[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for the high number of follows/alerts for the start of this story! I'm so thankful for the response and the reviews.

This chapter is a transitional chapter but has also been made to feel disjointed and unstable because of what the characters are going through. Lots of unfinished sentences, emotional outbursts, and pure shock. More notes at the end of the chapter!]

2. Ushered by the Veil

"Harry, no –"

"Let me go! Remus – that's my – no, let me go!"

"Harry, stay back!"

Harry was surprised at the force of pure strength that Lupin had in his seemingly frail touch. His scarred hands had been trying to hold him at first, but when Harry began struggling against his hold, Lupin had little choice but to give him a sound shove backwards. Harry was made to take several painful, stumbling steps away from the arcane archway.

The archway where Sirius stood over the prone body of a woman who had appeared after the explosion had rocked the Death Chamber and half-destroyed archway of the ancient and mysterious Veil.

Harry had to see for himself.

He had to see with his own eyes.

It made no sense, it wasn't possible –

Lily Potter couldn't be the woman lying there in a pool of blood, fifteen years after her murder.

Harry had never known either of his parents in person. They had both been murdered when he was a baby and all that he knew of them, he had learned in the past five years since he'd come to the Wizarding World. The conjured vision of them in the enchanted Mirror of Erised years ago had been his first sight of the parents he'd never known, better than the memories that he would never have of them. Harry had no actual memories of his parents – but he did know what they looked like.

The woman who laid unmoving upon the too-smooth stone of the dais had hair as red as rubies.

He had seen that hair before.

The first time he known what color his mother's hair was had been when he'd looked into the Mirror of Erised – and he'd never forgotten it.

That exact shade of red hair was seared into his memory as belonging to – as being the color of his mother's –

There was only one person he had ever known to have red hair like the hair that was –

"Remus, no – let me see her!"

Lupin had the advantage of being an adult werewolf and not as deeply injured as Harry was. Harry was aching and hurting in places that he wasn't even aware could be hurt; it made it easier than it should have been for Lupin to shove him one more solid time – and, suddenly, he was well away from where Ginny and Neville stood in shock, while Tonks gingerly kneeled beside Sirius, who was –

Sirius, who was cradling Harry's mother in his too-thin arms, his haunted face showing that he was barely restraining hysteria.

It was impossible.

It was unthinkable.

Harry allowed Lupin to force him down onto a stone row of benches, on the other side of the amphitheater.

Ginny hobbled over, Neville taking ragged steps as quickly as he could to follow her. Harry was distantly grateful for Ginny sitting down next to him and grabbing his hand with both of her smaller hands; the fierce, protective way she was holding onto his hands, as they began to shake, was enough to keep Harry from giving into the wild spinning within his mind that threatened to make him pass out.

"Remus, that is my mother."

The words fell from his mouth, numbly.

Harry looked up at Lupin through his cracked glasses, completely lost and confused as to how he was able to say something so...absurd.

Lupin looked over his shoulder. He was in as much shock. His dark-green eyes were wide in his pale face, his scars standing out starkly and making him seem more fragile than Harry had ever seen him.

"I – I don't know – we don't know that for certain, but – it seems like – well –" Lupin was truly shaken, stammering and unsure of his words as Harry had never known him to be before. "I don't know how it is possible. If it is – well, if it is possible – then, you must stay away from her."

Harry shook his head, fiercely against the idea before Lupin had finished speaking. The action made him want to slump over onto Ginny, but he resisted. Using all of his effort and willpower to stay conscious, to stay upright – Harry stood his ground and looked at Lupin, beseechingly.

"I want to see her," pleaded Harry, swallowing thickly and realizing that if this was real – or especially if it wasn't real – this was his only chance to actually see his mother for himself. He hardly had photographs of her. He certainly didn't have any of his own memories of her – just a stolen piece of memory from Snape, of all people in the world. If this was the only moment in his living memory that he'd be able to lay eyes on his mother for himself – "Moony, please. Please, I have to see her. I don't know what's going on – I don't care what's going on – I just want to see my mum – "

Lupin looked absolutely torn.

