Hey guys, I'm back. I don't want to give you any excuses, but I apologize for the four month break. From now on I'm going to try harder to update more regularly.

Thanks for sticking with this. Enjoy.

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, nor any characters

2022

There was a woosh from the fireplace- the floo, Harry guessed, and then silence from the living room. He watched as Ginny, sighing, rubbed her hands over her temples.

"This is a mess," she said. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Harry and Lily. "Want anything to eat?"

"No, thank you," Lily replied immediately from behind him.

"Right then." Ginny nodded. "Harry?"

"Erm, no." He stuck his hands in his pockets and opened his mouth to speak, but she was already heading back toward the kitchen.

"So everything turns out alright then?" he asked to her receding back.

Ginny spun around, eyes flashing in surprise. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry caught James ducking back into the living room. Next to him, Lily shifted uncomfortably, though a look of curiosity crossed her face.

Ginny folded her arms across her chest before answering. "It's a long story. I don't want to mess things up in the time stream or whatever the bloody hell it's called. I…" she trailed off. "I'm sorry."

"You can't even tell me whether Voldemort's gone or not? What about memory charms? Can't you just make us forget all of this once you send us home?" Harry couldn't keep the desperation from tainting his tone.

Lily visibly tensed. "Why've you got to worry about You-Know-Who?" she demanded. When Harry didn't respond, she turned to Ginny. "Why's he got to worry about You-Know-Who? That's our generation's problem!"

"Not hardly," Ginny said. "And Harry," she continued, "you've forgotten I know you. If I tell you everything you'll do something reckless and probably get hurt, and I'd rather that didn't happen. I'm sorry."

"Thanks for your help," Harry said, though not loud enough for Ginny to hear in the next room.

"The hell did she mean, not hardly?" Lily cried, glaring at Harry. "Tell me, will you?"

"I don't know if I should-"

"Oh, stop it!" Lily interrupted. "You're doing exactly what Ginny did to you to me! Memory charms, remember?"

Harry swallowed "I can't do a memory charm."

"We're in a house that has contact with the entire wizarding community in England; someone will know how to perform a bloody memory charm. Open up, will you?"

He sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Voldemort's still around but the Ministry doesn't believe it."

"That's ridiculous. Why not?"

"It's sort of a long story."

Lily shrugged, raising her eyebrows. "Well, apparently we're time travelers now. That shouldn't be a problem, yeah?"

Harry shifted his weight, pausing to think and ignore the squirming in his stomach. He had always wanted to know more about his mother and father, but the people who could tell him the most about his parents had either been out of contact or in Azkaban for most of his life. Even Aunt Petunia might've known something, but she was hardly going to mention her dreaded sister in front of Uncle Vernon. Talking to Lily in the past hour or so had afforded Harry with more information than he had had his entire life, and it was taking a while to process.

Lily was funny, quick tempered, and talked fast when she was nervous. She was also definitely more grounded than Harry was. He had already filed this into the front of his brain, the memories carefully preserved so he could replay them until they had to be erased. The whole situation was by far the oddest thing he'd ever gotten into, and even thinking about the prospect made his head swim a little.

"Well?" Lily prompted impatiently, tapping her left foot on the wooden floor in a steady rhythm.

"Erm," Harry started. "Well, he was sort of… out of the picture for a while, because…" He gulped, wishing desperately that he was a better liar, "someone has almost killed him. And then then he… erm, he used that person's blood to come back."

"Someone's blood?" Lily echoed, frowning as she paused to think. "I think I've read about that somewhere… Potions research, maybe?"

"Probably not," Harry said.

"Yeah," she continued. "Guess I wouldn't know. 'S not like I've read the whole library. Anyway," Lily switched topics abruptly, "who was that someone?"

Harry opened and closed his mouth, racking his mind for an alternative to blurting out the truth. Luckily, just then James burst out of the living room, feet pounding heavily on the floor and he dashed to the kitchen, probably to talk to Ginny. Their conversation was muffled by the walls, but it was obviously very loud.

"Harry," Lily said, pulling on his arm. Harry stood stock still, a solution still missing from his mind. However, his fears were quelled as she continued. "Wanna find out what's happened to Voldemort?"

He had, of course, been wanting to go make sure everything was alright since they'd realized they were in the future. It had been hard enough to refrain from dashing off earlier. "How-"

"Shut up and follow me," Lily said. She shot a covert look toward the kitchen door, checking to make sure that Ginny and James were still inside.

Harry trailed after her as she ducked into the living room, peering out of the window before turning to go towards the area under the stairs. He felt a slight sense of panic as she opened the cupboard, praying that he wouldn't see a small mattress with worn blankets draped over it, but there were only a couple of umbrellas and a pair of abnormally large rain boots, so big that they took up nearly half of the cupboard.

