Feel free to hate all Physics professors, as they are murdering your pet.

CLOSER

Harry appeared at the end of Grimauld Place unnoticed. The street was utterly silent, there were no children playing in the gardens of the place, and none of the curtains so much as twitched as he began to slowly walk along the muggle street. He noticed, with no small amount of apprehension, 'for sale' signs lining the houses on either side of him. They certainly hadn't been there the last time he had visited.

The second strange thing about the street was twelve Grimauld Place itself. He could see the ancient and most noble house of Black from several of the deserted houses away, something the fidelus curse should not have allowed.

Harry slid his wand out, fingering it nervously as he approached the front door.

He reached up and rapped on the door loudly, hearing the echo of his knocks reverberate around the lobby.

There was no reply. The silence was stony as Harry waited for someone, anyone, to answer the door.

If Grimauld Place was empty then he really may have to go to Hogwarts. He knocked again and slid down to sit on the doorstep, determined to collect his thoughts. The silence continued stubbornly until Harry was certain there was no one inside the house.

As far Harry could see it there were four main dilemmas: Where was Dumbledore? What had that horrible mis-apparation been? Why had no one contacted him? And, of less importance, how long had he been out of it?

If Harry didn't know better, he would almost say that he had gone back in time. His head perked up at the thought; it would certainly explain a few of his problems. Traveling through time would clearly be a trying business, and no one would know him to be able to contact him. It had holes the size of Antarctica, but it was the best theory he had so far.

First order of business would be to discover the date.

Harry had not been brought up as a wizard, so he understood few of the fundamental ideals that functioned throughout the society. One prominent concept was that time-travel was practically, and theoretically, impossible. The residue of the past could cling to a person for hours at the most, which was what fueled and allowed the hour-long time pieces which were ministry supervised. But going into the past for any longer than twelve hours was assured death, as magic disintegrated and rearranged its molecular structure through the amount of sheer energy required for such a leap.

Wherever he was, however he had gotten there, Harry was beginning to realize that he needed to contact his friends. The Order were also high on his priority list, but in all honesty, his friends would always come first.

The reluctance he felt towards contacting anyone was strange to him. It was more than a want for seclusion – it was an inbuilt instinct that was warning him that sending an owl out to Ron was not the right thing to do.

He returned his thoughts to his first and biggest problem: the location of Dumbledore.

Harry scratched his chin as he thought about the problem. Everything had suddenly become alien. The very idea that Dumbledore would leave him alone and unconscious in an alleyway was just as ludicrous as the concept of anyone sufficiently wounding Dumbledore enough that he would be unable to help Harry.

More than anything it was this that led Harry to believe that something quite out of the ordinary was going on. Something that you didn't read about in textbooks every day, something that was so unlikely, possibly even thought impossible, that it would never occur to him until it was too late.

Proceed with caution, his body warned him.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to contact Dumbledore rather than his friends. If there was anyone who would know about the curious feeling of foreboding that was rising within him, it would be the Headmaster. The only person even almost rivaling Dumbledore for wisdom would be Flamel, and he had passed away now that the philosopher's stone had been destroyed.

Harry dug around in his pockets and finally pulled out two galleons, seven sickles and fourteen knuts. It was enough to get him an owl to Dumbledore, if he were brave enough to try Diagon Ally. Although, honestly, if he was trying (for whatever insane reason) to be inconspicuous, going to the busiest public place in the European wizarding world would not be the best way to go about it.

The crack of apparation startled him out of his reverie.

Harry looked up, wand in hand, expecting to see Tonks or Remus. Instead, he saw the scowling face that bore a striking resemblance to Sirius'. The man marched up the steps angrily, clearly not noticing Harry sitting on the doorway as he muttered under his breathe.

He almost tripped over Harry before he noticed the teenager was there.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he asked furiously, clearly pleased to be able to latch onto an outlet for his anger: Harry. For a second, Harry was sure he was about to be kicked, but he scrambled up quickly.

"Who are you?" Harry asked bluntly, discretely pointing his wand at the heart of the dark-haired stranger. The man noticed this aggressive action belatedly, and his face instantly became one of surprise. Harry's pounding heart was the only thing that stopped him from chuckling at the look of shock that crossed the mans face.

"Thought you were a muggle, for a second," the wizard explained, somewhat less angry. "Would have been in trouble it you'd been one of them." He finished shiftily, eyes flickering over Harry's jeans and shirt (Harry had removed his school cloak, the afternoon sun too warm).

Harry didn't like the way he said 'them', as if the muggles were a different species. As best he could remember, the only people to classify 'us' and 'them' were ones who would eventually persecute the 'others'.

"Wizard." Harry confirmed, "but who the hell are you, and why are you here?"

The wizard's resemblance to Sirius was beginning to affect Harry. He didn't know why, but there was something he should be noticing about this person. He just couldn't put his finger on it.

The wizard was beginning to look annoyed again. He was wearing expensive looking black robes with a deep blue trim. The sleeves were rolled up on both arms, revealing pale and unscarred skin. Suspicion would have been deflected from the man immediately – wearing robes designed to show him as unmarked instantly creating the impression that he wasn't.

There was something about the shimmering on his arms that began to distress Harry, although the teenager hid it well.

"Look, kid. I live here. This is my house and I think I'm far more entitled to know why you're sitting on my doorstep in ugly mudblood clothes insulting the hell out of me! If you don't even know who I am, then you're not here to speak with me – so fuck off!" he said angrily, going to push past, and Harry almost felt his heart sink. He was certain now that the man in front of him was a Death Eater: the purist lingo, the charms on his forearms, the general sneering countenance.

