"So how do we get IDs? It's not like we can apparate into the Ministry and place forged papers. Gringotts demands blood tests before you can open a vault and I bought some of their tests. It says I'm Harry Potter and Harry Potter is dead. The two don't match." Harry ranted.

"…oh…" Sirius gasped silently. "There's one person that might be able to help… I mean he can, he has the ability, but whether he will or not is the question."

"Who?"

"Mad-Eye Moody."

"So… You think he'll come?" Harry asked for the third time.

Sirius barked a laugh. "Assuming I used the right codes and he recognises them for what they were… He'll be here."

The two were sprawled on a blanket laid under the edge of the trees, near the statue of Peter Pan, in Kensington Gardens. Both were thinking of the message they'd owled to Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody the night before.

Hey Ram,

I'll be in London tomorrow week. Could do with some chips.

Pity I won't be there sooner, but you know how work goes.

Meet you at Joe Blog's place.

Make it a late brunch.

Your favourite pain the ass.

Yep, that would take a little decoding.

'Hey Ram.' That was directed at Moody's patronus, a Highland Mountain Goat.

'I'll be in London tomorrow week.' Meant tomorrow. 'Could do with some chips.' Chips were made from potatoes and chats were a size of potato. The broken-down meaning was I could do with a chat.

'Pity I won't be there sooner, but you know how work goes.' This was easier to interpret, it meant 'Urgent, work related'.

Meet you at Joe Blog's place. Joe Blog being the ID tag for the Pan statue.

'Make it a late brunch.' How many wizards or witches even knew what brunch was? And that a late one, was lunch.

Your favourite pain the ass. This appellation was actually reserved for both James and Sirius, equally.

"What's the time?" Harry asked.

"Pup, seriously?" Sirius rolled his eyes. "If you don't shut up and sit still, I'm going to strangle you." He shook his head. "Either that or hit you with a silencing hex and a body-bind." He muttered.

"There he is!" Harry pointed and sure enough, there was the scarred Auror stomping down the path.

As he got closer, he glanced in their direction, automatically scanning for threats. Those scans came to a screeching halt, as his mind caught up with his eyes. Moody thumped his walking stick into the ground as he approached them and let the enlarged wand channel his magic and toss up the privacy charms that he wanted.

"Black…" He growled at Sirius before turning to study Harry. "… and… Potter?"

"Sort of." Sirius answered.

"Explain. I checked the bodies, I know they weren't golems." Moody grunted.

"No, they weren't, but we weren't here then." Sirius was speaking for he and Harry.

"Explain." Moody demanded a second time.

"August 1976. You and Monty found a kid, a six-year-old girl…" Sirius trailed off.

"The squib?" Moody connected what Sirius wasn't saying, with what he meant.

"Yeah…" Sirius sighed.

"Both of you?"

"Yeah…" Another sigh.

"When?"

"Two years ago for me, last week for him." Sirius tapped his chest and then pointed at Harry with a thumb.

"Why didn't you go to Dumbledore?"

"Lots of reasons, but… me? Remember that teenage girl, the one James and I found around Yule, 1980?"

"The pregnant one?"

"Yeah."

"What about her?"

"She was the same. And like you and Monty did, James and I told Dumbledore. A week later James asked Dumbledore how she was doing and Dumbledore brushed him off. He made some inquiries at work and suddenly we had an Unspeakable in our office, telling us to drop the inquiry or we'd end up in the same condition as the girl. James just had to push and ask what that condition was. We were bluntly told she was dead. Died in testing, just like the other kid." Sirius explained.

"And him?" Moody had yet to speak to Harry.

"Oh, he's got even more reason to avoid the old bastard, but if you want to know, it's going to involve a pensieve."

"And not Dumbledore's." Harry said.

"Shush, kid." Moody grunted.

"Not a goddamned kid, Moody, I'm almost eighteen." Harry snarled back.

Moody blinked. "You don't look it."

"Lady Magic." Was all Harry said.

"Huh…" Moody huffed. "What happened and how bad was it?"

"In our… hmm… reality?" Harry's expression was part grimace and part question, getting a nod from Sirius at how he'd described where they'd come from, he continued. "In our reality, Voldy didn't die in 1981, but he did lose his body. I didn't die and neither did Sirius. Sirius went to Azkaban for being our Secret Keeper, without a trial, and I was sent into the muggle world." Harry sneered. "Fast forward ten years and I'm entering Hogwarts with less knowledge than a muggleborn. A Hogwarts that is employing Voldy as a Professor… well, he was possessing a Professor." Moody looked sick. "From there it got worse. Death-Eaters on the rampage again. This time Voldy's got no problem targeting the muggles, whole towns were destroyed, just to kill one muggleborn child. He even attacked London, muggle London, destroyed some of their bridges." Moody's looking progressively sicker as Harry went on. "All out civil war, it was. It exploded the day after I turned seventeen. Voldy took the Ministry. Muggleborns were rounded up and put in concentration camps, half-bloods were checked, if they didn't have a pureblood ancestor on both parents' sides, they went into the camps, too. Hogwarts was run like a prison, students were held to ensure the good behaviour of their families, any deviations were met with the student's punishment, usually the cruciatus."

