Author's Note: I debated with myself over whether I should label this an AU. It does have a lot of properties of an AU, but it isn't technically one. I didn't list any pairings, since they're mostly just canon pairings and aren't the focus of the story. Also, I had to approximate the rating based on where I think the story will go, so it may change in the future. That said, enjoy.

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Chapter 1: The Seeing Stone

It was a rather uneventful day at the office. Harry had not been called out on assignment for over a week. He led a team of Aurors whose assigned areas included Cornwall, Devon, and most of Somerset. It was an honor to head up his own devision, to be sure, but he found he almost missed the days when he used to work London and the surrounding area with Ron. That division was the busiest in the office, receiving several assignments a day. (In fact, at present, Ron had been out on assignment for three days.) Of course, Harry doubted it would be long before Ron received a similar promotion.

Harry signed his name to another scroll, pushed it aside, and sighed, taking his glasses off to rub his eyes. He had not slept a wink the night before. His son James, barely a month old, had kept him and Ginny awake all night crying. They had tried everything in the book to quiet him, but in the end, it seemed as though he was just crying for the sake of it. By the time they finally got him to sleep, it was nearly dawn. Harry offered to stay home to help Ginny take care of him, but she insisted she would be fine. He imagined she had dropped into bed moments after he left from sheer exhaustion.

He felt a hand light on his shoulder. "Rough night?" a familiar voice asked.

Harry pulled his glasses back on. "Hermione?" He stood and immediately found himself enveloped in a tight hug. He smiled and wrapped his arms around Hermione's shoulders. "God, I haven't seen you in weeks. How have you been?"

"Busy," she replied, releasing him. "The department's fighting me tooth and nail on that new wages law."

Harry nodded his understanding. Hermione had been working for years now trying to improve working conditions for house-elves.

"And you," Hermione said suddenly, shoving his shoulder lightly and putting on a show of looking cross. "I've been here nearly two whole minutes and you haven't shown me any pictures."

"Oh, right," Harry reached into his inner pocket and withdrew a handful of pictures of James. (He had started carrying them everywhere with him, since everyone he saw seemed intent on seeing them.) As he handed them to Hermione, he turned to the wizard working at the next desk. "Boot, I'm taking a break. You're in charge while I'm gone."

Terry Boot saluted him with a smirk. "Whatever you say, boss." Everyone knew Harry hated being called "boss" or "sir," so, of course, they never missed an opportunity to do so.

"Is this right after he was born?" Hermione asked as they started toward the door. She pointed at a picture of Ginny sitting up in a bed. Ginny's eyes were heavy lidded and her hair stuck up in all directions, but she was still smiling. She held up the little bundle in her arms and pointed at Harry and Hermione, as though trying to get James to look at them.

"Yeah," Harry said, hurrying to open the door before Hermione crashed into it. He ducked as a paper-airplane memo swooped low over his head, settling on Terry's desk.

Hermione suppressed a giggle behind her hand. "Oh dear, he's already got your hair."

She continued flipping through the pictures as they walked to the break room, pausing occasionally to laugh or say, "aww." The break room was small, dimly lit, and nearly empty. A couple of witches eating lunch at the one table were the only occupants. Harry and Hermione sat at the table on the opposite wall.

After going through the stack pictures a few times, Hermione finally handed them back. "Well, he's just adorable," she said. "You and Ginny are really lucky."

"Thanks," Harry said, tucking the pictures back away.

She bowed her head suddenly, picking at a fingernail. "Ron and I have been trying," she said in a small voice, "but with our jobs...it's so hard to find time to be together, you know?"

"Yeah," Harry said. Working the London division was fun, but he remembered all too well how often he was away from Ginny for days or even weeks at a time.

Silence stretched between them for a few moments. Then Hermione looked up, smiling again. "You should bring him by the office sometime. Ginny, too, I haven't seen her in a while either."

He nodded, mentally sifting through his schedule to find a time when he would be able to.

Hermione's smile wavered and she bit her lip. She briefly glanced at the witches across the room and lowered her voice. "I have to be honest. I actually came by to ask for a favor."

"What is it?"

"Well...one of my contacts in the Department of Mysteries asked me to help him with a project. It's so silly, but I don't like going down there alone. Normally I'd ask someone from the office, but the information's a bit sensitive and I can't risk anything leaking out. I mean, I can understand if you're too busy—"

"I'll do it," Harry interrupted, knowing that she could go on for several minutes if he let her.

"Are you sure?"

He smiled. "I get off work at five. Does that work for you?"

Hermione nodded, her expression cheerful again. "That's perfect. I have to make a court appearance at four anyway. I'll just meet you there." She glanced at her watch and stood. "I have an appointment to get to. I'll see you later." She hurried off.