But apparently the Death Eater didn't know who Harry was, and if anything, Harry wanted to get a name. He decided to change tactics.

"Look, sorry. I didn't mean to be rude or anything," he said, softening his voice appropriately, "I'm lost, and I don't know where I am, I just saw this house and thought it was pretty obviously magical. I'm Thomas, by the way." Harry bullshited, secretly in awe of how honest he was managing to sound.

The Death Eater's face had softened and he nodded, glancing around, seemingly buying Harry's story.

"Muggle places all look the same to me too. You're in London, you know that much at least? And it's Regulus." He said.

Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. The other man, Regulus, noticed his strange reaction, and suspicious tainted his handsome face once more. Harry shook his head in an attempt to clear his mind, wondering how a dead man could possibly be talking to him. Although Harry had little doubt the man was Sirius's brother, how he hadn't seen the resemblance between them was a mystery. You see what you want to see, he supposed.

"Something wrong, Thomas?" Regulus hedged, while Harry noticed the emergence of a fine deep cherry wand held in sweating fingers.

"It seems so unlikely to be coincidence" Harry confirmed, him mind whirring with ways to get out of this situation alive. As yet the Death Eater didn't know who Harry really was, and he didn't know that Harry knew what he was. There was a theory stating that by stretching the truth to an unbelievable extent it became believable through simple disbelief that anyone would try and come up with such a ridiculous story. Harry calmed his beating heart and gathered his thoughts once more.

"But I had an uncle name Regulus, and he died about six months ago. I mean, it's not that common a name, and you even look like him." Harry thought of Sirius, and the laughter that had been cut short as he fell through the veil. "I mean, that's just freaky, even by wizarding standards."

Regulus was watching him closely, clearly trying to judge the truth in Harry's words. A feeling of relief swept through the teenager as Regulus nodded.

"Terrible." He said, not sounding like it was the least bit terrible. "You might want to catch the Knight Bus. You'll just need to name of the place you're going then, surprised you didn't think of it yourself," Regulus finished, eyes narrowing in suspicion once more. But Harry was feeling strangely confident.

"It was a bit of a prank on me. I reckon my mates tried to transport me someplace only it didn't work right, or maybe it did. I don't have any change on me." Harry said.

Regulus was beginning to look tired of the conversation. He gave Harry one last considering look before shrugging again and motioning for the teenager to move.

"I'll lend you the sickles. No need to return them. Just go away, I've got enough to worry about, without having to think about strange boys appearing on my doorstep." The man's hand drifted up to his neck, where Harry noticed a glint of gold. It vanished as Regulus ducked past Harry and into the house. There was a glimpse of a strangely spotless foyer before Regulus appeared again, a galleon in his hand.

"You'd do well to be a bit more polite to people you don't know," he said, and handed the galleon over. "Good luck. I have to go." He slammed the door abruptly in Harry's face, leaving the teenager with thrills running down his spine from the adrenaline.

Harry started walking away from the house immediately, his mind contemplating the only theory he could come up with – some sort of time-travel.

It was clear that the Order were not using the Grimauld Place he had just visited as any kind of base. The aura of the house had been darker than ever before, and the appearance of a true Black made it clear that the house was no longer owned by Harry. If that was the case, then what had caused this?

A man who Harry had been told was dead, murdered for betraying his own people. That was what was truly disturbing. People who were dead, in Harry's experience, where liable to stay so.

So what was it that had brought Regulus Black back from his doom?

So far, the only thing that even almost fit the problems, was time travel. So how far had he traveled back? How many years into the past had he managed to land himself? Admittedly, the man who Harry had just met had looked about the age he ought to have been in 1996 if he had survived, but perhaps he was one of the people who always looked ten years older than they were.

Whatever was happening, Harry finally understood, the only person he could trust to remain the same, was Dumbledore.

It was time Harry gave up on the whole 'gut feeling' thing, and fessed up.

He closed his eyes and pictured the snowball fight he'd had with Malfoy in third year. The countryside near the shack solidified in his minds eye until he took a step – and cracked away from Grimauld Place.

There was no snow today, of course. But Hogsmeade looked as cute as it ever did, Harry thought, half wondering if he was going to have to walk to whole way to Honeydukes and to the school. He started to walk towards the village, before stopping, and chuckling to himself:

He had just about apparated right on top of a secret passageway into the school, and he was walking away! He turned back around, eyes set on the haunted silhouette of the infamous shrieking shack.

The house was exactly as he remembered it. The windows were all boarded shut, nails hanging out at vicious angles. The front door was locked with an enourmous padlock and several planks of wood. Signs in the garden warned of approaching: 'STAY AWAY!' and 'DANGEROUS!'

Harry finally managed to find a window with no bars or planks, and wormed his way through, catching on a nail as he passed. He brought his hand up and sucked on the scratch, the taste of blood flooded his taste buds.

Inside, the house was exactly as he remembered it, only dustier. It took a few minutes for Harry to find the entrance to the passageway again, but he eventually did, walking cautiously down into the muddy basement. He continued along, remembering the last time he had been in the tunnel, and began to feel strange once more. At the end of the passageway he was able to freeze the tree and make his way out onto the grounds without incident, which he was grateful for.

He was walking across the lawn, once again in his Hogwarts uniform, feeling strangely apprehensive. It was now late afternoon, and as far as Harry's memory allowed, he had been away for approximately a day. Very soon he would discover exactly what was going on – time-travel – or not.

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