"And this is why you came here?"

"No. I was in the resistance. Oh hell… I was the resistance. 2nd of May 1998, I killed Voldy. But that didn't eliminate the warrants Voldy had ordered to be put out about me. I stood trial and was found guilty, but… because the trial was held under Mordred's Law…" Harry sighed. "The court only had three options for my sentence."

"Imprisonment, Exile and Death." Moody offered.

"Yeah. But taking what I'd done into consideration, they let me choose. Imprisonment meant life in a small space, I'd seen what that had done to Sirius and I wanted no part of it. Exile meant having my core bound and my memories locked away. That meant loosing the memories of my friends, so I wasn't too keen on that idea. Death, I could choose being Kissed, Executed or go through the Veil. I chose the Veil. I kept my memories and the court let me keep a few other things. I may not have my friends with me, but I can still remember them."

"But they're still here." Moody frowned.

"Not really. The ones here, they aren't the same people, they didn't go through the same things. They're going to be different people, just ones that look similar. Our personalities were forged in a war. The ones here, they only know peace." Harry argued.

"Ah. So, why did you contact me? What do you need from me?"

Harry handed Moody the identity test he'd done the day after his arrival and the Auror read it.

"Oh… That could be a problem."

"Yeah." Harry grunted. "And we assume that Sirius' will be much the same."

"There is a way around it, but I'd need to have my boss sign off on it." Moody warned.

"Scrimgeour?" Sirius grimaced.

"Yeah." Moody nodded.

"Shit."

"Yeah. I think we leave the veil out and just reveal the time difference, leave him to think that Lady Magic is the only reason for you being here." Moody was staring off into space. "You won't be the first time-traveller the DMLE has had to deal with, so there's a protocol already in place that we'd have to follow."

"What's-his-face? Julien something-or-other?" Sirius asked.

"Michael Julien. Yep." Moody nodded, again. "I'll need you to show me your memories, kid. We need to know exactly what to show Scrimgeour to get the result we want."

"Have you got access to a pensieve that's not Dumbledore's?" Harry asked. He'd found one in one of the wiz-spaces, but he also doubted that Moody would consider using it, without a thorough investigation and they just didn't have time for that, not right now.

"Only the one in the middle of the bull-pit." Moody grimaced.

"It's in a big clear-glass box, pup, completely visible from all sides. Only benefits are, that no one can hear anything said within it and it locks from the inside."

"Alright, here's what we'll do." Harry grinned. "You take us in, blurring charms covering our faces, say nothing about why, just lead us straight to the pensieve, we'll work out what to tell Scrimgeour and once we have, you call him in, and I'll give him the edited version. If we need to, we can show him a selection of my memories. But someone will need to teach me how to blank out names, mine is said too many times for him to miss it."

"We can do that." Moody grunted. "Now? Or after lunch?"

"Now, you don't want to eat first. Trust me." Harry shook his head.

Ten minutes later Moody lead the way into the DMLE office, his two companions' faces obscured by a blurring charm. Through the field of desks, he stomped, ignoring everyone. He reached the large clear-glass box that shimmered with ripples of gold-tinged light.

"In." He grunted loud enough for half the office to hear. The man and boy nodded and entered the box, followed by Moody, who very clearly cast the charms to lock the box down.

Those outside watched as both the man and the boy let Moody remove memories from them and place them in the pensieve built into the middle of the table. All three entered the pensieve to watch whatever memories had been placed in it. When the three were ejected, Moody went on the rant. The Aurors could see him stomping around the box, his arms waving and his mouth moving, but no one could hear what was said. Finally, Moody turned back to the other occupants and began to speak. The man nodded a few times, while the boy both nodded and shook his head at times. When the boy's shoulders slumped and he nodded, Moody retrieved his wand and ended the box's lock-down and opened the door.

"Get me Scrimgeour. Now." He snarled.

Rufus Scrimgeour had been watching, curiously, from his office and when Moody spoke, he stood and left his office and made his way to the box.

"Moody." Scrimgeour nodded to his senior-most Auror.

"Boss." Moody grunted. "You're gonna wanna be in on this."

Scrimgeour nodded and entered the box, he waited until Moody had once again, locked it down before speaking.