Harry followed not long after. He took a bit of parchment and a quill from his pocket and scrawled a quick note to Ginny letting her know that he would be home late. He sent it up to the Atrium as a memo, where it would then be processed and sent out by owl. He returned to the office afterwards and pulled another scroll of parchment from the pile on his desk. Even when there was no fieldwork, it seemed like the paperwork never ended.

Even with the prospect of the mysterious project, it was still nearly five-thirty before Harry managed to pry himself away from the office. He left the office in the command of Elaine Eels, a red-haired woman with thick glasses who was ten years his senior. (Terry had gone home hours earlier.) He waved to a few coworkers before exiting the office and boarding the lift with a dozen other people. By the time he hit the Department of Mysteries, however, he was standing alone, most of the others having gotten off in the Atrium.

Hermione was waiting just outside the lift when he arrived, clutching a bit of parchment in her hand. She looked nervous, though her expression softened some when she saw him. "Thanks again for doing this," she said.

"No problem," Harry said, though he felt a certain foreboding as he stepped into the dark corridor. He had been down this corridor several times since he began working at the Ministry, as it contained the only stairs leading down to the courtrooms; however, he had not entered the Department of Mysteries since the night nearly nine years previous when he and his friends had run down here intent on saving Sirius. He stared at the black door at the end of the corridor, his stomach doing a flip.

Apparently his unease showed on his face, as Hermione looked away quickly, pretending not to notice. She opened the door, letting Harry through into the circular room first.

The moment the door closed, the twelve doors leading off from the room began to rotate around them. Harry shut his eyes, not wanting to add to his nausea. He chanced a peek a few moments later and they had stopped.

Hermione drew her wand and glanced at the parchment. "We're looking for the room for new acquisitions. There should be a Pensive set up near the door." She turned to a door on her left and opened it. Harry had a brief sight of a giant glass tank filled with brains suspended in green fluid before she conjured a red X on the door and shut it. "Let's try that again," she said as the room started to spin once more.

It took Hermione six tries to find the right room. Finally, she opened a door on a room containing six desks with a variety of strange objects piled on top, some of which were emitting puffs of smoke or growling softly. Piles of packages ranging from the size of Harry's palm to one that was twice as tall as him and three times as wide were resting against the walls. Just as Hermione had said, there was a Pensive set on a spindly table on the left side of the door, casting a soft silver light over the room.

Once Harry was in, Hermione shut the door quickly behind them and pulled a pair of dragon hide gloves from her pocket, slipping them over her hands. She then used her wand to light the torches on the walls and glanced around the room. "He said it'd be right—ah!" She strode across the room and picked up one roughly the size and shape of her fist. She brought it to the nearest desk, pushing aside a large dusty book that was hissing at her like a cat, and carefully unwrapped it.

The paper lifted to reveal a large ebony stone. The light from the torches danced across the smooth surface in a way that was almost hypnotic.

Intrigued, Harry stepped forward. "What is it?"

"A Seeing Stone," Hermione replied. "Don't!" Her voice rose as Harry started to reach toward it.

Harry, who had not even realized what he was doing, withdrew his hand. "What does it do?"

"It shows alternate timelines." Hermione picked up the stone in her gloved hands to examine it. "They're very rare. I never thought I'd see one up close."

"What do you mean, 'alternate timelines?'"

"Say I wanted to know..." Hermione trailed off, as though thinking about it, "...what would've happened if I'd had a sibling." She gestured to the stone. "All I'd have to do is think about the question, touch the stone, and it would show me."

"How does it show you?" Harry asked.

"That's the thing. No one really knows. It's been so long since anyone's gotten their hands on one. This one was found in a house in western Norfolk. My contact said they've been trying to find the owner of the property, but no one's seen him in weeks. All his things were still in his house and breakfast was sitting out on the table, so he didn't just pack up and leave. It's like he vanished into thin air."

"Do you think the stone had something to do with it?"

"Might have. The information we have about Seeing Stones is sketchy at best. Until we know more, it's probably best to err on the side of caution."

So, Harry stood off to the side as Hermione set to work. She took out a measuring tape and wrapped it around the stone at several different angles, jotting down some notes as she did so. She examined it from all angles with a critical eye, as though looking for any imperfections. Then she drew her wand and began prodding it, muttering a variety of spells Harry did not recognize. Nothing seemed to happen. She frowned and wrote a few more lines on her parchment.

"Not really anything else I can do until I've done some reading," Hermione said, setting the stone back down. "I'll just leave a note..." She tore off a section of parchment and wrote a quick message, tucking it under a paperweight shaped like a Golden Snitch. "Harry? Are you all right?"

Harry blinked and tore his eyes away from the stone. "Yeah," he said unconvincingly.

"I know what you're thinking, and don't. We don't know enough about this thing yet. It could be dangerous."

"I know," he said. Still, he could not stop himself looking back over his shoulder to catch one last glimpse of the glinting ebony before the door shut behind them.