"This is a magical catastrophe, Harry," wheezed Tonks, when it was evident Lupin was so overwhelmed, he couldn't speak. Tonks had come up behind Lupin soundlessly and for the first time, Harry understood what it meant that she was an Auror. The look on her face was severe, brooked no argument, as she said firmly: "We're in a restricted area of the Department of Mysteries, a magical catastrophe just happened as the result of a duel using Dark Magic, and we have no idea why or how or if that is even your – if the person who – " Tonks seemed to struggle with the impossibility of it all herself, before sighing roughly. "Harry, Lupin is right to keep you away. If that is your mum, if that is Lily Potter who's just come through the Veil after being dead for fifteen years – that has something to do with Time-Travel, which is not to be messed with. For everyone's safety, you can't see her now. Not until someone figures out just what happened and just what's going on."

Lupin nodded fervently, agreeing with all that Tonks said. His look of gratitude towards the injured witch was tinged with something else, as he drew his own wand. Lupin glanced towards the arch again, emotions surging on his face –

Everyone exclaimed in shock as a deep and powerful quake rocked the entire chamber.

A wailing siren echoed from everywhere, it seemed.

Tonks made a worried noise, announcing: "The Invasion Wards have fallen. The Ministry has been breached by a hostile force." Tonks looked squarely at Lupin. "We have to get these three out of here. Madam Vance and Hestia have already evacuated the others. Dumbledore gave orders to regroup at the safehouse, so we'll follow his plans. Let's move!"

"But, what about – argh!"

Harry never finished his sentence.

A blistering surge of pure pain engulfed his forehead. Distantly, he heard Ginny scream as he became aware of the gush of hot blood that came from his scar. Harry's scar had burned or hurt before as Voldemort has rising to strength again; it had been its most painful and most terrifying in his intensity this year, alone. He had never felt something as awful as this.

Voldemort was not only close by, but he was also livid, absolutely furious.

"He's here." Harry hissed, blinking blood out of his eyes. "He's here and he is so angry."

His vision darkened rapidly.

Harry was aware of Ginny shifting to let go of his hand and put both arms around him, catching him as he slumped to the side, too weak to sit upright another moment more. He tried to look towards the arch one more time, determinedly trying to catch one more glimpse of his mother.

The very last thing that Harry knew was the impossible sight of Lily Potter staring at him from the dais, her identical green eyes filled with horror and disbelief at the sight of him.

The bleeding, convulsing boy had her eyes.

Something was wrong.

With her father dead for several years, there was only one person that had eyes like her. There were green eyes, of course, but the shade of green that her eyes were seemed unique to her family – her and her father and relatives who'd passed when before she went to Hogwarts. A rich leaf-green with a darker ring of deeper green around the pupils, those eyes were Evans eyes, doubtlessly. The same Evans eyes she'd been filled with pride and love, when she'd birthed her son and seen that he had those very eyes.

Her son was the only one who had eyes like her, now.

Her infant son who wasn't yet two years old. The green eyes that she'd passed along to him as his mother were big and precious enough to seem like they took up most of his tiny face. Whether with tears in his eyes or the sparkle of laughter, Lily had never once forgotten the awe and love she'd felt looking at her eyes in her precious baby's face –

Only, the face they were in now wasn't a baby's face.

It was the face of a nearly adult boy, a boy she didn't know.

A boy who couldn't be her Harry, because –

Harry was a baby.

Harry was only one.

That boy was an adolescent, closer to adulthood than he was to childhood.

How could that young man have her eyes, when only her baby had her eyes? How was it possible that those same eyes she'd seen moments ago, in the face of her baby as she looked upon him for the last time before being confronted with Lord Voldemort –

How could they be in the eyes of this boy who wasn't a baby?

