Sorry this update took a while to get out. Real life attacked like acrazedferret and carried me off screeching into the sunset.

xxx

Harry sat scanning the fragile pages. He couldn't quite believe what he was reading. It wasn't an especially complex spell; it didn't even need an especially large amount of power. The spell was quite simply ancient and obscure.

Possibly the spell had deliberately been lost for a very good reason.

Like so idiotic young men couldn't go rampaging through time to repeatedly seduce teenaged godfathers

Harry resolutely ignored this thought and other similar twinges of conscience, and began considering when the best time to use would be?

When would he find a younger Sirius alone, and in a situation that wouldn't lead to a complete disaster for the future?

He could go back in time to ten minutes after he had left Sirius lying in tangled sheets and pretend that his departure was going to be delayed until the evening. That would work, and they could spend the day together.

He might even have the chance to meet his father properly too. Though giving a youthful Sirius the chance to compare two Potter men more closely than a brief meeting under the mellow lighting of the Leaky Cauldron Bar permitted might not be the wisest thing to do.

He was pondering on this when he realized that an elegant black clad figure had exited his fireplace with an exceptional dignity he had never been able to muster, even after so many years of practice.

Severus.

Harry suddenly felt inexcusably awful about his recent actions, and worse about his selfish and covetous thoughts.

Then he looked at his lover's face and was seized by a terrible and somewhat insane suspicion.

"Did you know?" He blurted.

A sardonic brow arched skywards, and Severus glided to the chair behind the desk and coolly seated himself. "And what precisely are you referring to?"

Harry immediately felt silly and frantically cast about the recesses of his mind for some suitable retort.

"You meant your rather recent liaison with Black during the seventies?"

Harry gaped, and then had to make a conscious effort to not stare with bug-eyed fascination and shock at Severus.

"You are not precisely inconspicuous you realize?"

"Huh?"

"A tall and darkly handsome stranger with a dangerous air who spends a mere hour charming Black into bed one Christmas holiday was bound to be noticed. You were foolish to think you could get away with it."

Harry gaped at a man who he now realized he had never been able to remotely understand. "But why didn't you warn me, why did you just let it happen?" He stuttered.

"Because it was inevitable."

Harry studied Severus for a long moment. "There is no such thing as inevitable, you could have stopped it; you must have known something of what would happen."

"Meddling with the past is never advisable. Something you would do well to recall if you are making idiotic Gryffindorish plans to pursue the mutt again at some point before his untimely end by the veil."

Harry knew his flush and downcast eyes had given him away when a small snort of disgust was directed his way.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled at last, as images of Sirius falling shot painfully through his mind again.

"Sorry?" Severus sneered. "As if that helps with this."

Suddenly Harry was angry.

Furiously angry.

"Well I am sorry! I'm sorry that I broke some sort of rule of magic. I'm sorry I acted in a way that was disrespectful to us and irresponsible to the world in general, I'm even sorry that I'm actually tempted to go and do it all again and to hell with everything!" Harry took a very deep breath, reached for some semblance of control, and lowered his voice. "But I will not apologise for loving him."

A curling lip and a swirl of heavy black silk was the only response to his outburst, as Severus Snape simply walked into the fire and out of his life.

Harry slumped into his recently vacated chair and tried to process the information that had just been flung at him. "Well that went well," he mumbled sarcastically to the empty room.

Then he leapt to his feet and lunged for the book again. "The Veil!" He gasped aloud as he searched the passages of the book to see if it was possible to bring people from the past into the future.

His mind was racing. They had never found a body, because Sirius had fallen behind the veil where no man could or would follow. But what if Sirius hadn't died? What if he had been snatched into the future instead?

Harry's mouth dried as he panted eagerly and his hands shook. Was it within his power to make Sirius live again?

It was certainly worth a try he decided. To hell with the fact that many official types (including Hermione) would take a very dim view of his meddling. If it became necessary, he and Sirius could run away together and live on a nice tropical island as muggles. Sirius likely wouldn't much care about being abducted to a white sandy beach or being stashed under a palm tree - as long as he could avoid being shut up in Grimmauld Place again, Sirius would probably go along with any adventure Harry cared to propose.

So, he would go back to that fateful night at the ministry. Back to the night he'd broken his own heart with his stupidity and conceit, but this time he'd bring Sirius home.

The sooner the better, he decided as he read and re-read the spell until the words swam and somersaulted before his eyes. Severus was a vindictive sort; he might just accidentally on purpose tip somebody off about the powerful spell Harry was planning to use.

So less than an hour later Harry casually entered the Ministry building clutching a newspaper. He found his way to a quiet spot; threw his invisibility cloak around himself, dropped the newspaper to the floor and clasped the spell book in a surprisingly steady hand. He raised his wand purposefully and carefully began intoning the ancient words that would help make his world right again.

An uncomfortable lurch and flash of blinding light later Harry found himself lying on the floor in the small Ministry stock room he had chosen. He lay still for a moment, letting the world stop revolving so unsettlingly, then opened his eyes and looked around. Luckily there was nobody in sight. He didn't like to think what would have happened had he been unfortunate enough to land in front of some ministry idiot or other – invisible or not. He peered around at the sparse décor and could see no difference in his surroundings. But had the spell worked? The room he had chosen was small and rarely used. Several years with no changes could only be expected.

