Shit Happens

For the few years of the second war people were holding out hope that it would be brought to a real and complete end much sooner than the first was. When the war ended on May 2, 1998 people didn't quite know what to do. Did they celebrate the downfall of You-Know-Who or was that considered wrong in light of all the lives lost in the struggle? Most people were able to move forward. Sure there were a few trust issues while Death Eaters were being rounded up, but once the Ministry confirmed that the most dangerous of Voldemort's followers had been caught most people simply chose to forget. For others it wasn't as easy. The Weasleys, for example, had lost one of their sons, Fred, and were still struggling to accept it. Ron had given up his ambition to become an Auror, claiming that he'd had more than his fair share of near-death-experiences to last him a lifetime. Now Ron worked with George at the joke shop he had started with Fred straight out of school. Ron surprised his whole family when he started, having many great ideas and ready to take the shop above and beyond. Harry had been slightly stunned to find his future to be an open book. For his whole life people had held expectations of what it was he should be doing (mostly involving Voldemort), and while most people expected him to join the Auror department he knew that his doing so was purely his own choice. For the first time his life was his own, while he was considered a celebrity and often appeared in the Daily Prophet it wasn't at all like it had been back in school. Harry and Hermione had both taken their N.E.W.T's with the rest of the seventh years once the Ministry was back on its feet, and passed with flying colours- after a rigorous few months to get everyone up to speed after the less than capable teachers that had plagued Hogwarts. Luckily it seemed that majority of the students had taken it all very seriously and didn't complain quite as much as the previous years had. That didn't mean there wasn't complaining, there was, just not as much. Hermione was now a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and spend most of her time trying to find ways to bring about more equality into the magical world; her primary focus was, unsurprisingly, the rights of house elves.

Harry had taken sometime for himself after the war, needing to come to terms with it all. At times the war had seemed endless, but sometimes it all flew by so quickly that there was never any time to really take it all in. So Harry had collected his orphaned godson from Andromeda and spent a week completely separate from the Wizarding world. It was surprising how much Harry had come to care for the baby in such a short time, but Teddy was family the same way Sirius and Remus had been before they'd died.

Harry wasn't sure when it had happened, but at some point he and Ginny had gotten back together and were better than ever, much to the delight of Molly Weasley. Not only was her only daughter in a happy relationship with a boy who the whole family knew would take proper care of her, but if all went well Harry would really be a part of the family that had always readily accepted him. Ginny, who had recently finished school, was now playing the position of chaser for The Hollyhead Harpies. While Ginny still technically lived at the Burrow, she spend so much time at Grimmauld place with Harry that she was basically living there already.

Harry wasn't quite sure if he wanted to be an Auror any more, he'd spent so long fighting. He knew it was what he wanted to do when he was in school, but he hadn't realised how tired he would be after the war had ended, in actual fact for the most part he really hadn't thought he'd even survive. So sitting in the recently converted bedroom for Teddy, Harry found himself wondering where his life was going to take him now, he no longer had the mission to defeat Voldmort's various attempts to take over any more. For the last few months he'd been completely changing Grimmauld Place. At first he'd considered selling the house his godfather had hated, but he found himself unable to give up on the connection to one of the first real family members he felt truly accepted by. Instead he'd made the house completely unrecognisable (with Kreature's help of course). Harry had enough money he had the Potter fortune (which he'd discovered to be quite a bit bigger than he'd originally thought) and he had received quite a large payout from the Ministry for "services on behalf of Wizarding kind". Really he was fine in that aspect, the need for a career was more due to the fact that he couldn't simply spend his life with nothing to occupy his time. Hermione had suggested a hobby until he worked out his "issues", but aside from Quiddich he wasn't really interested in anything. So Harry had picked something that many people had suggested; a musical instrument. He decided to learn to play the guitar, if for no other reason than Teddy found it entertaining to watch him practice.


Alternate World

It had been over a month that Voldemort had had the time turners in his possession and Dumbledore was becoming concerned, if the Order didn't manage to take hold for them soon it could be catastrophic. This meant that he had, quite unintentionally, put a lot of unnecessary pressure on his spy within Voldemort's forces. Snape knew what was at stake if the Dark Lord succeeded,unfortunately that wasn't quite enough to get the turners. He needed a plan and a escape route, because if he was unlucky enough to be caught his first priority would be to get himself out alive, the Order be damned.