A wailing siren pierced the air, startling her.

Lily looked around in a panic.

She didn't know where she was or what that sound meant or what it meant – all she could see was that the young man with her eyes had disappeared from the dais completely, nothing but a flash of fading spell-light in his wake.

A very tall man had leapt onto the dais and was coming towards her; the air was so cloudy with lingering debris and smoke from spell-light that she couldn't quite make out who he was. Lily stumbled back instinctively, trying to put distance between them. There was something about his gait that made her feel as if she knew him but of course she couldn't know him. She had no idea who this man was or why he was giving her the same haunted feeling as the young boy with her eyes had.

A pair of hands closed cautiously around her upper-arm and kept her from tripping over her own feet in her haste to move away from the man who was only steps away from her.

"It's alright, Lily – it's only Remus – no one else is here but the three of us –"

The voice was so familiar Lily could have collapsed from relief.

Sirius and Remus.

Lily remembered that when she'd opened her eyes after the explosion of darkness, the first two faces she'd seen were Sirius and Remus.

Sirius and Remus had been looking down upon her as they would if she'd fallen from a great height and landed flat on her back –

But then, there was yelling and a struggle – and then –

A woman with pale green hair and an angry red laceration across her face was kneeling beside her, cautiously, and Sirius wasn't there anymore, either. The woman had helped her up her feet, made sure she could stand on her own without falling over –

And in following the quick, lurching steps that the woman took away from her, Lily had first seen the near-adult boy with her eyes and had been sent into a tailspin.

She'd forgotten that she had first seen Remus and Sirius until now.

Until hearing Sirius and his assurances that it was only herself and them in this strange, too-cold chamber she'd never seen before.

Lily turned to face Sirius, his hand still holding her up steadily as Remus came up behind her –

"Sirius?"

It couldn't be possible that the skeletal and wasted man who ensured that she didn't give into the weakness of her knees – he couldn't be Sirius Black.

The Sirius Black that had stopped by for one last dinner at Godric's Hollow before they'd cast the Fidelius Charm had looked nothing like this shell of a wizard.

Sirius had been full of vibrancy and intensity that not even a tumultuous war could take from him. His mercurial gray eyes had been sparking with the determination and skill it would take to ensure his best friends and godson were protected when he helped them cast the complex, ancient Charms ritual that would hide them from Lord Voldemort. The newly acquired scar that bisected his dark brow was the only sign that he was on the frontlines of the war and had committed to further endangering his life by helping to hide the targeted Potters.

This couldn't be the same man –

But the pale scar through his eyebrow, which looked as though it had been healed for years instead of weeks – it stood out against his gaunt skin said that this had to be Sirius.

"How can you be Sirius? How can –?" Lily did not pull away from Sirius but instead, she turned half-desperately in his grip to look at Remus. Her legs trembled warningly, feeling as though they were numb, and she couldn't stay standing much longer. She would have collapsed completely, if Sirius wasn't holding her up, as she took in the distorted likeness of Remus, as well. "How can you be Remus? This isn't right – something isn't right – what did I do wrong?"

Somewhere over the wailing siren, the sound of voices seemed to be coming from somewhere outside the amphitheater.

Lily wasn't sure what about that alarmed Sirius and Remus, but both wizards exchanged a sharp look between them. Remus nodded after a moment and Sirius gently grabbed her other arm, turning her fully towards him.

"Lily, I don't know what's happening or what's going on, but I do know that we have to leave now. If there was another way, we'd do that, but this is the only way I think is safest for us all. I'm sorry about this, Lily."

A rush of cool, soothing darkness that was nothing like the darkness that brought her here swept her up.

All she could think, as she passed out from the gentle touch of a spell against her neck and fully fell against a withered Sirius was –

Something was deeply, deeply wrong.

There was no choice that they could make except to wait.

Sirius and Remus allowed the Portkey to deposit them on the darkened mountain trail that would lead them by foot to the safehouse of the Order.

