Harry released Neville,though he was unaware of doing so. He was jumping down the steps again,pulling out his wand,as Dumbledore, too, turned towards the dais. 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
Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted,once handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil,which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind,and then fell back into place.
Harry heard Bellatrix Lestrange's triumphant scream,but knew it meant nothing- Sirius had only just fallen through the archway,he would reappear from the other side any second...
But Sirius did not reappear.
'SIRIUS!' Harry yelled. 'SIRIUS!'
He had reached the floor,his breath coming in seared gasps.
Sirius must be just behind the curtain,he,Harry,would pull him back out...
As he reached the ground and sprinted towards the dais he felt Lupin trying to hold him back, struggling free he ran towards the ragged veil and jumped through without another thought.
The last thing he heard was the anguished shout of his name and then he knew no more.
'I think he's coming to'
'Well its about damn time'
Harry blinked a few times and shifted in his place, groaning as he felt his head throbbing. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to get up and feel around for his glasses. Assuming that he was in the Hogwarts hospital wing, he fumbled around the table beside him,finding the familiar round wire framed glasses in his hand ,he placed them on his face in a hurry,and for the first time, took an account of his surroundings.
The place seemed empty and he was indeed in the hospital wing,but as he turned his gaze around to the the other side,he did a double take. Four boys and a girl as well as Dumbledore were sitting somewhat patiently and observing him, what the odd thing about this was that one of them looked astonishingly like himself.
Leaving that for later ,he tried to remember why he was in the hospital wing, memories of what had happened rushed back to him. Sirius.
"Sirius, wh-where is he? He is all right isn't he? Professor?' asked Harry in a panic,his heart was beating fast and dread set into the bottom of his stomach as he waited for Dumbledore's answer. But it was not Dumbledore that answered, the boy with a roguish look about him answered instead.
'Uh ,I am Sirius,and I most definitely do not know you.'the boy said, confusion evident on his face.
"Sirius don't be an idiot, he's obviously talking about someone else" said one of the boys with brown hair and a faint scar on his cheek.
Harry looked closely at him and a wave of familiarity hit him, the same face,the same name. A girl with long red hair,a boy who looked exactly like him... it couldn't be, no.
Shifting to look at the messy haired boy he asked,a little breathlessly 'Your name wouldn't happen to be James Potter would it?' and directing his gaze onto the red haired girl 'and yours Lily Evans?'
Please say yes,please say yes,please say yes. He knew it was not supposed to be possible,so many people had tried it and come back with drastic changes,but he was Harry Potter and anything could happen. Hermione's rant about Eloise Mintumble came to the forefront of his mind, she had been trapped for a period of 5 days in 1402 and in turn her body aged five centuries when she came back, and what is more, she managed to erase no less than twenty-five people from the face of the earth in the present.
How much damage had he done just by existing here?
'Yes I am,how on earth do you know our names?' Lily asked dubiously looking at him.
'Please,Lily I am very famous of course he knows my name,I mean- who doesn't know me!'James said jokingly putting an arm around Lily that she shook off immediately. He was staring now,that was his mother,in the flesh, he couldn't just look away, trying to take in every small detail,the way she kept trying to blow away the strand of hair that kept falling in her face and her eyes- they truly were like a reflection of his own.
This is not possible. This is not possible. His dead parents were not sitting there. His dead parents were not teenagers, the same age as himself. A thought struck him,if his parents were here,then that must mean Peter Pettigrew was too,he had no right to sit beside the ones he called friends , maybe,just maybe, he could stop their death before it ever happened,an irrepressible urge to lunge at him and hit him with all the force that he could muster struck him.
Dumbledore interrupted his line of thought before he could follow through.
'That will be enough from all of you,if you could please give me a moment with our guest.'
'Yes,Professor." replied Lily,his mother...but no, she isn't yet,he reminded himself
They got up and left through the large doors,the sound of a three-way argument between them could be heard faintly as they shut the door.
'Would you care for a sherbet lemon?' asked Dumbledore, taking a bag of them out from his pocket,and unwrapping one for himself.
"Uh no,thanks Professor- uh I, I'm not so sure how I should say this and honestly you're going to say that I'm insane and I'm not going to uh beat around the bush, but I think that I have come from the future..." There was no point in leaving Dumbledore out of the loop, and considering that he was Albus Dumbledore, he probably already knew.
"Ah,I thought as much,however it was only a theory that pertained to your unusual arrival,which, you have just confirmed. Now,may I receive the pleasure of knowing your name?" questioned Dumbledore with a curiosity in his eyes, as though he wanted something else confirmed.
"Harry,sir, Harry Potter. Uh James Potter is my father." he said with a pointed look to where the five were sitting before.
"That would explain the uncanny resemblance between the two of you. The five of them found you and informed me, when you seemingly materialized out of nothing in the Gryffindor common room. I would, however, like to hear the story of how you came to be here." he asked popping the sherbet lemon in his mouth.
Harry told him all about the veil and then remembered about Sirius...
"Professor,Sirius- the one in, in my time, he went through the veil before I did , I followed him through. If I'm still alive, he must be too right?" he asked hoping against all hope that the answer was yes, he couldn't lose him, he had just found him after all.
"I'm afraid I cannot answer that Harry, maybe he is alive, maybe he is not,I cannot be sure from what you tell me,however you should prepare yourself for the worst" said Dumbledore with an understanding in his voice. He made to get up and call Madam Pomfrey for Harry to get checked over.