But the newspaper was gone.

Cautiously Harry exited the room and began edging his way through the maze of the Ministry. He was quite rapidly making his way to the department of mysteries when he heard voices. He flattened his invisible body against the wall as voices came closer, and caught his breath as several Aurors passed him.

Now he knew the spell had worked.

One of those Aurors who had passed him was Adam Bootes. He was a young man of not-quite forty, who had trained both Harry and Ron when they first became Aurors.

But Harry had attended his funeral five years earlier.

Harry stared after the man as he walked unaware of what lay in his too near future. He thought of Adam's grieving wife and baby daughter. He thought of Ron's distress as he returned from a mission without his partner. He closed his eyes in remembered pain, but he remained resolutely where he was, he couldn't start fixing all these terrible things, or he'd never be able to stop.

He continued on his way, silently wishing he didn't have to see so much of his past in order to make it right.

xxx

The veil looked the same as it did in his nightmares.

He approached it slowly, considering how to proceed.

He had seen Sirius actually fall through the veil. So he couldn't now grab him from in front of the veil.

He considered throwing his invisibility cloak over himself and Sirius as Sirius toppled into the veil, but decided ruefully that he didn't trust his ability to hold Sirius' weight and stop them both from crashing through the veil, and knowing Sirius he'd wriggle like an eel and escape in a heartbeat and then he'd have a really big disaster on his hands.

He couldn't just stand here much longer though. Things would start to happen soon, and if he didn't find a way to save Sirius this time around the failure would drive him crazy.

He stared at the veil for long minutes, his hopes of holding Sirius in his arms withering away as he failed to see a way to rescue him without destroying so much else that he valued.

Then he started forward, staring intently at the ancient designs and symbols etched on the archway from which the veil hung. He'd seen the veil and its archway a thousand times in his most vivid and painful dreams. But the symbols had not been quite like they were now. In fact, now he could read some of them, or sort of read them anyway - runes had never really been his strong point in school. They were just simple runes telling of death and life and the endless cycle of souls through time, or something to that effect.

Harry cast back in his memory. Did his dreams play tricks on him?

Then the idea flashed into his mind, the runes seemed different because they really were different.

Because they had been made different?

A hint from himself?

With a wave of his wand the stone floor began to twitch, and soon sprang up to form a rather basic looking archway just a few inches in front of the real one.

A distinctly grubby and somewhat tattered handkerchief fished from his pocket was easily engorged and, with a little transfiguring made an admirable veil.

He affixed it to the archway with a shudder and stepped back to appraise his handiwork.

"Brilliant." He murmured as he charmed the two archways to appear as one.

The real veil and archway was snugly behind his false archway and veil, safely hidden from off-balanced godfathers.

In theory, Sirius would fall right through a veil and into his arms.

Then, with the basic part of his plan completed he began copying some of the runes from the real archway, magically carving them onto his false copy, in a way that they were similar enough to the originals that most people wouldn't notice, but enough for his distraught 15-year-old self to subconsciously absorb the discrepancy.

Then he faced his veil, and with a slight superstitious cringe he pushed through it to wait in the tiny gap he had left himself. He had used magic to make the space large enough for himself and Sirius, but it was still an uncomfortable squeeze and with a moment of pure fear, he felt the real veil flutter against him, tattered folds clutching around his ankles and calves as it swayed in a nonexistent breeze.

He recoiled and pushed through again to stand on the dais with a horrified look on his face. Harry stood and stared disgustedly at his brilliant creation for a full minute, unwilling to go back into the tiny space.

But then he heard familiar voices and knew he had no choice left now. He could only hide himself and let it happen.

Harry crouched back behind his veil, listening to the occasional shouts. It was harder than he had thought it would be, to hear himself and his friends battling Death Eaters.

Then he heard Sirius come charging to the rescue, heard his battle with Dolohov, and in his mind he saw every movement the pair made.

He heard Sirius shout at him to take the prophecy, grab Neville and run.

Soon.

He braced himself ready to catch Sirius when he fell.

He dimly heard other shouts and spells being cast, but his focus was absolute; he was only listening for Sirius.

Things quieted a little and Harry knew Dumbledore had arrived, and then Harry heard Sirius laughing.

Now.

Harry held out his arms.

A second later he heard Sirius taunt Bellatrix for the last time, and moments later Sirius slumped through the false veil and landed heavily in his arms. The real veil rippled forward and lapped at him as Harry struggled to support his weight, but Harry sank to the floor clutching Sirius tightly, carefully holding his unconscious body away from both the veils.

He listened to his younger-self shouting for Sirius, and Sirius twitched in his arms, seemingly in response to his voice.

Harry listened to the pain in those shouts, and held Sirius tighter, murmuring soothing nonsense to him.

He could remember the pain of losing Sirius only too clearly, and even now he could wrap his arms around him and know he was safe, he could still feel the enduring hurt of the years he had lived with the loss.

The shouts died away, and he knew that his younger-self was now pursuing Bellatrix, with revenge in mind.

But anything happening the other side of the veil was no longer of any interest to Harry. He knew how it all went, and the only thing that mattered now was that Sirius could come home with him.

Maybe this older Sirius wouldn't want to be his godson's lover, but that didn't matter. Just knowing that Sirius was in the world and living the life he had always been denied would be enough.