A/N: Hello lovely readers, thanky thanky as always for your reviews and such, they make a sick author smile. I'm on the mend now so hopefully I'll get the next chapter out a bit faster - I can't believe I haven't updated since last year! xx

Emily deserves more appreciation than I can give for this one, my brain in very jumbled and she has fixed this shambles up wonderfully xx


31st October

It was cold and raining heavily at 17:00 hours when Sergeant Paul Clarke arrived at the nondescript van for his third tedious overnight shift in the frustratingly unremarkable village. He said a hasty good bye to the transfer driver, acknowledged the sergeant he was replacing, and dashed to the cover of the waiting vehicle. 'Evening lads,' he said as he climbed into the van, holding his hands out to the blower the minute he'd closed the door, and rubbing them together vigorously.

'Evening Sarge,' Private Williams said, poking his ginger head into the gap between the front seats. 'Bring any biscuits?' he added hopefully.

Paul chuckled. 'Been another day like that has it?' he asked. He dug in his pack, then with a stage magician's flourish produced a plastic ice cream container that had Peanut Brownies scrawled across it in his wife's handwriting. He tossed it to a pleased-looking Williams, and said, 'Don't mention it to the wife – she'll be right shirty if she finds out I pinched her baking for you lot.' The three men nodded silently, their mouths occupied by biscuit munching. 'So has nothing at all happened today?' Paul asked, taking a biscuit for himself.

'Nope,' Jones said, 'unless you count the rich tosser in his 911 that went haring by about ten minutes ago.'

'I don't,' Paul said resignedly, pulling a thermos out of his pack and handing it to the boys. 'So what do you lot reckon then, the KGB pulled the plug now that the girl's dead? I know Five thought she was pretty far down the ranks, but maybe she was wasn't.'

'Yeah,' said Williams, pouring himself tea before passing the thermos on to Peters, 'if Granger was in charge of the whole thing, Ogden and Moony might not go ahead without her say so.'

'Do you think they know what happened to her?' Jones asked.

'It does seem weird that she had the smarts or the gear to get away from the middle of Five's offices but then couldn't cure herself of an infection,' Peters spoke up slowly. He was a quiet soldier normally; he liked to think things through before giving an opinion and when he did put his two cents in it usually showed. 'I'd say she lost contact with them and there was no one to help her after she was attacked, or whatever happened to get that wound.'

'She must have been alone,' Jones said, 'how else would she have ended up on the bank of the Thames?' He looked thoughtful for a moment, 'Unless they – Ogden and that – were mad at her for getting caught, so they killed her and dumped her in the river.'

Paul smiled to himself - nothing like a bit of theorising on a good mystery to keep your spirits up. He relaxed and listened to the men argue good-naturedly in the back as he kept watch for suspicious behaviour out in the street. The rain had let up slightly and Paul grinned as two little boys dressed as pumpkins darted between the front of the van and the car parked in front. The taller of the two held the little one back as they reached the road, then made a great show of looking left and right checking for cars. Paul was impressed with the child's responsible behaviour – that was until the taller pumpkin let out a peal of laughter and tore out into the road, and the small one giggled and chased after him. They ran awkwardly in their bulky costumes but made it to the other side safely.

Paul watched them all the way to the corner where – so involved in their game of chase - the two children barely dodged around a tall figure in what Paul thought was a grim reaper costume, though he appeared to have forgotten his scythe. Paul shook his head; it was one thing for kids to get involved in the dressing-up rubbish, but a grown man? 'Will you get a look at this weirdo?' he said over his shoulder to the men in the back.

He heard the sound of the men getting up to gain a better view as the costume enthusiast passed. 'Where do you reckon he's off to then?' There was an odd quality to Williams's voice.

Paul looked at him, and then back to the costumed bloke who was visible in his wing mirror, and he thought he knew what Williams meant - Hallowe'en or not it was a bit unusual for a fancy dress fellow to be walking along alone, not surrounded by drunken yobbos in similarly stupid outfits. There was something else amiss, Paul realised; the man's right hand had been hidden inside the front of his cloak - like he was holding a weapon - but he was heading away from the town… Paul turned to face Williams, 'What are you thinking private?'