Phoenix Hall had been designated last autumn as their first evacuation point if the London headquarters were to become compromised. With the discovery earlier in the day that Kreacher had been feeding information to Narcissa Malfoy through his binding to the House of Black, everyone had agreed that Number Twelve had been thoroughly compromised. They wouldn't return again for the rest of the war. Phoenix Hall was where they would all meet to debrief and recover, following the mission to London to rescue Harry and his friends.

Their mission to rescue Harry from the trap lain by Death Eaters was completed.

The very same mission now had them arriving at Phoenix Hall as alive and as planned, but with an accompanying person neither knew what to make of.

Sirius and Remus shared a shaken look in the charm-light of the Lumos spell glowing from Sirius's wand tip.

Without a word, Remus conjured a stretcher with a pillow and a light blanket. Sirius gingerly laid the body of the unconscious witch they'd brought along with them upon the stretcher and then stepped back, quickly.

When she was settled onto the stretcher and mostly covered with the blanket, both wizards simply stared.

The light of the Lumos Spell made the witch's ruby-red hair stand out brightly in the quiet, deep night. The long tumble of hair was in a thick braid that was falling loose from its bindings, the locks of wavy hair spilling over the edge of the stretcher like rivulets of blood. Her pale skin was more sallow than usual, but the long dark red lashes fell on her high cheekbones as they remembered. The thin white scars on her fingers were a familiar sight upon her hands, the budding Potions Mistress that she had been in the process of becoming –

It was the glittering rings upon each of her hands that made Sirius gasp aloud, a choking sound that came from his sheer disbelief. Remus exhaled sharply, as he noticed, too.

The thin silver ring on her left hand was made from platinum but bore three simple stones: a garnet with two pieces of opal on either side. The ring that adorned her right hand was more opulent and bolder than the one of her left because it had been her wedding ring, the ring worn by Potter brides since the 15th century.

Sirius and Remus each knew those rings well.

Remus had been responsible for finding out what size Lily Evans's finger was in the summer of 1978, so that James Potter could propose to her with a custom ring wrought by goblinsmiths and made exclusively for her by Christmas of that same year. Remus had pulled off the move with considerable ease and when she'd accepted the proposal, Sirius was elated to be asked to be the Best Man. His role as the Best Man at their wedding had made him responsible for fetching the wedding ring from Gringotts, holding it during the ceremony, and passing it over to James to be put onto Lily's hand as they exchanged their vows in October 1979.

The rings had become a part of Lily Potter from then on and she was never seen without either for the remainder of her too-short life.

It was unthinkable, it was impossible, but –

This witch appeared to be Lily Potter, exactly as she had been fifteen years ago in the autumn of 1981, when they'd last seen her alive.

The thought was too wild, too unbelievable to dwell on for both wizards. Their minds in a tailspin, Remus directed the stretcher to begin moving, so that they could silently make for the safehouse.

They found themselves unable to enter with the presence of the third, unknown person that was with them, floating unaware on the stretcher.

The next few minutes were an exercise in trial and error as Sirius and Remus attempted to outsmart the protections that they'd each had a hand in thickly layering their new headquarters with. It would not allow either of them in, together or as individuals, if they tried to bring the stretcher beyond the boundary line and onto the property proper.

While neither wizard knew exactly what was going on, they didn't feel comfortable with simply leaving an unconscious witch outside of the boundary lines.

If it the witch was meant as a trap, an additional layer to the lethal scheme they'd just foiled, then Remus was concerned that the body would act like a beacon and draw Death Eaters directly to their wards – perhaps even Voldemort himself.

However, Sirius reasoned that it if weren't a trap and this was truly Lily, they would be leaving her unprotected and possibly die from injuries they couldn't see yet. He couldn't live with that, and he couldn't see himself leaving her alone after whatever she'd been through to bring her here.

Both wizards had valid points. Neither of them could agree what should happen next, even still.