Lily huffed before shutting the cupboard and putting two fingers on her chin as she stopped to think.

"Erm," Harry said. "What exactly are you doing?"

"Well, where do people usually keep… mementos? Old trinkets and newspaper clippings?"

"Dunno," Harry replied truthfully.

Lily furrowed her eyebrows and turned to frown at him. "What, don't James and me-God, that sounds weird-keep anything around?"

Harry felt his a lump in his throat beginning to grow, but managed to keep his nervousness down to his tapping fingers as he shook his head. "I said, I dunno. Why d'you need to know where they keep their old newspapers?"

She frowned as she turned to him. "Well, don't you want to know what happened to Voldemort?"

Arms folded, Harry raised his eyebrows. "Well yeah, but I thought it would be rude."

"No you don't. You're making fun of me," Lily decided. "Besides, we know it's not dangerous, so why not? Sod being polite."

Lily was a flash of red hair as she went back to inspecting the walls for something. Harry ran a hand through his hair before speaking. "So what are you looking for?"

"A door to the basement."

"It's in the kitchen," Harry reminded her, thinking of when they had first arrived, confused and in a strange place. So much had happened since then, all in just a few hours.

"Well, yeah, but maybe there's another one." Lily walked past the staircase, into a hall that lead to a door with a large window, revealing a neatly mowed lawn and what looked like half of a quidditch pitch. "I mean, it is an old house."

"Is it?" Harry had no prior knowledge on what sort of houses people built. Being locked up in a cupboard or bedroom for most of his time with muggles hadn't exactly provided an adequate education on interior design.

"Think so. They don't make houses like this anymore." She nodded, trying to door handle. It was locked.

"Well, in the 1970s they don't."

Hastily shoving her wand back in her pocket, Lily turned to frown at him. "Erm, no."

"Fifty years ago," said Harry.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, c'mon. It's a guess! Might as well investigate... Don't people have doors to their basements outside?"

"I wouldn't know."

Drawing her wand, Lily tapped the door handle and muttered, "Alohomora," the lock clicked open rather loudly, and Harry darted forward to grab the handle before the door could slam into the wall as it opened.

Nodding to each other, both Harry and Lily stepped outside. It was rather warm, and surprisingly sunny for a typical day in England. The green grass of the lawn waved in the wind under three hoops that belonged at one end of a quidditch pitch.

"Aha!" Lily proclaimed, turning to point at concrete stairs that started at an equal height as the lawn, but lead downward to a flimsy-looking screen door.

Harry took the first step, jumping down the old staircase with ease and trying the door, which was locked. He pulled out his wand and unlocked the door. It swung open, scraping a line of dust off of the floor as it turned.

"Well," Harry said.

"Let's go." Lily took a step inside. Harry closed the door behind them, hoping that Ginny and James would be in the kitchen for a while.

Hugo was now sitting on the couch, humming as he played a game of exploding snap with himself. The fire was crackling merrily, making the room just a little too warm. Or maybe that was just Hugo, who was famously bad at exploding snap.

"Wotcher, Hugo," Harry said, running a hand through his hair.

The red haired boy glanced upward, freezing with a strangely uncomfortable expression on his face before relaxing. "'Lo, Uncle Harry. 'S Albus around? Rose kicked him out after he flooed into her room."

Harry closed his eyes tightly, trying not imagine a struggling Albus in 1995 or 1975. A screaming Lily flashed across his eyelids with an unresponsive Al, and he felt himself struggle to open his mouth.

"No, he's not, Hugo," said Ron quickly.

"He's okay, right?" Harry slowly opened his eyes to see a confused looking Hugo with his gaze set on his father's face.

"I dunno." Harry's voice cracked as it came out.

Hugo seemed to realize that Albus was very not okay. Most of the adults in his life had lived through the Second Wizarding World had good control over their fear and anxiety-they'd certainly lived through enough of it in their teenage years, so the distress that was visible on his uncle's face was troubling. He studied the faces of the two men in front of him for a moment before deciding to change the subject. "You looking for Rose, then?"

"Rose?" Ron echoed, confusion in his tone. "Why? Is she looking for us?"

"No, just haven't seen her. She's probably gone outside or something; nevermind." Hugo collapsed backward on the couch with a sigh.

Harry and Ron exchanged glances.

"Go find Rose," Harry suggested. "We might as well make sure no one else is missing. She might be snooping around somewhere; she was on a mission to find out what we were doing earlier."

"Right," Ron said. "I'll do that." With a nod, he turned back toward the stairs to look for his daughter.