'Not sure, but he looks a bit shifty.'

'You reckon he might be this Dumbledore sod that's got Five all tied up in knots?' Paul pushed. He wasn't sure the man's behaviour was even suspicious, and he could think of no reason why Dumbledore would bother to dress up when no one knew what he looked like anyway, but relevant or not, it was the most interesting thing that had happened in three days.

Williams shook his head in hesitation, 'Dunno but I – '

The rest of Williams's sentence was lost to an earth-shattering blast; the van shook around them and what Paul saw in the wing mirror made his heart stop. He blinked a few times, sure he must be imagining it, but the reaper had a withdrawn a narrow baton from under his costume, and from it – Paul blinked again – jets of coloured light were shooting at a disembodied head that was floating in mid-air, the wind tossing long white hair and matching beard wildly.

'Sarge, Sarge!' Peters said weakly, 'Are you seeing this?'

Paul clambered into the back of the van to get a better look through the rear window. 'What in the name of all that's holy?' he murmured to himself as the floating head bobbed through the air avoiding the colourful light coming from the black cloaked man's baton.

'Is this some kind of Hallowe'en thing?' Williams asked, confusion in his voice, 'You know, like a spooky show or something?'

Paul just shook his head in wonder. Suddenly the bearded head had a body, tall and thin – an old man – wearing a star-spangled light blue housecoat. 'What the hell!' Paul exclaimed as there was another shudder that shook the van, and the road between the two bizarre figures cracked, opening a gaping fissure down the middle of the street. Then he noticed the white haired one had a strip of wood in his hand too, which he twirled over his head. A large tree from the front lawn of a nearby house was uprooted; it flew through the air and burst into flame as it careened toward the Reaper. It's like magic, Paul thought dazedly; in all his years of service he had never seen anything like this.

Then the tree was gone, vanishing to leave only the flames behind, which changed direction and hurtled back at the old man in his blue frock. The old man had his back to the van; he threw his arms wide and the fire darkened and turned to black smoke so dense that Paul couldn't make out the black-cloaked figure as it charged.

Suddenly there was a scream that came from the left of the van and Paul tore his eyes away to see a woman standing on her front porch staring at the commotion in horror. Civilians, Paul thought – whatever the hell was going on here it was too sodding dangerous. There were innocent people in these houses; he and his men needed to eliminate the threat. 'Right men,' he said 'there's only two of them. I say we fire a warning shot, give them a chance to come along quietly, but move in if we need to – whether this is a joke or not, it's going too far.'

He opened the back door a crack and heard a high voice laughing, 'You'll need to do better than that, Dumbledore!'

'Dumbledore!' all three men repeated in shock.

'This is them Sarge!' Williams said, turning wide eyes on Paul. 'The Russians, I knew they had some crazy gadgets, but Jesus!'

'Hold for a minute,' Paul said; he wrenched his radio from its holder and pushed the button on the side, 'Davis come in.' There was no answer. He repeated the action, 'Davis come in.' Paul pressed the button again, to no response.

Peters looked at him. 'Didn't Five say the spies had some kind of super jamming tech?'

'You're right,' Paul nodded, looking approvingly at his three men waiting for orders with readied weapons. 'Okay, we'll just have to do this ourselves. This one in the blue,' Paul indicated with the useless radio, 'the other one called him Dumbledore. That's all we needed to know – he's the higher-up we've been waiting for, MI5 gave orders to bring him in dead or alive. Take him down first, then we'll see about the grim reaper.'

He pushed the door open wide and his men spurred themselves to action, landing on the road as one they charged forward, guns ready and faces set.


Voldemort was worried - not that he would lose, but that Dumbledore was here. The man had been waiting for him and that was concerning, he thought, as he swept his wand at the airborne burning tree, sending the flame back toward Dumbledore. He had been musing earlier about the lack of challenge to make his victory more symbolic, but this had not been part of his plans; he had never fought the old wizard before but Dumbledore was just as fearsome as he had expected him to be. Sickly thick smoke swallowed him for a moment and all was black, but otherwise not harmful. 'You'll have to do better than that Dumbledore!' he taunted, transfiguring the smoke into a colourless suffocating cloud that crept back towards his greatest enemy.