There was no choice they could make except to wait for Dumbledore, it seemed.

Dumbledore was not only the master of the wards that protected Phoenix Hall.

He was also the person who was most likely to know what to do with the sudden and inexplicable event that appeared to have returned Lily Potter back from the dead.

Sirius conjured a low bench from a stray stick nearby. Heavily, he sat down upon it, while Remus summoned a non-corporeal Patronus that illuminated everything around them with the power of its light. The silvery light split off into two directions; a streak of silver raced down the mountainside like a comet as it headed off it its important destination, while the other half easily slipped through the boundary line and off towards the manor house that would be their new headquarters going forward. Remus gave the stretcher a long and strained look, before joining Sirius on the conjured bench.

Together, the two Marauders waited with the mystery that neither of them could begin to understand.

The stricken message that Remus Lupin had sent through a Patronus message had been brief but clear: Needed at HQ urgently. Potential threat, assistance needed.

Dumbledore experienced a brief surge of overwhelming pressure that made him feel every bit of his one hundred and fifteen years.

The Ministry was in ruin and chaos from the appearance of Riddle, whose return they'd been denying for a year, while Hogwarts lay unprotected with both his absence and Minerva's confinement in St. Mungo's Hospital. Six schoolchildren had been lured into a trap by Death Eaters, necessitating their rescue by the Order, and now –

One of his trusted lieutenants was sending what amounted to a distress signal, letting him know that even his carefully laid evacuation plans had somehow been disrupted.

Something was going on at the Phoenix Hall.

All of the survivors they'd extracted from the Ministry – especially Harry and the other children – were in danger from whatever threat Remus was not certain they could handle. Key members of the Order were either stationed at Phoenix Hall or would soon be arriving. A strike against their safehouse while innocents and core Order members were present would be devastating, for more than one reason.

Hogwarts would keep her occupants safe with the supportive guidance of Filius, if only for the next few hours; there was no immediate danger as far as the wards reported and he could trust that with Delores Umbridge deposed, the staff would keep everything together until he could check in again. The Ministry was in an uproar and had been dealt a terrible blow tonight. As the Chief of the Wizengamot, he would be called up no later than tomorrow morning to preside over the hobbling Ministry's next steps – but, for right now, the immediate actions of stabilizing and securing the Ministry was falling to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Amelia Bones was at the center of the tumult and most needed right now, not him.

Dumbledore made his decision.

With a near-silent crack of Apparition, Dumbledore arrived on the rocky and uneven trail that would lead into the obscurity of the Welsh mountains. Phoenix Hall could only be reached by walking from this point of arrival; it was one of the main defenses and Dumbledore knew he didn't have to walk long before learning what was going on.

His brisk footsteps were a near-run and brought him upon Remus, as he half-hoped.

Dumbledore was not prepared for what he walked up upon and nearly stumbled.

Remus and Sirius looked at him with wide eyes, startled to see something so ungraceful from the powerful and controlled leader they'd been faithful followers of for decades. Dumbledore ignored their looks, focused upon the witch that was laying unmoving on a stretcher. There weren't many times when the great Albus Dumbledore was struck speechless.

The sight of a witch who had been dead for a decade and a half, alive and breathing despite her lack of consciousness, was one of the first instances in a long while that Dumbledore had been stunned to the point of having no words.

When he finally did find his words, Dumbledore sounded calmer than expected. He hadn't moved, however, nor had he taken his eyes off of the stretcher.

"Remus, I received your Patronus while at the Ministry. Am I to presume that – this – is what the urgent, potential threat was?"

Remus shook his head blankly. "Albus, we don't know what's going on. We've been sitting here, trying to figure out what could be happening, but we've come up with nothing." Remus paused for a moment, then hysterically burst out: "Albus, this is Lily! This is Lily – our Lily! She died. She died at Godric's Hollow; I helped you plan her funeral – she's been dead for years – how can she be – ?!"