-

Harry lay awake next to Ginny, listening to James fuss in his crib. (They had tried feeding him, changing him, carrying him around, but nothing seemed to be work.) The crying was not what kept him awake, however. Rather, it was the same thing that had tormented his mind for the past few days.

The Seeing Stone.

The rational part of his mind told him that Hermione was right. It would be stupid to use the stone before they knew more about it, especially since the last owner had disappeared so mysteriously. For all they knew, the stone had done something to him.

Harry's muscles twitched restlessly, so he got up, careful not to shift the bed too much, and went to the crib. James' legs and arms were drawn up to his body as he let out racking cries. They had taken him in to see a Healer several times, but she just waved off their concerns. "He's got colic," she said. "Not really a cure for that. Just rock him a bit and try to get him to sleep."

"Shh..." Harry reached in and picked up the screaming infant, carefully cradling him in the crook of his arm. He tiptoed to the door and out into the kitchen, getting out a bottle of milk. He pointed his wand at it to warm it up and offered it to James. "Are you hungry?" he asked softly.

James paid no attention to the bottle, continuing to bawl. Harry sighed and put the bottle back, shifting the baby to his other arm. "All right, all right," he said. He moved out to the living room and sat down, gently rocking James back and forth. This seemed to help a bit. James quieted down after a few moments, though his face remained red and contorted. After about an hour, his muscles finally relaxed and his breathing slowed.

Harry sat watching him for the last few hours until dawn. He was hardly aware of the time until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Ginny bent to kiss him on the cheek. "You're a miracle worker," she murmured, sitting down with a heavy sigh. She had dark circles under her eyes and her hair was frizzy.

"Probably just tired out from all that screaming," Harry said without looking up.

Ginny leaned toward him again, but this time, her face stopped a few inches from his. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine."

"Something's bothering you. I can tell. Is it that project Hermione's got you on?"

He hesitated, but finally nodded.

"If it's that bad, just don't do it. Hermione will understand."

"It's not that," Harry said. He sighed and shook his head. "Just stress, I guess. It's nothing."

Ginny looked as though she did not quite buy this, but she just kissed him again and stood. "I'll make some breakfast."

Harry kept his eyes on James as she left, his stomach clenching. He hated lying to Ginny. He knew she would understand if he told her the truth, but something held him back, a tiny voice in his mind asking, "What if..."

Harry was not particularly hungry that morning, but he forced down his eggs and sausages to appease Ginny. To the relief of them both, James stayed asleep even after Harry lowered him back into his crib. He kissed Ginny goodbye and threw Floo Powder into the fireplace, stepping in. The flames swept him off to the Ministry.

Harry did not get much done that day. Ron had finally returned from his assignment and spent the morning regaling Harry with the story of how they infiltrated a small group of Dark wizards selling illegal poisons out of a shop in a dark corner of London. Though he was not as enthralled as he usually would have been, Harry was glad for the distraction. Unfortunately, the head of Ron's department, a burly middle-aged wizard named Connor Flynn arrived around noon to order Ron back to his desk.

"Back to the grind, eh?" Ron muttered to Harry. "See you later."

Ron's interruption coupled with Harry's distraction meant that Harry barely made a dent in his paperwork that day. He stayed at his desk until nearly eight o'clock before finally admitting defeat. He stretched his cramped legs and stood, moving toward the door in a stupor. People waved at him, but he barely even noticed, boarding the lift with a handful of others eager to get home.

Harry did not notice that he had missed the Atrium until the woman's voice announced that he had reached the ninth level. He considered staying on the lift and letting it carry him back down to the Atrium, but his legs seemed to move of their own accord. He stepped out into the corridor.

The lift doors shut behind him with a clatter that echoed in the silence following. Though it was late May, the corridor was as dank and cold as ever. Harry shivered, but his legs carried him forward and through the black door. The circular room spun around him as usual, but when he chose a door randomly on his right, it opened up on the correct room with its various packages and items strewn about. Once again, the only light came from the Pensieve. The stone was sitting on the desk where Hermione had left it.

Harry stepped up to it, but he only stared at the shimmering surface. He should not be here. Hermione was right. It was too dangerous. He had no idea what kind of curses might be on this thing. Even if it wasn't cursed, he didn't know what it would do to him. Yet, something kept his feet rooted to the spot.

A distant memory nagged his mind. He was standing in front of the mirror of Erised, looking up at Dumbledore.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

Harry recognized the force pulling him toward the stone. It was the same one that drew him to the mirror nearly fourteen years ago. He did what Dumbledore said then and didn't go looking for the mirror, much as he wanted to. His eleven-year-old self had been able to resist temptation; he should have had no trouble now. But faced with the Seeing Stone sitting within reach, Harry's self-restraint dissolved. His hand stretched toward the stone.