"Professor' called Harry as Dumbledore made to leave, when Madam Pomfrey came over.
'What am I going to do, I need to go back, I have to go back. I can't just stay here. I'll change the course of time, I've already been seen, what if I change something by mistake?"
"Harry, I will do my absolute best to get you back to your time,however time travel, into the future, has not been achieved yet. I am on unchartered grounds here, the Veil is something that many people have tried and failed to understand. Until such a time arrives where I am able to figure something out I am afraid to say that you are stuck here. Let Poppy check you over and then we will decide what to do after." said Dumbledore, leaving Harry to the mercies of the relentless matron.
The amount of things that were going through Harry's head at that moment was astounding, the realisation that his parents were alive. He could speak to them, know them. Peter Pettigrew on the other hand, he would have to leave alone, Hermione's words echoing through his head, although every bone in his body was telling him otherwise. However much he wanted to change the past, it was not up to a 15 year old boy to change the course of time, even if he was Harry Potter. What was he supposed to do here? Where was Sirius? Did he get sent back in time too?
Madam Pomfrey bustled up to his bedside table with a tray full of small glass bottles clinking with each other. She then mixed some of the contents of the different bottles into a glass and made a green potion that had suspicious looking lumps in it
"Drink this." she said shoving the most unpleasant smelling liquid under his nose and then moving to the head of his bed to rearrange his pillows and straighten his bed-sheets. There was no point arguing with Poppy Pomfrey, so he drank the concoction without another word, although he did make the most horrible face when he was done, trying to stop his gag reflex.
"Good. Now, are you feeling any pain anywhere?" she asked, scanning him for any injuries.
And he said no, you know, like a liar.
Harry navigated his way through the maze-like corridors of Hogwarts,luckily he now knew most of them like the back of his hand, and managed not to run into anyone interesting up until he turned the last corner to Professor Dumbledore's office-
"Woah, you're that guy we found, are you going to see Professor Dumbledore?' it was James Potter and Sirius Black 'I have like a ton of questions to ask you."
"What?' Harry realised he was staring, but it was pretty reasonable, that was his dead father 'oh,uh sorry. Do you mind, I uh , I have to go see Professor Dumbledore" he shoved past them in a sort of panic. This was not something he was ready for yet.
"Well that was weird" said James rubbing his neck in thought. " What is weird?" asked Remus catching up to them, adjusting the pile of books in his hands to be more comfortable.
"Uh it was that strange guy who appeared out of nowhere in the common room, he ran into us and was staring at me really weird. Dumbledore won't tell us anything either" said James, walking on as if the sudden arrival of a boy with an uncanny likeness to himself, who appeared out of nowhere in a school full of witches and wizards was just another normal day at Hogwarts, and honestly speaking, it kind of was.
"Yeah and the fact that he knew all our names was weird too. It really felt like he was talking about me when he said 'Sirius' which was also weird."
"Don't you think we're using the word 'weird' excessively,like Sirius how big is your vocabulary anyway?"
"Changing the topic now, Remus, do you mind if I copy the last answer to the question Flitwick gave us, and the one before that,and the one before that too."
"And why haven't you done it already?" asked Remus tiredly as though he already knew the reply that he would get.
"My dog ate my homework?" said Sirius jokingly,walking a little faster to catch up to Remus who was walking at an unnatural speed in order to get to class in time.
"Haha you are so funny. Don't you think that that joke is getting very old now" said Remus as he turned the corner. 'Fine, but only this one time."
"Hey guys, I can see Lily, catch you in class suckers"
Harry turned the corner to the Headmaster's office. The stone gargoyle, which looked ugly as ever, moved aside, without the need of a password when he went up to it , revealing the spiral staircase that took him up to Dumbledore's office. Knocking tentatively on the door, he opened it.
The office looked the same as ever, albeit some of the curious little machines had not been acquired as of yet. The portraits of the previous headmasters, as expected, were pretending to be asleep. However, two of the frames were devoid of their residents. A glass bowl of Dumbledore's favourite muggle sweet, sherbet lemons, was placed on a huge claw footed table.
"Harry. You are here,Madame Pomfrey has given you a clean bill of health then?" he asked, clearing his desk of the small pile of books and parchment that had accumulated, with the smallest flick of his wand. "Sit, and do help yourself to the sweets if you wish to." Harry shook his head.
"No? Well onto business then. Now, I have looked into the Veil , and as presumed, not much has been found out about it. I will continue to do my research,and I will go look at it myself, but short of throwing yourself back into it, which I strongly suggest not to, there is not much you can do but wait, I am afraid to say that until further notice you must remain here, at Hogwarts."
"Professor, do you think that um, I know that this is already outlandish,but, do you, do you think that I could just see my parents one time, just let me talk to them once. I know I've probably done a whole lot of damage just by existing here, just let me meet them once and I'll stay hidden for the rest of the time here. You could maybe Obliviate them afterwards?" asked Harry nervously.
"Harry, I can do better than that. How would you like to spend the rest of your time here as a student at Hogwarts, there is no doubt that James will come up here in a bit and ask me who you are."
"Professor, but what if I change something?"
"Everything happens for a reason Harry, maybe the Veil sent you here on purpose. What I am trying to say is that maybe the future turned out the way it did, because, you were here. Now is that a yes or a no?"
"Yes! I mean yes, I will do it. Thank you, Professor Dumbledore."
"All right then, now all we have to do is come up with a believable cover story"
A/N- Tell me how it was in the comments! Thank you for reading3