Remus broke off with a strangled sound that was somewhere between a sob and a growl. Dumbledore shook himself from his stunned stupor, his powerful mind racing faster than it ever had before. He kept his wand drawn and at the ready, as he came closer to the bench that Sirius and Remus were sitting upon and continued to look upon the witch on the stretcher. Now that he was closer, he could understand why Remus was so hysterical and Sirius distressed into a silence that was unlike him.

If it weren't for the too-quick rise and fall of her chest, Dumbledore would have sworn that he was looking down upon Lily Potter as she was in her casket, on the chilly November morning of her funeral, fifteen years ago.

Dumbledore twitched his wand towards her discreetly. A number of charms and spells began working their way over her prone body. While his magic worked at determining if this were real or construction of magic, Dumbledore looked at the pair of friends.

"Will someone tell me what happened?" he requested quietly, not taking his eyes off of the stretcher and the twist of spell work that was doing its part to provide an explanation of these unusual circumstances.

Neither man answered for a long moment, and then –

"Bellatrix and I dueled." Sirius spoke up. "She tried to kill Andromeda's daughter – her sister's daughter – and I couldn't let her get away with something like that. I dueled her and she kept going on and on about how she had killed Nymphadora, she was going to kill me, then she was going to take Harry to her Master and –"

Sirius stopped short, almost panting with fear about what could have happened, how the evening could have gone so terribly wrong if they'd waited or hesitated or done anything differently.

Dumbledore waited.

His spells had so far told him that there was no concealment, disillusionment, glamour, or Transfiguration that was responsible for the appearance of the witch before him. He urged his magic to continue its work, as Sirius found his voice again.

"I couldn't let her do that, Albus. I dueled her with the full intent to kill and she was dueling for the same – and that's when it happened. The explosion. You were there when that happened."

Dumbledore frowned. "I was. I did not see exactly what happened, however. What caused the explosion?"

Sirius nodded at his arm, which Dumbledore belatedly realized was cradled against his chest limply, within a conjured sling that was supporting all its weight.

"Whatever she threw at me that made this happen, it tossed me up against that arch and caused pieces of that Veil to get ahold of my hand." Sirius swallowed thickly, something terrified in his eyes, as he continued in a hoarse voice: "I was trapped, my injured hand and arm were letting the Veil start to pull me through – and then Bellatrix sent something Dark at me. I'm not sure what it was, but I know what Dark Magic feels like, y'know? I ducked at the last second. I literally ducked out of the way of whatever that was and that's what made the arch explode. Her spell struck the arch, not me."

Dumbledore suppressed the shudder that wanted to ripple through him as he got a clearer picture of just what had happened in the Death Chamber in the final moments of that perilous battle.

The host of complicated spell work that had been doing a deep examination of the witch to determine if she were a true threat had winked out of sight.

Remus and his keen eye for spell-work instantly became aware that the spellcasting had concluded and looked up at Albus intensely. "Well, Albus? Who is this? Who is she?"

Dumbledore couldn't believe what he was saying, but the spellcasting spoke for itself. A touch numbly, Dumbledore looked at Sirius and Remus and gave an answer he didn't expect to be able to give.

"This witch before is us Lily Potter and it appears as though a magical catastrophe has brought her back through the Veil."

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have always found the revelation scenes/arcs in a Time-Travel fic to be a little too cut-and-dry. Someone travels to another time (usually the traditional backwards with a plan to change the timeline) and after a few conversations, they settle into accepting the Time Traveler in their reality and the story just keeps rolling, although a bit disjointedly to me. I believe that if someone that everyone thought was dead suddenly appeared alive fifteen years later, there would be a lot more suspicion, fear, and disbelief than most authors give the characters credit for.

In the next chapter, Harry awakens to a world changed from what happened at the Ministry. We get deeper into AU territory and the story starts looking less like canon from here on out.

Reviews are appreciated and welcomed! See you in the next update!]