It started off with an accident.
One moment, Catherine Potter, Girl-Who-Lived, Woman-Who-Conquered, Master of Death, and various other titles that she didn't really care for, had been making her routine patrol through the Department of Mysteries. It was routine in the way that she had found quite comforting. Her route was the same every time she did it and the other Unspeakables never bothered to pay much attention. Everyone in the Department of Mysteries had their own things to do, their own research projects to tackle and magic to experiment with, things that required their full attention.
Someone making a routine patrol was hardly attention grabbing.
Though, one person had refused to act like the rest.
Luna Lovegood, fellow Unspeakable and wife, had tagged along for this patrol.
Catherine didn't exactly know why Luna became an Unspeakable or why she decided to work at the Ministry at all. She had grand plans of becoming a Magizoologist and hunting down those magical creatures that she and her father always talked about, and Catherine knew that she had plans to travel to Sweden for that express purpose. But she also knew that Catherine herself was the reason for Luna's change in career paths.
She didn't want to be that reason, but Luna had been adamant that about it, and so the two of them became Unspeakables.
It hadn't taken much effort to become one either, the whole defeating Voldemort and the whole needing to reorganize and rebuild the Department of Mysteries from the ground up made it so that Catherine was all but given the job when she asked. Getting Luna, a position within the department didn't take much effort either, as whatever Catherine Potter said went, since she was Head Unspeakable. So, she had gotten her wife a job and the two of them had basically rebuilt the place to what they wanted it to be.
Catherine was proud of what they had built, all the new innovations in magic that they had accomplished, all the new people that had been brought in to solve so many problems. She didn't know who any of her coworkers were, the whole point of the Unspeakables was to remain anonymous, but she felt that they were good people. They all worked well as a team when teamwork was required. No one was hostile to each other, so it was all smooth sailing.
Then someone had brought back a magical artifact in the form of a pocket watch from Switzerland and Luna had dragged Catherine with her to the vault to take a look at it.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Was all that Luna had said.
As expected, the worst happened.
The moment that Luna had touched the pocket watch, magic burst out from it like a damn had broken, its energy spewing all over the place. It was violent and rocked the very room they were standing in. Catherine's first instinct was to grab her wife and pull her away from the obviously dangerous magical artifact. The second Catherine's hand connected with Luna's arm however, something else happened.
There was a snap.
No, a snap wasn't the right word to describe that, it was more like a crack of thunder.
Catherine felt a pull at her stomach, and it started to twist in that familiar way that apparitions did. Before she could even do anything, they were already traveling and to destination unknown. However, this felt different to regular apparitions, or even portkeys. This didn't just feel like a twisting of the stomach that she had gotten used to. No, this felt like she was being shoved through a hole that was the size of her thumb.
It was safe to say that it felt almost as bad as dying did.
The Woman-Who-Conquered had landed on her knees and had emptied her stomach once the magical artifact had spat them back out.
Luna surprisingly kept control of her own stomach and even knelt down beside Catherine and rubbed some circles on her back.
"This is why you don't touch unknown magical artifacts Luna." Catherine said as she grimaced. She groped around for her wand, the Elder Wand having refused to part with her, and cleaned herself and the surrounding area up.
"Well, I think it was rather interesting, the Nargles certainly do."
Catherine didn't know if the other woman was speaking seriously or not.
"Just don't go touching it again."
"I don't think that'll be a problem, seeing as we're not at the Ministry anymore, or indoors for that matter."
Catherine looked up and sure enough, they were no longer indoors. It didn't even seem like they were even close to the Ministry. The sky was filled with stars and the moon was full, both of which couldn't be right, seeing as the full moon wasn't scheduled to happen for another two days and it was definitely not night that last time she checked.
"Luna, do you have that pocket watch?" Catherine asked as she looked around at the area. They appeared to be standing on a roof of a building. It was flat and the occasional steam vent and outlet were dotted around the roof. There were also some sport equipment laying around in various spots, balls of various size and shape, some of them looking far older than others.
"Yes, I do. Here you go Catherine." Luna said in that same dreamy voice that Catherine had come to love.
Luna had the hood of her cloak pulled off and she had that soft smile on her lips as she held out the magical artifact. Seeing as they were the only two people on this rooftop and there was no need to hide their faces, Catherine pulled her hood away as well, using the Elder Wand to go over the pocket watch. Surprisingly, it came back as completely ordinary, not a hint of magic clinging to the damn thing.