As they exchanged another volley, and the cloud crept closer, seemingly unnoticed, Dumbledore cast a spell Voldemort didn't recognise. A series of short sharp cracks pieced the air, and Voldemort threw up a shield to protect himself - what magic was Dumbledore using? Voldemort was oddly pleased – it was fitting that the great wizard should call up obscure spells in a conflict like this - and glared ferociously across the space between himself and the headmaster. The sound of the bangs was still echoing around them as Voldemort watched the wizard before him fall to his knees. Dumbledore's face was pained, contorted, and then horribly vacant, before Voldemort could no longer see the wizened visage as Dumbledore fell face down on the asphalt, unmoving except for the scarlet spreading in a wide smudge across the light blue fabric of the back of his robe.

Voldemort didn't understand. He had not cast anything – he was waiting to see the effect of the unknown spell. Then he saw them: muggles, three of them, wearing helmets and holding large guns - the sound, Voldemort realised, that had been them, the muggles. He looked at Dumbledore. Muggles, Voldemort seethed, taking the life of a wizard with their primitive weapons. Those filthy creatures, how dare they take his victory? How dare they kill their betters, their rightful rulers? His wand slashed the air in the direction of the approaching scum. They would pay for this, the removal of a powerful wizard, it would earn them a painful end! The muggle closest to him screamed in pain as Voldemort's curse sliced his right arm off; the other two took aim with their guns and a second curse severed them clean in half, choking off strangled shouts as they fell. A fourth man, older than the others, came into view, firing his weapon as he moved; as Voldemort's third curse made contact, the late comer's head rolled from his shoulders, and his body followed it to the ground.

Voldemort smiled - foolish muggles, disgusting creatures, they deserved the pain, he thought. The armless one was not yet dead, but lay moaning on the wet road as he approached. 'Crucio,' Voldemort purred, and the red haired man convulsed, screaming in agony. Yes, Voldemort thought, yes, they deserved this. He left the injured muggle lying twitching in the street – he would live a while longer, which only added to the violent scene, and Voldemort needed to have this story spread. The great Dumbledore had been killed by those he tried to protect. This would seal Voldemort's future - no one could argue with him now. Muggles really were a danger to all that wizards held dear.

Now he would finish his task - the Potters would think they were safe, that Dumbledore would have stopped him, but they were not, and it was the animalistic and undirected violence of the Muggles that made it so. The house was not far, just around the corner; his walk to the final destination, the place where history would be made, was a short one. He was consumed by the glory this night already held - he could not have made it more memorable if he tried: muggles proving themselves to be the violent creatures he had always known them to be, Dumbledore murdered, his loudest opponent vanquished, and now the boy. The perfection surged through him; it felt warm, almost like pleasure, the wonder that this was the time that the world would change.

He felt light headed with pride as he strode down the darker side street and then, just ahead, he could see it, the little house that would be the stage for the final act. He was surprised; the curtains were not drawn and he could see the boy - the reason he was here – plainly. They did not look wary or even concerned; the man, James Potter, had the boy on his knee, puffing little clouds of coloured smoke from the end of his wand for the boy's amusement. Voldemort reached out to push the gate open, and winced as he felt a burning tingle in his right shoulder; he looked down and saw his black cloak was shiny with blood, and stopped.

The muggles, he thought viciously, the filthy animals had touched him with their barbaric weapons, the nerve of them! Perhaps the heat in his chest had not been pleasure after all, but the much more foreign feeling, pain. But Lord Voldemort injured by muggles? The very idea was laughable. He looked at the wound again, the idea might be ridiculous but there was no doubt that he could feel it. He vanished the bullet that was lodged in the front of his shoulder; the pain lessened and he laughed. Stupid muggles and their crude tools might be enough to take Dumbledore down, but not him, not Lord Voldemort.