He would just have a quick look. It couldn't hurt. After all, the stone was obviously not like the mirror. The wizard who owned it last didn't wasted away in front of it.

His fingers hesitated an inch from the stone. He'd had a lot of time to think about his question in the last few days. Collecting his thoughts, he concentrated on the question and lowered his hand.

What if Voldemort never existed?

A biting cold sensation swept over Harry. His vision went dark, an absolute silence filling his ears. He could no longer feel the ground under his feet, could feel nothing in fact, except for an odd pulsing like a heartbeat under his icy fingers that was gradually slowing. A deep fear unlike anything he had ever felt before gripped him.

With some effort, Harry managed to pry his fingers off the stone and the world came rushing back. He stood staring down at it for several moments, panting and clutching his chest, which felt oddly constricted. What was that?

He shook his head. It was probably just a fluke. Maybe he just needed to ask a different question. He reached for the stone again immediately, knowing he'd lose his nerve if he hesitated any longer.

What if Voldemort was defeated before I was born?

This time, Harry only allowed the darkness to envelop him for a few moments before wrenching his hand away. He was shaking now, his face drenched in a cold sweat. He knew he should just walk away. The stone was obviously dangerous. He had probably just been lucky those last two times.

Yet, Harry did not move. A new question had occurred to him. He was not quite sure how he thought of it. Maybe he had followed the line on Voldemort to its conclusion, or maybe he was just influenced by where he was. Whatever the reason, Harry took a deep breath and let his fingers brush the freezing surface of the stone a third time with this new question in mind.

What if the prophecy was never made?

Harry's hand locked around the stone in a vice-grip. Shards of ice starting at his fingertips swept up through him, slicing through his veins. He screamed as they ripped their way through his chest and spread up his throat, into his head, embedding themselves in his brain. A thousand images flashed before his eyes, a blur of colors too quick to see. The shards dug in deeper and deeper, sending out waves of agony that made Harry convulse. Suddenly, the floor dropped out from under him and he was falling. The roaring in his ears grew louder and louder.

Finally, everything stopped. Harry was lying flat on his back on a soft surface, staring up at a white ceiling. Sunlight filtered in through windows behind him and on his left.

Harry sighed, pressing a hand over his eyes. It was all just a dream. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. A stone that showed alternate timelines? He must have been working too hard.

Harry could hear birds chirping outside, but otherwise, it was quiet. He imagined Ginny had taken James out into the sitting room to try to get him to sleep. He reached over to his left, where he knew he would find Ginny's side of the bed empty.

His hand met nothing. His heart hammering in his chest, Harry groped either side of the bed. It was narrow, about half the width of his and Ginny's bed. And, now that he thought about it, the windows were in the wrong places. He sat up, squinting around at the unfamiliar furniture, a desk sitting where James' crib should have been. The walls were plastered with posters, but he could not make out any of the pictures without his glasses. Where was he?

Harry blinked and raised his hand to rub his eyes again.

He froze. His hands had shrunk. The fingers were thin and the wrists were tiny. He kicked his sheets off and looked down at himself. He was wearing light blue pajamas with Golden Snitches on them. There was no question about it. His limbs had definitely shrunk.

Not even daring to guess at what was going on, Harry turned to the bedside table, hoping to find his glasses, and was met with another surprise. Next to the desk lamp sat not his own cheap, plastic frames, but a pair of oval, wire-rimmed glasses. He picked them up and slipped them on his face. He could see perfectly.

He looked around the room again. He could see now that the posters were for the Quidditch team Puddlemere United. The seven players stared down at him from all sides, making him feel intensely uncomfortable.

A pounding at the door made him jump. "Get up, lazy!" a girl's voice shouted. He heard footsteps fade into the distance.

Harry sighed and stood up, stretching. There was only way to figure out what was going on. He would just have to go out and see.

Harry opened the door to find himself in a narrow corridor with three other doors, one on his side, and two on the other. A staircase on his left led down to the next floor. He heard voices coming from downstairs, so he went that way, descending the steps.

At the bottom of the stairs there was small sitting room with two couches and a fireplace. Harry saw the front door and considered just leaving, but before he had decided, he heard a familiar voice from the next room.

"I don't know what the hell he's thinking. Full moon tomorrow night and he's off chasing after Greyback? It ain't right."

Harry's breath caught in his chest. It couldn't be... He rushed over and stood in the doorway, gaping.

The kitchen was small and very cramped due to a large table that took up much of the floor space. A woman with long red hair stood at the stove with her back to Harry. The sound of sizzling grease filled the room. There were two people sitting at the table: Sirius Black, the source of the familiar voice, and Harry's father, James Potter.

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Author's Note: Please review. Next chapter: faces both familiar and not so, a trip, and an argument. Harry must try to fit in as he struggles to figure out what's going on and where—or rather, when—he is.