In fact, it was positively muggle.
"Oh dear, this better not be what I think this is." Catherine muttered as she raised her wand and fired off a tempus.
The date and time that came back was absolutely what she feared it would be.
10:38 PM, August 27, 1987
Catherine hung her head as she sighed. Of all the things that this damned pocket watch had to do, it just had to be time travel, damned time travel!
"Its okay." Luna wrapped Catherine up in a hug and the Master of Death slumped into her wife's embrace. "At least the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks aren't around."
Catherine couldn't help the half-sob half chuckle that came out. Of all the things that Luna could have said, that was probably completely out of the blue while also remaining quite Lovegood in quality. It allowed Catherine to forget for a moment just how fucked their situation was and just laugh at the absurdity of it all. Of all the things she'd gone through, fulfilling a prophecy, and coming back to life in the process, killing a Dark Lord and saving Magical Britain, rebuilding the Department of Mysteries, and now time travel. She didn't know how she hadn't keeled over at this point from all the stress.
"Oh, it's okay Catherine, you can let it out." Luna murmured into Catherine's hair.
Their positions had soon ended up sitting on the roof of this building. Catherine clung to her wife as she sobbed into the other woman's shoulder. Luna simply hugged her and rubbed Catherine's back and pulled her hair away from her face. Her emotions were up, and her control was shot to shit, so her Metamorphmagus abilities were showing again, her hair running through several different shades from black to white. She didn't like using them, preferring to simply remain how she always looked, raven black hair and Avada green eyes.
Though right now she couldn't care less as she let out another sob into Luna's shoulder.
All of that work, all of that effort, all of the blood, sweat, and tears she had given, and it was all for nothing. They were back in time, and that meant that everything wrong with Britain still existed. Voldemort was still out there, the Death Eaters were still lurking in the shadows, Dumbledore was still being a misguided idiot, and…
"I don't want to have to do it all over again." Catherine said into Luna's shoulder.
"Mmm, you won't have to die again, that's for sure." Luna simply said as she ran a slender finger over Catherine's forehead, right where the lightning bolt scar sat. The thing was so faded that it barely showed at this point, and being a Metamorphmagus, she could just shift her appearance so that her forehead was unblemished.
"We… we have to go through it all again." Catherine said, her hands fisting into Luna's Unspeakable robes, surprisingly soft to the touch.
"It'll be out next great adventure. We can finally conquer the world."
Catherine chocked out a laugh. It had always been an inside joke between the two of them, the fact that they both feasibly do just that, and no one would be the wiser. Even more so now that they were from the future and had all the knowledge and skills that came with it. They knew everything that was going to happen, they'd lived it for Merlin's sake.
"How are you so okay with all of this?" Catherine asked.
"I always thought about time travel. Doing some things over would have been fun. But I never thought it would actually happen."
"I... I don't think there's a way to return. The department wouldn't have anything like this." Catherine said and held up the pocket watch. "No one's even thought about traveling this far back in time."
"But it'll be such fun. We could even go and find little Catherine and little Luna."
Oh gods, she hadn't even thought about that, their younger versions would also be here. Everyone who had died in the war would still be here. The world, or Great Britain for that matter, hadn't gone fully to shit yet. That would mean that the younger version of herself was still at…
"Okay, if we're doing this, we're going to take initiative." Catherine said and stood up so fast her world span for a second. She slammed her occlumency shields into place from where they had been slipping and held on for dear life. She forced herself into control and reigned in her Metamorphmagus abilities so that she looked like she always did. Raven black hair and Avada green eyes were back, and her lightning bolt scar was gone from her forehead.
If they were really going to do this and use their knowledge of the future to change things than she had to remain at the top of herself.
"Oh, so we're going to be kidnappers?" Luna asked, not at all fazed by that phrase, or the prospect of kidnapping their younger selves.
"I know for sure that my younger self would have dreamed for something like this to happen." Catherine said. "Living with the Dursleys wasn't paradise on Earth."
"We should probably get little Voldy out of her head as well." Luna added. "And then head for some nice Italian Villa, get some sun and pasta, oh! And maybe even hunt some Wrackspurts while we're at it."