'Magenta,' James said, carefully enunciating the syllables as a bright pink puff left his wand. Remus grinned from his position in the armchair closest to the window; it afforded him a good view of the street without it seeming too obvious that he was watching, and most importantly without him being visible from outside.

'Good that he'll know so many shades of pink,' Remus said, rolling his eyes at James and his overly-complicated colours, 'that's dead useful.' They had just spent the last ten minutes arguing about whether or not 'Gamboge' was a real colour. Remus was still half-certain that James had made it up, even though his friend had given a lengthy explanation that such a colour did exist, a well-thought-out justification that involved some African tribe and references in old English literature. This burst of rational thought had led Remus to the conclusion that James's freedom couldn't come soon enough; confinement had James reading so much that he knew obscure facts that Remus didn't, and that was not natural.

There was a series of loud bangs in the distance, and Remus once again jumped in fright - it sounded like gunshots. James looked faintly amused, but didn't tease him for flinching, only saying with a puzzled expression, 'I've never heard that many at once before.'

'That many?' Remus asked faintly, thinking that Godric's Hollow was hardly some inner-city neighbourhood with gang problems and regular shootings. 'Prongs, that was a muggle gun.'

'Yes,' James nodded, showing off his mastery of obscure facts, 'they're called rifles. At dawn and sunset you can hear them, usually more on the weekends. Lily says it's shooting season for the muggles, you know like grouse and pheasants and such.'

Remus mulled this over, and came to the conclusion that the noise hadn't been much like woodland hunters he'd encountered before. He also thought that the shots had come from the direction of town, not the open countryside, and it didn't seem likely that the muggles would find many game birds to shoot there, much less enough for a barrage of shots within just a few seconds.

Remus looked back out the window wondering what could possibly be going on. It was nearly dark now and the spattering sound of rain against the window sporadically increased sharply and then faded as the wind gusted. He heard Lily descending the stairs and began to worry; if she served dinner he would have to go and sit in kitchen, and that would mean giving up his prime watching position at the sitting room window.

'You boys have been awfully quiet this evening; I was beginning to worry,' Lily said as she entered the room. It was only the slightest blur of movement, a black shape in the corner of his eye as he turned to face Lily - Remus's head snapped back to the window. 'Could you draw the curtains, Remus?' Lily asked as she bent down to pick Harry up.

Remus didn't reply – he couldn't reply – there was a cloaked and hooded figure pushing open the gate to the garden path. 'Prongs,' Remus said, his voice low and hoarse, 'Prongs, get your wand, he's here.' Remus's mind was going a mile a minute but his body didn't seem to want to react, like he was stuck in his hidden chair. Where was Dumbledore? What had happened? This was the worst case scenario. 'Prongs,' he said more loudly though his voice was still oddly calm, like he was trying not to spook a skittish animal. 'Get your wand. He's here.'

'Who's here?' James asked as he handed Harry to his mother and looked at Remus in confusion.

'Voldemort,' Remus said, his limbs finally jolting into action. He was on his feet and his wand was drawn as he said urgently, 'Voldemort, Prongs!' Remus was halfway out of the room in a flash and James didn't seem to need any time to get used to the idea.

'Lily,' James said firmly, 'take Harry, we'll stop him.' He met Remus's eyes and Remus was very surprised not to see panic there; Hermione had said James had been so flustered upon the arrival of Voldemort that he had left his only weapon lying on the sofa, but this James was not any kind of flustered. Lily didn't say a word as she passed the two men with Harry clutched to her chest and started up the staircase, picking up speed as she went.

'Ready mate?' James asked before turning to cast a shield charm at the staircase then he came to stand beside Remus, the two men filling the door from the hallway to the rest of the house.

Remus's heart was drumming a tattoo against his ribs - was he ready? Was he ready to die? He really didn't know, but he was ready to try and save these people, he was very sure of that. Every second counts, the reasonable voice in his head said over the panicking one, meet him – don't let him in the house. Remus's legs were carrying him to the front door without conscious effort; it was like a weird nightmare as he watched his hand reach for the handle.