"And who are these?"

"You don't need to know their real names, boss, better if you don't. Plausible deniability. For now, you can call him Nigel." Moody pointed at the man, then at the boy. "And him, Ewan."

"Very well. Nigel? Please explain." Scrimgeour raised a bushy golden eyebrow.

"Nah, not me, I wasn't there for most of it. You want Ewan, not me." The man objected.

Scrimgeour blinked and turned to the boy introduced as Ewan. "Well?"

"My mother was a muggleborn, she and my father were killed in the last days of the Voldemort war in 1981. They were killed by Voldy himself, not one of his underlings, he was brought there by one of the men that shared a dorm with my father at Hogwarts, who was a covert Death-Eater. Nigel is… I'm not sure what to call… he was fostered by my grandparents, as his family were abusive. Anyway, Nigel went after the Death-Eater and was captured, he remained a prisoner of war for nearly twelve years, locked away in a remote location. I was sent to the muggle world to live with my muggle Uncle. He hated magic and me, equally. I wasn't abused, not really, but I was neglected and… let's call it… unloved. My bedroom, until I got my Hogwarts letter, was a cupboard. The boot cupboard under the stairs. My Hogwarts letter arrived, and it assumed that as my Uncle and his family knew about magic, because of mum, that I'd have been told about the wizarding world. Nothing could be further from the truth. I knew nothing, I hadn't even known my own name until Uncle was forced to let me attend muggle school."

Scrimgeour bristled.

"Oh, don't get upset." Harry laughed. "Not yet, it get's worse from here. Uncle forbids me from going to Hogwarts and Dumbledore sends the groundskeeper, Hagrid to fetch me. Hagrid is sent for two reasons. One. He's big enough to intimidate Uncle into letting me go. Two. Hagrid is completely loyal to Dumbledore and will present the old bastard in the best possible light. As the leader of the Light. And Slytherin as the Dark." Harry snorted. "My first year included a possessed Professor, a troll in the castle and a trap for that same Professor. All targeted to encourage me to look to Dumbledore as my personal saviour. It took me years to realise that the old bastard was grooming me, but it wasn't until a week ago, that we worked it out."

"And that was?"

"Best if I do this in order. But you'll get the same clues I did and as you know more about this world than I did, you'll probably figure it out quicker than I did. Second year. There's-"

"Second year, how old are you?"

"Again, best if I do this in order. Second year, students were petrified, literally petrified. Something was turning them to stone. Turns out a student was ensnared by an enchanted book and had accessed a forgotten part of the castle and released a basilisk. We were extremely fortunate that no one was killed. One of my year-mates figured it out just before she was petrified. Again, Dumbledore left it to me and a dormmate to deal with, leaving us just enough help to get through it, not uninjured, but nothing that a short stay in the hospital wing wouldn't fix."

"Gods."

"Third year? Just before third year started there was a breakout from Azkaban." Ewan paused.

"One of the Ministry toadies that visited where I was being held boasted where I could hear him." Nigel spoke up. "I had no idea how long I was, where I was, but I'd spent most of that, practising the only bit of wandless magic I knew. Animagi."

"Registered?" Scrimgeour asked.

"No." Nigel looked at him like he was stupid. "It took me years to make the shift and even then, I had to hide it from my captors. I used it to escape."

"He used the clamour over the Azkaban breakout to hunt me down. But he made a mistake and Dumbledore found out about him. Had him locked up in his abusive parents' house with a mental house-elf. I only got to see him for about a week between fourth and fifth year, but we'll get to that."

"Fifth year?"

"Like I said, we'll get to that. The breakout caused the Ministry to place dementors around the school. Well, they didn't like being denied the feast, that the students presented, and they attacked during a quidditch match."

Scrimgeour didn't speak, but he did make a groaning sound.

"Fourth year? Dumbledore, in his infinite wisdom and his plan to mould me the way he wanted, re-instituted the Tri-wizard Tournament and allowed one of his Professors, who just happened to be a Death-Eater under polyjuice, to enter my name. I was portkeyed away, during the third task, the Death-Eaters had come up with a way to resurrect Voldemort, by creating a golem for his 'soul' to inhabit and my blood was to be a vital ingredient. They figured that as I was so powerful, on a level with Dumbledore even given my young age, that my blood would pass that power to their Voldy-golem."

Scrimgeour groaned again.