Catherine couldn't help but grin at that. Voldemort wasn't as scary as he had been, not after learning about all of his deepest and darkest secrets and killing him of course. The fact that he also didn't even have a body yet made him a non-threat, so they could go about hunting down the Horcruxes with no trouble from him. Also, the prospect of that Italian Villa did sound nice, and Catherine had to admit that she really could use a vacation.
"Well, I guess we have a plan than, find our younger selves and then fix the world."
"Sounds lovely." Luna said and Catherine wrapped an arm around her wife's waist.
"Catherine and Luna, time travelers-extraordinaire."
With a small pop that sounded nothing more than a snap of the fingers, two woman disapparated from a roof top on that quiet August night.
"Didn't Dumbledore say that there were blood wards on the house?" Luna asked.
"No, it was more of an implied reference to magic protecting the place." Catherine said.
They had apparated to the house that Catherine had thought she'd never see again. She didn't go out of her way to visit after the war ended and her life became what it was. The last thing on her mind was her muggle relatives, and now she was back here, back where it all started.
There were no wards on the building, nor surrounding it. Catherine felt nothing as she and Luna approached the house. No magic in the air and not a single sign that any magic had been here for some time. Catherine had done some accidental magic during her own childhood, but it seemed that nothing had happened for a while, no traces of it to be found in the air.
"Seems like there aren't any wards here." Luna said and tapped her wand on the doorknob of the front door. There was a click of the lock opening and soon enough they were both inside.
The house was dark and quiet, the snoring coming from upstairs signaling that her uncle and aunt were already in bed. Catherine's feelings about them were still conflicted, and hopefully, they wouldn't meet in this past or present again. She had had enough of Vernon and Petunia Dursley for one lifetime. She didn't hate them anymore, but she'd rather go without having to talk or see them ever again, call it a heavy amount of dislike.
"Dumbledore wasn't always the smartest man." Catherine muttered as she made her way to that damned cupboard.
It brought back more memories than she cared to admit. Years of her life had been spent here, thinking that this was the normal, that this was all she had to look forward to. She clamped down on those memories and shoved them to the side. She'd deal with them later, right now she had a little version of herself to meet, and possibly kidnap.
They set up a little bubble of wards, charming them so that no sound would leak out, just in case.
The flick of the latch and the swinging of the door revealed a little girl staring up at them with a confused expression.
Oh, Morgana help her, had she really been that thin? Her hair was an uncombed mess and the rags she was wearing didn't fit her at all. Her face was slightly gaunt in appearance and her entire body was too thin for Catherine's liking. No, this would not do at all. The little girl looked up at her and Luna with those bespectacled eyes and Catherine made a note to herself to bring the girl to a healer once they finished with the kidnapping.
They had to get her on a regimen of potions and healthy foods, as well as fixing her eyesight and removing that Horcrux from her head. She'd been an idiot in underestimating the goblins in her own past and she wouldn't make that mistake in this one. Goblin magic was unfairly good in some areas.
"Hello there." Luna said in that dreamy voice and knelt down in front of the younger version of Catherine. "I'm Luna, what's your name?"
Luna Lovegood had this way with kids where they'd just open up to her. Catherine still hadn't figured out just what she was doing, but it didn't seem to be magic. She'd just smile and talk to them, and they'd respond, regardless of if they knew her or not.
"I'm Iolanthe." The little girl said, her voice small and slightly hesitant.
Wait… Iolanthe? Catherine was pretty sure she knew what her name was, and it wasn't Iolanthe. Then again, this might not so much be the past as a new timeline, so everything they knew might just be worthless. Hopefully nothing to major was changed, and she really didn't want to go hunting for those damned Horcruxes if they weren't even in the same places as she knew them to be.
"Hello Iolanthe, its nice to meet you." Luna said and then gestured to Catherine. "This is your cousin Catherine Potter, and the both of us are here to kidnap you, so please don't resist."
It turned out that there was very little resistance that Iolanthe put up before the three of them were walking out the front door. The whole idea of a kidnapping implied that the kidnapper had to struggle with the kidnapped. What actually happened was just Luna showing some very basic magic to Iolanthe that explained all the accidental magic she'd been doing, and the girl positively latched herself on to Luna's leg and refused to let go. It wasn't so much as a kidnaping as a rescue.