James was still next to him. 'Moony, what are you –'

'Meet him,' Remus said, 'we can't let him in the house - Harry's here.' With that, he yanked the door open; James was only a pace behind him as Remus took a step forward onto the stoop. In the same instant he brandished his wand in the direction of the cloaked figure who was much closer than Remus expected him to be. The light from the hallway spilled out onto the garden path and Voldemort's face was visible beneath the shadow of his hood for the briefest moment; the pale skin and crimson eyes caused Remus shiver as he said 'Stupefy!' and he heard James do the same.

Voldemort's wand arm moved almost lazily, as though pushing the feeble spells aside, then the movement changed and for a split second Remus was sure a killing curse would leave his wand, but the sight of two opponents charging to engage him willingly seemed to have made Voldemort hesitate. Then the meaning of his spell became obvious - the two posts that held up the little porch vanished and the roof gave an ominous groaning creak. Remus jumped from the step to avoid the collapsing structure, his leap taking him much closer to a surprised Voldemort and very luckily out of the path of a jet of green light that had just left Voldemort's wand. There was crash behind him and he heard a grunt of pain from James, but he couldn't turn to look because his advantage of surprise over Voldemort had been lost and there was a wand aimed directly at his chest.

'The wolf,' the cold voice hissed out from under the hood, 'A guard dog for wizards now? Greyback will be most disappointed.'

Remus felt his fear recede at the taunt. He couldn't think of anything better than Greyback being disappointed in him, unless it was this bastard dead on the Potters' front lawn. He realised then that however high-minded he might be, at this moment a stunning spell wasn't going to cut it - it was kill or be killed. Remus focused for the tiniest moment, before shouting, 'Avada Kedavra', and was very glad that he had practiced the evil spell because the feeling that raced down his arm as he said the words was foul, and something that he would never been able to cope with if he weren't prepared for it. Voldemort's eyes widened beneath his hood and Remus saw the thin lips mimic his own words. Vaguely Remus thought that his opponent's reactions seemed restricted, almost hesitant, but he wasn't going to question it because whatever was causing Voldemort's reluctance, right now it was saving Remus's life.

Remus and Voldemort were only ten feet apart when the two shafts of sickly green collided, then just as Hermione had said, the airborne spells connected and the green morphed to gold and thickened, wavering before the golden light spread rapidly between them, stretching out in the form of a shining gold rope reaching from the tip of Remus's wand to Voldemort's.

Remus nearly smiled - if he hadn't been prepared for this he would most certainly have panicked. His wand was vibrating violently in his grip as he slowly advanced; the glow from the hall light behind him still lit Voldemort's face, a face that showed fear. The red eyes were wide as they followed the gleaming thread along its length and on to Remus's face, and the werewolf couldn't resist - he grinned as wide as he could, trying to hide the fear that was pulsing through him. Dumbledore still wasn't here, and that could only mean one thing. James hadn't made a sound since the porch had fallen, and surely he would have come to Remus's aid by now if he was able, and that meant Remus was quite alone - alone and fighting with a wand that could distract Voldemort but not finish him. But he could not let the evil man know that, so Remus forced his grin wider and laughed, sounding quite as manic as Voldemort himself and he moved forward as he did so, and to Remus's great surprise Voldemort retreated a few steps, away from the house and out onto the lawn.

Remus heard a creak and a slam above him but he didn't look up because beads of bright light had appeared on the golden thread stretching between the wands by that point, and had begun to slide the length of the connection. But then, without warning, there was the bright red flash of a stunning spell shooting down from the sky. It sailed past Remus to hit Voldemort directly in the chest, and he collapsed, falling sideways, the thread of light still joining their wands. As Voldemort's eyes rolled back Remus wrenched his wand to the side and broke the connection.