Running his hands through his hair, Harry gave a farewell nod to Hugo before disappearing into the fireplace.

The basement was dark and dusty, the scent of old cardboard lingering in the air. The floor was rough concrete, the kind that pulled thread from socks when someone walked over it. Single light bulbs hung from the ceiling, no lampshades to darken their stark white glow.

Lily spoke first. "Where do you think it happened?"

Harry looked around, glancing in between boxes on the tall shelves around them to get a look at the rest of the room. "Probably by the stairs." Carefully he began to move through the basement, touching his fingers against the boxes around him to keep from crashing into anything. He could hear Lily's breathing behind him as she followed closely, something that should've been comforting but instead put Harry on edge.

They turned a corner and saw a line of warmer light coming from under a door, which must've lead to the kitchen. Harry drew his wand and flicked it up at the lightbulb above, lighting this area of the basement.

The two stared in silence at the mess in front of them. Broken glass was spread in between piles of fine golden sand around the floor. A brass chain was nearly buried in the middle of the pile, broken off from two wooden bases that Harry noticed were spread near the edges of the disaster.

"It must've fallen," Lily whispered, breaking the uneasy silence. "Look." She pointed up at the shelf next to the broken time turner. On the top shelf, a box was missing, those below look like they had been crushed by something. Upon closer inspection, it looked like old photographs were laying haphazardly on top of the items on the lower shelves and we even partially buried under the gold sand of the time turner.

Harry nodded. Lily, seemingly entranced by the mess in front of her, took a halting step forward before he threw his arm out to stop her.

"Don't," Harry said rather loudly. Lily glared at him, her finger on her lips. He glared back at her. "Don't touch anything. That's probably what got us here."

They both froze as a shout came from upstairs. Breathing heavily, Harry jumped as the light abruptly flicked off. It seemed Lily had had the sense to draw her wand.

"I want to see it!" came from the kitchen.

"Rose," Harry breathed, and Lily nodded. Slowly they began to retreat back away from the door, hoping that if it opened they would be hidden in the shadows.

"What's she doing?" Lily asked, as something that sounded like someone has slammed their hand down on a wooden table came from upstairs.

"No idea," Harry murmured back.

"Rose, it's dangerous," Ginny said, in the kitchen. "I can't let you go down there. We don't need this to get any more complicated."

"Oh, god," Lily said. "She wants to come down here. That's an awful idea."

"Well, you had the same one," muttered Harry.

"Shut up."

The basement door slammed open. Lily swore quietly, and Harry tried to press himself into a shelf, hoping that he wouldn't be noticed.

Rose appeared in the doorway, jumping down the stairs two at a time in her haste to get to the broken time turner. She skidded to a stop at the bottom, inches away from touching the golden sand and disappearing.

Ginny and James followed, reaching the stairs at a slower pace and standing behind the redhead.

"Rose, this is dangerous," Ginny warned, a hand on Rose's arm as if to keep her from diving headfirst into the golden sand. "We should go back upstairs."

"You went down her earlier," Rose replied. "I just want to look. Merlin," she gasped, staring at the broken time turner in excitement, "they don't even make these anymore, do they?"

"Rose," Ginny repeated, lower and more intimidating than before. James, standing behind his mother, took a step forward.

Rose was still entranced by the time turner, eyes widening in curiosity and excitement. It was so similar to Hermione that Harry was struck with a twinge of longing for his own time.

He hadn't realized that he too had took a step forward until he felt Lily's hand on his arm, gently holding him back. "We should go back upstairs," she whispered.

Before Harry could answer, several things happened at once. Rose dipped downward to more closely inspect the time turner. James, seeing it as his cousin about to disappear into the clutches of time, surged forward to stop her, slamming into Ginny, who then slammed into Rose, who toppled into the mess of golden sand, disappearing with a flash of light.

There was a moment of shocked silence before Ginny noticed that Harry and Lily were standing on the other side of the mess in front of the four of them.

"You two?" she demanded, voice full of hostility. "What are you doing down here? Didn't I tell you to stay in the living room?" Harry tried to force down his temptation to snarl back at her. Rose was gone. She was on edge. He clamped his tongue in between his teeth.

"Mum," James murmured in warning.

Before Harry could answer, Lily spoke. "We were just curious, really. We've time traveled. We want to know what's changed. There's really no reason why we…" she trailed off, realizing that Ginny's attention had turned back to the time turner.

"Shit," she swore, momentarily dropping her forehead to rest in her palms. With a heavy sigh, she raised her head again. "I need to talk to Harry." With that, she turned to go back upstairs.

The three teenagers were left in silence, until James said, "we really need to start enchanting the lock on the basement door."

No one laughed.