Iolanthe's meager belongs were rounded up, including her mother's trunk from the attic, and everything was thrown into said trunk and then shrunken down. Catherine's mother didn't leave her a trunk in the attic, but Iolanthe's did, and the three of them walked out with that shrunken trunk in hand. She did feel a pang of jealousy that this version of herself had something that she didn't, but she soon realized just how ridiculous that line of that actually was.
Gringotts here we come!
Well, the goblins hadn't tried to kill her, they'd done something much worse.
They were being uncharacteristically cooperative.
"It's written in our treaty." Ragnar, King of the Goblins, explained.
"Treaty? Like the one with the Ministry?" Catherine asked.
"Nay, the one with the Master of Death." The goblin gave a teeth filled smile.
Turns out that time travel and the even more bizarre timeline travel was commonplace amongst Masters of Death. The fact that there was even more than one Master of Death spoke volumes to that, and Catherine sighed as the King of the Goblins explained it all to her. Apparently, Death herself, because Death was apparently a woman, made up the treaty with the goblins and the First Master of Death to help out any and all of her masters whenever they needed it.
Why such a treaty was needed in the first place was not explained to her and please stop asking, thank you very much.
"You're actually the fifth Potter we've processed." Ragnar commented.
"Fifth?"
"Oh yes, you'd be surprised how many versions of yourself can't help but travel through the timeline, all of them doing something or another in the process."
"I'd like to point out that I was brought here against my will." Catherine said.
"Aye, we know about that, but you aren't also the first unwilling traveler. I think Longbottom is still mopping about somewhere in the lower vaults." Ragnar commented almost idly.
"Longbottom? Neville Longbottom?!"
"You think the timeline cares about who is the Master of Death? Its not always you Potter, and you should know that it was a fifty-fifty chance that Voldemort would have chosen Longbottom to be the Boy-Who-Lived, or I should say Girl-Who-Lived, instead of you. Maybe after this meeting we can set up a meeting between you two. Oh! That reminds me." Ragnar took out a thin sheet of metal and slid it over to Catherine. "There's your membership card, don't lose it."
"Should I even ask what this is for?"
"The Master of Death Club, highly exclusive and completely filled with whack jobs."
"Good to know." Catherine muttered as she slid the card into her trouser pocket.
"Now, since you're here, I believe that you've come with a purpose-"
"I was taken here against my will."
"-and whatever that purpose may be Gringotts will endeavor to assist in any way we can."
"Well, you're already taking that Horcrux out of Iolanthe's head and giving her the proper potions and fixing her eyesight, so thanks on that all of those parts. And I guess I should also thank you for the membership card as well… Wait a minute. If you can remove Horcruxes, why the hell didn't you get mine out in my original timeline?"
"That timeline wasn't visited by a Master of Death, and so we could not help you, as stipulated in the treaty."
Catherine just sighed.
"Now, we must get to the matter of your co-traveler."
"Oh gods." Catherine buried her face in her hands.
"Mrs. Lovegood is technically not a Master of Death, but there are exceptions that can be made. Circe's Chosen are always given special exemptions when it concerns the timeline."
"Circe's Chosen?"
"Circe, Hecate, Artemis, Selene, take your pick, your wife is connected to all of them, being of the line of Lovegood."
"Should I even ask what that all means?"
"No, you should not." Ragnar said with a nod. "Matters of the goddesses are better left for after we've had several drinks of Ogden's Finest. Now, all you need to know is that your wife as been given special exemptions to travel the timeline with you, and that those exemptions also extend to one Iolanthe Potter should you and Mrs. Lovegood choose to perform a blood adoption."
"I think it's necessary at this point." Catherine muttered.
"Indeed, now if you'll follow me, we'll head towards the healers.
"Neville, I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Luna Lovegood, as well as our recently adopted daughter Iolanthe."
Neville Longbottom, Boy-Who-Lived, Man-Who-Conquered, Master of Death, and oh he couldn't be bothered with all of the other titles, looked at the two women and one girl standing before him and took a moment to understand what they just said.
"I'm sorry, I just never met a female version of you, never mind two of them." Neville said.
"Well, I didn't think I'd meet a version of you that was the Boy-Who-Lived." Catherine said.
"Yeah, we're really an odd bunch."
"Its good to see you again Neville Longbottom." Luna added. "The scar looks different on your forehead."