He finally had his plan ready and was taking yet another personal risk for a bunch of morons who really didn't appreciate it. Generally speaking Snape wasn't meant to be anywhere near the turners considering the fact they were using various charms to try accomplish their goals and Snape's job was more to do with potions, but he managed to get into the room that the turners were in alone. Snape needed to be quick, there was every possibility that someone could come in at any moment. He quickly transfigured some coins into time turner look-a-likes, putting the real ones into a mole skin pouch. He placed some disillusionment charms on himself and quickly left the room. His plan may have seemed like a simple one, but what could really be simple when you were playing the role of a spy in war? He flued to the leaky caldron and then to Hogwarts. He went straight to Dumbledore's office to rid himself of the things that had caused him so much stress.

Dumbledore was quite pleased to finally have the time turners. He wasted no time in contacting the Order to call a meeting for that evening so they could get to work as soon as possible.


Lily Potter was the one to receive the message about the meeting that night. She sighed, yes the meetings were very important, but really they just caused undue amounts of stress in the family. Ryden was sixteen by any rights she was old enough to stay home alone, unfortunately considering they were in the middle of a war it wasn't that simple. James would never agree and Lily was reluctant to leave their children without supervision. They'd left them with a baby sitter once and that ended terribly, they weren't trying that one again. Ryden didn't think those were valid reasons, she fought every time about having to go along and sit with the other 'kids'. Lily sighed before calling her children to the kitchen.

"Right, I know this probably isn't what you want to hear," Lily's eyes moved to Ryden's whose eyebrows raised in response, "there's another Order meeting tonight." Ryden rolled her eyes and let out a loud huff which Lily ignored, she continued before her daughter could protest. " Yes we will ALL be going as usual, your father should be home at about 7 we'll be heading to headquarters around that time."
Ryden waited for her siblings to leave before verbalising her feeling towards attending the meeting. "Why do you insist on us coming? Its not like we ever contribute anything, I'm pretty sure we just get in the way."
Lily sighed before answering her daughter, "I've told you this before, its not safe for you to be here alone if something were to happen you'd be on your own and I'm not taking that risk. You're coming. Full stop, no arguments"
Ryden turned to leave, but stopped to say one last thing, "At some point you're going to have to get over what happened because you can't control me forever." With that she returned to her room .
Lily raised a hand to her forehead, "Trust me, I know."


The Order was very vocal that evening when the Potters arrived, clearly they were concerned. The message that had gone out hadn't been very forth coming about the meeting so really it was anyone's guess as to what had happened. Majority of the members were convinced that someone had died or been kidnapped or some secret plot had been discovered. Dumbledore was the only one who knew and he had yet to arrive.
"Sirius!" James called out as he spotted his old friend, "What's going on?"
"Wish I knew. Everyone seems to have their own stories, Dumbledore needs to get here so we can calm everyone down already." Sirius looked around at the party following James and grinned, "Lily, kids, how are you today?"
Lily returned the smile, but didn't get a chance to answer as Dumbledore had just arrived and called the Order to... well order.

Everyone seated themselves around the table in the kitchen while the children were upstairs. Dumbledore placed a charm on the table so that only those who were allies of the Order would be able to hear what was said. "I have some good news." The Order visibly perked up at this, "We have the time turners in our possession."
"Already?" Lily asked relieved.
"Yes, they were delivered to me earlier today which is why the meeting was called with such short notice. We need to start working on discovering what has been done to them before Voldemort discovers that we have them and we lose the advantage. Lily I assume you are still willing to help?"
"Of course, will anyone else be helping?"
"At the moment I believe it would be best to keep the people working on this to a minimum until we have a better understanding of what we are dealing with." The Order nodded their heads in agreement, "I believe then that anyone who wishes to head home may do so, Lily if you"ll follow me upstairs." Dumbledore stood, but no one else made any move to do the same, "You really should look a little more chipper, this is a good thing." Dumbledore left the room with Lily following behind.

