Dumbledore gave a long sigh and rubbed his eyes in frustration. Harry had never seen him look so lost, nor did he want to ever again. The familiarity of the round office he sat in was at least a comfort; there were fewer golden instruments whirring silently as they talked than there was in Harry's time, but the portraits hanging on the circular walls were dozing as usual and the resounding cries of Fawkes the phoenix remained the same. He had managed to convince Dumbledore to take him on Side-Along Apparition, muttering something about 'too much firewhiskey', but Dumbledore was a wise man. He could not be fooled by the impostor sat before him pretending to be James Potter. However, he was also an infinitely curious one, so it was in this spirit that Dumbledore had consented anyway, on the grounds of further investigation. After all, this had been shoddy Polyjuice work – the boy sat before him looked younger, cleaner-shaven and distinctively more at ease than he had seen James looking recently. And his eyes – they sparkled a definite jade (no, emerald) from the almond sockets they were set in.

"So you say you came from the future?"

"Yes, that's it," Harry replied hopefully. "I know it's hard to believe, but –"

"Oh, I wouldn't assume that. In the wizarding world, time travel is not as uncommon as you may think."

"I know all about Time Turners! My friend Hermione - "

"No. If what you are saying is correct, then I wish this was as simple as a time turner. The Ministry have to warn users against excessive use by law but they are incapable of going back more than 24 hours. Hence, the consequences can be problematic, but rarely fatal – if you get stuck in the past, you'll just have to hide away for a couple of hours, and no harm done. Oh no, this is something a whole lot different…"

Dumbledore looked troubled, and Harry knew better than to question him when he was this deep in thought. After a couple of moments, however, he continued to speak.

"Did you say your name was Harry?" He was running each of his weathered hands across the other.

Harry nodded.

"Well, Harry, imagine a large stack of paper." He flicked his wand with a moderate vigour and a foot-high stack came shooting towards him from across the desk, knocking over a set of scales that Harry was sure he had seen before. They fell with a slight chink.

"That's essentially what time is – not a straightforward timeline as some might think, but rather a complicated spectrum containing parallel timelines that form our universe. You may notice that each sheet of paper does not follow concurrently on from the next, but is built up, into a kind of tower. Imagine that tower is infinitely tall. All those lifetimes, all those events, they're all happening at the same time. The seconds do not leave us in the way you would expect, but simply fall onto the sheet of paper below. What does this mean? Well, everything that has happened, everything that is ever going to happen – it's all happening right now, as we speak. You have arrived in May 1980, less than twenty years from your own timeline. Remember that stack of paper. Are you following?"

Harry did not wholly understand but he nodded his head anyway.

"Now, you may have notice I have chosen paper, rather than sheets of steel, or even glass. Time is fragile. It can break or bend in a heartbeat with only the slightest touch. It seems you have fallen through a rip in one of the sheets of paper, and on to the layer below, sending you here." Dumbledore delicately tapped on the topmost sheet with his wand, igniting a small, purple flame which scorched the paper and revealed the piece beneath.

"Minor incidents happen fairly often, there is always a wizard or two who falls into the previous week. I did it myself once; you may recall that the Headmaster's office does not always hold the same protective enchantments as the rest of Hogwarts. I had to leave the school for a week and head to the Isle of Jersey. Not that I'm complaining, of course – it was a rather pleasant experience, staying in a Muggle B and B and watching the sunset over the sea whilst the other me – the Dumbledore from the previous week – sat and did paperwork. An unfortunate incident turned into seven wonderful days.

"Still, it can be quite a shock, and for those who don't know what they're dealing with, it can be quite dangerous. We don't quite know why it happens, although I believe a room in the Department of Mysteries is investigating it as we speak. The main theory is that the rips happen due to an override of magical concentration in a square metre – that is why we have enchantments protecting it from happening at Hogwarts, and at the Ministry. I mean, it's an annoyance, waking up to find yourself in the week prior, but there's no real harm done. That's why the wizarding world is so hush about it – there would be no need to provoke such hysteria over a relatively minor issue. The Prophet would have a field day. Yet no one's ever come this far back before – the power needed to generate such a rip would tear apart the tectonic plates of the earth! So HOW did you get here?"

Harry gave a non-committal shrug; this had become too complicated for him to understand. Where was Hermione when you needed her?

"Anyway," said Dumbledore, regaining the twinkle in his eyes. "I forgot my manners! So tell me Harry, who are you, and why do you look so familiar?"

There was no time to waste. Harry hurtled through his story, his past, his parents and everything that had happened up to the end of his fifth year, a mere week ago. Actually, thought Harry, that's nearly 16 years in the future. This disturbed him; he pushed the thought out of his mind. By the time he had finished talking, his throat was raw, and his voice beginning to crack. He had skated over what had happened at the Ministry – he could not force himself to relive it for what seemed like the umpteenth time. Besides, that matter did not concern this Dumbledore. He would get to wait. When he had finally finished, Dumbledore looked uncharacteristically rocked.

"Well, I can't say I expected all of that," he said meekly. Harry understood. This was a time before the prophecy had been made, when Lily Potter was just an ordinary auror at the Ministry of Magic, and not one of the most important women in wizarding history. As joyed as Dumbledore was to realise that Voldemort would meet such a crashing downfall in Godric's Hollow in 1981, he was equally forlorn that the trade-off for such peace was the loss of Lily and James Potter, and the orphaning of their only son. How dismal it then was to learn that this peace did not prosper, but that Voldemort was making his return as a force for evil. For 100 years of peace would have seemed little compensation for the loss of the kindest witch Dumbledore knew. He stared at Harry with watery eyes. It was almost as if he knew what Harry had been thinking. "Oh Harry, I'm so, so sorry, but I think its best that you avoid them until we can get you back to your own time."

Harry's heart sank. He had a feeling Dumbledore would say this, yet it had been the only reason he wanted to stay here, in 1980. A vision reared its head in the back of Harry's mind: a child gazing longingly into a mirror after a wander in the night, looking upon a family he did not know, and would never know. He realised how much he had been longing to stare in to those emerald eyes again; how much he had needed to see that untidy hair. Erised. I show not your face but your heart's desire. It crossed his mind that this may not be an accident. Voldemort making his return to power, and somehow he, Harry, his prime target, had been plummeted into a time before Lily and James had come to meet their deaths? He knew this, yet he found he did not care. The whole world could blow itself into oblivion so that he could see them again. It was what he had always wanted. It seemed so cruel that now, when he was so near to the people who loved him more than anyone else ever would – or ever could – that he should have to keep his distance until Dumbledore worked out a way to get him back to the present.

Harry did not realise that he had been staring into space, and suddenly recalled that Dumbledore was an accomplished Legilimens. He snapped out of his trance, ready to apologise, but Dumbledore was looking at him with sad smile etched across his cheeks.

"I know, Harry, I know."