands, rituals had mostly gone out of fashion so the room had lain unused for quite some time.

The room had to undergone three different purification processes to prevent interference with this delicate ritual and a salt circle had been drawn on the ground. That was where the person they summoned was supposed to appear. Contrary to Muggle beliefs, it would in no way contain the person they summoned, it only was a marker and focus for the magic. The Order members gathered in three concentric circles, the further in front you were the better your skill at magic and, coincidentally in these times of war, at combat.

Minerva herself was positioned in the innermost circle. You didn't become a Transfiguration Mistress by being bad at magic after all. Directly across from her stood Albus who was going to lead the ritual, the rest of them would only lend the strength to cross dimensions.

Albus gave a sharp nod once everyone was in position. That was their signal to feed magic to the salt circle. Concentrating hard, she pointed her wand at the circle willing the magic to go there. She barely heard Albus chanting, giving the raw magic form, telling it what to do. Slowly, the pressure built around them until with a whoosh all magic disappeared.

They waited in silence for it to return. Hopefully, it would bring someone along that could help them with their Dark Lord problem. The minutes tickled by and only Albus' raised hand prevented people from talking and disrupting the ritual.

After what felt like an eternity, magic began building again. This time it condensed as a mist in the salt circle which rapidly shaped into a human. That much was clear. However, before anyone could get a better look, the magic dispersed and a man stood facing Minerva. She barely brought up her wand in time to shield herself against a rapidly fired, wide area blasting curse. And even then the shield bucked under the onslaught pushing her into the person behind her. Not all were as lucky as her though. However, she had little time to waste as the next second the new arrival was firing spells left, right and center, turning as he cast, ducking, dodging and twirling out of the way of their spells, making it difficult to hit him without risking hitting a friend.

It had been a while since Harry last had needed to take orders out in the field, nowadays he gave them. His experience during the war and his status as the defeater of Lord Voldemort had seen him rise quickly in the auror ranks. By now only Head Auror Roberts was directly above him in the chain of command, when he retired in a few years, Harry would most likely become one of the youngest Head Aurors in history.

A malicious blue spell whizzed right past him, only to splash harmlessly against a store front behind him. Dolohov, for all the fear he had inspired as a Death Eater, wasn't very good at aiming over his shoulder.

"Now!" Harry bellowed, well accustomed to giving orders in full sprint.

Instead of a verbal response several spells shot at Dolohov from all sides aiming to incapacitate him. Harry cursed as the man either evaded or deflected them all. They were getting too close to Diagon Alley, where the people didn't have the common sense to get out of the way of an auror operation well before it got too close to them.

Getting desperate, Harry silently cast a wide area cutting curse at Dolohov's back. He knew he was going to pay for that if Roberts got wind of it – "You can't endanger passersby like that Potter!" as if he couldn't judge the risk – but for now he didn't care. His team was out of the way, running out of their ambush points to join Harry in his pursual. It was rare for Harry to be the one chasing the suspect himself instead of directing from a good vantage point, but some people required the formidable reputation of the Defeater of Voldemort to come out of hiding.

Dammit! The bastard noticed the sneak attack and cast a shield in time. Harry cast again using a stronger and more deadly version of the same spell, before drawing up his own shield to avoid getting hurt by the rebounding cutter. This time his curse went right through Dolohov's shield, shattering it and the man's spine behind it. Only his immediate collapse prevented the twice rebounded, first curse from taking off his head. Too bad, Harry felt the man deserved death. Not that Azkaban was better, now that the dementors were back, but Harry would have liked to see the Death Eater dead. Slowing down he shot an 'expelliarmus' at the prone form, just as he felt a rather violent tug in his midsection, not unlike a portkey.

'Does Dolohov have an accomplice we didn't know about?' Harry thought as he was pulled away from the scene. He left behind a silent street, both his team and, from behind reinforced windows, Knockturn Alley's patrons and residents staring. Dolohov's wand clattered to the ground only a meter behind where he had disappeared from, a clear indicator that Harry Potter had not intended to leave.

Harry, for his part, was mentally preparing himself to attack the moment this especially long winded portkey let him out of its grasp. Really, whoever made this didn't know what they were doing. No better not think on that, if that was the case it might just kill him. Consequently, the moment Harry's feet slammed into the ground he cast a wide blasting spell and immediately followed up with a shield, that would withstand physical objects and magic equally. Using the moments time the surprise attack gave him he took in his surroundings.

No, this couldn't be. Absolutely not! His eyes narrowed. Anyone who played this kind of trick was definitely an enemy. And with no comrades around… Harry smirked. Time to take off the kiddy gloves.

Spells flew from his wand in rapid succession, bone breaking, flesh rotting, blood clotting, flaying, he didn't care, he cast them all. The cutting curse he had used last on Dolohov probably was the most benign of the lot. A vindictive smile curled around his lips every time a cry told him he had hit someone. His opponents confusion only lasted for a few moments, then they were firing back. Though clearly they were hampered by not wanting to hurt each other. Tough luck.

Despite getting in a few good hits early on, spells were now raining on him from all sides. It was only a matter of time before they overwhelmed him. Well, he was going to make it as painful for them as possible. A fireball unexpectedly broke through his shield and burned his side right side. Together with all the other injuries he sustained, it made his next wand movement just a little bit slower so that his shield was back up only after he took a spell to the neck. The low level cutting curse didn't behead him, but if he didn't heal himself, at least a little, he was going to suffocate or bleed out soon. Whichever came first.

Luckily for him, auror training involved field healing, so he could close up the wound enough for it to not kill him. Though no more verbal casting in this battle. Unluckily for him, the time he needed to do that was enough for his attackers to break though his shield again and stun him. At least he was sure he killed a few of the bastards.

Minerva looked at the carnage around her horrified. Whatever they had expected it wasn't this. Bill Weasley, Dedalus Diggle and Adele Fawley all lay dead. Several others had sustained heavy injuries, she doubted Jonas Fawley was ever going to walk without a prosthesis again. No one had escaped injury, merely the strangers opening blast had seen to that.

Albus and Kingsley, both only with minor cuts and bruises, went over to the stunned stranger to get a closer look. An 'expelliarmus' and 'incarcerous' made him as harmless as possible for the moment.

"He's an auror," Kingsley said abruptly pointing to a badge on his clothes, "no wonder he didn't take well to the situation."

Several Order members gave him disbelieving looks at that understatement. Albus though had bent down and was brushing aside the strangers bangs, revealing a very faded lightning bolt scar.

"He's Harry Potter," he said quietly. Despite that everyone heard.

"What?" Molly Weasley breathed.

"He's too old," Kingsley frowned, "Harry would be eighteen now, he looks over twenty."

"Not our Harry," Albus corrected in a tired voice, "some other dimension's Harry Potter. He might be older there. Maybe their time runs differently, or the ritual can reach across time as well. We can't know."

"Well, we'll have to heal him up and ask him who he is, won't we?" Nymphadora Tonks said resolutely. She looked at the man. "I doubt he'll wake without some healing or be willing to speak with us even if he does."