Ryden stood leaning against the wall watching as a generally relaxed looking group of people left her godfather's house. She straightened slightly as her father and godfather approached her, talking about something. They stopped just in front of her and Ryden noticed a rare smile on her father's face which stunned her slightly. She shook herself to get over the shock before addressing her father, "So the meeting's done, we can go home?"
James sighed, "Not yet, your mother is busy helping Dumbledore with something" Ryden let out a loud huff before storming off to the couch on the other side of the room. James sighed again, "I have no idea what to do with her sometimes."
"Aww mate don't worry to much, she's a hell of a lot more cooperative with you then I ever was with my parents." Sirius said with a chuckle.
"Yes well it would be hard for her to be worse than you were, wouldn't it?" Sirius clapped James on the shoulder as he barked a laugh of agreement.


Lily followed Dumbledore upstairs with a million questions racing through her mind, but she managed to hold her tongue until they arrived at the room that Dumbledore had chosen to work in. When they arrived Dumbledore turned to face Lily and suddenly she couldn't think of what to ask anymore. After a few moments of silence Dumbledore's quite voice filled the room, "Well I suppose we should start, the time turners don't seem to be dangerous; I ran the necessary test to make sure that they were safe to work with before the meeting."
Lily nodded "Where do we start?"
"Well its hard to say, time turners are an old branch of magic and no one really knows mush about how they were created or what they could be capable of under the right conditions. I believe that Voldemort's intention was to make it possible for him to go back in time far enough to alter the outcomes of battles and such, but it is possible that he knew something about the time turners that we don't. We will need to proceed with caution as they may be unstable and I'm sure you don't want to be thrown back in time."
"No, I wouldn't" Lily leaned forwards and picked up a time turner by it's delicate chain, "they seem so fragile, its hard to believe that they could be so destructive.
"Yes, but I have found that sometime the things that seem the most harmless are the ones that can cause the most damage."
Lily was about to respond when the portrait of Walburga Black began shrieking giving Lily a fright and causing her to drop the time turner. The two of them watched seemingly in slow motion as the time turner fell towards the ground, Lily tried to catch it before it fell, but she wasn't as quick as her husband would have been. She decided later that this was a good thing because as soon as the time turner made contact with the ground it disappeared into thin air. Dumbledore and Lily looked at each other, then back to the spot where the turner should have been. They wondered where in time it had just gone to and have bad things could get with it loose in time where anyone could find it.


Harry's Universe

In later years when Harry thought back to this day many questions would come to mind. However, the main thought would be wondering why Fate had it in for him. You see the time turner didn't go hurtling through time as Lily and Dumbledore assumed in fact it landed on the floor in the exact spot that they were now staring at with worry. The problem came with the fact that it landed in the wrong universe, 'Why?' you may ask, well time turners are an old magic that no one really understands.

The sequence of events that took place would seem to be just an every day occurrence, but due to the arrangement of them all and just a little luck the extraordinary happened. You see if even one thing had been slightly different it is unlikely that any of these things would have made any sort of impact what so ever. It just so happened that the room that Lily and Dumbledore had been in when they dropped the time turner was the same room that Harry had decided to make Teddy's bedroom when he stayed with him. Teddy being a curious boy of two noticed the time turner lying innocently on his floor and thought he'd discovered a new toy. Harry had looked over at his surprisingly quiet godson and realised with shock what Teddy was holding. He very quickly took the time turner away from his godson and gave him something else to occupy his attention. But the damage was already done. Harry didn't even feel a thing as he and Teddy were yanked out of their universe and placed smack bang in the middle of a universe that was in a war that they'd already fought.


Okay so I've posted at last. I really didn't think it would take me so long to update this, but my life kind of took over and suddenly we're in March!
I really want to thank everyone who alerted, favorited and reviewed you guys make me so happy, every time I got an email telling me that someone liked my story it made my day :)

There was a review that sounded a little confused about the connection of the prologue to the first chapter, I'm not entirely sure what you were asking, I hope that it might make a little more sense in this chapter if not let me know and I'll see if i can make things a little clearer.

I hope I can update soon, the first term of school is going to end soon, but I am in my last year of high school so things have been getting really hectic so please bear with me, I am trying.

Please review I'd love to know what you think. Until next time.

3 Psychogirl121