Neville rubbed the scar on his forehead and gave a weak smile.
"Why do we all have scars on the same spot? And how come Luna doesn't have one?" Iolanthe asked, the girl having come fresh from the healers with a bag full of potions, recently de-horcruxed scar, healed eyes, and two newly acquired parents.
"We'll explain that later." Catherine said. "Right now, we're… I don't even know what we're doing here."
"Apparently King Ragnar thinks us meeting would be a good idea." Neville said. "The whole Master of Death thing having special uses and such that change timelines, something that I'm not at all an expert on."
"So, we're all in this club and no one has a clue as to what the purpose is?" Catherine asked.
"Basically."
"Great." Catherine took a seat on one of the many sofas in the club meeting room. The fact that Gringotts had a club meeting room was expected.
"Don't worry, I've seen some fairly weird things happen due to our current position."
"Timeline travel wasn't weird enough?"
"You'd be surprised." Neville shrugged.
"Oh no, no, no, no. You cannot be serious."
"Longbottom, Potter, Lovegood, and Potter again."
Catherine Potter groaned into her hands as Draco Malfoy, Draco Gods-damned Malfoy, walked into the club meeting room.
"Malfoy, welcome back." Neville said and waved at the other Master of Death.
"Hello Draco Malfoy." Luna said, and Iolanthe gave the blond man a small and hesitant wave.
"How are you also a Master of Death?" Catherine asked as she looked at Malfoy.
"…you don't want to know." Was all that Malfoy said.
"The timeline is a weird place, Catherine." Neville added.
"Why are you all even here?" Catherine asked.
"Why are you wearing Unspeakable robes?" Malfoy said instead.
"Its clearly because she and Luna are both Unspeakables." Neville said.
"You joined the Ministry after the war? Eh, typical." Malfoy said.
"Hey. What's that supposed to mean?" Catherine said.
"Nothing, just making an observation."
"You tend to take that route after becoming Master of Death." Neville explained. "It's kind of expected."
"Great, anything else I should know?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah, since I'm stuck here, I might as well help you guys along in kicking Voldemort's ass this time around."
"I've got other plans." Malfoy said. "But I might pop back in later."
"Who's Voldemort?" Iolanthe asked.
All the adults in the room looked at one another before sighing in unison.
"No way you're thirty-five years old. No, I refuse to believe that." Draco said as he looked at Catherine Potter. Draco himself was younger than this woman and yet looked older.
"Well, I am." Potter said with a smug grin. "Turned out pretty well compared to the rest of you."
"That's because I bullied you into taking better care of yourself." Lovegood chided her wife as she sipped at her tea.
"Bullying's bad, you shouldn't do it." Little Potter said from Lovegood's side.
"Indeed. No bullying." Longbottom said as he closed the story book and put it back on the shelf.
Draco had to admit that Master of Death Clarissa Potter, the resident Hufflepuff amongst their little club, and her idea to make a story book out of the whole Voldemort situation was pretty ingenious. It turned what had normally been a painful and awkward conversation into ten minutes of reading and some self-reflection.
"I've done some investigating of this timeline and found that everything is exactly the same as the baseline timeline." Draco said. "Should be no problem in riding the snake faced bastard from this one."
"I'll say that it's a little interesting that you're now firmly against him." Potter said.
"I've had a lot of time to reflect on my actions." Draco rolled his eyes. "And becoming Master of Death certainly gave me a new perspective."
"Are you still not going to tell me what happened in that timeline?"
"He hasn't even told me." Longbottom said. "I've known him for two years now and he still won't say anything on it."
"You've been here for two years?" Lovegood asked.
"No, we met before I was dragged here."
"What's time travel like?" Little Potter asked.
"Complicated and messy." Draco said.
"Interesting and slightly disorientating." Longbottom said.
"Something we're not doing until you get older." Potter said and that caused Little Potter to pout. Yep, this one would be a Gryffindor, she'd latched on to her new parents in a matter of hours.
"Did either of you ever come across any Blibbering Humdingers during your travels?" Lovegood asked.
Draco didn't admit that he had in fact come across several of Lovegood's imaginary magical creatures, and he didn't need to as Longbottom stepped forth with that. Potter palmed her face at that admission and Little Potter asked more questions about said imaginary magical creatures.
Though, it wasn't as if the timeline cared for that point.