"Fifth year, the Ministry sent a representative to Hogwarts, but she had her own agenda. Students were tortured using a blood quill and by the time exams started, she'd introduced over one hundred and thirty decrees, every one of them designed to increase her and the Ministry's control of the school. They were denying that a Voldy-golem had been created and were calling me a delusional delinquent. During my History exam, the Voldy-golem sent me a vision, via my blood, of him torturing Nigel, here in the Ministry. Me and a few friends came to rescue him and fell into the trap the Voldy-golem had set. Nigel duelled with a cousin, who was a Death-Eater and was killed. I duelled with the Voldy-golem in the atrium, long enough for the minister and his staff to arrive and see the Voldy-golem for themselves."

Scrimgeour looked like he was going to be sick.

"Sixth year was fairly quiet. Dumbledore was giving me private lessons, which in turn, I was passing to my most trusted friends. Lessons in the life of Voldemort. Dumbledore took me from the school one evening, he needed assistance to acquire an item needed to weaken the golem and believed that the blood the Voldy-golem had got from me, would let us pass the artefact's protections. It nearly didn't and Dumbledore was poisoned. We got back to the school to find Death-Eaters had gained access to the school, by way of a pair of vanishing cabinets. Dumbledore was killed by one of them."

Scrimgeour just sighed.

"I didn't return to Hogwarts for my seventh year. As the Voldy-golem's main target, it just wasn't safe. On the first of August the Ministry fell to the Death-Eaters and I was on the run. For the rest of the year, I hid, camping in out of the way locations, staying off the magical scanners by not using any magic. Around Easter we were captured and taken to a Death-Eater's house, but they weren't sure who we were and that gave us enough of an edge to fight back and escape, again. The 1st of May, we snuck into Hogwarts and retook the school. We sent most of the students away, but some stayed to fight. And fight we did. Just after dawn on the 2nd, the Voldy-golem and I faced each other, he hit me with the Killing Curse. I died."

Tears fell from Scrimgeour's eyes. "Dumbledore set you up to die." It wasn't a question.

Ewan nodded. "I went somwhere white, it was a bit like King's Cross Station, there I was given a choice. I could 'go on' and be at peace with my parents, Nigel and the friends that had already died. Or… I could 'go back'. I chose to return and expected to return to that same time and place."

"And you didn't?" Scrimgeour asked.

"I walked out of the entryway to platform 9¾, ten years before I died, in my younger body. I found Nigel, by accident. I thought I was the only one that Lady Magic involved, but Nigel remembers, too. How? We don't know. We decided that we couldn't let things happen the same way, not again. We made a plan and saw to its execution, Voldemort is no longer a consideration, his Death-Eaters are neutralised."

"But the trials? We put them on the stand, we used veritaserum."

"That was only the marked Death-Eaters and the suspected sympathisers. What about his unmarked followers and the Death-Eaters' kids? The sleeper cells?"

"Oh, hell…" Scrimgeour groaned.

"Not anymore. Targeted obliviates remove specific details. Those sleeper cells can wait for a call, but they won't remember what the call was."

"Hmm…"

"But… obliviates are tied to the caster's magical signature. The caster can restore those memories." Ewan warned.

"You'd do that? What do you want?" Scrimgeour frowned.

"New lives. Authorise Moody to access some rescribere potions. Let us have completely new lives. Alter our appearance, our age, our core, our signature and give us new names. Seal it magically. And leave us to live our lives."

"If your signatures are altered, you can't remove an obliviate." Scrimgeour noted. "And who will you become?"

"Better if you don't know. Neither the minister nor Dumbledore can demand information, if you don't have it. Leave Moody to deal with it, we trust him, his grandsons… well, let's just say that Minerva McGonagall is going to think she's in Hell, having Moody's boys and the Weasley twins in Gryffindor together… they were good friends, one was hit by a cutting curse and the other with a heart-stopper." And while Harry was letting Scrimgeour think he meant Moody's grandson, he knew he was telling the truth about the Weasley twins, it just didn't happen in the same battle, George had lost his ear, ten months before Fred was killed.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Scrimgeour said to Moody.

"I haven't lost 'em yet and I don't plan on losing them at all." Moody was adamant. "I'll train 'em up, meself. I'll be wanting underage exemptions for them."

Scrimgeour just nodded. "See to these two, before you do that. I'm assuming that Nigel will be Ewan's father after this?"

"I'm the closest blood relation he has." Was all Nigel said.

"Very well. Moody? You'll need to use a ratio ostium potion to allow the changes to be absorbed, before using rescribere. If you're changing that much about them, I suggest taking a full alteration kit, empty what you don't use into a conjured bowl and banish it when you're finished. Don't give anyone, anything to speculate about what you might have done. You'll also need to create backgrounds, not just for them but for their parents. Take a few identity confirmation kits and make sure the changes are completely valid." Moody nodded in response to Scrimgeour's directions. "And for Merlin's sake, don't forget to get their papers backdated, lodged and obliviate the WFS people, before you let them go."