Prongs, Remus thought - he was okay after all, and it had worked! He had distracted Voldemort and James had hit him. Remus approached the stunned figure, and bent down to pull the wand from his slack spidery fingered grip, noticing as he did so that there was blood running freely from a wound in Voldemort's shoulder. Remus shrugged to himself, thinking that at least he hadn't snuck past Dumbledore unscathed. They could decide what to do later, but in the meantime a bleeding Voldemort was a very appealing idea, Remus thought as he muttered 'Incarcerous,' and black ropes snaked around Voldemort's unconscious form. Then Remus turned, wondering why James wasn't next to him yet, and as he did he caught a glimpse of auburn above him. Looking up, he saw Lily half hanging out Harry's bedroom window, her wand still extended, and a completely shocked expression on her face.


Hermione found herself sitting at the Potters' kitchen table in unexpected quiet a short while later that evening. She didn't think the situation could have been more bizarre if it tried -Voldemort's dead and bound and bloody body lay on the floor in the hallway, both Sirius and Remus kept bursting out into completely unnatural sounding bouts of laughter that only lasted only seconds before dying away (which Hermione was quite sure was some form of shock) and Lily was serving stew and pretending all was normal aside from the tear tracks that continued to trace their way down her face. James wasn't doing anything except holding a bag of frozen peas to his head and grumbling about missing all the fun.

No one really knew what to do because the muggles were swarming about in the village, searching for the person who had killed the soldiers. Remus had been for a look as soon as Voldemort was secure, leaving Lily to tend to the unconscious James, but when the werewolf had reached the attack site he had barely enough time to grab the invisibility cloak and swing it around his shoulders before more muggles with large guns were screeching onto the scene. Fearing discovery and arrest, he had fled, knowing not to underestimate the muggles after what happened to Hermione; if they figured out he was "Remus Moony" things might just get a whole lot more complicated. So he had run back to the Potters, his mind full of images of the shot Dumbledore lying in the road, his body so close to the ones of the dismembered muggles. The only up side was that he had returned to find that Voldemort was no longer stunned but stone cold dead, from blood loss and shock from the wound in his shoulder.

Hermione was in a severe state of shock as well. She had been counting on Dumbledore to make sure the Hermione Granger who grew up this time, with no war and probably no friendships with Ron or Harry, would be ready to come back to make sure that this was the true past and the original timeline didn't reinstate itself. Now she would have to think of some other way to ensure that events unfolded the way she needed them to. There was so much information that needed to be passed along, and so many lives and decisions to be subtly massaged into place – Dumbledore's speacialty, and she'd had no backup plan.

She sat at the table staring into the bowl of stew a silently crying Lily had placed before her, thinking; if she stayed she could do it herself she supposed, but would that create some kind of insane time paradox thing? Maybe Remus could show her the notes, he'd be capable of presenting it in a way that Hermione would feel comfortable with, possibly better that Dumbledore would. But there was the issue of how they would ever meet if Remus was not employed by Hogwarts – which Hermione realised sadly he probably wouldn't be because there was no Dumbledore to stand up for him... then Remus would not be known to Hermione at all. So maybe he was not a good option either.

Suddenly there was a hand squeezing her knee beneath the table and Sirius whispered in her ear, 'We need to tell them before I send a patronus to Moody. I doubt he'll think it's a good idea, but they need to know what really happened before they start answering questions from the Ministry.'

Hermione nodded, he was right of course; the Ministry didn't know Voldemort was dead yet, or even that Dumbledore was dead but it wouldn't be long till they were on the scene asking what had gone on. Most likely they'd be modifying memories in every direction, and Hermione needed to be well away from there before all that began. 'Okay,' Hermione murmured back, and she put her hand on top of his beneath the table, 'go ahead, it will be better if it comes from you.'

Sirius paled visibly. 'Are you sure? I made a right mess of telling Moony-'

'Of telling Moony what?' James asked from behind his frozen peas.

Sirius flinched and turned to look at his best friend, swallowing nervously. 'I made a right mess of telling Moony who Hermione really is, and why she's here.'

James lowered the peas to look at Remus, who got to his feet and nodded. 'He really did,' Remus agreed, as he moved around the table, coming to a halt behind Sirius and Hermione. 'Lily, come and sit down - we have to explain a few things before the Ministry get here, and you know they won't be far away.'